City Council - Special Meeting

Is the attorney coming tonight? No.

Okay. As far as I know, Thomas is coming. All right. So, I'm going to go ahead and get started. Everybody okay with that? If he comes, it lady's probably calling traffic. Okay. It's 6 o'clock p.m. I'm going to call the council to order. Please rise for the invocation and pledge of allegiance. Councilman Foster is going to have our prayer.

Let's bow our heads and let's just have a moment of silence for what happened in our country 24 years ago as well as what just happened yesterday. Will you join me in a sil in a moment of silence? Heavenly Father, we want to thank you for another day of life that you've blessed us with. We thank you for the opportunity that we have to serve the citizens of this fair city. Lord, we just ask that you be with the family members of Charlie Kirk, his friends, and also the victims, the survivors rather, and victims family of the 911 tragedy. Lord, there's evil all around us. We just thank you that you're in control and we look forward to seeing you soon. Bless our proceedings tonight. Everything that we do and say, bring you honor and glory. We pray in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And now the Texas flag.

Y'all may be seated. All right. Today is September 11, 2025. This is a special called council meeting. Um, at this time, I'm going to go into my mayor announcements. I do not have any announcements, but I do have someone that I would like to introduce to you all. So, I have um Shelley Brady here and she would like to introduce herself to the community and tell us about her group, the Keen Texas FFA Community Alumni Group, Inc. Thank you, Shelley, for coming.

Thank you all for your time. Um we are with all the growth Keen is having and all the new students at the school and everything. Um our FFA is growing as well. So our parents community, we've come together and made an alumni group. It's a completely nonprofit group. We have our own tax ID number and everything is a total separate from the school. But what we do is we like schedule fundraisers. We have um given our students a chance so they can earn money. They can pay for their own stuff. developing them the leadership and the responsibility and just life skills. Um, I don't know if you know about FFA, but they have all kinds of opportunities. They build stuff. They do everything with animals from say medically to showing them um there's floral and speech and just many variety of ways that they can grow from FFA. So, we've come together to allow the kids opportunities to do the jobs, to earn their money, get donations from all of that. And in doing so, they're not only learning life skills, but they're also earning their way to like national convention that we have coming up. And um we and banquet, we're going to help them pay for a really nice end of the year banquet. uh senior scholarships, um just various things that or even if we have a student that maybe their family doesn't have the money to be able for them to have the opportunity to show, we could give them the opportunity to raise the money and pay for say a

show entry or help them get an animal. So what we do is give them opportunity to earn the money and then we can help them pay for what they want to do and allow more students opportunities. And she's had a lot of fundraisers that they've already been working on. You might have seen some of them being advertised in Keen. She's done Sonic and Keen patio uh party on the patio. Atwoods and Alvarado has been selling hot dogs for them and letting them have a bake sale there and getting some of the proceeds. Uh a car wash at the Adventist Book Center. uh various raffles, calendar online sales, and uh and they're also doing community service. So, they're actually like donating baked goods to our town hall estates nursing home and uh they've been doing other things, helping put up our flags on the street. So,

yeah, y'all might have seen some of our kids out on the 29th of August out helping put out the flags that morning. It was, you know, in the morning out of school, but our hardworking students were out there bright and early putting out flags. So, we were pretty proud of that. Um, we also have some more fundraisers scheduled already. We have a another Sonic night that kind of helped bring Keen together because we have a lot of games and such for younger kids and for older kids. And, you know, adults were coming by telling us they didn't even know FFA was there. But we want to let everyone in Keen know that we are here and you know we're trying to grow and and serve the community at the same time have the program grow because it is still small but we've gotten a lot of donations of items that they needed as well as funds that they worked for and the students are making it happen.

And you have a fundraiser planned this Saturday, right? At Tarter Supply. Yes, ma'am. We have tractor supplies going to be having a farmers market and there I understand there's about 17 vendors going to be there. Wow. Um they have invited us as well. So we will be set up right there outside the door. Want to invite everyone to come see us. We're going to have um bake sale, face painting, um animal pictures, just a lot of farmer type stuff, you know, for anyone that has young ones, bring them out for sure. And if you just like a baked good, come on by and see us. All right. So,

I'd like to recognize these ladies. If they would just stand, we'll just give them a round of applause for all what they're doing for our community. Thank you, ladies. Thank you for coming tonight. We appreciate it. Thank you for coming. We have Marissa on this end. She's our reporter for the officer. Kelly is the president. And we have Jaci. She's a new member, not officer, but she also was out there helping us do flags. We're really proud of all of them. All right. Thank you all very much. We appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you, Shel, for coming.

Okay. At this time, um, Chief Warner, are you going to come to the podium? He has a couple of things that he would also like to do during my mayor's comments. So, I'm going to also give him the floor. Thank you, Mayor. And uh council, I apologize for uh maybe butting in here a little bit, but uh this morning I received some information that I think everybody would find exciting and most of you saw it out in front of city hall tonight. So uh mayor, I'm asking for indulgence and council with your approval if we take maybe a five minute break and we can go out and we can look at our brand new brush truck that we've been waiting for about two years to receive.

All right, everybody agreeable? All right, it's 6:08 p.m. I'm going to call for a fivem minute recess and we're all going to go and step outside. Thank you.

15 p.m. I'm going to call the council back to order. So, our second part of uh tonight this morning here in front of city hall, we held a memorial service so that we could all remember what you alluded to in your prayer at the beginning of the meeting. We're here to remember and maybe some for some reexperience. September 11th, 2001. Good evening, mayor, council, city manager, and citizens. Today here in Keen, we gather not just as citizens of this great city, but as members of one great nation, a nation united in remembrance, reverence, and resolve. On this day, September the 11th, we honor the nearly 3,000 lives that were taken from us in a single morning. mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, co-workers, friends, heroic first responders who answered their final call. Though the attacks struck far from our Texas home, the shock and sorrow reached us here just as deeply as anywhere. That morning forever reminded us of both the fragility of life and the enduring strength of the American spirit. We remember the bravery of those

firefighters and police officers, those medics, and the everyday citizens who became extraordinary when their nation needed them the most. We honor the resilience of the survivors and we acknowledge the families who still bear the weight of that tragic day. Their sacrifice is not forgotten. But remembrance is more than looking backward. It must guide us forward. The unity that carried us through the darkness then is the same unity that we so urgently need today as a city, as a state, and as a nation. So let us be a people who remember. Let us be a city that honors sacrifice. And let us be a nation that in every trial chooses to stand shouldertosh shoulder as one. May God bless the families who still grieve. May God bless our community and may God bless the United States of America. Thank you. [Applause]

Thank you, Chief, for coming and fellow firefighters and Chief Kid. Thank you. All right, that's all I have scheduled under mayor announcements. Council, do you have any announcements that you would like to make to the public or add? Okay, moving on to agenda item number three, public comments. I have one yellow card. Samantha Gillan, did you want to speak now? You want to do during 7A?

Okay. I'm sorry. I'll hold on to it. Okay. Is there anybody that would like to speak during public comments that did not turn in a yellow card? Okay. All right. Agenda item number four. There are no reports tonight to be given. Agenda item number five, public hearing items. We are here tonight to hold a public hearing to receive citizen comments and hold a discussion on the proposed budget for fiscal year 2025 2026. After the public hearing, council will discuss and set a date for the meeting in which to vote to adopt the fiscal 20 year fiscal year 26 budget.

Okay. Do we anybody want to make any kind of presentation and we just open the public hearing? You probably Yeah. Go ahead. Sorry. I I was going to ask you if you were going to give the time. Yeah. I'm going to if we're just going to go ahead and open. I was reading the uh agenda item to see if there was anything to state other than that. All right. At this time, I'm going to open the public hearing. It is 6:23 p.m. If any citizen would like to speak about the proposed budget, you may raise your hand and I will send I'll bring you to the podium. Does does Samantha Gillan want to speak during She wanted to speak during 7A,

which is basically this topic as well. That's why I'm asking. Yeah. Samantha, you want to go ahead and come and talk during the public hearing? There's a public hearing, so you may as well. And if your comments are about the budget,

Samantha Gillan, 218 West 4th Street, King, Texas, Mayor, City Manager, Council, um I for several meetings, and I know I've missed uh last three just about, but I've tried to watch it on stream, discussions about possibly leasing equipment for the city as oosed to buying our equipment. And from what I understand from some of the cities that I've talked to, their expenses did go lower because of that because they didn't have as many repairs. The people took better care of the equipment because if they didn't, then they were going to be found responsible for those. And then you always have a way to get them repaired or replaced or whatever. And so I don't know exactly what those leasing terms were or anything, but it sure makes better sense to lease them and have them better cars to work in so that they're not down a lot. And I just kind of wanted to bring that up and hopefully it's in our budget.

Okay. Thank you, Miss Gillan. Anybody else would like to speak during the public hearing? Yes, sir. Go ahead and come to the podium and just state your name and address. My name is Nathan Cosmi. Uh, I live at 1212 Honeysuckle Drive. Um, can any one of you tell me how many vehicles are we talking? What? How many? 29 vehicles. 29.

All right. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I just don't understand. You know, numbers were never my strong suit. But was it $400,000 a year for 29 vehicles? Yes, on average. Yeah, approximately. It was 4.2 million over the course of 10 years.

All right, question. Hold on. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be rude. I just need a calculator here. So, I don't know about any of you, but I don't spend 13,793 a year on upkeep of my vehicle. Um, and that's approximate. I put 400,000. I didn't put the exact number. I'm just saying 13 grand plus a year. for 13 grand plus a year for $400,000 a year. We can't get a mechanic. We can't have somewhere for them to possibly repair the vehicles. We can't block off maybe the three days in the third week of the month every month with hops and support a local company. 400 grand. And I get it. I get it. Out of sight, out of mind. You don't have to deal with it. You're leasing it. That's Enterprises problem. They can fix the machine for us. But let's say they're all brand new. I haven't bought a brand new car off the lot since 2009. Still the car I'm driving today cuz I take care of my my stuff. I paid for that. Okay. Well, is uh this nice lady said over here, people are held, you know, if they break it, they're held responsible. How about we just hold them responsible? A daily, you know, check sheet. Nobody can do that. There's, you know, a new slam in the bumper on this truck. Wasn't here yesterday. We can't do that. So, we're going to spend $13,000 a year on it. I'm Maybe I'm out of Maybe I'm out of pocket. Maybe I'm out of line. All right. I was expecting somewhere along along the

lines of let's say the number of aundred vehicles, not 23. And that just seems excessive to me. I'd rather we as a town not go bankrupt over some shiny vehicles. I mean, I get it. This is Texas. Everybody loves a shiny vehicle. We all love the big trucks. But I mean, I've had jobs where I've got a company vehicle. You best believe if that if there was a ding in that bumper that wasn't there yesterday, I put it on my sheet, they come to me, they can go to the guy that had it yesterday. If it was me yesterday, then I'm held responsible. So, I just the numbers don't work out for me. Sorry.

Thank you, sir. Is there anybody else that would like to speak during public comments or the public hearing? Sorry. Am I allowed to address a couple of those things? Sure. Go ahead. So, uh, just for the record, uh, oh, Jonathan, city manager. Um, just just to clear up a couple things. First of all, Hops would be the one doing the maintenance on him because he's an enterprise uh certified individual. He's the one that I don't know if you drive by, but you see all the sheriff uh I've been to Hops multiple times. Text dot and you know he him and his

he's got good certifications. He's got good guys. I know him. Yeah. And and him and his brother and I we go way back 20 27 years. And um so that was one of the things that we did consider when we first looked into it because obviously I want to support local business. He is certified, so he would actually be the one maintaining all Fair enough. Fair enough. Uh secondly, um and and I'm going to say this in front of Nick, who's here with Enterprise. I want the public to hear me. I I'm not I I'm not We have to have a fleet. I'm here to solve problems, right?

And the average age of those 29 vehicles is 17 years old. Fair enough. I had five police cars in the shop in the same week, not just for minor breaks. Our squad uh truck is in hops right now with either a seized up transmission or a seized up engine. Um the other vehicle that they have as part of their um is 24 years old. Um so here's the thing. If if council decides to not move forward with a fleet program, the city needs seven first responder vehicles right now.

When we look at the cost of those vehicles, it's not like you and I where we can just go buy a vehicle. Oh, no. There are specialized vehicles. I understand that. There's all the things which the average cost is about $80,000. Fair enough. So with the way what I'm trying to do is and if all we do is buy let's say we do seven and we we're at this point we will be in the red right make that happen right um if we don't do anything if we don't continue to replace these vehicles at at the at the average of five vehicles per year for the next or six vehicles per year for the next 10 years we will continue to find ourselves in this position.

Yeah, I I I completely understand what you're saying and and I there's this perception out there that I don't understand that the taxpayers pay for this because of enterprise. With that rationale, every single person that drives through our city and spends money inside of our city is a is a taxpaying citizen. We get that. Um, but the world we come from, where I come from with corporate and business accounting and all those things, um, the enterprise money that's going to pay for 34% of this is not coming from your taxpayer money that's going to taxes.

It's being funneled through water, which like the city of Joshua, okay, they don't have a water, right? Okay. So, they buy all their water. We are a very fortunate city that we have water and we buy very very little of it. Okay? So you're going to buy that water no matter what from somewhere

whether it's Johnson County Special Utilities or in this case city of Keen. And so we're able to use that accounting to help supplement and by leaning on that we are able to address what I call an entire problem. The city has bandated the fleet buying less than two vehicles a year for the last seven years. We will find ourselves in a situation and trust me I want streets and I want all those things and I'm working on it. Okay. Been here nine months. Um two steps forward one step back or sorry one step forward two steps back with when it comes to basically buying the vehicles. We're going to be not have enough shortly

at the and and we're also about to experience rapid growth. Mhm. Um I know there's this perception out there that we're landlocked. We're nowhere close to landlocked right now. And I'm going to share some statistics during the budget se session. So I at the end of the day, what I'm trying to do is solve a a problem for the city, not bandaid it.

So um whether we buy it or whether we lease it, it's going to be expensive. But if we don't start addressing it, we are going to have cops that are driving a vehicle and it breaks down. I could tell you multiple stories this year that are embarrassing stories because of, you know, the services that we're trying to provide to the community. So, I I hear you. and and I was raised that leasing is bad. And it wasn't until I went into the corporate world and I started understanding kind of how the accounting and everything works um that I feel confident that this this is the way to solve the problem, not bandaid it.

