Planning Commission - public_hearing

Budget hearing for the City of Homewood September 8th, 2026.

Councilor Simmons here. Councilor Sims here. Councilor Lane here. Councilor Armstead will be here in a little bit. And Mayor Andrews here.

All right. Jeff Quinn. Great. All right. I'm handing this over to you, Mr. Smith. Am I right? Sure. Stand up. So I want to...

provide some framework of how I imagine that these are going to go. Clearly, this is the first time we've ever done this. In this form of government, usually there are a bunch of people sitting around the table going through the encode sheets. And we're going to do the same thing over the next few weeks. But I just kind of wanted to lay out what I imagine our roles and responsibilities are, how this format's going to go. So I'm going to keep the format pretty simple. Every time we are in here for a budget hearing, give you a brief overview of what we're going to be talking about. Identify the revisions that have been made since the last time I stood up here and talked. So the last time I did this was on August the 10th. So a month later, we have a whole bunch of revisions to go over. And that's what we're going to do first tonight. And then we'll actually dig into the ENCODE spreadsheets. The most important thing to understand about the ENCODE sheets is that is the actual budget. What I did was we spent a lot of time, so it's about half of the budget. About half of the budget book is ENCODE spreadsheets and the other half are written documents and charts and graphs and all these things that I've developed based on the ENCODE spreadsheets or the ENCODE sheets. And so I'm not going to revise those each time we'll revise the encode sheets each time. But for the book, what we're going to do is we're going to we're going to track the encode changes. And then the week before September 28, I'm going to I'm going to update all the narratives and charts and all that inside the book. Tonight we're going to talk about general fund revenue after we talk about the revisions. I'm going to try to explain where we were historically. I expect you to ask questions about certain accounts. I'm going to talk about how some of the big categories, which I dug into a little bit on August the 10th, sales tax and property tax, why we think they're what they are. And then we're going to go through each line item. I have slides that include each line item that's in ENCODE to show on the screen in a more readable format for everybody who's tuned in or wants a copy of it or whatever. I won't do that every time so like the general fund expense that we're going to talk about in one week is going to be a much longer discussion I imagine than what tonight's going to be and there it would be like a hundred slides so I'm not going to make those but I'll do summaries for each for each department and also in a week all the department heads will be here so they so you will be able to ask them questions about expenses so tonight we're only talking about revenues Um, schedule change because next week is probably the longest with the general fund expenses. I would like to punt other funds that we, that is in the schedule to September the 17th. So next week we're only talking about general fund expenses. Yep. That's right. The 15th. All right. So clarity on roles and responsibilities under this form of government, as I understand it. So tonight I'm going to present revisions that have been made in the budget since August 10th. As we go through each line item, there are going to be things that you agree with and things that you don't agree with. My only job is to stand up here and answer questions about why I put it in there. It's certainly not to debate on whether it should be in there or not. That's your decision. If you begin debating an item, I'm not going to dive in the middle of it. I'm just going to stand back, and I'm going to try to hear what you guys are saying in the path that the collective will of council wants me to move, and then once we get to a really solid understanding, I will then implement that in ENCODE, and Melanie will play it in. So the only time that you guys will vote is on September 28th, and it will be for the entire budget. It's not going to be per fund. It's not going to be a vote in here. There are no votes until the overall budget is done. I won't be able to answer all of your questions. So you're going to ask me questions that I don't know the answer to and instead of me making up the answer, then I'm just going to say I don't know and I'm going to provide in writing whatever your question was and the answer to it a few days after I get the question. I think that's it. I will say this. Melanie and Bo will probably have answers tonight on the revenue side of it, like how things get keyed when they come in. But if they don't, then we'll figure it out and respond in writing. Last thing I'll say is what I said on August 10th a month ago was that a budget is a guess. It's a hypothesis of what the next year looks like. And so in six months, when we realize that the assumptions that we have today are different than the realities that we had then, we'll change it. If it's material, we'll come back to you guys. Also, that's budgeting, and there's nothing wrong with that and doing it that way. But what's most important is that you guys are in the loop each month on what is happening with sitting finances. And so we're going to start providing you with reports that says this is what you approved in the budget. This is where we are here today. This is what we have left over. This is what we missed. This is what we got right. So we're going to get better about that. So all that framed, tonight we're gonna talk about three things. We're gonna review revisions, and that's gonna take a minute, and then we're gonna walk through the general fund revenues, and then we're gonna answer any questions you have about the overall budget, and also about tonight, and just about this process in general. So I will say tonight I'm going to present a bunch of revisions. A lot of them, most of them aren't general fund revenues revisions. And so I don't want to debate those revisions tonight. I want to wait until we get into whatever budget hearing they fall into. All right. Everybody good so far? It worked 10 seconds ago. We already talked about most of this stuff. So tonight revisions, we talked about moving the other funds to September 17. We talked about the encode sheets. And we talked about questions about small revenue items. Council arm said he just missed my speech. You may say it again. All right, so revision. I gave you guys a set of handouts. The paper clipped one on top is revisions. So everything you have on that sheet is what is also on the screen. these are revisions based on somebody saying oh I forgot about this thing and I didn't tell you about it and we didn't know about it heading into August 10th some of these are we have a finance director now and this is how much money we know that we are probably going to collect and then some other ones are contractual that we actually got the contract and we know how much it's going to cost so I'm just gonna walk through every single one of these, and then stop me if you have questions, or if you think of a better way to do it than let me. So the first one is Centennial Celebration. So you remember they had $100,000 this year. They will not spend, I think to date, maybe they haven't spent but 20-ish thousand. And so at the end of the year, that money goes back into carryover fund balance. But they know that because they want to add fireworks and they have to pay the caterers and all that in October, they need more money for next year. So we went from zero as presented to $26,000 as presented. So this is how that works. And so our sum is negative 26.

