Town Council - Regular Meeting

You ready, Mom? I know.

Good morning and welcome to our department budget presentations on this beautiful Saturday. I think the last time we had a Saturday meeting, the impending ice storm came, so the weather is much better today. Thanks for those that are joining us in council chambers as well as those joining us on YouTube. We have a packed day. Um hopefully we'll wrap up around the 4:30 hour and looking forward to hearing um from all of our department heads today. We will have some time at the very end for any public comments. Um so it's a good time to take notes throughout the presentation if you have anything you want to touch base on. So with that, I will turn it over to Rob. Good morning, mayor and council. Appreciate being with you guys here today. Um, couple housekeeping items. If you take a look at the um, agenda real quick, you'll notice we have a packed agenda. We do have the timed breaks in there, so we are going to take those generally around those times. However, we'll run this meeting a lot more like our retreat uh, very informally. So, if you need to to get up, get a drink, use the restroom, grab snacks, um go punch a pillow, whatever it is that uh you need to do to get it out in here, um just go ahead and do that during the natural course. We don't have those that many breaks built in for that type of stuff. Um also, um Lee just uh showed me that we added the tab to the agenda. We always go through that in this meeting constantly asking, "Well, what tab is this? Where are we at?" Um, so we'll have it right there on the agenda and you'll be able to see and we'll be able to see um because we're not sure who keeps that every year. So now we have it on the agenda. Um,

if there are any questions at any time, you don't have to keep those to the end. This should be real conversational. Um, we've built in plenty of Q&A time during the presentation. So feel free to interrupt at any point and and just say, "Hey, what about this? What about that?" That's that's really the point of this meeting. And then lastly, I I do want to give um as many accolades as possible to our staff on preparing this. Our department heads have countless hours dedicated to this. U really proud of the work that everybody up here and everybody in the back of the room has put into these presentations and where they've gotten over the last few years. I really think you'll see today as as you kind of Q&A with our department heads that they are truly masters of their budgets. They understand them. They understand them intimately and that's not normal in every um jurisdiction. Uh most towns it kind of it's very I don't want I want to say you know gatekeep but it is very isolated at the top. There's kind of a a very tight budget there but these folks understand it in and out. we have um already went through and put them to the firing squad um similar to today with with us and and they performed uh fantastically. So look forward to having them get in front of you. This is always um in my opinion I think this is the the best budget workshop that we have because you really get to the people that are executing out there and they really understand their departments better than anybody. that darn clicker.

Ah, okay. Good morning. Um, you guys already have today's schedule there. Um, want to discuss a little bit about what we're not doing today. Certainly, this is not a a recommended or a final budget and this is not a tax rate recommendation. However, it is a balanced budget is a preliminary budget. um it keeps our existing tax rate. So everything that that you see here is paid for. This does not require any additional resources and meets all the goals and objectives that we've already set as a town. Um today is an opportunity to discuss those detailed operations in those areas for investment. We will keep a track of both the the pulse of what we have in here, but also anything else that comes out throughout the day. will have those as items for discussion that we can then make decisions on moving forward. So, this is by no means the budget, but it is a good template baseline budget that we can add to or or take away from. And it includes a one-year operational CIP. So, we're we're not really looking at, you know, a 10 or or or 15 year horizon on projects. We're really focused in this meeting on what are we doing next year. One thing that I I wanted to um hit on before we move on to our other updates is the North Carolina property tax reform that I sent an email out to everybody on I think uh Wednesday and and give you just a a really high level discussion point on this because I think it is very important for us to understand not only in this year's budget but in the next two or three as they navigate through this that we're flying as dark as probably any town management team and

council team has in the history of North Carolina not knowing what the future of our major core funding source is. Especially the way we operate, we include all of our core services in the property tax. So, police, fire, streets, you know that we we go through this every year and we kind of break that out on what's spent on what and without having an understanding of what does a revout look like moving forward, what is your ability to raise taxes look like? What can you do it every four years like we traditionally have done? because we try to give predictability to our residents and say, "Hey, we're going to pass a tax and we're gonna we're going to commit to that tax for four years until reval and then we'll we'll we'll discuss this again as a community." Um if if there's limits put to that and and you have to do that annually, it fundamentally changes how we approach everything. So, um that's going to be a little bit different in our conversation and you might you might see that in some of our responses. Hey, what about Well, we don't know yet and and we won't know until late 26 and they've asked for a one-year extension on this. So, this might be late 27 where we're still seeing changes come in. So, um very very hampering to our forecasting. Um there are four bills as you guys uh saw in the email that I had sent out that that are supposed to be proposed. One is a constitutional amendment for property tax levy limits. However, um that would be voted on statewide. Uh if that's a if that's going to be a constitutional amendment, it requires a referendum of the voters. So that would go on in November. They have not had they have not agreed on any specifics. If they're as effective at this as they have been at the budget, it may be a few years

before we get some specifics. And I do think it's going to be very difficult because North Carolina is a very diverse state. What works in very rural parts does not work in very urban parts and suburban is different than than both of the other two on how we operate, how we use property tax revenues. Um it's a very complex animal. the two nonprofit bill um potential nonprofit bill modifications or property tax modifications are actually you know positives for us that those are those are facilities we have in Harrisburg. So if they were to start taxing those at any rate above the 100% reduction that would that would generate some more revenue for us. I think that that does show some moderation in the committee of saying, "Okay, we recognize you you need the funding. We're trying to to balance that out and have less reliant on property tax." Um, and then the fourth bill had to do with low to moderate income housing exemptions and making those a lot harder to get. That's kind of neutral for us. Doesn't doesn't really affect us, but we'll be looking at bill one, two, and three moving forward to see how does that affect this this year's budget? How's it affect every budget moving through? Um what does it mean for us? Just uncertainty. It it's really it's going to be tough for us. We've seen everything from, hey, we'll put a 5% cap on, but then when they get through committee, everybody going, well, that's that's not it. What does that even mean? Like we have natural growth, we have revals, we have rate increases. Are you saying a combination? And so who knows where where this ends. Um but they've certainly been able to make, you know, sweeping changes before that were detrimental without really consulting. So downzoning is a great example of that. And this we have to make sure that

we're ahead of this so we can get back to some type of forecasting. We're especially exposed because our rapid growth um you know in in a city's um growth cycle it it you hit certain bars where you have to bring on a service you've never had before for us. Think you know storm water. There was some point where the metro blew out into Harrisburg to where the federal government said oh now you must comply with the Clean Water Act of 1973. and that that's not something we provided before. How do you pay for that becomes all at once that doesn't go in gradually over time at five or 6%. So as we grow much quicker in the high growth areas, we all experience this. There's a point where all of a sudden you you have kind of police, you have seven, eight, nine overnight, right? And you just you start planning for that. Those things require a an endorsement from the community, but it requires quick action and generally larger tax increases and then long pauses and then large increase and then long pauses and you kind of grow into those over time. So, we're especially exposed. Um, we also have a pretty low tax rate for a full service community in a growing area. Um, certainly lower than our our statewide peers and lower than the region as a whole. that gives us a lot of exposure and then we invest a ton in public safety. So 50% of our property tax goes to public safety. So any restriction on that is going to disproportionately affect our public safety forces. It's going to affect every decision they make is 50% of that at a minimum is going to affect public safety because some of our things that we have in that property tax are mandated services and public safety

unfortunately is not mandated. the the state says that that isn't optional thing for us to do. Um obviously we don't think that's optional, but so we we invest heavily in it, but any changes to this would dramatically curtail it to the point of, you know, Representative Cervana mentioning, you know, this bill would um essentially defund the police and and that's what you're doing here. And I think they are looking at that significant, you know, change in in Raleigh is, okay, this is really a public safety bill. Um, this is property tax is the core money that goes to public safety, so we need to be smart about it, but they do need to hear from us. So, we'll be we'll be reaching out to them in in context of today's work. Keep that in mind that just our revenue is is uncertain when it comes to property tax. And so all of the decisions that we'll make moving forward will be wrapped around a lot of that uncertainty.

Rob, is there any discussion in that space where they would look at breaking out public safety away from the property tax? So you would have two requirements. You would have your property tax, but you would pay into public safety.

I I think everything's on the table. Um, I don't think I don't think they can accomplish what they want to accomplish and not significantly hamper our ability to choose to invest in public safety locally. I think what the state's looking for is caps that that kind of smooth the curve out so that you don't have, you know, nothing nothing and then 40% Right. Um that's fair, but we've also we just never had housing inflation like we like we did postco um pre World War II. So it's it's kind of an overreaction in my opinion and I've sent you know you all this um certainly R you and I have talked about it a lot that the state in that same time period has raised taxes 47%. And when I say raise taxes, everybody's going to go, "Whoa, what do we what do you mean we they cut taxes?" Yeah. So did the town. We cut our we cut taxes, but the revenue went up. And that's what that's what the state is looking at municipalities saying, "Well, your revenue went up." Yeah. Well, your revenue went up, too. And I, you know, I'm not sure what the what the difference is there because our tax increases um at the municipal level have averaged less than than the states. and we've had to deal with the public safety um labor cost increases and the equipment cost increases of all of those vehicles and radios and and you know it's it's been tough and we've certainly in Harrisburg we've we've done better than the group but as a group it's just been very very difficult in general. So, um I think if you look at, you know, the the at the state budgets, they've just had

this additional revenue coming in each and every year and they don't have to wait every four years. Every year you got to, you know, every April you get that income tax um filing and then it goes up and it goes up again next year and nobody complains because they say, "Well, that's just I'm making more income." Well, we tax on on wealth really. And so your asset wealth is taxed and that's what pays for local services. So asset wealth is also increased year over year over year. It just happens that we only get to take a look at that every four years here. So I think we get kind of an overreaction to it. But I it's all it all has to be on the table. I I don't disagree that smoothing helps. I think when when you talk to our residents or even us in this room, they're like, you know, it it just feels better if you do three, five% increases a year and let people build that into their budget. It's what we do with our utilities. It's what we do with all our fees. Um, and it just goes over better. It's it's it's just the way the property taxes work. Now, if we wanted to do that internally, we would have to raise the tax rate four consecutive years and then when you get the reval, cut the tax rate and raise the T. And that's a possibility, but not, you know, there's thousands of municipalities around the state and they all have unique circumstances. So, it's it's hard to have a one-sizefitit-all approach. And I think that's going to be the the trouble we get in November is how do you build enough flexibility in for communities to provide the core services that communities demand, but also have some caps so that you don't have a 50% overnight increase because you haven't raised revenue over a four or five year period. Um, moving on to, you know, property tax

a little bit further. We're looking at about 3.9% growth in the county in the upcoming year. Our natural growth is easing. We did expect that with the housing number increase or decreases that that we focused on. We saw that kind of uptick in in 2023 as we built kind of our last um last grouping of approved houses there. We've seen that lower, but we have seen an uptick going into 2027. And we do expect this uptick to continue and it to be really focused more proportionately in the commercial industrial growth. However, we will see, you know, some uptick in that housing as well as we have approved different types of housing over the past several years that are really starting to hit the um hit the market now from a a building standpoint. And then we are forecasting in 2029 a negative revaluation in our modeling. That will also be very important when we talk about is there a cap? Okay. What what happens when you have negative?

Like what does a cap do to a negative number? I don't I don't think that's really been built in to the thought process. This is these are reminder slides of things that we went over in the previous, but to keep in mind our reval period in 2025 was really at the peak of housing and we do not expect to see that kind of peak reval again. We do expect it to continue to go down. We are experiencing some reduction in labor cost which tends to help our budgets but we are experiencing historically high health care increases and the pension board is also increasing again nearly another um full 1% what are we at.8 what what is the increase in pension?

Oh yeah it's about a 6% increase to the pension. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Um the the goal is to freeze it there for a few years and then earnings to uh allow us to lower that contribution rate, but 15 is the historical high for the required pension that the state is telling us we have to pay into the pension. At the same time telling us we need to have caps on where we can get the money to pay into that pension. So putting us in a real squeeze there. And the last um item that I have that you'll see in um the public works side of budgets and I didn't want you to see it there as the first is a reclassification of where's John back there. of John, our public works director, as a slash position, allowing us to bring uh a little bit more responsibility under him and giving him the ATM/public works title. No new position and not adding any more departments immediately. But as you can see of our departments there, this completes that buildout that we had talked about of repro of improving the redundancy and the support and management function as well as that increased capacity for the mentorship and training of other employees. John has a lot of experience and has performed fantastically in that. He also, we don't have his um uh departments on here, but really since I was down there at the public works department, that's been a a monster. And you'll see um well, here they are on the on the agenda. Streets, POW bill, environmental protection, building and ground, water and sewer are all departments in there. Now, John really doesn't run one department. He already runs four or five. So giving us the ability to add more responsibility there to train and mentor other higher level employees and then to really add that succession planning so that we have some

redundancy and that we can move people through the organization and promote up um is what we're asking for that reclassification. The the cost of that really is negligible. There isn't a significant financial. It's really just an organizational thing and I didn't want to spring it on you in John's and show on his um or chart the change without adding it here at the beginning. Could I ask you a question on that? Sure.

So, in all the years we've always had just one town manager and one assistant town manager and and and a resident did recently ask me um with Brian, you know, you've got an assist. So how many assistants can we have or is it in infinite? Um

yeah it's it's two. Um the way our structure that that we had built out and this is you know maybe two three years ago was to have you know CEO COO and then two kind of operations um assistants ATMs and then divide everything um below that and that was our full buildout. We've kind of changed that approach that I don't think the way we're operating will need full-time assistant town managers for the next 5 to 10 years. Um, we like this combined position approach where we have like Brian is finance director like that is his core competency and that's what he will continue to do um indefinitely. Now, the assistant town manager the assistant town manager um responsibilities aren't the same as the finance director. So, it's difficult to have him then expand out into, let's say, some human resource level things that are broad-based throughout the organization without having some assistant town manager responsibility and being able to train other folks that are coming up throughout the organization or to get into some of our broad policy things like, you know, for instance, John putting together the townwide fleet policy that that's more of a townwide thing that's not necessarily um specific to public works, he could very, you know, very easily do that specifically for public works. But if we're going to ask him to go over and take a look at fires, complete fleet, and give us an analysis on theirs, there has to be some type of responsibility to say, okay, this you have this this level. So, it's kind of um in the corporate world, I compare this to kind of, you know, senior vice president of marketing type things, right? It's a

it's an ATM of finance ATM of and we I view John's role in this as the service umbrella. Um, you know, I I could very well see John handling overtime and working with Jim and their folks on like parks maintenance instead of that really coming all the way up to the top and then going, "Okay, well, who's the expert between Jim and me on like a maintenance item? Who do we bring in?" Well, Jim calls John now. That is that is how we're we're we're acting, right? So, this really starts to become formalizing. Okay. Based on the talent pool that we have, where do you put people? But I think the to answer that the most directly that capacity numbers is two. It's one for service and one for kind of the the office side of things. And pardon the sharpness of the statement, but it was pushed back to me as you're building in bloat. And as a council member, I don't know that I have a good answer to that. Right. So, because we we started out, we had a town manager and we had assistant town manager. It was you and Lee. And now we've got you, Lee. Lee's now the deputy, right? And then, yeah,

Brian and John. So,

yeah. Yeah. What what I told that former council person was that he doesn't pay attention enough anymore and he would understand um that we're not backfilling the positions. And so I I never see somebody willing to do more work in the organization is more bloat. Um, if somebody's willing to step up and and broaden their capacity, I think you empower that and and then they can mentor and train people up to their uh capacity level. So, I don't want to get into that thing like you said, well, can everybody be an assistant town manager? No, I I think it's I think it's limited to the to really two in Harrisburg with our population for the next 5 years, it's the numbers two. Um, and I don't think you can have I don't think we have a capacity for them to do full-time assistant town manager work. Even if you were to just have one assistant town manager, I I don't think it I think you have to have a department that that that you're running. You have to be really good at that department and have gotten that department really far along in order to to add those additional responsibilities. So currently Brian has done that and and done it very well. I think John has has done an extraordinary job at that and that gives us the opportunity to to really build in more of that pyramid. If you look at our org chart as it is right now it's kind of two years ago it was one two 12 right and so now it's really one two okay now we have two more and then 10. And so you're just starting to to kind of pyramid that out rather than have a a very flat org chart where you know one man one town manager has 12 direct reports. It starts to get that down to you know four six manageable

direct reports. That would be my question. This looks like the eye formation on here. It can we reflect that pyramid? It looks like Lee's going to have to clone himself with 12 direct reports and then

manager. Yeah. When when uh we can get you kind of a a better breakdown when we look in in our portfolios. Now, those can change year to year, even within the year. Um and we would expect port, you know, some of these ATN portfolios to start having more than their departments. Like right now Brian has finance, customer service. Right now John has um in public works, streets, pow bill, environmental protection, buildings and grounds, water and sewer. Um me I have these three. Um Casey, communications, HR and economic development are my core.

Okay. Not totally reflected on right. And so that's something that we can we can kind of show a little more direct because context is the there's no new hires there is just a step up of responsibility.

Yeah, there's no new hires and generally there's cost savings because of not backfilling positions as as we go up. We tend to just get more efficient on these. I think Brian's department you've seen for years went went down and now just with some reallocations and stuff you'll see it go up a little bit this year. I was just going to say, so just for clarification, so we can we we shouldn't anticipate seeing any new additional assistant town managers being added. No. And so regardless of capacity capacity or their ability to do certain things, you'll just rearrange their portfolio and Okay. Yep. Cuz I was asked the same question by someone. So I was just like, let me ask. Yeah, that's it.

Okay. My question is um this assistant town manager reclassification isn't going to be automatic with those positions. Like let's say Brian moves on somewhere great. No. Like if we get another final that's not Yeah. No, we don't want No, you hit the nail on the head. They're they're very fluid person specific. if you have a dual titled role and and so you know like you said if Brian got hit by lightning uh and we had to hire you won a lottery

of those two I prefer lightning um you know you wouldn't automatically have somebody capable of doing all that you would probably hire a finance director leave the slash alone and then we would reorganize those portfolios to kind of deal with it however we see fit and or you may have somebody else in the organization. Um it just it just depends. Other towns Canapapolis runs a very similar model to this and you know there are times where it's like oh the HR director may have 25 years of experience and they've gotten really good at running the ship and they have a broad base of experience because of their access throughout an organization. So it's you have the ability to add some you know town management level work. They might be able to review other people's budgets. They might be able to again mentor policy set some of the bigger strategy type things. Just so for my understanding, is that totally in your purview? Is there anything that rises to this board that like I can make you can come in tomorrow, make 50 assistant town managers without this board's approval or what is our governance like? I I don't even know.

Yeah. Um, if you set the budget, theoretically, a town manager can reclassify positions up and down with with with without counsel. Um I don't like to operate like that because we we have that arrangement as a group that I'm just thinking if you win the lottery for the next guy. Yeah, that's not allowed either.

Yeah. No, I I I think it's a you know it's an important thing to to understand like reclassifications can just happen. They can that is that is empowered within the town management's responsibilities. However, it's not it's not good practice to just rearrange the town however you want and then use the money different than you commit to the board. So, I think if you know if we're going to if we're going to commit certain processes, long-term processes and plans, I like for us to be on the same page so that we're all understanding it. We're buying into it. particularly when you have kind of the the the reclasses at the higher level, lower levels, you know, should we reclass a sewer one to a sewer two operate? I'm not going to bring that to you guys, but um folks that you deal with and that you see titles and you you need to understand what you can ask from them and what you can't. It it's very important that you you understand those reclassification

and there controls are still in place that were originally in place. I mean with these position changes if you had a bad actor say you know one of those town managers and I'm not or assistant town managers became a bad actor and and started doing bad things financially there are still controls in place that would catch that correct or do some of those controls peel back?

Yeah. No. So, the controls don't peel back. Our our controls are multi-layered, multi multiaceted. And one of them you just saw Monday when you swore in. Maggie is another um deputy finance officer where those folks, you know, when they take that oath, they're not taking it to us.

They're they're taking that to the state. And so the the great part about getting past that small town level is that you can afford competency in these. Most of those issues that that you see in that realm tend to be in kind of poorly run smaller towns that that don't have CPAs like like these two do where their license is on the line like you know you can I I always used this as a from my engineering lensure standpoint. It's like okay my employer can can take my job but the board can take all my jobs right so it's really important that I do not violate any kind of oath or um dedication to my professional engineering license because that is that's above all I might I might not be able to do what my employer asked me to do because it violates the professional standards for that type of work we We have two people in the building that both have that that are a check on each other. Also, we hire an outside audit of folks that are all like that who then are a check on on these three. We now have a third person who has sworn to the state that does that. Um, and then we have all of you that are looking at this every month and we say, "Okay, here's our open books. Here's our published documents. Take a look at them. Let us know what you think." Um it it's not impossible, but it's it's very hard for it to go on past a very short period of time in a town like Harrisburg. But um this does not diminish any of that oversight that really comes from from the top and even outside the organization in

Thank you.

Right. And then I'm a little bit over time, so I'll rush through this, but this is just kind of a a summary of um this year's budget. And I really just want to re-emphasize what we had talked about in the retreat is that this is this is a very exciting year for us as we continue to move from that planning. You know, we should wrap up our comp plan this year, this calendar year, and then really move into just performance, just execution. at the highest level. Some of the things we talked about early on here allow us to do that is to just execute at the highest level and make sure that all of those plans that our community has given to us, we come up with ways to execute and do that in a very efficient way. Without further ado, if there are no other questions, I will invite up the magnificent Captain Nash. Good morning, Mayor Council. I had us Brian a little money under the table so I could go first this morning. But for the new Cart

for the new council members and anyone watching on TV and as a refresher to the city council, I'd like to go over the overview of the sheriff's office, everything that we have to offer. So, first we have over 225,000 citizens in Cabaris County, approximately 360 square miles. And you see all of the blue on that map, that's a very large area that is patrolled by Cabaris County Sheriff's Office. The orange on the map is Canapapolis Police. The yellow is Concord Concord Police. And then the pink is Locust Police. Most of their jurisdiction falls in Stanley County, but they do have an area in Cabaris County that they patrol. So the sheriff's office is one of the largest full service sheriff's offices in North Carolina. We current we are in the top 10 in size. There's 100 counties in the state, 100 sheriff's offices, and we currently rank, we vary between number eight, nine, and 10 in size. We have about 450 employees. So, what do I mean by a full service sheriff's office by statute, we have to provide for the detention facility, civil, and courtrooms. That's all that we are statutoily required to provide for, but we have that and everything that a large police department would have. So, some of our divisions, we have a patrol division. Of course, Harrisburg has 14 patrol deputies assigned. Crime reduction unit. There's a county and a Harrisburg crime reduction unit. We currently have two in Harrisburg. Crime reduction. They are proactively seeking out crime and trying to stop it before it happens. They're looking at trends, hotspots, repeat offenders. They're out proactively trying to stop crime. Criminal investigations, that's our detectives. We have two assigned in Harrisburg. Our vice nar vice narcotics division

crime scene and sex offender registry crime scene. They are on call 24 hours a day to come out and process any crime scenes that what we would have in the town. Our 911 communication center, our training division, records and civil, youth development or our school resource officers. We currently have 27 deputies in that division. We cover most of the schools in Cabaris County. Not all Concord and Canapapolis cover some of theirs, but it's a very large division. We have a 800 man detention center, courthouse security, governmental security. The governmental security, they patrol all the county buildings within the county, whether it's in Concord or Canapapolis. They also patrol the parks, the libraries. We have animal control division, animal shelter, and a community engagement and crime prevention unit. Our sheriff's office specialty units. We have a special response team. That's our SWAT team. They are highly trained. Lieutenant Helms is on that team. They train with the the best. I've heard you train with exNavy SEALs. Is that correct? So, they receive the the best training and are ready to respond to Harrisburg. We have our civil emergency response team. Anytimes there's any civil unrest within the county. That's a 60-man team that is ready to respond to protect property and people. Our critical incident stress management team. I'm a part of that team. We are on call for any critical incidents or traumatic events that would be for our deputies. Whe whether they're involved in a shooting, a child death, we respond to that scene. I don't I don't have on my captain hat. I am there simply to take care of that person and make sure that their mental well-being is taken care of. And we also have two embedded

clinicians at the sheriff's office. We've a long time ago police were stubborn and we don't need mental health. are tough and you know we can handle everything but we do see a lot of things and we have the embedded clinicians that we can talk to and even if it's not about a call that we've been on talk about marital problems or financial issues they're there to to help us and a happy employee is usually a more productive employee usually better for the community. We have a the special vehicle response team. That's the team that has the side by side in the ATVs. Anywhere we need to go where we can't get a patrol car and cover a large area, that team is available. Crisis negotiations, our K9 team, which is part of the patrol division, lake enforcement. We have a bomb squad. Most surrounding agencies do not have a bomb squad. Charlotte has her own, but we are contracted with surrounding counties. If if there's a suspicious package in say Stanley County, they'll call us and we'll respond to handle that call. Clam Diston drug team and also we have a motor unit. We have two motorcycle officers assigned to Harrisburg, but they're also part of the overall Cabaris County motor unit. They do do traffic enforcement. They're both of them happen to be traffic officers in Harrisburg. So, they do do traffic enforcement. That didn't sound good duty. Um, within the town, a lot of people in Harrisburg don't expect to see a motorcycle coming up and pulling you over, but they are able to write citations and everything that a regular traffic officer would do. We also have a honor guard drone pilot program. We do have a drone pilot in Harrisburg. He was actually used this week in Harrisburg for a 12-year-old that had run away out into the woods. He was able to get that drone up quickly and find that that missing juvenile. And if if it's a day that he's not working, there's drone pilots throughout the

county. We could easily pull one in to use. And then we have polygraphists who do our hiring polygraphs and also any criminal polygraphs. This is something the sheriff's is very proud of. the North Carolina Law Enforcement Accreditation. We just received that award last week. It's a two-year process. There's 116 different standards that we must meet. Everything from policy, procedures, operations, they come in and look at our use of force policies. And not only do they look at what we have in place, they look to make sure that we are following what we say that we're going to follow. And we we did meet all the standards and receive that award. It just shows our commitment to being a highly professional agency, transparent. It bu helps build trust with the community knowing that we say we're going to do what we say we're going to do. And what does all that mean for Harrisburg? You have the benefit of having one of the largest sheriff's offices, one of the law largest law enforcement agencies in the community, well trained, well equipped. All those teams, specialty teams, equipment is available to Harrisburg when needed at no additional incurred cost to the town. For Harrisburg, currently we have 29 deputies in Harrisburg. 27 of those are funded by Harrisburg. to our county paid. You have the captain and lieutenant. We typically work Monday through Friday, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, but criminals don't clock out at 5:00 p.m. and go home when we do. So, we are on call 24 hours a day for anything that may come up in Harrisburg.

Come in early, stay late, get the 3:00 a.m. phone calls.

We have our detective and crew sergeant. They also work typically Monday through Friday, 8:00 am to 5:00 p.m. And then two detectives with the same schedule. Again, they're on call. They come out to help with crime scenes. So, they're here early and late a lot of times as well. We have four patrol sergeants. They work. We have four squads in patrol, AB, C, and D. There's one sergeant assigned to every squad. So, barring vacation or sickness, there's a supervisor on duty at all times. In Harrisburg, we have 14 patrol deputies. On a standard day in Harrisburg, the staffing that you're going to see is two deputies that come in from 6:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. One deputy that is 10:00 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. One that is 1:00 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. and then three deputies that work the night shift from 6:30 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. Those split shifts shifts are to help cover the busiest parts of the day and make sure we have adequate staffing. And then the traffic unit, we have four deputies on the traffic unit. Their primary job function is to enforce the traffic laws in Harrisburg. Of course, calls for service are the most important. So, they do if they're the closest to an emergency call, they can respond to those. But their primary duty day in and day out is to enforce the traffic laws. And their shifts and times vary as well. Some of them like to work the earlier shifts, some later shifts. as long as they're here during peak traffic times in Harrisburg. We let them adjust their shifts accordingly. And then the crime reduction unit deputies, we have two of those. And again, they are out proactively looking for crime, the hotspots, the trends, and trying to stop it before it happens. They work a lot of over overnight shifts, varied shifts to to meet our needs. We work out of the Harrisburg Annex

building or affectionately known to us as the HAB. It's a 2200 square foot building behind Harrisburg Fire Station One. We have a conference area in the front with five offices for the admin staff and it's a place for the guys and girls to come in and heat up their meal, eat, use the restroom, and we also have two workstations in the common area for them that allows them to complete their paperwork. Our Harrisburg vehicle branding. wanted to show a comparison between what a county vehicle looks like on the right and then the Harrisburg vehicle on the left. As you can see, the Harrisburg vehicles have more of the gray striping in the yellow. Also says Town of Harrisburg and then has the Harrisburg um logo on the sides and on the back. All of our vehicles in Harrisburg that are marked have the Harrisburg branding with the exception of two. And two of those are the county paid spots, which are the brown and yellow. And I personally think the Harrisburg vehicles look a lot better. I may be a little biased, but I I like the Graham cars. This information I stole from Chief Burchett when she gave her budget presentation for the county. I normally see all the Harrisburg stats, but I don't see the whole agency as a whole usually. So, this is broken down into sections. The 2110 program, that's all of county patrol. And then, of course, you have Mount Pleasant, Midland, and Harrisburg. So, for the deputies, the 2110 calls for service was 9,660 for last year. Harrisburg had 4,614. And then the number of self-initiated is what come the county had over 35,000 self-initiated activity calls and Harrisburg had close to 45,000. We are a smaller division than the county patrol unit. 35,000 is still a decent number

but 40 almost 45,000. I'm very proud of that number. I think our first line of defense to deter crime in this community is to be out and to be seen. And selfiniti initiated calls are anything a deputy would build themselves. Whether it's a security check, a traffic stop, seeing a suspicious person, that's calls that they build. So they are out and about being seen and very active in the community. Our five-year trends show our continued growth and expansion. And then our organizational chart, of course, again, the captain and lieutenant. We have the four patrol sergeants who oversee 14 deputy sheriffs. And then Sergeant Fry also, in addition to his people, oversees the four traffic deputies. Our detective sergeant who oversees the two detectives and the crime reduction deputy. our buildout. We have been at 29 deputies and we'll continue with that meeting into the oncoming year. And then our capital improvement plan, there's a storage building on there that I will get to in just a moment, but the rest of it is vehicles. The contract shows we replace cars the lesser of seven years or 100,000 miles. So, this is the best estimate of when our cars will need to be replaced. And the way the vehicles, in case you weren't aware, the way they're purchased, the county purchases all of those vehicles. They outfit them, register them, insure them, and then they just send an invoice to the town for the price of the vehicle. So, it takes all of that out of your hands. It used to be that Harrisburg s bought some carves and insured them. The county did, but now it's all under one roof. The county handles all of that. And then when a car is surplused, the county takes care of that again as well.

And whatever amount they get for the car goes towards a credit to the town for the purchase of the next vehicle. Again, showing our vehicles in the future. And then our needs. We need a storage building to house the two golf carts and the side by side that were purchased. It will get them out of the elements and keep them from getting legs and walking off. Also, we can hang things on the walls, our road close signs. We can get those out of the back of the NX building. This would be a joint purchase with Harrisburg. We would have a 12 12x40 section for the sheriff's office, 480 square ft. You see here there's three sections on the p on the picture. Harrisburg Fire would have two sections, the bigger middle section and one of the side sections. And then we would have one of the end sections. It would be walled off in between. And you see the door on the side, we would have our own entrance. Chief Dunn and I have talked, we both know that if sheriff's deputies had access to the fire department's equipment, they'd be over there and have the their equipment on walking around and climbing on fire trucks and they would take our side by side out doing donuts in the parking lot. So that way that removes all temptation from them. We have our own side exclusively to us and then they have their side. Captain, where are they now? Those vehic They're not They're not in the pollen, are they?

They are currently at our installer. We've already got them branded with the Harrisburg logos. Um the person is installing all the lights and everything, but then they will be moved back. I I don't want to leave them out back of our building. Um so they've been stored at public works. And then also Corey has moved them at some point to a a water tower somewhere that should be enclosed and and out of the elements. Those are very nice assets that I would hate to have sitting outside. Is there money to accelerate that to do that this year or has this got to wait till next? I mean,

we now we could we could accelerate most of the projects that are um low six figure projects or five figure projects certainly um traditionally they've kept these little low I mean outside with covers on them and so obviously we we have the need um fire's done this pretty successfully already out there and and this tends to be a really good value. Where is it going to be located? It would be behind fire station one, but kind of behind our building and then also fire station one.

So it would be easy access to us if we needed to get the side by side out and respond to an incident in the woods in Harrisburg. It would be easily accessible. You'll see later in fire's presentation where where it is, but there's a existing building there that's how old is it, Chief? Early 2000s. Yeah, I was going to say there's like a wood shed that's 25 years old. Um, and it's in disrepair. So, fire wants to tear it down, build it, we would make it a little bit bigger so that they could share one of these three slots with controlled burn exercise. Too too close to the station.

When you see the picture of it, you'll do a control probably the report. Great. Thank you for your time. Are there any questions that I can answer? I just have one. If if we have a school incident, god forbid, is that SWAT? Is that the school resource officers? Is that a combination? If it's a something like an active shooter, it is every deputy, every officer close by is going to respond. It doesn't it doesn't matter if you're a captain. And you guys have keys and radios to talk to each other and you rehearse.

Yes, we have keys. We have access to the buildings and it's it's not one of us waiting for a group of other deputies to come. It's you our job is to get to the scene and stop the threat, whatever it is. We don't wait for SWAT. We go directly and try to to stop the killing basically. Chris, I can attest to that because there was an incident at Hickory Ridge High School during a after a basketball game and the fire. I mean, everybody showed up within minutes. To me, that is just I mean, I'm I Your list is so impressive. But that's job one. Job. Absolutely is.

We have them dropping out of the ceilings and coming in from helicopters. I mean you you would honestly be amazed some of the incidents that I've seen and shown up on even a couple of minutes after it started there are deputies everywhere and you know that doesn't if Concord's close by they come we have mutual aid agreements of course we have jurisdiction in the whole county but if we need Concord or Canapapolis or highway patrol all we have to do is make that phone call and they're like we're on the way. So you can have a large officer presence in an area in a short amount of time.

And are the school resource officers in touch with social media? Little Johnny's acting weird and you know we're seeing a little chatter on um are we into that or are we just waiting?

They absolutely are. It's amazing how well the school resource officers know their students. We had an incident one time where we were looking for a certain type of book bag had a distinguishing mark on it and with they had about 1,400 students in the school but we called that school resource officer and he's like I know exactly who that is. Went straight to the student and was able to get that. We h any tips that we come in you know the school resource officer investigates those. We have um if someone sends a what am I trying to say like a text tip or social media anything they see that's concerning they address that. So we are very active even if it's something we don't see we have a great comm community that hey this doesn't look right on this website. So they typically forward it to us and we investigate. We take those threats very seriously and deal with them accordingly.

Thank you. I just want to say um I we don't get a chance to say that like during our monthly meetings, but you know really appreciate all the work you've been doing for Harrisburg and I feel like residents of Harrisburg are very um like in good hands that you're in charge of the division. Thank you. I appreciate that. Have you seen our survey? I I have and I take full credit for the residents feeling safe in the town of Harrisburg. But that just shows the commitment that all of you have and the sheriff's office has to this community to make to make it the safest place for its citizens. That's that's a team effort 100%. Any other questions for Captain? Thank you, Captain.