Uh I understand what you're talking about and um like I just, you know, looked on there and at $400,000 a year, you can buy five of those vehicles. Now it's over $400,000 a year. So, you have a little change left over, you can buy those vehicles. And I'm a big believer in owning, not renting. And like, that's just me, you know. Um, and I get it. Your number happens to be six. But you're telling me that if you trash five of those vehicles a year, you said for the next 10 years, right? Uh, you said six for the next 10 years and or otherwise, we're going to be behind.

Six. Uh if you buy six vehicles for at five a year, I'm sorry, you'll be we will get caught up. Six vehicles spending roughly $400 to $500,000 a year for the next five years, we will have fixed the fleet program, right? Um like I said though, it's um would it be tight? Yeah, I mean like I it's going to be tight no matter what.

Yeah, I understand that. I do. Um and I'm not trying to be oppositional, you know. I'm trying to hear what you're saying here. Uh, but like I said, $400,000 a year. It's not an exact number that I put in there, but you know, at $80,000 your number, that's five a year. If you replace the five either worst ones or the five most critical ones, for instance, let's say an ambulance, um, whatever the specialized vehicles, and I understand what you're talking about with specialized vehicles, okay? I mean, you can't just go down to, you know, uh, Hyundai dealership and get a, uh, you know, an ambulance. that's that's not how that works. Um, so I understand that they cost more and they're harder to get, you know. Um, but again, uh, big believer in owning, not and five to six, five versus six, your number is six. If you could find five in there and extend it by, let's say you said 10 years, you expend it extend expend it one more year. You have replaced all of them and we own them and they're brand new. And you're telling me that what was it? 13,000. I get it. Um 13,000 for that vehicle to lease. Okay. How often in the first year do we have to actually like um fix these vehicles? First year, first two years, first three years.

I mean, new cars are new cars, man. They rarely break down like right away. Otherwise, you got a lemon. And that's and that's why the lease program is nice because it forces us to keep the average age of the vehicles under four years. I've actually got numbers. Um, tell you what, I'm not going to read it. I'll just give it to you. This is from the city manager over in Joshua. I spent a lot of time researching people that have been doing it. Josh has been doing it for four years. Um, Alvareo has been doing it uh for four years. They're actually doing a cost analysis right now just to see if it is everything that Enterprise promised them.

Um, and and there's also this misconception that well, if they come in here, we have no say or control over these vehicles, which is absolutely not true. at the end of four years, if we're starting to get to the point where we need to rotate them out, if we want to just convert them into purchasing, we can. Um, so to me, it solves a problem. It solves a problem. Again, like I said, doesn't and and and it's not like they they're holding a gun to our head and we're just completely stuck in this forever, right? they they the reason they do 10 years is because they're also trying to factor in making sure that there's revenue that's coming back in

into the system. Um I mean I understand what you're talking about here. Um for me Joshua is experiencing a lot of growth. I mean a lot. We're going to talk about that too. Yeah. And I get that. Uh that's not exactly my deal. I like Keem being a small town. I always say that I'm very proud of our two stop lightss, you know. Um, and uh, we don't want anymore.

Exactly. And the last administration, the last administration struck a deal for what, 300 new homes, you know. Yeah. And that's a lot of congestion and a lot of people. And you lose the small town feel and the small town charm. I get it. You know, we need we need tax money. The world's expensive. I get it. But, you know, I moved here five years ago because it was quiet. I come from a place that's not quiet. I don't want to be in loud anymore. I don't want to be with a lot of like just packed up shoulderto-shoulder. I don't need that. You know, I like living on a dead-end street in a small little town where nothing ever happens. You know, I'm I'm the worst thing for most of you. I'm a Yankee. I'm a transplant and I come from Chicago. I've been here in this state for 13 years. It ne I don't want it to change. I hope it never changes and I ain't leaving. You'll have to get a tow truck to get me out. Point is is that I don't want loud anymore. And you more people you bring in, the more ability you have for loud.

Well, and I think people have this conception that city has total control over that. Mhm. Um, as evidenced by three tobacco because when I moved here in 97. Yeah. As evidenced by three tobacco shops. I never thought I would ever see one. And I've seen that and I don't much care for it either. I understand that people own land. They have a right to do with their land and they do. That's fair. So, so at the end of the day, we can either try to be part of the progress

or we can just let it happen on its own without any guidance. And and trust me, I I I hear what you're saying. And the goal is not to create based on projections, as far as I can tell, the the the most that this city can accommodate is about 15,000 people. Um so is it ever going to be Cleburn, Berles? No, it's never going to be that. Yeah. But it is going to grow. I understand that. I do. But you or I or anybody can do about it. I I believe if if it was What's our current population at? Do you know? uh 7,800, but 7,800 8,000. Be nice and call it 8,000. We're projected to have about 3 to 4,000 growth in the next 5 years.

And that and that's slower, you know, but we don't need 15,000 tomorrow. No, you know, but yeah. Okay. Well, I'll take a look at this. Thank you. Good talking with you,

Mr. Sites. I just wanted to address one thing that you mentioned because you said that um we buy very little water and I just want to respectfully disagree with that because we did have a uh apocalypse a snow snowageddon a few years ago and our wells were only able to sustain water for our citizens for four hours a day and we had to do that under a rationing basis because we lost um the ability to get water from Jed that we purchased and we have been purchasing about half a million dollars worth of water over the course of many years since I've been in office. To me, that's a lot of water. We're buying 20 hours worth of water. We can only provide our citizens with four from the working wells that we have. That's not very much to me. Mayor, go ahead.

Wasn't two of our wells down during that period and now they're back functional. I don't know exactly which ones. I think we did have one well down at that point. Three. Mr. Mr. Smith saying three. Three were down, including well seven because of the major repair. We can ask the finance director and she can tell us how much it's not a good look to be saying that. say play the attorney here. We're going way off topic. Uh we do purchase some water compared to other cities. We purchase very little and with the water grant we are going to be uh looking to add more so we can purchase even less. So won't we be won't we be purchasing more when all these developments come in though? That's why we're trying to add more water infrastructure. No with the water grant.

All right. All right. Is there anybody else that would like to speak during the public hearing talking about the budget, the proposed fiscal year 2025 2026 budget? Okay. Mayor,

go ahead. Um, I was just I know some residents are not here that have taken time to speak um who have spoken to me in person and I can tell you even though Councilman Chuck easily says, "Hey, prove it, show it, and all that stuff, but that's another talk for another time." Um, the problem here, if you can understand very well, it's not about the fleet. if we're going to uh if we need to lease or we need to to buy outright how many years our fleet we normally hold our fleets. The problem here if the council can be able to understand it's about the priorities. There are so many things out there that the council should be able and the city manager and the staff should be able to prioritize but the residents are feeling like you there's a disconnect. We might think we know the residents we are representing but there's a big disconnect and when they hear that we want to spend half a million400,000 even though I was told by Councilman Ro Foser that my number was off uh in the previous meeting. The thing is we have to write that check half a million before we get before we sell the vehicles to get that credit maybe 100,000 to offset that. So that check that we are writing is what I'm talking about. So there's there's the the priority out there. There's a big disconnect. This is the reason why um after when I speak to the the residents, there are so many things that they want us to address. And their concern is if you're going to be um spending a half a million or 400,000 every single year for the next 10 years

then they feel like you know those who live uh around you know is it mess and shed between there they always have a sewer backup and that's priority number one we have back here behind serial we are presidential they have been talking about upgrading their um water line they have to wait if you're going to get into this there's honey circle I don't know if the city manager have you draw um have you driven on honey circle no recently

yes okay so there are a lot of concerns we have hills estate behind us here the that we just annexed. Mayor, is this Germaine to the council? It's public comments. We're still discussing. We're doing public hearing items. It's public, but you have to keep with the budget agenda item, not list every problem in town. I'm not saying every pro. I'm just telling you the the the Get to the point. Yeah, I'm getting to the point. Let's go. The Hills has said, "Yeah, we have Hilline, North Hills, Terrace Streets. They have to wait. There's a concern there. We have west and east for street. They have to wait.

Mayor, you have to step in. This is a violation of the open meetings act. He's discussing priorities of the budget that would be sharing. None of that stuff is in this budget. There's nothing in this budget about Hillrest, Fourth Street, Mockingb or uh Honeysuckle. Let's keep it with what's germanine to the budget. Thank you. It's public. Yeah. I'm just trying to share the concern that I'm having that is connected to this leasing. It's it's a concern that I'm I'm bringing to you. Okay. We have Santa Fe, we have Texas Avenue, we have Ray Street, Lee, Alaska, Iowa. They have to wait. Mayor, we have the sidewalks. They have to wait.

Mayor, I understand he's let him get to his point. I'm finishing. This isn't we have either line street which has a drainage system issue they have to wait. So there are many that's what we should be talking about but when we bring in this half a million 400,000 this have to be pushed in the back burner and that's why most of the residents how they are mad about this. So I'm just telling you it's just something a general I'm not talking about specifics. Yes you are. Why didn't you bring this up months ago? I'm just telling you. Why didn't you ask for these streets to be agenda items months ago?

We We are not discussing about the streets. I'm telling you the problem. Discussing about the streets. You just discussed every street. He's discussing about the budget and how we're prioritizing our money and what we're spending it on. That's I'm asking why he didn't bring this to our attention months ago. We all know that we need streets. We need 25 miles of street, 52 miles of streets. Are you ready to issue Are you ready to issue a public bond to repair the streets because it's going to take That's the discussion we should have. Million dollar. That's the discussion we should have. I agree. Thank you. Thank you. And I think we should let the citizens vote on it. If they want to have a $52 million bond, let them vote it.

If you listen to the citizens, are they wanting a fleet plan or are they wanting their streets fixed? I think is what he's he's trying to out. What what you all are forgetting is that we have a fleet of 29 vehicles with an average age of 17 years. Understand? Failing. They're not going to run until the clouds split and Jesus comes back. In the last I've been on council for seven years. We we've purchased 12 vehicles in that time. That's about one and a half every year. So, with 29 vehicles, we're looking at how many years before we get this fleet replaced. We won't. You've spoken to some people, Thomas. You tell me. What's What's their answer? I'll wait. What are you asking about?

Did you not follow? No, you you asking about I'm saying you speak to the citizens. They're telling you they don't want the fleet to be leased. What do they want? How do they sus expect us to replace our fleet? Do you want an answer from me? I'm looking right at you and I'm asking you the question. You've talked to the citizens. Obviously, none of the rest of us have. That's why I'm telling you today. That's why I'm telling you fleet is not even doesn't even come top number three.

That's what I'm telling you. That's the problem, Councilman Gutwa, is that the fleet is a major problem. Five cop cars in the shop in one week. One fire department vehicle down this week. Yep. Yep. And the list goes on. If we can't respond to first alert to first responder calls, people die. You realize that if the fire department can't respond to to their calls and the chief was telling me two days ago he had three calls. Three calls in a span of 15 minutes. They were spread so thin, but they covered all three calls. Now imagine they don't have a vehicle to get there. You want them to ride a bike. So what's the answer?

I don't have an answer. You want me to give you an answer? Exactly right. You don't have an answer. All you want to do is we're here to discuss. Yeah, we we're looking we looking at an answer. Mr. Johnson, would you like to speak?

Yeah. Ray Johnson 10009 Christine Street. You know, we got five cruisers like they saying. He's talking about the Elmer. We have problems with the Elmer's cars all the time. What we going to do here in the next couple years with the fire Elmer trucks? How we going to go with them guys? That's what people need to really be thinking about. Right now, I'm concerned about our police cruisers. Honestly, if we don't have no cop cars here, we need to just get rid of them. I told the chief that many times. I told you guys that many times. People could get mad, but if we ain't got them, what we need them for? What we going to come I have picnics with them and party if they want to come here and do that. But if we don't figure something out here soon, what you guys are going to do, it's just you guys are killing time. I mean, if I talk to people every day and that nobody knows, but they don't complain to you guys, but I talk to three people. They don't want it, but they don't want to come down here and say nothing. So,

amen. If you don't come speak for yourself, I can't come and protect you. I'm not your bodyguard. So, some something's got to be done. We're just sitting here killing time on all this stuff. Either yell or no. I mean, because everybody's tired of hearing about it. I mean, it's going to happen or it's not going to happen. But our cops are definitely needing cars. I mean, that's something that we have to handle. Miss Gay, would you like to speak again? Council, do you have any objection? Miss Gillan speaking again.

Okay. I think one thing that we're missing here is that our police officers, if these cars are breaking down, they're in a high-speed chase or something. And my kid's father was a police officer. And so, believe you me, if he's killed in a car accident because he's got unfit equipment to use to do his pursuits or whatever else, we're not thinking about the human being behind that wheel. It's a machine. It needs to have maintenance. If this company can maintain it better than what we can do on our own, and I'm not take meaning take away uh business from Mr. hops or whatever, but our first concern should be yes, the budget, but also those lives behind the wheel of those cars and what they need to do their jobs. Because if you're not going to give them the equipment to do their jobs, what do you need a budget for?

Masley,

I'd like to address something that has been talked about briefly. We keep to putting a 10-year timeline on this thing and and that's not the case. There there is no timeline on replacing cars in the city of Keen. If we're going to have a city, we need to replace three to seven cars per year every year as long as we have a city because we have currently 50 some in our fleet now. We're looking to replace 29. Do simple math. If we do five a year in six years, we've replaced those 30 cars. But guess what? The first five you bought six years ago, it's time to replace them right now. The seventh year it is perpetual. It is for the for the remainder as long as city of Keen wants to be a city we need to replace three to seven cop to vehicles per year. End of story. There is no timeline. It's not 10 years. It's as long as we want to be in business.

Okay. Mayor Mayor just go ahead Mr. Yes. You said it's not 10 years. No, it's forever. Yes, but minimum what we are talking about unless another council comes and changes the direction we are going to write 10 checks per this plan. One we can Oh, so we let 4 million. No, the next the next council the next budget can totally trash everything we do, but we're trying to set a precedent. We're trying to set a good example for the future. Do you know how much it costs when you cancel? You have to keep paying until you finish and you don't have the title. Oh, things like that. Mayor, that's all right. Mr. Foster,

if I could follow up on something that uh Mrs. Gillan said. According to the information that we were provided by Enterprise during their presentation that Nick did, it's talking about safety and it says 23 of our fleet predate predate in other words are don't have electronic stability control standardization which according to studies shows it's the most significant safety invention since the seat belt and 16 of those cars or vehicles predate anti-lot brake standard. ization. So there is a safety issue here. It should not be taken lightly.