So just to reiterate what you just said, we're not giving them $126,000. They're spending down their budget. They will spend 20 to that of that so far and it'll get zeroed out essentially or put to carry over. And so then they'll have $26,000 for activities for starting October 1st.

Correct.

Same question.

Yep, that's right. And since this is a general fund expense that we're going to talk about it in a week, I don't want to, I mean, the question is perfect. just understanding how this works, but I don't want to like get into is that a good number or is it not right now? So Vulcan fireworks, we give Vulcan $10,000 every year for fireworks. Apparently it has been buried somewhere. I didn't look. And so it wasn't in the budget, but I proposed to, um, give them $10,000 for thunder on the mountain. Holiday lighting went from $45,000 as presented to $55,000 specifically for West Holmwood Christmas lights, holiday lights. Tuition in schools, there was an additional Parks and Rec employee that we had left out of the budget that wants to take advantage of our tuition reimbursement program. Contractual services. We saved $28,000 here because we are canceling the placer AI subscription. The next one is creek cleaning. We got the actual contract in and it was $5,000 more than what we thought it would be. We'll know why. swinging around this antenna, they stole this off your car.

And Cale, just to ask about that too. So that's under contractual services. So you're not obviously saying that creek cleaning is $634,000. That's just the contract line item that that specific contract also falls under.

That's absolutely correct. And I'm glad you bring that up. So in the, in the narrative part of the, if you go to, and I'm not asking you to do this right now, but if you go to parks and rec in Oh one Oh one 20, then you'll see like what all of the contracts they have are. It lists them out. And also in the end code sheets, it lists them out too. So you can find them in two ways in the budget book. Um, But yeah, I don't remember what the actual, what I thought Creek Clean was. I think it was around 50 or so.

Is it Creek Sediment Removal?

Yeah.

So that's $49,000. Yeah, it was $54,000. Okay.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. All right. Axon Tasers. You guys on Monday night will hear a contract with Axon Tasers for $62,000 a year. So... Tasers, apparently, Q can speak to this better than I can, I'm sure, but they're like iPhones. So once the new one comes out, the old one kind of becomes obsolete. It doesn't adapt with the chargers and all those things. So it's best to have a contract. The taser companies are there always supplying you with the most up-to-date and current batteries and chargers. Jeffco Transit Authority. I had assumed it would be 420. I got an email the other day from them that said it would be 385, 562. So it's been so it was it's up 3% from last year from this year. I mean, that's good. Yeah, so that's a savings number 34. Building repairs and maintenance. I don't know if you remember this or not. So train has currently an intelligence service that says we can control city hall from all site and it saves hundreds. They say hundreds of thousands. I don't believe it's that much, but we pay them $15,000 a year to maintain city hall remotely. We're still looking at into how to how to make sure that our HVAC systems are appropriately managed and maintained. Um, but for now I added this back into the budget zoning ordinance work. I took out zoning ordinance work is going to be more than one 50 and more than a hundred, but it's going to, we imagine that it comes after the comprehensive plan. Like that's one of the things that the comprehensive plan will fold into the zoning ordinance work. We think that they're going to spend $100,000 next year. And then I had left out small infrastructure in the engineering general fund category. And so here I'm taking away 50, and here I'm adding 50. So it's a wash. Salaries, this is just kind of a general. item for you guys to note for ever. We've shown salaries, which are salaried personnel and then part time employees are under the wages line item. We're just going to lump all that into one salaries category. So there's no there's no money moving in that category. There's a there's an additional cyclic fixed model that public works maintenance, Chief Broadhead are all really interested in. It'll be it'll allow people, not residents, but us to perform work orders and get to be able to track all the things on cyclic fix that we can't currently track. This is a work order system basically is for internal projects and work. Credit card fees. go up 10 five at the rec center. Employee overtime earnings go up 12,000. But we make those two up with a reduction in salaries and wages. So these three are all wash. All right. Department 12 is building inspections and permits. So Wyatt, and we'll talk a little bit more about this next week, Wyatt's gonna become the department head director over planning, engineering, zoning, and building. So he's gonna take the fourth floor. And so his current job classification won't allow him to be really a director of that many different divisions. And so we're proposing to promote him to building safety director, which is a promotion for Wyatt. He would get one step up in grades, but he would only get a 5%. And so when you change somebody's salary, also the FICA goes up, the pension go up, and the worker's comp goes up. So that's what those are for. We saved money here with our auditor. We got the quote from our auditor, or the proposal from our auditor. You're gonna hear that next week also, the contract. And we saved $25,000 there. And then OPEB, we are still working on the OPEB documents, but I anticipate us having it done before October 1. So the $1 million that we're going to fund the OPEB trust with is going to come out of this year's carryover fund balance and not the budget for next year. So I'm taking out $1 million from revenues and then also expenses other post-employment benefits yeah so right so if you take an early retirement from the city when we offer it then the city is on the hook for the part of your health insurance premium that you don't pay out of pocket so you would still be on the hook for a little bit out of pocket and we would pay the rest in the past i think we've had 30 i think we have about 30 or 35 retirees that we pay their insurance premiums out of the general fund each year and so what this does is set up an opeb trust that is no longer the city's money once we move it over there it's the retirees money for us to pay their insurance premiums out of Does that answer your question?