Thank you, Captain. Thank you. All right. Good morning, John Young. Man, M man M man M man M man M man M man M man M man M man M man Manny already got his introduction this

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I was just sitting there counting up. I've got 60 slides. I got to do those in 30 minutes. So that's uh it's going to be challenging. So we're going to be feeding through a fire hose here. Um but dude, welcome. Um glad to be here and excited about our bo public works budget this year. So uh as Rob mentioned earlier, public works is made up of four departments. You can kind of count five. Um I really put PAL underneath uh the streets department, but streets and environmental protection, buildings and grounds, and water and sewer. We'll go through each one of those departments. Um here's our org chart. We've got 32 positions currently in public works. Um we do have three vacancies. We actually had a retirement at the end of February. Uh Miss Donna, our custodial worker, retired. So, we are um we're in the process of actually uh reclassing that position into a building ground maintenance worker. We'll go over that a little bit uh when we get to that department. But um we'll jump into our initiatives uh innovations and efficiencies. Uh we talked about these last year and then this is this year's. The first one is refine organizational chart to create growth opportunities. What does that mean? Uh right now in public works we basically have if you come in as an employee in public works everybody starts in the maintenance and then really the only opportunity for growth is on our water and sewer side. So what we're looking at doing been working with HR and our management team of actually creating opportunity within each of those departments that you just heard me talk about. So, if I don't want to become a, you know, water and sewer maintenance worker, I have the opportunity to build myself up into a buildings and grounds person or potentially into a uh streets department where maybe I can be a crew leader in that department. Um, second one is developformational page on town's website outlining common causes of elevated water consumption. So, this is actually one of my staff members suggestions I thought was great. Uh we're actually be working with

communications team to do this. But essentially if you look um you know we we obviously every day we're talking to somebody about you know I got a leak or whatever the water consumption happens to be. Um it's amazing what just a small drip or anything in your house can cause as far as water consumption. So really want to get that information out there from transparency standpoint and hopefully it'll help to uh get our citizens to understand, you know, where some of their consumption is coming from. Third, collection, prioritization of infrastructure needs. You're going to hear this actually a lot. This is going to be a common theme. This is a GIS uh collection. So, we did have a GIS assessment and I know our folks over in planning engineering will talk a little more about it, but public works is included in that. And really the goal there is that we can be more proactive on, you know, getting out and addressing projects. Right now, we've got, you know, we get calls from citizens or our teams are out. Uh but the goal here is that we go out and basically are, you know, riding the street and picking up the streets and picking up these um these issues and having a list that we can go out and start doing the work on. And then last one, implement in-house backflow testing program for all town backflow preventers. So right now or in the past, we were actually contracting this service out. We've got about 30 um town on backflows. We actually have two folks in our water quality team that are qualified and we've switch we actually have already switched this over and are testing it now but to where they're actually doing all of our testing on our um backflows and that's that's a state requirement for those to be tested every year. Uh how we do last year. So we talk a little bit about this is our second year really of this innovations and efficiencies. Last year we did have as as Rob mentioned our fleet assessment program. we were able to get that policy established. All of the equipment and fleet budget purchases this year were uh following those policy guidelines. So, if you see one in here, like I I've got

three requests in mine. I know there's several others, they were based on that policy and been scored by by that policy. And then the second one with the payment management implementation, we're going to talk a little more about that. Um but we did we did establish that program last year. We actually just went over it I think in um late summertime. We talked about you know what the what we got out of there. I'll go over a little bit of it and then we did implement the first year of that three-year program this year with our PAL money. This was the objectives of the payment management program. Uh develop an accurate payment network inventory capture HD videos which we do have actually on our website of or on our ARGIS platform of all the all of our streets. Uh we talked about the distresses so basically cracking anything potholes whatever those were processed through that system. We got a PCI out of that which is the pavement condition index qualifies and then we started talking about treatments which we applied this year and then we have that three-year working program. We do have an ARGIS platforms called road insights that we use and we'll be utilizing for the next three years and as long as we keep um this program in place we'll be able to basically look at that assess it and then next year apply it and then of course we do have that continued consulting support from the the folks we're working with. Uh this is a payment deterioration curve. Uh we talked a little bit about this when I went over uh all the things as far as payment. Um again just a real real quick summary here. uh typical pavement in about 10 to 15 year range is when you lose most of the integrity of the pavement. Our goal is we want to be in that green and applying uh preservation techniques to the pavement to extend it out past that 20 year lifetime. And it really gives you a lot more value uh that you can use out in uh once you get that pavement established. And you've kind of got to start that early. Um you know, you see that 5year and even before in that two-year range and that

rejuvenation um you can't just let it sit. you got to really be on top of it. Uh and and and make sure you're putting those technique techniques in early. Uh this is some of the pavement preservation techniques that we talked about. Um crack sealing, which a lot of y'all have already seen in your neighborhoods or if you're riding on DOT. DOT utilizes this a lot uh in their roads. But typically in a neighborhood as far as we have here in Harrisburg, we want to apply this along with some other one like a micro paving um or some other treatments to go along with it and kind of for lack of a better term, it hides that crack sealing. But this is probably the most important uh pavement preservation there is because it keeps that moisture from out from under the pavement. Basically, it keeps you from having uh a lot of potholes and then alligator cracking, which you can kind of see in that middle picture. Uh this is one that has not been treated on this lefth hand side and this has been treated essentially that same roadway. So this is a test case. Um this is our pavement management program dashboard. Uh we do have this actually I can make it accessible to anybody. It's got four or five tabs on there. What you're looking at right now is actually the the tab that shows you know what condition our payment is in. This is just a snapshot obviously of that. Um but we did utilize this this year to again to do our paving program. We have a very good PCI which you can kind of see there at the top 78 um is is extremely good for North Carolina. Done a great job of keeping our roads in good shape here in Harrisburg. We only had one bad section which was actually um this one over here which is our Harrisburg industrial park actually where the public works facility was. that's the only one that's failed. Um, oddly enough, um, so we addressed that this year. That is no longer a failure. Um, and actually we'll see that in this next slide. Um, that is our Harrisburg Industrial

Park pre on the left hand side there and then Harrisburg Industrial Park Post is on the right hand side. So, we were able to come in there, mill out these sections, and address it. We do have a lot of heavy trucks on this road. Um, we're really proud of all the work that we did this year uh with our PAL paving and and pavement management. Just a quick benchmarking. Current overall PCI is 78 here in Harrisburg. Uh we do have 8 roughly 83 miles of streets we maintain. Morrisville's overall PCI 74 in Concord is 75. Again, PCI of 78 is is really high. Um it's rare to get into that 80s uh here in North Carolina just because of our conditions of our roads and the amount of traffic that we have on them. Start into our streets. Uh I think you can go to your tabs are already on your your book there. Um but streets is our first department. Um it's one of our larger departments. Um this year's opportunities and obligations. We're balancing the needs of a growing town. So again, we're we're adding to those streets every year. Uh we we know that we you know we've taken on new subdivisions. You guys approve those. Uh that does require us to go out and have maintenance on each one of those along with sidewalks, curb and gutter, storm water maintenance. There are multiple things that are part of the streets department. Uh implementing those strategic plans and new strategies to enhance transparency and customer satisfaction. And then our big one is continuing the wayfinding and welcome to Harrisburg sign program. We'll talk a little more about that here in a few minutes. Um some of the changes you'll see in your packet, refinement of the greenway maintenance. We actually pulled that number down a little bit. Um we've got brand new greenways. We've got they're in they're in good shape. We hadn't been able to uh we have not had to go out and do a lot of work on those greenways. Um obviously we're looking at installing new greenways. Uh working with our engineering department to do that, but this is really focused more on what that maintenance looks like and making sure

we can keep them in good good working order. you're going to see a common theme as far as increasing in utilities um not only here but in our water and sewer department we are seeing increases from our partner agencies um pretty much to the maximum extent and this one is is no different. This is our utilities here is really focused on energy uh and street lights and and things like that. So um that's we've seen significant increases in those numbers. um addition of new wayfinding signs. Phase two is actually a program started a couple years ago. Uh we're bringing that back into um this year's budget. And these are the these are what I call the mediumsiz signs. They're not the small signs and the mediumsiz signs that gives you directions around town. We actually um this past year were able to go in and update those signs. We actually are doing the last section of them now. They'll be back installed here in the next week or so. And then this is phase two. And I'll show you a map here in a few minutes. Roberto Road and Highway 49 recommended improvements. We talked through this in our um board meeting a couple of weeks ago, council meeting, sorry. Um when we were doing our transportation projects, and we'll have a little more on that here when we get to the projects. And then the last one, uh Stallings Road roundabout improvements is really focused on landscaping and art in the two roundabouts on Stallings Road. Here's our day-to-day operations and streets. We talked about just over 83 miles that we maintain. Um these are last year's statistics. We had signs repaired of about 168. The traffic marking 361 ft. Sometimes anything beyond that we typically will contract out. Uh again we're a lot of this is thermo. We don't have a thermoplastic machine. Uh so we do bring in contractors to put in new street markings. In a lot of instances asphalt is similar. Um, these are really just potholes. Anything above and beyond that is going to be create through our PAOW

program. We actually when we do our street resurfacing, we include in there some major major repairs. Um, Pepsi is probably a good example if you've been on it. Uh, our the contractor that came in and did our work for the PAL program this year actually did a major repair uh on Pepsi. So, um, that that actually we do that fairly often. We we build some of that into our PAL program. And then concrete. Again, these are really focused on bad um areas in town where we've got a lot of deterioration. A lot of it comes from tree roots. Uh and some of it is related to our the ones that can't be addressed through our ADA program where we're going in just grinding down those asphalt. We'll actually have to replace panels and we do that um fairly often. Tend to do it in batches. So, it's not like we're doing it every day. will come out every couple weeks and and made repairs around town. Uh we do mow here in town. That's actually started up already. Um which is crazy to think. Um but we've got about 13 acres of town owned properties. Um roughly 8 acres in our pump station property. We do have an agreement with NC DOT. We maintain about 34 miles of their existing rideways here in town um Harrisburg. And then roughly 45 mi of outfalls. Uh outfalls can be challenging obviously, especially dependent on the weather, but we we maintain those. We have to we have to be able to get in and access those just in case uh we have any failures along the outfall sections. Some of our projects here in streets, as I mentioned, wayfinding phase two, welcome to Harrisburg signs, intersection of Roberto Road, Highway 49, improvements, alternative two. We actually had three alternatives we discussed in our council meeting. We'll go over specifically alternative two and that's the recommendation that staff has for the budget this year. Uh Stallings

Road roundabout signs and landscaping wayfinding phase two. The map you see here is actually the map that was created several years ago when this program was initiated. These signs were not installed at the time. Um we will we'll likely have to update this a little bit. So, these are not going to be the exact locations when we get it done. U but if we if it does move forward in the budget, we'll be looking at putting those mediumsiz signs in some other locations, specifically along Rocky River Road there, uh and then down along some of the other areas. You see Stallings Road, uh Hickory Ridge, some of those that that'll really focus and give our uh give anybody that's coming into the town direction. Second one is welcome to Harrisburg signs. Uh we're trying to get our first one installed over on Robera Road now. Working with DOT to get an encroachment permit there. Um it'll be just right now the location is just before uh you come into Harrisburg where the Purple Heart community sign is. Uh these signs are a little smaller uh versions of our existing monument signs. Congratulations to Engineering on getting that the third one in. I know it's over on Rocky River Road now, but the other two are along 49, but these will be smaller versions of that. Uh, and they will be lit as well. A couple of other possible locations, Rocky River Road, Tom Query Road, and Morehead Road. Again, not exact locations on there, but those are the entrances we're looking at. Um, our alternative two, again, we talked about this in our transportation improvements. This is a feasibility study. We just wrapped up with RK and K. There were three alternatives that came out of this. This is the staff recommended alternative. Just a reminder, uh the quadrant road does come behind the Publix. Um this was again our staff recommended alternative. Um and there are a couple other things that go along with this. A couple of um

turn laid improvements that would happen. But in general, this gave us the best um opportunity for traffic to to be mitigated here at Roberto Road and Highway 49. Um what you see in your budget reflected this year, and I think Rob mentioned this a little earlier, is the design dollars. Uh there is a construction dollar. Uh the design dollars is roughly 1.2 million. I believe there's a construction dollar in the in the FY28 budget. That's a little more flexible. We're, you know, our goal here is we get this um what I'd call shovel ready uh and then search for some other dollars from whether that's through grant processes, whether that's through um through our new, you know, lobbying, any of those things um would be where we'd be looking for some additional funding there. So, I would um whether that comes in FY28 or FY29, that again has some flexibility to it. And then the last one uh here in streets is our art and signage. We don't know what that'll look like. We actually included some design in there for that uh along with some landscaping to complement that art and signage. Um staff did apply for a grant through Duke Energy for this as well. Um actually'll be notified whether we received that grant here in the first part of April. The grant will not cover the whole thing, but it was um I believe it was for $20,000 that we applied for. So, don't know whether we'll get that or not, but hopefully we do and be able to apply some of that grant money to this project.

John, yes, ma'am. Can you go back to the overview slide really quick? So, for that dedicated turn lane, does that just take the grass at CVS? Uh, like I don't understand how that works. This is a um yeah, this is actually a um we we've got enough room there right now that we can shift it over, but we're going to utilize some of the existing uh pavement there right now. So, right now it's got to it I should have pulled up Google Maps, but right now there's an existing straight through there. So, we would be making that just a dedicated right on that side. One lane to go.

Yeah. The only one that actually is incorporating some additional work along there was our um if you remember alternative one it had some requirements for taking over and that was one of the other things we were trying to do here. The major work here is actually just associated with that that backside. Uh what our goal was is to try to eliminate any of those property um takes and and not I shouldn't say takes but property acquisition and then along with trying to eliminate having to get some additional payment there. But yeah um that's why this quadrant road again was a staff recommended one because it really takes away a lot of the need to affect any of these businesses along that corridor. Okay. Thank you.

Mhm. Um some other projects that we do overlap with engineering on um these are our annual projects. So our annual ADA program this year we did Kensington Forest. We actually have uh one more major subdivision um that we're going to be working on. Next year we kind of know where that is. And then uh we still have some ADA assessment work that we've got to be that's got to be done on our ADA assessment report was done I believe several years ago. Um, and then annual greenway program. I know Devon and his team work through uh that one a lot and we we do assist them in that. Raging Ridge Road sidewalks. I think Devon will talk through that a little more. And then the pedestrian connectivity improvements will be in his his presentation as well. Capital improvement plan for streets. Um, you can see there in 2027 there's a lot on there. Um, but again this this overlaps into our transportation. So, uh, this is not only streets, but it's transportation as well. So, some of those larger improvements, uh, you start to see, um, in in this budget, which is why, um, it does, again, it's not just streets, it's really transportation. With that being our number one on our, um, um, on everybody's radar as far as things happen, we want to make sure we uh, keep keep that uh, keep that in mind when we're looking at CIP projects. Here's our trends. Um, I wanted good idea to put these operations and capital together. So basically you you see a drop in the operations side really that is because a lot of those projects have been switched over to the capital side. So it's not like we're not utilizing or not spending money. We just have taken these projects and moved them into a capital project. Now again y'all want to jump into questions. I'm going to jump over. I'm going through several

fig. Um I have a question. So um first I'll say that the um signage looks great. I I I came in town the other day from from a trip and coming through other towns and then coming to Harrisburg and seeing that it's a it's a difference. It's it's sleek. It's nice. And so so that's well done. But my qu my question is about the striping in the neighborhoods and so uh is that does that fall on the streets and what's the process of that? I've been um told that some of the striping is coming up in some of those neighborhoods and and and people aren't satisfied and they want to know how to get that done and what's the best way to get get that done in an efficient way.

So really what we do is it's a maintenance thing. Um, so for example, in our PAL, when we do our PAL program, if there's existing stop bars, we replace those. Um, if it's something that we're not, it's not on our radar. So, if we're trying to think of a good road, um, pit road, for example, is actually on our is on our radar next year for PAL paving. So, if there's an existing stop bar there, we would we'll replace off that at that time. If it's something that is not on our radar, um they can put in a request through our quick fix program or any other one and we'll go out there and take a look at assess it and then we come out. Is that something that you outsource or is that like it is? Yeah, we can't do thermo. That's thermmo work. So that's what I was talking about. So basically

um the only thing that really the town would ever do is maybe put some paint down. But the thermoplastic is actually it's own machine. It comes out, spray it on, and then it gets heated up and and put into the system. Because I think in this particular neighborhood I'm talking about, not to belabor issue, but they did that. They used that technology and it didn't work. So I don't know how often that has to happen or if there's a a threshold on how many times we can do we can budget for that. Like I it really depends. So thermo is actually the best treatment you can put on the ground. It lasts the longest. The problem is traffic snow plows and when they do

Yeah. If you saw um I'm trying to think Odell school road is a good example. That's the way I come in to work. Uh it actually the snow plows that came through this year. they'll because it is a raised system, it actually will pull that off the ground. Um, so we had a lot of damage done by snow plows this year with all the the weather we had. But that does cause some damage on some of but again it's not it's not something we can't Okay. But doing that however however many times we need to allocate in that budget. Yeah. It's really a maintenance thing. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The smaller ones like that really more just a maintenance budget. Can you report that in quick fix? You can. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Mr. J.

Okay. Um, is this the time to talk about the um the budget allocation for ADA program and the annual um greenways because those numbers have been the same for like many years now

and I feel like especially well with ADA we're kind of scraping the bottom of the barrel like I feel like spending so much money every year on improving that but then they're just benefiting you know certain people in those neighborhoods. But with the greenways it would be benefiting you know all the residents. Can we do some sort of rebalancing or maybe look at straight like increase in the greenway program because I know you know prices have gone up but we're keeping at 250 every year.

Yeah. So a great question. Um so as far as the greenway so as far as the ADA program um it really is focused on obviously addressing those issues that we contract out. Um, going back to what I had mentioned earlier, we actually do a lot of work as far as ADA in house as well throughout the year. So, that's in the general maintenance line item that we are going out and doing those. The the ADA the annual ADA program is really more focused on again bringing in contractors to do work based on the ADA assessment. We're actually fairly far along in that ADA assessment. Now, obviously, we'll have to come back around. Um, but we're we've wrapped up most of the original work uh that was part of that ADA assessment. Now, we're still getting a few areas where you've got tree roots or you've still got some trip hazards, whatever it happens to be uh that we we you know, we'll have to address, but you know, that I would say is fairly well budgeted on the greenway program. Um, this is not necessarily projects for Greenway, so this is smaller things. Um I think this year's greenway program, you know, we used the the bird uh work out there was actually part of that. So where they were doing the um where they just did the parking lot there, the bird church. So these are maybe are smaller more uh you know just smaller sections of a greenway, not necessarily related to actually installing more and larger ones. Those are more capital projects. I think that's the question you're asking.

Yeah. Can we like if we're so far along on one but not the other, can we maybe take 50 from that and put that to towards greenways or that make a difference? That's that's a finance question.

John peeking over at um we we'll take a look at those those different amounts. Um you know, they're certainly in here. Also, as part of the the council exercise process, we always have those kind of ads. Like you said, we could take it somewhere else. you you can, you know, allocate some kind of one-year funding, but yeah, we've got options there that we'll be able to look at. And I think we we did increase uh or I think ADA is the same. I I think Greenway is increased in this one a little bit. And the uh tree planting um annual amount was was increased.

It doesn't have to be 100. I know it was related to like we had to have for some sort of compliance with ADA rules, right? You have to have you have to have a reasonable program in place. Okay. So it doesn't say like you have to spend 100,000 on

No. No. You you have to have a re again reasonable plan. Um I think when we originally did this plan the total build out was tens of millions. We you know no community really you know can can address all their ADA requirements immediately upon adopting a plan. But our requirement is you have to have a plan adopted and you have to have a reasonable approach and our reasonable approach is let's attack the the most um well first of all the the the lowhanging fruit but then the most egregious

ones and then go through and just you know we started out with 100 100 has seemed to have been adequate as we started the program. We are better at it now and we might be able to scale that up if that is the the wish of the council. But it doesn't necessarily mean you have to if you increase greenway, you can pull that money from another. It doesn't have to attack. Yeah. All all of this is general fund money, right? So it it's all that property tax money that the state wants to cap. I hear what she's saying about it being like neighborhood specific and beneficial to them, but accessibility is always important. Yep. It could it could come from

Yeah. Some neighborhoods they have no sidewalks at all, but some neighborhoods have a sidewalk on both sides and we the town spends a lot of money to improving them and you know smoothing them out and some neighborhoods tell us they want sidewalks and then we go to build them and they tell us they don't and it you know if they some neighborhoods don't have any sidewalks they're not making any money from it anyway. So what do you want them to drive to Kingington and park by your pool and walk your neighbor? You probably don't want neighbor taxes in here. Okay. But I mean my my question neighbors to try to figure out how to you could do both. Yeah. Eventually.

Yeah. You can I mean you you you guys will have kind of that complete picture of the revenue at our at our next one, but really you know all that general fund revenue is available to be allocated however you guys see fit. we we kind of have a pretty good established pattern and then we can uh you know kind of move the levers up and down in in different pots depending on what's a priority and and what isn't in that year. John, yes sir. You mentioned in one of your slides early on the application you use called road insights and my question is more around how are we if we are using any automation meaning AI in today's efforts that that program actually only uses AI

okay um so if you're I kind of skim through it because I have a lot of slides but if you're on that uh payment work when they when they're doing the distresses it's actually using AI to do all of that work. So that's why they take the HD HD video and then basically they have their own program they run through. Ours is just a dashboard portion of it, right?

But everything actually took out a couple of slides because it was a little bit a little bit too long. Um but the dashboard portion of it actually shows a little bit of you know how they utilize the AI to go in and assess those based on what the existing ASM standards are. So, uh, yeah, each all of these programs now, um, anything related to like that where you're looking at distresses, whatever it happens to be. Um, even work on sidewalks, back to your point, uh, council member. Um, when when they're going out, that's that's what they're using. It is. I mean, I will say one thing on that though, and again, I know we got to move on. It's one thing to have AI, but the one thing I love about this actual consultant is they also have a boots on the ground portion because AI can go so far,

but it really sometimes will skip over the the important things and and and we had a good example of that back when I was still in Morsville. We had some of the first implementations of AI and it did not work very well. I know it's gotten better these days, but you've got to still have that boots on the ground to go out and address situations um as well. So, yeah, they everybody's utilizing it, everybody's doing it, but that road insights is definitely that's how they that's how they code their distresses and get those PCI ratings. And Rob, is there from a town perspective a capacity to kind of capture how we've moved into AI and what it's saving or how it's improving the the town efforts?

We we don't have a capacity to capture that right now, but it's on the radar. Okay.

Um it's something that we're we're talking about internally. Um because AI is moving so quickly with within the past. I'd say you know t take the the the arc the last two years and you know a year ago Lee and I were were were experiment experimenting with with AI and going through some and it it couldn't read a document right like you put a docu and it just did not fundamentally understand how to just create a word document. um fast forward to now and and understand how quick it is at word processing and document creation and things like that. Um where is it 6 months from now

from a um a usability standpoint to the average worker? So what what we're seeing I what we what I think we'll see in government um which is probably significantly different than the private sector is because we move slower we'll adapt a little bit slower to it but also it will we'll be able to fold it into average capacities across an organization better to see that kind of tamping down of growth rates. So you guys will see in today's presentation, we've proposed zero full-time employees added to the town. Last year was a very small number, too. I don't remember what it was, but it was not a significant um amount. I think those are efficiencies from our employees who are able to fold in new technologies, new programs, new trainings, and get more out of the very high quality folks that we already have. So, um, expanding your capacity and not replacing your capacity, I think, is what we're seeing in in the public right now. But again, with with Claude Co-work and um what we've seen with like OpenClaw and and things like this where agent creation is a significant impact to to the private sector already. Um, who knows where that goes, but we don't have like a like an office of of AI innovation implementation that can track this stuff and report it back and and do all that. Now, can we have a AI agent that can capture all that? Uh, I don't know. We're we're going to we're going to be on that, but we're certainly I think um as far ahead as any other city is in in that space.

Thank you. All right. Uh we'll move into PAL. Uh very short u actually only two slides here I think. Um but again utilizing we I love in Harrisburg we utilize our our funding for payment. Um a lot of municipalities utilize PAL management or PAL funding for other opportunities in the town which there is the ability to do that. Uh state agency I think calls for you to do 75% roughly but we use 100% which is important. Um we did, you know, our our in uh allocation did go up a little bit this year. It wasn't quite as much as we thought, but we're going to continue to utilize that funding um for our MA payment management and we'll be implementing year two um coming in the fall. So again, you kind of see that that trend where we did increase that amount. We do expect that to kind of level out over the next year. Jump in environmental protection. Um again our opportunities obligations we got increased service delivery with the use of our new equipment. We got some uh new equipment last year and we're still trying to figure out some of those things and then uh continue refinement our Tonal cart roll out procedures and maintenance. So we're um we're getting better. Uh we we we've rolled out um a significant amount of carts obviously uh last year and and we are maintaining those now. Um and you'll see that here. increased maintenance costs for waste care cart or waste cart care. And then we're also looking at purchasing a new bucket truck. Our bucket truck was a is a 2012 model I believe. And um we utilize that for other departments, not only for public works, but we are that will be split with water and sewer. And I actually talk about a little bit more when we get to water and sewer. Uh here's our day-to-day operations in our environmental protection yard waste collected every week. Uh we do have standard routes that run Monday through

Thursday. Essentially they're behind the sanitation routes if that makes sense. They're a day behind. Um and then FY25 numbers we collected about 1350 tons of grass and leaf. Um 1100 tons of limbs and brush. And then our street sweeper ran 72 miles and collected about 93 tons of debris. Um again, we did have an incident this week actually with the storms that came through where uh we had to go out and clean up a tree on Farmington. Um but that's part of this work. And again, as I mentioned, these are really all hands on deck when we have major events, but um our public works crew typically the our maintenance workers are running these uh pieces of equipment. Um, continuing on our sanitation, we do contract out, as you are aware, our service with WastePro. We did roll out just about 16,000 town branded solid waste and recycling carts in 2025 March last year. I think the roll out went very well. Um, I think Brian mentioned this the other day. We're getting very few calls now for maintenance. We do have brand new carts out there, but we also maintain those. If we do have a damaged cart, uh we'll pick it up, replace it with another cart, and we can actually make those repairs in house. We've got a lot of the the parts outside of something just getting completely demolished, which we have seen. Um somebody may run over one or some other, you know, complete failure. We can pretty much fix it, put a new lid on it, put new wheels on it, uh just about everything and have it back out in the system pretty quickly. Have you noticed a lot of those a lot of repairs and maintenance on those? So far,

we have not. Um we've got uh probably 25 sitting over in our yard right now. Um Councilman and we again we got uh actually the folks we deal with, our cart manufacturer sent us a bunch of bunch of replacement parts and you know we'll we'll get our guys out there and fix those and put them back out in the system. Uh, we also have a 10-year warranty on them. So, if something does get damaged, we need to order a new car. I saw one on Hickory Ridge the other day. One of the gray carts with the lid was already hanging off the side of it.

We've got a couple out in our yard right now that basically need to go into a fire pit cuz they are destroyed. Um, like and it's amazing. You look at them, it is insane. I don't even know how they could get this destroyed. But you know, it's like I said, people have hit them. Um, you have a couple of other things that happens. I mean, even some of the Waste Pro trucks have have done some damage to some of them as well, but it's rare. It's rare that they're that bad. So, in saying that, what what are the increased maintenance costs for the carts then? Like what?

Uh, we have to clean them. Uh, it's not much. We're doing some cleaning programs because we do. So, for example, last year at our Fourth of July event, we actually took about an additional hundred carts and put them out there. We want to make sure we could use those, not just all of a sudden they're dirty, and if I ever want to put one out into the system, I don't want it to be dirty. So, we're just It's really just cleaning. Okay. Yeah. It's a small fee.

Uh here's our capital improvement plan on uh environmental protection. You can kind of see not a lot there other than the the bucket truck we talked about which is is a split cost and again not a lot of change in the trends here um over the last couple of years other questions about environmental protection before I jump. All right, we'll go into building the grounds. Um we are continuing to expand for or plan for our expansion of second floor town hall. Um that's that's really in this in this focus is more maintenance driven um not necessarily any of the other things but as far as any expansion we got to go up there we'll have to obviously maintain that uh evaluate services maxim maximize efficiency and quality we'll talk through some of those um and I mentioned one of them specifically related to our building to ground maintenance worker position um speaking of that the additional contracted custodial services for better efficiency. So what what we're trying to do is um we we originally were going to make a request for an additional position this year which is in line with our capital improvement plan for personnel for an additional uh building and grounds maintenance worker. Uh what we have what has happened with the retirement of our custodial worker is uh we're want to reclassify that position actually working with our team right now to do that um here in management and in HR. Um those both of those BNG maintenance workers we currently have one focus more here at town hall. Uh the goal is we'd get that second position that would you'd basically be maintaining the rest of the facilities here that the town owns which are we're over a little over 100,000 square feet right now. Uh so you'd be looking at basically about 50,000 square foot per B&G maintenance worker. Um and that's I mean general maintenance, you know, light bulbs, you pick any of the

things that go on right now. Um you know I have a public works supervisor or Corey, y'all probably see him. Cory's the one sometimes jumping out and putting a new lock on somewhere. Um that is not, you know, where he needs to be spending the majority of his time. So, we really want to get that uh to where we've got um somebody focused on moving and and taking care of our our facilities. They also will be uh overlapping in the c custodial side. So, again, um the the current build on the ground maintenance worker we have here in town hall does look at those things. Um but the custodial services we're actually already utilizing here in town hall. Um our custodial worker last year was actually out of the office for about six months with a medical related injury. Uh and so we actually utilize the same kind of system during that time and really had good results from it. So, our goal is uh to kind of wrap that up into this year's budget and and continue that service with the retirement of Miss Donna and again reclassify her position into a B&G maintenance worker which we feel like is best opportunity for moving forward on um as far as our efficiency here in in building the grounds. Uh increase in water and electric utilities. I said that's going to be a common theme. We'll see that in water and sewer as well. uh line of department supplies. We we've really got everything back into this buildings and grounds department now to where everything that's related to a town on facilities is focused in here. You'll see that a little bit in the trends is kind of leveled out now. Uh decrease in general maintenance again as we can keep our builds and ground maintenance workers here uh and keeping things you know being proactive as opposed to you know reactive. It does allow us the ability to keep that general maintenance number uh in check. and then replacement of aging vehicles. Um, so both of the

vehicles currently we only have one one vehicle in the building the grounds maintenance side. Um, it's an older vehicle. We want to replace it and then with the new B&G person uh the one that was our custodial we have the oldest piece of equipment we have was a custodial one. Uh, and that is actually uh recommended for replacement. the day-to-day operations, repair and maintenance of town- owned facilities, and then uh again, the management of those contracted janitorial services. Here's our two vehicles that we are requesting. Again, both of these do um um are are part of the fleet policy and they do score um into our policy to be replaced. This is what I'd be replacing with. Again, uh these folks are going to be moving around our system. So, we we kind of look at this as their mobile office. Um they don't necessarily have a space that they sit

and so they're going to be keeping all their equipment in these vehicles as they travel around working. So, they'll basically be getting work orders through their uh computers or their phones and going around every day and and making sure they address those situations. Here's our capital improvement um for those. You can see the two vehicles and you see um one other thing on there is access and surveillance. I think James and it will be talking a little bit more about that when he gets to his budget. Again, I told you the trends have kind of leveled out. We've gotten those uh supplies really leveled out as well. And so this this has been pretty consistent for the last two years. Still got water and sewer. So I don't want you to think it's done. Um I do have one more question jump back to uh we authorized some uh some studies like Robinson Church Road and through are there sufficient dollars if there's a next step in there

that we don't have to wait till we get a yeah this looks great let's go forward is that or yeah you're actually going to be seeing some of that in Devon's budget a little bit on his but he'll be talking through some of those projects but um yeah uh right now we we've got recommendations if you saw it in the that's why it's a little bit difficult It's hard cuz our streets really contains all that transportation dollars as well. Um, but you'll see what if we're making sure we're moving forward on those.

Okay, any other questions? I'm going to jump into water and sewer, our big one. All right, so water and sewer. Um, this is the fun one. U, we, you know, kind of our some of our opportunities there, implementation of capital improvement projects. We don't have a ton of recommendations this year, uh, but we do have a couple, uh, in this year's budget. And then again, replacement of aging vehicles. We actually only have, I believe, one vehicle, and it's that the one that we had talked about a little bit earlier with the bucket truck. We are across the board seeing increased water and sewer um, treatment cost. Uh, we we have actually already reached out to our partner agencies. We know those are going to be the maximum number. are basically our agreements allow for a certain percentage of increase. They are incorporated in this budget though this is this is not something we'd be changing. So right now what you see is the anticipation of having those increased costs. Um but we know that they're going to go up. Um and we know that again I just want to be very aware that that continues to rise and has for the last few years. Um then we've got mobile lift columns. I'll talk a little more about that what that is. uh replacement of the aging vehicle as we discussed and then AC refrigerant recovery machine. Um basically our AC right now um inside of a vehicle if you want to work on that you you're the refrigerant inside of it is very expensive. So that this machine allows you to take that refrigerant out, work on it or replace it and you can put it back in. Um the current machine that we have does not work on the newer vehicles. So, we're be we're looking at replacing that because the refrigerants have changed in inside the inside the vehicles. And then we did remove our water and sewer tapping contract. So, essentially um we we've barely underutilized this. We don't need it. Um

it actually most of the time any of the new taps we've got to make on water lines are done by developers. Uh so if we do need one, we can pull this out of maintenance. We have not utilized that in a couple last couple years. water and sewer by the numbers. Um so last year just shy of 4,300 work orders that we completed. We do have one team that does those. Um they actually do all of our meter installs as well and our locates. Um so uh that team is busy. Um but anyway, we we you know that's a that's a good number of work orders there. This does not include quick fix by the way. These are FY25 numbers. We'll start to see some of those other numbers uh in next year's budget. Uh cut offs due to non-payment roughly 552. Again, we typically have those restored back most of the time that same day or the day after uh if the payment is made. And then locates, which is starting to tick up a lot. Um anytime you got development, you got fiber along all of our corridors, our locate numbers really start to trend up. Again, the same co the same crew that does our work orders actually does all of our locates as well. This is our installations for FY25. About six sewer services installed, 364 water services installed. That that's that's basically your new residence. Uh 392 water services repaired. So that's basically your smaller lines. Um any service lines, that's where you're looking at that repair. And then our water manes. We had roughly 10 um major breaks on water manes last year. Got 147 miles of sewer main. We are required to clean 10% of that annually. Um our goal this year is actually to increase that to I'd like to get up to 15% but it'll probably be closer to 12 or 13%. Um and then we have 15 sewer lift stations that we inspect daily. We actually if everything goes well we're

going to have at least one of those offline this year uh with the Callaway development be taking one offline and if we can get our Morehead West project in it actually takes a second one offline. So having getting those offline is really helpful um because it's a lot of work to go out and inspect those and keep everything in order. Water sewer maintenance day-to-day operations um again we got 132 mi of water maning two elevated storage tanks three wells. Um right now we sample about just shy of 1,500 samples every year. Um almost 800 visits to those tanks making sure you know everything's going well with the well and tank. Almost 1500 water fire hydrants and water lines flushed. New meters installed. So this is again uh some of our um some of the work that's going on as far as new developments. And then the meter repairs down there. That sounds a lot like a lot. That's really replacements of our old meters. So, we're right now we're switching and have been over the last few years to our digital format of meters. The cam strap is what they are. Um, going from Neptunes. So, that's what's included in that meter repair. So, it's not necessarily a broken meter. It's a replacement. And then last, uh, our fleet. Uh, again, maintenance of all our rolling stock and equipment for the town. Got 63, uh, light and heavy duty vehicles. 14 snow plows. Y'all were you should have saw our citizens academy. They come over to the They were so amazed that we actually had 14 snow plows. Um we got to utilize all those this year. Um but yeah, we had several of our citizens are like, "We actually have snow plows." I said, "Yes, we do." Um uh so anyway, we we do maintain those. Um got 15 trailers, heavy duty equipment, 20 vehicles, and then various other equipment around 30 that our fleet maintenance. We have two staff members in the fleet. some of the projects. Again, not a ton

here. Rockbook Drive, Greenville Drive, Waterloop, and then our annual sewer rehab program. Here's the the Rock Drive, Greenville. So, this is an extremely important connection. Um, right now, uh, we have three neighborhoods that are only served by one, um, basically one dead end line, if you want to call it that. um including the neighborhood that including Granthm uh and several other along that corridor and this this actually was identified in our CIP that was completed last year. Um we have some low pressures along this system right now. So this is an extremely important connection that we need to make between these two subdivisions. And um one of the things I did want to point out, one of the things I did want to point out is this is actually part of a developer project as well. So there is a bond um for this project. So this is kind of our plan B. Uh we really need to get it to happen. It's actually been on a developerdriven project for a while. Um there has been some movement on this project lately. Uh so there isn't there's a possibility that that would be part of a subdivision that's coming through. But again, uh it's extremely important for us to get this in place. We actually had um this year we had to shut down this line uh that that feeds these three subdivisions there. Um of course, we can only do it at certain times. We don't want to have leave anybody without water, but again, just an extremely important um connection to be made. And then our rehab program, um we we kind of generate these as the years go along. This year we're actually working on replacing a couple of um existing uh aerials and those do tend to deteriorate when you've got floods and things along there. So we're we're actually going to be replacing um our two worst ones and then continue maintenance on our manholes.