I'd also like to interject too. Again, we keep talking about 10 years, Nick. A simple shake of the head or no. Are we locked into 10 years? We, the city of Alvaredo, right now is coming out of their first rotation after four years evaluating whether or not they want to just go ahead and keep the vehicles or if they want to allow Enterprise to start selling them and replacing them. So again, I'm I'm just trying to solve a problem that the city has. Mayor and council,

you say that there's an emergency. Like I know in this same room I think we had an emergency and the council did a very responsible thing. The fire truck and the brush truck. Are we locked into a lease agreement? We solved it. We're locked into a big So if we have our police officers having issues, I'm just saying It's a no. It's a nonissue. I'm just saying if those for the last time. No, he's making order. Mr. Ba has the floor.

I'm saying the council solved that problem and we are not we are not under any lease. We paid for it. The county helped us a little bit. It was a tough decision. So, are you willing to uh agree to purchase five vehicles this year and five vehicles next year and five vehicles the year after that for a tune of 450 or more? Okay. What I'm telling what I'm telling you is what I'm telling you is if the police is is having issues that you're talking about the council should be able to look into those and look for the best way to solve that. But locking 10 years lease I I don't think is a very good way to go.

The gentleman from Enterprise just said a 10-year lease. He shook his head. No, we're not locked in. So you're telling the citizens something that's false because he just told me that it's that it's he told us at his presentation that when we sign the contract it takes five years to pay it out. So even when we cancel the contract we still have to pay off the cost of that vehicle and it takes five years to do it. The payment doesn't maybe we should have told him himself since he's in a come up and address that issue. Would you mind sir? Put you on the hot seat. Yeah. Thank you mayor and council for having me here. I appreciate it. As you can see I win again. Um, so how it works is every vehicle that we acquire has a financial schedule tied to it and there's that there's not a lease term that's 10 years. 10 years is only thing 10 years is significant. Sorry.

Is your microphone on? I just want to make sure the public can hear you. Yeah. Sorry. Stay a little close to it. So the the only significance of the 10 years is that's the period of time I build the analysis over,

right? has no bearing on contractual has no bearing on lease schedules has no no bearing on financial amortizations or anything of that of that nature but it's just a period of time the reason we I build it over 10 years just so you're aware because it it's really easy to show cost savings in the first three or four years because we're acquiring new vehicles we're also selling off your existing vehicles and we have resale coming in from some of the lease vehicles that we're cycling every three or four years as well so in The reason tenure is significant is I like to show sustainability over a long period of time of buying and selling assets and and quite frankly how you fund them is sort of irrelevant to what we're really trying to acco accomplish here. The only reason we're using a financing mechanism which is leasing le and it's very different leasing than you're you're um talking about is is because the city does not have a a massive ver vehicle vehicle equipment replacement fund sitting around. So we have to use some sort of financing mechanism in order to kickstart the program and get and get the fleet start to replace. So every vehicle in the fleet has a financial schedule tied to it. So a finance schedule that's tied to it. And how long is that average financial?

Typically advert you're going to advertise them over four four to five years. So that's why you said when we cancel the contract if we had just gotten a vehicle right before we canceled it we have to continue paying the financial schedule of that vehicle for four to five more years. Yeah. If if if you want to continue to operate that vehicle or turn it in

or turn in, we can sell it. You can pay, you know, pay it down and the lease payment portion stops at that at that moment in time. But I think the one thing that seems to I mean it sounds like a few people grasp it is your fleet expense if even you decide to purchase no zero vehicles in the perpetuity your fleet expense does not go away. It's there forever. You have no control over it whatsoever. You have no control over what you spend on maintenance. You have no control what you're spending on on fuel because you got to get via unless you don't have a city to your point. You don't you ha you're still going to have a fleet to maintain and there's an operational cost to it and you can't run you're not gonna be able to run vehicles out for 40 50 years, right? You're going to have to have them. So your your fleet expense is there no matter what you do. And this is all about can we spend those dollars more effectively than you historically have. And by knowing when to buy and sell assets at the appropriate amount of time, that lowers your operating cost as low as we possibly can get it and keeps revenue coming into the system historically is not there. And that's what makes us sustainable for a long period of time and allows you to have newer safer vehicles for your for your employees and be able to respond to those those incidents that that occur throughout the city. And that enables you to focus on your roads and things like that and in subsequent budgets and make make changes rather than having to constant worrying about the fleet. It's really meant to create sustainability for a long period of time. That's the goal and for the seas that we work with throughout the state. That's what we've been able to accomplish. And so um I think that I just feel like there that point the fleet expense is not going away. seem to be missed in somea cases.

Questions? Is there anybody else that would like to speak during the public hearing before I close out the public hearing? Mr. Johnson, just thinking who's paying for all the lights and stuff to be put on these cars? Who's responsible for that? Us? The city? I'm sorry, sir. Oh, you did. It's all That's all I wanted to ask. I mean, I was kind of wondering how it's going to work.

All right. At 7 o'clock p.m. I'm going to close the public hearing. Agenda item number six, consent agenda. Council, do you have anything under consent that you would like to remove for further discussion? Okay. May I like to remove uh consent agenda item A? Okay. Now, I need a motion from council to accept agenda item number 6A. A or B? If he removes A, we're doing B. Did he was remove? Was it A, he said, or B? I thought he said B. You removing A or B? A. A. Sorry. Thank you, Mr. Easley.

Okay. Then I need an agenda item. A motion to accept item 6B. I make a motion to accept consent agenda item 6B as presented. Second. We have a motion to accept agenda item 6B as presented by Easley and a second by Fifth. All in favor, raise your hand. It's unanimous. Motion is carried. Agenda item number 6A, consider approval and adoption of the revised draft of the Keen City Council rules of order and procedure.

Yes, mayor. I have a I've read all the the updates that have been made. I know we did add item that's number 66 6 D6 mayor and mayor prom absent but I'm I'm having a concern as a council uh a few people have asked me about that I told them they were asking what is called to question I told them it's just a robot rule that kind of in a way you cut the debate debate if somebody's talking you don't want them talking you cut them off you They say, "Why do you do that for a small city like Keen?" I know cities like Fourth W, they have a meeting like 11 hours. They start in the morning up to maybe 11:00 at night, especially budget season. Um but a small city like here we have heard from the residents discussing if we were to put a clock here and say 3 minutes I guarantee you we could have not had the feedback that we have gotten from the the citizens. So by using call to question which we don't normally sometimes even follow um I don't know if that's the best way for the city to go. Uh,

so do you understand the purpose of call to question? Shutting somebody up. No, no. It's it's you cut the debate and that that you don't want to hear them. You just cut. Correct. Because it because they are filibustering. It's a filibuster stop. You you know what filibuster is, right? Yeah, I know what it is. Civics. Okay. I mean, it was seventh grade a long time ago for me, but I still remember it. Yes. But when it's used appropriately, it's good. But when it's used, we have used it and and the residents not know how to connect the dot. They're like, "What is called to patient?" I've not had one resident complain to me about it. No, I've been asked about it.

It doesn't apply to the citizens when they're speaking to us. It only applies to the council members addressing one another on a motion that's on the floor. But you're presenting th that voice out there. When you shut it down, they they understand what that means. You don't want to listen to concerns like Councilman Bob Chapman if he's speaking about something and then I just say call to question. I don't want to hear from your con constituents. Yeah, it doesn't. It sounds rude but it's something that we want to look into like do we want to go that road because we have used it and abused it in the past few it's typically used

council meetings. It's typically used when we've gone in a circular motion and we've discussed the item three times. We keep hammering the same nail and we don't need to keep hammering the same nail. We we we get it. We don't agree with it. So call the question. So let's move on. And it requires twothirds vote of the council to end debate which is a super majority which is four of us. But we have never have you have have we ever allowed the uh the mayor to call for the vote. We normally say call to question second and then we move on or sometimes we even ignore it. Well, I'm just saying it says right here if you fit keep reading twothirds vote is required for passage. So there you go.

We do need to ask the attorney whether or not it it requires the mayor's um you know recognition of that person to speak because there are some motions that do not allow for it and some that do. And I believe call of question does. It doesn't specify that in this thing. It just says to end a debate. So it means that somebody can just shout it out as Mr. Gut was saying and a second person just shout out the second and I don't believe that follows Robert's rules of order.

Mayor if I can um that would be so see if if I stopped your speech right now then you could say point of order you are interrupting which would overrule what I would be trying to say. So it's not it's not meant to silence Mr. Gwa or Mr. Mr. Easley in the middle of a in in the middle of your conversation. It's it's meant to wait for Mr. Easley to finish speaking and then I say call the question and then somebody can second it or not. That that's how it should work. Or else we're already breaking all the rules. If if he interrupts me while I'm speaking then I can say point of order

claiming my time. You yeah you you should not interrupt me based on the rules and procedures. you would you would find that I was correct in that and ask for me to finish before he could speak again. So that's that's how that would work. So there is no interrupting Mr. Gwa in the middle of his one of his fantastic speech. It happened tonight Mr. Smith. Well, I'm going to tell you

more than once by Mr. Foster and he knows that he's he's agreeing and he's nodding with me right now. He interrupted Mr. Goodwill. This is why I called him out of order and that's in the rules of order on number three. A person shall neither I'm sorry I'm talking. A person shall neither by conversation or otherwise delay or interrupt the proceedings or the peace of the meeting nor disturb any other person while speaking or refuse to obey the orders of the mayor. But the mayor was not controlling the meeting. We could have been in violation of the open meetings act. That's why Councilman Foster was trying to interrupt and I think that was clear and I determined that we had not. But you're not attorney.

He was speaking about the budget. And for the record, I was speaking and you actually interrupted me when I was speaking just now. And then I tried to come over the top of you and you pointed a finger at me. So I'm trying to be cordial, but I was just explaining the way that this is it's it's written. So that way so it's not meant to cut somebody off. So that that was actually false and that that should be that that should be retracted. All right. Any further discussion? on this item. I make a motion that we approve item A on the consent agenda. I'll second.

I have a motion on the floor to approve agenda item 6A by Smith and a second by Shaw. All in favor, raise your hand. Those opposed. Motion is carried. All right. Agenda item number seven, general business items for discussion. We are here to receive a report, review, discuss, and give direction to staff concerning the proposed budget for fiscal year 2025 2026. I'd just like to remind council of the conversation that we just had that we're going to maintain order and to quarum and show courtesy toward each other and not in interrupt each other while they're speaking.

Mayor, um before we get into the budget, um I do I do have a report. um that with council's permission I would like to kind of go over and read. Um there's several things in this report that I would like to address and and I went ahead and typed it um just because I wanted to make sure that um well I maintain factual but also um addressed as councilmen that have come and talked with me one-on-one. One of the biggest costs to any organization is turnover. And so I went ahead and and finally did that got this report so I can let council and our citizens understand where where revenue leakage really is. Okay? We we like to focus on fleet and we like to focus on all these things that are monetary. But as I've told you, when there's dysfunction within an organization, the the costs way outweigh anything monetary. So, uh, first, um, and mayor, you have to forgive me because some of this is directed at you, but it is kind of your, um, misinformation that has been surfacing on Facebook. Uh first in a post dated September 6th um there was an argument made starting with a number of 3,690,984 for the water sewer fund on page 36 then goes through a scenario where the quotes numbers that may have been there is some truth to those numbers except not when you put them all together. First of all, a fund by definition when it comes to government accounting is not a bank account. The definition of of a fund is a self-contained accounting entity with its own set of accounts for assets, liabilities, revenues, and expenditures.

With these accounting items listed, it will never match a bank account as at at the bank. As mentioned, water and sewer have land, wells, water tanks, buildings, trucks, tools, just to name some of the types that are enlisted in a fund asset. The post then goes on through a scenario where we will be broke within a matter of months. This is not the way business works. For instance, there was the quote that we spend $1.1 million a month. Although there are certainly months that this happens, we don't look at the health of a business this way. Expenses are the cost of doing business. One of the indicators we use in business is business days for cash on hand. The ideal amount varies by industry, business size, revenue stability, and city. Recommendations open often range from 30 to 180 days of operating expenses for the stability and resilience against financial shocks. To determine the right amount for a business, you have to calculate the ratio of cash to average daily operating expenses, then compare it to the industry benchmarks. This is something our auditors do each year. Although we are just now starting last year's audit because there were so many things we needed to fix inside the accounting department and within our systems, our last audit statement showed that we had 162 days on hand. This shows that our city is very stable within our monthly expenses. There are so many variables like grant money paying for items, pass through accounts such as trash, water expenses to ensure to have water and sewer, but are offset with revenue coming in, EDC type A, type B funds going out to fund projects and allocated expenses and the list goes on. In these posts, it stirs up fear in our community when we should be cons we should be celebrating the blessings that God is pouring down on our community. It costs money to run a business and there are so many problems that we do need to solve. Some issues are more urgent because

right now the city is in dire need of first responder, in particular vehicles. At the minimum, well, I already went over this earlier. Second, there was a post that all staff will receive a 3% cost of living increase and department heads will receive a 5% cost of living increase. This is absolutely not true. It is more important to our leadership team that the teams we lead receive the larger increase. And honestly, they would have been fine with no increase because that is the type of servant leadership we have here. I decided it was important that we as a city don't don't continue to get too far behind the other C's compensation since we already are. So staff are receiving a 5% other outside of first responders who have a step plan and for the most part directors are receiving 3%. Third, in the same post, it was mentioned that the that the city secretary received her raise regardless of certifications. Holly has a master's degree in library science, is a certified public manager and certified public communicator and will be done with Texas registered municipal clerk certification in March of 2026, a certification that was required by council. All of these are graduate level level certifications from Texas universities. For the record, based on a pay analysis, we have shared um based on a pay analysis that was shared with me by the city of Alvareo and some additional research. Our leader, our entire leadership team is anywhere from 15 to 25% below the market within Johnson County. I only mention this because they are here because they love the city of Keen and not here for the money. Fourth, I have an email to council stating that the Tahoe is currently in the fleet program projections, but not the brush truck. There are rumors out there that we are going to be taking vehicles away from the fire department. At the end of the day, the city has

final say on what vehicles go in and out of the fleet and when we want to sell them. For the record, we have our squad truck at the shop because it is a has a seized up transmission or engine. We are trying to solve problems for the city that is rapidly becoming much bigger problems. Lastly, I want to discuss the cost the city because of constant turn because of the constant turnover. And before I do, I wanted to share an email from a resident who actually called and um it was very much a godsend um because staff does at times feel beat up. she uh wanted um to portray to the team everyone in the city is doing a great job no matter what is said in the public. I know that you all care about the city and the residents and you all work so hard with what little you have. I have lived in Keen for 45 plus years and this is the worst negativity I've ever seen over the years and I don't and I don't want that to get you all down. Be proud, stay positive, and keep doing the wonderful work. You've all heard me say that my number one focus is to bring stability to the city of Keen. And this is why constant turnover at the director level in a business or city hall carries significant monetary and operational costs. Often far beyond the direct cost of hiring replacements, these costs can generally be broken into direct costs, indirect costs, and opportunity costs. First, direct costs. These are most visibly visible expenses tied to turnover. Recruitment costs, advertising, head hunter fees, background checks, and staff time for interviews. Executive recruitment firms often charge 20 to 35% of that annual salary. For a $120,000 salary, this would be 24 to $42,000 per hire. Onboarding and training, HR processing,