As best practices?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And the other benefit is that it does take those liabilities off of the general fund books. And so bond underwriters like OPEB trust, they like to see that we do have money set aside for the retirees, but it's not coming out of the general fund. Revisions. Any questions?

I asked three times this summer and I finally asked a fourth time and they just sent an email.

Go ahead.

I was going to ask about the centennial. So we spent 20 and 26. We wanted to spend 26 and 27. Does that leave a $54,000 balance in 20? Mm-mm.

What happens is, as I say, Bo, I'm going to give you a debit card with $100 on it. And Bo spends $20 of that $100 on that debit card. When October 1st comes, I take his debit card away. And so I still have $80 to put in the carryover fund balance. And then I say, oh, Bo, you get a $26 debit card this year. Yeah, it's not. I mean, it all rolls into the carryover fund balance.

So I guess what I'm asking is you still have the 54 in your pocket that you originally marked for them if they need it. We're not doing that.

It's not earmarked for them. Once it goes back into the carryover fund balance, it's done with. So I guess my question is more, are they not going to need this fund? They only need $26,000. next year but but they i mean understand though they've only spent 20 000 this year they will write pos between now and the end of the year to to pay for and cover things that they're going to need in october

And related to this conversation too, I may be misremembering, but I think out of that a hundred thousand, we noticed that they were under spending and weren't going to use it all. And I think we made a budget transfer out of that line item.

Yeah. During this 25,000. Yes.

So just want to, for the park at Buckingham residents. So just want to mention that too, in the balance of the conversation. That's right.

DAVID BURRAGE. Yes, the question I have, moving the wages into salaries altogether, when you're taking part time now and you're moving the interest out of it, how are you going to be able to see the differences when it comes to, I think it's misappropriating, and that might not be the right word, but I think it should stay part-time, just stay as wages so you know what we're spending in part-time as compared to salaries. That goes with overtime and everything else. So because if you put it in there, we don't know whether overtime is coming from regular salary employees or through the pool at Park and Rec, the lifeguard.

Yeah, so those lifeguards, the seasonal employees wouldn't get overtime pay.

Well, I'm using that as an example. Sure. OK, I'm talking about, well, once again, like I said, the library's got 59 employees or whatever, and half of them are basically part-time. So now we're putting them all together into one category. So next time, we won't be able to. So we won't be able to see what's really happening.

So we can break them out in payroll separately to show you. And we track that. We do. The issue is more operational. It's that we don't, when we, if Bo's a part-time employee and we pay Bo today currently, we don't pay him out of the line item of wages. We pay him out of salaries. Yeah. It's just an operational issue, but we can, I mean, we, we do, and we can certainly provide the council with information with respect to like every pay period. Here's what we paid him over or here's what we paid in part-time employee salaries and full-time structure.

I'm glad you said that.

For revenues? So that is...

Yeah. So this is, this is how much it costs. This is an expense, right?

Yeah. Typically we might would adjust for that fee and our charges.

Yeah. I mean, that's a good question. I don't know that the, I don't know that they're planning to do that.

Is that a park board decision?

I don't know. I mean, that's certainly a Berkeley question that you can ask him when we talk about this. That's a good one, though.

Because that's what they do. Restaurants and everything now, they're adding it to the. Right. They're just passing it on. I mean, for them to use the credit card, we shouldn't be covering that expense. if, you know, whether it's a 1% or whatever. And it can be built in every time it goes in the system.

Yep. No, that's right.

That's good. Is that like a bill, like if you are a member there, your membership comes out, you get billed monthly or, I know these are all part of our questions, but, you know, in other words, can you ACH it instead of use a credit card and give them that option and then to charge on the credit card fees? Mm-hmm.

I mean, these are just credit card fees, whenever you go and swipe your card at the right.

Yeah. Well, it's probably the credit card fee at the rec center. But what are they is a credit card for like for a membership? Is that what it's for?

Okay. In other words, they could they would they have an option to use ACH?

I'm saying

Oh, I don't know. Season fees, jersey fees.

Yeah, I mean, they were selling wristbands for the back-to-school batch. I mean, that's a credit card.

Usually it's tip, cash, or credit card.

And different companies charge different fees. I think Amex is, what, 4%? Is it 4%? Yeah, it's 4%. 3%. Signed.

How much y'all to remember these for?

Well, I mean, if this is part of the increase of his, his budget, say it's $36,000 increase on his budget this time, and it's because of credit cards, then I think we need to look at it a different way of looking at it.

Yeah.

Any others on revisions? All right.

So the next, excuse me, one more thing. On the contractual, on your contract, like $625,000, it was, am I wrong when I say that? $634,000, OK, on the contractual services. Is any of this put up for bid?

Some of it is, but not all of it. I mean, so like the tasers.

Is that separated?

Tasers, I think, are a sole source provider, and they're also on the state bid list, which means that we don't have to bid it.

You're talking about just that one?

Just that one.

Just that one, but about the rest of them?

They're all different. Some are bid, some are not. Some are on the state bid list where they don't have to be, where the price has already been negotiated with the state.

question at a later time, I would say. I like to hold my questions back to the next time. Because that's got me a little bit flabbergasted.

Because specifically, Councillor Lange, you're talking about the 634 in this example, right?

Yes. I'm just throwing that as an example.

I'm talking about... And so behind tab 19 on the second page, um shoot let me make sure i'm in the right department here that's the library okay let me behind 20 the second page oh that's barked what am i looking for police oh i was trying to do the 634 for creek cleaning i was there a second ago oh yeah oh 120. okay so so the second page starts well actually it's the third page sorry y'all It starts contractual services for 629, which we are saying is now 634. But you can see the list of contracts and the budgeted amounts for those contracts. So you can see some of them are lower and wouldn't necessarily be appropriate for a bid or required, and then others are.