I mentioned this earlier, our mobile lift columns. Uh right now um we do have our piece of equipment, a combo truck. It's actually dual axle, our first dual axle. So, these mobile lift columns actually give us the ability to service that piece of equipment. Um, right now we cannot pick it up. We only have we only have four. We got four lifts. You need an additional two. And so, for us to be able to service it, we need these these two columns to be able to help us pick it up. And our vehicle, as we mentioned this a little earlier, uh the bucket truck replacement. Again, it's a 2012. It was actually used when it was purchased. um and we replacing it. We do utilize this piece of equipment not just for public works, but a lot of parks related things. We go out and install speakers for the uh work when we do uh movies at the park. All all kinds of stuff is utilized with this bucket truck. And that's what you'd be looking at essentially replacing in kind with what we've got. Now, there's four pages of capital improvement stuff here. Um but um again it's same is reflective of what we've talked about already. And here's our trends in water and sewer. Again uh these the trending up is generally related to the increase in our water and sewer treatment cost. Capital again um I know you see that trending down but that's really because the projects we we've got into hopper to do and are working on right now. Uh so we're not necessarily looking at in you know a big capital number this year

that is I do have a question about the water piece. We've talked a lot about the contaminants and the testing of the water and I know we purchase our water but does any part of that the testing all like any um of the interventions do we what do we pay in as a cost for any part of that or is that lumped into what we pay for water? Um we so we're required so once it gets to us we're required to test it with the what

once it gets to us we're required to to test it. So essentially you know you saw some of the PAS stuff that came out a couple of weeks ago. So right now we buy all our water. Um obviously I thought Concord did a great job um in talking through that and because PAS is an issue. I mean and everybody knows it's an issue. Um but we are required to test our water and meet certain qualifications. We meet all those all the time and we did in this instance. I mean those are there's an implementation um schedule uh that Concord is working on. We're working with them on it. What we do is essentially all those testings you saw there are related to that. And then of course our consumer conference report that we put out every year. That's what those things are. We are required to test that. The only ones that we are responsible for, how do I want to say it? I shouldn't say it that way. Well, the only ones that we're mainly responsible for our wells, the things that are generated directly from here, which our wells are in we we have very good water that actually comes out of the wells that we have here. Um but we actually do above and beyond that. We want to make sure our citizens like right now we're actually going to be some independent PAS testing throughout our system that is not required at the state. Um so we are um we're going to do that just so we can you know keep a keep a handle on what's going on. We work directly again with city of Concord on their work that's going on um in their system as well. And we do have 10 places that we take in water. So, what we try to do is balance getting those the ones that are, you know, if you saw that article the ones that do have some of the higher PAS levels, we're trying to balance that out with some of the ones that are on the lower end of that spectrum. So, uh yeah, we we test more at least as much or more uh than any of our other agencies around because again, it's very important for us to put good water out in our system. But I guess I guess the question and I don't know if you got the answer that you were looking

for, but the question I guess the question that I have clarification is that's already included in the budget, those ongoing tests and and right. Yes, it is. It's part of our maintenance. Actually, there's there's a line item in there. You can look in it and see where our testing is. Um but yeah, it's already in that that's already in there. One one of the things that I think we're going to see over the long hall locally, and this isn't unique to us, everybody in the country is going to see this. Um but we'll certainly see it here is that the cost of of removing this from your water supply will become you know higher and higher. So for instance you know we don't treat it here but that doesn't mean Concord doesn't have to treat it.

Well we pay a rate to Concord and that'll be that'll be passed along to us in rates. So I think that's what Brian is foreshadowing when he says Concord says expect maximum um rate increases. I don't know what our maximum is. 5% I think. Four. Expect four for indefinitely because they just spent $30 million. Yeah. To to upgrade that plant. And and that has to go out to the rateayers. And

I think over time we'll get better at finding forever chemicals as well. Just we we historically have done that in water treatment. And then we'll find new ways to to treat it, which these are all good things. I don't want to act like they're not, but you're always paying for these these types of industrial issues at some point along the chain. I think it's cheapest, and you guys hear me advocate for this a lot, to regulate it out. If you don't put it in the water, you don't have to get it out of the water. That's the cheapest. Um, the second is, okay, now it's in the water and we take it out,

right? Um, if you don't do either of those, then you pay it in health care and loss of life and and things like that. This isn't this isn't a sprint. Um, but just like any anything else that ends up in our water supplies over a long period of time, they cause health concerns and and you don't know the full extent of them until you have a generation of people exposed to something, right? asbestous and lead and and so you know POS is is no different than that. POS um like lead is not just an exposure for

your water though. Um much of what we consume in in the water bottle, you know, I have my stainless steel one here. I don't know if that's helping me out all any or not, but um you know teflon and all of our plastic products um the um shingles on on these roofs. Anything that's water repellent has this in it. So um this is something we've really integrated into our lives. So, we didn't regulate it well

at at source and now I think throughout the nation and and certainly here re locally we're going to have to um use our technologies to to get it out of as many things as we can and there there will be a cost to that in in consumer water rates which is a good thing. However, if you've gone to our website, I think that, you know, one of the asurances is that activated carbon filters and some of these readily available um rel, you know, relatively cheap uh filters for your water work really well at eliminating that and giving you peace of mind. Okay. Thank you. All of that answers my question that it's already incorporated into lower spending. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Sorry.

Thank you. No, I appreciate that. No, no, you're good. I I have a quick question and maybe this is more for Brian. I see this kind of throughout presentations as far as CIP sources of financing. Like it looks like we have like capital reserve fund. We separate into capital project fund, operating capital or revenue bond financing. What are what are they like briefly? Can you tell us?

Oh, sure. Um that that breakdown between capital reserve and capital reserve capital project is for me. to know where those projects are classified. They're either in the multi-year uh capital side or they're in the operation single year side. So that is completely for me. They're both coming from the standing capital reserve fund balance that's funding all of our capital projects. And then if we plan on financing it, we'll go ahead and um label that as revenue bond financing. So we're not deducting it from the reserve in the financial model. And then we have a grant line there as well that we always have to deal with. However, if you are interested, capital project fund means it's multiple year.

Okay. And and the operational capital is is one year. Everything else is a a Brian. Yeah. Like for this one, I see revenue bonds starting next year. Does this mean we're going to have to have bond referendum or anything or is it just we issue a bond? Bonds don't require a enterprise from the enterprise side. But that is what it is um signaling is that we would be going out for debt on one of those projects in the coming years. Any other questions for Jonathan? Thank you, sir.

Appreciate it. John, why don't we go ahead and take our 10-minute break now and then when we come back, we can start with um town clerk and then HR, planning, and engineering. How's that sound? Correct. All right, let's come back here at 10 after

Of course, he's got that.

All right, everybody. Um, in the interest of time, we will get started. We will have, um, Janet given our town clerk two quick things before we do that. I wanted to make sure that we were keeping up with our action items so we weren't stuck with a long laundry list of things at the end. So, I just wanted to double check with everyone. I've got on action items two things. One was further breakdown of the manager roles on the admin chart and the second was looking at the ADA and Greenway budget allocations. I know you mentioned that's part of our council assignment, but those are the two things I had. Did you have anything else on there, Rob? Also, um, Councilman F asked to look to see if we could do the combined fire building, um, police and fire building in this budget rather than

than moving forward. Okay. And then the second quick thing is on your slide handouts, they are going to send us a digital copy of that. So before you reference any numbers in that, make sure you get it cuz there is one um, discrepancy we found on the slides. Um, I think it was on slide 13 in the packet. The operating budget is actually 52 million. I think it says 30 and change on that one. So, just wait to get the digital copy of that if you're going to reference those numbers. Yeah, there could there could be some some minor discrepancies. We did find that one. So, just the digital is the correct

and we'll email that out to everybody. It'll also be cleaner if you have the digital rather than trying to snap any pictures here. Perfect. All right, Janet, we are ready. All right. Good morning. Good morning.

So, we're going to talk about the town clerk budget. See if we can get So, what is a town clerk exactly? If you go to different towns, you're going to get different answers because we kind of have our hands in a little bit of everything and it just depends on each town's preference. But there is a core set of responsibilities that all town clerks have and those are um things like serving as the official custodian of town records including ordinances, resolutions, contracts, meeting minutes, coordinating town council agendas and meetings, legal notices and official documentation. Uh maintaining the town seal and ensuring compliance with applicable statutes and ordinances. uh because I have been here as long as I have also include a little bit of town historian in mine. Uh there were seven employees when I started here total. So seen a lot of change in almost 26 years. But uh in t in town of Harrisburg, we also I also uh administer the uh property and liability and workers comp insurance uh insurance administration is u part of the duties as part of my duties. Uh we maintain the records of town vehicles, facilities and equipment and serve as liaison between the town and the insurance vendors and claimants. Also as assistant HR director, I support all HR operations, assist with safety and wellness programs, oversee the performance evaluation program, maintaining records, reports, and operational data to support town operations. My five-year trend, I think, is looking pretty good, pretty stable. Um, not there are no asks, no additional asks this year in this budget, so no big changes. Um, we're working on a digital records policy and this is a multi-year project.

Really started last year and when I say multi-year, it will really be most of the towns and cities that I've talked to. Um, some of them are 10 years into it and are still getting through all the departments because you can't do all of it at one time. They generally do one department at a time because it is such a big project. But the first part is we have to identify and uh sec a secure digital platform whether we're going to do that internally or whether we're going to find a platform externally to do that to store all of our records. We have to develop a very detailed digital records policy and submit that to the department of natural and cultural resources for their review and approval. And once we get that done, which will probably be in next year, we'll have that approval. Then that policy will come to you all for consideration. And then we'll start to develop and execute that imple implementation program which um what I'm seeing in a lot of places is they start with the finance department documents and then HR and then just kind of move through departments year by year because it is you you not only have to digitize as you're going forward but now we have these 50ome years of paper records that we've got to get digitized. So, and that's my

youend. You win today so far. That's the goal. Are there any questions for Jan? Question. Um, I do have a question from Rob. Maybe this is just an action item while back. You sent out the council reference guide. Yes. And some of those things probably need a scrubbing or an update. And Rob, that's not house on fire stuff. Left hand doesn't agree with the right hand. We just need to do a little tight there. Okay. Yep. I will get with you and find out which ones you're thinking of because they should be updated. Okay. Thank you.

Next up, we have Tahisha with our HR update.

Good morning, Mayor and Council. It's a pleasure to be here with you this Saturday morning. So, for time sake, I'll skip over my agenda, but I'll go through all the items here. So, organizational chart. I'm excited to introduce to you our HR team, which is myself as the HR director, Janet Rackley as our assistant HR director and town clerk, and our two HR specialists, which really they're the meat and potatoes and they make it happen for us, Jalisa Nichols and Taylor Martin. a five-year trend. We're pretty steady um with our budget to actual. So, we're really excited about that. We've been doing a lot this budget year to make sure that we're staying consistent. So, in everything that we do um in HR, we try to strategically not try, we do strategically align it to the mission, vision, goals, and values of the town. I think that that's really important. And in us doing that, we develop programs for high performing engaged and future work study um future ready workforce. Rob speaks a lot and you guys see a lot of the things that's being done and presented to you all and we have a great team behind us that do it. And so part of our job is making sure that we're we're showing the value, the appreciation and maintaining that culture. So we do that by promoting well-being and professional development. And our ultimate goal is to create initiatives that make us that employer of choice. And those are guided by our town values. And we work strategically with our department heads um to create a a workforce ready operational excellent and long-term organizational long-term organization for success. And in doing so, the programs that we come up with, we make sure that they're cost effective, but we also want to make sure that they're meeting the goal of being engaged in support and recognizing our workforce. So, you'll see that

throughout with some of the initiatives that that we offer and that we're asking for. So, our organizational impact, this is not a um a complete list, but I felt like this was some areas to highlight for recruitment and retention. We're very strategic in our talent acquisition from our frontline staff to our executive leadership staff. We have targeted outreach and we have an enhanced recruitment marketing that we do with our communications team to make sure we're getting the best of the best. We administer um our classification and compensation program and that's supported by annual market benchmarking. Um, we're probably one of the only ones I know in this area that does it because it's a big undertaking every year, but it allows us to make sure that our positions are staying within the market and we're not lagging behind three to five years and then coming to you all for this major catchup. And then from an administrative standpoint, my staff um, we manage the employee life cycle. So from the time of hire to the time of separation, everything in between, it tells a story within their personnel file and there's work to be done with that. Under the leadership and workforce development, we oversee the performance management processes. Uh we promote leadership training and career development opportunities. And we're currently looking, it's going to be something down the line, but to actually do our own in-house training. Um we've been going to some of the Cabaris County trainings. Um, thanks to Ellie, we've connected with their training coordinators and how to develop your own in-house program. So, that's something that we're looking for down the future. But right now, we provide webinars held by our partner vendors. And then, um, one of the things that I think is important is we're doing a lot of great things here in Harrisburg. And so I was invited by Central Go um Central to come in and actually do a presentation to other HR professionals about our healthiest employer, how our wellness program, how

do we do it, how how are we highlighting it, how we're being recognized. And so that was kind of nerve-wracking but fun but fun at the same time. And then our staff, both our HR specialists spoke before the youth council and they talked to them about recruitment and retention. um they gave them some tips on how to interview um what how you should dress for that opportunity and it was pretty it was it was really cool because hearing from me they're like uh you know she's a little you know maybe up there to have someone that they could relate to um to really talk about the things that we're doing here and how to put themselves in that position I thought was really cool and my team was really excited to be a part of that. Our other true topic is is our employee benefits and well-being. We've put a lot of work into that. Um HR is part of that executive management team that shape and execute our innovative benefit programs and then we get to implement it and administer it and come up with any strategic enhancements that's necessary. We've talked to you guys in nauseium about our flexible employer contribution program which we're all really excited about and so we manage that from beginning to end. Um, we promote our well-being program which is our three P program where employees get points for going to get their wellness visits. Um, eye exams, dental for attending lunch and learns, attending our wellness fest. So, anything wellness related, um, there's opportunity for them to get points and they get a day off for that. We host our annual employee appreciation event and that's just a way of saying thank you to our employees for all that they do for us. And then this year we've um actually have helped to organize the breakfast with the town manager which um based on the feedback from Rob has been going um really well is an opportunity for us to talk with them about any hot topics that we might have going on at the time or any initiatives but more importantly for them to have an opportunity to talk directly to Rob

about anything that they may have or want to you know see within the organization and he can respond directly instead of having that middle person. So that has gone really really good and we're really excited about that. So we do that on a monthly basis. And then lastly, no one loves this about HR, but we do have to do the compliance and risk management part of it. And so we develop and implement personnel policies and SOPs um for our department. We maintain personnel records. And I'm really excited about this and you'll hear about this a little bit later in my presentation, but about our safety program. Um it helps us to reinforce a a strong culture of workplace safety and also accountability. We mitigate legal, financial and operational risk to the town and then we make sure that we have our compliance training done each year to make sure that this is a great place to work. So HR by the numbers, we have 131 full-time employees, 10 part-time, 101 active and inactive seasonal. So, they kind of rotate in and out. We've hired 19 employees um full-time this year, two part-time, 23 seasonal. We currently serve 11 departments with our staff of four. We have 10 benefit vendors and we administer 19 benefit programs, our accomplishments and accolades. So, administration, this is our ninth year um winning goal for the safety awards that's presented by the North Carolina Department of Labor. Um, this is FIRE's first year as gold and I'm really, really excited for them because I think in my nine years of being here, I think this is the first year we've hit gold. So, this is a big accomplishment for them. Um, we were the first in Cabaris County to participate in the harsafe workplace. So, besides Chief Dunn, I think we all can save if anybody, you know, is not feeling well, I think we can help out a little bit because we've all been trained in that regards. Um, we

applied for the North Carolina League of Municipalities um, risk control safety grant and we were awarded that for 2026. Um, thank you to you all. We were able to do the Christmas angels this year and we made a lot of little kids happy and so and a lot of families just in general and brought just joy, general joy because a lot of times for parents who can't afford it, it's a lot of pressure and the holidays are not as happy as you would think. And so we took a lot of pressure off of those families and had a lot of smiling faces. So I'm excited about that. And then as we talked about, we won the healthiest employer, not just for the Charlotte region, but for North Carolina. And I can go on and on, but told me I only have a certain amount of time to talk today. So, one of the new um benefit offerings that I would like to talk about is and is is a shift in some of the things that we're currently doing and I feel like is a more modernized way is an employee recognition platform and um some of you may have it at your current employers where um you get accolades for different things that you do and you're it can be peer-to-peer, it can be manager and you receive points and after you receive so many points Then you can purchase items and items can be personal to something that you may like. It can be a air fryer. It can be a gift card. It can be a variety of can be luggage. A variety of different things. And so right now we have a traditional star and annual ser service award where we do an award ceremony and we give out crystal awards and they're really nice but a lot of times people feel like do I really want something else that's going to catch dust? um we noticed that our award ceremony is not attended as much as we would like and so we put a lot of funding and time into that and so we felt like that was only reaching a small population. This program would reach everyone. There's a lot of positions

within an organization that don't get the big recognition but they should get some recognition and so this platform will allow for that. In addition to this platform, we feel like it'll improve our internal communications through like reminders, announcements, visibilities into people's accomplishments and their accolades. It'll better align with their lifestyles and individuality, like I said, as far as being able to pick out something that they feel like is rewarding. Um, it allows for that peer-to-peer manager recognition that align with our town values, so we can push everything back to the town values. It allows for benchmarking across departments so we see who's doing what and against other agencies um that's like ours and it allows for us to have an engagement scorec card that shows participation the retention and most importantly the overall employee satisfaction. So our next um innovative benefit offering is um if you look at our FAC plan the whole purpose of that plan is to say okay wherever wherever you are in your phase of life if you're just coming out of school and you have these student loans um child care and you need help you have an elderly parent you need that financial assistance it covers the one area that we knew that it didn't 100% cover and we're finding in just from our research and and doing um seeing what others are doing. This is one area the retirey medical is where we're not competitive with our peers. And so, do we like that? No, I don't like that. But, um it's an opportunity for us to really kind of, you know, explore. So, one of the things that I talked with Rob about this year is of course we want to make sure everything is cost-effective. And so we came up, this is conceptualized and it can be adapted, but we came up with what we felt was a modest tiered retirey medical contribution for employees that's based

on age and service. What we believe it will do is strengthen our workforce continuity by promoting longer tenure um through our employees and it'll help reduce turnover cost which is about 50 to 100% and 50% of salary. And the strategic retention target here is our mid-career employees who host most of the institutional knowledge for the organization and the experience for it. And the good news about it is it's designed to be cap predictable and fiscally responsible and phased in over time time to protect the town's budget. So the eligibility you have to work for the town for 15 years and be between the ages of 55 to 65. You must retire directly from the town in Harrisburg. And a retirey medical benefit will be paid up to 10 years. So you may have somebody who retires at 55, they would get 10 years, but you may have somebody retire at 62, they'll get three years because they'll be up to that 65. And then the retirey medical payments are issued in tiers. So if you look to the right, if you're 15 to 19 year, you'll get 300 a month, but if you're 30 to 34 years, then you would get 600 a month. Now, the only difference here is you'll see where we did grandfather a group in because we didn't want to if this program is approved to roll out a program that that negated our uh our current tenure folks that might already be age 65 and who has given their time in life to the organization. So in saying that, anyone who turns 65 within the first 5 years of the program, they'll be paid out that 10 years the same way if somebody had retired at 55. And if you look over to the right for 2026, the the annual budget would be 37 almost 38,000. And if you look down at 2030 to 31 is 86,000. Now, and that's

assuming that everybody that is eligible to retire retirees, which we know that that is not generally the case. So, okay. Next. Yes, sir. You want me to go back? Yeah. Go back to that for a moment only because I know like the county is facing a they have a large later in life they have a large population of retirees. Um would this be written in a that it could be phased out. I mean, when you look at where we're at today, 7 8 12 18, you're not going to go bankrupt in in that regard.

Um, 10 years down the road, you know, you got 50, 60, 70, 100, whatever. Now, now you're talking about some significant dollars and how that works, right? Is there any any direction to write it so that it could be challenged or phased over time based on participation.

Yeah, absolutely. I think in every policy we create has that out um so that you can phase out, you can grandfather people in and so nothing is concrete. is going to be based on what we can budget for, what we can pay for. And it may be we get to the point where it may handle, you know, we might say 10 years from now, cuz we did do a 10 year um to see what it would look like in 10 years, and it's not much different what you see from the five years based on our current employee population right now. But like you said, if it went where to a point where it wasn't affordable, we do have the opportunity to look at it and say, you know what, we're going to cap it. the people that was here before, they have the opportunity to people sorry for the people that's coming in. But that's not unusual in within organizations.

The easy the easy way to fix that would be just everybody who's in is in and then have it come up for renewal every year and say, "Do we want to continue this?" and then have Brian, you run the ROI to say, "Hey, you know, it's easier to recruit somebody than it is to make them sticky." But on the surface, this seems pretty reasonable. If we lose somebody, this is pretty cheap. You're I'm I'm with you. Yeah. Because you know the the financial company that I work for, I know like in 2008 they came to decision. We're no longer doing pensions.

You know, you got what was there. It's sitting somewhere. Who knows where? But it's there. But from that point forward is what you're saying. It's no longer viable. It's not an investment they want to continue. I just want to make sure that while this looks great at at the front end, you know, 15 years down the road, it could be quite cumbersome.

Yeah, that that's that's how this is built is that it can be eliminated at at any given year. There there were a couple of parameters that I had on this when when Taiish and I were um building it out that finally got it, you know, to this this program. One, it had to be a defined contribution, not a defined benefit. So, not a pension, right? Not a not an unfunded liability. This is something that you get a certain amount per month and and these numbers are even subject. This would be the initial program, but obviously council can make these numbers higher or lower as part of an annual budget process. Um, also that it it's it's already has a a very defined cap. This is for folks in government who tend to, you know, especially in our our public safety realm, they tend to to retire earlier than private sector employees and they generally have to retire earlier. They physically can't do the work.

And so when they, you know, get in their mid to to late 50s and and they retire, there's this gap between when they retire as a government employee and Medicare eligibility. And so getting folks from early retirement to Medicare eligibility was really what we're looking at after after that then you're you know you have retirement options as far as is this. So it was capped there but also um just the annual amount when we went and looked at this over the long horizon you kind of have the same amount of people falling out is falling in. So there's a ramp up that you see here which is why she kind of shows it in in this regard. it it kind of just levels out if if you keep these same monthly numbers at that 100,000 a year and just kind of stays there. And so my thought with this program if it's approved would be just to preund the first, you know, 100, you know, whatever we got first 10 years. I think it ended up coming out to be about 250 and just create a set aside account. Brian will work his magic and and make uh you know four or five percent on that and for the first year I don't expect anybody to to take this. So that 37 all of a sudden you're not you're not having to spend that out and that 40 you're probably not having to spend out and you're adding interest to it. So this becomes almost a self- sustaining fund on the on the back end of this. the people that retire at 58 who are kind of really high performers and have done a great career, we don't generally replace them with people that also have 30 years. So you you you save money on that side of it. So th this tends to pay for itself very easily and actually be a cost savings to towns if they're structured the right way. what what you tend to see towns do, which I'm very fearful of, is say, "We're gonna

promise you a benefit." Um, and then that's it. We'll fund it later when we owe you the benefit. And so those defined benefit plans tend to get way up there to where towns like Morrisville, I think they have like a 20 or $40 million unfunded liability on theirs because they have a defined benefit that they promised people. Canapolis is even higher than that. This is a defined contribution. We know exactly how much. It'll never be more and it's subject to council approval every single year. Thank you. Thank you, Rob. Two two questions. Yes, ma'am. Um,

so we call it medical benefit, but it's really just like a monthly payment like a guaranteed direct pension payment. Okay. And as far as the number of eligible to retire, it's cumulative like seven in the first year plus one more in the next year or is it every year seven? No, it's it's cumulative. So the people that would be eligible in 2026, they're included into the next. Okay. Okay. Yeah. We had discussed a requirement to turn in proof of payment for some sort of insurance premium to get this reimbursement. So I'm considering a reimbursement and that helps on the tax and the pension side as well because otherwise it's just a deferred compensation.

Yeah, I I like that idea are getting medical premiums. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Any other questions on this benefit?

Okay. So next session planning. I think Rob talked about this a little bit when he was talking about um John and moving into the new position. So, we're looking at um this as a new strategic initiative where we can do this across the town. It's proactive. It's a structured approach and what it'll do is help us identify critical positions that we have within the organization. It'll allow us to access assess our current talent, develop that talent, and then build leadership and technical bench strength based on that talent. And the goal really is to reduce the disruption of having that critical position and then now they're gone and then what do we do from here? So, it's really looking at um the town's long-term vision, looking at operational comm um continuity and strengthening our internal talent pipeline. We often speak about our high performing employees. Well, high performing employees want to see some action. And so this is our way of saying, hey, we're investing in you.

You keep investing in us and being productive and doing the things and now we're investing in you because we know that you don't just want to stay here in your career. You want to continue to elevate. And so this will help us with increasing retention and employee engagement and advancement and being transparent about that and and making sure that we're aligning with the future organizational direction as far as staffing needs are concerned. So coupled with that and John is going to help me with this whether he knows this or not but I know he's done this um with his former employer is a mentorship program. And so we feel like this goes basically handinhand with the secession planning is you're identifying those employees and those employees are identifying themselves that hey I want to learn from Rob I want to learn from Lee. I want to learn from Tahesa um and what they do and how I can figure out how did they get where they are and how I can figure out to do those things. So it definitely again um it's all about employee engagement. And I know a lot of you probably within your own organizations after 2020 employee engagement kind of went down and we've been strategically trying to figure out how to ramp it up. And so we think that this is a good way for us to do it. We're creating leaders. We're building skill development and there again my idea, Rob's idea is for us to be that employer of choice and it's just another way and initiative to help us get there. So now let's talk money. So, we talked about the retirey medical. You won't see that within my budget right now. We just wanted to present that to see if that's something that you all are interested in, but I've had conversations with finance and they said yes, we can afford it. So, it's just really what your desire is in regards to the program. But changes to our operation budget as we proposed. Um, we've included the breakfast with the town manager into the HR budget. We did do an increase for the holiday party um

just because we have way more employees now and the cost of everything has gone up to include our the recognition program. Right now that's at 14,800. But if you look to the right, we're spending about $3,000 now on the awards and the reception that we have for the service awards and the star award and all the special recognitions. Um and so if you look um the net cost to the ads and the program is at 158. But if you look at the net savings per employee is $52 per employee because if you look at our employee recognition program for 140 employees the cost is 106 an employee. If you look at our awardies that's just 19 and it's about 158. So, I feel like we're getting more bang for our buck. Um, we're including more people into the fold and recognizing more people. And I think that it will add more value um to what we're trying to do as an organization. And with that, I'll take any questions.

Um, I just have a couple of questions because I'm having a hard time discerning the difference between the employee uh appreciation event, the holiday party, and the awards. Okay. And and my question is if we can get this calendarized, I think it's great if all of us could be there for the appreciation just to say hello and thank you. And yes, I think Rob planned doing and send out an invite this year for the employee appreciation um event, but we can do that. I'll work with Janet to make sure that these things get added to huh. Yeah, I think it's June 12th. Okay.

So, we do a annual event and it's been great at the Canon Ballers. um baseball game in Canapapolis and so we do a buffet spread there and the employees enjoy the game and they bring their families out and it's it's really really a good time because all these things get I don't know if it's the star award it's the appreciation it's year end thing but I don't want to miss a chance to say thank you to I appreciate that and then as far as employee uh like I I know they wear like branded shirts and all are we paying for those or do the employees pay for those if they wear a shirt that says Harrisburg Town and are they require required to wear that.

So I I don't know if parks is required to wear it. Um I think it's recommended that they wear it at our events so that they can be identified. We do have a bucket for new employees that they get to I think it's a certain amount allotted and they get to get new swag. Um for us, a lot of us have swag already that we've had budgeted over the years. So we still have that um a lot of that clothing as well.

I I don't know anybody buying their own branded stuff here. I I I don't want him to get accosted at the Publix, you know, with, hey, how come the water's low or whatever, but uh but it also speaks to, you know, what you're doing with the signage and everything. I mean, we have 100 plus employees who are ambassadors of our town and should wear it with pride and think of a question, but I don't know if they're on the hook for that or we're on the hook for that or we we you'll look through um the detailed budget. Everybody's department has a branded material um and we pay for that. Yeah, it's it's stuff that we buy. I think the Chiefs like 2 million a year in t-shirts or something. Yeah, there's more Harrisburg Fire t-shirts out there than the Hannes.

Uh, no, this is wonderful. And I I think there's only so much we can do with money. So, these other programs, the mentorship, the succession planning, the awards, all of that makes us sticky in the place that people want to be. So, applaud you on that. So, thank you very much, Disha. I think it was what February, March of 2021 when you came to us on all this. Yes. You know, and and we pushed back to you that night to say we'll step up. We'll give the the extra cash and the the uh bonuses per se for working during COVID and everything else, but we realized we had such a big gap

for me. see what you've done over the last five years is amazing. You took this and it wasn't that you just said, "Okay, I'm gonna do it." I mean, and I get it. There's there's others involved. I know finance is involved. Rob's involved. I give you the accolades today because you took this boulder and truly carried it up the hill for everybody else and said, "I'm not just going to do this one little thing or one little thing here. You owned it and thank you." It was a big ask. It was a very big ask that I think we had to be creative. So, well, thank you guys very much. Um, I'm passionate about what I do. You know, Rob and Leo tell you, I'll sit in their office all day and

champion behind because I believe in the people here. I believe in what we're doing here in Harrisburg. So, it makes it very easy to do this work. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well done.