IT setup, and training time can range from three to$10,000 per hire. Severance and payout. If contracts include severance pay or unused leave payouts, costs can be tens of thousands. Indirect costs. These often exceed direct costs and affect the entire organization. Lost productivity. New directors need six to 12 months to reach full productivity. During this time, staff may lack direction, slowing projects and decision-making. This one was very visible to me when I started. I heard from A and B boards and everybody about how we're not getting anything done in the city. Knowledge drain. Departing leaders take in institutional knowledge, relationships, and historical content with them. Morale and engagement decline. Constant leadership changes lead to instability, higher stress, and possibly more resignations. Project delays and mistakes. Lack of continuity can lead to errors. Missed grant deadlines. Budget inefficiencies or compliance risks. A Society for Human Resource Management, SHRM, study estimates indirect costs can be a 100 to 250% of the director's annual salary when factoring in productivity loss and disruption. And I'll tell you right now, we had a cost of $7,500 for a tax attorney because we're being audited because something simple as a 941 had not been filed for years. Opportunity costs. These are hard to measure but can be even more damaging. Strategic drift. Without steady leadership, organization lose momentum on long-term goals and innovation. The community wonders why we aren't further ahead. Here's why. Reputation damage. Frequent turnover signals instability to employees, citizens, investors, and partner agencies. I've had multiple business say they did not come here because of the dysfunction of this city. funding and partnerships,

granting agencies or private partners may hesitate if leadership change changes frequently. So it goes on to actually do the formula to where total per turnover cost is anywhere from 135,000 to $320,000. So I did a little research in the last seven years. I looked at every single director position in this city. On this piece of paper, there are 31 in seven years director changes. After doing a little digging, 31 director changed positions or they left the city. Of the 31 individuals, 23 have left the city. Based on the above formula, even if we go with the lowest cost of 135,000, the city is looking at a negative impact to the city of 3,15,000. This is how businesses are run, y'all. This isn't me making up numbers. This is something that I was trained in college. And if we go to the higher on the high end, it's $7,360,000. I have had seven of these individuals on this list reach out to me personally and tell me that they left Keen because of the toxic toxicity and good luck. If citizens are truly concerned about moving their city forward, then this is where they need to focus their attention. This is the first time in at least five years that we have had every position at both the director and mid-level management filled. These are not just warm bodies, but hardworking, God-fearing people that are here because they love the city we serve. I also want to to do away with some other myths that we're landlocked and all these other things. We are not landlocked and we won't until we reach around 15,000 plus citizens. We have 471

acres that are zoned commercial that still need to be developed. Currently, we have 98 acres that have already been developed commercially and with an annual sales tax revenue of 1,363,718 for the rolling 12. Um, that works out to $13,915 per acre. If you apply this comparison math to the 471 acres, this equals an additional 6,553,965. And for the record, $13,915 per acre is low. With what we are trying to develop, this average revenue per acre will only go up. I had I've been meeting with other city managers and they've shared with me and I can't disclose names and all that, but there are certain fast food restaurants right around our city that have the same amount of people that drive through the city that generates 50 to $60,000 per month in sales tax revenue. There's a small manufacturing facility right here in our county at a very and it used to be a client of mine 20 years ago that generates $200,000 in sales tax revenue per month to the city. And right now, Don and I have been working on bringing some this actual manufacturing facility that way outshadows this and brings a 100 jobs to the city of Keane. So, you'll have to forgive me if I don't engage in these social media posts, but my team is already spread thin and we're working hard to bring stability to this city. So, um we have spent hundreds of hours analyzing this budget and everything else. And my only challenge to council is if there's a better way to solve problems, I promise

we are all ears. But what I do know is that we cannot just continue to turn a blind eye to these problems because at some point the city will pay for it and and the only other option is all right next time a vehicle blows up I have to stroke a check and then we're the bad guys anyway. So, um, [Applause]

I'd just like to remind council that we are here to discuss and re receive a report, review, and discuss, and give direction to staff on the budget. So, while I appreciate Mr. sites words they were out of order because you're sitting here talking about my Facebook post and other comments and reading an email that really should have been addressed during the public comments of the meeting portion not this not this agenda item that would be a violation

I know in the past you know before he got here we had Mike Bage we had these other people the ones that been leaving he he doesn't really pro he probably does but he doesn't a lot of it because of the situation that the city manager in how he did things and it's everyone I' since I've been running this council realm. Been the same way for 15 years when John Aman was a mayor here. It's who they want. It's they put people in new positions and then when new people come in, they have to leave because they can't do their job. You know, they don't look back on I was telling him the other night, you know, they need to check up on it ain't going to make sure they're doing their job right. Making sure they know how to get these people to do their job correct. And when they don't do it, they get all upset and then they want to leave and then they blame it on, you know, but nobody ever asks. I said that every job ever, why do people quit? There's a reason why people quit working. If it's a good place to work, you going to stay there. If it ain't, you'll go somewhere and find out a better job. But it ain't always better on the other side. But I'm just saying that's a problem. A lot of people leaving because you had people in here corrupt, had this place all screwed up. Don know what I'm talking about about that. But it's a joke when it comes.

Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Mayor, go ahead, Mr. Smith. I've got a I got a question. So, um it's budget related, I promise. Okay.

Um so, you you had given us a previous book and now we have another book. So, I'm going to reference to the old book. Um it is on page 10. And um there's a it's general fund comprehensive summary and there's a franchise fees and the 24 year was 320,000 last this year was 296 and now it's at 576 and this is concerning revenue revenues for the city. So, can you give us a synopsis of what those franchise fees are so that way I mean I I'm this is a positive thing so I want to make sure we're clear on that. Right. This is a revenue stream. So,

what page was that on Mr. Smith? It was on page 10. So, of the old of the old book. Can you show me what the page looks like? I'm at this a lot of this I'm going to defer to my finance director and that's fine. I mean, I'm I'm glad our directors are here tonight for that very reason. So, but it showed a huge increase and so I wanted to find out what that increase was for, find out what franchise fees actually means just so that way the citizens understand, we understand uh what the growth is for that for that line item.

Thank you, Councilman Smith. Uh franchise fees. Um I wish you would look at the new one. it would have break it down better. So, you are correct. Um, in the previous years, uh, we have budgeted for $240,000 for franchise fees. Now, franchise fees is it, um, is a fee that we imposed on business to do the right of the right of doing business in the city of Keen. So um historically we have imposed tax the franchise fee tax to Atmos United Co-op and what's the big one? Encore. So uh the numbers that you see and uh fiscal year 2024 and 2025 reflects only those four vendors. for for for vendors. And what you see in 2025 and 2026 is a franchise fee that we have decided as a strategic plan to um let me just explain. While the city of Keen recognize we recognized as a municipality that we own the W uh the water sewer enterprise, right? We know that it operates as a business. Um it actually uh um the revenue is uh primary is given to the cost of providing reliable water and sewer but at the same time water sewer as a business as an enterprise also benefiting from the city services. So what we're doing is that we are now imposing franchise fees on our water sewer enterprise. what we're doing usually um and um what sorry um franchise tax varies between 8 to 12 and this year we are trying it at 6% for the water sewer. It

comes out to 283,000 and I can't remember the last three numbers but about 20 thou $283,000 Councilman Smith. Okay. Thank you. And just to kind of add on top of that too, um there was some comments about, you know, well, we want to see more money in the water and sewer. Well, if you went off what the actual revenue was at the end of any given year, there would be a lot more money in the bank if you just w off that number. The problem is the city's been acting as basically a finance financing

the water the the enterprise and all we're doing like I said is is doing accounting properly and and I've told several of you that have come to meet with me one- on- one. I was flying completely blind for the first six months. Now that we have things built correctly the way they should be done in business, a year from now I will have an actual look into the story of the business. Um so this year um it's going to take us a year um you know unfortunately but at least we get to build from here. So um and and that's kind of the beauty of it is is we are way low compared to what other cities are doing. So there's still room there to help support our city with growth.

Yes, sir. Mayor, mayor. Mayor, go ahead, Mr. Foster. If I'm not mistaken, the franchise fees page is page 24. Oh, thank you. Because the new one. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Okay, that's all I had for I mean I want to give everybody else chance. I'm flipping through pages trying to find my my Yes, sir. my notes here.

May I sit down? Thank you.

If I may, mayor, councilman, um the second book, you will notice that it has an extra column on the very right hand side. So what I have made sure that you all see is we gave you the first book. The first book in reference to the second book sorry it would be the column second to the right. So they they raise a column that says fiscal year 2026 FY26 proposed budget 82525 and the new one with fleet um calculated in the budget is the one that says FY2026 proposed budget with fleet 091125. I hope that helps. Do you know what page we find the water sewer fund in this new book that we just got? What page number it's on? I'm flipping through a a loose lit here without being in a binder. So

I I think in the old one is page 23 and 23. All right. So, my question about the water and sewer comprehensive summary, which I did post about and there's an ending fund balance of $3,690,984. So, where is that money? Are you saying that's not liquid cash? Are you saying that that's also including assets? When when you're dealing with fund accounting for business and city a fund doesn't yes fund is used a term is a term used in the bank but when you're dealing with accounting a fund is all-incclusive of expenditures that's why when you look at it and you look at all the different line items it has liabilities in there it has the assets it has everything.

Okay. And so just like just like our city our city is actually doing very well. the the value of our city is is way more than our bank ever could be. Then how do I find out how much cash is in our water sewer fund? What have we had carry over from previous years? That's that's that is the million-dollar question that I know I've been asking it for seven years.

And in order to drill down into here's the thing. At the end of the day, um I don't know if we will ever know. I think moving forward with the new accounting system, we will be able to tell you and at some point switch it out. But here's the thing. It's so let's just say there's $2 million in the bank. All right. If you look at the old the way we were doing accounting, I guarantee you that was all came from water and sewer. But the problem was is that we were supplementing director roles. All the things that a normal enterprise would have to um provide to run their business, we were running it over here. And so at the end of the day, that money is a combination of water, sewer, bringing in revenue and us ma really cutting a whole lot of cost out of what it would normally cost to run a a business that size.

And you agree that it should be separated, correct? Eventually, these are two separate entities. The water sewer fund is supposed to fund itself and it should be separate from the general fund. And I know you've discussed it before, opening up another account. And we had one years and years ago. And then a previous finance director, I won't mention her name, combined all of our funds into one account. And then it got blurred. The lines of our cash as to who it belonged to got blurred.

Yes, ma'am. So actually, so there is a government um is so uh government accounting is a little bit different than what I'm used to. Um it is, thank God, it's just fund accounting. So I'm very familiar with it. So one thing that government fund has is what they call pull cash where they pull all their cash and I think that you know the finance director many years ago have chosen to just pull all the cash into like one big account bank account. the problem that I am facing right now. Um, we are um I can I can put an I can put my hand in my heart and I can tell you every single transaction that is in the bank is being recorded currently every day. The moment we see um um an income coming in whether it's water, whether it's municipal, whether it's permit or whatever it is, it's recorded right away. The problem is I cannot tell you there's not anything wrong by the way having just like one bank account. Uh um the problem is that we are so behind in the bank reconciliation and what I have done I cannot do the bank reconciliation from 2024 2025 up because I still don't have the beginning balance of each year and hopefully um I don't know if you actually noticed that the city manager actually referenced that we have started our we are officially starting our audit for 2324. I am hoping to have it done in three months and starting January I'm going to start the uh um the 20 2025 to 2026 audit and therefore by March 31st God willing we'll be caught up and just to be sure we are only one year behind and we're you know I I felt anyway uh um I am I am asking for time uh for for us to do that but I can I can tell you once

everything is done for 2023. I will be able to 23 24 I will be able to tell you at any time uh how much we have um in the bank in the one pool of cash that belongs to uh um general fund and how much for water sewer. Just to answer your question, uh the water sewer begins on page 95. 95.

Yes. And just as a reference as the franchise fees that I mentioned, it says water sewer comprehensive summary page 95 in the new book. Um now I just want to make sure that when I said we are um imposing the franchise fees that you see as a revenue in the general fund, you will see a corresponding expenses in the um in the water sewer on page 101. is broken down by water and then sewer. The $283,000 and some odd numbers um is is basically if you can see like the it's uh one, two, three, four is the fifth line is $179,189 for franchise fees from the water distribution department. And the other uh um and the other one is the franchise fees under sewer department. That's 104,431. That's just to make sure that you know like it's it's tallying up what we expense water sewer is reflecting in the revenue like on the other side and general fun. I hope that helps.

Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Here's what's ahead to follow up. Go ahead.

Yeah. Here's what scares me about the money. It has nothing to do with you, Mirror. You're doing an excellent job. I have no problems with you, but I've been tracking it for seven years. And when I study this and he tells me that what's in the water sewer fund, this ending fund balances assets and that and you don't know what our money is. We can't tell what our liquid cash is at any on any pulled account or the water sewer fund. We can't separate it. We don't know what's in there. And we keep making expenditures like during the year. So are you tracking all the stuff that we are voting on? because we have been voting on some monies to spend that weren't in the last budget and therefore it's going to change our net and at such time we're supposed to get an amended budget when that happens so that we know how our net from last year our projected net is ending so we have a bunch of stuff so do you have a way are you tracking it

yes ma'am so that all are done um through everything that we do so everything is done obviously by general um by sorry by wow general ledger accounts. Sorry, I lost my thoughts.

And it's very it's very easy for me to identify what belongs to general fund. It begins with everything with 100. And everything that starts with 200 belongs to water sewer. Everything that belongs to EDCA starts with 300. Everything to EDCB 400, fleet 510. I know right off the top of my head I know oh when the money come comes in say we sell something the estimated um equity resale for fleet is at 217,538 when the money comes in immediately I know oh this will go to fleet and to make sure that I know it's earmarked the bar fleet I have to make sure beatatric and Jacqueline and my team will say oh mera this is five 510 9999 so so So I know, oh this one belongs to Flee. And if money comes in, Alyssa um does her monthly uh um UB draft, it will all start with 200. So I know when I do that's what that's why we can separate our financial statements. As you see the 100 fund, we can separate it by department. We can divide it by uh we can separate it by uh um or by fund and department. And we have actually started uh because we have two um projects that are going to be coming in God willing. One is TIFFMAS and the other one is TWWDB. We were able to actually activate the project code. So we no longer have to. So if you say Mera, how much money did you get from the TWWD and how did you spend it? It will be just as easy as um inquiring all the project codes. So I can I will be able to say okay anything that ends with 01 belongs to tiffmas anything that bel ends with 02 will be TWWDB. So it's a different type of reporting that I'm trying to do u mayor I think it will be easier and you will

more I mean and then you know of course council and mayor you will be able to have real time real time numbers for you know for the citizens. Yeah, it just bothers me. Like I said, when we put things in one pulled account and then we start spending it and we're not really we don't really know what's in there that's really ours to spend. The fear is that we're going to overspend.

