Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone. Here we are at the city council study session on February 9th, 2026, 6 pm at the city council chambers at 111 East Maple. Madame interim city manager, welcome. And the first item on the agenda is an ordinance that I've sponsored uh and just give you some thoughts on this. We may go a different direction on this but uh syntheticum also known as 70 has been a problem around the country. People have died because of using it. I'd like us to ban the sale of that but not ban the sale ofratom as we know it in its natural state. So that's basically the essence of it, but uh I'd be happy to open it to discussion here amongst my colleagues or uh certainly going to do some adjustments to it. This is not the final format. And Mitch, I don't know if uh Jeremy contacted you and said kind of the he was going to hold it till like March 3rd, I think for the first read and then the 16th for the second read, but there may be some other thoughts on this on the DAS about how we proceed. So that's what I had heard from him, but I don't know if you he talked about this at all.

I received an email from him this morning. Um I think you copied on I believe I believe it came to you directly about if you wanted to move forward to it then they could be added to the March 2nd agenda meeting which would then mean a second meeting on March 16th but we may proceed angle here. So with that being said we can open the floor to request on the issue. Uh we've got Todd Underwood. So Todd, please and if I can I need a motion to allow a non-resident to speak. So I get a motion in a second. I'd be grateful. So moved.

Second. Got a motion in a second. Mr. Clerk, if you could please call the RO. That's right. Council member Pierce, yes. Council member Perkins, yes. Council member Stewart, Council Member, yes. Council member Wy, yes. Council member V. Yes. Mayor Roland, yes. And is approved unanimously.

So Todd Underwood, if you can come forward and state your name and address, and you'll have five minutes to talk about this topic. Todd, hold on one second. Gota get the microphone out.

I'll do it again. Uh Todd Underwood here. I live at 809 Southeast Hillside Circle, Blue Springs, Missouri. Uh we own the Examiner building down the street and that is where we have one of the nation's only FDA registered manufacturing facilities that manufactures create products. We also are fully 21 CFR compliant. We have product liability insurance and we have filed a new dietary ingredient notification with the Food and Drug Administration on our exact product and we have the safety data to verify it's safe for human consumption. Uh I did the math today before I came in. We have over 22 million bottles that we sold last year without one single adverse reporting event. So, not only have we proven the science of the product prior to market entry, we also have four years of existence in last year alone, 22 million bottles, and we don't have one negative adverse event on the product. We employ right around 80 people between our two locations and we're rapidly growing. And, you know, if we would please this as council, I'm here to answer any questions or be a resource uh to help you guys guide this conversation. I fully agree with banning synthetic 7 hydroxy, but I want to warn you right now banning 7 hydroxy doesn't do it. Uh if anybody remembers spice from around 12, 15 years ago, what they did is they put spice on the market. They banned that molecule and 30 days later they had an additional molecule and the DEA played whack-a-ole for years until they finally got rid of all of that. They've already done that with this particular product called 7 hydroxy. They've turned it into matrogyny pseudodoxile MGM16 and I can the list can go on. So however we decide to do this we have to look at it from the aspect of having language that encompasses any non-natural product and that would include natural leaf cratom or naturally extracted product that meets the food and drug administration's natural language.

Okay, perfect. Uh thank you very much. Okay, any questions? Anyone other questions or comments on the council? Please proceed. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm old, so I have Oh, that's okay. Question.

Uh, I'm old, so I have seen many drugs come and go. And as I shared with Mr. Underwood, there is no legislation that can keep up with the creativity of a motivated chemist to modify the drug. So I I think this is a complicated enough issue that it is worthwhile for us to ask our board of health to do a little bit of homework so that we get educated. Um you know 70 is showing up among youth. It is showing up in poison control centers. Uh the potency is really high in some of these products and that is causing untold amounts of addiction and complications. For that reason, I think this is a very important piece of legislation and I appreciate the mayor bringing it forward. I just want to be sure that it is thoughtful in the way that it's worded and we look at other communities to see what they've done. Um the other concern I have is that there are multiple pieces of legislation moving at the state house to address the same thing. Um, it would be, I think, appropriate to add into this that we would be consistent with whatever state regulations come down. That way, we don't have to modify it later to match up with their legislation. If that sounds like a reasonable addition to this.

Sure, I'm good with that. Anyone else? Other questions or comments? Doctor, can I add something? Uh, but once the comment period is over, okay, it's over, but we'll certainly have conversations about it going forward. Okay, thank you very much. Anyone else? Okay, that takes us to uh presentations. We've got the parks and recreations department master plan final report. I don't want to steal your thunder thunder, so fire away.

All right. Um well, I want to get one housekeeping item out of the way first. And our item three on historic sites will actually need to be moved. um consultant isn't quite ready to bring that forward to presentation. So, I'm not certain of a date. So, we will um postpone that indefinitely and get it on the quickest study session available once um we're confirmed to have the presentation ready to go. Um but other than that, um we'd like to go ahead and bring Leon younger with Pros Consulting forward to discuss the um final findings of the parks master plan. as the council I'm sure remembers um the parks master plan began in January of 25. So here we are just over a year later um and going to review the final determinations and findings of that study. So with that I will apparently give you um director Morris Heidi first.

Leon wants me to introduce him. So uh I think you're all have met with Leon younger before. I'm Morris Heidi, director of parks and recreation. But uh again tonight, this evening, we have Leon Young with Pros Consulting uh and several other uh folks here to give a final report on that uh the master plan as you're aware that's been going for about 13 months now. So started January 2025. And so we're really excited to have them share updates this evening. So I'll turn it over to Leon. Okay.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Uh nice to see you all again. We're here to share kind of our where we are in the final draft and uh make sure you have all the information you need to move this forward. So just to start with the master plan really focuses on land facilities operations, maintenance and capital. We talked about this before but the important thing is we covered all of that in this work. Um, in terms of our strategy, we wanted to make it a clear roadmap for stabilizing, modernizing, and elevating the parks and recreation system. You all know it's been 15 years since you've been here. And we really wanted something was realistic and implementable so that you all could recognize the value of the plan and actually work with the staff on u implementing it. The plan provides guidance on funding, staffing, and policy uh decisions for the future.

Mr. Younger, three other consultants that Mr. Younger, hold on one second. Can you move the microphone so they can hear you? Okay, perfect. Thank you. Sorry.

We had three other consulting teams working with us. Confluence is here as well. PJ Novak is going to share his information on the assessment of the of the parks. We have uh PGAV uh also working with us on the historic sites and etc um institute who did all the survey work for us as well. So why does this plan matter? Now it's really independence has a strong potential but is limited by aging infrastructure. We talked about this before with you, but um the system hasn't had the level of investment really over the last 15 20 years that you would normally see a city of this size. There's a lot of deferred investment is increasing because of the age and life cycle of the of of your parks and the amenities were in the park and really community expectations are changing. um you're growing, you're going to be continue to grow and as people move into your community, parks and recreation uh does take on an element of expectation and with that the park system uh is really u designed to basically support them. So parks should be a safe, welcoming and well-maintained. Uh the programs need to be accessible, fun, and relevant. And we they need to demonstrate visible improvement and provide more consistent and communication and project planning efforts are applied to parks and recreation. The goal of programming is to activate the spaces and really make sure that all those spaces are really meeting what the community's needs are, but also uh energizing your community to the value of parks. I'm going to turn us over to Travis.