Thank you. Next up, we have Shellyley with our planning department. Good morning, and I appreciate the opportunity to present the planning department's uh budget for this next fiscal year. So, although a small department like many of our other departments in the town, we are mighty. We we push out a lot of work in uh assisting the organization meet the vision and goals of the town. We have six positions. The planning director position not only leads the department but is responsible for long range planning in the town. My position of assistant planning director handles department operations. We have two planners a senior planner Matthew Gman. He is his responsibility is to be a project manager on more of our complex cases. He's also the lead of the development review committee meetings. Uh our newest member is Parvis Masubi. He is a project manager. He handles more of the administrative, smaller, less complex projects for the department. He is also our pre-application meeting coordinator and he supports uh the planning technician duties when Carly is out. Our veterans in our department are uh Carly Bedgood who is our planning technician. She's the department admin. She's also the secretary to the planning and zoning board and board of adjustment. And she also handles and reviews issues all of our over-the-counter uh administrative permits. Then last but not least is our code enforcement officer Tom Leser. Uh he is responsible for all the code enforcement action of

both the municipal code and the unified development ordinance and he is also our field inspector for zoning compliance for all new development. The department's mission is to provide the highest level of planning to our community in order to ensure sustainable growth and development consistent with the town's vision, mission, values, and goals. So, our planning department responsibilities really fall under two umbrellas. The first would be the long range planning umbrella, which guides growth over the next 10 to 30 years. uh this is done through visioning and adopted plans. We are responsible for the oversight of the development of the plans, maintenance and implementation. The most important plan with uh with regard to development and land use is your adopted community plan. The town currently has uh an adopted Harrisburg area land use plan which was adopted in 2018. So this is the doc the guiding document for growth. Currently we have embarked uh this fiscal year on our first uh strategic comprehensive plan or one Harrisburg plan. Uh as seen this is a very communitydriven plan that requires a lot of public engagement for its success. Plans are not good if they just end up sitting on the uh shelf. They are not implemented or they not developed by the community. Uh this is a blueprint for development and land use over the next 10 to 20 years. Other plans that we implement are small area plans, corridor plans. They include transportation plans such as the highway 49 corridor plan, town center overlay plan and the Morehead West plan. The other umbrella of responsibilities in our department are related to current

planning and that is implementation of codes, plans and and uh permitting. So we take all development from pre-application conference all the way through to building permitting. We are the gatekeepers for development and land use within the community. We are the lead for the development review committee. We worked with all the other departments in the town depending on the department to ensure that we are meeting our vision and goals of our um town. So we handle administrative permits. They include over-the-counter permits, construction documents in coordination with the development review committee or the DRC final plat. We handle quasi judicial uh petitions which include special use permits, variances and appeals. All of these go to the board of adjustment. We are also responsible for legislative applications. Uh these go to the planning and zoning board for recommendation and ultimately come to you for decision. They include zoning map amendments, text amendments of the unified development ordinance, plan adoptions andor amendments and annexations. Now one of our most important responsibility is for the maintenance, enhancement and implementation of the unified development ordinance. This document houses all of our uh development regulation and land use regulations and it is the primary tool for implementation of our adopted plans. We are also responsible for uh the various board meetings, the planning and zoning board, the board of adjustment and of course presenting any development applications to the town councils. We also are uh host the neighborhood development meeting. This is scheduled once a month and it gives an opportunity

for uh applicants and development teams to present their proposal to the commute surrounding community community in which the project is proposed. Uh code enforcement includes again nuisance violations, zoning violations and inspections for certificate of zoning compliance and we are responsible for ensuring that information on our website such as the de development map is updated weekly. I want to provide a few statistics for Ellie. So if you look at the upper right hand corner, uh this represents uh calendar year 24 and 25. These are over-the-counter permits. 513 in 2024 and uh 495 in uh 2025. Uh the pre-application uh meetings, this is where applicants or developers reach out to the town just to pitch a development. This is our opportunity to determine whether their proposal will be in keeping with supporting our vision and mission uh of the town. Uh they do not always move forward and translate into an actual development that is successful. So development reviews uh plat quasi judicial this should be low. This is when people are asking for appeals or variances from the code. So having small numbers is very good. Uh legislative acts are uh primarily reszones or zoning map amendments. These type of projects actually uh straddle calendar and fiscal years. They sometimes take over a year to process as well as annexations. Our five-year trends. We are uh on task with our budget and actual trend with

the uptick this year that represents the uh plans currently underway. Capital improvement plan. We have two assets in our department both related to vehicles. There's nothing proposed within this next fiscal year. So our fiscal year 27 budget initiatives again everything we do uh we are looking to support our vision and mission goals and values within the town. So this current year we embarked on a very important initiative and that is the the initiation of developing the town's first strategic comprehensive plan. So we'd like to stay on task to ensure that we get all the way through implementation. So the purpose and goal of this is um that the one Harrisburg plan supports the town's vision and roadmap for development. The outcomes of this initiative is to clearly understand uh the town's vision and goal transparency of the town's direction as it relates to development and land use for our residents development and business community and to identify initiatives to guide the town through the implementation element that will be within the plan. Measurables will be the adoption of the plan this fall uh and the number of initiatives incorporated into future CIP or budgets and annual reporting on the implementation element of the plan. The next initiative is uh titled the UDO reform. Uh we embarked on this project again this year. We have successfully completed a UDO assessment report that was presented to the council earlier this year. We need to take the final phase 2 action through next year which

will be the actual updating and reorganization of our unified development ordinance. Again, this supports the uh it will support uh the one Harrisburg plan by establishing regulations that implement the uh plan. It also supports the mission of a community by choice by enhancing development regulations in areas of sustainability, housing, land use, and design. Outcomes of this action would be to ensure that our development regulations are consistent with North Carolina general statute. Uh we would like to add development regulations to enhance our tree protection uh ordinance, sustainability, housing, and develop uh subdivision design. Uh it also provides us an opportunity for uh a more clear communication with the development community. Measurables on this uh initiative would be the actual adoption of the UDO. Uh it should result also in the reduced development review and permitting process and times and ultimately should result in a savings of about 11,000 per year. When after this is adopted, we can um disengage with a uh we currently house our UDO within code. And so by doing this, we're taking back control of our UDO. It will be manned within our website and we will no longer need that service. Another initiative would be the downtown small area plan. the development of this plan. This is actually already budget budgeted. The purpose and goal of the development of this plan would be support again the one Harrisburg plan by establishing regulations that implement plan initiatives and vision of the

Harrisburg downtown area. The impetus of development of the downtown should also be a goal uh of this action. outcomes. Uh we'd like to help facilitate the downtown as a place of commerce and gathering, further establishing the community's character. And within the plan, there will be an implementation component which we can target actions. Measurables for this uh initiative would be annual reporting on its implementation, tracking new businesses and development with the um economic development division of the town as well as CIP projects that are identified within the downtown area. The last ask is related to expanding GIS resources for the town as a whole. We'd like to have on call services with Central. This ask comes out of a um assessment, a GIS assessment that was done for us earlier this year and it's still being vetted out, but it gave us two pathways. One for on call services, another uh identifying what if we were to take it in half, what staffing needs would be. So, this is a ask. It would support the goals of providing self well-maintained dependable public facility systems and services by supporting planning and operations of the town outcomes. Better infrastructure tracking such as greenway, sidewalks, roads, aiding in project identification as well and provide readily available data and reporting through GIS uh through the GIS system which is visual mapping. measurable would be tracking the actual amendments of our GIS layers and um how we use our data for reporting and applying for grants to support the town as a whole.

So that concludes my budget presentation. I'll be glad to answer any questions you may have. I I Good. Okay. on the development statistics when we look at the um the applications understanding that sometimes they don't move forward for whatever reason we track why they don't move forward we do regardless of the reason

yeah so sometimes they're withdrawn sometimes uh they propose something that they're not willing to uh I'll say get in sync with the vision of the town So um we work very hard in ensuring that every project that comes before the elected body or that we're approving um upholds our vision of a community of choice and distinction whether it's the architecture um and uh architecture or transportation improvements and some developers just may not want to meet the expectation of the town. So, and and that's okay. They typically will just withdraw early before it gets before the elected body and that's their choice. And um that information is housed in where? Like if they just of why we Yeah,

it's typically if you would uh we have that information and if you would like to meet with us, we can go through every project that's been withdrawn or or or so forth and uh explain where it stalled out. I mean, I'm just curious if we're talking like, you know, what the why is and if we're seeing a lot of something, are we how are you addressing that? It's not really. Once they apply, once they apply, uh, we've already vetted out through our pre-application process, whether it's in keeping with our long range plan.

So, we get phone calls daily on proposed developments. And if it's just not in keeping with our already adopted plan or our values and goals of uh the town, we let them, we are very direct. we let them know upfront and it's their choice if they'd like to proceed.

I guess I guess my question um is also if if we if that information is housed in a digital space, right? So let's say let's say in a year or so we want to say you know what a couple of these things have stalled, right? and we want to know why and is there something that we as a council or we can do to figure out why and why so many are stalling especially since we're trying to grow in that in that economic development and commercial for our so I guess that's why I like to I like data and I like to look at it to see why and are there themes that we're seeing are there um trends that we're seeing so and and if so where is that housed digitally because because at some point something god forbid something happens to you. We want to know like you know where can we go and find this information online or who's keeping that information.

It's typically in the notes on within if they actually apply and withdraw is typically within the notes

of the project. So we don't keep a separate database just for uh you know why someone removes themsel and again sometimes we don't know 100% why they just may decide that the financials aren't working for them and choose it'd be easier to go to another jurisdiction. Uh they may deci yeah there's there's multiple reasons. It could be uh that we as you know we are doing important projects on uh highway 49 to en ensure that we have good access management and enhancement. we may not meet the business model they want for access into their site, you know, and that's okay. Some projects, you know, we don't know the fine details, but we generally get a gist of why they're withdrawing.

Yeah, we saw something like Hickory Tavern was wanting to go in over by Publix. Everybody was excited. But during that time from when they started to where they made their change, it was based on a financial decision, right? Sometimes, right? Their company looked at their overall landscape, realized they were growing too quickly. They scaled back and said, "Something's got to go." Harrisburg, unfortunately, was the victim on that one. Mhm. I mean, I think we're probably in the same situation with um the old pizza place Hawthorne.

Yeah. That they have approved plans. So, we have approved plans sitting there that due to their own personal reasons, they could be financial or partnerships, they don't come back and pull the trigger. We do, especially projects that have gone all the way through the system and we know will really benefit the town. We do keep in contact with them reaching out to them every few months to say checking in. Is this still a viable project? Are you moving forward? Because it helps us keep track of uh if they would need to resubmit, are their plans going to expire? So, we do track that way. Mhm. And Farmington,

I was going, you know, Farmington was approved in I think 2006, 200 somewhere in that time frame. I'm looking back to you guys. I mean, it it was on the books long before I even got here. And it was because of they hit when they were ready to go. The housing crisis hit in 2008, like get out, you know, and then the economy didn't really start to turn until 2021 when they really came back to us. So mhm a lot of these things that get pulled back is nothing negatively here as much as it's financial impacts other yeah is exactly what I was thinking about is that's been kind of like

stop and go stop and you wonder like why

right well that's primarily um the private sector on that one we've entertained uh we we're starting to see an uptick again on their plans but financing in the private sector has changed as well that they're not going to do a lot of spec buildings unless they already know they have leases in hand. So, a lot of the delay on the projects uh are based on the private sector and their financial and business model. So, uh we have some great buildings in process uh coming up in Farmington. Um they're just trying to ensure it fits their business model. Yeah.

So, just a couple of things. Uh, I know we have Ryan's back there somewhere and we want to accelerate economic development. The answer can be no, by the way, but if the quicker we get them to a no, they can go move on somewhere else. So, it would be interesting to see the metrics and see after we clean up our hot mess UDO that it's easier and that we're less sand in the gears and before and after. So, I'd be interested in seeing those metrics. You know, time to process was 65 days. has been cut to 45 days. And again, not asking you to compromise our standards or or lower the bar or any of that, but if if we have a way to see those metrics similar to what we see the response time for the police and how many fires we put out,

here's how many permits we processed. Here's the average turnaround. That very interesting grab that line because that was the second part. The metrics exactly are we improving start to finish. Um and then and two more themes. the uh you said annual reporting on the downtown. I'd love to see that quarterly or every six months. I don't want to wait a year to find out that okay downtown is abandoned again. So um and then the third theme that I would bring up is as we get bigger as a town and what do you say Rob? Grow into our shoes or fit fill out our pants or something. Who knows? I'm always throwing.

You got to go there. But um I think it's probably thematically important for us to start leaning on each other. I mean, if you're not an IT expert and you're like, I don't know how to run a CRM or metrics or a website or anything, we have resources where you guys can start to pair with each other and say, they've asked me to produce this report. I don't know anything about AI. Can you show me how that works? And yeah, lean on each other. Uh, and then I mean, that's a natural progression. Used to be jack of all trades, but you know, right down the middle. Yes, Ellie has helped us quite a bit in producing data. Mhm.

I would just be really cautious and let's be thoughtful as far as like tracking the number of days and how quickly they turn around and approve things because I really want to make sure that we're being thoughtful and what being approved and what it looks like and details matter, you know, and like once we have something already there approved and built, it's going to be too hard to turn that around, dig it up. Yeah. So, you know, there's already like existing things that people don't like about certain like things in the 49 corridor. So, I, you know, maybe it's good to know how many days it takes on average, but I don't want to push them to,

you know, hurry up and approve this and let's get it done and then people will suffer. So, for clarity, that was not my ask. No, I I heard you loud and clear. I want to know what that looks like. Not asking to compromise anything, right? Okay. But I'll see to to counter what you're asking. The builder's lobby is pushing so hard against the municipalities right now because exactly what you said. We're being methodical. We're taking longer.

Builders are getting upset because it's time and money for them. I I guess they have a a scenario where they figure they can capture lightning in a bottle at this, you know, specific time frame. And if they can't get in sooner, then they go back to the state and say, you know, you guys need to push on these municipalities to let us come do what we want to do. So, it's a it's a fine line that we have to walk.

Yeah. One thing I could say is that, you know, it's nice to work in the community. I've done this for 30 years that has a clear vision and expectation of quality for its resident, fights very hard for its residents. We have a great development review committee which touches every department in uh the town as well as we worked with uh NC DOT and the school district and so we are methodical in our plan review um and every department touches the project because we don't we nothing worse for planners to drive by a project going oh my gosh oh I missed that. So everybody here does uh lends their expertise to the plan review process and what you see before you in making your decisions.

Yeah, I remember now that you brought it up um I think um police mentioned uh like when I think Hawthorne was being kind of proposed, they looked into the original plan was going to be straddling both counties and they said, "Okay, from like police perspective, this is going to be very complicated. Yeah. So, they kind of shifted it so it's all in Cabaris County like the the housing and stuff and just makes it so much simpler for that department to manage what they need to do from like security point of view. So, yeah, that's that's a good point. It's important that every department reviews for what they're looking for in that development, right?

Any other questions for Shelly? Thanks, Shel. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right, Devin, you're up just a little behind. We got time. Good morning, mayor, members of council. Uh, I stand between everybody and lunch and uh, we're a little bit behind, so I'll try to engage ludicrous speed and get through this. And if you know that reference, please help yourself to a piece of candy. You deserve it. Space balls. Old Tesla.

All right. So, I'm I'm proud to be here and uh present to you the engineering and storm water budget and what we do here in for the town of Harrisburg. Uh so, start off here with just uh a quick overview of some of the things we do through the engineering and storm water departments. And you can see those those green tabs here just general project management for for most of the projects that go through the town. uh construction services and any of these projects be it private or or publicly funded. We we do most of the con uh construction inspection and making sure everything's good to go through that enforcing those in infrastructure standards and field engineering services. uh we participate in the development review committee working very closely with planning and the other departments to make sure that the developments are designed and everything is happening according to our standards as well as well as uh state and federal standards. uh storm water services. We administer the town's uh storm water MS4 permit. Uh I will not try to pronounce that, but there are for the storm water separate storm water sewer. See, I can't say it. There's four S's in there and I always mess it up. It's a tongue twister. But we administer that. There's there's six main criteria that we are adhered to and there's a lot of administrative and fieldwork that goes along with that. Uh and then permitting we go through the storm water the water the water and sewer permitting process through NCDQ with that as well as all the permits that go through NC DOT that need to be done and then GIS we'll go through uh the next slide which I'll highlight the GIS technician um we did have that position filled shortly. It unfortunately did not quite work out with that candidate, but it was an eye-opening experience uh for us as a whole because we did learn that that

position was very in demand. We need a lot of work from the GIS position. Uh that triggered the GIS study the that central did for us and we are still working to see what exactly we do want. So before we fill that, we want to make sure that we have our bases covered and that we do it the proper way. So uh we want to make sure we have everything covered. So that'll that'll stay until we figure out exactly what we want to do there. So moving on here, you can see our budget in engineering just kind of stays relatively steady for now. And those are the numbers that go along with that graph. Our 10-year CIP just for engineering is pretty simple. We really only have the vehicles that we account for in our department. And storm water again just pretty steady and the numbers that go along with the graph there. And in our storm water CIP, we do have the two main CIP projects. the storm water area improvements and then you see the storm water spot drain improvements. Uh I'll get into some more detail of those as we go through the capital projects fund the 5-year trends. That graph looks a little bit funky. I'll explain that here in a bit once we get to the that the main reason is the Piccadilly project and we'll get I'll get to that once we get a little bit further down. So this is the the big fun, right? we get to talk about the capital projects coming up and John alluded to a couple of these. So this is the Rage and Ridge project that uh is proposed. So the the main CIP project here is to add sidewalk on the western side of Raen Ridge Road. If you're familiar with this road, as you drive down, you'll see there are

five catch basins that are kind of floating out there. They're curb inlets. You can tell that this road is not in a complete finished state. Those curb inlets are actually loose and they're kind of just floating out there. Uh it's not built to the original design state. And we did take that road over back in 2020 and it's just been it's been there. So we want to bring that up to a a safe state and make sure those basins are safe so nobody ever falls in them for whatever reason. And we want to add the sidewalk along the side to bring it back to more of a town standard, make it look a lot better and more pedestrian friendly. Uh, as part of that, the CIP itself is to add the sidewalk, but in going up towards that, we would like to move forward with getting those storm drains corrected with current storm water funds this year. Uh, so we're approaching that as a couple different angles. Um, I've got a couple of contractors that are working to get me quotes on that. And then there's the possibility that storm water has may have the ability and potentially time. They are busy, but we're looking at that as two ways to see which one is most appropriate and if we can handle that in-house this year. And then you can see also at the top of the screen, you see the pink line, the existing greenway that goes through there that connects to the Camila neighborhood and then also over to the Berg Church. We would like to connect that over to Raen Ridge Road and then over to the sidewalk that goes the existing sidewalk. So there's a complete connection up to Stallings. Uh that would be great. that would include a pedestrian crossing. We're working with a couple of contractors to get quotes to build that connection with current year annual greenway funding that is that we have. So, we're working on those quotes that would include a pedestrian crossing there. So, that would add a lot of value to this sidewalk project and get that once all of this is completed. That would be a great addition to the sidewalk network network and greenway network in this area. The next capital project is the

pedestrian connectivity improvements. This is um not a specific identified sidewalk or pedestrian connection project. This is what we intend to do is do more of a a study of the town overall and identify gaps and areas where there are opportunities to improve pedestrian connectivity throughout the town. And from that we would develop be it a single project or multiple smaller projects throughout the town to knock out some of these areas and provide sidewalk projects or potentially smaller greenway connections throughout the area that would be the most benefit to utilize this funding that we're proposing for this year's budget. Um there's some design and PE funding that's proposed as well as some construction funding there. And just to point out, this is with the with the comprehensive plan that went out that's been going on through the last year. Um, greenways and trails was one of the top four things that that was pointed out for most emphasis in the next five years. And then satisfaction, the walkability of Harrisburg is one of the things that had one of the one of the lower scores in that category. So, this is this is aimed kind of at satisfying some of those survey respondents. So, that's one of the things. And so we'll work on making some recommendations as we move forward. And once we have some some identified, we'd move forward with recommendations and see which ones we we would move forward with. One of the next is the storm water area improvements. That was shown in the storm water CIP spreadsheet earlier. This is a capital project fund. So to Brian's explanation of the difference between those funds earlier, this is a multi-year fund. So it has the ability to grow as opposed to having to spend that smaller amount in one specific

year. Uh some of these projects will very likely cost more than that one single annual amount. Uh you can see two of the projects that are potentials for these and just some of the things that we found that need attention over the next couple of years. Some of them need them sooner rather than later. Um and on the next so this is proposed at a total amount right now of $600,000 and that's spread out over four years and so you see these two that are done and on this next slide you can see Piccadilly which was just completed about two weeks ago and you can see the before and after pictures there. Uh, and this goes back to the slide where you saw the gap with the funky graph and this the flat bottom, right? Um, the reason for that gap is because we had multiple years of this of that funding wrapped up in this project originally. We had gotten with a storm water consultant and they gave us three recommendations. All three of those recommendations were very expensive. Um, none of them were were They weren't bad choices, but they were just expensive and they weren't very feasible necessarily. And John came from Morsville and he's like, "Well, hey, we had something similar and this is what we did. Why don't you give that a shot?" So, we reached out to a few companies and they had this innovative idea. Kept us from having to open the road and close down access to four houses. Saved a lot of money. So, we were able to save a lot of money. And this is this is by all research and everything and by their saying is a great product and it provided great results and they were done in three days. So that's way better than anything we could have we could have hoped for. So so kudos to John for bringing that to our attention and it opens us up for

a lot more work that we can get done with that. So

moving on to our innovations, initiatives and efficiencies. One of the things um that I would like to do that we're proposing to do is if you see kind of blurred out in the background, this is a dashboard that my staff and I in Concord created in the transportation department and this tracked all of our assets from bridges to curb and gutter to streets to to you name it that was transportation related. We had done a a comprehensive inventory and just tracked it in here, mapped it and everything. It was extremely useful for for anybody internally that wanted to see what we had and where we had it. But it was great for planning. It was great for insurance and reporting purposes. So if it you know I know finance has annual reports they have to put out and risk has insurance requirements that have to note out all of our it's instead of it being let me look here in these different places. It's all in one place. So staff will do this comprehensive inventory. We already have a lot of the data, but we'll put it all together and do a final comprehensive inventory of all of it, put it in one place, and then depending upon the final results of the GIS study and needs, whether that's inhouse with our staff or if it's on call with the GIS study, we'll develop this dashboard and then we'll keep it updated and everything and that'll be a great efficiency. So, we'll use that and that doesn't really have other than depending upon how it winds up with the Gastec in-house or what that position is. That won't have any budget impact. The next one is to modernize the townwide storm water control measure and inspection tracking. Currently, this is a the a neighborhood has their ponds and their SCMs throughout their neighborhood. Currently they are required to email us a annual inspection every year and my staff and I we receive those emails. We log it in a spreadsheet

whether that and then there's a line item that says is there deficiencies is there not and we have to follow up with that and did they pay their fee? Did they not? It's cumbersome and they have a form whether they updated their contact information. Um it's just cumbersome and we we keep it up. This this we don't have it identified yet, but there's several different systems that we'll research to develop which one will be the most beneficial to the town for which system will allow them to more readily input their information in an electronic more sustainable system and get that information to us so that we can track it more autonomously and more effectively. Uh so the budget impact is once we finish our research and everything with that and based on our recommendations we'll develop a budget and then that'll be recommended probably for next year's budget next budget cycle rather um to be implemented then uh the next one is a covert inspection process improvement. This one won't have any budget impact. This is uh last fiscal year we were able to ident uh eliminate a an annual contract for $80,000 as part of our MS4 permit requirements. We have to inspect 15th of all of the outfalls throughout the town. The storm water outfalls. Um so that at the end of five years we've inspected 100% of them. There's about 650. Uh and just because of staffing, how it's worked out over the last years, we had been doing uh a contract to have that done each year. And since we're back up to full staffing in the inspection department, we were able to get rid of that contract. But as they were out there, they realized, hey, we can be looking at these coworks, too, since we're already visiting most of them. So, we'll add that in. We'll add in um a separate inspection so they can fill that out because that's not part of

the requirements. So, that'll add in that efficiency. And then we'll we'll step it up a notch and since not all culverts are attached to real outfalls, we'll visit all the other ones as well and just loop it all together to make mimic the outfall inspection process with a covert inspection process so that there's two kind of concurrent so we can identify problems that you see in these pictures more proactively and make sure we're covering our bases and not missing anything. Um, and again, the budgetary impacts there are really just staff related and time related in developing inspection programs and stuff like that. So, and I think that's that's it. I don't know if that was ludicrous speed, but um I think I think we're good there, but I will take take any questions if anybody has anything at this time.

Any questions for Devon? So the modernization pieces that you were talking about, those are just for our awareness that you're going to be bringing them to us for the next fiscal year, not fiscal year 27. If Yes, ma'am. And if we can find something that is that is that fits and and is inexpensive and works, then we'll implement it as soon as we can. But if it's something that is that requires us to come forward with with something for the budget, then then we'll bring

I just really like the idea of doing that sooner, especially with the risk component that you addressed as a part of your presentation just as the way that we're seeing natural disasters and the intensity like the amount of damage we're seeing after those. I mean, I think that helps protect us as a community. Absolutely. Yes, ma'am. I like that a We're we're having we're having the the first step of that process is to make sure we have contacts for everybody that has SCMs. We're we're months into whenever a property changes ownership, that new person, if they're not told they have to update us,

they don't. And we have properties every year that don't update us. And so we spend three, four months before we they don't reply to us. and then we spend three or four months trying to figure out who we're supposed to be to. Then it takes them another two or two months to comply. So it's just a long process. So that's our first step is to get that and then we can move forward there too. So awesome. Thank you. Everybody's hungry. They're giving us

Okay. All right. If there's no other questions for Devon, I think we can we can wrap a little bit early. Um, look at being back here at a quarter after to to start back promptly where we will have the incomparable Chief Brian Dunn lead us for the afternoon.

Perfect. Welcome back from lunch. Hope everyone's bellies are full. Thank you for that delicious meal from Olive Garden. And next up, we have our esteemed uh Chief Brian Dunn that's going to give us our fire budget proposal.

All right. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Uh the fire department budget proposed for next fiscal year. Uh we'll briefly go over an overview just for our two new members um on the board. The rest of you have probably seen all of this many times, so I apologize. Uh just a brief history. Uh you can see the patches that we have gone through over the years. and Harrisburg Volunteer Fire Department did celebrate its 50th year in 2004. It was established in 1954 as a Harrisburg Volunteer Fire Department, as were many volunteer fire departments formed around that time. Excuse me. First fire p fire paid fire chief was in 1996. We transitioned to a paid staff in 1999, hiring 10 full-time firefighters. As many of you are aware, we became municipal fire department in town in 2006. We opened station three in 2016. We were able to relocate and build fire station 2 in 2019. And then of course our signature specialty program, our North Carolina State Water Rescue Team was established in 2020. But as many of you know that have been in Harrisburg for a while, we've done uh boat operations locally for quite a while. Just an overview of our fire stations. Uh pretty pictures that were taken. Station one's on Morehead Road, which houses 18 fire personnel. Station two has 15 fire personnel assigned to it along with station three. And those are over a total of three shifts. Also, our fire administration building is on Morehead Road located directly across from the fire station itself. And then you can see a picture of our training grounds that is by our water tower behind fire station 2.

So some brief numbers from 2025. You can see to the upper right we responded to 3146 calls and the chart below that shows the number of the nature codes that we were dispatched to. So say medical call is that number public service hazardous condition and so forth and so on. uh dwelling fires. You can see we responded to 47 of those. The chart to the right, you've seen that like you saw Monday night. That is an overview of 2025. So, of those 47 dwelling fires, 18 of those were actually working fires or fires that caused property damage. As far as our 90th percentile performance or response times, you can see total overall that was at 6 minutes and 54 seconds. So, pretty good. And also reminders that we do have uh mutual aid partners in Cabaris County, city of Concord, and um Meckllinburgg County. So budget overview, you can see our 5-year trend about like everybody else, uh steady and strong. As far as our capital projects fund in 2024, we did not have a project, but you can see 25, 26, and then 27. that is the uh repair or the ordering of the engine company that should be delivered in March of 27. Here's our organizational chart. You can see the fire chief along with our deputy chief of operations and then our admin chief, fire marshall and logistics lead our management team. capital improvement plan for buildings and grounds and we'll go over these as later in the presentation. And for our vehicles, we have no vehicles in FY27.

As far as equipment, again, we'll go over that. Again, some building and grounds and fire apparatus. We do have one coming up in FY28 are proposed. So, going into our capital projects. Oops. So, our storage building, as this was alluded to earlier by Captain Nash, the picture at the top right, you can see our 2000 air wooden storage building. Many of you have probably seen that visiting our open house or whatever. So, at this point, uh you can tell just from the aesthetics of it that it's seen its better day. Structural issues, wood rotting. Uh it does have a second floor in it that we're not able to use because we can't get a rating on that. So, the same picture to the bottom right that Captain Nash showed, again, this will be a about a 44x40 metal building and a partnership with the sheriff's office for UTV storage and other storage for the fire department. We'll have a concrete foundation, an insulated and climate controlled uh like Rob mentioned earlier that we did for the turnout building a couple years ago. So, our portion of that funding is at 76,500. The total of the building is about 1760 square ft. Uh 1,280 of it will be used by fire and then 480 will be utilized by the sheriff's office. Uh station one apparatus pad repair. So you can see from the picture to the right uh our apparatus pad was replaced uh I think about 18 years ago. So you can see when you have large fire apparatus they go over it daily multiple times eventually in the weather that we have eventually you're going to have cracks and that nature. Uh what we do have is an opportunity maybe for partial funding for this project through the Duke Energy Duck Bank project that's going along Morehead Road. Uh we'll know more about that in the future, but that's certainly an opportunity that

might exist. The total funding for that at this point uh if funded would be $30,000 and again less if uh Duke Energy takes on some of that project. Next up is our SCBA replacement. Uh so these were purchased in 2012 and they were actually and I forgot about this but they were actually purchased with a assistance to firefighter grant uh in 2011 that the fire department did receive. Uh to the bottom right you can see what a new firepack to the far right looks like and another airpack to the left is what actually we have in service today. So three new updates have changed in NFPA standards since the purchase. Of course these are critical to our employee safety while operating in immediately dangerous life and health situations. It'll give improved interoperability with other agencies and the total funding for this would be about 450,000. Uh we will apply for a grant for these again uh next year. We did apply for a grant this year. We're not awarded that, but those grants have to be uh given out from the federal government by September 30th. So, we'll know pretty soon whether we got that or not. Next up is gas monitors. So, we tried to change this a little bit. So, there's two different monitors to the right. One is a four gas monitor that monitors four different types of gases. And the one to the bottom right is a new style which monitors five types of gases. So, the ones at the top right, we purchased those in FY14. Of course, at this point, parts are harder to obtain. Battery license limited. So for the new gas monitors, you can see some of the combustible gases that it will dictate. It's designed to give personnel more information during emergency response and again providing

more safety. And we did uh apply to the HR safety grant as Taiisha mentioned earlier. We were able to secure one of these uh through that grant as well. UTV replacement. Uh many of you seen this vehicle to the top right uh what they call a hyjet Japanese truck. Again, we purchased that with uh grants uh through fire or firehouse subs. Uh the work was donated by Hendrickk Motorsports. Of course, as being a 1999, the parts are harder to obtain. It's a manual transmission and a lot of younger folks don't know how to drive a manual transmission

and it's only designed for two personnel. So, the new UTV is similar to what you saw last year with the sheriff's office. Very similar designed specifically for emergency response, greenway responses, and things of that nature with a budget of about $35,000. Extrication tools. So, to the right you can see the department's first generation battery tools that were purchased in 2017. As everybody in the room knows, if you're a car person, vehicles have changed as far as the metals that are used and the composite materials that are used. And so you have limited capabilities with our first generation tools. The new tools are designed for newer vehicles and have greater capabilities, shorter extrication times with than older tools with these new ones. And again, about a budget of $100,000. So take if anybody's ever heard of boron steel, that's pretty much what they're using today in these new vehicles. And it's much more difficult to cut. The cutting power of our old tools is about 60 tons. These new ones is about 175 tons. So a big difference. And last but not least in the capital is we want to add another SRT trailer, special response team boat trailer. It's a deployment style trailer designed to carry additional equipment. You can see it's a double stack trailer for two boats. If the bottom boat doesn't have a motor on it, for whatever reason, if we needed to put a third boat on there, we could actually do that without the motors being attached. If you can see towards the front, the front area is for both motor storage. And the cost of that particular uh trailer is about 49,000. The advantage to this is that you'll read in the justifications is most teams in North Carolina are using something similar or this particular brand. So if we went on a deployment and we had

some issue and needed some piece of equipment from another truck or a tire or whatever it may be, uh you can have those interchangeable while being out in the field and that takes up capital. So just a few operational changes we wanted to note. Yes. Ask a question. Go ahead. The pad replacement that you talked about and there's a potential for a grant for that. What was the timeline you were waiting for a response? So, it's the Duke Energy Duck Bank Uhhuh. project along Morehead Road. Um, where they go in and do something that I'm not aware of. I think Rob knows. They do something electricity,

but anyway, they'll have to take part of that apparatus pad and tear it up anyway. Okay. So their obligation is to put that back so that it would be new concrete. So yeah. So not so not a grant. They're putting that extending the electric line underground on Morehead. So they're going to go through and cut that up. So if we were to do it right now, they're going to come in and tear it out. Okay. So we're just trying to coordinate. They have to tear the old stuff out anyway. have them put new up to whatever they destroy and take out and then we would finish the rest. If we had to do it all, it would be I think 30 grand is what you had in there. The proposed cost but is the difference of what we would be responsible. Now

the proposed is for the whole cost like if they were just to not come through timely enough. Um but potentially we'll coordinate with them and maybe cut that in half. So, I don't know what that time looks like. No, I just wonder if that go I just wonder if that creates um the potential for damage to one of our very expensive trucks um or like you know what the risk is in waiting. Yeah, that would be the there isn't a risk right now, but that's that's the condition that we're looking at. If we were start to see shifting,

you know, right now it's just kind of cracking and spalling. It could probably it might be able to go a very long time if you start to see settling and move then we just got to do it and then they would have to come in and saw cut brand new concrete out and put brand new concrete in. But

so along those same lines, since we paused there for a moment, when I got the book last night and I was going through these requests, I I a myth on why we would charge the fire department for repair work to concrete that's part of our building and maintenance. I mean, you know, when I look at what what needs to be done, in my opinion, that's not Chief Dunn or any of his staff's issue. Um, and it's not a an item to do their work. It seemed like it would be no different than like a sidewalk repair out here or whatever that we would take it as a general issuing maintenance type issue as opposed to charging it back to his.

Yeah. So there's no chargeback, but the only way you would have that is if all you put all your facilities into one facility line item. So for like public works, like they built their building, they paid for their building and we put we assign it to their budget, right?

Um fire like station two when we built it, it was a fire project. This is the same. This is station one's parking lot entrance pad. So that's why it lives in there. But you know, from an accounting standpoint, general fund, you could have one fund really. You just say general fund and we put everybody's stuff in it. It's just a matter of saying what what is this spending for? If you had no fire station one, would you otherwise be spending it? No.

I mean, I just, you know, when I I'm I I do the quick budget where I I I scan and look for the big numbers and I'm like, "Okay, take me right there. Why why are this are these numbers big? And then I see in there, one of those is that we're repairing a cement pad and I'm going that's not really him. I mean, I get it, but I Yeah, they I think it's unfairly crediting or there's increasing their budget. Yeah.

Yeah. There's two more slides and he gets to all their maintenance and repair building and grounds. So if you look in fire, it does split out like what what fire is spent out. So you know how much is for salaries and personnel and those type and then you know what it costs for them to maintain and repair their buildings and vehicles and and all that good stuff. Um I think it would be well I'd let Brian speak to you know what the industry standard is. It would certainly be a we'd be diverging from anything we've ever done at the town to to have one united facility fund.

Yeah, there's a little wrinkle in that we we have to classify all general fund activity into either public safety, general government, parks and wreck or transportation or environmental protection. Those are our buckets that that we're allowed to put cost in in the audit report. And so while we could break things out, hallways and buildings and grounds, we would eventually have to was a fire related benefit and report it as a fire expense in financial statements. So it is, you know, probably more appropriate to to make sure you always keep those costs budgeted and reflected in that that area.

Thank you. I I got a quick question. Um for the 450k 450k for the school book, is that for a specific number? Is that just for in general? Because I think you showed it, but you didn't have there was it was for replacement of Is it a certain number? I think it's about 40 40 of them. Yep. Okay. And then if there's a grant you said you applied for that specific

FEMA has what they call assistance to firefighter grant, which we've received several over the years. Um, and these air packs that we have now were actually bought with that in 2011 or 2012. So, we applied for that again in last fiscal year, but we didn't get it. Um, but they have to give those grants by September 30th. So, you know, this budget won't become effective till July 1st. So, you know, it's not that immediate where we would need to order them July 1st. We could order them, you know, after we find out if we get this next round of grants or not. So ideally that does that grant cover the whole 450 or is it a portion of it or why? It's an 8020. So 80% federal, 20% uh local. Okay.

A lot of times on those grants too, they want to see that we have put the expenditure in our budget. We committed to it on our own and then they feel good about coming in and funding the 80%. But it's really hard to ask for something and not already have it in your budget or your plan. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Did you all get a reason for why you didn't get the grant? last year. It's a very generic letter. Too many applications and not enough money. Chief Dun, how many of these gas monitors? So, we that would be three additional. So, we we were going to get four, but that's for three. So, one of them came through the HR safety grant. Okay.

Before we leave capital, that new vehicle, are we able to the mission of that vehicle there? Yeah. Would that change at all based on the functionality of this and the fact that it's not a straight drive? And I'm thinking about all the events that we do. Would you deploy that differently and say, "Yeah, it's going to be out at 4th of July." And would it need any extra equipment, first aid, first responders stuff on that's not included in this price? No, everything's included in that price. The the bid actually came in at 34 something.