We're almost there and we're going to lose money, go bankrupt. Yeah, that's my fear. So, it has nothing to do with the fleet plan. It's a wonderful plan, council. I have no problem with that. My concern is not knowing if we can afford it and I'm afraid that if we overspend and then find out later we did, we're stuck. We're we're locked into a contract and I don't want to be the mayor that has the city go bankrupt under because I know how y'all would spend that in the public saying that Lisa bankrupted the city and I'm letting everyone know that's not what I'm doing and I will stop it if I think we're doing it. I don't want us to go bankrupt under my tenure. No, that would not be

Yeah. I just want to make sure that if we are investing in this fleet plan that we can afford it. I would prefer that council take it out of the budget right now and then wait until you come back and you give us all these numbers and you tell us how you can separate the money and what's really there and pulled and what's really there in water sewer and then we see if the money is there to fund it because when I look at a budget like this and I see oh we're only going to haveund and some thousand left over in general fund and 200,000 left over in in water sewer fund. Well, we've had wells that have cost us half a million before to fix. So, we're like one catastrophe away from not having the money coming in. And Mr. Williams had and I had talked endlessly before he left about that money that was sitting in the poolled account that he couldn't account for. And he said he went back 15 years and he says, "I can't tell you mayor." He said, "Who that money belongs to, if it's general fund, if it's water sewer fund, but yet we spent some of it and we bought a police department." So, we kind of spent money and we don't even know was it our money to spend. Were we spending water sewer money? Were we spending general? didn't know and we didn't know what would be left over after we spent it. We didn't have a balance. He was just projecting, estimating because he told me the reason we keep all our money pulled together is is because it is a benefit to the city. We have such a a small margin of profit that what happens is is our property tax for our general fund doesn't really roll in until people pay it. And they don't even get their bills out, I think, until October. They might start paying some of it in November, but the majority of it comes in in January because that's the deadline. They have to pay it or they get penalized. Yes.

So, he uses that money sitting in the account after we approve our budgets for the next fiscal year to pay for payroll expenses that come for October and November and December until the big chunk of change comes in and then kind of replenishes that account. So, it's just Yeah. And that's why he uses it. So, we're kind of we might be using water sewer money that we shouldn't be using just to float us, right? because we're just so we just don't have that much. Our profit margin is so low. Yes, I completely I just don't like running that low personally. That's just not my my way of doing business. But

yes, ma'am, I completely understand. So, one of the things that I've learned about government u municipality um I guess financial u um health is that we need to have at least 90 days in reserve and 90 days um give or take just looking at our average um operation cost is about 1.7 and what did he say we have 62 did you say we have 62 Mr. sites reserve. What did you say? We had 160 something. The last audit was like 6760. Okay. 76 backwards that fast. But as expenses go up, that number shrinks and that that because you have to keep more and more money each year.

Revenues go up too. That's you know, we we've been analyzing a lot of what the value of the city and what's happening. We we haven't even started to see the real growth and and it is what was it? It went up 13 million over four million the previous year and yes. So um hold on. Yeah. And that's my fear too, Mr. Sites. We haven't seen the real growth. We're spending money before we get it and we're spending it based on what we think's coming in. If it doesn't come in again, it could hurt us financially.

Everything we're doing is based on already current growth. This is growth that has already happened to the city. When I say we haven't even seen it, the the blessings of the city are really coming. Everything we're doing is project is is based on the growth that has already happened. Well, I know it's happening, but those houses aren't here yet, and they're not paying property tax yet. We haven't collected it yet. Takes two to three years to get a new house on the market and to get on the tax. Here's the thing, though, that the builder pays the property tax.

Once that house is built, we're receiving property tax. It just may not be from an individual. So, so property tax revenue, just so that everybody here understands, is not based upon the 90 um homes that we projected to see in the next year. The 90 homes that I broke out in different subdivisions are actually to project our water sewer revenue. Our property tax revenue is dictated by these guys. I can't make stuff up. I am solely guided by the certified values of 225 that has been given by the central appraisal district of Johnson County in which you can actually inquire yourself. This is um um something that we get from the state no county, my bad. Uh um and I just want to share with you what I'm looking at here. I think it's a good thing. I I feel very humble and I pray for a teachable spirit. Don't we Sandra? I pray for a teachable spirit to not be proud to just get in there, look at my data and look and glean from what from what I can. So, let me show you um the I'm just going to show you the taxable hold on the estimated total taxable re sorry values for 2023 was 404,19,668. So that's 44 sorry 44. That's for 2023. And uh in 2024

it went up to 420,000 20 million. So it went up by 16 million. in 2025. This is the one that I base my property tax uh calculation from is $447 million. And this is what I love about it. The new value which is um detailed in the on the third page. I can I can show it to you later on. I'm sorry I didn't make copies. The new value is calculated by the improvements there are uh there are being done there have been done and calculated and received by the CAD as of January 1. Our property tax revenue are based on the improvements. The new value are based on the improvements of all the homes of all the industries everything property minerals and whatever else based that is already there by January 1st. So we're not So just so that everybody understands the 90 homes that we projected is only to estimate how much water sewer we're going to have because each home is going to have water. Each home is going to have sewer. Well, not really. Right. Um 40 is going to have water and sewer and the other 50 will not. Um I think it's Stonehurst and is it Ashton? Canyon. The Canyon.

There you go. Okay. So again, 90 homes, water, sewer. The numbers that I'm going by for our property tax is the new value that's that I mentioned about that has been there's improvements and land and all that good stuff, the new homes and blah blah blah. In 2024, if I may uh quote this, I'm sorry. The new value in 2024 uh for the city of Keen was 4,128,45. In 2025, mayor is 13,210 37. I cannot go and make stuff up. These are the documents that I have to go by. And you know, thank God, you know, the Lord the Lord should knows when he humbles me like, okay, you don't know anything. You have to look through every document. And I notice the difference and I am excited. Um I and I'm very sorry that you know I think a lot of the population of um Keen, the citizens of Keen, my friends of my church family, friends, my university friends and families, they don't know these things. And I think this is something that Jonath I mean city manager and I have been really discussing is that I think we need to educate our citizens. They need to know these numbers. They need to be excited about these numbers. Um so anyway I I hope that clears up some of the information. Mayor. Yes, Mr. Oh, I thought you had some

I have a question mayor. So you the the only concern that I'm having I know the mayor has also raised some concern and I can tell you I've gone through this budget the book that you gave us. Um and I'm not here to question about the spark plugs and the the the the coffee kind of maybe you know cups and spoons. I'm not here to question those things. is part of business but the concern I have is we have you are accounting for you're saying you're running as as a business you're accounting the assets uh if we have maybe the vehicles you're accounting the value of the vehicle per maybe now and the cash we have in the bank and the question that the mayor was asking if we had a major catastrophe in Ken We have had a few in the past. How much cash do we have? And I think I know in the city of Keen I know money market we have approximately 2 million.

Yes. And then in the pool account we have approximately 2.8 million. Yes sir.

And I I don't want to talk about type A board 30,000 type B. I don't want to talk about but when I I' I've sat in this room I've been in this room going back even before I was a council and I remember I can use a very conservative budget was when we had a cyber attack massive cyber attack back in uh 2009 uh 2019 uh it was around the same month on 19th that's when the discussion was carrying you going on in this room and we had hard cash 149 days in reserves. If something was to happen, we will run operations without any doubt. Pay our debt and all that stuff for 149 days. And if you are counting the assets that we can't liquidate immediately,

we're not and and sorry. Yeah. And I'm just finishing. Yes, we are accounting for assets plus the cash that we have. And if we are conservative, you are saying we can run for 90 days. And I know for one for one month for one month you mentioned 90 days on average the state is Yes. What is still required? You have to have reserve for 90 days.

Yes. 90 days. So and you said we have 160 something 16 uh7 days. So how are you calculating that 16? Does it include the assets? You are saying you are running it as a business or hard cash. I didn't include the I said the definition of a fund includes all those things. What what that calculation is based upon is the amount of cash you have in the bank. Yes.

And the amount of monthly expenses. And and just to be clear, if if we run out of if the city shuts down after 167 days, we have much bigger issues that are not just facing our city um than you know than you know just uh where you know it's

and and I understand and and average wise in Keen we spent almost sometimes 800,000 sometimes 900 sometimes 1 point something it goes up and down on average, let's say 1 1 million. And when you subtract some of these things, if we have maybe 3.1 million in general, as you said, what you're projecting, and we have also 2.3 million, which we did talk about, which we can say in the money market and also can say 5.1 million and and then in the water account, you are saying we have 3.6 million on average. threepoint projection. You projected 3.2 or something like that. 3.1.

That's that's that's part you're you're confusing bank with a fund. No, you said we'll have you're projecting 3 point something 3.1 million in the war and sewer in the grant from the grant. No, I'm just saying the projection confusing the fund with So if we subtract that, we have 1.5 and if we spent for one month almost a million dollars, that's not 60 days. No, I'm I'm I'm sorry, Councilman. Okay. And you're you're confusing the definition of a fund with Okay. cash in the bank.

And this is my concern though. So I've I've I can remember that in keen according to our history we have well number 11 we have well number six that uh that in the previous years had had some leaks that we had to kind of retrofit. Well number 11 we had to rebuild everything and there was another well that was down three wells I can remember and we spent almost 1 uh1 million and maybe $28 just for those three to bring them online. That's 2019. H 2019.

So there's a possibility and one well it takes 400,000 to be able to bring it back online because we have to buy when they come online we have to now ramp up the electric and chlorine and all that stuff. So there's a give and take. So if we are saying that we have only uh approximately 300,000 left and we have just one of that issue maybe one well goes down we are already under I mean by 100,000 no no these are things that have happened

money that's going to be in the net in this budget 200,000 in the water something in the general fund it sounds You're going down rabbit trails where hold on, excuse me. You're going down rabbit trails where if the world stops and we no longer receive income, how many days can we survive? Is that what it sounds like to me? I'm just trying to say in this in this city in a few a few years back, we have had 149 solid cash not accounting for assets and and we survived. I'm just saying right now we are not accounting for cash. We accounting for assets plus cash and we can't sell the assets

to be able to stay afloat like last time we sell manager stated we had 167 days worth of funds in the bank but what I understood no no we will stay open for 100 cash on hand means we will stay open for 167 days that's barring that's barring we have no new revenue coming in which won't happen so you are saying 161 much better. It's something bigger is going on out there. Yeah. Something this is this is a this is a apocalyptic rabbit trail that Mr. Good.

No, I'm just saying you are saying we have 10 what? 169 days that we can stay open, pay our Taj Mahal loans and everything that we have and you are saying we can spend that for 1 point something that we spend every month.

Again, those dollars do not reflect keeping city hall open. Those dollars that rotate through are passroughs such as trash. That is money that's going out from, you know, for water expenditures while revenue is coming in. When you go down to the daily expenses that it costs to keep a city running, we can run it for 167 days on the taxpayer side of things. So, how much does it cost to run it then? What is the bare necessities then that that entails that that includes then to run a city because I know when I write checks we're spending about a million dollars a month. It's the apocalyptic rabbit hole.

But like he says that's that's water sewer and that's general fund. So Oh, excuse me, Mayor. I got a question. Mayor, you said that that that 1.1 includes water and sewer and trash. I I'm assuming it's all in the same poolled account. So, it's everything. So, I don't know where where it's going because I didn't sit and itemize it. The check the city writes to our transportation or trash is really the citizens money that they're paying us to pay the trash company. Yeah. We have revenue that comes into that account and then expenses that go out. That's a pass through. We just we just regurgitate it, pass it on to them. We I think we keep a little bit, right? Few dollars. Yeah. A little maybe. Yeah.

Couple supplies if we did. And with water, we're having expenses to produce water, but we get money from every citizen to pay for their water bill. We receive their sewer bill. It's $34 per customer roughly. So, those revenues we get. Well, I just want us to be count careful council on what we've spent this past year because we have spent we need to be careful to make sure that outside of our budget

expenses are true expenses not pass through expenses because money I receive from a client that I paid my tape and better that's not income it's for me it's also not a debt for me it's just money I'm passing it through so our our link to what Mr. sites is talking about is the expenses that we don't recover daily operations right which is salaries fuel I would just like to switch gears and ask a question about the fleet plan specifically because I did um get emails from Mr. sites about that. And is the chief's Tahoe included in this fleet plan?

Yes, per the email that I shared with council, the Tahoe is factored into the schedule, which is I think around 2028, 2029, they would look at getting rid of it. The brush truck is not in the calculations. And again, I want to emphasize at the end of the day, we have final say on what sells and what doesn't. So in in four years of We think it looks great and we don't want to get a new vehicle and we want to keep it. We can. All right. Did Johnson County ESD help us pay for that brush truck? Yes. Did they give us the money toward it? Brush truck. Yes. Okay. Can we then sell it to Enterprise if they helped us pay it or would we have to pay them back?

They don't want that one. We're not even looking at that as a possible. Okay. That's my question. So, we are not going to include the brush truck in it. Never was planning. They said that they could take over the brush truck, but the plan has never been to include the brush truck just because of the ESD and all the other little factors. Um, we'd rather use our brush trucks to try to get TIFFs. Yeah. Because we just went out there and we just celebrated this achievement and all these firefighters are telling us how happy they are and thanking us all for getting it for them and they've been waiting two long years for it. I would hate for it to be included in this plan. N

and have it to go away and we don't know when enterprise. I would also like to say the same thing for the Chief's Tahoe. I would like this council to consider removing that from the fleet plan if they're going to include it and include other vehicles. Can you tell me why? Because it's brand new and the chief just got it. But what you said 2028, 2029 somewhere in there. So it'll be a four-year-old vehicle by then. Well, I know you're saying that it will be the time to replace it. But at the same time, the salesman Nick is going to come back at any time and say that this value has reached its high its high amount and he's going to make a business decision to go ahead and sell it. Does doesn't that come to council? Yeah. No. No. No, it does not. It would be a city manager decision.