Good evening, council. Travis Tramarger with Pros Consulting. Uh speaking a little bit about the uh community engagement, you all will probably recall, as Morris mentioned, we started this a little over a year ago. Um in total, we engaged over 1,200 people throughout this process through uh several different methods, including focus groups, one-on-one interviews. Uh we had a uh a social pinpoint website, an online website where the community could go online and provide input. Um the online survey uh engaged almost 300 people and then we did a statistically valid survey um which engaged over 800 households um for for that piece. Um and all of that kind of culminated in in what we will um here in a few slides talk about uh are the priorities for the next five years for parks and recreation. Uh we're calling those pillars. Um but essentially um what you see on the slide here is is what the residents told us through that engagement piece. Um that parks should be safe, welcoming and m wellmaintained. Um and and the community, you know, wants to see u visible improvement over the next five years. And so um we'll talk about it here in a few minutes. The uh the action plan that we're working with staff on developing to implement the master plan going forward. So essentially the first pillar uh as we're calling it that came from the community engagement as a priority is park asset revitalization and stewardship. And so um you know that it's important uh for uh the the city to protect the public investment first. Um there is a considerable amount of deferred maintenance in the park system. Um and uh there there is a considerable amount of modern modernization that needs to happen with parks and facilities to meet today's expectations of the community. Um and do that before

expanding the system. So essentially what we're saying is um taking care of what you have first um and then once you do that well the the the the advocacy starts to build towards future facilities um and shifting from reactive repairs to a plan life cyclebased reinvestment. And so um being more strategic about where you're putting your dollars within that deferred maintenance. We understand that can be uh pretty overwhelming to staff and officials. Um and so we're recommending um certain areas be focused on first to to you know essentially the quick wins to um start tackling those uh parks and facilities that are uh a priority to the community. Um and then prioritizing underutilized spaces for reinvestment. So uh as PJ will explain, there are certain parks and facilities that are underutilized throughout the park system. And so reimagining how those look in today's independence. How do how are those going to meet expectations for residents today and you know 5 to 10 years into the future. So with that I'm going to hand it off to PJ to talk about the park assessment work and our capital improvement plan.

Good evening. It's PJ Nova Confluence. Uh I want to talk to you about the the existing system and what we have been looking at. U general park recommendations across the entire system. Uh the first one is parks what we call life cycle. So that's equipment and infrastructure and basically uh through NRPA and across the country uh really making a plan to look at how things are taken care of from here on out and budgetarily planning for that. For instance, parking and trails and sidewalks really they typically have about a 15-year life cycle before they need to start being re you know addressed. So trying to work that into your budgeting. Uh playgrounds typically we see 20 years a very maximum with that that they they've they've reached you know things have changed the safety factors have changed that just need to be replaced. Um restrooms maybe the building doesn't have to be at 20 at 20 years but a lot of times the infrastructure inside is just is just worn out and that needs to be addressed. And then also just site furniture whether they you know when they're out they're out uh out in the open air they get they get worn out after 20 years and just needs to be replaced. So those are things that should be planned out as we go forward. furniture standards. Just taking a look at benches, tress receptacles, grills, lighting, drinking fountains, security lighting. Just making a look at, you know, at a plan to make sure that that they're being refurbished or they're being replaced on a on an as needed basis. With that, also there's some ADA standards that some of the parks don't have. And as we move forward, we want to recommend making improvements, especially to sidewalks, trail materials, and widths just getting into the parks um is is a high priority. And then creating signage sanders. So maybe re, you know, refurbishing some of the existing signs, but also take a look at some some color additives to try to get the parks a little more identifiable within the system. Priority items to address what we call these, we call these sustainable projects. And you'll notice um I think you saw a prior one where you're going to see the numbers are different here. We've worked with the staff over the last 10 days to take a look at where we want to have where we're putting sustainable project and where we're

putting the next level. So the numbers are all are equally all the same, but uh baseline projects. So these are upkeep projects. We're taking a look and taking a look at surfacing within the parks, taking a look at trails and and improving those playgrounds and all the amenities without those. So that's really basically upkeep and renovations of what you had. So that's the existing system. So we're saying that's you know in today's dollars that's about a 10 million to go across the entire system. A 10 million uh budget issue on there. Let's go. sustainable projects. For example, uh walkways and basketball courts, you can see they're aging. Uh just need replaced. There's there's cracks. They're just, you know, really have need some maintenance issues addressed. Playground structures that are just at the point at which as you can see in that picture, that's very old, you know, old what we call post and deck playgrounds. And you you look what's new, what's new, and what's safety out there now. It's totally different. And then just aging ball diamonds. You got bleachers and fencing. You have bleachers that don't meet the current standard. If there bleacher is too if it's two levels high, it really needs to have a rail around it with those just taking those things kind of, if you will, those easy wins would just try to spruce things up with that expanded services. So, this is really improving what we have. It's really what the residents have been desiring to add parks. And so, it we what we heard from the residents, we're also applying a national park standard. So, this goes for fields, you know, additional fields, additional courts. Maybe you've got tennis courts that really aren't being used. Do they need to be retrofitted into pickleball courts? Things like that. And then also shelters, making making sure there's enough shelters. There's one thing we always hear in these plans is shelters and shade in parks is is a high priority. So, we're saying those renovations and amenities and improvements in the infrastructure for to expand above what we have today is toing about almost $9 million with that. And then the final priority as you can see here this outdoor workout equipment artificial turf surfacing is something that could be uh improvements to the splash pads. So those are uh improvements can be made that really respond to what we heard from the public

and then visionary project developing new opportunities to become a regional draw and really transformative projects. So we really see about four opportunities out there recreation center aquatics facility uh the sports complex and then more splash pads and playgrounds throughout the city. These amenities all total could be upwards of $88 million with that because those are large infrastructure projects with their couple of location that might be an opportunity. Obviously the IA uh with that and transforming that I think we looked at that about a year ago with you and then also the church property what the opportunities there that could bring uh needs in the community could be addressed with that property. So the second big area, key area or pillar two, um we took a look at recreation programs. And so again using the community engagement piece um to understand what programs are most important to households uh within the community and um where they where the community feels their their needs are under served uh with recreation programs. And so that helped establish core program areas of focus. And uh so the recommended core program areas include aquatics, arts and culture, um active adults or programming for older adults and seniors, uh fitness and wellness, community and special events, nature education and outdoor adventure, youth and family out of school enrichment, and sports programming. Uh and so we should note that the the youth out of school um programming stood out to us uh as a a major need for independence to focus on over the next five years. Um you know with the change in in the school schedule uh there were a lot of families that talked to us through the engagement process on how um child care is a need in this community and parks and recreation can kind of pick up that slack. In addition, we looked at similar providers throughout

the community um and understand that there are a limited number of child care options uh within the community um especially that can meet the needs of uh growing school age children. Um and so uh those could be out of school camps uh during spring, fall, winter, summer break. um or uh afterchool type programming that independents could uh help address underserved needs or gaps within the community. Um that similar provider analysis also allowed for us to take a look at um maybe where uh recreation opportunities are more saturated. And so with limited funding, um we recommend that independents focus on those undermet needs instead of um doing something that maybe someone else from the private sector or nonprofit sector is doing pretty well. There might be partnership opportunities there, but we want to make sure u we're avoiding duplicating services offered by those other sectors. Did did you look at um in your report does it indicate what those duplication services are? Um just I haven't got all the way through the report yet. I just got it today and and so I haven't got completely through this 400 and some odd pages. So [laughter]

yeah, we know it's it's pretty pretty lengthy. Uh so we did do a a high level similar provider analysis and we did that based on the core program areas. So we looked for instance fitness and wellness. Um, we asked staff to send us who they viewed as maybe similar providers in that space and we we took a look at the types of programs they're offering. Um and fitness and wellness is a good example in that um the older adult demographic is underserved with fitness and wellness um in this community whereas um you know some of the more individualized or more advanced um fitness classes may be served by the private sector or your boutique fitness locations. Um but there definitely is an opportunity for uh independence parks and recreation to meet uh to address those gaps within fitness and wellness program and then we did that for each other core program area as well.

Okay. Okay.

