Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Pre-consil meeting of the city of Homewood for December 22nd, 2025. Uh, excuse me. Uh, Council Lane here. Councelor Armstead here. Councelor Sims is out and councelor Simmons is out. And Mayor Andress here. All right, we have three. Awesome. Have a cool. Okay, perfect. I'm trying to spell my iPad. Thank you, Brandon S. Okay, there he is. Okay, just in time. Perfect. Just in time. That's awesome. Thank you. Traffic is awful.

All right, we have nothing on our old business agenda. Um, on our new business agenda, we have three public hearings. I'm going to read them out, but we're carrying all of them over until January 12th. We don't want to make anyone come on the 22nd of December. Um, so the first is 03125 public hearing for January 26 for consideration of condemnation at 162526 Avenue South. The second one is 041225 public hearing set for January 26. Number six, consideration of an amended development plan for the proposed home and community church uh to permit construction of a new two-story building comprising total of 30,797 ft as well as associated parking, landscaping, and other improvement subject currently zoned gird renewal district. Um and then the third one is 05125 public hearing set for January 26, 2025 to 6 for consideration improvement amended development plan for Brookwood, I'm sorry, for Brookdale University Park to permit football court. Yes. Slow down. Okay. But we're not talking about any of these tonight. Point taken. Point taken.

But I'm just reading them out to read them out. Um, so we will be carrying all three of these items over and we will move to the only item that we're going to discuss tonight, which is 08125, request to approve budget amendments for fiscal year 26 brought to us from Mr. Smith, our acting city manager.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, I'm gonna I'm going to go through this uh first explain kind of what a budget amendment is. We're going to hear a lot about them over the course of the next four years with you guys. Um, so if the police has a budget of $100 in uniforms and they have a $100 in travel and conference, but they only want to spend 80 in uniforms because it's the end of the year and they're like, "Oh, Paul doesn't need a uniform, but I want to send Paul to traveling conference and that's going to cost $20." Then we we move that money from one budget account line item to the other from uniforms traveling conference through a budget amendment which comes here and gets passed through council. Another example of a budget amendment and what has happened most recently is like if we think a project is going to cost $100 but we bid it and it cost $110, then we come here and we ask for a budget amendment to use carryover fund balance to fund that project. All right. So that's kind of what a what a budget amendment. Can

I ask a question about that? Yes, sir. But one like you were talking about with the uniforms for instance, they're not going to use it all that money. So they want to move it over to another part. Okay. For them to spend that they to exercise spending the entire budget. Is that correct? That that's right. Okay. Well, is there a way what if it's not approved then? Then in the the example that I gave, if you say no, it's not approved, then they only have a $100 to spend on travel and conference and then that's it.

Okay. So, but but okay. So, what do we need to do in the future of that to make sure they get that right going forward instead of making it so low for that? Yeah. No, that's that's fair question. And so, I mean, we're going to budget. I mean, they know it's low to start with, right? Let's put in budget. Don't expect it to come from the union, right? I mean, oftentimes we don't know that that councelor Simmons really wants to go to this conference or he might not have the the certifications at the beginning of the year that he might have six months into the year to go to that conference. And so, you know, things change between when the budget gets passed and and throughout the year, right?

Eight months after after the budget's passed, this the city looks differently than it did before. I did notice you say one you said one time before when you were over here one day and you said we're within the 10%. Remember we were talking about a project when the project 10%. Okay. Which is great. Okay. Same thing I would think in you know if we're going to put it in the budget it's better to have a little more in the budget for that traveling than it is to come back and have to add to it because it's got to the money's got to come from somewhere else. Sure. And what what if they had already used all the uniform and you're under you're still under that? Then what happens then?

Right. So if if we've used $100 in uniforms and they decide that councelor Simmons needs to go to this conference, then they would come back here and ask for a budget amendment and that money would be used out of carryover fund balance typically to fund the budget. So you would be increasing. Okay. Yep. Yeah. We'd like to try to get you know be right from the start. 100% agree. You know, it's it's easier to give it back than it is to ask for it. That's right. Okay.