Okay. I'm just thinking at the airport I see, you know, the golf cart with a stretcher on the side and all that, but it it this is fully functional and I love the one at the top, but it looks more like a clown car. That one that's great for July. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're not actually sort of busting. Well, that's like, you know, being Japanese, I'm sure it's very reliable. And also, you know, you guys are learning all the other life-saving skills. I think driving a manual is a skill you've got to have. So, I can do it. Come save you. But the newer ones are not from our generation. They're paddles. Yeah. The one at the blow is the best generic picture we could find. Okay. So,

but it but it'll be fully outfitted with correct lights and buckets and all that stuff. We'll do that in house. But yes. Okay. I you know I don't mean to like but you know a thousand here a thousand there and it's going to be millions of dollars in budget but um as far as the boat trailer is it really a necessity at this point? Um because I think you guys already have one. So we currently have two two. Okay. So what we've committed to is we're the local resource for Cabaris County for water rescue. Mhm.

Uh we're also the resource for the state of North Carolina. So this would be a second deployable trailer that we would take with us on deployments. A lot of times what happens on a deployment is you get there and we send six or 12, eight people and then the coordinator or command will want to split those teams up to better cover an area. So that would allow that team to do that and have the same resources for both of those teams while they're on deployments. We get reimbursed when we go outside of Cabaras. Correct. But we can't um apply for a grant for it or share those costs. It's fully reimburseable from I mean this 49k. No, we cannot share that cost.

I I mean it's a it's a great thing. It's a wonderful thing that we want to do that. But we're just, you know, going into these tough times where real estate's probably going to go down. Potentially next valuation will be lower. So if we keep adding these things then we're going to keep have to maintain it you know I feel like we really got to be really thoughtful like I want every department to have everything they want but like we been scaling you know and maintaining at every level so it's just something that I wish we were a little bit more thoughtful on

I mean to to your question is how often do we find that we need to all I If we're going outside and assisting like we did in the hurricane, I could see right there was a need to have more than one. But ho how often and I I I asked myself that last night was um allows the team to deploy two separate teams trailer simultaneously different locations with different deployment areas. In our dayto-day though um are we seeing that a lot a little? So daytoday here, no, we're not seeing that a lot. But what we have seen when we went to Helen and when we went to Debbie, both times the teams were split up and went in different directions partnering with other teams that were there.

Okay. So we did see that on on both of those occasions. The third time that we got deployed, we never left Parisburg. So um but I would imagine same thing probably would have happened. And I think that ties into what part of what Devon and our conversation with him was just the readiness piece and the in like the frequency of natural disasters and the intensity like of the damage on behind them. Yeah. I mean it just all depends on what the weather does. Yeah. I know.

It's just, you know, it's great that we want to do all these great things for the county and for the state even, but you know, we're asking our residents to pay tax and that's what we like in the fall during elections like that's all we heard about like how much they're paying in, you know, real estate tax like the state is going to be coming down and putting some potentially restraints on that. So we really need to be thoughtful as far as you know what are all the things we want to add because we want to be these great citizens of the state you know

so I don't have a return on investment but every time that trailer goes out on a mission it's reimburseable so there's there's a daily charge there's a mileage charge that we're able to get back now is that 50 years out because it doesn't go anywhere for 20 you know I can't promise that but there is some reimbursement All right. All right. Just a few notable budget changes in the operation side. As far as maintenance, repair of vehicles, we did see about a $26,000 increase in that, and that's basically from uh the shop raising their hourly rate uh just to the increase in basic parts. We did add a new line item of vehicle demobilization, which basically is when we ser surplus a vehicle, we have to take radios, lights, everything that we put in it back out of it. So, we wanted to capture that and be able to budget for that. Uh, maintenance, repair, building grounds. We did add a new line for or Brian did add a new line for HVAC unit repair and maintenance. Um, so that's going to be very well received. What we find is often times we have those issues and we really didn't budget for that. We're also going to replace some furniture station two for 4500. That's a new item. As far as contracted services and buildings and ground, uh John talked about this a little bit earlier. Cleaning services for the admin building. That's a new item. And then once we get the station 3 warning light maintenance up with NC DOT, we'll have a new item there as far as maintenance on that uh project. training. We are adding a uh initiative to have some in-house new hire training. So in in order to do that, we needed to put them through an agility test. And this is just one of the events that they would go through. Call this a Kaiser

machine. Basically simulates uh using an axe on a roof or some other event. But this is basically called a job related physical ability test. And we al also do this test. If people are out on medical leave and they come back after a certain period of time, they have to complete this before they get back on the truck. Can I ask you while you're on the trading piece? Um I noticed I I think we used to have like two females and then last time I saw it was just one female like you have a female here in the picture. Like are you guys doing any additional outreach to make sure that you have a more diverse um employee base?

We try the best we can. We partner with the C4 event with the chamber and and all of those folks. So, and that that's a very diverse crowd that comes there. So, we do have two females right now at this point on the fire department. Chief Dunk, where um is this training or like exercise completed now? So, all this would be stored at the training grounds and be completed down there. So part of what else they would do would be utilizing part of the training tower uh that y'all graciously gave us a couple years ago. There's some simulations that they do for that. So this is this is just one piece of the puzzle. This piece of equipment is not $8,000. There there's several other pieces within that.

Wish I gave you a better image. Um but like where do they like do we get this training or like this activity somewhere else like at Concord or Charlotte? Where do you go? So, right now we're really focused on right now we're really focused on lateral hires. Um,

so there there's a few recruit classes out there. Um, but the, you know, the traditional way of we used to do it where you would do it a written test, an agility test like this, and then you would do an interview and a chief's interview. We're really trying to get back to that because what we find is even on some of our lateral hires um they have some deficits in their physical train that we need to identify before we pull the trigger to hire them. Okay.

And again, our special response team program, which is our water team, uh deployment uniforms, trying to get all them uh to look the same. So, that's a new line item in there. Uh there is a conference we put in there that they did attend this year. We want to put that back in there for next year. We have added some Garmin satellite communicators and supplies and PPE. Basically, what the Garmin satellite communicators do is just like a satellite phone. uh what we found on deployments again, whoever the team leader is, trying to keep up uh with with where the teams are if they go out in the field because our radio systems uh that go off towers are not always reliable and we certainly found that out at both Debbie and Helen. So, this actually works off satellite communications uh just like a Starlink or something like that. So there's devices to the bottom right. You can see in that bottom right picture very similar to that if not the same one that'll track those folks when they're away from the command center and we know exactly where they are. If they have to communicate back to us they can ping their location that they are at and we would know what that is. You'll see a lot of uh my understanding is a lot of uh people that do running in wilderness areas or or those types of races use those to track their progress. So we found that to be Chief Wooten found that device. Imagine that. So uh we we thought that would be a good addition. We don't want to lose our people. And with that that's it.

Any other questions for Chief Don? Thank you sir.

All right. Thank you all. Next up, we have our information technology with James. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Happy to be here to present the information technology budget proposed information technology budget for FY27. Here's a look at our organizational chart in our department. Uh myself is information systems director and uh Frankie Flores is our technology services specialist. So look at uh our 5-year growth trend. Um it's as you can see it's remained on a steady growth path. Nothing too drastic from year to year. Here you'll notice a slight increase uh mostly due to uh technology security tools we're hoping to implement this year. Uh capital improvement there's nothing on the FY27 but uh I think what you find is we tend to work with other departments within their capital improvement uh and their uh operational budgets. Um this year uh there'll be more security related uh access control surveillance type stuff uh within other department budgets. uh buildings and ground and and uh those areas. So uh the core functions of the information technology department uh we are not really a public facing uh department. We are internal and uh we like to say that we support the people who support the people. So our main goal is to provide them uh provide our staff with the technical tools and reliable communication that they need to uh

provide the high highest quality services that they can to our citizens. Um beyond that uh we uh pride ourselves in maintaining our electronic data security and the physical security of our facilities. Um beyond that we implement, manage uh and monitor our network systems and uh all related backup tools that we have. And then uh another function we do is the audio video presentations uh of council meetings. Uh we archive those uh anything to do with other boards, planning board, you know, those types of things. And in some town events, uh you'll notice a lot of upgrades. In this room in particular this year, uh we've had an ATM device for streaming, a new soundboard, uh obviously monitor upgrades, things of that nature. So, one thing we did this year is we implemented a new ticketing system. Uh this went handinhand with moving away from our previous uh remote management and patch management software. It tended to be or I'm sorry, uh solution. it um tend to be a little unreliable from that standpoint. So we migrated from CASSA to Aera and added a ticketing component to um to that as well. So that uh gave us integrated uh email communications with that and that onboarding was just completed in February. Um but again it also includes that remote remote remote management pardon me um aspect uh the system monitoring patch management and it uh also gave us the ability to create a knowledge base uh which is uh we're look looking forward to growing that. Uh our inventory database is another thing that uh admin has challenged us to

create this year. uh we worked with finance to um basically create a CIP style workstation replacement schedule. So now we've got that uh broken down by department by position that uh scales out for about 10 years. So uh it really really comes in handy. You know, previously you had me with a spreadsheet doing research every time someone asked me asked me a question about it. It might take me 10 or 15 minutes to go find the answer. now it's right there at our fingertips. Um, and it uh, yeah, it's just a lot more conducive to promoting that lifestyle management and I'm sorry, the life cycle management and uh, and the and the usage by staff, keeping that tracked as as things move between departments and things of that nature. Uh so so far this year um we have basically implemented 37 user account uh computer whether it's data and uh application migrations between new devices and and and things of that nature onboarding offboarding and uh we've issued 15 brand new uh laptops this year. So our initi in innovations, initiatives and uh efficiencies uh we've focused on the center goal of the town uh vision, mission uh and goals. So basically this uh has to do with well-maintained and dependable public and safe public facilities. So uh the two aspects we're looking at is uh the physical security. We're going to we're hoping to enhance that through the implementation of ubiquity tools which uh provides

uh basically an innovative uh uh uh access control with with that integrates with surveillance. It adds AI tools, you know, facial recognition and a lot of things our current system doesn't currently have. And then uh beyond that to we're going to implement uh threat shield tools which will do deep packet inspections uh within our network just to kind of try and get ahead of any any um any breaches that may take place. And here's a look at uh the type of tools we'll be using. It'll have pretty robust database, I'm sorry, interface as far as uh monitoring and and dealing with any security incidents that we might have. And so the remaining items we have for this fiscal year is that implementation. It was approved a portion of threat shield was approved for this year's budget. Um that's the T intelligence, the packet inspection. Um the security incident and event management is something that we're uh hoping to put in next fiscal year. Um they will basically allow us to respond instantaneously on on those those anything that's detected. And then uh at the end of May every year we go into Harrisburg Park and we kind of do an assessment of every every piece of equipment we've got in there and and uh see what we need to replace or upgrade or how we might be able to improve things. just to get ready for the 4th of July. So, our plans for fiscal year 27 um is to replace all access control and surveillance throughout the town. That's basically nine locations, three parks, three fire stations, public works, town hall, water tower. Um then obviously the data security uh improvements uh through

the security incident and event management tools. Um, we're going to continue to migrate our in-house server resources, what what we haven't done so far, to a to a cloud. Um, and then decommission our in-house servers for the most part. That all aside from our financial system at this point. Um, we we hope to develop that A Terra uh knowledge base that will basically give our end users answers to a lot of their very common questions kind of right there at their fingertips without having to wait for a response from it. Not that I think that that's a problem, but um let's see what else have we got. Uh, yep. We'll uh work with HR hopefully to kind of streamline the onboarding process uh and any technology related items that that involves and um continue to manage the data life cycle uh to meet whatever needs staff may have. And with that I will take any questions.

How many servers do we have now? How many servers? We have um we have two uh uh physical servers that run nine uh in nine virtual servers within it. The only we only have about three of those that are really viable. Most of our file servers have been have been migrated to the cloud already. We still have financial and uh active directory, you know, account management, you know, type type tools and things of that nature. We still use it for in-house scanning, but uh we're kind of uh that's I guess something we always will keep, but uh we scan to a local file server rather than like directly to email and things like that. The goal is to move all of that into the cloud at some point.

Yeah. Yeah. So, it's it was part of last year's goals as well. Um but that was the beginning of moving our file servers in particular, you know, into uh Teams and and Office 365 and whatnot. So, I moved to a ID or AD or do you know yet? I'm sorry I Entra ID. Are we going to move to like ID? Oh. Oh, Entra. Yes. Yes. We uh currently you have a hybrid setup with that. So we have uh most of our some existing um

enter ID is is Microsoft's online company. If everybody quiet down. I've been waiting for this. So, I I was like a pay-per-view ticket that I've been I I I've been looking forward to this a lot more than you have. Yeah. Okay. Um but yes, essentially we we do most many changes happen in house on our server and just automatically sync up. We've got it setting to sync up every 15 minutes. So, you've got onrem HD and we're using ADFS to sync. Um yes, that's correct. Nice. Are you sure? Come on, Lex. I just wanted to make sure I understood the architecture. You said the rest. See me later.

I'll explain it all. I'll just You got it. That's awesome. It's a nerd smackdown. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Sounds like we're in good hands. So, when we do financial audits, it's an IT audit included. And I'm specifically thinking about best practices. Yeah, there there's a portion that comes directly from our financial audit company that comes directly to me related to physical security of our systems, who has access to the room, um and some several other questions, you know, that uh Brian and I work on a small portion of that together every every year.

A lot of internal controls are are dependent on IT systems and so yeah, that's definitely a big part of the compliance part of the auto. So we get that report as a board every year and it shows vulnerabilities, findings, alerts not not from my audit. Okay. They only um they only opine on the financial statements themselves which have an underlying internal control and IT infrastructure that are successfully operating to give you that opinion on the financial statements. But we don't get any sort of detailed um analysis on IT systems from that audit. in this day and age if it's an extra, you know, few bucks to add in that and let us see, you know, what those vulnerabilities are that could actually help you.

Yeah. Well, that that's a a big portion of why we're beginning to partner with Thresh Shield. Um, they work with international airports and and and government agencies throughout the world. Um, and the thing about is that they will do penetration testing and and give us the answers to that that sort of thing. Yeah, that would be help. We get that little letter back and here are our findings and all that. We see it on the financial side, but on the IT side, that's what keeps us up at night. And are we storing any personally identifiable information here or in the cloud? And yes, we are.

We are. And we've taken a great deal of uh precautions in in the necessary steps to make sure that that's protected. Um it's two aspects of that mostly on on the intake stand uh standpoint. uh that goes through our web host and all of that has what they call a platinum level uh SSL integration to just to make sure that stuff um is is secure, you know. All right. All right. Thank you, James. Sure. Next up, we have Jim Spina for parks and recreation

testing. this I understand. Good afternoon, council mayor. Um, you know, you won't hear any of that technology out of my mouth. You should you should understand everything I say. The second part of that is just because we're early doesn't mean you have to keep me up here for James's extra time. Okay. We'll get back off time.

Okay. As I said, good afternoon and it's a pleasure to be here as always. is I love talking about what we do, parks and recreation uh for the for this uh great town of Harrisburg and all the opportunities that we give our residents. So, the first thing I want to just talk about is our uh our connection and commitment to the town's uh vision, mission, and goals. We focus every day to make sure we help Harrisburg residents uh understand that that they love this community of choice. And my staff and I are very connected to that. We we kind of keep that in mind every day as to what we're offering has got to be the best thing we can give to our residents. And so um I'm very proud of my staff for the the efforts they make every day to make us the best uh parks and rec department in the county if not the area if not the state. We feel strongly about that. And so here's our 5-year trend. you can see it's uh you know steady kind of gone up uh you know I think within that 4% that we kind of give uh I think we do a good job of keeping that in there and I'm hopefully we'll continue to do that. Uh our 5year trends for our capital project you see uh last year was pretty busy and uh a lot of that stuff is still going on. We're getting some some things done but uh little less of an ask this year uh coming back down. So we'll get to that later. uh my organizational chart for parks and recreation. Of course, uh as parks and rec director, I'm up there at the top. Uh below me is Sean Marble, our assistant parks and recreation director. You'll notice to the right a uh a reclassification of uh our uh administrative support specialist into a parks and recck support specialist. We'll talk a little bit about more a little bit more about that uh in a couple of slides from here. Uh then we have our new parks attendant uh park superintendent. We've had that position, but we have a new person in that. His name is Nate Strife. He's done a nice job. He's been with us in September. And of course, our events coordinator, Mackenzie Mackenzie Fernay. I keep forgetting she just got married in December. Keep forgetting to change her

name. And our recck manager, uh, Aaron Kegley Paris. And Aaron has, uh, you know, two wck coordinators, uh, below there, Matthew Lawrence and Avery Smith. And of course, a park superintendent has Matt Miller as our facilities maintenance supervisor. in our uh six facilities maintenance specialists, our four part-time park attendants, and of course, and I've asked again for a couple more park attendants, and again, we'll discuss that uh later on in my presentation. So, our current programs, classes, and camps, as you can see, um we've uh got our baseball and softball, which are offered both in the spring and the fall. Our soccer, again, that's offered both in the spring and the fall. our flag football in the fall, our Pop Warner football in the fall, as well as our cheerleading program that's attached to that Pop Warner program, our winter basketball program, and then we have our adult programs of softball, which is offered in the fall and spring and the fall, as well as our flag football, which is invol which is offered in the winter. And we have other uh classes that we have. We have our weightlifting classes are offered throughout the year and our tennis classes and our football and soccer camps. Our tennis classes and camps are kind of throughout the year as well. and our football and soccer camps uh are in the summer. On this next slide, you'll notice uh

just before we leave that, are we are we going to pick up swimming as a result of the Y? Yeah. Well, we won't. SW the Y handles that themselves, so it won't be part of Harris. It will not be part of our program.

Uh the next uh uh slide is our uh youth athletics participation data. Um thank you Alli for the help with the graph on that. Looks great. Um got to make sure I give credit. Um you can see our numbers in there uh throughout and interesting you know as you look forward here um from starting in FY2020 and then of course the bottom out in 2020 and 2021 given the COVID uh uh effect upon everything uh that we dealt with and then of of course the jumps back up and uh the interesting part to me on this is yes we doubled from 21 to 22 which is a normal thing because 21 and 20 we had COVID issues and nobody played anything. But then you see the double. But even bigger from that is from 22 to 23 we thousand more uh young people involved and uh and then uh you know another 300 and then another 300 and then finally in 26 uh you know a little bit of a level off. And if you go to the next uh uh chart um this shows our resident and non-resident rates uh for 23 24 25 and 26. And this is interesting to us because um you know a couple years ago we we felt strongly that our participation was growing at a rate that we were going to struggle to maintain. Um it was you know with only with only really two rec coordinators and a manager difficult as it is and you do a good job of keeping up with it at the numbers we have now. But if it was going to continue to go up we were going to have a problem. And that's when we all had the discussion about caps versus maybe raising some rates. And we decided to raise the rates on the non-residents. Um, and you can see it did have an effect. It has impacted our numbers and our rates. You know, we've gone from 53% resident to 5if, you know, 56 25 and now this spring we're at 55%. And so it there has been an impact. We have a a not it's more or less plateaued, but kind of dropped a little bit below that those those uh numbers that we had. So, thank you for that

opportunity for us to do that. I think that has been a beneficial uh uh experience for both staff and the programs themselves. When you say resident though, that's ETJ everything. Correct. Or resident is taxpaying residents. Okay. That's how civic w will break it down. So that's not ETJ. So it's not ETJ. That's not correct. That's taxpaying residents versus non-t taxpaying residents. So Jim, in your experience, is there best practice? I know it's going to vary with geography and place in the world and all that. Are we high, low, medium? Is 45% non-resident a best practice or

I mean, if I'm a taxpayer and I love all this stuff, I'm like, "Yeah, but half of us going to the guy." I pref I would prefer to be a much lower number, right? Okay. Um, but I like we like the opportunity it gives to non-residents to come here because it does give us more teams to work with, better competition, uh, a better flavor of the program itself at times. It also gives us access to some very good coaches and people that are involved with our program who feel connected to us. So to answer that question, uh, Councilman F, I don't think there's a number there I could find, but I would like it to be lower. I'd like to see more residents where we could um you know have more impact directly on their their experience here on our program.

At the same time the non-residents going down the participation going up you're going from 2500 to 5,000. So we are involving more residents and non-residents at a lower rate you know and for our own ego right you you say to yourselves why are so many coming so many coming here? Well because we're the best you know we feel that way.

Um they you know they have to pay significantly more. there's, you know, if you're in other communities, you you can pay a lot more. I know Concord has some subsidies that are involved where they can offer a little bit less rates. People still choose to come to us. So, you know, we're we like to we like to, you know, hang that badge, you know, and as we as we can, but it does impact how the program runs, how it operates. It impacts facilities, fields, you know, with all those numbers. Um, the turf is going to be a really bene a big benefit. uh benefit for us but um but it is trending in the right direction you know I got a quick question

yes I got you both I'm sorry just real quick go can you go back to that next slide before I think there was a decrease a slight decrease between um uh 24 and 26 do you want you know why what was going on why that those numbers went down I I believe it's the impact of the non-resident uh increase in the uh registration Oh. Oh. So, oh, there was because that number went down overall it affected all correct. Correct. Yep. You think that's all that was?

Well, I would I would hope. Um, you know, I I always like to talk about, you know, we have 2500 kids on average or, you know, ballpark numbers every season. We might get handful of concerns from parents, coaches, or whatever out of that. Um, so a lot of times that's, you know, coach coach didn't play. I don't think the umpires did a good job. Those those kind of things. We don't get a lot of um concerns from uh participants and families regarding um our teams and how we're set up and our schedules and those kind of things. So, um if if we were getting a bunch of those, then I'd say, okay, maybe we're not hitting some marks, but I believe we're hitting, you know, all most if not all of our marks. I just I really do believe that's an impacted that that shows an impact from a registration increase. So with that the resident versus non-resident slide, do you have any comparison of are we losing when we did increase the cost, are we losing any of our residents because of I mean we might not know the why, but are we seeing an increase in our neighboring municipalities like where they've had an increase in non-resident participants?

That's a good question. I I don't have that off hand, but that's something I could probably reach out to the other communities out of curiosity. I mean, in your free time. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just curious, you know, make sure that Yeah. people here. That's a, you know, that's something to to, you know, pay attention to. We're not limiting access to our We we we are not a tough thing because we didn't want a cap, right? So, we're not Yeah. We didn't change the resident. We did. We We did not The resident rate stayed the same, right? And that was important. And when when talking with Rob and Brian and Lee about, you know, what's our overall phil philosophy? What? And we've done this throughout our program, not just in our athletics, is to make sure we react to our residents to make sure they get a benefit from what we do first. Absolutely.

And and we'll talk more about that with July 4th a little bit. So, you know, we're trying to be more um proactive in making sure our residents get what they what they're paying for and that they're not getting squeezed out by non-residents. Yeah. No, I appreciate that. I think, you know, as everything else increases, families are having to make decisions. Absolutely. So, and we hope we're still that choice, right? That's right. You know, the big picture of what that looks like. And even more so, we've also talked, we haven't fi come up with a final decision on, but we're we've been talking about um as we register going forward in the future to make sure we give our residents maybe the first week or two where they're the only ones registering and make sure they get in. Then we can work with our non-residents and you know, if we have to set some caps at some point, at least we would capping non-residents and not our own people.

Right. Right. Okay. Okay. Um, I'm wondering with the interest rates that went up the last, you know, few years and there's not that many people buying and selling, I feel like, maybe it's just anecdotal my, uh, experience, but not that many people move. So, like this cohort of kids is kind of aging out of these programs. So, I wonder if we're going to see that kind of dip or leveling off.

Yeah, could be. you know, and we do talk I I talk with planning quite a bit and um try to pay attention to how many homes are being built and try to stay with the national averages of what three and a half per house or whatever it is. We try to pay attention how many kids are coming in with that and so we we you know we haven't seen that yet completely, you know what I mean? But that could be something. Yeah. Like I know I think Harrisburg um elementary things are easing off there. But like I think it's just stable population and kids are just growing.

Jim just resigned. He he was tired was tired of the questioning. He got right up and I had to talk to a bunch of dry mouth. Yeah.

Okay. Any other questions about the some of that participation? Uh one one thing is important to notice that um these numbers here um do not include popcorn or football and cheer. We just started using um civic wreck for our fop warner football last year. So that's the first year we had where we can get these percentages in a report. So we are now using it. We'll be able to better better uh answer better speak to the Pop Warner going forward in the future. Speaking of pop order, now we're into we do have uh registration numbers and you can see the those numbers are uh uh interesting there where they've gone from 165 then dropped a little bit then 179 and of course last year's uh crazy boom uh to 257 and you'll see that reflected later we'll have a we have a slide dealing with that with our budget uh ask for that but an interesting part of that and I with something that uh we need need to pay attention because it's an outlier from our other programs is that we have 28% resident, 72% non-resident. So if we go to 300 kids,

right? It's one, you know, one one out of four are are, you know, our residents. And so what there's some indicators there and there's some um reasonable assumptions we can make from that as to how the programs getting out and getting kids and that kind of thing. So just something we we'll be talking more about this in the future. Jim, looking at this makes me think this shouldn't be a part of our parks and wreck because this is not these are not our people. Like one out of four. Well, you know, I I love our popcorn. I'm very but 72% of these kids.

We have to keep in mind though we have ETJ like we're in this special position where we have Harrisburg ETJ and they are under non-residents. So we don't really know how many are right here. Yeah. No, we don't have that. We can though. We can get that to you folks for sure what the ETJ number is on that. That's a good point. I I I probably got more I don't want to say complaints, but just kind of a general, "Wow, this is weird." When we did all the social media posts when our popcorner team made it, we're like, "Come out and support." The tickets

were ridiculous to purchase at our and it was home like it was at our facility. So, um I did hear a little bit of blowback on that portion. I know that is set at Pop Warner. That's a little unfortunate that they price out cuz you know me and the kid I want to say it was 25 or $35 for five up and they start the games on their schedule, not the not the listed schedule. And it's per game. So, they checked you like you couldn't get there early for a game and it it was a bit different. So colorcoded wristband and all the things.

Yeah. There was some concern just because they wanted to come out and support particularly because it was in our backyard and they're like that's $150 for the grandparents and the family to go watch a football game. Yeah. That we we don't control those pop or costs. Um we also know we don't control the rules. We don't control the processes. Um, you know, one of the things I've said for for a long time is that, you know, it doesn't match our philosophy of our other programs. It just doesn't, you know, and it it almost can't because it is a it is a competitive

youth sport. Um, if they split the teams even like we do, or at least we tend to, we attempt to, um, neither team would be successful. you know, when they split and go into A and a B team, they would they the other team that would come in who is uh generally uh governed by a volunteer board that you know does their own thing and makes their own philosophy of how they want to run a program where we want to run our program where where where our program is about opportunity to participate not necessarily about winning championships. That one is really kind of geared to that. So, it's it's an interesting uh dichotomy between what we want to do and what they want to do. And so so who kept the 25 bucks? That that all goes to popner. Do they pay for our field use?

No. Wow. Yeah. I I don't That blows my mind. Because they're have I mean, they're charging all this, but they're not paying for any of the facility use. So what's the benefit to the town? It's the equivalent of travel sports in that regard. I mean, and travel sports for their events, they don't generally charge that much, but

uh Pop Warner wants to make sure they're making it up. And when I've pushed back to our local organization, you know, this information's made public to their team, they know that going in at the beginning of the year, if they make it, they know what the cost is going to be. Um, and some of the families recognize they won't be able to take their kids. Um but yeah, if we are pushing for it as a community to go attend, we've got to be fully transparent with the residents and let them know the cost is what it is and we have no say in the matter even though it is local.

I'm just like we charge to rent, you know, our shelters and all that. I just don't understand why they get to come in charge whatever they want to and then don't have to pay fee. And I know this was kind of a one-off year because the game was held here, which is usually not local. Yeah. And and um because our team was playing in it, it's their home field, you know, where does that fit? Now, I'll be quite transparent. I wasn't aware of that cold charge really. And I didn't realize it was that big a charge to be honest with you. I remember I knew they charged I knew they charged for playoff games. I knew that, but I didn't know it was that much. So,

Mhm. That's news to me. It's just I was not aware. So like I said, I know they charge. I didn't know it was 25. But as long as we're going to be in the competitive football arena, this is what it is. We can we can hand ring and sit here and so we don't let But Pop Warner is an independent organization that that runs it like this. Yeah.

It continues to trend to be more of that competitive nature. every year we've we've put it forward of saying, you know, is this something that fits in our sphere anymore or at what point do they run their own independent organization? We've offered that to them before. They say, "Hey, look, if you don't like our rules, you, you know, we would support you running. They have no interest in running their own Pop Warner team. They want the town to to continue to run it. So, it'll be us kicking them out going out. I just really struggle with for our questions we've offered the responses we don't have control over that like there's we so this is not a town sport we know Pop Warner is its own entity is there a way we can support Tom excuse me the town popner with

it is kind of Tom Warner yeah I know the prices feel that way so what does that look like has there been a discussion of what support can look Yes. Because to your point, this is not for youth athletics.

Yeah. Uh I I spoke with Ry about this two summers ago, I think, and Rob said, "Go talk to them and set them up." And so we did. We sat down with uh their their organizers and their leaders. We offered the you know, here here's what it could look like. You we've got equipment. We'll get that to you. You can have the equipment. You can get that. You have our support by we'll make sure you have fields to play on and practice on and we would support in other ways that they saw fit. Um, but it, you know, basically I was saying to them, set up your own your own board of directors, run the league the way you want to run it. Um, set up what whatever odds and ends. They already have a fundraising group that we don't control. A lot of times people think it's us.

We do have to try to get out in front of that sometimes, which we've been much better. Lee and I have talked a bunch about this. Um, we've been much better about, hey, if you're going to go do a fundraiser, we need to know when where so we can answer to it if there's questions. Um, and uh, you know, they they basically said they like to set up and why wouldn't they, right? I mean, we do the registration, we do a lot of the the the the the dirty work, so to speak, stuff that, you know, the hard stuff, the harder stuff, right? And then they just show up, get the kids, and they go coach, which is great. You know, I'm not I'm not knocking. They've been successful. Obviously, their their numbers are growing, right?

So, so there's a there's a desire for people to play football. Um, but you know, again, we've had that conversation about the matching philosophies and those kind of things. So, it it it puts a strain on staff a little bit at times to have to spend quite a bit of time with them, you know, but we do it. We we've got it. They've had success. We've not had a lot of problems.

It's like 275. One of the So the the other the flip side of that of being part of Pop Warner is that Harrisburg nor Cabaris County is large enough in my opinion to have the resources to run their own like a a large metropolitan area like Atlanta or something like that. So these kids from age what eight to 13? Yeah. are in the environment so they can have games. Even if you took away took it away from Pop Warner and just said, "Let's go just Cabaris County."

I don't know that you're going to get enough kids at the 8year-old range to be able to compete or the 10-year-old range or whatever. Break it down however you want to break it down. So, with Pop Warner, it is a name that is well known. I mean, you look at several of these star players that are in the NFL today. started with Pop Warner. It's known it's it's a trademark um you know, no different than I would say travel sports or little league for

Yeah. Little League, right? And and there's another issue. If Harrisburg's been beat up years and years, how come we're not part of Little League World Series? Right. That that's a whole different animal in itself. But it's either I I don't think it's an issue of do you take Pop Warner or you don't take Pop Warner. I think it's either you have football or you don't because there's not the the means or the mechanisms in place in the area that could successfully launch a football program and expect it to survive the way this does survive.

I mean, I think the nature of the beast is that it's Pop Warner. I I was just gonna say I I agree with that, Ron, but I also think that it's a way to be truly collaborative, right? And so that when we're asked questions, we're not like, well, I don't know, you know, like if we are in a true partnership, then we should be able to have our voice at the table to say, well, you know, I know you offset your price, but 25 is a bit high or if you want to use our field, then you got to pay this. Like there has to be some kind of tradeoff. It's not always it shouldn't be a oneway in my opinion, right? I think we should if we and I think that to Ron's point, I think it brings brings um exposure and opportunity to kids. I think it's great because I was a I did pop one and cheer a long time back in the day, right? But I think it's great, right? But I think that we should be able to um bring our concerns to them, right, and and discuss it. I don't think it should be just like, well, they just make those decisions. I just don't think that that's true.

Understand though, Pop Warner is not local to us. these kids are playing when they get to their state. You know, if you followed any of these kids for the last couple of years, a lot of times they had to play out of their state first. They had to win out of the state, then they had to win the region. So, it's not like they're just playing Concord, Charlotte, Mount Pleasant, they're playing Virginia, they're playing South Florida. We're a spec in regards to Pop Warner. We're not going to ever ever promise you get a voice at that table. Well, well, I mean, like they're using our field, right? Like things like they're using our resources in any way. I'm I'm thinking

I go back to it's a choice. You either have football or you don't. If you do, there's not another competitor in the area that draws what that draws. I I'm not advocating one way or the other. I'm just saying if you're going to come down to it and make make popcorn the issue, find them a solution that would provide them the same competitive environment that they have today.

See, um here's here's how we look at when they when when for us to charge for them for that playoff game. They would say, "Well, okay, we'll move that game somewhere else. It won't charge us." And our kids won't our kids earn the right to play at home, our team. And so you're all we're going to do is everybody who picked up and go to the game are going to get charged that $25 somewhere else. So so the benefit to us was to leave them here and let them play on their home field that they earned the right to do. And so that's the co that's the call. That's why we make some of those decisions. We do have a voice with popcorn. We meet we meet. We have a league meeting. We have representation. We do we're but we're a vote.

But your voice is regional. Correct. I mean, it's not even the decision for the charges that are being that that came up today are made at the national level. That's not made regional 100%. So, Jim, yes. Can we just go back like a long time ago? Sorry. How much does it actually cost us as the town to like our tax dollars to to run this team, support this team, not run it? uh last year last year,000 on any $1,000 budget and the proposed this year is 100. Yes. That's not tax dollars. Those are registration fees though. Okay. All right. Any part of that tax dollars? No.

Okay. All right. $2 million for my astron. Well, they're not allowed to play on it. They're going to get they're going to get limited access to that. They're not even 100 days to camp. Well, we we the turf is is tick mark for them to use it, but because of the size of our soccer program, they'll get a couple shots at it. That's about it. Okay. So, that feels better knowing that it's not any of our tax dollars. But then it still leads the question, why are they here? And I love our popcorn. I need to keep saying that. Well, it's it's back to Ron's question. If you want to be in this business Yeah. and you trust them to be a nonprofit organization.

Now, Virginia may be paying a little less than North Carolina and you know all of that, but at the end of the day, I don't know what their admin fees or all that are. I'm sure they they depends on if they make um postseason or not. What's a season? Eight games. Uh September. Uh they start in early July with practice. The games start end of August goes through So really it's only costing us in the future. I don't think it happen and and our kids have access to that even though I don't program. I think it's a good opportunity. Yeah. And we're going to talk a little bit more about the budget number that

Yeah. Not an alternative. Used to be. Used to be. Okay. So Ron and I were having a sidebar about what this looks like. I mean, it shifts my perspective significantly, understanding that as long as we're clear that there are no tax dollars involved in this because these are not our kids. Um, and I want the kids to have access all that. And I hear you. Either you do or you don't. I mean, I'm all for doing it. And then the education, the website to make it clear. Yes.