But like AFIX, the big one, that one is bid. Mm-hmm. Every three years.

That's the 152.

What about the tree removal? Does it go out for bid?

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I don't think it does. But we can ask Berkeley next week.

I was wondering, if it doesn't, why doesn't it go out at $125,000?

Yeah, so usually it's a one-off every time. Councilor Armstead has a tree. that's in front of his house in the right-of-way that's about to fall over Shade Street Parkway, and we need somebody to go out there and get it immediately. And so we call Graze and they go get it.

Exactly. What I'm saying is, is Graze doing it at the 125? Is there other tree services that might keep them competitive? Maybe. But if we don't do it, if we don't do a bid, then we don't know. If it's carte blanche, and I think That's what I'm getting at. How many of these things that should have gone out for bid, that didn't go out for bid, is just grandfathered, they just get it every year. Here it is, here it is.

So that's not an annual contract. That's how much we anticipate spending for tree removal.

But the question for the service.

Does all of it go to Gray's? Right.

Is there a big contract in place?

I'm sure there's a contract in place with Gray's. Am I wrong? I don't know. Is there?

Probably.

Yeah, probably not. So they get all the business in.

I think they've used other people than just Gray's before. I think they've used Ace before. Mm-hmm.

But I just wanted to show that as an example of what those numbers refer back to as we look forward towards those future discussions. But I know you have revisions for revenue as well?

No, those are all the revisions. We're just going to go through all the revenue. Okay, got it. Those are the right questions and certainly something that we're going to dig into. I mean, that's one of our first. Our first goals for FY27 is to collect. I have a note right now on my desk that says collect all the contracts. Just to get all the contracts, figure out who they're with, when they expire, how we can bid what needs to be bid. Yeah.

Because I never hear of any bids.

Sure. For these kinds of contracts. Yeah.

For any contract. I don't hear of any bids. That's right.

But, I mean, it's like. So here's another savings opportunity that we know exists. We've got one HVAC contractor doing work here and another one doing work at the library and another one doing work at the police station. Just like pest control guys, they're like, Judith knows about pest control folks, but they're like different everywhere you go. And so for us to be able to consolidate those contracts and get them for cheaper makes the most sense.

Well, but is that because each department is doing their own thing?

They have been doing their own thing.

And we're and we're eliminating that.

We're going to yeah, we're going to look at all the contracts and have a discussion.

I'm saying that's if one's getting an air condition for 18,000, the other one's getting for 16. The bigger question is, why didn't they talk to the other department and why they didn't get it for 16?

Yeah.

I mean, there shouldn't be I'm here. There should be a bid out for any department that goes out on whether it's an air condition Whether it's anything like that, if we're not comparing it to other departments, then each time it should be a bid out. Period.

Yep.

I agree.

All right. You already moved on to the next thing?

I think in the big conversation I think there would probably are guidelines I'm not assuming that there aren't but that there would need to be guidelines for the bid process not necessarily sort of this You know, anything that costs money needs a bid. I think we just need to, like, we're going to have that conversation. It should be also in the process for how we actually do bid contracts.

I think anything over $50,000 goes up to bid. Right?

I just think it needs to be. Projects that are under $100,000 can be awarded to a contractor without bidding it. Under $100,000? Yes, sir.

When did that go up?

for public works contracts. I understand. Sidewalks. I'm talking about sidewalks. Stormwater. That changed in three or four years ago? Two or three years ago.

Okay. Okay. I knew that. I know it used to be 50.

That's all I was going to say. I think all things that cost money are bid-worthy. Right.

All right. So revenue revisions. The ABC Board receives went up because year to date we collected 120,000 and we expect to receive 10,000 in September. Building permits, we added 30,000 because of where we were year to date and what we anticipate receiving in September. Gas mechanical roofing permits went down because of what we've received here today. SRO reimbursement went down because we actually have an agreement with them that you will hear about on Monday. That's on the council agenda to sign that. Cable franchise fees went up $20,000. Based on what we know here today, we've collected $317,000. Does that include...

wireless carriers too. I mean, is that falling into that or is that strictly spectrum?

It's Bell South. There's several. Charter, Bell South. Well, it still comes in as Bell South. There's a bunch of those.

rec fees i totally missed this one um apparently july august september june are their biggest are their biggest months and when i when i was looking at when i was looking at the years a day when i was putting the budget together we weren't called up so we found 354 000 same for park activity revenues Um, city service fees that goes away. That was for one specific thing in FY 25 municipal fines anticipated to go up 100,000. Um, and then because of all the things that I mentioned before, uh, the carryover fund balance, we're not taking but $3.49 million instead of the $4.8. The big change for this is the OPEB coming out of it.

So the revenue is down $9.32 from what you had on the 7th, what we looked at on the 7th, right? Am I reading that right? Both, the revenues and expenses. Yes, the revisions plus those revisions. Yes.

I mean, there's still a balance, but the whole budget comes down from 77.9, I think it was, minus 1.3 million.

How do you come up with, just a curiosity, a 20% increase basically on municipal fines? I mean, what's that basis set on?