So, the way Enterprise works based upon my conversations with other city managers, and Nick can tell me if I'm wrong, they come and meet every six months, twice a year with the city manager. All they do is make recommendations. That is it. They make recommendations and again their job is to try to maximize revenue to lower our cost. With those recommendations, we don't have to do anything. Um but but we do potentially lose out on the opportunity to sell at a high and again therefore increasing our our overall cost.

So he's going to want to sell it when it's high. It might be high in six months. They're saying four years, but there's no guarantee. And I'm pretty sure the the the fire chief will will get a say. But if he's not our fire chief in six months, it's not even factored into the initial launch. It's it's not even on the radar right now. Why why would we sell a vehicle? I mean, just because it's worth a lot right now. Obviously, it is, but it seems like we would use it to its maximum before it starts to fall.

And that's what Enterprise is paid to do. And they tell us that they're looking at a four years on that vehicle. and in four years it might be appropriate to replace that vehicle. We need to trust the industry. We need to not we're not experts at this and I would hope that Mr. Sites or whatever city manager sits in his position would include whatever council is sitting up here in those decisions. then that's something that we need to address on a future agenda item and put in a purchasing policy and make sure there's a condition on there that says that when he comes back and does his recommendations, council has a chance to give the direction to the city manager on whether or not they want a certain vehicle sold or kept. I actually absolutely agree.

Okay. Okay. All right. May I then it's not your fault or the next guy or the next council, right? All right, Mr. Johnson, go ahead. Sorry, I was taking some notes.

Mike like Yeah, I'm sorry. The T Ray Johnson, but anyway, the Tahoe he drives. I mean, I don't even know why we get rid of that. It's like being sitting up here all the time. He's the only one driving it. I think that would be ridiculous to even sell it and try to come back with it after just getting it fixed up the way he wanted it. I mean it's what I see and I mean no use in but like you said it's not guaranteed because he's the man so I wouldn't get rid of it was mine so so may I have I

go ahead Mr. I know we are going to ask questions about the budget. So I know we might come back to the fleet um as need arises. So the I as I told you I've gone through the budget. I know there's a new book here. I've got I know you mirrored the other one just an extra line. So I'll go and look at it but I have a question just general. I'll have a few questions. Um so in this budget which I mean also this one because they're just mirror of each other. So is there anyone that in this budget um that is getting more than 5% we have 3% 5%. Uh is there any department that is getting more than 5% raise in this budget cycle?

3% 5% raise. the two individuals that we brought in line um with the other directors. Outside of that, the step plan with fire and police varies from three to five depending on where they're at in their step plan. Other than that, no. And what is the impact for those two? Like total the impact like how much is it for the the total? Can you answer that question? I'm not asking about the individuals. I'm just saying the total amount. Um, the total amount. Yes, she has a spreadsheet. Um, hold on.

Check my numbers. The before and after. I don't actually remember. Hold on one second. Thank you, Mayor. I know you've been staring at a lot of numbers for many, many days and nights. I want to say I'm so sorry.

Sorry. All right. Would you give me a few minutes, please? Okay.

Thank you. And then while we are we giving some few minutes. So I know in if we go to page we are using the old book. So if we go to page that's page 13. I know it does also reflect or mirror the budget of 2024 2025. It's just a copy from the previous budget. So I'm seeing yes street rehabilitation fund dash which is under maybe account 860 for the sake of accounting um that is mentioned used to fund street rehabilitation projects is is it possible because I was looking at the budget it's not clearly defined I went through every line uh going through so I don't know where it's actually uh

page 20 page Which page are you? I'm page number. Page 13. Page 13. I don't know. The new one and the new one. The new one. I don't I'm not sure if the new one is the same page. That's page 13. Yes. Page 13. Both of them. Expenditures a function under exp under government funds. We have different funds. It's the one at the bottom. see what that's referencing. That's I just pulled page 13. That's not the same as what you're looking at. Yeah. Yeah. It's under under fund structure. Page 13.

Did I just give them 13? Yeah. Page 13 under fund structures. It's in just in the in the middle of uh just before property funds. Oh, I don't have that. You must be one. This is my 13. That's what I got. Yeah. Page 13. Fund structure. We have property funds. Expenditure by function. That's not Mr. Goodw not. Can you hold up your sheet, Mr. Goodw? Yeah, it's Yeah, it's right here in the middle. It's a handout. I don't think it's budget. It's a handout. I didn't see it. Oh, no. I guess it's a new I was too.

All right. I didn't see it. Mr. Bwalk. Yeah. My My apologies. I didn't Mr. Go I didn't see what page you're looking at. Can you show it to me? Page 13. Yes. Can you show me the page? We have a lot of numbered pages in our book here. Page 13. Okay. That's okay. What? What? It's It is page 13 in the new book, too. In the new book. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So I'm asking the reason why I'm asking I I did see you did structure the funds and we have debt things like that departments which is good. So I is it clear where this is reflected in this current budget

for for which specific fund for the yeah street rehabilitation fund that's -860 that was the 100,000 the CIP that they want to do every year uh to put start putting money away into the for redoing the streets. Yeah, it's under CIP. Yeah. So, do you know where to find that? Sorry. Do you I'm sorry. Can you rephrase the question? I'm sorry. I was

So, the the I was just trying to bring your attention to the street rehabilitation fund. That's -860. And I went through the budget line by line. I know there are different funds, but I know it's not clearly defined. It's under CIP as you have said. Yeah. Under CIP. But is it possible to be able to um have it as an so that I can be able to see okay this is what is projected to come from maybe general fund to this kind of this type of fund. Yeah mayor this was the one the CIP that they add $100,000 every year.

No I I I I remember but I don't know I don't understand the question. I'm so sorry. Okay. It's not clearly defined under it where see it in the in a new book or the old book. Maybe in in the future when you are line line item in the new book. Yeah, he wants he wants to put his eyes on it so that he can see that we put the $100,000. What is projected because CIP can be a lot of things.

It's still 100,000. Um I know I think you asked me that like last time we had the financial reporting for month of June and you asked me whether we're going to move it or we're going to spend it. It is still in the budget and if you are looking I'm sorry now I have to like okay what's my GL? So it should be 2002 208 something hold on it would say capital I'm sorry I have to look for it. Okay. Well, to answer your first question, the impact is $30,000, sir. Okay. 30,000. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. 30,000. Over budgeting. Trying to be good.

All right. So, when you get that, you can you can get me that information. Um, thank you. Uh, and then I have another question. I know everybody might have a different question. I told you I'm not going to take much of your time, but if you go to Okay, I have several questions. If anybody has You can go ahead and then I I have a few that are a desk next time. So, you can sit there sit stand desk. Can I ask one while you're waiting while you're trying to figure

Yes, I'll I'll ask one. Um so I was looking at the water sewer comprehensive summary and I noticed that our total revenues less expenditures um origin and again this is 2024 was 600,000 um then I'm I believe last last year Mr. Batlet did kind of a restructure and I'm kind of thinking we might have done the same thing because it went down again. Um do we know why that number went down again which is a positive thing. So, I'm just trying to trying to give you guys some elaboration on that. Go ahead. You're fine. Sorry, ma'am.

On the 100,000 is under sewer department. Okay, I'll get there. Hold on a second. I'll write you down. Is under Oh, okay. It's under It's page 101.

It's 134,000. We It's under uh down towards the bottom. It's 134,000. No, hold on. Hold on. Where is it? It's towards It's towards the bottom. It's 101. And it's 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 12 from the bottom. Mayor to total capital CIP. [Music]

How do I look at it? Okay. Oh, it can't be because it's street. I'm sorry. Yeah, that was what I was just fixing to ask. Yeah, it's street. I'm so sorry. Why is Why is this street It's not water. Yes, you're right. That 134 is for the stuff over at the canyons. Okay. So, street is 140. Hold on. I I have to think through. I'm sorry. There are a lot of numbers in my head. Pardon me. Yeah. and and you don't need to answer it, right? You can send me maybe an email or something like that. I just wanted to Thank you. Uh

make sure that I I know it's here. I know it's here. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound like that. Okay, it is under street capital. Okay, street. So, street is on general fund. I'm going to look for it and revenue my source expenses. Hey Jonathan, can we get tabs in here? Yes. For the final Yes. Yes, we will. I'm sorry. It's been a whirlwind. Can you believe it? Oh, you're doing wonderful. This is not an easy thing to do. Thank you, sir. Go. Okay. Where's my It is under

Yeah, right here. Yeah, we found it. Okay. 100,000 is on page 94 of the Thank you, John. The No, thank you, Holly. Oh, thank you, Holly. And it's down streets department capital street improvements is you can see it's the same $100,000 every year. Yes, it's budgeted years. Okay. And then the question is, I know we have street regular street maintenance. Is that separate too or Yes, street is a different department. just to make sure because the way it's written

it was supposed to be just for things that like fair view we had to kind of decide as a council but street I know the council will give approval and you can spend as as the need arises there's a portal here you just can just fix it okay thank you thank you yes sir what was the question I'm so sorry we'd actually I discussed it with Robert Foster and uh we answered that question so Oh okay thank you thank you appreciate that. But I do have another one, so stick around. All right. You were still looking up the raises question, weren't you not for Mr. Goodwood? No, I already gave Okay. On that, are they in this book? Yes, ma'am. Because I didn't see them.

Okay. So, this is one of the things that we did u for the new thing that not new thing, it's what we're supposed to do is that uh cost allocation that we talked about. I think like we spoke about it before and keep losing my stuff. Um, on page 146 is where it talks about. Yes. So, where did I put it? And it's only showing a salary of 70,67 that's budgeted.

Yes. It's because Holly's time, Holly's time is 70% general fund, 20% water sewer, 5% EDCA, EDCB. And Sandra's time, 70% general fund, and 30% water sewer. Okay. So, we're taking the other 30% from the other funds for salary in the same way.

Yes. was all the all the um ad administration staff and um this is something that I have found uh to be a little bit different from every everywhere else that I've worked um it's usual call is usually called called transfers but here I think just to highlight it we have called it administration allocation so if you look at your revenue there is a line item that says administration for $360,000 remember we spoke about this you said oh Um you said uh Charles said well or Mr. Charles and I guess the previous um finance director looked at how much you know whatever it is that's that's the allocated expenses. Uh um so we are trying this year to actually do it correctly and see what it will do like you know to the administration allocation cost but we already have it budgeted for 360 million.

Okay. So how did you come up with those percentages? percentages is basically we ask like what uh well for the of human resources it was it was budgeted since last year it was just never I guess implemented um it was something that was already in the budget uh so when I look through all my budget documents he already said uh um the split was 7 7030 but if you're asking for uh the city manager for the city secretary for my time for my team's time we divide how many days and hours we dedicate to do like each one. Uh, so it's divided by days and hours. Do you have that on a sheet? Yes, ma'am. I'll list it out. Could you email that to all of us? Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. I've got a

All right, Mr. Smith. Thank you, ma'am. Um, okay. So, I am on uh EDC typeA comprehensive summary. It's page 21 in the old book. Okay.

Old testament, right? And so the total revenues less expenditures line um from last year to this year has gone down by roughly $80,000. And so there's two line items where it says other professional services copers and then professional expenses. The numbers have drastically increased. And I'm I'm I think I really I think I know the answer. I'm I'm just kind of confirming are we are we reallocating the different departments that use that that use this utilizes the service. Yes, that's that's what I wanted to know. So,

and um I'm sorry. May I finish? Yeah, just go. And uh the revenue dropped because um I don't know how it was done actually. They budgeted for the same amount. I want to say they I don't know who they are, but it was budgeted the same amount of 350,000. And I think it was budgeted for the past two three years and um we have not met it. Yeah. 340

340 and we have not met that. And so what we did this year we kept it at that understanding that there are two more retailers that by the way u um our sales tax went from 103 in the month of July um in August is $123,000. So we already see the increase with the two new retailers that came and you know started this year and I think it's something that I also reported in the past in the last June financials our sales tax is moving it's it has grown 12% yearonear so it's it's going to continue to grow.

Okay. All right. I got one more for you real quick. Yeah. So I'll switch to the type B comprehensive. Yes. Um the total revenue less expenditures is a negative balance which is a little concerning although I do see the capital improvements uh jumps up by $300,000. So I know there was talks about skate park and and that that whole that I guess a big chunk of money. I don't even remember how much that was, but 100. No, no, no. Well, that's what the but but the money that was allocated, correct me if I'm wrong, was $100,000 out. So, of that 300,000, 100,000 is right. And I know there's 200 first sidewalks. Correct.

Correct. Okay. Okay. So, did you say it was concerning that it was minus? It was because I I don't want them to deplete everything they got, even though I know that the idea is for them to actually use it. Yes. Every year, which is which is wise. Yes. Um in fact, actually, I sat on the type B board and I heard Ricky Stevens many times saying, you guys, we are meant to use this money, not sit on it. This isn't a bank. Correct. We're supposed to put it back into the citizens hands in the form of doing something. Yes, sir. And so, u with that in mind, I appreciate that. And so, um, which I'm okay with that. I just I just want to made sure that that's why that number was a negative. So, yes.

And we're going to keep increasing sales revenue so that additional revenue can get here. More pickle ball courts.

Um, on the A and the B budget since he just brought it up. It's the same as what we've already approved as a council, right? Yes. We've already had the A and B. Nothing changed in this book and we've already approved the A and B's budget and we went over this during an agenda item. We're just making sure no changes were made. Okay. So if if I may um just to I mean of course questions are welcome. So what I've done is reflect the difference what would happen to our bottom line if we adopt the fleet. That's it. That's all I've done. So everything else you see should be exactly the same as the first book. The only thing you should see that is different is the ones on page Um, if I may just direct you to it. Go ahead.

Is page 39. Oh, no, I lied. 38 in the new book, please. Makes me want to say it. The New Testament. I'm sorry.

Okay. So, I just wanna come in church. Sorry. He knows what I'm talking about. Anyone there say amen. Okay. All right. Stop me. Okay. Um page 39. Um if we're ready. Okay. So, if you see the very co the very right column, I just want to make sure that I highlight this so there's no confusion. The the column on the right says FY2026 proposed budget with fleet 91125. You will see the total expenditure went up to $7,224und $364.34 whereas before it was 600. Wow. 6 million. It's late. Sorry. Yes, it's that number. And then so you say, "Okay, Merror, what's the difference?" Someone is gonna have to ask me. Okay, the difference is $36,084. And where do I get that from? Um, if you remember,

I need one. Okay. So wait, the $446,244 Oh, now I lost my train of thought. is the total lease and vehicle expenses that is expected um that will be expected for uh this year right Nick. Yes. Right. And so what I've done is since we are adding the 446 uh dollar,244 I'm so sorry I don't know why I can't say my numbers but you see it there. So what I've done is taken that lease vehicle expenses which is reflected also on that very same page the 30 38 if you go look at just one up it it says transfer from general fund that is that total fleet cost for the year of 2025 2026 and what I've done is I took out since we are since we are adding the full fleet expenses including maintenance and vehicle fees and capital upfront capital. What I have done is that I took out all the vehicle uh repairs and gasoline and oil um budgeted amounts on page 32.