You know, if something goes sideways, you know, it's poper. I know. And and to the the question why it's been a part of Harrisburg culture since the 70s. I mean, you know, there were families and and I can name several of them that the grandpa now, you know, he came up as a first coach of his kids and now his grandkids are playing and it's just been what this community and Dr. Banks used to cheer for him. I know Harrisburg. I mean, you know, I mean, you know, I have a vested interest in this. I just I don't think and maybe it's me. I don't know that we've done a fantastic job communicating that piece. So, okay.

And it could totally be Leticia, you know, they just missed it. But, okay. Thank you. You're welcome. We good?

Next. Onwards and upwards. So, our current special events um you can see uh uh we have quite a few and most of you are very well aware of them but we do have a couple members of our council that we want to make sure you understand the events that we have. So, we have a couple partnerships that we do with Movies in the Park with Venture Church. We also partner with um the YMCA for the Run the Berg uh 5K and we also uh partner with uh the Harrisburg business network with the bags in the Berg. The rest of these you see here are our Christmas uh lighting, our Christmas tree lighting, our July 4th, our trick-or- treat on Main Street, which you can see is we're going to move that uh here to Town Center uh this fall and see how that looks. Um Rocking the B series, which is our five concerts uh May, June, uh August, September, October, second Saturday of each of those months at our amphitheater. Um they have become quite popular. our hop to the movie uh which is uh next Thursday uh night our Easter program and our Harrisburg art walk in market on Maine which is uh April 11th week after that and of course our cult multicultural festival um which uh happens in the fall. We actually are moving that to November this year. Um in the last couple years we have competed against other um cultural uh multicultural events both at UNCC and in Concord. It's always around that same weekend. So, we moved it to the first Saturday in November. Uh weather is usually still pretty good and so we're looking forward to that change. We think that will be a boost uh to that program, to that event. And our big one, Harrisburg July 4th celebration, it's uh held on July 3rd and 4th. Uh on July 3rd, it's a 4:00 start in the park, 5:30 to 9:30 entertainment at the amphitheater. Uh 9:30 fireworks, and a 10:00 close on July 3rd. On July 4th, it's all the same except we have the 9:00 parade on Highway 49. Hugely popular. First time I

saw that, I was like, I can't believe, you know, 10,000 12,000 people get up on July 4th and see it. It was amazing to me. So, if you've never been made it down there, it's a really great site. Those most of you have written in it and we'll do it again this year. Um, and the other difference there is we have an 11:00 close on the on the 4th instead of the 10 at this time. In talking about July 4th, one of our initiatives uh in innovation and efficiencies is to uh really look at July 4th celebration. You know, last year we had 27,000 people on July 4th uh shoehorned really into our park and uh it's quite a quite a scene to see all those kind of all that kind of participation and uh and uh visitors from uh all over the area. But so in talking uh listening to you folks last year when we gave our report uh on the July 4th uh many of you showed some concerns about the size and the direction it was going and so we've listened and we've had a couple meetings we met with Rob back in the fall kind of get some ideas of different Lee and Rob and and Brian as well to make sure that we start get on the course of how do we want to go about doing that. So we've come up with some ideas and this is all conceptual at this time. We still have we've done quite a bit of work on it, but we still have to get uh with Rob to get some uh give him some of our concepts uh specifically uh which we plan on doing in the next week or two. Um but limited, we want to limit the access, right? We want to focus on our residents as I spoke to earlier. I want to make sure our residents get that those the the opportunity to really take advantage of the events that we're holding. And the other part is a non-resident entrance fee. make sure making sure that uh you can visit us but it might cost you a couple of bucks to get in. Um the other big one is a no accomp unaccompanied minors. You know we had some issues at times with groups of uh young people kind of bouncing around on their own and we had a little scare last year with the potential fight and kids started running and we had no idea what was going on. So we're going to try

to see if we can get ahead of that a little bit. Um, we're going to move the fireworks site, which we we we brought to you last month uh at or at the February uh uh meeting, council meeting. Um, and thank you for allowing us to do that. We're going to move it to the YMCA, which that's not only we think it's a great spot to actually view them from, but it is also allows for us to open that third entrance at Harris Depot Park. Gives us a little bit more spread out. We can also use fields one and two our turf to get people on and watch and do whatever they want to do. and it allows us to be able to um use that exit uh going out. Uh we've put in a brand new uh walk p walking path through there so you don't have to go up the hill anymore. Actually, we're going to close that off and they have to use the one that goes around closer to the railroad tracks. It's much flatter and easier to uh get up and down on. And um we've added two covered wagon shuttles that we will use to get people uh back and forth, especially from uh the public's area and those those areas where we can get them on a shuttle, get them in, but we will drop those folks off at Harris Depot Park.

So they would use that entrance and exit rather than going down Oakley. If any of you have gone down Oakley at about 8:00, crazy. It's it's really a sight to see it. the amount of people coming into our park is just crazy. So, if we can get some of them, a good chunk of them down Harris Depot and in through the that entrance, it will really, I think, help us out an awful lot. And like I put there's a hope for improved pedestrian congestion on Oakley and at our Sims Park entrance. So, Jim, I do have a question. When you talk about limiting um access, help me with that. We're limiting access, but we're opening up other access points. So, how would how does that work? How do you execute that?

We think it'll limit some access as far as the number of attendants by char by charging an entrance fee. How will you know that though? Like, how will you know you have a non-resident? They'll have to have a ticket to enter the park. Yes, they will buy a ticket. They will We're working on it with Brian's staff. Um Brian could probably uh fill it in better, but the idea was they would buy uh they get on scan a code, have it on their phone, and they go. Residents will be able to come here May and June is our our hope. Again, conceptual we're getting there. Um where they would come here, pick up everything they need free, and then they get they come in and so they will have a ticket, but it'll be free for them. So, are you fencing in the park? No.

Because there's so many ways to get in. Yeah. Um the we talked about that, but um really the three the two entrances uh SIMS and ZMAX, we are putting some fencing in there, some bike rack and different things to channel people in so they come in. And again, we're doing the same thing at Harris Depot. The other entrances are would be coming through the woods and those kind of things. for us to fence the entire park isn't necessarily um uh it's it's not I don't think it's going to impact it that much for the cost it would cost for us to put that in I mean the goal is a limit the people won't know if they're going to go up through Henderson Circle and come down through

you know but I mean there are going to be people people that get in you know nothing's perfect but regardless whether you're a resident or not you still have to have a ticket correct correct and and Jim the I think We talked about this last time contractually on the rain out policy. Uh if there's thunder and lightning at 9:00, if hey, if we can't get it in before 11, we get our money back or we'll push that into a big show tomorrow. Yeah. No. Yeah, we would push that into a show another time whether we put it at one of our rocking the BS or do it Sunday night, you know, just have fireworks or what? That'll be a discussion we'd have with uh management as to what's Okay. But you guys already have a war room that says this is looking bad. We got to get everybody out.

Yeah, we've we've uh dealt with weather. We have uh um Tim uh always Wooten. Tim Wooten. I always call him Tim. Everybody calls him Wooten. I call him Tim. Um he kind of he mans the weather and watches and he makes recommendations. We've kind of put it on him to say, "Hey guys, we got a sale coming in. Let's get everybody out of here." And so and we're all listening and we we get it moving. How simple is this ticketing going to be? Because you can just pay at the gate, Ron. You can just show up and pay. Not you particularly the royal anticipating the push back from the residents that that that I'm a resident. Why do I got to go get a ticket? Right. It's my park. I pay for it.

How do I know? Well, and that's my thing. Show me your ID. We'll give you a ticket. You head on in for that resident to get a ticket. Are they going to have to come to town hall to get it? Is it going to be No, you can just go to the gate. Just go to the event. So, is it going to be like TSA today where you got a 2 and a half hour line because people are checking IDs.

Depends what time you show up. You got three gates. I'm sure there's going to be some waiting. The flip side is you bust it wide open, but we are going to we we know the the crowd amounts. We know what happened last year. We know what happened in Concord. We know what happened at Mazeppa Park. We know what's going on at Burdale. We know why we have no unattended miners at Concord Mills. So, it's going to be more inconvenient for people. I think our goal is if instead of 27,000, this number is 15 or I'm sorry. Yeah, 27 thou. If we can get this down to like 15,000 and most of those are residents instead. Um, then you can get you can kind of get in. You don't have these big crushes at 7 8:00. Um, but it will, you know, it it is less convenient for sure.

Here we go again. Is it going to be ETJ allowed or ETJ not allowed? They're they're paying residents. So ETJ's pay. Yeah. God help us. So every I'm sorry. Oh, I I mean for for volunteers because I see all the youth council stuff. I don't see this on their agenda yet. It would be nice to head it off and say we got 50 people up here with wristbands or tickets or whatever so we don't create that frustration like geez I'm standing here with lawn chairs and it's taking me forever to get in and keep keep in mind I mean we'll we'll let people know you know arrive early but you don't get into the fair for free and they have a higher attendance than we do um and their tickets

but the fair's not been offered for free for years upon years upon years. I mean there's a difference. I choose not to go to the fair because it's the fair and I choose not to spend my money there, you know, even if it was free July because it's been free and it's part of my community and it it remains free.

Yeah. But now my free is I got to go get a ticket. I got to go wait in line. Blah blah blah blah. And you're going to create the furer of what do I got to do to get the ticket? Oh, wait. You're not a even though you're Harrisburg zip code, you're not Harrisburg because you don't pay city tax. Therefore, you're ETJ, so you know, hand me five bucks and I'll give you your pass. Mhm. I'm open to this board saying, "Yeah, don't have any." I mean, we'll So, well, it's easier for us. We have a I have a real security concern at this year's Fourth of July. Mhm.

We need a maybe you just need to bring a whole presentation on how you're going to do this because right now just hearing it scares the living hell out of me. Think you just all the reverb from it from the entrance to the days leading up to it to the aggravation all the way across. If if we're comfortable in it and we can do a presentation in it, we can get our residents on board in as early as May. you know, that would have a better opportunity. I just I know we can't continue to leave it open like we have for for security reasons, but to kind of throw it out today and go we're going to do this and this is the first time we're hearing scares me that I don't know what's going on behind the scenes. Respectfully, I had more than a majority of this board complain the day July 5th last year that we need to make sure we don't have those

today. You you tell us this is coming. Hey guys, we know we're going to discuss this in budget. This is one of those issues that we've been working on for the year. We're going to give you a formal presentation on it. Hold what you got. We're with you. We've got you. But right now, when you tell me this and I'm just hearing about it for the first time and all the the questions that are coming up, you can't help but wonder why.

I don't I I don't have any doubt in the next 5 months. There's logistical issues to work out. I think these guys have done most of those. Nash and uh Jim and Lee and Brian have been working on this for months. Um there there is there will be an adapt adaptation for sure. Yeah. But I think if the if if we're if we're thinking now, hey, maybe the juice isn't worth the squeeze, then let's let's let's pull it. But it's going to be inconvenient. No matter how good we get at this, it will be inconvenient. I can envision three lanes. One is I got my wristband in advance at town hall

express lane. I'm a resident. I have ID right here. I'm a resident. I don't have ID. Great. I got the whole database here. I can look you up. I'm from Huntersville. What's that long ass line? It's Huntersville. So, we will definitely have a resident and a non-resident lane for convenient. You you don't have to pay, right? You just have a resident going through and Yep. And they're getting their ticket. And I did say this is a lot of it's concept most of it's conceptual, Ron. We haven't really we've come up with some really good ideas and we think they'll work. We just we haven't gotten in front of Rob yet with those. So, but we wanted to you have to introduce him sometime. So, we thought this was a good place. We all here that we could talk through it a little bit.

And I know like I know you and I have had this conversation and I brought it to you after having to hide behind a well not hide but stand beside a piece of equipment when the stampede took place. So, I appreciate all the effort that you all put into this to ensure that everybody is safe in our park. I do think that a presentation on what this looks like would be very helpful for everybody. Um, and I think kind of what Chris was, and please correct me if I'm wrong, alluding to was it would be kind of like we gave out wristbands several a couple years ago. Is that was that the initial like foundational thought? Okay. So, that I mean that part is helpful for what that looks like. Um, but yeah, I think

I'm sure based on what Rob wants to do, we can get a presentation whenever they're when whenever you're ready. Rob will say, "Here, let's get it ready. Let's get it done at the May." I think we typically do these presentations in May and June. Yeah. And and so when we did the wristband for the first time, that's when we brought it to you. When we did the uh what do we call them? The bird bird bundle. Bird bundle. That's typically, you know, we bring it in May and June. That's that's night and day different. That is night. I'm just saying that's our target. they're only getting to us in May or June that this is going to be a new process. We've already missed the chance

and I to educate your residents because this is a big change when it comes to that. Whether you have to come to town hall to get it, whether you simply log onto a website, I don't care. However you do it, people need to understand it early so they can be prepared as opposed to we're giving them 30, 60 days. People have short memory spans. They're not going to care about this until July 1st. They're like, "What's the weather look like? Are we going? Are we in town? Is it too hot?"

I think there's plenty of time. How how early would you like to see a plan rolled out to the public? I mean, we can get one now. I mean, I'll prioritize it and get it out. I think it's important that that we understand a plan or if we don't like the plan that we know that we're not going to be able to control access because we have to we have to then make some other plans. We can't we can't do nothing. Well, the only thing I'm glad that you just said was it was conceptual. So, whoever takes this audio and runs with it and says, "Oh, Harrisburg is getting ready to do this,

please understand it's conceptual." You know, we're spitballing on this right now. It's not 100% done yet, and we don't know what it looks like, but, you know, we find ourselves in all these kind of crazy situations at times. People get upset because roads might go one way because we actually had a conversation of a potential solution. This is a once again a potential solution. I don't know where it goes from here if it gets you know people go run with it and freak out whatever but I I understand it's conceptual but I think throwing it now and and catching us off guard is a little bit unnerving.

Yeah. Can we have like a further discussion on that? I don't know April, May or you know maybe a little more conceptual if it's in April. Um because like July 4th it was so busy like the lines are just snaked all throughout. I was not caught in the stampede but I was caught in the um at some point there was one day when some teenagers posted on social media about like water spray guns or something and a whole bunch of them descended onto the park and my kids were just That was last Good Friday last year. They they were there and then I had to like get in and I you know you and I spoke.

Yeah. I'm like okay what's happening? you know. Um then eventually they and just seeing that like what kind of effort it took them to to clear that out even though it wasn't dangerous. It was just like so like masses of people there was kind of is the next council meeting. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do that. We definitely need to do something especially if you could start with that way we can we can maybe come up with a not a final plan but a 95% plan at the next council and security being the biggest concern now that you've kind of added them all together. Yeah, there's like you know the Burgdale, the Christmas tree, the the all of the things. So we're just lucky that nothing's happened here yet. So, it's a matter of time and this not to say that this is going to pre prohibit that,

but it's a step in that direction of saying, "Okay, at least we know

this will drive crowds down a little bit. It'll try to get that that balance back like we like we tried to get with the youth athletics, you know, better percentage for folks that that actually pay taxes and live here in Harrisburg. This traditionally, and I've had conversations with some here, like this has traditionally been a kind of small town event. This is this very Harrisburg Central event. I think we really went big on our 200 or on our 200 on our 50th. Um and we've kind of never gone back. It's just we we've stayed at that very amped up level and we really can't have that many people in the park in a safe way anymore. Now we're seeing, you know, young young people violence constantly. It's become a more cultural thing. I don't think that's going away. So, you know that getting back to the more low-key, smaller events that are focused on our resident is the goal here. So, if we can somehow get some direction on that, we can we can present this in April, get feedback, and then be ready to to kind of roll that out to our residents in May. I agree with you, mayor. I think

we can roll it out in May, but No, I was going to read it June 15th. People are going to say, "Hey, what's going on? I never heard about this." So, we we we're going to have to continue to We get all I didn't know there was a concert in the park for Rocking the Burger. And we've been doing that for years and years. But we want you guys to have we want you guys to have, you know, an exact plan, right? Because there a lot of people come directly to you and we don't want you sitting there going, I don't know what it'll actually look like. So getting you guys a plan so that you can um engage with your constituency say no no no yeah it's changing here's why but don't worry here's what it looks like and here might be the best way for you to approach getting there.

So I will just add as you work on this plan it might be helpful to reach out to the league because they have supported other municipalities in figuring out safety measures for large scale events. Um that was we had that conversation the same conversation we did about having ensuring that your special events are covered appropriately with the right type of insurance. Um so they've done this so that might be helpful to you um with helping to come up with a plan of what this could look like. I don't know if that helps the entry piece but right that that's a more of an umbrella umbrella.

Councilman Fro's thing to me just makes that's easy. Yeah. So, so we'll for those listening home, we're conceptual right now. We will have details at a later date. Don't beat us up for details yet, right? Um but we will have some stuff in April and and and we're the conceptual there's a quite a few things that we have to make decisions as to how to actually put them in in into play. We've had conversations with Lee and Brian Brian uh staff and my staff would do almost two hours one day just how do we want to ticket this thing if we were to do it? We came up with two or three options. There's a lot of ways to look at it. So, we have not really We've come up with an idea we'd like to use, but until Rob gets his eyes on it and really sees it and chews on it a little bit, that it's conceptual.

Yeah. And I'll follow up with you guys individually as well. We at least have two that that weren't here last year um to have these conversations and get your guys' individual feedback on it. And to the rocking the bird comment, Jennifer, I do get that, but I also I've been hit up like crazy for the last 30 days. When are y'all releasing the schedule of who's coming? I got you know, everybody's like, we just got the final contract signed. So, I think it's I think Thursday, I think Mackenzie said finally got the final contract signed. So, it'll it'll be out here any day. And guess what? You'll be able to see Journey this time. Oh, last time you requested it was out last time. Yeah,

we got them coming back. So, yeah, that's uh the final contract got signed. We don't like to release anything until all those contracts get signed. So, that'll go out pretty much probably next week, early next week. Okay, keep going. We good? Okay, let's get on to July 4th for a little while. Initiatives, innovations, and efficiencies. July 5th.

Thank you, Council. Yeah. Uh so other uh we're really looking to improve staff efficiency as our programs grow and our vets get bigger and more more intense and we have more and more people using our parks. We realize that our full-time maintenance staff in the past we've put two in each park and they stayed there and they did their thing and at times they needed more of a team effort, right? We all know that strength and team, right? If you get three or four people in there, not only they have more hands to do something, but they also can share ideas and their expertise. So, we are working in teams now. Actually, we've already started this. We're working in teams so they can get them to be more familiar with more than one park and focus on that team approach. And again, that's for our full-time maintenance staff, our six uh seven if you count uh our uh our uh manager. Um the other part of that is to add more part-time help to assist with park maintenance, focusing on the weekends. We all know that really the big thing for us is Harrisburg Park gets loved to death all the time, but really on weekends it's crazy. And we have our part- timerrs that are bouncing between parks. So there's a time there might be a time of two or three hours where they're not in Harrisburg Park. And so then now the garbage has built up or the bathroom has become uh messy or there's no toilet paper. So one of the ideas is to add a couple more part- timerrs to help us especially on weekends, but assign one part-timer to Harrisburg Park exclusively. They would be there all day long. They'd get there at 9 10 in the morning, stay till 4, 5, 6 o'clock at night to make sure that we have that attention we need. also to help chase our ice cream man out so that so that the uh so that Captain Nash can uh rest a little bit and not have to send the deputies over every time.

Could we not have like no soliciting signs at each of our parking? AB I we always talk about that. Yes, we have some, but I think we had to make them a little bit more. Yes. Okay. Clear this guy's been told over and over and

I will say this. Last Saturday I was sitting at home and I got a I got a text. It was Captain Nash and she said we got him and they did it and she's got one of her deputies is like that that's her goal now. She's going to chase them all out. So we got that gentleman that was that we saw a bunch. Now we had another one on Thursday that we got. So we are starting to catch up to him a little bit. So um trying to make sure that they understand what the rules are. Um and I told Captain Nash, "Yay, good for you. More, you know, extra dessert for you and uh your deputy." But but we're trying to get somebody directly into Harrisburg Park all day long, Saturday and Sunday especially, and just make sure that we have a little extra help there. Jim, does that person have a vehicle? Yes.

Okay. They've got Yes, they they can share vehicles. We have one specifically part- timerrs. We also can give them one of the full-timers if we need it.

Um the other part is fully utilize the parks management team via reclassifying our administrative support specialist to parks and recck support specialist. And and the reason for that is that as we grow and we get different functions uh expected of myself uh as we start to look at the big picture items you know from uh you know the 30,000 foot view a little bit more um I have expectations really from Rob and Lee to really kind of look into the future. Where are we going? How are we getting there? It's taking a lot more of my time and because of that that means Shawn and Nate have to do a lot more of the things Shawn has to do a lot more in operations. they has to do more on projects. He just has to have more hands-on. I don't have that time to do that. And so some of the things they're doing is a lot of financials, a lot of data collection. Um, you know, we're we're getting into monthly data collection that Alli's reaching out for all the time and and which is great for us because it enables us to kind of focus on different areas. So because of that, we don't have that kind of time. So, we're trying to uh uh reclassify Kathleen Green, who's our administrative support specialist, into a parks and rec support specialist where we can give her some more financials, uh some of the data collection. She can help us with presentations and things of that nature. Um she's really good. She's excellent. She's the she really is the nerve center, the control of our our uh just just like any good administrative support specialist is. She everything funnels through her. She knows what we're doing. She knows our programs, our projects. And so we're trying to do that. That should free up Shawn to do more operations, get out in the field more and should allow Aaron to jump out where she doesn't have to do as many financials. Those kind of things. Um, make sure Nate, who has an awful lot of skill with projects, uh, that he can get his hands on projects and and push forward without me having to kind of be on there and driving those things. So, that's one of the things. You see up here I just explained the emphasis placed on assisting with higher level tasks and free up management team to handle the operations project programs

and mainten maintenance tasks uh more efficiently. Another one is to begin the process of adding new programs and events. Um uh adult kickball, youth lacrosse camps and like I put here use the turf, right? The turf is going to give us so many more opportunities especially in the winter when we have nice really nice outdoor weather for activities in the winter time. Um, and then partner with YMCA to introduce volleyball, which they have already started. They've done that. We've worked a little bit with them. We kind of kicked out a spring uh kickoff to see how it how it goes. And so far it sounds like it's going well. Um, we want to reintroduce our non-athletic programs like art and Lego camps. We used to have them here, but with our with our opportunities, our facility shrinking with more people using uh the room next to uh uh uh wreck uh offices, we kind of lost those and not have really good places to put those. So, we're looking back out trying different places so we can re reintroduce those programs and also introduce new opportunities in that area. One of the areas we're looking to do is to do a um art working with some of the high school art camps. They have art expose for those folks. Um and it wouldn't just be art, could be music, could be whatever. And also to explore the addition of new events, particularly those uh with an international flavor. We have a large uh group of uh residents now that uh are very international, and so we're talking about uh adding some of those kind of events uh throughout the year. Another initiative is to allow some areas in our passive parks to grow naturally through pollinator gardens similar to what uh the youth council is uh is doing. Add wild flowers and other native grasses. Attract native species, you know, more birds, butterflies, those kind of things. But then also take advantage of those areas for new trails and paths. Get some new trails through there. Um, one of the parks we think about an awful lot is out at Farm Mill where they got a lot of green space that

we just mow for no reason to mow and it might be hilly or whatever. We don't we don't really get a lot of use out of it. Well, now if we let it grow a little bit, let it natural, get some path through it and add to our opportunities out there. Uh, so again, these are my personnel requests. I've already gone through those with you both with both of them. Um, hopefully that's something that uh will really help out our department. notable changes in operating budget. Um, we've got a little a special uh equipment line. Um, we looking for a skid steer bucket to get make us a little bit more uh able to do all the projects and not have to drive John nuts all the time every time he need a piece of equipment. Thank God for John because he never says no. Um, benches for Harris Depot. We've had this request for a couple years. We we had a couple that went we didn't like the looks of them and we didn't weren't sure we're going to get them down permanent. So, we want to get some permanent benches in Harris Depot. becoming a much more popular uh park and events again as I spoke earlier uh you'll see an increase for events for the opportunity to get some new ones there and then we talked earlier at length about popcorn football but the idea is to increase it to 300 and max this will be the first program that we would cap

uh because it gets some point where we can't really even facilitate it more than that in speaking with their leaders we sat down and came up with that number that we thought that's probably the best we can do. So that's why the budget increase reflects the opportunity for that to move up to 300.

And most of that cost is well is for the equipment and of course officials cost associated with the associated with the increase. And also uh we've asked for some extra budget for those programs we talked about for introducing uh reintroducing the old programs and and some new ones. Some notable changes. These are decreases um in chemicals uh which is where is our our paint and some of our uh uh fertilizer is located there. Um because of the turf, we're going to have a lot less paint and a lot less fertilizer and sand and those kind of things we need to take care of that. And uh and um the turf doesn't need any chemicals. Just needs us to take care of it every 40 hours and run the machine over and perk it up a little bit. So, and and uh I believe we did put in our M uh M&R in in the area to have them come in and clean it once a year, have it professionally cleaned um where they come in with a machine, steam it up and go do that. And then in M&R buildings and grounds, we have a big decrease in fertilizer and weed control products there again due to the addition of the turf. So, the turf the turf kind of impact is about almost $30,000 uh in maintenance cost that we should be able to save. Of course, that's in theory because we haven't used it. We haven't se seen this total, but that's a that's a pretty good guess uh from our maintenance staff as far as what they've used in the past on fields one and two. CIP requests shade trees shelter 2 at Harrisburg Park right here. You can see where we're trying to put some trees in and some shade and get get that area. That's the concession stand. We call it shelter 2, but it's actually the concession stand. The bathroom entrance is right up here. um a monument sign uh at uh Harris Depot Park. It is the only park we have that doesn't have well outside of Veterans, the only other park we have um that doesn't have a any kind of monument sign. And so we want to do one similar to what we see here at Hokum Woods. And then the big project for us is down here

is uh Sings Park infield renovations. It's been o well over 10 years since we've actually gone in there. Got it all out of there. Get the stuff we've put in. Get it out. Get some new infield fill infield mix. It'll be all laser graded so that water runs off better. We'll get rid of some lips. It'll be like six brand new fields for us. And we're really excited. Hopefully we can get that uh get that uh you guys to support that for us. You won't need bricks or pump anymore. We hope. Right. And and the good part about that is there's new technology now, Ron, with that when they fill those when they when they when they fix those areas around home plate, they're doing different things. It should you're still going to get holes there. You know how kids are going to dig out and they're going to dig away and but it'll be a little harder for them to do that.

Okay. So, and with that installing Spark with that land where you guys filled it in, are you going to be able to put more parking spots or something with that? Yeah, the plan there and uh we haven't come up with a final um number there. Devon's uh still trying to figure out the layout of it, but the the part you see where the old pond was, that's going to be all parking. And so that'll be all brand new parking. We'll still have the area outside of Right Field in the grass area to potentially uh at some point S Park is going to need a little renovation, some additions and things that give us that area to do that. Um, but we hope to pick we'll go pick up at least 50 new spots at least, maybe a few more. Okay.

And and another entrance out so we can kind of they don't have to go back through that parking lot, which a great idea. Scares the crap out of me because it's so tight as it is. So, if we can get them out a different way, maybe make that one way in, one way out. We'll see if that works. Anything else? Yeah, that's fine. Any other questions? You better run. Run, Jim. Run. No, seriously. Thank you all. I appreciate that. I enjoy every year. I get a lot of good stuff out of this. I appreciate you. Sounds like you want more questions. I don't mind questions. I love talking about it. Really?

Yeah. Rob, stop it. Different subject. Different subject. Out of order. Out of order. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Before we take a break, because we've got one scheduled at 2:30, um Ryan, are you okay? Keep the train moving. Yeah, we rehears a couple between us and a break.

And we have enough experience. Want to see All right. Thank you for the opportunity to be here. My first one. Um, let me pass through the break here. Everybody okay in the back? Making sure that the other other staff members are okay with that. Um, but thanks for opportunity to be here, mayor, members of council. Wanted to give you an update on the newest uh department here at the town. Um, the economic development department. Update on our budget. um not a lot of change as you can imagine, but to let you know where we're um what we're doing in this current fiscal year and then plans for the next fiscal year. So, our five-year trend um really this we're still in the first year um fiscal uh 26 of having um you know half of a staff at the um full staff. Um so we're up to we brought on new person in the beginning of this year in January. Um so we're we're now completely um fully staffed. So you'll see our budget start to transition and be more um representative of what'll be in the years moving forward now. So pretty consistent. Um you'll see I imagine in next years moving forward um capital projects fund. Thanks for Brian for our dry run to explain what that bump was in 25 that was actually tied to the train station project. Um so we don't anticipate any additional increases that I'm aware of um moving forward out of the ED budget. um in capital improvement plan. Pretty simple. Um the only real asset we have is a um explorer which we utilize to drive around town and meet with businesses. So no long no short-term plans there as well. Um I alluded to our organizational chart. Um now we have myself the director and then we have a manager Stephanie Berles who joined us in January from the county economic

development group and has hit the ground running here. I'm very knowledgeable about um economic development and already knows a lot of people in the community. So, it's been a really great fit. Um our uh sort of task list when I started was the strategic economic development plan. Um I read it before I got here. Um and it was very well done. I'm actually u meeting with the consultants virtually on Monday just getting I think they're curious what we've done and I'm curious, you know, what their thoughts were when they put it together. But I've used this as my uh dashboard, my checklist of what we need to accomplish as a department. So really quickly going through these um I'm pretty conservative with the figures. I'd say you know a BR program or existing industry program we're up and running. I mean we're I think we're gosh we've probably made 25 calls this year already. Um and that's just the ones we formalized. So we're in good shape there. you can go ahead and put a hundred there, but I'll be conservative and leave it at 4.5 out of six. And Brian, I double check my numbers for you. I knew you'd be looking and Lee, too. Um, so, um, strategy 1.2 is just evaluating the business climate. So, that's something we do proactively, u meeting with other departments here in town, um, meeting with planning, for example. if we see something that's a trend um that we're hearing from other communities, other businesses that we might need to um up update or implement in our strategy, we'll pass that along. So, I don't know if we'll ever reach uh 100% on that as it's more continuing. Um but we'll continue to push forward. Um 1.3 is something that's probably going to be a little bit more long-term, more of a strategy in case we hit a major economic disruption. a um I won't mention the pandemic word or something like that but um a strategy in place um if something were were to happen to the state to the region to the town I have

had cons uh discussions with a consultant who actually does this kind of guidance or provides this guidance for ED groups um and she's offered to do it at the state level so if we're interested that's something I could have her present to our state um economic development d group and we could participate in But probably, you know, for the next year, 18 months, probably not going to be very high on our radar unless council um advises me to change that. Um and then economic development, marketing and business traction, we're full steam ahead on that. That's the efforts to promote the town um at the regional and state and national level. Um and to build on that um making steps to make sure we have the facilities and and um sites and buildings ready in 2.2. So, we'll talk about that a little bit later. um 3.1 small business sec system in Harrisburg um making a lot of progress on that as well trying to have a support network for these companies um as they from startup to large business to help them grow in our community. Um 3.2 it's very similar entrepreneur support um we do we know we have a lot of folks that work from home or on a hybrid um schedule um here in Harrisburg. We want to learn more about those um business owners and and entrepreneurs and help them grow their businesses here in town and allow them to grow to two to 5 to 10 to 15 employees. And then um 4.1 um sort of builds off of what we're talking about with um 1.2 sort of just making sure we're in contact with all the other departments. Um I really appreciate how well we've been able to incorporate with the other departments and um I'm in touch with all the department heads pretty much daily um across all the different um uh town sectors. And then finally, we talked about a little bit about town center or downtown. Um, you know, once we get a new planning director on on staff, that'll be a big charge and some of the

efforts um to make sure we're refocusing some efforts. And there's other departments working on other initiatives here as well. But continuing to grow the town center because it is, you know, it is our downtown. It is our our home and we're going to see more um potential activities there. We've got some properties that are coming online as well. Um this that's going to be really exciting for us. Brian be Oh, I'll try to get you before you switch

when I think it was 1.2 where you're where you mentioned um with this way of mode of measurement we would probably never reach 100%. Like what's a better way to measure success or progress there? I mean because if we are we've put a lot of focus and intentionality behind economic development. So, I'm curious like how do we how do we look at that and see progress?

I think for business climate, one of the things we could do is look at regulations that we've adjusted. A great example could be signage. I've heard from some companies, you know, that our sign regulations are too restrictive. But then when you have a discussion with them, they'll tell us, well, yes, well, um, but we also don't want our neighbor having a sign up for 12 months, 18 months. So, that's a good balance that we've been able to u make. So maybe trying to quantify those hits and say, "Hey, here's a issue we addressed, made sure we protected the property rights of our citizens, but also kept the aesthetics of the town where we want them to be." But that that's a great one to try to quantify.

Um, that climate, I'm not sure. Maybe we measure actions. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Data expert, is there a benchmark for business climate? I don't I don't even know. It's a great question. I'm not sure how to answer that at this point. All right, I will move along to projects. This could be, you know, like a six-h hour work session, but I thought it'd be curious because sometimes folks at council, especially some of our new council members are have questions. When would we involve the council with the uh economic development project? So going quickly um through the different um phases here, project definition could be at the um seuite level. It could be the board of directors level where a company defines where they want to relocate their business. Um normally we're not involved at the practitioner level um at that um discussion point, but they're really defining southeast United States, large metro, near a major airport. We're we're in play there. um we need to have um be within five miles of a interstate while we're still in play. So those are the sort of um uh project um thoughts and considerations that are made and we're not involved with pre-selection and initial assessment. That's where we can be brought in. So sometimes the um state will reach out and say, "Hey, we've found inventory on your system. Um is does that building, you know, says 36t uh clear uh ceiling heights? Is that true? Is that correct? You know, what's your floor thickness? Things of that nature. That's where we can become involved. We get to the advanced assessment. That's where we'll bring council in. Maybe it's a zoning variance for a building height that we might want to adjust or if there are incentives to be discussed at the at the town level, that's where we would have that dialogue with the council. Um, so it really is it's more of an art than a science. So there's not specifically no we'll have you at stage three or something, but we

do want to make sure the council's involved um with projects as they come through, especially major um projects. And we will be working with our friends at the county and state level as well. So don't feel like you're not being excluded by any means if you're not hearing about projects. It's just there's so many in the system that we could really just overwhelm you with data. So, we want to get you to a point where it's really relevant um to bring the uh the council in and the management as well. So, I try not to bo bore Rob with every project that comes through. Um but if it's one that's significant, um definitely get his attention. And speaking of projects, we've had some nice wins here in the past year. Um the largest being um what's now will wheelhouse um but formerly Ford Performance Driving School. So they have acquired a building in Harrisburg with their move from Concord. Um we hear understand they're going to be um in discussions or already moving forward with their second building on on the adjacent site. Um but we also work with some other projects sort of in the health s healthcare as well as retail. Um you'll see some of those projects we assisted with or pro um also coordinated with ribbon cutting. So that's something it seemed pretty logical for our department to handle some of the ribbon cutings. It was previously in communications, but we need to have these connections to the businesses. So, we've taken the lead now with ribbon cutting and that's working really well for us. So, um hopefully you'll be invited to more ribbon cutings. We did have inreach um that didn't make it on the on the slides, but that's another one we had fairly recently. So, always good to celebrate those those hits and sorry, allergies are kicking in. Um, always glad to include those uh hits for us because those wins build and success breeds more success. So, Placer AI, what is the Well, without cheating, what's the most popular

restaurant in town? Does anyone know? Chick-fil-A. Rob knows. It's Family. It's on It's It's on your slide. You said don't cheat.