Thanks for the question. So the the third major pillar um that came through the community engagement process uh and discussion with officials and staff is connectivity, access and safe public spaces. Um so uh the goal here is to create welcoming destinations. Um and when you activate parks in that manner, it helps eliminate some or all of the nefarious activity that may be occurring in those parks. Um and uh and you notice the community starts to value those spaces more and advocate for those spaces and it's a continuous positive cycle. Um and so we uh are recommending to prioritize investments in underserved neighborhoods. Um there there um is underserved areas particularly on the east side of Independence. But we also did a level of service analysis to look at where maybe some of the areas are too saturated with parks or trails or facilities. Um and and and again taking a look at today and tomorrow's independence as opposed to what it was 15 years ago when the plan was last done. Uh the community has grown uh in its footprint and um populationwise and there are there are needs for different types of parks uh in other areas of town. Um and so these next few slides give you an idea of uh what we looked at with the level of service analysis. Um, again, it's to help support strategic investment in future parks, facilities, and amenities, and uh to to help independents make a decision on, you know, what areas may be overserved with certain facilities and how do you spread that out across the community as the community demographics and population and even footprint continues to shift. And so, this one you see on your screen

is for community parks. uh it has uh the service radius uh that you'll notice the green circles are based on the size of the park and the type of amenities it has in it. So the bigger the park, the more amenities, the bigger service radius um it has. Uh you'll also see um in the plan all of these maps. I believe there's a total of 19 or 20 of these maps that assess the parks, the trails, and specific facilities and amenities. and we go through this same exercise. Um, but these maps provide a good uh visual on where the community is served by specific parks, facilities, and amenities and and where they may not be. Um we also through the level of service analysis um assess the current service level uh per thousand people with independent population and there's a formula that turned out a recommended standard um per thousand people for specific park acreage trail miles and types of facilities and amenities. So this next map is uh similar uh but a little bit different. We also assess 10-minute walk to parks. And so the 10-minute walk is a national initiative that came out through the Trust for Public Land as a benchmark for communities to assess connectivity um and access to parks um through other means other than vehicles. Um and so this gives you a glimpse of the 10-minute walk radius to all of Independence's parks. And while there may be several parks in one area, I think you can still notice that there are some access issues in those areas to those neighborhood community or regional parks. And so this just again provides a good benchmark and a visual on on how

the parks the overall park system could be better connected. So we did the same exercise for paved trails. And so you can kind of see, you know, which parks have paved trails either inside the park or whether it or or it may be a linear what we call a linear park or a trail outside of parks that connects other properties together. May I ask a question? Yes.

So Mid America Regional Council spent a lot of time and effort mapping out Metro Green, which was to be a connected set of trails and public spaces. Does your plan mesh with that at all or those are completely independent thoughts? So I believe ours is mostly independent from that. Okay. Thank you.

Uh same exercise for rectangular fields. You can see there that the IND uh Independence Athletic Complex takes up the majority um of the service area. uh that's what we deem more a regional type park and so it has a bigger service radius and even stretches to outside the community. And then lastly, playgrounds. And again, there's several other maps in the actual plan. We just wanted to provide a glimpse at some examples for uh facilities, parks, and trails. And so with that, I will hand it off to Leon for the pillar four.

Thank you. So our fourth pillar is the organizational capacity and operational excellence. Um aligning our the resources with expectations of the public. So first of all modernize internal systems policies and staffing. Um that really m you know everything in parks and recreation is built around a set of standards and those standards like any other police and fire has standards so does park systems. It's just that the intent is is where are you within that process and how can the department work towards managing to that level of capacity and deliver on what the community expects. shift from informal practice to standardized operations especially as it applies to programming, facility management, maintenance. Um just the entire um policy management uh funding as an example and then build more core services that really focus on active adults, aquatics, arts and culture, community and special events, fitness and wellness, nature education, outdoor adventure, sports, youth and family. um um out of school enrichment. Those are the core services that your community um desires from this system. Pillar five is economic vital vitality, financial sustainability, and strategic investment. The whole goal here is responsible growth and long-term sustainability. Manage the park and recreation with a business-minded framework. Everything costs money. How do you manage and how efficient you are is the goal. And all of our work was built around maximizing the efficiency of the system as well as how we can incorporate other earned income opportunities to help manage the system forward. And we've outlined a series of opportunities that the plan could address. It's up to the staff and the council working forward to whether you

want to incorporate those into your system. clearly communicate the value and cost of service to the public so people understand that it's not free isn't just free. There's a cost associated with everything that you're providing. And the important thing is is the recognition for the value that the public receives. Reinvest in portions of the system that really support the economic development of the city. I mean, I know you're you're all over it right now with other types of economic development. Our encouragement to you is make parks a part of the economic plan and then align park improvements with future redevelopment efforts as well, especially in key areas where the the amenities don't match up with where the population is. Then funding reality revital revitalization requires investment and this plan cannot be implemented without increased funding. When I last time I talked to you about that said that the park systems funding was around 2% of the total city's budget. Continued underinvestment limits progress and increases risk of really where you take the system so far down it's so hard to rebuild it. And then uh strategic reinvestment minimizes long-term costs just as PJ was talking about constant reooking at the life cycle of all of these amenities. Everything has a life cycle and and parks are not any different but keeping up with that and then funding decisions should be phased and deliberate and really strategic as we move as you move forward. Um fifth year fiveyear implementation I know it's been 15 since you did it but my encouragement is that you do it every five years. It tells a real story about your system and it also helps the council to measure how effectively the council and the park system is working together. So part of that is um focusing on performance metrics that are really

tied to each of these pillars. So when the park system u brings their budget, they're also giving you how well they're delivering on the outcomes of their work and meeting their your expectations as well as the public's uh transparent communication on funding and really what are they capable of? Listen, I've been a PA practitioner for 20 years. I understand when you're sitting in Morris's seat, you want to tell everybody everything's perfect, but it's not. The intent is is you want to really tell the story correctly and then actively manage the plan. Part of our work here was to give them a series of outcomes that are measurable so that they really can stay focused on the action plan and they're not reactive, they're proactive in their work and then regularly reporting back to their progress to all of you and the park commission and then monitor public use and satisfaction. So how well the public is receiving the work that's being done and then we bu broke the plan into short-term uh strategies which are established foundation policies planning long-term enhancements introduce priority programs and services midterm really scaling the priority of programs and public demand reinvesting in facilities continued public engagement make sure that all of the elements are set up in a datadriven process and Then the long terms are five years plus, but really build it in as part of the overall city's thinking as you move forward and continue to grow in the city's efforts to um support the people who live here and people who haven't who plan on living here. So with that, we'll open it up for questions.

Any questions for anyone? Please proceed. I'm like uh Council Member Fierce. I haven't been able to chew through this whole thing. Uh, but I did get some early questions about pickle ball capacity and whether some of the existing courts might change hands or um whether we'll be expanding those. It seems to be one of the growing areas of interest in this city. Can you speak to that?

Well, yeah. I mean, sports courts are popular everywhere, including pickle ball, and uh everybody it's when you have a back in the 90s, tennis was growing like crazy and everybody couldn't build enough tennis courts, and then people caught up and then tennis kind of balanced it out. Same thing happened in softball field. Same thing's going on right now in pickle ball. The same processes there. The thing about pickle ball, it has a much wider age segment appeal than what a lot of other sports do because it's going to be an Olympic sport in two years. And so you got kids playing it as well as older adults. And so consequently, when you have that wide of age segment appeal, you're going to get more and more pressure to do more and more type of sport courts like pickle ball.

So is your recommendation that we have enough that we should expand? Okay. We you don't have enough. Go ahead. Maybe just a question in that regard. And this may be for either Morris or or Lisa, but so I got a question just over the weekend that someone had heard that we were going to close the Blackburn pickle ball courts. And I didn't think I'd heard anything about that. I just wanted to make sure that because if that's the only pickle outdoor pickle ball courts we have, that doesn't seem to be. So, I just wanted to maybe if we could put that to rest or or find out if there's any truth to that.