Yeah, based on the year to date and not including August and September. So we know what we've collected so far this year through July. I see. i mean to your to your point we've collected here today like 510 000 and that doesn't include august and september so even 500 000 that we are proposing might be under it's probably under yeah that's good it's a good one to be under all right all right almost there capital vehicles i'm a I just want to take a minute. So this is capital. This isn't general fund. So we had two ambulances. We don't run EMS services. We don't go and we don't take people to the hospital in them. But what we do is if somebody has fallen at Brookdale, then we'll take the ambulance to Brookdale and wait for the paramedics to get there in their ambulance. That way it keeps the fire truck in the station. The other thing is right now we have an EMS contract with RPS that expires on January 1, 28. So we've got another year of that contract. We're we'll probably read that contract and it's better if we have ambulances in the shop and anticipate getting better prices if we are threatening to provide that service. Then if we're not also, um, so we had two ambulances this year. They're both the motors blew up on both of them. So they are right now out of service. We are fixing one of the motors and then we're going to provide a chassis and then move the box over onto that chassis. Give me an idea what that cost is. For moving the box? No, for the engine. $17,000, $20,000. Yeah.

Do we think the place where we bought the ambulance is sold as lemons?

Yeah. It was just one of them. Sam gave us a good deal of that. And then we're having to bump up the carryover fund balance to make up for this 75,000 chassis box from the general, I mean, from the capital fund. All right. And then other budget book revisions that you won't see until the 28th are we're going to rename fund 15 to emergency communications district. That's important. I'm not sure why. We're going to add a city official and leadership page that says who all of you are, who all the department heads are, and gives cover photo credit to Jackson for the cover photo. There's a debt service typo that I've got to correct. and then the ad valorem tax rate breakdown. And you'll see that sheet in a second, but I want to include that in the budget book also. I think that's it for revisions. So if y'all are ready to talk about revenues, we can jump right in. All right, so you have the ENCODE sheets that I passed out. They're paper clipped. Don't do anything to your book yet. We'll do everything that needs to be done to your book. That's a good point. Unless you want to leave with your book, you can leave your book here and we'll replace these sheets. What I plan to do is each time we have one of these is to present new encode sheets and then we can, you can leave your books here and we can punch them and put them in there. Um, just an overview of what, of what the revenues look like. 76.9. I told you it was down a million from what I presented in a month ago because of the open. So total revenue is 76.9. You can read where they all come from here, the percentages over here. Clearly, the majority comes from taxes, ad valorem, and sales. All right, so taxes. This is the same thing that you have on your ENCODE sheet. And these are for, this is for the taxes section, and I'm gonna talk in a minute about specifically about sales and add the loan because they are such a big piece of our revenues budget. But does anybody have any other questions about the other taxes?

I was waiting for you to go through.

I'm sorry. Do you want to hit? Yeah, I'm not going to go through.

I'm sorry. I thought you were. I was waiting for you to keep going. Sorry.

I guess looking at this list specifically, always just look at trends compared to past year's actuals. vehicle seems to be up the most out of any of them almost. Our current budget was 276. For revenue last year, we're actually at 304 today. And now we're projecting 400,000. Yep. So that just seems like I mean, it seems like it's increasing, but it seems like a substantial increase and we, cause we've never, you know, we've, we've sat around 300 at three 70, but, um, for various years, but 400 could be a little high.

All right. Let me, let me check that and see if there's a reason why it's 400.

Yeah. Cause otherwise three 50, maybe it would prevent us from, you know, just to be a little bit more conservative. Sure.

And why did we go down again on sales tax? I know you've told me in the past, but I can't remember. Why did you go down on sales tax projections?

You mean from 31.8? Is that the number that you're looking at?

No, I'm looking at the sale and use tax. Oh, okay.

Yeah. It's the BOE.

No, I'm looking at the BOE tax. BOE, yeah. Sorry, thank you. I was looking at BOE.

Yeah, so again, I mean, I'm not sure how the decision got made last year, but what I did was we know exactly what we have collected this year to date and what we collected in 25 to date, and we assumed a... modest increase.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah.

On the lodging tax, where does the, let's go like, just say the Valley Hotel, I'll use that for an example, where we did a tax abatement for them. That has nothing to do with the tax, anything there, or does it? It doesn't. Okay, that's a different.

We, so... Bo would know this. We collect the taxes and then write them a check, basically, is what happens. That's what we're doing now.

When does that end?

I'll have to look and see. We've got some ways to go.

But don't we have a lid on that? $10 million, I think, something like that?

I don't want to say definite without looking at the actual document.

It normally is, though, a term and a match. Because that's the way Target works.

They're doing a great job with it right now. Tremendous job.

So that's why we ought to keep up, have kind of an idea how soon we will be getting into that revenue. Because I think it's going to be sooner than later, in my opinion.

So that's what I'm saying. What's the term limit?

I don't know what the term limits are.

It's probably 10 years, and that's what they typically are.

and checking the revenue, whichever comes first. At some time down the road, I'd be curious to know what kind of yearly funds that they have coming in, because that's something we need to look at going forward.

It's a great point that we should have, just make sure everybody has a list of every abatement contract. Cause we know that, you know, Piggly Wiggly's one target just came off one last year.

Correct.

Target came off two years ago, but we hit it. The WeHo development, the WeHo development homewood hops. Homeward Heights.

Homeward Heights.

What is that? It's a bar. Oh, okay.

Sorry. Okay. I called it the WeHo development. So it's the same. Sorry. Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. So there's that, the Piggly Wiggly and the Valley. There's those three for sure.

And the edge.

And the edge.

There you go. And I'm sure there's little adds in it. But knowing that with how you're doing the funding and how you're making your budgets, it'd be interesting to know because the next year something comes off or something happens, it could be substantially increased.

Yeah, we'll pull all those resolutions and package them up nicely. That will probably be in October.

Any of these restaurants got any of that? Surely not. Or do they?

No, I don't think so.