Yeah, I know. Don't cheat. But so we have a great opportunity to utilize um technology called Placer AI. We share the um cost with parks and recck. But this is a real-time snapshot as of a couple of days ago of the most active restaurant activity in town. So just a a little example of what we can delve into with Placer. If you're ever curious about what's happening with our businesses, feel free to reach out. We also provide this to our businesses as well. So this provides foot traffic information. You can see month-to-month trends, year-to-year trends, visits per square foot. We can al also utilize this information to delve into where are folks going for lunch.

I imagine you can do the quick analysis. A lot of folks in our area are shot are going to lunch in Harrisburg. We also lose a good portion in the Concord Mills. Um the Concord Mills area. I've actually ran into a few council people there myself having lunch there. That was a little awkward. Yes. We were like, why are we out of Harrisburg? But it is a reality. We, you know, Conquer Mills and that cluster of restaurants are very nearby. So, um we know that as we target particular um brands and different restaurants, we need to um make sure they're not cannibalizing those stores in in the Concord Mills area. So, we use this Placer data to really delve into what makes sense for us. Um and it's been a real great asset for us. We can also get ahead of trends. Um so be if we have time before we go meet with a company I'll go in and look at their foot traffics and we can sometimes get an indication if they're um seeing increase in enroll um employment or decrease and it's pretty accurate. It's really a little scary. Um when the YMCA left upstairs, I did do an analysis of some of the businesses here in the town center and actually everyone's holding on. Um, I was really worried that we'd see some uh decrease with the, you know, lots of folks we used to have above us. But

Ryan, do you do you proactively share this with the businesses in the area? When I look at this, I see some of our other restaurants not listed and I'm just curious. I mean, um, you know, you don't see stuff like Pub 49. You don't see Bubbas and AJ's and all that and how those stack up against the others.

Abs. Yeah, this was just the top five. So um in terms of that particular month so yeah anytime um anyone any businesses reach out or if we we're going out to meet with them we'll provide this information as well and if they if they ask specific information like for instance we talked about July 4th how many customers may visit on July 3rd and July 4th the Publix for example how many folks are going from Publix to July 4th we can track that as well so it's it it's it's not as easy to use as we would all hope, but we can figure out how to use it. So, we're we're getting better daily with the the capabilities of Placer. So, really a um tremendous asset for us to have at the town level. Another um resource we've allocated funds towards is our building and site database. So, what you're seeing here is actually just a snapshot of all the properties in our inventory at this time. So obviously we don't have these mi this many active or available properties in town but this is a great resource for us. It's live. It's active on the town website. So you can actually go in and determine if I need if I'm a business owner I need 1500 square ft of space. I can quickly pull that up. If for some reason it's 3:00 in the morning and you're searching for this. You can you have the broker's information so you can reach out to them directly. And this is also populated by the broker. So it's on that broker. it's their responsibility to keep the information up to date and they get pinged I think it's every 90 days or maybe 30 days that they have to just go in and verify that that information is correct. So great resource for us. Um and the nice thing about the particular um system we use which is Moody's it uploads to our um county friends and the state um system as well. So as some of the buildings were we have in town that are going to be coming online. We're actually pushing the brokers right now. go ahead and get that listed. So, it'll be on the state

database. So, we had to motivate them to move a little quicker um than they were moving um this past week. So, we're getting there and this is um been a really great resource for us. We've actually heard it from a couple business owners that they've used it um which is well worth the cost, which I think is around 5,000 annually. So, um we have a couple, you know, one or two business owners use it. It pays for itself. Um so we talked some of the discussion when we were um council was me meeting with planning was about how do we track what happens to a business um when they're considering um looking at our area. So we do have a CRM um it's one of the more innovative ones in the state. I believe I was at our state convention uh two weeks ago. No one else is using this um to the level we are. Um for a community of our size and a staff of two people. I was pretty proud to say that. So, we're actually Please don't don't get don't get me in trouble with this, Lex. We're using Dynamics with Microsoft. That's as far as I'm gonna go. Yeah. Um, it's good. Yeah, James has helped out tremendously. But basically, what that means is everything integrates with our Outlook. So, as we get inquiries from folks, that pings to our CRM. So when we track um activity so say we meet with um we may meet with a family house we come out of that meeting we have a digital um tablet we could write our information into we created a custom PDF our AI will read that scan it into our CRM for us so we're doing it once instead of coming back to the office and writing that so we sort of blew their minds when we mentioned that that we were using they were like what you did what um so what we're trying to do is data data data. So what we can do is as projects come through our office, you can show you can see the activity when we um logged it into the system, what kind of response

we had. Um yesterday we went through and just made sure all of our projects were up to date. So we can see this one's been in for 87 days. What did we do? Did we email? We can track are we emailing more, calling more, text messaging more, in inperson visits. So it's just data, data, data. So, the next step is to be able to present that in a format that the council wants. So, that's where I'll be asking questions. What do you want to know? Um, and that's where I'm going look to Ellie. But, um, always go, what do we want the council to track? That's the information we need to input into the system. So, if you don't care if we're emailing or texting, I won't track it. But, if you need to know like how long it takes for a project from entering into the system to potentially going to planning, we can track that. So, just let us know. Um, it tracks all of our activities. It's a really strong um um piece of I guess software is not the best way to call it. Um, just out of curiosity, you know, on in April, we'll bring up um I'll have a more um project focused list or uh presentation, excuse me, but we're up to 32 active projects right now. If you remember this past um January, we were I think we're 20ish. Um, so our activity has grown. Now we are tracking more projects. Um, they're smaller sometimes than the larger projects that the EDC might, but we're our activity is very, very strong at this time. So, we're excited by that. And then you'll see this leads dashboard. This I put this up because this is where our systems unique. So, if I get a call and it's just someone saying, "Hey, um, XYZ company may be interested in the area." We can quickly log that as a lead. that takes about 30 seconds and the great thing about that is leads can grow in the project. So um this is what um the consultant really pushed for us. The only other community that's using this leads system is

Austin, Texas. So it's Austin and Harrisburg. So that's pretty good company to be in in terms of technology, but we're trying to grow this and it's really helpful for us to quickly log something, log where it came from and then keep track of that. So this should become more robust. There's only two of us and neither one of us are very good at programming and that kind type of thing, but we can enter data. So we'll grow this and make it better. And I'm excited to see how that's going to turn out in the future for you. Um product development, that's um we talked about sidebysides earlier with some of the departments. We um were kind enough to have John let us borrow some of his um side by sides last um fall. Rob dialed up some perfect weather. As you can see, we had sunny skies, beautiful um blue skies. But um what this was, and you remember we've talked about it before, we took a consultant out, took the Morehead West, drove him around the site, and went through actual like a pre-season game for a site visit. So, great exercise. The gentleman in the side by side on the left with me was the site consultant, Dwey. um the folks in in John's um green side by side there to the far right, those are all consulting engineers. Um and the gentleman with you, Rob, I think he was an engineer as well. So, we had all the engineers riding around and it's a great way to see a piece of property, but also I was able to get some off, you know, some quiet time with doing just sort of asking what trends you're seeing. He was able to ask sort of off thereord questions about the site and I gave him pretty honest answers. So, we know more about that site than we did when we started, especially, you know, back in April. But also, we have a um we used to have three ring binders, but now we have a um Excel Excel spreadsheet with all the information about the property. So, we know water capacity, we know sewer capacity. So, we've used that real data on active projects to be able to turn that around really quickly. So um you

know we were very fortunate get to get into this Duke energy site readiness program um especially for a startup so to speak department. So that was a big over undertaking for us and we're really proud and it run exceptionally well. Um little known program um in town. Raise your hand if you knew we had a facade improvement program. Yes, a couple of folks. Um so we've had one. Apparently it was somewhat dormant. Um, so you'll see I know Chief Dunn is very familiar with the Morehead Center sign. He used to look across the street and see. Um, but that was a great example um of a sign that needed some TLC here in town, needed some improvements. Um, so the property owner of that um, building complex reached out and I explained to her that we have this facade improvement program and um, she was really excited. She's investing more uh money back in the complex and um we took it to our management team and and it has to be parameters. It has to be visible from the street. We're not going to offer assistance to, you know, interior um improvements. Um but if it's something like the new Morehead Plaza sign, um something that makes a lot of sense, I think we have some opportunities there. So the far upper left, that's the previous sign um in it in all its glory. Um and the sign in the middle is the current sign as it exists today. Um they are um scheduled to put some land um some nice um flowers and mulch um along the base layer of that sign. But we also took a picture of the other um you'll see the wealth management sign there as well. So the property owner went ahead and because they made the improvement to the um existing the monument sign wanted to match some of that look um interior of the building complex. And at our um one of our comp open houses, a bill uh business owner came up and said, "Hey, I'm actually considering moving my business here now because that sign

looks so much better." And it just raised the level for the town. So, in our budget, we have about $50,000 um for the this program. The way it works is you make your for this great example, 16,000 for the cost of the sign. build the sign, makes make it up to town standards, actually, you know, show us the the cost, and we have a um grant that'll cover 50% um back of the um to the developer or business owner. So, it is capped at 50,000. Not sure what we do if we hit that. Maybe we'd go back to council, but um I'm glad to see one um facade improvement um go through. Um hopefully in the next fiscal we'll have many more. But it's just an easy way for us at the town level to help folks make our town just look a little bit better and make it more business friendly.

Clarification. Yeah. How do people I didn't know about this but how do people know about that? How do you advertise this program? So, we um it's been really word of mouth, I think, until now or um I guess it was through a different department, but um as I went out and met with build more building owners, I bring it up and um we're we're cautious. So, if it's probably shouldn't say this in a public session, but like the public's building across the street, um they put a new sign up. So, I guess technically if you look at our parameters, they could have qualified, but is that really the the true spirit of the program? I think this is more of the spirit. So,

um, we're trying to reach out to folks who are reinvesting in the existing buildings. So, um, some of the folks on 49 who have those facilities. Yeah, I was speaking about I know a couple companies on 49 and they have been dealing with the cost of coming up to to to standard and so I'm 100% sure they didn't know about this. Yes. Yep. So, that's send them my way. Yeah. I'll be glad. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. All right. So Ryan, for clarification, you said you initially said sign um grant and then you said facade. I was aware of the facade. Is it the same or is it separate?

Yeah, it's any I guess any improvement to the outside of the building. So we have some flexibility built in there, but if you made um you know a fresh coat of paint, new gut gutters, new shutters, something like that, that could be viewed. So it is reviewed by town staff. So it has to be something that we deem up to town standards, meets planning code. Yeah. So so initially it was created for Killian Plaza. Yeah.

And we encourage and Killian's like, "Yep, absolutely. where where council got bit was the florist said, "Well, okay, by the letter of the law, they did what they were supposed to do, but they put in an ADA ramp, and that's not what we were asking for this to be, but because they met the letter of the law, we had to approve it." Um, but yeah, it was it was exactly what you said. It was meant to encourage those blighted locations to, hey, we want to invest in you if you would invest in yourself. Right. Absolutely. So, did we clean up that language? So, yeah, it's been it was resolved that night. I promise you.

Because they realized that there was several holes in it and Yeah. they they locked.

Yeah. Um, but Ryan, while I've got you for a moment, when we were talking about businesses and getting more information, are there shows or events that we go to now to market Harrisburg in a way? I mean, in the past, I don't think we had the capacity. So, there are So, um, actually two on our radar right now. One's local. Um, one's going to be at an international. those international council of shopping centers. So, it's a retail focused show. So, that was something in my previous world I uh attended this show, but it's something that I've sort of pivoted to to um in Harrisburg. Um as well as that'll be more of a retail focus. So, we'll have um we've already got some meetings set up with folks in particular segments that have been um brought up. So, it's, you know, I don't want to get too um I guess say I need to be sort of quiet with talking with um but uh retailers that we've identified that are good fit for town. Um also, there are opportunities now that the county has a executive director and she's starting to get her feet wet. Um working with that group as well as a regional alliance if there's particular segments that make a lot of sense. Um one for us is motorsports. Um and trying to, you know, save money. So, there's a a show in Charlotte, I think in June. Um, that makes a lot of sense to go to because we have some suppliers for motorsports teams here in the area. Um, so we will be targeted. Um, I mean, you could, honestly, you could go to a show every week. Um, if you wanted to. So, we're going to try to target what makes sense for our town and what makes sense for our real estate mix. Um, but we are starting to identify some of those. And if you're aware of any, feel free to let me know.

Is there something on the national level as well that you can attend?

Yeah. So, um we'll be at an international really one of the shows will have about 25,000 real estate folks um attending. Um so, there's national shows. There's also an event um may not work for the calendar this year. It's called Select USA. Um it's actually an international event. They hold it in DC. So, it's it's um set up by the um our federal government to encourage international companies to invest in the United States. So depending on what the county and the regional alliance do, um we have an opportunity to partner there and have a presence. So um as we continue to grow out and now I have another person who if I'm on the road, they can be here and not you know provide some other um assistance something pops up in town um glad to do that. That's that was a good portion of my my time here in Cabaris was spent attending those shows. So um and I try to be you know we can be hyperfocused at the town level. When I was at the county level, you you had Canapapolis with the NCRC, so they had biotech research and food science, and then I had Concord Airport, so I attend aviation shows. Well, you know, I attended shows on behalf of Harrisburg as well. So, here I can just be hyperfocused on what's a target sector for us.

Thank you. To build on, you know, you can't be all places at all times. One one of the things I think we need to do is enhance our digital reput reputation. Maybe that's when Casey gets back. M um and increasingly you're not marketing to people, you're marketing to AI. Yes. Show me motorsports within 30 miles of Charlotte. Oh my gosh, look here's Harrisburg. Low tax rate, easy to deal with. And that could be in the form

of you writing a blog or doing a news release or we've got a restaurant that's doing 17,000 visits a month or with five miles of F1 or you know, all of that. as much as we can push. A lot of this is pull like we have the information. Just ask us. No, go ahead and push it out there. And it may not again be a human consuming it. Show me great places to do business. Wow, this guy's got 50 articles on why Harrisburg is number one.

Um, but I I think and and by the way, I'm I'm such a fan of everything you're doing. You're you're self-funding and it's all wonderful. Um, but you know, how do we increase and put that on steroids and have Ryan everywhere at all times, you know, 247? One of the things I've thought about, and it may be, you know, it may be easy, it may be not, is actually creating something that you talked about, a separate entity that connects back to the town website, but some

I don't know what the domain is, but feeding that information. And you brought up AI, which is a great point. How do we feed those, you know, those resources? um we're going to have to get there and I think because we're so uh driven by technology and data here in town, I think we can really take advantage of that. So, I'd love to have those discussions. Yeah. Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. And I I jokingly I I was reading this morning that they're now placing ads in digital e ebooks, which Yeah. So, maybe we put a Harrisburg ad in an ebook or something. But yeah, um yeah, it's amazing what technology is capable of now. So it's something that we need to think about

actually. That's really effective though when you do the GO. Yeah, that's really Absolutely. Yeah. So it it allows us and that's one of the things you know in the olden days so to speak when we used to run like magazine ads um we were really getting pressure.

Yeah. Yeah. So um I I went to our CEO at the time. I was like we've got to measure this. If we just blast out this ad, who knows if we're getting any traction. So, I created a special um uh email address that we put on the um ad and I was like, "All right, here's a special domain, special email address so we can actually quantify the the traction we're getting." We had one person go to the actual link and it was me when I tested it. So, that was a quick, you know, all right, we're getting ROI zero on this. We're actually getting But now with digital, um it's so easy to track. So we can get real-time information. So we need to take advantage of that and I think um we have the resources here at the town that do it. So and especially experts and on the other side of the room here we can uh take advantage. So yeah absolutely it makes sense.

Great questions. Um anything else on facade or Well and and I love the middle sign. This is huge. But I look at the cookout sign. to look at the welcome to Harrisburg signs and the stone work we're doing on the restroom we talked about last week. Uh and this is such a huge step forward. Uh it's great. But anything that can be done within that motif and that and I know staff works on that that's I love it.

Yeah, it's um and we really push quality when we had this discussion with them and I think this helps. I mean, instead of them potentially putting an $8,000 sign, they were able to get $16,000 sign or whatever the true cost would be. So, great program. Um, shifting gears completely um to workforce development. Um, so that was one of the as we grow out our program here at the town level, we want to continue to get more involved with our schools and our um businesses to help identify skilled workers. Um we know that this is a vital issue not just for Harrisburg but Cabaris County, the Charlotte region and nationwide. So really hyperfocused here on helping our local businesses connect to the school system and um we have we literally brought the person from the county who was doing this. So we we could not do any better. So um lots of discussion already on student track. That's a week-long program at the um at the county level um where they're going to be going around meeting with different businesses um in the county. Harrisburg is getting more involved with that. Will we will be a huge player in that moving forward. Um so that's another you know our our manager is helping lead that effort. So we could not be more involved with student track. We talked about C4 day and some of the other discussions. Um, I think our department has sort of taken that over with Casey being out, but it makes sense to house that within ED because, um, we that's our our sweet spot. We want to make that even better. We've had discussions with T and her team at HR. How can we get our HR folks at the town level um, in discussions with our schools as well? So, we're just at the tip of the iceberg on this, but um once the school system starts to wind, the school year starts to wind down, exams get through, we have it'll be easier for get us to get communication with our schools. Um but

we're going to continue to push that forward. We've already had some great discussions. Um we're going to be taking the um CT coordinator for the county over to meet with a um uh trade school um in another county coming up here in April. um so she can see that maybe that's the potential for a trade school in Cabaris County. So just continuing to grow this, but Harrisburg is going to be a leader um in workforce development in the county um and and moving forward. So anytime any of the council wants to participate, feel free any questions you may have. I know um it's it's a very passionate subject for some folks. It's very important. My wife's in education, so um it's very passionate for our family as well. But um just creating opportunities for students to see options be it is it high school graduate, is it technical school, is it military, or is it the four-year path? There are tons of good jobs out there paying really strong wages right now. We need to open up those opportunities for those students. And then entrepreneurship and one of the last things we talked about on our um dashboard. So, um, as we meet with, um, small business startups, there's actually an intake center at the Cabaris Center, um, which is located in Concord, but it is, it does serve the entire county. So, we had an, um, intake request that came in, um, to the Cabaris Center. Um, so Stephanie on our team went back to her old office and met with that gentleman who's um, from Harrisburg. He's at the startup stage of his business but provided assistance connecting with the um community college system. Um the EDPNC has a whole SBA, you see the small business advisors program, their small business network through the community college. So there are tons of resources out there, but the hardest part is navigating that. So um we have the the staff time now to help folks navigate. So anyone who's listening or at uh council, if you know someone who wants to start up a business, let us know. we can provide

that resource for them. And then we want to help them not just from maybe working out of their garage or their home office, but as we talked about previously with the sites and buildings, allowing them to grow into space, maybe it's shared space um if we have that coming online here in town. So, lots of opportunities there with entrepreneurship. These are actually much more time consuming as you can imagine than the larger project. So, it's a lot of one-on-one time just answering question, providing resources. But all of that's here now at the town level, and we're really proud to provide that. So, um, with that, um, I hopefully kept this a little over, but um, hopefully we'll keep moving, and I'm glad to answer any more questions that you may have.

I'll just say I'm really excited about this and the work that you're doing. Like, it's super exciting. I appreciate the conversation we had about school choice and not you know Harrisburg not not necessarily going to school in Harrisburg. And just so everybody knows like no sooner than we had that conversation and the need was shared a text message was sent in three like less than three minutes with all the requested information so that we could get our Harrisburg businesses plugged in. It's very helpful. Yeah, no problem. Um glad to help.

Yeah, thank you. And that's something with our workforce. You know, we I'm paid by town. I focus on the town, but we know our companies draw from outside of town of Harrisburg. We know our students go to schools outside. We have some folks at JMR. We have folks around early colleges. So, we are we're looking at workforce development countywide even though we're working on behalf of the town. Yeah, I'll echo that. I'm excited. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much, Ryan. Thank you. Thank you. 10 minute 10-minute break. 10 minute 10 minutes. 10 minute

Welcome back from the break. So, we will keep this moving and next up we have our finance reports with Brian Lee. Here we go.

Good afternoon, council. So, here is the finance budget presentation for FY27. uh start with the finance department work chart. So we have the uh finance director position at the top, assistant finance director who we just appointed as a finance officer at the last council meeting. So thank you for that. Um one of the divisions of finance is customer service and so we've got one customer service supervisor and two customer service reps. On the accounting side of the finance department, we have a financial analyst who uh is a new position this year and we just hired him on in January. And I'm really excited about him. He came with some experience from other municipalities and has already hit the ground running uh with all sorts of analytics for us and and pulling together some really good data for us that we haven't really had access to before. So, I think we'll really see the benefit of that position uh pretty quickly. And then we have our two accounting technicians as well. Uh here's the finance department history by the numbers a little bit. Um you might recognize this from previous years and also our citizens academy and uh pretty much any other time I'm getting in front of people talking about the history of the finance department. Uh we like to show this 2009 when uh Lee started the finance department here for the town of Harrisburg. Uh and how simple things were back then. Um the abocus from

I had to flip it.

So that that's when Lee was visionary. He started the department back in 2009. We've done I've put a 10-year marker in there with uh fiscal year 2019 to show you um how the department grew over the first 10 years and then this year as well so you can see kind of how growth is ramping up across the department. So total employees for the town grew from 65 to 141 over that 17-year period. Uh accounting staff went from 1 to five and customer service um went from three and a half to three in 2019 and we've maintained that. And I think that that speaks a lot to our efficiencies and automation. um that's a really great area of town where if you can automate a process um you can prevent hiring additional halftime employees and maybe even reducing the size of uh the employee base there. So we've seen some really good results from some of those efficiencies that we've added in customer service. Um one stat that I I really like to look at um as an efficiency metric for the department is what is our percentage of the overall account staff since we're an internal service department for the most part. um how much town staff do we make up? And so from about 6.9% in '09 to now 5.7 in 2026, you know, we're able to help the departments uh while while utilizing fewer resources. The number of utility customers that we're serving over that time period. Uh we're approaching doubling going from 5,000 to 9200. So a lot of growth there and that comes with a a lot more work than just uh signing up somebody for their account. That's a lot more meters breaking. that's trash cans going out to their homes now. Um work orders for all all the services at those homes. So, um it it really requires a lot a lot more work to maintain that level of uh that number of customers. The total budget for the town uh has grown from about 10 million in

the night to now about 130 million proposed budget. The number of funds went from two which was general fund and water and sewer and now we're up at 20. So, we're they're tracking a lot of things. Um we have a lot of capital projects, reserve funds, a lot of mechanisms to report this stuff and and print it out and show it in its proper area. Our capital I'm sorry, sorry. Does that breakout the 13th? What is happening with the 13? Does that include the breakouts that are for you?

Um no, that that's actually just the the revenue sources on those projects. Um so this this 20 here, the 13 and the 20 they represent um general fund water, sewer, storm water. Then all of the capital project funds. So transportation, parks and rack, general government, public safety, all have their own functional capital project fund. And then we have our capital reserve fund that are saving up for those projects. So the layers are are just adding up here. Thank you. Mhm.

And so our capital improvement plan was non-existent um in the first year and has grown to about a hundred million dollar tier capital improvement plan over that time period. A couple other metrics here. Um we started to collect and report on this as part of our quarterly reporting and benchmarking project. Uh but you see the last uh year and then the current year with the projected uh finished year. townwide contracts a little over 200. We're on pace for about 200 again this year. Customer service calls were nearly 40,000 in fiscal year 2025. And we are on pace for about 30,000 now. And so I think that that speaks to a lot of different things that we're doing right now. I'd love to say that Cclick Fix was a huge part of this. Um the numbers haven't reduced our cost 10,000 by any means. So that makes that makes me look elsewhere. And we have uh better forms online, we have better automation, we have more people signed up on e billills and bankrupt. Those are all calls that don't have to happen now when a bill is missing, a payment is late, you know, all all those opportunities for something to go wrong in somebody's utility relationship with us are coming down. when you need a leak adjustment now um or you put your pool search pool on our website, it's going to take you to our pool adjustment form which has very clear instructions what you need to do electronically submitted. Your account is adjusted. No phone call required. Two years ago, that was a phone call. So, we're we're implementing things like that and trying to make that resident experience a lot simpler, a lot easier to navigate. And I I think it's really showing here in service calls. And then the last little uh bit of credit I'll give to that is I think our website has improved considerably.

And if you're getting the answers to what you need on the website from an easy search or easy um you're able to navigate the website really easily. You don't have to call and ask those questions. So we're seeing a lot of a lot of benefit from the improvements across many departments here. uh new utility service requests are pretty much right on par at about 11 or 1200 a year and that is um both new uh properties coming online as well as the turnover of existing homes. Our 5-year trend um we aim to be pretty flat and we've had two years 25 and 27 where we had a little bit of a bump up and those are personnel related. uh when you have a a decently small department and you add a person, it's going to show a pretty big increase year-over-year. The one that you see from 26 to 27 in this graph is bringing the full effect, the full year effect of our financial analyst position. So, it was a half year in the current year. Now, we've got a full year and so that impacts our budget there. Um, real quickly on the customer service duties, they they reconcile the payments and cash across the town daily. uh collect and process all the town revenue. So that is utilities, water sewer, storm water, and solid waste. All permits, fees, penalties are uh accepted through customer service. And then any sort of miscellaneous receipts that we're not receiving by a directly to our account comes through customer service. Uh and then the big part of their job is assisting residents in person, over the phone, or by email, or by responding in work orders. um you can see all the services there and there's a lot more that they handle. Um but they're they're welcoming the resident when they come to town and they're the first people that they talk to. The first experience they have with the town of Harrisburg is setting up your utilities and getting everything in order. So it's really important that that we have a good impact when we meet that resident and then all the way through any concerns they have. Uh we want to be there to

help. Uh for the finance side of the house, um the some of the duties include budget, revenue and expenditures, the financial statements and the audit, capital, investing our idle funds, debt management, and then contracts and reporting. Real quickly on revenues here, uh we've gone over a lot of our revenue sources in budget season already, but we're projecting, I'm sorry, for 26, we have about 49.1 million of external revenue coming in. That number is probably 50 52 million for fiscal year 27 and that consists mostly of property taxes and sales and franchise taxes as the second largest group. Uh and then utilities are also a large portion of that revenue. Uh we are always going for grants and trying to um out outpace our um our property taxes with with grant revenue that's coming from federal government or the state. Um then we also have sales and services related to sports rentals of our uh facilities and other uh sales like that. And then compliance permits and plan review fees attached to uh planning and zoning in the engineering department. On the expenditure side of the house, uh this is where our internal control system is most important. Um we're looking at purchase orders, the pre- audit certification on every contract and every payment that we make. Uh the budget is obviously very important and then developing and maintaining a purchasing policy that supports uh a healthy internal control framework um has been developed and implemented for some time now. Uh what are we looking for when when we're evaluating transactions? Uh we need to know that it's been properly authorized and budgeted. So that's the first step. um properly authorized may be coming to council for approval of a contract or it could be our internal management thresholds but we make sure that um that that process never fails. Uh it must be budgeted obviously. Um it needs to be

properly coded on the front end in the financial system which ensures that it's ultimately reflected correctly in the financial statements. So that's the life cycle of an expense and there are a lot of internal control steps in there to make sure that that's successful every single time. You can see our FY25 to 26 to date uh comparisons there. Um kind of interesting information here. We've uh we've already paid out $2 million more than we did in all of last year. Um the number of checks that we're writing is about cut in half. Um but the dollar amount is about the same. So we've gotten rid of a lot of those small check payments which I'm really happy about and we will make a push to get rid of the rest of those in the next year. And then you can see our EFT and bank drafts at the bottom of the page there. About 1,500 in the prior year totaling 30 million. We're at 18,900 this year to date and that's about 32 million of payments there. And we know at the end of the year there's usually a rush to get a lot of things taken care of. So um this number will jump up considerably in the next couple months. Uh the financial statements are a huge part of the finance finance department's duties and that is um the end result of the audit. So it is a big big part of our year. Um the goal is that unmodified opinion that we heard about in the most recent audit presentation. Uh they test our internal controls very thoroughly. They're looking for compliance with laws and regulations, uh, local, state, federal laws and those around any sort of grants. And then, you know, we're looking for that assurance that our financial reporting is free of a material misstatement. Uh, we always submit and we're required to submit our financial statements to the local government commission. They review and approve those and we have received that approval this year on the statements. And then as a reminder, we did submit to the uh GFOA excellence program and I still haven't heard back. Um but the

first one and actually all of them take months to get the results on. Um so it's not a bad sign or anything but I am checking in on it all the time. Another function of the finance department is uh capital planning. So we maintain the 10-year capital improvement plan. Uh we also maintain 10ear personnel plans and workstation plans and uniform plans and all sorts of things. If we can put it in a 10-year schedule, we will definitely do that. Um we ensure that those capital purchases are properly recorded. Examples of our capital classifications, our equipment, vehicles, infrastructure, facilities, and labor. We have about 152 million in gross capital assets and a netbook value of 110 million which uh signals a young community. You'd see a lot bigger spread in in a older community. Uh investments are uh something that we've really been focused on the last couple years and making sure that we're putting our idle funds to use. Uh we have very limited options but we've done pretty well over the past couple years of maximizing that. Um, sometimes it's it's a matter of you only have a couple options. So, um, you have to move money really frequently to to get, you know, squeeze every little gain that you can out. And so, uh, we we put effort into making sure that our interest returns are really good. We have the North Carolina Capital Management Trust that gives us a steady guaranteed rate. Uh, we have interest bearing checking accounts which are probably as bad as your personal account at 0.01%. Uh but where we really went is our commercial paper and government securities. We put a lot of focus there in the past couple of years. So that resulted in about 2 and a.5 million of interest income in fiscal year 25. Um that is equivalent to five pennies on the tax rate. And for fiscal year 26, we are on pace for over 3 million. And that's in despite a declining uh rate environment. So I'm really happy with

how we're doing. we have a considerable amount of money locked in for up to three years at about 3.7%. Um, so that's that's really good. If interest rates drop suddenly, uh, we have a lot of protection on that on that risk. Here's a look at the town's uh, debt service over the next 15 or so years. You can see the town's total outstanding debt at $26 million and the upcoming debt service, which includes principal and interest payments, is about 3.2 2 million for 27. Um, you can see some of the different uh buckets there of debt and what it's related to. Um, and I'll I'll point out the gold band in the middle that grew this year. That's where we issued the transportation bonds. So, you can see that debt service for the second set of bonds uh being laid into the schedule there. But, uh, without any more issued debt, we're well on our way to uh, you know, this this chart decreasing and and getting to really really low levels. So, we talked about in our previous retreat that we have a lot of debt capacity if uh if we have the appetite for that. We had one year over year.

Actually, we could accelerate that, but you're saying it's not in our financial interest to accelerate paying that off. Um, no, we have really great rates. So, it it's going to be uh we a considerable amount of that 26 million is it has a one in front of it for the interest rate. Okay. Um, so I consider that free money. So, So, the wolf's not at the door, right?

Uh, we have one uh minor operational change and that is an increase in our tax administration and collection fees from the county, mostly related to our rural collection. Um, so not much we can do about that, but it's also a small change for us. Moving over to our initiatives, innovations, and efficiencies. U most of mine this year are focused on the resident experience or the staff experience. um and looking at why why are we doing things and do we actually get the benefit from them that that we thought we would when it was set up. So, one of those is the uh utility account security deposits. Most people have a $45 security deposit on their utility account. Um does anyone know how many times the town has ever claimed one of those?

None.

Zero. So, why do we go through the effort of collecting it from residents up front, keeping it in our system, refunding it to them? Um, the most common issue that we have is someone's final bill is $4321 and we apply their deposit and now we owe them $1.79 and we send that $1.79 to them five times because they pull cash and then we send them a state required letter that they need to come claim their money and they don't respond to that. So, we send their money to the state to the where's my cash that the state runs and it sits there forever. Um, not worth the effort and and we don't get any benefit from it whatsoever. So, um, our idea this year is to stop collecting that security deposit. It relieves a tiny bit of a burden when someone's moving to a new community. It's, you know, you have to set up your power. You have to set up all your utilities. Let's not take a deposit on this one. um we can immediately refund all the deposits that we're holding, which is kind of a half month to a full month of um relief for everybody. Um so, we think that'll be a really big win. Um but it just really improves our efficiency on the entire utility billing uh setup process. My next one is going cashless. Um, we we have concerns with security and um and risk having cash in our parks, in our concessions, splash pads, and at the events. Um, most concert venues and um other sort of events are completely cashless. All of our food truck vendors and and and those guys are set up to be cashless. So, it's the direction that we want to move. We will still accept cash in town hall for utility payments and other fees, but we want to get the cash um out of the other facilities and and out from the parks. I I have here the penny policy as well. Um a lot of people are over complicating the penny policy and and setting up

policies and doing all sorts of stuff. Um we're going to take the path of just letting if someone pays in cash and would be due pennies back, we'll let them choose. Do you want to round up or down your payment? You can carry that three cent credit on your account to the next month or you can carry a two cent deficit if you would like. No one's bothered by that. But we're not going to go through setting up a bunch of policies around this. We're just going to say, you know, you would have got 57 cents back in change. Where do you want that to go? So, we can make that pretty easy. Uh, I mentioned EFT payments, moving people off of checks. Um, so we we will do a final push to convert our existing vendors on a encouraged and voluntary basis. December the 31st and then we will convert that over to a mandatory uh relationship with us and let let's get rid of all the paper checks. Um another purchasing efficiency that we're looking at is um the the three thresholds that you see here moving the purchase order threshold from a,000 to500. I will support it I guess. Um I know that all all the staff really wants that. It it does um reflect the inflation that we've been under. The thousand was set um probably back in '09. I know it was dropped to 500.

So it it made it to a,000. It was dropped to 500 at some point. It's been back at 1,000 for a long time, but we know that there's been a lot of inflation uh since then. And so moving that threshold up a little bit, indexing it with inflation is is probably smart. Uh along those same lines, the capitalization threshold for our assets, moving that from 5 to 10,000, that just means that these 67 $8,000 pieces of equipment don't need to go through the entire capital justification process with you all. Now, it still goes uh we still go through that process and we still make sure it's a it's a valid purchase, a warranted purchase. Um, so it doesn't change anything like that, but those those items don't need to be capitalized and tracked um to the level that our big equipment needs to be. And then the last one is council approved contracts and commitments. Our level right now is 50,000. Um, that doesn't get you what it used to um by any means. And so we're looking at moving that uh of course with your support to 75,000 just to reflect um inflation and and what you can get for that dollar amount. And with that, we'll need five fingerprints on the 75,000.