So, I don't want to speak for the consultants, but one of and I don't know if PJ wants to speak to to this, but one of the the u recommendations is to invest in city-owned property first and with Blackburn being school district property. So, they are recommending looking at those going back to the school district and we would not invest our limited sales tax dollars in those facilities. Doesn't mean they're recommending pickle ball go away. We would have to obviously add courts before that happened. So we would do something else before that. Exactly. There. Yeah. A lot of these recommendations are transitional in nature. It's going to be some time. Obviously, the funding has to be in place before you know some of these changes can take place. But uh but yeah, that is that is a recommendation. So

thing didn't want to take us too far off track, but since you were talking about pickle ball, I thought raise it. Good question. Yeah, I I was just going to add that the level of service analysis lays out um the the specific needs for uh facilities and amenities like pickle ball. Um so it it assesses as I mentioned earlier the the current level of service with the current pickle ball courts but based on population projections uh it has a recommended service level for pickleball courts and basketball courts and all the other types of amenities playground

and that formula is grounded in you know population projections. Um and so it it assigns a certain number of pickle ball courts per um 1,000 10,000 20,000 people and um and allows for you to grow commensurate to that recommended level of service. Anyone else? Mr. Mayor, just please proceed.

Thank you, Leon. Thank you for all the work that you put in this. That's a long time. 483 pages pl through that myself. But it's very important as we're strategizing and we're looking to the future of what our park system would look like to keep and attract young families here within within the city. When the city proposed and our citizens the voted for our sales tax 20 years ago, the buying power compared to then and now is drastically different. So, we've lost quite a bit of buying power just through just natural forces of economics that has really limit that. Um, I believe the city is is the council were very much in tune to want to get our park system back to where they need to be so we can offer those amenities, doing different tours and different um uh um engagements with other cities, leadership exchanges. There has been a lot put into park system specifically to attract young families. With that said, um I believe our citizens are on the cusp of of working with us. We almost passed the uh the bond tax. In fact, I believe you were putting your information together as we were working through that and we just barely uh missed that. The historic the historic tax and the um tax

which 90 votes. Yeah. I mean, we were almost there, which would have brought um the athletic complex up to a standard that would have been a good regional draw, not only to our citizens, but uh our constituents, but also to youth sports and youth tourism that I think we really missed out on. But I think the timing is getting there um to have those engagements and have that conversation back again. Our next um presentation is our midyear financial update. So, it kind of dubs tales nicely into where we're at financially, but I want to say thank you to your team for helping us put this together as we navigate this and Morris and your team for for helping out and and putting this together.

The staff has been terrific to work with as well as the leadership in the city. And uh I think everybody recognizes great cities have great park systems. And the challenge is is trying to help you continue to be a great city, but do everything you can to recognize the value of parks and what it means. I can tell you I'm seriously have worked well over 1500 park systems. You can feel a great city when you drive into it just how well they take care of their parks. You can tell. And so I just encourage you to really adopt this plan because your citizens need it. Yeah, absolutely. Mr. Mayor, yes, please proceed.

Um, so I too want to thank you for the work then on this. Um, you know, it's a significant endeavor. I know and um and we appreciate it. The it is, you know, critically important that we pay attention to this. I I I fully agree with that. Um, question I really have is as we digest this and then and then hopefully move forward with adopting it as a as a plan going forward. Um, how is the best way to because we'll have as we work through the 483 pages, we'll have questions. Um, do you want us to what's the best way to do that? Come to you directly, go to Morris first, go to Lisa first, what what what would you all prefer in that regard? Well, I think you know, we've talked to Morris about continuing to help you and and support you as long along the way. You know, just because we do a plan doesn't mean we leave the city. We want to see the city as successful as possible and we've offered up the opportunity to continue to help them.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Anyone else? Well, I too want to thank you, Mr. Younger, for you and your consulting firm and also for all the staff that worked really hard to make this happen. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all of your work and and getting us to this place. And as you well know when you talked about it, the constraint is I hope money and uh that's our constraint. Well, we'll help you get there. Ex. Absolutely. So, thank you. Thank you very much for all of your help. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right, madame interim city manager, the second item on the agenda is midyear financial update.

Yes. And that will be presented by our budget manager, Alex Morgan. And as she makes her way forward, um this is just as a reminder to the council, this is our midyear review. We do this annually. Um our fiscal year starts obviously July 1st. So at the end of December, we're halfway through. Um so just while we are in the midst of actively budgeting for our next fiscal year, um it's a good time to review where we are and are halfway through our current one and and look at those projections and how we're tracking as we budget. So Alex, take it away.

All right. Um, good evening, mayor and council, members of the public. My name is Alex Morgan. I am the budget manager for the city. And as Lisa said, this evening I'll be presenting to you the midyear financial update. And I do agree, council member Perkins, that that presentation dubtales very nicely. For what it's worth, I also um agree with Park's assessment of where their budget sits in comparison to other cities and the need for more investment when we have the resources to do so. So, just a little sidebar there. Um for the midyear financial update, um I'll be going through kind of high level three different things. So first we'll do kind of a general financial update, kind of a temperature check of a couple different financial indicators for the city. Um then we'll take a deeper dive into the fund balance and where it sits currently for fiscal year 2526 and then where we're projecting it to be. And then I'd like to spend some time this evening talking to you a little bit more in depth about budget pressures. Some that we face constantly and some that are are very acute this particular year. So, uh, first, let me just make sure I've got my there we go slides. Okay. Um, so to start with, and I'm going to touch on each of these things a little bit more in depth, but before I do that, just kind of a general highlight, general temperature check. A couple things that we look for, especially at midyear, is what are sales taxes doing? What are use taxes doing? I like to look at building permit activity. That's not always a one for one for financials, but it's it's a good sense of kind of how the community feels, what's going on in your community. And then on the flip side, we look at expenditures. So, and again, we'll go through especially these first two things more in depth. But right now, year-over-year, self tax growth remains flat. There's even been some shrinkage, unfortunately. Um, and on a more positive note, use tax growth has remained steady around 6 to 7% and we've had a really strong start to the year uh for building permit activity. The revenue receipts for that are actually um just about $200,000 or 85

$200,000 off what we budgeted for the entire year. So roughly 85% of the total receipts for the year, which is really good. Um, and so that's a smaller source of revenue, but again, just kind of a good check for the community. Um, mayor, did you have a question? Sorry. And if you can just explain use tax for people who don't know that because I know the name doesn't really represent

Absolutely. I appreciate that. Um, yes. So, use tax is the tax that we have on the online retail. So, Independence has a large um retail brickandmortar and then we have an online um sales. So, there's two different taxes. Um, for any members of the public who may not be familiar, the sales tax usually represents about $20 million worth of revenue. Use taxes around two million or so. So, very different in terms of scale, but both important and good financial indicators. Um, and before we get into those uh a little bit more in depth, just kind of a refresher and especially for members of the public who may be less familiar with the budget. So, the city of Independence has roughly a $454 million budget, and that's not just the general fund, that's everything. That's IPL, that's all our capital. Uh, the general fund sits at about $84.8 million. And just as a reminder, um, it's kind of crazy how a year flies, but around this time last year, we were facing down a $6.3 million shortfall in the general fund. We were able to rightsize that through a series of corrective measures. um one of which involved moving uh police and fire into their own individual sales tax funds. So fund 67 and fund 17 respectively. Even after that, we still had a shortfall um that we had to cover. And so series of choices were made there to to correct that. And so I think that's an important reminder for folks to know where we have had to dig ourselves out of and correct not because of poor decisions but because of the difference in where we have revenue and expenditures. And so that's why I'm going to talk more this evening about the budget pressures that the city faces. Um so that's just a quick recap there for budget. And on a positive note, one thing that we were able to do was provide a 3.25% 25% increase for non-represented employees. Employees who are represented have collective bargaining agreements also received