You know what I'm asking? Any of the new ones that were, you know, when we did, you know, we did something for years ago for Gianmarco's, you know, pizzeria at the time, which was a great tech. That worked out fantastic for it.

So the other sheet of paper that you have is the millage rates. This is where all the ad valorem tax goes.

So you have a sheet of paper that basically says Um, Homewood is only allowed to collect seven and a half dollars out of a hundred dollars of assessed value, uh, for ad valorem tax. And then it tells you all the list of things. So in Homewood, we collect 31.7 mils. So that's $31 and 70 cents out of each thousand dollars of assessed value. And then from that, we break it up. into the board of education in the city of homewood so we keep 17 and a half here we send 14.2 to the board of education we estimate a mill is valued at that much and so nine is valued at that much does that make sense okay this was a slide that i showed in the room over there a month ago and then sales tax i won't You know all this. A penny is worth $11.574. One penny goes to the Board of Education. The other three stay with us, except for a quarter of one of those pennies goes directly into the capital fund revenue. So it doesn't come into the general fund and they get transferred to capital. It automatically goes to capital. Am I saying that right? I think I'm saying that right.

Where does the penny sales tax that was originally for our debt for our bonds supposed to go to bonds, correct?

OK. What do you mean?

OK.

So we raised a penny.

We raised a penny to go to the support debt service. To support debt service, the bond. Right. That's right. OK. And at what point in that, then when we pay the bond, and we have, I think last year we had a pretty substantial increase, correct me if I'm wrong? In the pennies? Uh-huh. OK. And that case was somewhere around $7, $8 million.

Correct me if I'm wrong again. So I'm going to, I'm going to take a risk here and tell you what I know, but I'm going to use nice round numbers.

Okay. That's good. Yeah.

So our debt service payment each year is about 10 and a half million. Right. We collect 11.5 million in the penny.

Right.

And then ad valorem is eight and a half mils. which goes to debt service. So this is worth a little bit less than that. A little bit. So say it's 7 million. So right now we've got 18 and a half million dollars between eight and a half mils of debt service and the penny. But the penny can be used for any general government.

OK. Well, I'm just trying to get it straight for everybody, is that the penny, what is our bond payment a year? I mean, yeah.

10 and 1 half million.

OK, so 10 and 1 half million. So what did the one penny, you're saying the one penny last year brought how much?

Last year, probably about, In 25, $11.5 million, $11.4 million.

Okay, that's in 25. Yes, sir. So we had about basically a million, almost $2 million over what the bond was due, right? That's right.

Okay.

The $2 million. Where does that go to a rainy day fund? When I say rainy day, strictly for the bond for the day with maybe if you think the revenue is going to be a little bit less this year and we only come up with $9 million on the payment. If it happens, where does that extra million and a half come from to pay that bond if we are not putting it off to the side unless we're already spending it? That's what I'm trying to get at.

Yeah. So right now it goes to support the general fund. So you have to do this. You have to send 8 and 1 half mils to debt service. That 8 and 1 half mil only generates about $7 million for debt service. So now we're going to use a little bit of revenues from that penny. We're going to use $7 million plus $3 and 1 half million of the penny to pay the debt service. The rest of the penny then goes into the general fund to cover all the other

items so salaries I guess I've got I got it kind of reversed backwards yeah huh yeah you know what I'm saying yeah you get the seven main first and then of the penny of the 11.5 you pay out the balance of the bond and then the rest of it stays in

But if that penny, what I'm getting at, if that penny generates more revenue, say $12.5, $13 million, that penny is earmarked. Supposedly, I think the residents thought when they passed that, it would be earmarked straight for the bond to pay off the bond.

It doesn't say that. I don't know.

Well, I know it might not say that, but I think when we said we're using it to pay off to get a $110 million bond, the penny was for that purpose. It wasn't the purpose to go spend it someplace else. That's just my opinion. Now, what we do with it, that's up to the council and up to whatever, but in my opinion, I like to pay off the debt as fast as I do anything. That's just my, that's me.

If we did that, we would have less revenue in general fund, which would mean we would need to cut more services.

So basically, you're exactly correct. I know what you're saying, but the point is, The penny is not covering the penny. We need to find another way to take care of those services outside what the debt for the bond was. And we're not doing that. We're using bond money to pay wages or whatever you're talking about.

That's what we're doing. That's the bond money. No. That's the bond money. The balance of the bond is paid with the penny.

Well, see, the balance of the bond The penny comes in. We got a $10.5 million, right? That's what we raised in the taxes for that penny. Our payment is $10.5 million, what you said the payment is. But in this case, we might have made, I think, $12 million. Did you not say the penny brought in $12 million? 11.5 million. 11.5 million. So that's $10.5 million goes strictly to the bond. That left us $1.5 million, basically. Okay. What I'm saying is that million and a half dollars. Now we're taking that million and a half and putting into wages or wherever else we need to spend.

It's a lot more than a million and a half.

That's what I thought because I thought it was eight million.

It's eight million.

Okay.

That's where I'm coming from. Because of the millage rate that by law is required to go to.

But it feels like we're commingling to, I know we're settling it with the other, with the penny, but we, you have to take the balance of this eight and a half mils first. So that balance of money is a lot larger than a million and a half. It's like 17, what is it, 17 million dollars if you take that penny and that.

It's like 18 million.

Yeah. But all that was not coming out of the, that wasn't coming out of the,

for the bond all of this is all of that's going to the bond yeah it's the other it's great it's not it's not isn't that actually we have that yeah yeah that maybe we just need to pull that again too and maybe just put it on this binder too for reference if

If there's going to be updates to it. Let me think on that.