I agree. So, what the what the purpose of all these sheets that I've handed out is um that the specific request is for budget amendments for for many different funds and for several different line items. So last summer when the budget was presented, the city tried a new administrative process and there were there were gaps in that process that left us with fund deficits in nine of the funds. We have 24 funds in the budget. Nine of them currently show a deficit. And so what this budget amendment does is clean up those those funds. Um what what this is not is any revisions to employ salaries or benefits, any current employee salaries or benefits. It's not revisions to what was approved for departments to operate. And it's um it's not there are no revisions to how we currently operate financially. So, we're not we're not moving money around. We're just this is all budgeting. Um we're correcting the budget. So, I mentioned our budget includes 24 funds. So, the general fund is one fund. capital fund is one fund and then there are other specific funds that are used for very specific things like the opioid settlement fund. Um the municipal court has five funds and we're going to talk about some of the court funds in a second. Um but this budget amendment accomplishes a few things. One of those is to fix the the non-fund deficits that we have and we do that generally in two ways. We either increase revenues by you by the use of the carryover fund balances in those in those funds or we reduce expenses. Um and then we make sure that each department receives [clears throat] the amount that they were told that they

were going to receive back in the summer for them to operate successfully through the year. Uh and and then the other thing that that this does is to look at how much money we actually think we're going to spend this year. So we we cut out some of the some of the items that we thought we might spend few months ago that we know at this point we're probably not going to spend. Can you explain how out of those funds that were unfunded? I mean that that were changing to making level. Okay. They were they were underwater. How did they come about being budgeted underwater to start with? Does that make sense what I'm asking?

I I think so. Um, let me try to let me try to answer it and then you tell me if I okay am not answering it correctly. Uh, so I talked about the administrative kind of breakdown in in our new process last summer. [snorts] So what that looked like was budget hearings took place and then breakdown of communication happened between what happened in this room and then administrative task which was actually keying numbers into our financial software called encode. So, if I told Paul in this room that he was going to get a $100 and I didn't plug it into end code, then the current budget doesn't show that Paul's going to get that $100,

right? But it was agreed to, but it was talked about. Everybody understood that you needed it to make your department run this year. Yeah. But we weren't unbuttoned, but it wasn't because of lack of money. That's right. Absolutely. That's what I'm good at. Yes. It's not like we're didn't have the money. So, it's just absolutely being keyed in wrong. That's correct. Okay, cool.

All right. Um, so what I'm going to do next is I'm going to go through the the sheets. I've got it up on the screen. I'm going to go You've got the sheets in front of you. I'm going to go through each fund and I'll dig down as as far as you want me to. Uh I don't intend to go through every line because when we get to the general fund which I'll do second to last and the capital fund which I'll do last there the lines are pretty long. So um this is this is the easiest example of um of administr of an administrative gap that we had this year. So for the grants fund fund two, we showed in revenues 202 and we showed in expenses these two line items, creek walls and storm sewer. Those are actually numbers that were budgeted in 2025 and they just rolled over into 2026. Nobody plugged these numbers in. Nobody went into this fund and looked at it. They just got carried over. And we're not going to get any of those revenues. We're not going to spend any of that money.

So those need to be corrected to zero. So this is kind of the simplest that it gets. They're not all like that. Where did that money go? They're not all like that. So, uh, what do you mean? No, never mind. Yeah, I got it. Okay, I think I do. There's no money. There's nothing. I mean, it's nothing to zero. No revenue in the budget.

Same for the seven cents gas tax. So 7 cents gas tax is fund four and that is gas tax money that comes in and supports can support resurfacing and signal maintenance and and a few other very specific things. That should be money that we receive in one year and it goes out in the same year. Um the fund actually showed a deficit this year and we are just using carryover fund balance to make it balance make that fund balance. Same for the 4 cent gas tax, which is a different fund. It's fund five. We're using carryover fund balance to support the deficit. All right. Uh fund 13, escrow, the environmental escrow fund. We're doing the same thing using carryover fund balance. Uh JJ knows a lot about this fund and and he explained it to me that this is for wells that exist outside testing testing pits. There used to be a dry cleaners on the corner. Um

yeah, when the place was built, the old Mayfield cleaners was at the northwest corner and it created some contamination underground in the groundwater and ADM just wants us to monitor the wells until it's clean. So hopefully the monitoring will be over the end of this year.