Hope we didn't take gasoline out. We still have to buy the gas, right?

Oh, sorry. The way the way I'm doing that is that I had to do so gasb 87 the government accounting standard dictates that we have to create a different fund to monitor the ins and outs of lease. So that's why I put everything in there just for transparency purposes and just to for like audit purposes. How much was your lease? How much money did you have in? That's how I put everything in there. So if you look that on that page 32 and beginning even page 31 vehicles and repairs as you can see police department is now zero out on the right column and fire and rescue has one zero. I didn't take everything out. I promise.

I'm so sorry. I can't I can't project it there. Yeah. Yes.

Can we share with him? They wouldn't be able to see it online anyway, but they wouldn't be able to see that online anyway. So, yeah. And it's And again, anyone is welcome to We'll provide copies. There is a budget already. It is on the website. Yeah, it's already there. It is on the website. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Mr. Johnson. I'll get you.

Thank you. Uh so you see um the gasoline on oil for fire um rescue is now zeroed out and then so is code enforcement and so on so forth. So the total of those things which is reflected on the very last page here is the vehicle maintenance is the 140,000 here. That's what I've taken out. Mirror. Yes sir. Under street department on page 32 32 you left in the diesel and oil is carried across both of them. Is that correct? That is correct. So I I so I was told right John back me up.

I left out diesel and oil. So anything that touches with diesel I'm not I didn't touch it. All I took out was just gasoline. So any any vehicles that has diesel and oil I left it there. This is purely just fired. That's because of non nonfleet vehicles. Non-fleet vehicles. Gotcha. Correct. Gotcha.

So, basically, I just want to let you know that's how I got the the numbers and that's where it's coming from. And everything else should be the same. Mayor, so I just want to highlight all the ones that are different so it's easy to identify like, okay, how did the fleet how is it affecting? And I want you to this is just accounting because I have to create a different fund for 510 and because we do pool cash accounting we have to receive everything in general fund. So I have to reflect that in general fund and then we can like move it out to the fleet fund. I hope that helps a little bit.

So our auditing fees were going up. So, I noticed with our new company that we just hired, I think it was like 14,000. Um, and we also increased what we're going to be budgeting now for attorney fees to 80,000.

So, for the accounting fee, actually, it's not mayor. I don't know if you remember, but last year the finance department was budgeted for a full-time person, an extra full-time person. And I prayed about it, thought about it, and I really believe that we have been given an opportunity for me and my team to learn. And uh um we are actually okay with having just me, Jacqueline, and Beatatrice. And uh what we are doing now, the the increased cost and the accounting is because now we have Zack Tax. Um Doug Martella whom you see here. He is a CPA. He he runs and he does this for 35 other cities and to me um I treat him like a subscription like Netflix you know I keep telling him you play me old movies I'll drop you but he's like he's just he's a subscription so um we don't if we add on an extra person obviously fringe benefit it will be more taxing on the city and we decided that it was wiser to have someone who is always there I can text him I can email him anything that I don't know and he will of help and he is obviously qualified. Uh so I thought we would save the money than getting an extra person and just put him and he is the extra accounting fee on there.

Okay. And our attorney fees, we raising them to 80,000. Do you know how much we've spent this year on attorney fees so far? We're almost to the end of our fiscal year. Yes. Yeah. Well, and so just so you know, there's additional attorney fees also kind of there's some that are also attributed to, you know, type A. Um, so there is additional attorney fees. We try to keep it around $100,000. The goal is to get the attorney fees down to under $10,000 a month, which I feel like we're getting close to being able to do. Um, but that largely will depend obviously. So, are the attorney fees not tracked? you know what's for council and what's for a board based

I I look that invoice comes to me and I literally break it down when I turn it in to get paid every single invoice has what goes to what and and again I'm just just started tracking that since March or April. Do you know how much we've spent in attorney fees this year just for the council off just for the or the city? I mean the city I can email that to you but okay but not the board. So I'm not talking about A&B board. No, I I can I can email you the breakdown of what the attorney fees. Okay, if you'll do that, I appreciate it. And all of council,

it's looking like um at the the total amount that we have paid out in legal services this year um as of today 911 is $115,868.65. Mayor. Okay. How much again now? Oh, 115868.65. Okay. And that's just for the city, you think? Not the boards. It is looking like Yes. Okay. That's for the city for attorney. Okay. Yes.

So, I know that you covered it already, but would you mind running over on page 38 the the transfer from general fund? It shows as 446 244. Yes. And then you came up with the number 306084.

Oh, okay. So is the total number is the total expense. Okay. So 446,244 is the total expenses that we have to pay for lease, for the upfront capital, for fuel, for maintenance and repairs for the year for fleet. And then I have to take out 140,100 $140,160 which is the existing vehicle expenses that were budget that was budgeted before. So that's the difference. So if we move forward with the lease, it'll cost us $36,84US to take into

and then take out the equity that we have in our vehicles around somewhere aroundund what the equity the equity is 217,300 538 be somewhere around $100,000 this year then net. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Yeah, that's

okay. So, I have a question here. Um if we go to the old book um the budget book page 5252 and this is under um administration where we have the the price tag of um is it 325,464 but the question my question is when I was looking at under the personnel the first line from the top salary and wages. I'm seeing under the administration we are having like we just went down by 16.2%.

Um I'm sorry Mr. Goodwill. I think I lost you. You said page page 52 the old budget. Oh um old budget but you said they are mirroring each other so it's the same page probably. I haven't looked at the the new one. 52 fire and rescue department. No, 52. That's under administration. What book are you in? I guess it's page 142 in the new book. So, it's 52. And this is uh

So, you're talking about administration. That would be the senior manager. There would be the CMO um office the CMO. So are they taking a pay cut? I mean I'm seeing 16%. No sir. Are they are we borrowing from A B and Yes. Yes. Is the cost allocation. It's 70 20 and five and five. Sorry. 70% uh from general fund.

General fund. 20 from water sewer five from EDCA and five from EDCB. So that's 160,9992 at that's the proposed budget if we were to approve it. So and then I'm looking at just three lines below the salary and wages that that's auto allowance. I know uh last year we did spend 4,800 but 14. Yeah, you changed pages on me. Well, it was 142.

Oh, by the way, uh, Councilman Goodwes under the administration that includes an extra person, um, a marketing coordinator that is split between 25% for general fund, 25% from water, sewer, 25% from EDCA, 25% from EDCB. Oh, okay. This is actually plus one. Okay. A full FD. So, three personnel. Yes.

Okay. So, and and then that under hor allowance I know 2020 last year we did budget for 4,800. This year we are projecting we did cut down to 3,800. So, how does that work? Like are we traveling less? It's the same. Um it's the same thing. I don't know if it's because of a different person, different contract. I don't know. But um it's the same. Yes. And in I guess in this in this next budget you will see it split out also. Oh okay. Yes.

So okay because of time the same same book. Don't don't don't move your fingers. So just move to another page just page 55. This is under the city secretary. Yes.

So I'm I'm just having a question. I did go through all the other line items but there there is one two three four five uh the fifth row from the bottom there's other professional services I know 2024 we did budget for 13,000 this year we're going increasing up to 16,71 which is like 3,278 um dollars which we are calling 24.4% increase. So what are the these other professional services? I'll get there. I'm sorry. Hold on a second. I can answer that.

Oh, you can answer. Yes, that was we are switching from next request for our open records portal to just FOYA which is much more dynamic and um easier to use especially with communicating and transferring files between us and our city attorney. It is a bit more expensive, but um in the long run, it's much more efficient and easier for the public to use as well as staff. Okay. Thank you. And she's also decreased her overall by 29,000. So, we got to give her some give her some some good stuff for doing that. Okay. And then the line, if I could just for clarification, if you look in the new budget on page 147,

it's all there. 147 147 147 147 Yes. Yeah. On line it's about the middle of the page on that page. You can see indented it says codification agenda meeting and next request. So those are the items. That's what makes up the 16701 are those indented italicized items in Thank you Mr. F point that out because we hadn't had time to go through the new budget. We just got it tonight before the meeting. So, and then if you move down just the same line, old book, we have under legal publication.

The new book seems to have the answers. Yes, I haven't looked at it. I'm just We just got it. So, that's why we're asking questions. She's answering them.

Some of us we have the old book. So, it makes sense. So under the and and just it's just a fleet that changed so much even though we have separated some liner items in the new one which makes it clear. So under the there's an item there below there's a legal publication we just talked about other professional services and thank you for clarification and then there's legal publication there's a election expenses I know we spent back in 2024 uh we pro proed to spend 29,500 and this year we have dropped 9,000 back to 20,500. So my question is does this include the runoffs and and I know under this

we already talked about that. Holly mentioned it wasn't going to cost more than $17,000.

Okay. So and another thing is there is there is confusion out there a little bit. There's a a Senate bill 2753 and I know it was voted by uh down in capital where there is some there is some some some part of that Senate bill that is in action that if I move from Keen just a few months from election I go to Cleburn and my address is still showing Keen under this Senate bill 22 2753 I can vote in Clebon that's in you know that's active the one that I think as elected official we need to be aware of is the one that will be in effect um around 2027 where we might be required to open all the locations according to the precincts but it's not inactive you know it's not in effect right now. They're trying to kind of figure out what to change, what not to change. So

worry about it when they change it. Let's stick to the topic. It's this election. It's election. I'm just in the course. I know, but you're going in the weeds here. You're ahead of us. I'm just saying it's clarification is that we can be able to conduct our own election if we wanted this year and next year until this will take effect instead of contracting the Johnson County. Let's worry about it when it takes effect and then it might change. It might change. They keep tweaking it. We'll talk about that next year. No, it's election. The cost. I'm just saying for this year. You're talking for 27, right? You said it'll change in 27. Let's talk about it in 27. If it passes, it passes. We're in 26.

Yeah. I'm just saying we are spending money to contract Johnson County to run election. Yeah. Yes. But we are not required per this Senate bill. It's not in effect. It's cheaper for Johnson County to do it than it is for us to do it. Yes. I'm just saying for the for opening all the precincts. Yes. We are not required to open all of them. If we had clerks and if you hold if you certified secretary, if you hold an election and you have it an open election to the public, you are required to have it in those precincts. Yes. Okay. Believe me, mom's an election judge. You are required.

Yes. I'm just saying this election, this this one doesn't will take effect. They have changed those laws and those other ones. That's what he's talking about in 27. Yeah. Doesn't affect this one. Yes. So, okay. And then I have a question. If you go to page 63 and I was studying the the last budget cycle, uh we have a new item here, other professional services. We have $1,000 under page 63. Under expenditure, the department is human resource page 663

157. Thank you.

What was the question? So, what what is the this one? Because we did not have it in the previous year. Now we have 1,00. Yes. Yeah. Off off the top of my head, I don't I don't remember. Okay. But it's it's a Okay. And then there is Okay.

And then while we are still on the same page, there's employee workshop. I know we budgeted for,466 back in 2024, but now this year we are projecting to spend 5,500, which is $4,000 increase. So what is what's the increase partnership that we have with advanced fitness next door um that we are going to continue to where you included um can go and have a membership to be healthier. So it's it's a benefit to the employees. So this is including a gym membership.

Yep. And and again, council is right, Sandra. S council's welcome to be on that, too. Oh, we actually Okay. Well, there there you go. Okay. Thank you. And and and for the record, um I'm glad Sanders is doing these things because um again, with the corporate world I come from, when you can prove that you're trying to promote health, that actually does help your negotiating power. Oh, yeah. And also it keeps your staff healthier, which is why we saw uh decreases in health care costs this year. Does that include spouses and and seven kids? This is part of my healthy snack they left for me.

Sandra, may I help you with an explanation? Oh. Oh, sorry. I'm just I was going to explain the $1,000. Okay. Yes. I so that is the annual service fee for hub international employee navigation of to for open enrollment. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. Mr. Goodwill. How many more questions do you have? I have I I have a little urgent. Do you have questions? Yeah, you can go ahead. I'd like to use a restroom. Oh, take a break. Take a break real quick. Yeah, you can take a break if you want. It's 8:48 p.m. I'll call a quick recess.

I appreciate All right. And real quick too, I just uh Nick Nick does live a long ways away and so um I'd like for if you do decide to leave will understand and thank you for coming.

I'm going to call the council back into session at 8:56 p.m. Mary, could I ask a question of Nick, the enterprise guy? Sure. I'd like to know, is maintenance included in the fleet program? you speaking? Is the mic on? Oh, no. Was not on. Sorry. Okay,

that's me. Uh, apologize. So yes, the operating costs are included in the the projected budget as well as the synopsis that was sent over um in the 10 year 10ear projection including the um outfitting costs for so what are the department heads told me they were in needing on the vehicle from a budgetary standpoint is included not just in the first year but in subsequent years as well in the financial analysis too. So, so we're talking lights. Yeah. Whatever they said. The tool. Yeah. Whatever the dollar amounts that were given to me or is what's included in the in the budget. It could be Yeah. logos. It could be tool boxes. It could be, you know, strobe lights. I mean, what are really,

you know, radios? If it was included in the dollar amount they gave me, then yes. Okay. Usually there's trans just so you know for like PD related vehicles especially you start turn them over often there are some some items can be transferred some can't you know usually I say radios radars cameras um computers those are some of the somewhat transferable items just depending on your system and how technology advances right um so sometimes those can be reused sometimes they they can't we can set it where the radar is not transferred though right the radar can't can't what's that we could leave the radar out.

Yeah, you can. You can't for sure. You don't need a radar. Still here. I'll need a radar. I find speed li more a suggestion there. I'm right there with you, brother. Yes.

Yeah. But yeah, so it really depends on every time we turn over a vehicle, those are things we assess. We we helped you all try to assess like can we reuse something, can we not? Because you got to think about the equipment that's going on the vehicle has no real inherent value to anybody other than the city of Keen, right? So, if we can reuse something, then that's just gravy in the long-term financial plan, right? And including if we're talking about even in public works, talking about a flatbed or service body or something of that nature. Sometimes those things can be reused as well. Dump dump bed if it's not especially as we turn the chassis over on a more regular basis because that's the that's where most of your expenses lie in the chassis portion. So, okay, sir.