their increases and we were able to approve about $500,000 worth of um packages, budget packages in the general fund as well. Okay, so we're going to get a little bit more into the use tax and sales tax, but I just wanted to put up generally on the screen for a second the general fund revenues because I think what this chart shows you is interesting. Um, in the past couple of years once we get past 2122, there's not a ton of fluctuation. Um, there's a little bit of fluctuation back and forth, but roughly we stay kind of steady. There's not a lot of growth. There's some shrinkage. Some places you have shrinkage like in taxes for instance and then the pilots grow and so there's an offset but I think the key thing to take away here is we we stay about the same. The revenues are not increasing at a significant rate and as we'll I'll beat a dead horse here but the expenditures do unfortunately. Um, before we get into that, I think it's important to kind of set tone here, and this is something that we like to do during the midyear update, is to talk briefly about the state of Missouri and their economic forecast. This is something that they publish in their budget document. Um, and the reason that we do this is because for independents, there's typically a lot of correlation between um the trends and the rates that we see here as compared to statewide. So, it's kind of a good uh additional temperature check here. But Missouri's economy saw moderating growth during 2025. Employment levels did decrease slightly. The slowdown in labor market is still expected in 2026 and 2027. Um Missou's economy is largely expected to follow [clears throat] national economic trends through 2027. Uh but I one thing that I find really interesting is that the state themselves have said that revenue forecasting is challenging under the best of circumstances and that their uh state office is finding it even more difficult following national and state level policy shifts. There's a serious revenue shortfall

projected for the state of Missouri um that's anticipated in FY27 uh largely due to the implementation of previously passed tax cuts. The budget surplus for the state of Missouri was at $4.3 billion on June 30th. That is now projected to be at 4.7 million on June 30th, 2027. So, I'm just going to repeat that. 4.3 billion 4.7 million. Uh, some people may be wondering why I'm talking about the state of Missouri uh when this is the city of independents midyear financial update. Again, there's a lot of correlations here between what happens statewide and what happens in the city. But I think particularly this point about the budget surplus at the state is really interesting to me. Um because as Missouri and the governor make recommendations, especially regarding sales tax, which I'm not going to get into in depth. I know there's already been discussions about that. That has a trickle down effect. And when the state has to replenish this revenue um as their uh budget surplus dries up, that then has a ripple effect here in terms of what our sales tax looks like um whether that's an increase in different tax services increasing our base. So all of that ties into our own financial update. Okay. So, sales tax, um, this chart here on the screen shows you the 12-month performance of sales tax, um, here in the city of, uh, Independence. There's two different charts on the screen for anybody, or sorry, there's two different lines on the screen for anyone who's looking at this chart. The orange line shows you the year-over-year ch percent change in CPI. Uh, CPI is the consumer price um, index or inflation. And then the blue line is the annual growth rate um for sales tax in the economy. So you can see here that sales tax holds steady at around two to 3% excuse me the

inflation holds steady at around 2 to 3%. And unfortunately you see up and down fluctuation in our sales tax which represents um either flat growth or shrinking growth. So what this means is that there's a gap between rising prices and weak growth which suggests that consumers and businesses may be facing higher cost without stronger spending. Um this is an example uh of which the city's budget is not unlike your own personal finances. When things when prices increase when you have less money in your pocket you're typically [laughter] going to have to cut back somewhere. And that's something that we see but that's also what we're seeing reflected here in the spending of people within the city of independence. So the budget implication here again is that as cost pressures continue to increase faster than the underlying um economic growth and revenue base, we're going to feel that tension there.

Mr. Mayor, please proceed. Um Alex, can you go back to that slide? So I I just don't want people to think that 2 to [clears throat] 3% change in CPI is the same as the inflationary pressure we're feeling on city chemicals and services and asphalt and things like that because it is not been 2 to 3% in escalation.

That is correct. Yes. In many cases it's more than that. This is just an average. And not to get too technical, but CPI is a very specific definition. Um, for anyone who's not familiar, it it is for a very specific basket of goods that the federal government defines. So our fuel, our supplies don't necessarily fall into that. Uh, so this is a national average, but yes, unfortunately for us, you're correct, Councilwoman, that it is frequently higher than this 2 to 3%. Thank you for that clarification. This chart here just shows you a longer um look at the the retail versus the CPI. And so you can see a pretty different picture in 2021. Um there's a much higher growth rate. It's outpacing inflation. But as you can see and we move through through time here. Also, just as a reminder to anybody watching, you may be wondering why it's September of 2025. There's usually a lag in this data. So we we look a few months back. Um but you see pretty consistently through 24-25 um that inflation is outpacing our growth for sales tax for brickandmortar specific sales tax. Okay. So we have a similar chart for use tax. Um this one is more positive. So what we're looking at here for use tax is that there's a peak in 2024 and then after that youth tax has a pretty steady growth of about 6 to 7% which is great. That outpaces inflation. Um and so this is a good contributor to our revenue growth but unfortunately uh the overall impact is smaller than sales tax because as I said before sales tax about 20 million and then the use tax is 2 million. So good but it just does not have the proportional impact that the sales tax has. Again we have similar chart that I just showed you longer period of time. So here you see that much bigger um peak in the 2024 and then it evens out and we've we've remained steady which um is good

for budgeting purposes. It makes it easier for us to anticipate uh what we can budget and what we can expect. Okay. All right. So now I'd like to take a deeper dive into the city's fund balance. Um right now where we sit for FY2526 revenues are tracking closely with the budgeted amounts at this point in the year. Um in positive news some of our revenues do appear to be coming in slightly over and that's going to be really beneficial because of some of the budgetary pressures that we have faced this year. So we're projecting um currently about 84.9 million in revenue for this year. We do have some continued concerns pertaining to Jackson County property taxes and then the state plans uh for sales tax as I've mentioned, but those don't have an impact for this year. But when we're looking at the fund balance forecast, I've not factored them in, but I just want to mention it because depending on how things played out, um that would be something that would change the way that the fund forecast looks.

If I can jump in here. Yes, Alexis, this might be a a great point. I know uh Melissa and I are planning to go to a meeting of all the mayors of eastern Jackson County on Wednesday and the discussion there is the impact that the tax credit from the property taxes is going to have on the city only on our cities but all the cities in in totality. Um and it looks to be just an absolutely delightful afternoon tea. Uh, so it should be just absolutely fun and delightful and uh we should just have biscuits and tea and just clink our glasses and it'll just be delightful. Um, I'm obviously with tongue and cheek there, but some of the mayors are, how shall I say, disturbed

uh to the least sane. uh because this has been you know now uh all the rhetoric has been said and now it is coming to roost where the school districts and the cities are now seeing the impact it's going to make on their budget and we're pretty lucky we don't have a tremendous amount of property tax income for our city but you know so we'll see the impact it's going to make for the rest of the folks and what their feelings are but uh I thought this would be appropriate place to put it in here I hope I didn't jump overboard.

No, no, sorry. I appreciate it. And and you know, to your point, even though we don't have perhaps the same property tax revenue base that other people do, as I'm going to get into more, and you'll you'll see here, um, even small variations can have an outsized impact here. So, even if it's not the largest dollar amount on paper, it it typically results in hard choices for us. And unfortunately, that's just the bottom line. So, I appreciate that.