Yeah. And and so we've got I think $88,000 in that fund. We'll probably spend we might spend 20 if it's done over the next couple of years, but all that money will we'll be able to close this fund. It'll be able to go back into the general fund um fund. The next couple of funds, 21, 22, and 24 are three of the court funds. What's important, I think, for you to know about the court fund is that Laura Roberts, who is our chief magistrate, um, she started with us in the middle of all these budget conversations happening last summer. So, she really wasn't a part of it. So, some of her stuff got missed totally. Um, and so we've taken the opportunity to fix some of her stuff and then make sure that she got what she thought she was going to get, which are in a in a couple of funds in a second. But the the correction fund is like if counselor Armstead goes to the courts to pay a ticket, a speeding ticket, that money comes into this fund and then this fund is used to provide medical expenses [snorts] and provide food to um inmates in our in our city jail. What it's also done is provide is provide funding for one salary position, but the numbers just don't work. We have you we've run a deficit out of this fund for several years in a row. And so what we've decided to do is to move the salary position out of this fund and put them into the general fund under the police department. Okay.

Um so that's that's what we've done here is we've cleaned this up. What I show is about three [snorts] months of salaries and and benefits for that position and then the rest of it we're moving out into police the police department in the general fund. All right. The correction fund court are we just did some she needed mileage and janitorial supplies and these just were never keyed in appropriately. for fund 24. This is the training and and education fund and we didn't have any training and education that showed up in the budget. So, we went through some adjustments in this fund and um these are the things that she needs this year. And then fund 26 is the construction fund. It's the bond fund. So where we are, and I'm probably most familiar with this fund than any of the other ones. We have about we have about $2.2 million that hasn't been encumbered for this. This is for very specific construction projects, capital projects, and we have to we need to spend this money. Um, these are from bond proceeds. And so the this fund needs to get get to zero as soon as we can make it happen. So all the capital improvements projects that we do, we're using this money to fund those first and then we'll move over into capital.

Okay. So So this is bond, right? That's correct. Okay. So we're going to spend this strictly on capital improvement infrastructure capital improvement. Is that correct? It can't go anywhere else. That's right. Okay. And whatever obviously we can Does that count like roads and stuff? Is that part of the infrastructure or no? It's not resurfacing but it but it could be something. Just example what we talked about earlier a bridge. It could be a bridge. That's correct. But all so no but I'm not saying y don't give money all this money all this money is identified for very specific projects currently that's already said that's right we're just cleaning up the budget so I can write poss okay y

to do those projects gota

All right then and then I'm going to go back to the general fund I'm gonna start with I'm going to start with the expenses, then we can talk about the revenues last. Um the administrative salaries, we identified some positions that we don't intend to hire this year. So that so we cut the s the administrative salaries by about 300,000. um maintenance contracts we reduced by 30,000 because we we had about 30,000 identified as a civic plus contract but that money was used some was intended to be used somewhere else professional services. Oh, okay. That's it. Professional services. That $30,000 moved to professional services. Um, the next grouping is for general government, which is 011. I don't know if I said this earlier, but and I don't know if you care, but the way our budget account numbers are set up, the first two numbers are the fund. So, the 01 is the fund, 13 is the department that,

okay, is responsible for that fund or that those funds fall under, and then the last six digits are um mean something else. Okay, leave it to that. Kale, let me ask on the 300K previously that we're going to cut from administrator. Okay, it was already budgeted. We had the money for that. Correct. Okay. Where where you where we cut because we weren't going to hire anybody else for the year. You went from 1.2 to right to So we had seen the 300,000 cut. Okay. 300. The money's there that we It was in the budget, correct? Prior.

That's correct. Okay. So that 300,000, what do we do with that? Do we sit that as a rainy day, sit out to the side in case we do hire somebody? Is it there for that purpose going forward or does it get thrown back into a general fund where it disappears and goes someplace else?