OK. Yeah, because sometimes I think we have a revenue that we did really a good year. And instead of paying down. Now, I don't know what the penalties are. Where's our finance gurus? uh the penalty for paying off a bond faster you know what i'm saying it doesn't i don't know if that's permissible and if that's what you want to do or you want to put it off to the side and save it yeah so we talked about all these things at length with stiefel and with car rigs back in june when we all gathered in the mayor's conference room right and and i think what i heard was

The interest rates are so low that we can earn more money. It just doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make sense to pay it off fast right now. It doesn't make any sense.

Because when we got it, it was, I agree, 100%. But at the same time. Yes.

Was it two years ago or three years ago? 21.

I agree when we did that. But all I'm saying is, though, there should be a fund somewhere to where all of a sudden we do have a bad year.

So we do have 170 days and then we're reserved.

I don't want to go, but that's not what I'm talking about. That reserve is totally different.

Right. So I think to address your question and your issue, we're going to bring, probably in October, We're going to make you guys tell us what you're comfortable with setting aside for debt service. What I think we're going to propose is at the beginning of each year, putting $11.5 million in a debt service account. And then we'll pay it out. And then the next year, put $11.5 million in debt service account. That way, we're always behind a year. We always have a year's worth of debt service payment in the bank. That way, if we do have a down year, then we'll have that payment. DAVID BURRAGE.

That's why it's really important to find out when these tax abatements start coming available for us on that. And I'm sure when we do the Brookwood deal.

There's going to be a lot more abatements going on. I was just going to say in the green, what, so you've got a quarter of a penny in the capital, three quarters then unallocated, and then you have one and a half and one and a half to sit to the city.

Why is that's just a typo or am I, I don't know.

Okay. So, so let's just go left to right. You've got a penny to the school board. You've got then three other pennies at that first penny. The second one then. a quarter of that immediately goes to capital and then 2.75 goes of the of that goes to general fund goes to the general fund okay yeah and then we and then we transfer out into debt service yeah okay i just wanted to clarify yeah i don't know why okay thanks

All right, licenses and permits. Second highest percentage of revenue. Business licenses are at eight and a half million. I think Bo has collected like nine.

As of today, 94.

9.4 million. As of today, the But won't let me go up on this number though, because we received about what? A million dollars from a business that was like a one time. Yeah.

They, they stated in the, when they sent the payment in, they stated that this was a one time occurrence and that next year there will be another payment, but don't expect this kind of payment.

It was a correction. It was, it was a correction.

It's not a correction.

Are we expected? Are we expecting a lot more revenue coming in on building permits, especially across from Lakeshore and places like that should be getting going before long? Or are we not anticipating that?

for building permits yeah construction permits so um we know what we've collected today when you say across from lakeshore well that's yeah potentially but i mean we don't know that to be certain i would hate to budget for that and then that no no i got that budget but i wouldn't hate to cut the budget knowing things that are coming if that's the case we yeah we aren't cut yeah no i got we aren't cutting anything right yeah We have more. We have 1.53. I think that was one of the changes. Yeah, 1.53. In the original budget, it was 1.5. For building permits, which which I talked at length to Wyatt about it. He likes that number. He feels good about it. But To your point, if something like some huge project does happen and we get a lot of revenues and building construction permits, then we would hopefully decide what to do with that additional revenue. Instead of just putting it in the general fund, hopefully we would go and add it to the OZ Trust or the vehicle fund.

I think that there's a lot more money in the building permits coming. I mean, when I say that, if we do some things, hopefully for another conversation as far as expediating the... way we do it whether it's the small businesses the big businesses and i think what would sam i think you know on some ideas where the small we're having trouble getting permits and if we can find a way to expedite that that can bring us the revenue faster but and more by the way any other questions on any of this

Intergovernmental charges for services, intergovernmental, sorry, and charges for services. So this is two smaller categories. Intergovernmental is where the SRO reimbursement lands. And then, and that's the only thing. And then charges for services is where cable franchise fees, all the fees kind of land.

This went down on charges for services. It did go down. I mean, I saw our cable franchise fees.

Oh, you're talking about from even budget your 25 actuals went down. Yeah, cable franchise fees. The thing that scares me about those, and I don't know why this is, but in 23 it was 293K, in 24 it was 212, and then it jumped way up in 25 to 376,000. But we know what we've collected so far year to date and what we anticipate in September.

What was in city service fees?

All right. I don't know.

Okay. We'll get you an answer. It's zero, so maybe not.

Oh, it is zero.

It was just in the budget for $25,000.

Oh. So I'm not going to get you. I'll answer your question. So all the... This is ENCODE, old school ENCODE 9. Things that have been budgeted in the past show up in here and are zeroed out. So like even projects that you'll see this when you get to the capital, even projects that were done like four years ago show up. And there's zero doubt. And there's no way to print a report that doesn't show up. That was my opening speech.

I was about to say that. Sorry. I thought I was on my way to go.

How do we handle the cash in this bill? Say for parking recs, for instance, or even potential library. I don't know, a library might take only credit cards. I don't know if they take cash or not. Judith?

They take cash. They take cash.

And checks. And checks. You know, I'm just curious to know when... I don't know how to quite ask this question.

Like how that gets turned into finance and how it gets turned into solid?

For instance, I'm just using this for whether you go to Auburn, you go to Alabama or somewhere and you go get a hot dog at the concession. You don't take cash. You don't take a check. It's a credit card and that's the way it is because of the people who are working there. Whether it's untrustworthy, or just their young kids doing it, and they might not know how to do change? I don't know. OK, I'm just throwing that at you. What are you laughing over there about? So the question I have is something like this. When you have a cash deal happening at a rec center, whether it's at the pool, How is that all accounted?