Thank you. Um, so to get a little bit more in depth with our fund balance, um, and so the left left hand column, trying to make sure I'm facing correctly, is going to show you where we had budgeted versus where we're projecting to be at now. So the beginning fund balance um, is a little bit lower uh, than what we had originally budgeted. And that's that's not unusual. When we start budgeting, we are looking at fund balance in February, March. So, not surprising that it changes, but um it it did decrease from what we had originally hoped. Um we are looking at a little bit of higher revenue about $100,000 give or take um in additional revenue, possibly some additional revenue um that's not factored in here coming in as well this year. Um but the total expenses are 86.3 million. So that is over what we budgeted and that's due to some unexpected expenditures that we could not budget for this year that we've had to um that we've had to correct and course correct here. So what this means if this projection is correct and of course it's it's subject to change. It's just a it's an estimate at this point but we would be looking at a $1.37 million fund balance um reduction. Where that would put us is an unassigned fund balance of 13.69 69 million, which is just above our fund balance policy of 16% revenue by the slimmest of margins. It's about $100,000 above where we need to do. Um, and so I'm going to pause here for a second to talk through what that means for anybody who's not familiar. So when I say our fund balance policy, the city has a financial policy um that's based on guidelines from the government finance association. you know, this is national guidelines of having 16% of our revenue um in reserves

that we can use when we need it. So, the big thing to understand here is that this money is being pulled from where it needs to. First and foremost, we have savings. That's great. The downside is when you draw it down to that balance, you then have to prioritize putting it back. And when you already have slim margins going into the next budget year, it means hard choices because we don't want to leave it right at that margin. We want that money there when we need it. So once again, it just sets us up for some difficult choices. But I do want to reiterate to everyone that this is why we have that policy to help us when these things happen. So it's just like your personal savings account. You don't really want to touch it, but that's what it's there for. And so um kind of mixed bag here, but I just want to remind everybody that that ultimately it's a good thing that we have fund balance to give or take from.

Okay. Mr. Please proceed. I'll be right back. Can you explain why we want 16% in our bank account? Why that's important in case what happens? Can you talk about that?

Yes. Um, and that's a great question. So, the 16% threshold is based on a city's ability to operate kind of worst case scenario. And I I apologize, Councilwoman. put me on the spot and I forget exactly how many weeks or months it's supposed to keep you going, but the idea is worst case scenario, you have this much money, it would keep you going for x amount of time until you were able to write the ship. Um, and you know, that's that's an extreme scenario, but that's why it has the 16% threshold. More generally, it's there for exactly this purpose. A budget is a plan. We don't always have we don't know every dollar. Sometimes you we try first to correct within the budget, but when that's not possible, it's just like your own savings account that you go to rather than, you know, disrupting whatever's going on in your life essentially. Um, council member Handless, did you also have a question? No, I was just thinking of examples. You know, there have been multiple towns that have gotten hit by tornadoes or had flooding. COVID is a painful example of like chaos inside of your tax base. Um, so these are the sorts of things that you are planning for when you keep a reserve balance.

Yes. And I would say too, um, because there can be a lot of conversation around fund balance and and and it shouldn't get too high. Um, and then people get criticized when fund balance gets too high. Ours is certainly not at that threshold for anyone who's wondering. Um, I'd like to see it increase. Um, but yes, there can be really catastrophic things. And so the extreme example of keeping your government running in a crisis is extreme, but it's it's certainly not unheard of to your point of, you know, very readily things come to mind that you could use it for. Absolutely. Alex, I just might add to that in that, you know, for the average household, um, most people keep some sort of an emergency fund in place and and so what, um, and and for as a financial planner, what we generally suggest is 3 to six months. Well, that's not exactly true with what you do on a fund balance scenario like this, but it's somewhat similar. And people should be able to understand that you need to have some funds in reserve for, you know, those unexpected things that happen in life. And and cities go through that same kind of thing. So it's it's essentially an emergency fund that needs to be there for, you know, the the worst case scenario or bad things that happen.

That's exactly right. I mean, I think comparing it to your own personal emergency fund is a perfect example. You know, you you budget for things in your daily life, your your mortgage, your rent, your groceries. If you, like me, went down into your basement six weeks ago and saw water and then heard the quote the plumber gave to you, that could be four times your mortgage. That's hard to come up with in a month if you don't already have it. And so we we do we we put money aside specifically for those kind of services. And yes, it was four times my mortgage. H [sighs] unfortunately. So this next chart um is a a forecast of the general fund uh fund balance and I want to talk in depth about this. I apologize that it's a little bit hard for everybody to see on the screen. So I'll kind of try to talk you through some key points here. Um so first when we when we set up a forecast I like to talk about the assumptions we use in our model, right? So the model is how we estimate this out. There's a series of assumptions that we use to decide we're going to increase this number. We're going to lower this number. So first and foremost with this model, we are being very conservative. And so what I mean by that is this forecast has not been made um with any kind of significant change to current spending patterns. I'm not um you know wildly increasing how we spend on um even though I would love to fund parks, I've not given parks an increase for example in this uh in this model. Um and I don't have new revenue sources. There's a slight caveat there and I'll talk about that a little bit more but this is this is essentially holding to where we're at. And so what that does when you look at it, you'll see the total revenue that we have coming in is a green line and our total expenditures are red. When you look at the outy

years, you see that red is above green. Not by a huge margin, but every year red is above green. Now, we don't budget that way in practice. When it comes time for council to approve the budget, we make decisions and we get it in line with revenue. But that means budget cuts. that means not providing services or not being able to add things that the community wants. So, we don't want to see this red line continue to be above the green line here. Um, a couple other things that are built into the model. Uh, there's a 10% annual health insurance increase. That's been pretty accurate the past couple years. Uh, there could be some fluctuation in that going forward, but right now that's a pretty good estimate. Uh, there's also a 1% loggers increase annually. We're also reducing some revenue. We continue to see year-over-year uh a reduction in our franchise fees. Um I have not at this point reduced property tax despite the concerns over the Jackson County tax credits, but I will say I'm I'm building in an assumption to the model that there would be some kind of recruitment. If we were unable to do that, then you would see a higher difference between the red and green line. Yes, ma'am. Just for people listening, franchise fees are actually revenues for us, not things that we pay.

Correct. Yes. Correct. That is a revenue that I'm reducing. Um, which again furthers that gap between the green and the red lines. Um, so the one exception to adding in revenue, although I did not add it as revenue, and that's why you're going to see there's a spike here in the preliminary 26 27 um, fund balance [clears throat] because I've added um, an increase in our contingencies and that is based on potential revenue being realized from the NBS project. Now, I have not included that in any of the other years out. I've only done it in this first year because I have a higher confidence in that number than I do the years out, but I just wanted people to be able to see. Now, the reason I've done it as an expenditure is because given where our fund balance looks like it's going to end up um and because we probably wouldn't be completely certain about those numbers around budget time, I think what would make the most sense is to budget it as a contingency. And so it's showing as an expenditure, which is why you see that kind of triangular spike there for 2627 above the green line. Um, if we didn't have that, we wouldn't budget it. And so then you would see that gap decrease. Uh, and I apologize, there is a typo on the slide. The last bullet is supposed to say there's roughly $1.4 million in projected funding gap in FY2627, not FY2526. So, if I were to remove um that money in contingencies, instead of being that much larger gap that you're seeing there, it would be 1.4 million. But again, a 1.4 million gap that we have to solve um probably very shortly. So, so that's what that looks like um in one version of the forecast. The next chart I'm going to show you is our general fund balance in comparison to the fund balance policy, which as we just talked about is at 16%. Now, when you look at this chart, you're going to see there's a much rosier outlook for FY2627

than the previous slide. That is because I am factoring in potential one-time and/or initial um funds, revenue funds that I did not factor in the other as revenue. This time I am. And so then you can kind of see the difference here. I'm I'm not trying to be inconsistent in doing this, but rather to show you two different realities or, you know, pardon the pun, but kind of a tale of two cities here. Um, one where we have a $1.4 million gap. One where we're able to rebound our fund balance up to 16.9 million. And now, I do want to be clear, I'm not necessarily saying that we should put all surplus funds uh directly into fund balance and that they should remain there. Um, I know Melissa recently has discussed with the council that there's some serious debt obligations from a variety of sources. I think uh these monies could well address some of those. So, I wouldn't necessarily leave it there, but I just kind of want to show you the difference between one where we've got a gap, one where we're doing well, we're doing well again the next year, and that's without me adding additional revenues into the outyear. So, it's just a very different outlook uh between these two scenarios. Yes, sir.