That's a good question and I understand it. What I want so this uh in revenues we showed originally almost $4 million being used from the carryover fund balance to support the expenses in the general fund but now because we've cleaned up some of the expenses we're only showing 3.4 million of carryover fund balance being used to support the expenses. So if we decide decide that councelor Simmons needs to become our purchasing agent, then we would go back come back to you guys and say this is a position we need. This is this is how much it's going to cost and we need to add money from carryover fund balance to support this position. It

be good to note that we had it there previously is coming right back out for administrative. Sure. You know what I'm saying? So, so we would have to go back and explain where we're getting the money because it was there previously, right? Good. I'm so sorry. You may want to close your email browser for your email. I would hate for something to pop up on the screen. Something popped up a second ago. It is. I closed it. Okay. Outlook's closed. Want some message to come across. Yeah. Oh, yeah. [laughter]

So yeah, you'll see in you'll see in the police department where there's their their salaries actually increased, but it's because we moved that one position from that was being funded in the court fund over into the police uh general fund court management. All these items on the left were accounted for in other funds and so they didn't need to be accounted for in the general fund and so they all go to zero and then and then the finance department we just clean that up. So that's where we are. Oh the last fund. Any questions about the general fund? This might be easier than I thought. Uh

capital fund. Capital fund. Thank you. You're welcome.

So, we started we started the year off in the capital fund with about a $10 million deficit, showing a $10 million deficit. So, we looked at it um and we decided to cut to cut projects, cut some vehicles, cut some projects, and then figure out where we are after we did those things. So, we reduced the amount by almost $6 million that we needed. One of the ways we a big way we did that was to remove a $2.8 million firet truck and a $330,000 $385,000 mini pumper and a van from the fire department out of the budget.

But to clarify, they're still on order. We're just not paying for it this year. We don't Yeah, we don't pay for that $2.8 million fire truck until 2029. Okay. But it is on order. It is on order. So, there was an accounting we discussed this at length during the budget hearing. There was an accounting. We thought we had to put it account for it in this year's budget because it was order and uh because it was on order. Exactly. But we do not and it is on order and it is coming in 29. And so so how much did we did we have budgeted for that? 28 28 28 million. Okay. So that's what So in three years or two years when it comes about we're going to need the 2.8 million. That's right.

All right. Any chance will we put any of that part of the budget aside so it only kill us in two years at 2.8? That is ideally that's exactly what happens. No, I what I'm saying is are we still putting some of this 2.8 that we were going to use that we're underwater on but off to the side for the when it comes in two years that we don't get hit with the 2.8 again that we've already got the money sitting some of it sitting there right whether it's 200 whether it's 300 and if we do it next year be another 200 potentially 300. So when it comes to the that day, it don't we don't have to get busted for 2.8. We might get busted for 1.8. Right. I think I I mean

I can't speak for a future permanent city manager, but I imagine what that person might want to do is to figure out how to set funds aside each year to pay for vehicles and other huge one-time capital expenses. What about like fire trucks? understand it correctly though, we were we were reconciling a deficit or at least trying to reduce the deficit. So even if the 2.8 were something else. Yeah, I know. I know exactly. But hopefully we're reducing it. But with our revenue, we should hopefully we're going to have an increase in revenue this year due to the Well, that's another story. But if we can set it aside, we can

Yep. And then so we're going to so to support the rest of the capital fund we're using 4.2 million from carryover fund balance.

And where did that actually come from? The carryover fund just what we had left over. There's a carryover fund balance. I think it's about uh currently it's about 6 and a half million 6 and a.5 million in the in the capital project fund general care fund balance and we're delaying doing any work on the senior center because it's not a pressing need. That's correct. What was that work going to be?

Um we've talked about making half of it like a um a like a park like a [snorts] what we have the rec center you know like a workout facility for you know still keep some programming for the senior center but have other community weren't there pickle ball courts in that that's actually going to that is actually yeah that's going to be right by the tennis courts and I think said that's coming it's no senior center by Patri they did the Christmas tree Remember remember what the young lady was talking about that potentially outside the that they would like to do a trail type thing outside that

by the senior center and a dog park right where would that how would that be brought up for a later date obviously but u budget who would who would in the budget but who would be what would that work would that be part of park and rent yeah so Berkeley you'd want to go through okay yeah but that I mean that's the long time goal because our senior center uh participation has dropped from about 135 members to about 22 really. So it's down um but it's still a important part of the city. So I mean it's not we're not doing away with it at all. But No, no, no. I got you