How does that reconcile? Yeah, that's a good question. Do you want to explain your process?

Yeah. So we make deposits, and then we have an internal way that we track them through. Like if someone comes in and pays their library fund, We have our library catalog that keeps track of all that. So at the end of the month, we can print out and say, OK, we accepted $500 in fines that were either cash or check or card. And then that's how we relay that information to the finance department. But for cash, we make deposits for check.

we have a check deposit machine and then for credit card we go through the finance department um to keep up with that and then we're meeting with aspen in two weeks so she's going to review our system and help us refine anything okay and then and what we do with uh say private lessons and things like that that we pay say in park and rec just using that for an example if we private lessons whether it's tennis or do they are they contracted with us with the park and recreation when it's privately done using what using the they do how does that work the parks and rec boards that that use fee and they okay so it

aren't available for private lessons. I mean, I don't know about tennis specifically. You can't use the rec center for that.

Well, the tennis, they use the schools. They use different places that they do. The question I have is that all the young ladies and men who are playing, they pay a contract. They pay the club, as they call it, a club or and they pay them Venmo money to that person. Question is, how does our city get the money from that person if it's Venmoed? How does that work when they're paying that?

Yeah, if I'm teaching Bo a tennis lesson, Bo just pays me for my service, and then I pay you, the city, for letting me use the courts, a use fee.

Do we have any idea what that is?

That's a parks board.

I got you. That's another.

I mean, they would set the use fee for that. And they would provide permission on what happens. I mean, they have authority and jurisdiction over there.

I know Birmingham and a few other municipalities Do not use Venmo, anything like that when it happens with city finances or funds being paid. They don't need it. And we don't either.

OK. Yeah. The tennis instructor doesn't pay the city through Venmo.

so how do we know if is there a percentage or just i think it's a flat use do you know about this i don't know i mean i will say she's grown that program oh no she doesn't grow it no she's she's really good that's how they get business they provide they get a business license for the city to operate

So then if a business entity or trainer is allowed to actually give lessons on sitting property, say tennis, then it sounds like that individual who's in business reserves the space. And once they've reserved the space, they could have it. They could play against their friend or they could have a lesson, but whatever happens and what's charged, the city's out of it at that point. Between them two. They pay for the space. But we know that, from my experience, that previously there's no reserving the courts for basketball for lessons because there's just too much use of our courts and we want it to be available for the public to come in and use it at any time. So I don't know which facilities are available for that type of arrangement, but I mean, it's a parks board question.

But we don't know about how the revenue works, but we go ahead and we establish a budget for them. So how does that work? If we don't know what they're doing, how do we establish a budget for them?

Park and rec activities fees, I mean, they tell us what they think they're going to collect this year. And we know what we've collected year to date, so we just assume that it's probably going to be the same next year.

I mean, she's maxed out. I will tell you, she's maxed out this course. I mean, she's rung every drop out of there. I mean, they're full all the time.

Oh, no, they're full all the time. The point is that, though, as somebody who wants to play tennis, who's not part of... that group or in that group.

There's an app that you download and reserve a course. Yeah, and there's also the middle school courts are also available for adult play as well.

Matter of fact, they play over there.

Yeah, but we don't have lights at the middle school, so when it gets dark, they can't play there anymore, but they do have access to the middle school courts as well.

All right. Municipal fines, we talked a little bit about that earlier, for fines and forfeitures, and then inter-fund transfers. I'll talk about the $470,000 number for a second. So as part of general fund, fund 01, we also have fund 23, which is sales tax, and the clearing, AP clearing fund, which is fund 99, which is also called the control account. Is that right? Yep. If I say anything wrong, throw something.

She's hiding back there.

We estimate that the money that sits in those funds will generate $470,000 in interest. And so we're proposing to transfer that interest money from 23 and 99 back into . That's just another interest collection mechanism. And then other revenues, again, interest income, Rosewood Hall, dividend income, third floor lease, and then the carryover fund balance.

That might be a stupid question. Miscellaneous revenue?

$50,000. Miscellaneous?

That is like, it's not, I don't know if I can tell you exactly what it is.

There you go.

The Rosewood rental, I see you've got it at $184,000 as basically what it was this past year.

Yes, sir. i'm not mistaken uh are we not the church is going to be gone in january correct jj is that right supposed to be yes okay so what kind of income is that part of this 184 we're going to lose that right it's significant but i think there's another church that's interesting they're looking at yeah that's interested in okay um Good thing, but when they do, we've got issues about that downstairs, about the rental part as far as they're having a lot of issues here with the residents on Sundays, okay? Just FYI, so it's something you might want to look at. We'll talk about it later.

Ms. Blaney's revenues is like when they block the roads off for parties.

Yeah, just can't find a buddy for it. Correct. Gotcha.

And on city service fees, we haven't used them since 2016. We haven't used that bond since 2016. Or that account number.

Anything else about this? Because I think this is about... What...

about surplus property sales? Didn't you address that already? I have not addressed that. It's null. And is that just when we declare items a surplus at council?

That usually goes in your capital fund.

OK. That's what I, yeah.

Which one was that?

Surplus property sales.

So it's all going to go to capital, nothing here. And that's why it's zero. Right. Thank you.

What about the public investment account? I notice it's zero now. But I noticed in the past, it was substantial, $213,022, $1 million in 23, 232, and 2425. Current, $50,000. Actual, $91,000. And now, all of a sudden, zero. What is that?

I think that's the account we made all of them over to us in August.