So, just to be clear, I want to make sure I'm you're you're putting a factor in to the 26 27 preliminary number of additional income which would allow for u building back that reserve where but you're not projecting that out into any future years.

I'm I'm not just because I think there's there's so much still up in the air right now that I don't want to create any confusion by putting those numbers into the fund balance. I think to some degree that would be helpful for people to see, but at the same time I think just showing you the impact of the initial year and what that allows us to do versus if we don't have it, I hope is a good enough illustration for people initially of the kind of night and day difference that we're talking about here. And as we get more confident in numbers and as um as things progress, if they do progress, I would be happy to give an update to the council on where the fund balance is projected to be with additional revenues. Okay. Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Okay. All right. So, we've talked about high level the budget pressures. I do want to get into them a little bit more in depth and I'll try to go quickly and be respectful of everybody's time. Um, so grants continue to be a source of pressure. Thankfully, the grant landscape is not as volatile as it was this time last year. I think people may recall I think it was actually this exact week last year that the grants world turned upside down. Um but unfortunately some uncertainty does persist. Uh it was just last month actually that the Mid America Regional Council received word that their SAMA grants were going away and then literally the next day they received a letter saying nope funding is restored. So uh still a little more volatile perhaps than we would like. And I think just so everybody understands we have a variety of departments that receive grant funding. So the police department does health and animal services, emergency preparedness and community development. So any continued uncertainty um in the grant landscape affects a variety of our departments.

Mr. Mayor, yes, please proceed.

To speak to the the grants, you're absolutely right how this impacts the city um ourselves. There has been a lot of flux in the grant community. My wife works for an organization in social work that is 100% grant funded. And as they were chalkboarding or whiteboarding, depending on how old you are, they were looking at to see how if some of those grants would be reduced, how many how many folks that are now housed would now be houseless. So that would be thrown onto the city of independence and all municipalities. So some of that grant funding would be redacted and then put that strain on us. So these grants are are very important not only to the city for obvious reasons but also to different agencies and too that have massive impacts if they're reduced.

I absolutely agree, council member. There's there's 100% a ripple effect there that would impact us beyond just our own budget. 100%. That was my squirrel moment. [laughter]

I am also a squirrel. I I appreciate it. Um, so perhaps the biggest pressure for the city is personnel and and I don't that's not necessarily a bad thing. This is just sort of a statement of fact. Uh, personnel cost, salary, and benefits account for 30% of the city's budget. But I want to be clear that's 30% of the $424 million budget. When we talk specifically about the general fund budget, we're talking the majority of that budget is personnel cost. So any kind of change there has an outsized impact, good or bad. Um just that's just objectively the case. So when we factor in personnel and we talk about budget pressures, we absolutely have to take a balanced approach to personnel to compensation specifically and there's just some different things that we have to weigh here. Um so we have to consider cost of living, any applicable labor agreements, retention and morale is important. Um but at the same time we have to take kind of a bird's eye view level and we have to look at responsible spending what a change to personnel uh whether positive for our employees or not would do to service levels um and what our community obligations are in terms of providing services point blank. So personnel again just kind of objectively based on the size of our budget is always a major cost driver and any change uh has an impact there.

Mr. Please proceed. You mentioned that in the general fund it's majority. Can you give me a percentage? How Oh, sorry to put you on the spot. I was looking at this earlier, Councilwoman. I knew you would ask me this. Um, and I apologize because I didn't It's It's because we moved police and fire out that makes it harder to calculate. But for both of them, personnel is above 50%. And then there were and I think I think for PD it was almost 80. I'm looking at the police department, they're like, "No." Um, okay. [laughter] Will you get back to me on that?

Yes, it is it is above 60%. I can tell you that much. The exact I don't know. Um, they didn't want me to tap them in. That's okay. Uh, so a subsidiary of personnel is healthcare, but I think it's worth talking about on its own. You heard me mention earlier with the with the fund model that we estimate a 10% increase each year. And I I'll show you this just because that's that's pretty accurate. So, this compares um the Sigma open access plan to for the cost for just an employee and then if you're on the family plan in 2026 versus 2024 in both of these instances, it's about an 18% increase. So, pretty accurate over a two-year period in terms of a 10% increase and 10% increase. Um, but I show you this to say like this is this is a lot of money, especially when we look at the family plan. So what that would have cost us in 2024, and I'm going to caveat this slightly because technically health insurance rates are blended. So six months of the year is the prior year and then the latter six. Um so if if it's this year, it's 2026 and then 2027. So it wouldn't quite be this amount, but for illustration purposes, this would have cost us 2.29 million. Today, it cost us 2.7. And there's nothing we can do. I mean I mean there there are things that we do and we do manage healthare but by and large it goes up by 10% each year and we just try to manage and provide good options that make financial sense but that just kind of shows you that's a uh you know 500 something thousand increase over two years without us lifting a finger really. Um another sorry is there

go ahead thank you uh just a question the world of healthc care is about to explode in that as the ACA has gotten reduced and there are more people who are now going bare because they can't afford premiums and at the same time it looks as though Missouri is looking perhaps at 150,000 people coming off of Medicaid roles all those expenses are shifted to the commercial side, meaning us. So when you go to the ER, you don't just pay for your own care, you pay a portion for the uninsured care there as well.

Is there any estimates for baking that into what we think the 2728 plans are going to look like? Um, council, you're stealing all my points. Uh, I'm kidding. Sorry.

No, I'm just kidding. [laughter] Um, that is an excellent uh question and that's kind of why I put these factors up here for consideration. We don't have an estimate yet. That's something that we would rely on CBIZ to help us navigate and it's something that's on their radar. They're still working on the 2027 rates at this point. But but that's absolutely correct that there will be a trickle down effect. And uh typically when people have to make a choice about getting off of health care, it's usually healthier individuals who opt to get off who are willing to take that risk. That means your health insurance pool is riskier. The costs just funnel. And so even though we have our own healthcare and it's not as direct, yes, there we do anticipate um a cost increase there, but we would be relying on CBIS to help us [snorts] there. So yes, which is why also that I make a point to say in that fund balance model that it's based on the 10% because that that could change. Um we hope that it doesn't, but it could. Um additionally for health care, so we have costs for our employees, which this is not comprehensive. It's it's just an example. But the other side that's a significant uh budget pressure is the retiree health care. Um and so I think total this year we were looking at about $18 million in healthcare cost. Um the projected retiree budget uh for 2627 is 4.1 million for the pre65 population and for the post65 it's 3.7 million for a total of 7.9 million. So objectively just another factor there that we have to we have to consider and that continues to apply pressure especially when we don't have a revenue offset. Okay. Um, and since we talked earlier about we've had some additional expenditures this year, that's why we're going over budget. I kind of just wanted to give people an example of what some of those things look like, um, in case

some of our residents don't know. Unfortunately, we do have damage to city facilities and it costs money. This photo here on the slide, um, is damage that was done to the IA where copper wire was ripped out. Uh, that's happened multiple times. It's a couple hundred thousand dollars a pop each time it happens. Um, that adds up. it prevents us from doing other things. Um we we had to have a primary election this year. That's $300,000. There's personnel changes. Um when a city manager leaves and they have a payout, that's not something we budgeted for. If he'd have told me earlier, I would have budgeted. He didn't. Um and then we have uh there was, if you all will recall earlier this year, an unexpected increase um in the retirey health increase cost. It's 249,000 spread across several departments. that's not just general fund, but there is that and then um other building related expenditures and personnel changes. So, just to kind of give people an example when we're talking about like why didn't you budget for these things? I want people to understand some of the things that pop up that have a pretty significant impact.