to find funds. We're going to delay that project but that is on and I think we are doing um did we approve design work for the dog park kale? We did not. Okay. I thought we had to do No, that was that was included in the senior center. Oh, it was okay. I got you now. Okay. Yeah. This is what we just need to we just need to correct the budget,

get the budget, and then and then in the middle of the year when we do midyear review, go back and and figure out where we are, where our revenues are. let our finance department, you know, find the finance director and then let all of those things catch up with where we are and then midyear review hopefully we come back and revisit some of these things and have a better understanding of where we are right now. We just need to fix the non-deficits that we have. I do need to make a notice that we will do I mean put a date down whenever. So the midyear reviews and they'll be that will be in April. Probably April or May. Okay, good. We're being prudent.

Do we on the like the storm water emergencies? It's uh it's [clears throat] we just adjusted those to what we think most likely we'll need, but not we don't we feel comfortable still. I guess whatever is the annual amount of need is gambling, you know. Yeah. I and trust me, I'm the one that loses the most sleep over the storm water emergencies. Um, what will happen if we need more than this is that uh we would come to you guys and ask for an e like an emergency budget amendment for whatever we need to fix a problem.

We typically float around where it's sitting right now. We typically float around a 100,000. Okay. Yeah. That doesn't cover much. It It doesn't. I mean, these are emergencies, though. These are like things outside of what we had already programmed in for the year. Uh we're just trying to pinpoint what most likely the I mean, the my logic behind reducing from 150 to 50 was that we are all we made it through October and November

and December. Um you know, our other risky months are March, April, and And we're not doing the improvements or I don't know how to call those improvements at the Oxmore St. Charles or we took that out that we took those out. Yeah. Because at all at at total like wait it's to it's at zero. Okay. Which which one that was the whole there were like three phases of reconfiguration and we were losing parking and we were re like redoing the intersection and the St. Charles. Okay. Right by OD and it was a big cluster

giant cluster. How's it working out right now? Is there any problem with it right now? Nick, I guess Nick would be the one to ask that question. You know, living over there. I don't I haven't heard anything. I go down there and I looks like it's functioning quite well to me. I mean, it was to be expected. I want to bring up, you know, I mean, I'm just trying to I'm just saying, you know, there you go. Storm water. It's true. As soon as we say that,

yeah, we always um um we always accounted for like uh like the like the vehicles, fire trucks like that when we ordered them. And this is an adjustment that we've done going I want to go forward too. Apparently, we've done them differently just about every single time. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Because that was different for us. It was like I mean it was literally like five years like a five year lead time on that. And we paid for it prior. No, we had to put it in this year's budget before the same but we've never done that. We've never we the year we ordered it, not the year we

Yeah. But again, that is like an end code specific thing. I know J I think Jason would argue that it's not an expense until you actually write the check for it. That's you know fire fire trucks are unusual because that's an odd thing normally with vehicles you order to buy in that year so it's easy and one thing Kale too and Sam knows this a lot of times it depends on how you want to buy the fire truck they may say tell you what give me 50% up front and then we'll charge you the 50% over the next three years. So there's a diff lot of different ways. So that causes accountants budget nightmares because all of a sudden you can't match your expense up with whatever year is coming in. So it gets into some difficulties in budgeting. You know how you want to do and you know I think I've heard about encumbering you know one thing I would suggest you know at the end of this year you have the option in that fund balance to u to commit some fund balance for future use. So probably what we want to do is say let's make sure we've got $2.8 million committed knowing that in 2029 we're going to need to use that fund balance, you know, to to fund that fire truck. So it gets difficult because these fire, you know, like that they're going to be a three or four sometimes fiveyear thing because there's just the way it is now with trying to buy and build out a fire truck. So those get difficult. Everything else is generally, you know, pretty easy to do, but fire trucks can be hard. I know, I think, believe one year there was one at Mountain Brook where they did almost like a construction project. They said, "Okay, we're going to do 200,000." The fire truck company build 200,000 200 or whatever it was to get to the amount. So, you can imagine with the accounting on that, it's like how do we do construction and process on fire truck? But that's where we work. I don't know if that answered your question, but

there the reason they're all over the place is it really depends on how you want to go about buying it, how the company's building it, selling it to you.