As far as the I'm fine with moving them up, but like as far as the state, do we have any sort of requirement? Like, is there a ceiling that has to be these numbers? No, there's not. Not on any of those. The the state actually recommends that everyone moves from 5 to 10 on the capitalization threshold. That was at my last state conference. But that that's the recommendation and the other two are just up to the local jurisdictions. All right. Okay. Well, I'm also doing your council budget, so let's jump into that.

Questions for you guys on this. Here is the organizational chart starting with mayor's council at the top and then showing the department head as well. And then of course the town council board chart. Here's the 5-year trend. Once we found $281,250, we knew that that was the right number. And so that's been the budget for the last three years. And um it it works. So what's what's in that number? um two two pretty big things and then other than that a lot of dues and subscriptions um you know townwide dues um but the big items are the state budget advocacy and travel or facilitation very easy for me to say at 85,000 uh we just signed that contract and it works it it works out to 66,000 a year so there's a little money here for uh meetings or or other things that might need to take place with that and then we have our council identified projects Exodus number started a lot bigger a couple years ago. It was to give you the ability to react quickly to something and and approve it in a meeting and we had a bucket of money to use. As we've um implemented other um identified items like this the state advocacy, we've pulled that from that number so to not exceed B281250. Um so that's at 68,000 now. So we've taken a couple things out of that but it remains in the council department. Now that's it.

I know that might have be um Janet.

Any questions on either of the departments I'll pass it to Lee for everyone. I don't know I go quite as fast as Janet, but I want to see if I can do that on uh so Rob and I were talking earlier and it it's it's interesting as time has gone on and we've gotten bigger. It's caused us to have to uh more departmentalize what used to be an administration. You know, Brian talks about, you know, back whenever I I started and we just had general government and administration, everything was under administration. And as we've taken on things like economic development and communications and uh formalized the HR department, all that stuff has come out of administration and gone gone into its own bucket. So, as we go through, you're going to see a relatively I don't want to say flat, but it not a lot of movement there over time. And obviously, that doesn't track with how the town has grown. And a lot of that is because of this situation where we're diving stuff out to the departments. The la last big thing that impacted that we mentioned last year um was whenever we created the buildings and grounds department as far as funding a lot of the act or moving a lot of the actual buildings and grounds cost that used to be under administration out there. So just to kind of explain I think we do a great job on uh trying to hold the line for the administrative cost as much as we can. uh but that is part of the reason why you don't see a lot of fluctuation in this over time. The organizational chart, these are

always one of the most challenging things to show. Um as you see throughout your books, there's multiple different versions of the org charts. Uh in the very beginning, we have more of a a functional organizational chart. This is more of an actual operational but it the relationship with Robin myself and how we operate over all the department heads and as we were talking earlier bringing in these assistant town managers uh get it very difficult to try to represent it graphically on uh this chart. But uh suffice to say that everybody under me, Rob handles all the visionary strategic stuff for everybody and then I take that and make sure operationally everything's plugged in and able to meet those strategies and visions. And so uh Rob and I actually jointly oversee every one of these departments. It's just in any given day what do we do? So, uh, that's kind of the way you see it as it is. Uh, we all have direct reports that, uh, we handle specifically, but, uh, wanted just to give you a little bit of understanding on how that's all broken up. Capital improvement plan. This is yet another one, and this is actually one that's kind of going opposite where uh, we're trying to show you all of the general government capital. So uh some of what you've seen in individual departments like communications and planning uh and economic development you're going to see again here. Uh this is the entire list of all of that that kind of falls within general government

budget changes and uh you not a lot going on as far as uh dollars and cents. But as you know, tremendous work that's coming in between economic development Ellie is keeping us so busy. It's hard for us to to keep our heads straight. But uh you know there in lies a lot of the reason that uh I need to get some more of my time available to take a lot of the information that her and Rob are coming up with from all these benchmarking datas. Those are good data points, but how do you use that to make your operations more efficient and effective? Um, and so there in lies some of the succession and help planning with the assistant managers to be able to handle more of the one-on-one with the their own departments as well as uh all some of the other departments around town. Um, and I can help direct that better of how do we really make Harrisburg better and better. we're getting all the data in place for it. So, uh, that's kind of how all that's coming together. As far as capital goes, it's really the, uh, town hall renovations and the downtown, uh, park in front of town hall. Those are two main things that we're continuing to work through. Those are two very big projects that have taken some time, but we're really excited on how they're going to uh, be moving forward. I couldn't get off of administration completely without Ellie. Uh, do you want to explain your slide?

She's proud of it. No, I have dead battery over here. Thank you.

Okay, you heard a lot about data today. I love data. So, we have this emphasis on data and reporting. This past or in the in the current fiscal year, we did free participation with the School of Government Benchmarking Program. And while it's not reflected in the budget, we're considering going in full paid participation with the School of Government Benchmarking Program in the next fiscal year, which is why it's here on the budget changes slide. Um, we appreciate being part of an external formal partnership with School of Government with this benchmarking program because it connects us to other jurisdictions in a peer-to-peer format where we can compare strategy and data and understand what works and what doesn't. Um, and then secondly, Ryan, kudos to Ryan for connecting us with the Urban Institute up in um, UNCC. They operate the um Charlotte Explorer, the the data explorer. I don't know if any of you are familiar with the Cheddy study from like 20 years ago that looked at economic mobility in Charlotte. So they run that um mobility map. They are creating a 14count regional data explorer and Harrisburg is the first entity to partner with them and I'm so excited. Yes, you know, we like to be first. We like to be cutting edge. So we are number one on that project and so we would like to go allin with your support with the Urban Institute um and partner with them on regional data quality of life benchmarking. How is our community a community of choice compared to the rest of the 14 county region?

Any questions? So we we could potentially use that data against what the yes

one Harrisburg says like as a measurement tool. So, the regional explorer uses a lot of census data, which is out of date. Um, so a lot of the boots on the ground information that we get will be the most up-to-date information compared to what the other counties are collecting. Um, however, what they need our help with is some of the the quality of life that's not collected by the census. So like our crime data, some of our um school data and our quality of uh environmental quality and quality of life information that the federal government does not track across the board. So it will be a little bit more customized to our area and some of the things that the Charlotte region is focused on.

Has this study has this process started already? They are in the pilot stages and we're actually meeting with them next month for them to sort of pitch the new interface. They're working with a couple of data scientists from Denmark to create the interface. So, we're going to get a first look at it in April. And um with your support, we could sign a a contract with them to move forward in a data sharing model. I'm I'm asking because the Chinese study was not a good look for

No, it was not. M and um I'm I'm excited to know that we're we're going to be a part of it, but we just got to prepare very, you know, because it was not for years on um for Meckllinmberg County. So, it's good that we're doing things great here in Harrisburg and we'll continue to do that. But that will shine a huge light on us because that Cheddy study had such a global um um um what am I a global um market in terms of people knowing what happened and and and the and the problems that was going that are going on and currently still going on in Meccur County. So I'll be interested to see how that works out. Happy to answer any other questions for administration.

Can you go back to the work chart for just one second? Just food for thought. You guys can divide it up any way you want, but if there were natural groupings to sort of eliminate that deputy right to town hall and put more responsibility of the Brians of the world to say, okay, you've got, you know, fire, police, and it got HR, HR. Uh, I mean, it just seems unwieldy for you guys to have such subject matter expertise across 11 disciplines here. And it's also a grooming technique. I mean, you run your staff the way you want to run it, but it just seems like a lot of direct reports.

We we can show you more of a direct report thing. I think the the issue and and we we hit on this a little bit, you know, right at the beginning uh of the uh of the day is that as we've grown, you know, what is what does the organization look like? And people that have, you know, lived here or been council members here for many years remember us as a small town. Well, you have to go through stages, right? So, you know, one of the stages was our first town manager, right? And so he just did strategy and operations for every department across the town period. Um five years ago when I came on we we split that into okay vision and strategy executive function and operation function. So every department that we have you know be it HR or whoever I'm dealing with them on vision and strategy as set by the community and you guys and then I'm saying okay now go well how are they operating on a dayto-day how do they get you know from point A to point B which offices are they occupying you know what is their quality of work look like coming in I'm not reviewing quality of work I I'm reviewing the end end goal summary and so So we split that into okay, chief operating officer, chief executive officer. So that's what that's still kind of how we we see it on an ORC chart. Now with with kind of having a a slash role with with Brian and then potentially with John here at the end of this um budget season, you have some more ability to to to have some more portfolios. But I don't think at any point we're going to not in any time soon in the next two cycles or or three cycles are we going to see kind of the executive function taken out of those. I

wouldn't want I wouldn't want Jim and somebody three steps away from council saying this is our vision and our executive function. Yeah, I I think you set the tone up high and then what you're articulating is perfect, but the operational who's my boss and who do I see about getting a new chair in my office and all that, you know? Yeah, I think I I think we need to and I I took some notes on it here, show some of these kind of like portfolios that are more assignments

throughout on the management team. Now that we have a management team, right, that's a relatively new thing. I was I was sitting here thinking as we were kind of going through this benchmarking and and everybody in this room's like, "Yeah, yeah, like we we're really used to data and we're really used to being measured and and we really stack up well against everybody." And I was thinking of a conversation the mayor and I had 6 months into my role here and and our staff was not having an easy time. Um, and some of the folks that have been here a long time with us remember the cultural change that that we had here. And and the mayor's quote to me was, "We're just not ready. We're just not used to being put up against a a measuring stick yet." And and you know, fast forward 5 years and and we're very much used to it. I mean, our staff embraces it. They they love to be measured against everybody and anybody that you know, bring all comers. We we'd love to see how we perform, but that that's that was a scary task at the time to say, you know, what do you mean you're going to compare me to other people? What do you mean we're going to have measured outcomes? What do you mean we have to, you know, have some some type of um data at the end of this to prove we're doing our jobs? We work hard. And and the answer to that's always been, yeah, we know. Um but through that evolution, we've also seen an entire management team build out. Now we have this this kind of data analytics function we have this benchmarking function we have you know now technology jumping in we have you know where does that land so we just operate a lot differently and it's happening quicker so we can we can get that I don't know that it belongs in the budget as much as it belongs in your guys's pack to understand yeah

how are things um put out because these these are a little different. It's easier for the departments and and and the management function. It just kind of moves around a little bit. And we're we're just always going to share employees to some to some extent as you as you get up there. Makes sense. Any other questions? Last one.

Thank you, Lee. But I am here. He trusted me with this presentation. Um, while Casey is loving on her sweet baby girl. She's having more fun than we are. Okay. Communications. So, here is communications 5-year trend. Um, very steady. Nothing here to report unless I don't know something. Excellent. Um, work chart very streamlined. We have the communications director who is Casey Netor and the communications manager which is Jared Burgerer. So communications core functions um we have this broken up into four buckets. Public information um the communications team is responsible for all of the internal and external communications on behalf of the town. They're also responsible for all the digital and social media accessibility. This includes Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and QuickFix. Um, while QuickFix work orders are generally handled by our public works team or by our parks team, the communications team is the the point of contact for residents when it comes to the quick fix interface as well as um any messaging that comes out of that system. Um, the communications team is heavily involved in engagement in community programs of course like our citizens academy and our youth council. Um, but they were really strong partners with our one Harrisburg public engagement this fall and on social media and online and I'm very grateful for Casey's partnership in that because we really pushed that initiative out far beyond what we had expected. Um, and then communications also works on emergency and crisis communication which we've seen we tend to see more and more of lately. Some of the core strategic goals for the

department include transparency such as providing timely and accurate information engagement particularly creating a two-way dialogue between residents and the town innovation um particularly with videography and digital platforms and then fiscal responsibility by using efficient technology. So the primary audience for a communications team is town council and town residents but an interesting secondary audience are visitors, businesses and regional partners. Um a core goal is helping those who do not feel connected to the town of Harrisburg feel connected through sharing the town's functions efficiently and creating a reason to get involved with Harrisburg. Um and and the goal here is to establish Harrisburg as a premier familyfriendly community through engaging and transparent communication that fosters community of pride, strengthens relationships, and promotes a high quality of learning. So we've got a few strategic initiatives that the communications department is presenting today um all around the the goal of strengthening community trust. We've got a brand refresh, some print materials, and a community engagement. Our first item here, a brand refresh. So, the purpose of refreshing the brand, which has been here at town affairs for quite some time, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the brand. We just want to establish a consistent visual identity that aligns the town's vision, mission, values, and goals. strengthens residents pride in the town that they live, work or play in and support business attraction and economic development. So the brand refresh will be led by the communications department in collaboration with a third party municipal branding service, town leadership, department directors, and of course our biggest stakeholders which are you and the residents. Some of the

key deliverables of this project include a brand audit, stakeholder engagement, a brand identity system, some messaging framework, and then a brand implementation toolkit, which the end goal here is to reduce duplication inconsistency in our brand across the town and in our branding styles. We want more professional consistent brand presence across all of our platforms. and we need to increase the ability to compete regionally for business recruitment. Um, we had really great success with the one Harrisburg brand. Not only did that logo really resonate with folks, so it's very memorable and it's very fresh and upbeat. So, this is the kind of vibe we're going for with our brand refresh. Not necessarily the colors and the style, but we want to re-energize the brand and make sure people are aware that, hey, this is the town that they'll work and play in. So, we have two very popular community engagement programs, the youth council and the citizens academy. Um, high participation and high engagement for both of these programs and Casey has worked really hard to build them back up. Our youth council um has seen some huge strides in the 2023 2024 year. It started with 21 students. We saw a 48% increase in the following year with 31 students. 22 and a.5% increase to 38 and then this past year we had 100 plus applicants. So that really speaks volumes of the work that the department is putting in and engaging the youth in our school system and then you know just the work now with kids coming back and asking their friends to join. Similarly with our citizens academy started out with eight participants that increased to 14 that increased to 20 and

so on and so forth. The final strategy here is uh a print engagement plan. So we want to look at softening the digital fatigue that we see by being constantly on our phones all of the time. Um, we would like to strategically invest in printed materials to increase accessibility and encourage civic participation. The idea here is that by placing print materials in the hands of residents and stakeholders um with the strategic approach of using a QR code to direct back to a digital resource, we could maximize the engagement with the hopes of softening this digital fatigue. Um, a case study here would be the one Harrisburg print material. We had the the brochures, the cards, the QR codes. Um, yes, including the welcome packet. And we saw great success, especially with the one Harrisburg pamphlet. Um, you hold on to it. You kind of can't avoid it. It's always sitting on your kitchen table or on your counter. You can pass it out. But then we always have that digital element like the QR code to bring it back to our website for social media. Um, so on and so forth. I'm gonna go a little rogue here for a second.

Um, we made it really good today. No, I I I think with a a digital format, Google will translate for you. And I do wonder if you have a printed material, it's not translated. Is that something you're seeing? I apologize Rob on this but is do you foresee the impact of needing a Spanish or Hindi translated print material in the absence of a digital potentially um potentially and also just ensuring because I don't know the answer to this go if our web features are ADA compliant

so then that'll allow that trans translation feature. The website is ADA compliant and it does have the Google translate option in it. So the website covers all the bases. Okay. But it's an interesting thought I have today. Apologies. I'm just thinking about what Ron said earlier and and we still have time before July 4th. So this could be both. If you got a mailer in and it had a QR code that said

get my wristband now, you know, I'm going to do that more than Didn't you see our website? Yeah. Well, no, I I'm not on your website every day. I didn't see that. But if you stick something on a mailbox and it's red, white, and blue and scan here, go now. Void the line. Uh it's on your phone, it'll go to your Google wallet. You know, it's it's not a eitheror. So, and I don't know what the cost of these mailers is or for already doing bills or whatever it is. It could be a one card and every resident doesn't sound like a lot of money. It's not speaking for Brian. It's not

um speaking of like I don't know if it's print or not, but like the the big banner that we usually have like 49 and like veterans or like by the park like I find that those are very useful even though I know something is coming up. I may forget and then I see it. I'm like, "Oh yeah, that's right. It's this Saturday." Yeah. I I find them highly useful like the ones we see now or the park movie in the park or something like that. That was a good movie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, we we have new frames being built right now for those. And that also increase the number of spots that we have. They're already up. They're already up, right?

Oh, are they good being used right now? They're just like big visual, you know, clear. Yeah. Mhm. And as point here, it's hard to ignore the physical items, right? Having that visual reminder. Yes, ma'am. Before we subject, I have a question.

Yes. Okay. Just as we're gearing up for applications for youth council and the other, especially for youth council, I would encourage a rethink on eligibility criteria for students that are involved in sports and ability to make attend the meetings. Um there like the youth counselors are speaking to each other and there seems to be much more flexibility with that than the other municipalities because you're missing out on the like people are saying you play football and you play basketball don't apply

because our students are more than athletics like you know and the seasons aren't

I think that's a double-edged sword though because if you're in sports you don't get to miss sports to go to another meeting. And that's, you know, that was a problem early on with youth council is you have people sign up and whatever the reason was, they weren't there. The attendance was not great trying to get people in and they're meeting once a month. Sometimes they have the committee meetings if they're working on their um big project. But that was some of the feedback we got from the kids directly was if you signed up to do this, you really need to be an integral part and be here for the actual meetings and participate.

But but I also think just to add sports are seasonal, right? This is a youth council is what a year year-long commitment. It's August to May. Okay. It's the school year.

So So football season isn't the whole year. Neither is basketball. So I think it's somewhere to kind of meet in the middle, you know, um because I I I have heard the same thing with some kids either they do it and they drop because they can't or they have to feel that they have to make a tough choice and you know um as an as a person who looked at applications in the college side, we want to see students who are well-rounded, right? And not just one thing because it's easy just to go to school and do one, you know, a thing, but to balance all of that says a lot about you as a person. So, I think it would be great just to at least consider um kids who want to do sports and want to do, you know, because I think it's great that they want to do youth counsel, right? But I think it shows responsibility on their part, but we just have some flexibility because it no sport is year round.

Maybe I'm confused. What what is the what is the ask? Because you can you can join youth council and being a sport, right? There's no prohibition on that. Let me let me tell what the message is among the youth. The message is Oh, one second. Are we done? Okay. Um the message is if you play a sport, you can't do it because you're not available. And I I work in the schools. I hear the conversation. Yeah. They're not picking. Well, agreed. But if that but if that is their perception that if I play a sport, there's no reason for me to even apply or consider. Well, there's attendance requirements. there is attendance requirements.

What I'm hearing is that there is attendance requirement and also you know otherwise what you're going to have is the few kids that are involved doing most of the heavy lifting and some of the other kids are just half the time are not there. So I don't think it's for that. I think it's really for people that want to dedicate themselves. Like for example like there is the beta club in middle school. Like that takes a lot of you know time commitment and if they can't commit to it they don't you know they shouldn't be signing up. So yeah, I feel with 75 applicants and 35 seats, you're taking somebody's seat who said, "Man, yeah, I would have been there for every meeting."

And we do want to keep it contained because you can't keep exploding the numbers. I think that was one of the issues we had before was way too many kids signing up and nothing's organized. Well, I guess I guess the other the other way to look at it is you're not saying not to apply if you play sports, but I think we can encourage those who play sports to know that they can apply because this they can still make it work, right? It's not the first I've ever heard.

It's not just to say because you play sports you shouldn't if even if that's their perception. So, I think we should change the perception to say we welcome all students even if you're an athlete, you can still do both. I don't think that that's been articulated clearly like you know what I mean. Yeah. Was it more about Concord um program? Cuz I don't know if Harrisburg programth has cuz we've only like modified it the last couple of years. So it's it was specific to Harris. Well, our our current youth council, they are also tasked with recruiting and getting the word out in their schools.

That has come up in youth council meetings that attendance is critically important. So maybe that could be just in the message on how they're delivering. Anybody can apply for it, but you have to be able to meet the attendance requirements for this regardless of what your other activities are. Yeah. And some kids, you know, they do basketball in the winter, then they do spring, you know, soccer. They're involved in different things all year long. So, yeah. I mean, it's hard. You can do it though. And that's that's the type of point that we're looking at is that it can be done. But if the students are hearing from each other or otherwise if you play a sport don't apply that's a problem. Well, maybe I'm saying we can talk we'll talk about how we are messaging that.

We'll talk about that reputation because that it isn't accurate. I mean, you can do it, but you know, it it takes a special student athlete to also be in youth council and keep their grades up and and do everything, but um Hey, that's what it's about. So, the whole child. Yeah, we're back. Not working,

right? We're almost done. Two more slides. Okay. I wanted to give a huge shout out to Casey and her team because she's made huge progress in the last two years. And these are her words, but I I'll echo them. In the past, there was fragmented branding, manual resident outreach, static content, and a very basic digital presence. and she's really elevated it to a professionally executed content storytelling, a unified brand identity, some integrated digital resources with the QR codes, and then a pipeline of resident leaders through our youth council and our um civic engagement uh citizens academy. So, in summary, the goal here is to have a unified engaged Harrisburg through civic participation, transparency, and equitable access to information. Any questions that I can answer on behalf of communications?

Thank you, Ellie. Thank you. Great job. You go back to Brian.

Oh, yes. I do have one more slide. Um wouldn't be a meeting if this slide weren't in the slide deck at some some point. So, we have now made it through workshop two. And so all we have left are two twohour workshops during the week. So April 9th is a Thursday, 6:00 to 8 uh for workshop three. And that is where you'll get the balanced budget. Any feedback we've gotten from you today, which very well could result in some changes to the budget detail uh will be implemented and shown to you there. But um we'll also go over the revenues in detail. Uh show you the financial models. And when we leave that meeting, you'll have some council exercise to make all of your selection. We'll incorporate all of that back into the manager's recommended budget preview, which happens at workshop number four. And if all is good at that meeting, then we roll right into the May 11th public hearing and on to the June 8th U representation and adoption of the budget. Any questions on our final steps there? All right, with that I'll give it back to Rob close it out.

So, since we're ahead of schedule, I'm going to take another hour here and uh say what I didn't get to say ear. No. Um we'll we'll certainly uh wrap it up here very quickly. I wanted to um go over some of the notes that I put down first um just to make sure we're we're getting back. We had stopped earlier on on some action items. So, I I'll pick up there. Um, Councilman F asked kind of about that um that council guide and just uh going back through that and and making sure it's up to date, which we'll certainly go do. Um I I I needed uh to dig on this a little bit more. Uh the preapp metrics and and review metrics and why things are denied. uh we already we already do track um a lot of that and we can make that a little bit more available on applications on pre-applications. I think there's there's a little bit more of a difficulty there because pre-applications can be anything from an informal ice cream vendor coming in and saying, "Hey, is there a shanty shack I can I can set up somewhere?" And Shelley saying, "Nah, it doesn't really meet." And then it goes away up to, you know, major industrial developments. And they always don't have to give us a reason why they don't come back in. So, I think we'll put our heads together on on what we can do with that. But was there something more to pre because I I don't want to over glorify a pre-application. It really is that it's a conversation before an application's ever put in. So those can kind of fizzle away pretty easy. The application that's a that's one that we can get you really good hard data on. I think tail my ask was around tailoring it more to if if it's available like you know if we're measuring or looking at trends of

a rationale one way or the other. Okay. Yeah, we can. Right. A no is fine. You get a no in two weeks. That's great.

Well, and and sometimes it's people come in and and inquire about something. So Shel will track it as kind of a pre-application. say, "Why don't you come in for a pre pre-application before you do an application and waste everybody's time on this? Come in for a pre-application." They come in, she gives them info, and they just they just never come back. Or they may come back two years later and they go, "Hey, remember when we met two years ago?" It's like, "Uh, not really, but let me get my notes out." And and so it becomes a really disjointed process. I don't want to I don't want to create the false impression that we have a lot of really hard information there, but we can we'll we'll think about what we can do on the preapp side. Now, once it gets to an application there, we can really get that data into trends and and show that really well of where they ran into a wall or, you know, what what is constantly, you know, not making it through and why. That's a little bit easier because we have a form that they fill out and we really have a lot of data. we can we can track on that preapp it it's a lot of ghosts that that we chase on those things.

Um in line with that is there also a number on like how many they applied and we've approved but they just went on decided to do something else like maybe their business model changed or something. Chill said yes. Good question. Um

yeah and at what point do we know they've moved on a year a week? Well, I think that that's why I said a good question. And Shelley really quickly nodded yes because it's like, well, we don't know. And they like take Sam's Express car wash, right? Did they move on? Right. It was like a 9-year car wash uh application process. Um I would classify that they moved on, but then all of a sudden they came back in the past year and got serious with it. And uh supposedly we're we're getting a car wash uh there at some point, but it's been through like four town engineers. So um and a lot of times we don't get reasons why.

Um yeah. No, I mean the the vast majority get pre-applications. We don't get reasons why. Even on some of these conditional resonings, um we we've had this this issue out there with was it Magnolia Corners? I think is uh um again predates I think it's a 25 or 30 year reasonzoning that always comes back up and um you know why didn't it happen when it happened? I don't know why did you pick that exist

and why did because it's the one that comes it's the gift that keeps on giving. Um but there's all there's just always um these resonings that that live out there that we don't know why they don't get built. They can't market them. It might be um free markets. It might have been recessions. It might be owners aren't ready. It might just be they don't have resource and we don't really that's not our business. We just wait for them to build on a property. There's plenty of property that's zoned by right that doesn't develop. And we're never curious why hasn't that developed? Why hasn't that developed? Conditional resonings are no different in that regard. they they they got a condition and they're allowed to do a certain thing, but they don't have to build and they may never build and 10 15 years down the road they may come in and and ask for some other zoning change and and that's okay. That that happens all the time. Rob, let me just add that I was just going to say I think I was asking Shelley a lot of those questions during that time and I don't know if it's the pre-appled application but somewhere in that phase or somewhere during that time period just to understand the trends the themes because if there's something within our control it'll be good to be able to identify that as a group right and I know you may have some out we may have some outliers or some other things that we can't control but if we are intentional about collecting that data we can say you know what we've seen this a lot and these projects s haven't they keep stopping and going for these reasons maybe we can come back to the you know to the table and say well why what what can we do within our purview to be able to fix that so I'm just so I don't know if it's necessarily the preapp or the app or somewhere in between right it's somewhere during that process just to understand

what's happening and a no is a no right but just to kind of start collecting those things yeah we'll put our heads together and figure out what what we can come and I'll I'll work with you guys um individually as well on those I don't know that necessar necessarily those are budget related, but I think they're operationally related to things that we can we can figure out. I think for me though, and Ryan did a really good job of explaining like with the leads and all of that, but my my thought process was along the lines of economic development. If we're investing in that, well, the way we have already invested in that, but we want to continue to see that grow. Mhm. If we're not measuring something that we could potentially be doing differently, then we're not doing it well. Yeah,

that that's why I asked. Yeah, I that helps. Yeah, because the the things that we want that we've identified as a group, hey, the you know these commercial the these kind of um low impact industrial, these things that add to the tax base, we track those differently than we track everything else because we want to know that from a staff, what is prohibiting those and how do we improve those processes? So, if that's what we're looking for in that regard, I think that's really that's that simplifies it a lot. My I don't know if that's Dr. Mate's question.

I I think the the the other ones get weird, right? The guy, you know, the people with six acre parcel that keeps coming in and saying, "Hey, what can I do on this parcel?" And we say, "Well, nothing." Like, that's not what we do. You tell us what you want to do and we'll we'll review it, but we're not your engineers or planners or business folks. Um, now we have lease Ryan to send them to, but a lot of times they would just go to planning and say, "What can I do here?" We don't know. So, um, all right, let's wrap our head around that. I I also have IT vulnerability, um, testing and actually to have a report on on something like that. Um, get the ETJ split out on football percentage numbers. Um, Ron and I had lively discussion on Fourth of July crowd control and and uh I I think the solution to that was just we need to get that information in April. That way you all have something in your hands so that when the public starts beating your door down of what does this mean, you have something to uh give back to them and and answer that um with details. Chris had asked for um Councilman F asked for an enhanced online ed marketing footprint. Did I capture that correctly? So I I think I know what you you meant there. And I actually um my brain brain was going to how I get marketed to all the time. And I was thinking, you know,

there's always this hot stock pick that gets uh in your feed, right? And it's like one of these fake sponsored things by Zachs or or whoever does the analysis. And I'm like, why couldn't why couldn't we have these these sponsored targeted best town in you know the universe fly here uh sponsored at So let me bounce that off our communications folks. I'm sure they've dealt with that a little bit more. And then finally, the um the athletes making sure that they know they can apply for youth council that it's a big lift, but if it's something that they're interested in, that's certainly something we're interested in having them here. Rob, I I do have one that I didn't bring up earlier. I was going to wait till we got to the end. Um and it was around when Shelley was up presenting. It's her slide 120 in our deck, but she shows the development statistics, right? And you look at it, you see um 2024, 24, 2025 and then current and it just falls off the approvals and such. And and I know our focus has been economic development, economic development. We want to we'd rather see retail than we would rather see um rather retail and commercial than residential. We've gone through a period of time where we've been very selective on what we've approved. My question is can we continue to function in that space or

what what's be you know what's on the books today is that enough to float us for a while um I'm I'm very um I think our our housing is very sustainable at the numbers that that we have and our buy right ones that that are coming through. I think we saw, you know, a troth and then a stabilization. I would caution slide 120, that's a year, that's a that's a year to date um number. So, you know, if you look at like 24 and five, like 25 was higher than

I mean, I I I even think if you you know, if you did residential on that on a seven-year plan, it would be, you know, it's it's a steep downs slope, and I'm not against that. um you know have advocated for that but at the same time I want to know that we're not setting future No I think that that law was um a transition into a quality standard really like you know sometimes you have to hold the line before the market

realizes you're serious and then when it says okay you you are okay I I I understand what you're what you're going for here. Um, I think we have just as many folks that come in interested now, but the amount that I feel like can get through the process is a much higher percentage than two years ago and certainly three years ago. I think a lot of folks were still coming in here um three, four years ago and saying, "Hey, we're large large track builders. We'd like to build 600 homes on a tenth of an acre, all 10 foot wall to wall in between them and you know, we don't want to follow any standards of yours and and expect us to be like, "Oh, thank goodness you're here." And I think after a few years of just saying we're it's we're not bluffing like we are very happy to take a pause and catch up with our infrastructure and get our house in order while you guys decide whether you can make money in Harrisburg with a high quality product or not. And I think we've turned that corner. So we do see a lot of high quality product come in. And there certain there's still a very high demand for um at least what I say is a very high demand for like town home additions into these uses. But we really have been trying to focus on the mixed uses and the commercial and industrial from a sewer capacity standpoint. And I really think that that is our biggest choke point if we if we talk about future growth and you know setting you know future councils up and future staffs up and and making sure that we don't really have a an extended period of very low growth. Um, it's making sure that we have the the capacity to treat the sewer and and once we can get there, then a lot of this other growth issue goes away.

And then and in that same space, when you talk about sewer, it had previously been understood that when the new plant comes online that we're going to be out of capacity by the time it gets online. Is that still about where we're going to be? they're going to need another facility or we we won't be out of capacity when it when it comes online. Um but we're not going to be out of

uh well, we're not going to be out of um an allocation process then either. It's still going to be if we were to just do a first come first serve, we would run out probably within a year. And so every community is still going to have to have a very targeted allocation process until I think you you get to a phase that has not been approved yet, which is another 9 million gallons uh per day at at the plant. And so going from 36 to 45, I think really when we can approve something like that and put that on a calendar, understand what that looks like, then I think this this all gets a little bit easier for all the jurisdictions. But I think you know when you look at Concord and Canapapolis the the two other kind of high growth jurisdictions in Wasac they're they're having their own you know conversations with their communities of how much are they willing to invest in future growth in their community. A lot of their communities are pushing back against their growth. They're they're where we're at four or five years ago and they're saying why am I paying for a capacity at at your plant? Hold on. So their councils are listening to that and trying to figure out what is that what is that right amount. We've already crossed that Rubicon. So we we kind of understand what our future looks like and how we'll pay for it. And so we're in much better shape. We just need to get the the entire water and sewer authority in that same vein.

Thank you. Yep. Mayor, all done. All done.

Well, thanks to all of our department heads that were here today. That was an enormous amount of work. And for our two new um council members, I know you guys were drinking from a fire hose today. That was a lot of information. Um it's always nice to hear directly from the department managers as we go through this line item by line item. Just a reminder for those that were joining us today, whether in person or online, this is not a recommended or a final budget. There are no um tax rate recommendations. However, everything that we talked about and you saw today in this this is a is balanced and there is funding in there with the current tax rate. Um, we did not get a chance to open it up to public um comments at the last meeting because we had a couple things going up, but I know Jim had had spoken to me before. So, if anybody wants to speak directly to our budget that we went through today, we're happy to hear some comments if you would like. Yeah.

Thank you.

It's all good. Appreciate it. Jim SQU 8010 uh Wakoma Court. Uh thank you mayor and council for the opportunity to be here and speak. Um always learn quite a bit at these meetings. Uh last time it was about Tenant X. We actually uh just got a grant from Tenet X uh for some of our programming. So um continue to shop there if you want to support us. Um I'm here on behalf of uh the friends of Harrisburg Greenways. Um our goal is to support you and promoting greenways for Harrisburg. Um our goal is to um or you know we're a we're a Yeah. So our um we are a 501c3 nonprofit. Um and um our board is is made up of really a dream team. Um, we have a former uh town councilman who you heard from at the council meeting last month. Um, he knows our town as well as just about anybody, understands the budget process. um an attorney who helps us navigate uh discussions around easements and tax credits and retired folks who have the time to put uh into our programming like the you know the story walk a GIS expert folks who are on various HOA boards sprinkled within the community um also the parks and recck community uh volunteers who just handle social media. These are all people who are very passionate um and who all are united under one purpose and that is to bring the enthusiasm that we've seen from our community in front of you guys so that you can prioritize greenways. One way we think that you can help with that is to bring a dedicated greenway

planner onto town staff who can match the energy that we're bringing from the community. So this role would be responsible for the overall vision and direction uh coordinating right ofway acquisition writing grants overseeing construction and integrating public art. In fact, we are pretty confident that the cost for this position could be entirely offset if it helped us win just one major grant. So, why should you consider this? Uh, as Devon pointed out earlier, when you look at the comprehensive plan survey, um, only 50% of those who had an opinion were satisfied or very satisfied with Harrisburg's current trail and multi-use path system. But yet over 88% said it was important or very important to them. You know, 88% is is huge. How often do you get 88% people agree on on anything? Um, all the comments I read every single one of them. 100% progly asking for more. Now, humor me for just one moment. I want you to close your eyes. Do you see nothing? That's how much progress has been made on the food greenway since it was approved uh two years ago. So the opportunity in front of us is is really huge. Imagine being able to get from Caldwell all the way to Farm Mill on a greenway and we're not that far from it. Uh but it it it doesn't happen by

itself. So I I've asked uh each of you that's uh sitting up here um if if you support Greenways. Um but it's really the the wrong question. A better question is uh what will you do to advocate for them? uh because that's where we need your help in the in the upcoming workshops. And thank you, Council Member uh Cartel, uh for what you've already done to advocate for those. Um I brought with me a sample job description for a uh Greenway planner, which u I'll pass around, take a look at. Uh and we'll also have uh t-shirts coming soon for anyone on uh council, on town staff, on youth council. Um, just give me your socks and we'll get you a t-shirt. Uh, thank you for your time and looking forward to your partnership.

Thank you, Jim. There any other comments? Appreciate everybody's time today. I guess we will see you back at our next budget meeting. We've already gone through that calendar several times. So with that,