Mr. Mayor, please proceed. Can you go back to your unbudgeted, please? Thanks. Not that I was going to use anything from there as an example, but also that's unbudgeted as we were going through our our um parks master plan is the damage that has taken place to our parks. Yes. By the massive amount of vandalism, destruction of our um shelters, our um toilets facilities and stuff like that. Some of those can run into the tens of thousands of dollars on a more routine basis, which is unfortunate because that just detracts from money that they can spend.

It's it's a really it's very frustrating to me. I I' I feel terrible every time I have conversations with the parks department because we're constantly trying to to plug things. And I know for a department that's very difficult morale-wise when your folks are having to go out and repair facilities that they work so hard on. And then we have to make choices about the services we provide because we had to spend $10,000 fixing a restroom facility. So,

one of the um expenditures that we came up with was when the car accident took place at the um uh bud the bus stop at Brook uh Brookside and 24 highway that was not budgeted in and and I don't know what the bill was that. I'm sure it was probably 5 to 10 grand to remove all that debris. So, I mean, it's a lot of incidentals throughout the year that adds up.

Yes, there absolutely are. Um, so I'd like to leave you with two things. I have a quick closing, but I'll say this first. Um, excuse me. Sorry. Um, I'm going to be a little bit corny here, but budget is a marathon. It's not a sprint. And so, I I can understand when there's public frustration or there feels like there's not transparency around why, you know, certain things don't get budgeted, why we have to do things. But the city, the budget is a plan and and you're doing it, you know, trying to pace out unexpected cost or issues like the way you were just talking about with parks that come up. They're kind of like an unknown hill or a bad leg cramp like halfway through your marathon. They they're really going to set you back. Like you've got no choice but to course correct somewhere. You're either going to have to slow your pace there and speed it up or you've got your little energy bites that you have to eat now on mile 10 instead of mile 17. And there's there's always a trade-off, I think, is what's important for people to understand. And it's either a trade-off that we have to make that budget year or we hit our fund balance and then that sets us up for a trade-off in the next budget cycle where we don't get to do some of the things we want to do because maybe we're deciding to increase that fund balance. So, it's just my little corny takeaway. The budget is a marathon. It's not a sprint and unexpected costs are like a hill. Um, in closing, I just would like to remind members of the public who are listening tonight that we do have a budget community survey that is live. Um, I have put a link that is probably not useful to you, but if you Google City of Independence budget and then there's a little subset page and I know that the social media team has shared it as well, so you can find it there. Um, we really do value your input um, on this budget survey. Last year, we used the responses and kind of synthesized them to let council know um what people had said was important. It factored into decision-m. So, strongly encourage people to take that if you want to have a voice in the budget process. There are other opportunities as well, but this is a great one to give some impact and I

would love to see what people have to say. So, um that is all that I have. If you have any further questions, take them now. Anyone else have questions? Mr. Mayor, please proceed. Um I don't have a question but I um I do these meetings are so important and and this presentation was really done well and and it's helpful to explain to people what we what we do what we go through why we don't sleep that kind of thing. And Melissa, your presentation recently was so good and you guys have taught me so much in the last years and um so I'm really thankful that you guys are here.

Thank you. And then the other thing I wanted to say is um the if you like this, if this is your interest, we do this at the audit and finance meetings um every quarter and we go through, you know, expense versus what we have, you know, everything that we've spent, everything we have left over. We go through that monthly in our audit and finance. Um, and we're also going to learn about the audit on Wednesday. And that is kind of the big meeting for our committee every year where um um the outside agency that has been auditing us um comes to us and tells us what they found. And um it it's just a really important part of what we do. And I don't I wish more people were watching those meetings and watching meetings like this um because it's sort of where the meat and potatoes are. That's all.

Very good. Please proceed.

Thank you. [clears throat] I have to just commend your team. Not only do you make presentations like this and babysit the funds to keep everything on the straight and narrow, but you do all kinds of scenario modeling, financial modeling, predictive modeling so that we can see if we make change X, what does that do to Y? And you know, our job is not just to balance a budget this year, but not encumber the next several city councils with budgets that they're going to have to make um difficult decisions. So, the skills and talent that you bring to help us make our decisions, I just don't have enough appreciation for you. So, thank you very much.

Thank you, Council Member. Anyone else? Mr. Mayor,

please proceed. The other thing I just might mention is that and one of the things that's way behind the scenes that no one really sees is that you guys keep track of as the year goes along um approving things that are in the budget so that we don't get too far out of you know um uh out of budget out of line in what we're doing. So that's really an important piece of the puzzle that that the budget office does to kind of make sure that we don't stray from the budget that's approved when when we when it's approved in um usually in June every year. So that's just another added thing that that is done.

Great. Anyone else? I just want to thank you to Oh, Mr. Mayor, fire away. John,

thank thank you Alex. Thank you for the presentation. and it does dubtail nicely with what we've been discussing tonight, the um presentation Melissa gave a couple weeks ago. So, one of the challenges for us as a city council is in city staff is to take a look at how we increase these sales tax. When I was on the council the first time, the franchise tax was beginning to take a serious hit, mainly because guess what? Nobody had a landline anymore. So, those funds were being reduced. It's the changing of the econ economy throughout the years from brick and mortar to more online sales and everything in between. So the conundrum for us as a city council and us as district individuals to work within our district is to one promote the green field development where appropriate, but also for like councilwoman vault and myself who are on the west side of town. How do we revitalize those areas, those economic nodes? So, it's important as we work with that um we use all the tools in our toolbox, which is our chamber of commerce friends with our economic partnership and all the uh um developmental friends that we have. I was talking to our deputy city manager today. We're going to get on the books to talk to some individuals that may be wanting to help us grow in Western Independence and Fairmont specifically. So those are a lot of the challenges that that we have is try to promote those areas when development does take place. You had um an undesate or unfunded for the demo of city hall. Although that has been unfunded, but the long-term game if gains if we have in a a good agreement with the Midcontinent Public Library will pay dividends into the years ahead of us with a $50 million development almost 200 employees coming here and also in the near future there should be a roll out of a conversation

of um hotel here on the square. So econ economic developments taking place on the west side with Englewood u the friends of Englewood theater purchasing the theater that's just one more step in the right direction for western independence arts has brought economic activity there so that's the challenge that us as a city council have do we bring that back to life so we can fill our our tax culer so that's my soap box thank you mayor very good anyone else still room for soapbox dogs, you can hop on. Very good. It's a big one.

It is. It We've got room. Uh but I just want to thank, you know, Melissa Cabrera as our finance director and Alex Morgan. You do a great job with the budget. Uh you always make the uh as difficult it is to make a finance presentation interesting. You always do and you make it very clear and interesting. And uh I just want to say thank you for all the hard work you do because I know it just goes into hours and hours and hours of work uh to get to this point and you also have the pressure from us to keep it under 30 to 40 minutes. You've heard that many times and you did a great job doing that. So

uh hitting both those targets is well done and and very much appreciated. And so I just want to say thank you very much on behalf of all of our colleagues here and and thank you for the great job that you both do. So thank you very much. Keep it up. Thank you, Senator. We love a captive audience to talk about finance. Take it any time. [laughter] Thank you.

That is the That is a livelihood of a finance professional. Wow. I've got people here and they're not going to leave. That is great. It's almost like a jail sentence. We've got the police here. We could we could do that, right? Couldn't we chief? Take care of that. All right. Next item on the agenda. We've talked about the historic sites. We've got Mr. City Clerk. We have some business to do with regards to boards and commissions. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have uh one memorandum from the city clerk's office uh regarding the public utilities advisory board. A recommendation has been made to appoint Ted Lucy to the public utilities advisory board. I apologize if I mispronounced that name. Staff request direction to add a resolution to the next regular meeting appointing this individual to the above board.

Thank you very much. And that's all. Very good. Anyone else other items before we call this meeting adjourned? Nothing else? Call the meeting. Thank you very much.