If you if you look over these over the next couple of weeks and you have questions, feel free to reach out. I'd be glad to talk about them. So, yeah. All right. Any questions? Yeah.

All right. Um I thought what we would do just very quickly is look at the council agenda moving into the six o'clock meeting. Um we only have the Lyndon because we're not moving any of this out, right Kale? This is all for January 12th. Is that right? Okay. So, we are going to talk about 011225 and that is the on street parking um that Amy introduced to us. It's a um ordinance and we did not keep have a first reading on this did we? That's correct. Okay. So, that's the question then for you all is and I'm completely different. Do you want to do unan vote on unanimous consent and have a vote on it tonight or do you want to hold it over to January 12th? I'm completely indifferent. So,

I say hold it over. Okay. All right. I don't know if you guys agree with that. Well, I was going to say the opposite. So, you got to balance it out. [laughter]

Um, [laughter] either way, I don't have an opinion on it. We don't have opinion. Is it Is it How important is it? It's It's I mean Christmas is Thursday, so shopping season is about over, but so it's not or I don't I think if we've made it through the Christmas season, I think we're fine until January 12th. Yeah. Say pine. Yeah.

Well, we have to do we do have to do something. I'm talking about whether it's Amazon or whoever's parking right there in the middle on the in the lane. Not even in the lane, right in front of SOAS in these places. I mean, these people are crazy. I mean, they stop traffic all the way. I mean, it stops. They should go around. Why don't they use the alley like everybody else? I mean, deliveries. Why are deliveries in the middle of 18th Street? There shouldn't be a truck stopping in the middle of 18 Street, especially this time of year.

And I don't know what you know. I mean, I don't know what the I don't know what the answer is, but they shouldn't be doing it because if we stop and park there catching, you know, we get in a lot of trouble here, right? I don't think they should have car launch. I mean, I'm the only reason I'm saying that. There's a few of them uh owner store operators have complained about it where nobody can even move. I would call I would tell them to call HBD every time. Kale, did I We've Did I Well, I talked to him about it earlier already. I don't know what I don't know what to do about it. Call HP. Yeah.

And we're going to have a substation here. What's the schedule on that? I mean, they're We'll have some an officer. We'll have officers here at Is there anybody checking right now as far as as far as off as far as the parking for the time? I know it's what, two hours? Three hours on three hours? Three hours. Three hours. I I haven't noticed anybody checking, but I'm telling you, for some reason, there's a lot of car I told some of the some of the uh store operators that they were complaining about it because I'm telling you, 8:30, that place is jam-packed. Okay. It's got to be employees. Oh, yeah. It's got to be employees. Okay. So, I mean, so I mean, I was on the deck today. It is wide open all the time.

Yeah. I'm not saying near the deck. I'm just on the street itself. There's no way cuz the stores aren't even open yet, right? and and it's already packed. So, we got there is an issue going on here. And with that being the case, do we have anybody checking hiring? Are we I know we got it coming later. I know we were hiring two officers or it was one officer that was for specifically for parking enforcement. Or was it two? It was two for the trail. Right. Yeah, I'll get with chief and see where we are. If we just run down take I mean it shouldn't be too hard right now this time of the year but of course like you said we're only two more days that and coming back everybody coming back to red u turn everything back in next week following week you know sales on the choices

exactly matter of fact they probably everybody to park there so nobody can come back ideally [laughter] somebody bought that for you you're keeping them there you go okay um so that's it any questions about the vouchers um I will tell you that we talked about the um personnel board um was way over budget and so Kelly is pulling that and is going to call personnel board. They were at 393 and they were budgeted at 360 and last year we paid 345. What is that? Personel board. So yeah. So she's going to verify that. I knew that I didn't want to JJ and I had talked about

that invoice that we received and I didn't want to include it in this budget amendment since we had everything we paid 345 last year. So, it's $45,000 more than it was last year. So, so we'll dig into that y and and figure out what the resolution is. Perfect. Y that's all I got. Anyone else? Right here. Okay. Well, you're until six o'clock. Sounds great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.