Thank you all so much for having Okay. May I have a question for you? Oh, yes. Yes. So I know back in 2018, 19 even 20. Okay. Uh I did ask this question. I I think the one of the employees city staff was here Don Martin was able to explain some of this question. Um and I did ask does the city has an option? I know we put the bids out there. We take the lowest bid and we go with some of the companies that give us rebate and all that stuff when we are we are trying to buy vehicles. Mh. But if we buy for example F F-150 Yep.

and it breaks down before even the second year the third year we are fixing AC doesn't work the radio doesn't work this doesn't work. I'm not talking about Tesla electric vehicles and all that stuff. I'm just talking about when you look at every year there is there is a projection out there out of the data that is collected they will tell you the vehicles that are can hold their values okay

and the vehicles that can be able to you know uh you can be able to drive them into you know high mileage and still be able to hold very well and the there's a record out there I've shared before the council before I got elected in this room. So if we say the city in that the contract if we say in the past we have always went for rebates we have gone for the people that I know police and fire is different because we have three brands that we are locked in. There are very few companies or brands that does attend to that demographic. We might end up with Chevy or we might end up with So if we if these other vehicles do we have an option as a city and say keen we'll just use yes regular gas vehicles not electric vehicles we want to buy maybe Toyotas they are foreign cars but we know according to the the way they hold and abused or whatever they they take a lot of uh

yeah let me gohead I know where you're going with it. Yeah. So, so do we have so do we have that option or enterprise will just tell us you just get what you get this is the vehicle three years will come and check with you and good luck

yeah I think we've talked about that a little bit before part of our job is to provide you know recommendations from a manufacturer OEM perspective so we will put together financial analysis for you each each year and we will actually take the program to bid on your behalf to Toyota to Ford to Stalantis who is Ram nowadays by the um you know to to General Motors to Hyundai or really whoever it is. We'll take it to bid. We get bid results back. We'll put together financial analysis as it relates to operating costs as well as resale projections for those vehicles. And then we present to the city and then the city makes the decision as far as which vehicle it goes with. And to like just like John said, my my job is I'm in the advice business, not the decision-making business. So I'm going to come in and give you the advice of what I recommend doing. really the city makes all the decisions there as far as which manufacturer we go with

and do you have any city that has that like for example Kin can say because we don't have um fleet fund and some fleet policy where some cities require their fleets to be changed between 5 years 6 years maybe eight years because their finances can only allow that much accelerated spending I'm sorry so Sorry, I'm not tracking the question. I apologize. Can you just restate that one more time?

Have you ever dealt with a city that can under your contract we can be able to uh using either uh a resolution that binds the contract and say keen for these 10 vehicles public works we rather have maybe Toyotaas we know we are not getting rebates we are not getting all of that stuff and you know do you have other cities that has that option? I don't think I'd exactly know what you you're asking, but I have cities that operate every manufacturer under the sun that you could possibly possibly imagine, especially as you get into larger municipalities. Um, so

what I'm getting into, do we have a choice to say Keen? Yes, you do operate with other cities. With Keen, you only give us Toyotas, maybe five for public works. I mean you you mean end day we're going to bring it to you all the manufacturers each year and then the city tells us which one it wants to go with. Toyota didn't make a 3/4 ton or a heavy truck. Yeah. So yes, I'm saying there are some that we have that's Chevrolet or Ford or Dodge. Yes. That's why he said some some vehicles we are locked into some brands. Yeah. He'll bring it all to us and we can make a decision. He's answered the same question twice. You asked the same question twice. He said he did not get what I wanted.

He asked, you asked the same question twice. He answered it twice. We as the city council tell him what vehicle we want. He will bring us a list like if we need three trucks, two police cars, and one fire service vehicle. He will search those out. He's going to bring us for the fire vehicle, he's going to produce us a Chevy, a Dodge, and a Ford, and maybe a Toyota. For the uh for the fire police department, he's going to bring us a Ford, a Dodge. I'm not sure. I mean police vehicle. They make a dur make a Durango. Yeah. Yeah. And and we choose what vehicle. He's not going to say we get a Toyota and him we want a Toyota.

Okay. That's the case. Then how does that affect our bottom line? 400 and something that we are writing your check that will change the cost and and we change it. Y'all would be making the change. We can choose cheaper vehicles or we can choose more expensive vehicles and then another Yeah. And then another

clear every year we come back to you and we provide know the financial analysis for that year going forward or the what we call a cost going forward analysis and we will and we'll present you hey this is the vehicle we recommend going with here's the reason why we recommend going with this vehicle but you decide we're like hey we're recommending a Ford this year and you're like hey we want to run a Toyota and it's going to have a higher cost for the year we're going to show you the financial implications of your decision but end of day we don't make the decision So are you saying that this projection you have given us is likely to go up

did not say that I said that if you make a decision that's outside of our projections then yes it could have a have an outside of our recommendations it could have an impact but this pro I always say just be clear this program is not Moses and the stones here guys it is very malleable over time has it it can it's going to have some changes to it based off you know the market conditions are going to change over time, right? Vehicle offerings are are going to change. Engine types are going to change. Fuel technologies Toyota may come up with a threequarter ton truck. They've talked about it.

Yeah, they've they've tried to land they haven't been able to land that plane just yet, but they've tried a few couple times there. We feel like it's they do have them overseas, but not in the US just yet. But um so I think that they just gota be aware that we're gonna we'll make recommendations so that we can stay and really our job is to try to not just hit a budget is really come in below our budgetary projections and we're going to proide recommendations that align with that. We're we're analysts at the end of the day. It's that's our job as probably the financial analytics. You've given us a budget, not a bid. Yeah, correct. A bid means we're locked into a dollar. You've given us a budget. This is not a bid. Yeah. This is a projected long-term projected budget.

So last question regarding the fleet. So what is for this projection that you're showing? If the Keen was to hand you their assets, their vehicles and say now enterprise take over, what is the money factor?

Uh there's a v there's a variance based off my talks with the with all the departments. So there's there's I think there's some I have to go back and look at my notes, but you know there's probably some Taho in there for PD and there's you know some probably some some Ram trucks in there. There's probably some Chevy trucks. Usually there's a variance process. Usually not a single manufacturer. Um and good good news is since I put this together the manufacturers have actually started really increasing fleet rebates this year from all year 2026. So we should come in under budget too, especially if we look at I mean I tell you for this year I mean Stalantis Ram trucks are throwing some some I call almost precoid dollars big boy rebates at these things. So a lot of these trucks are it's probably probably be I'll probably recommending Stantis um vehicles for a lot of them because they're Yeah. Which is Ram

which is Ram. Ram Solantis makes a Ram Chrysler Jeep,

right? um and and Dodge as well. And in the in the police vehicle space, there are there's about there's only about six different vehicles that are really fall into police vehicle c categories. You have an Explorer, you have a Tahoe, you have a there is a Durango Pursuit that's relatively new in marketplace in the last couple years. They are throwing a lot of money at that thing right now. Um you got two trucks, you got a Ford truck and a Chevy truck. And then there's two electrified um police vehicles that are on the marketplace right right now. So th that market is somewhat limited, but other manufacturers a lot more opportunity there. And we're going to look at things even like cab configurations. Should we run a crew cab, regular cab, extended cab or a double cab? Or we're going to look at drivetrain. Should we run a three/4 ton or or you know, I mean, or a half ton based on resale conditions. Sometimes it's actually cheaper to run a 3/4 ton than a half ton based on resale conditions and based on the rebates for that given year. Um, but that's our job is we bring those to the city and the city really makes the decisions from there till someone answers the question.

Okay. Anything else? Yeah. Thank you. So, I'd like to reply to a post. I just want to clarify this. Okay. This is a post on Facebook from the mayor. Yep. Says talk about the chief's new Tahoe. The nice picture of the Tahoe here on the post if you can remember. Yeah. that it was included. Is that the red one? It is included. Not not in the first year. It's in the subsequent budget years projections. Fourth. Yeah. Fourth budget year from now probably.

So here's the statement that was posted. So it will be sold in all caps. Sol in all caps to Enterprise then leased back to us. Then if the chief is lucky, he might get to drive it six more months. Then Enterprise will ask it back so they can resell it while it still has high value. And he will be given a lesser vehicle to drive. This is how enterprise makes money. Would you mind? Where did you get that from, mayor? I'm sorry. Where did you get that statement from? Where'd I get that statement? Yes. From my head. From your head. Yeah. From our previous conversations and meetings and stuff and I've talked to other cities that entirely false cities that have enterprise plan. And that's what they told me. That is entirely wrong.

There can be a high turnover. No one misled you. You know, mayor, if we would talk to the professionals that do this rather than your friends, you might find more information. That's correct. That have this problem.

And I'm going to tell you that this company is a professional company just like a lot of other companies are. And they work with the manufacturers directly. They don't go to the manufacturer and say, "Hey, listen. I want to look at this." this the manufacturers come to them and present their their their wares, what the money factors are, what what the residuals are. Um, and then they in turn bring it to us to make that decision because they brought us the best possible scenario that's available right now. And he'll do that each year. That's where you're you're kind of missing what really happens with leasing because you're trying to associate numbers of just buying a car and selling a car to leasing. It is nothing like that. So, they get the information from the manufacturer. They do all their calculations. They bring it to us, the very best case scenarios, and then if we want to just say, "Well, we don't want to do a Ford, even though that looks really good. we want to do a Toyota because they last longer or whatever reasoning you're using, then it's going to go higher. The cost is going to go up. But he's always going to be able to bring us the lowest cost from the manufacturers and say this is what Dodge is doing the best deal this year. Ford might do the next the best deal next year. So, it's going to constantly be the best case scenarios coming from him to us as a council.

And we're not taking his Tahoe for Are you a for-profit business? Of course we are. Yes. Of course you are. Yes. That's my point. He's a for-profit business. So, mayor, do do you work for no profit? But the people that I talked to were not my friends. There were people that didn't even know me. But nobody works for no profit. Okay. Nobody does. How many miles is the chief going to put on that vehicle? What if in 6 months he puts 100,000 150,000 miles on that vehicle? I don't know how much he drives. They might decide that point it needs to be traded in. You can't say they won't. And he can't say they won't. He'd be lying. You know what, Mayor? They've also dealt with other chiefs in other cities and other chiefs that drive cars. Isn't that They know how to do this. Yeah. I mean, we we'll make a recommend. We might make a recommendation, but we don't make a decision. Mayor,

we don't have to trade it in. That's our choice. Well, it's the city manager's choice. No, city manager. It's the city manager's choice. That's why I said we have to put an agenda item on change. He then has to come to us. You mean you want to put a restriction on our city manager, right? Even though he has the ability to to make decisions, you want to put a restriction on our city manager. Now,

I'm not putting a restriction on and Mr. Easley has already agreed that yeah, we needed to put a purch a purchasing policy in place because he's telling us in front of everybody, we are going to tell Nick when we want the vehicle. No, that's not true, Mr. Easley. We are going to tell him, he would tell Nick there's a chain of command here. We don't tell Nick anything. That would be interfering. really the system works more of he tells us when it's time to get rid of cars and then we decide whether we want to follow his directions once the contract's signed he's not going to keep coming back to us he's going to just send reports and meet with Mr. Sites unless Mr. gives us reports and brings them to our attention. We won't know what they say until he acts.

One of my colleagues that puts together what's called annual client review every single year. So beyond Beyonce, I don't necessarily go go away. You you'll see me about once a year and but you have a client strategy manager who's assigned to. It's going to meet with usually about quarterly. They're going to have quarterly meetings with the city and one of those meetings every year is be annual client review meeting and we present that to city management and then if the city manager likes we will come and we'll present to council or if their council requires it. I'd say it's like 50/50 whether or not we we bring we ever come back to council. Usually some some C's city manager just takes and brings our our findings back to council on our behalf. Some C's like us to come in and and present the annual client review. It's fairly it's fairly extensive. I mean, it's a hour plus long go through of everything fleet financially related and some some councils don't like to bog bog down a meeting with an hour plus of content related to vehicles.

As you can see, we like that. So, yeah, y'all like long meetings. We thrive on it. Y'all thrive on long meetings. No, which is okay, by the way. Um, but I'll be super clear. There is not a single decision that we make and we're never going to come in and tell you especially a a fire t fire related Tahoe has $30,000 of equipment sitting in that thing are going to say you should run this thing for six months and work with a lot of part I've never seen a chief run 100,000 miles in a year um average municipal missile vehicle runs under 10. Yeah,

on average uh even PD side I mean 15 to 20 on patrol vehicle is about average that that we're seeing depending on your C actually is a little bit less I believe and so I think that again just I want to be super clear that we do not make a single decision. There's nothing that we decide on your on behalf of the city. The city tells us whether it be city manager or counselor, who however y'all work, they make all the decisions, not me. Thank you. I think Mr. Foster has a question. Yeah, I'm I'm sorry, mayor. I I didn't clearly hear what you articulated a moment ago. Did you say you got some of your advice from other cities? I called other cities that have the Enterprise Fleet plan. Yes.

So, who did you call? I called Alvaro and I called Fredericksburg. What did Alvareo say? And um I don't have my notes in front of me. It was a while. It was when he first came and gave us the presentation a few months ago when I called them. Both cities were fairly happy with the plan and but they just told me some of the upsides and some of the downsides and that's what I'm using to make my decision on whether or not I was going to support this. So as you all are too it I also downside is they did say there was a high turnover. You can you never know when you might lose a vehicle and uh and what that time frame is. you don't have a lot of say in what kind of vehicle you get. Sometimes you might get a different brand than what you were driving that you're already comfortable using. So there are

And you talked to the decision makers within that city. Yes, sir. I spoke to the city manager, the finance director, and the person that's over there, fleet department that's in charge of it. Okay. May I can I Yes. I want to ask Nick or just bring one more point here since we're talking about things that may or may not be true. another post by our mayor in that same line where we're talking about the Tahoe. Y

and I quote, "Regardless of my choice of words, it won't be the same vehicle. It may not even be a Tahoe." So value is a subjective term in the eye of the beholder. This vehicle is brand new, already paid for with tax dollars, and has a warranty. So there's no need to include it as part of the contract since we know right now be reliable when Keen holds a title. It will be a Tahoe if we ask for a Tahoe, will it not?

Correct. And before we order a single vehicle, someone here in the city approves every single spec on that vehicle, including the equipment specs. Someone have we don't order a single vehicle till someone in the city signs off on it. I mean, so even when the city signs our master agreements, there's a there's a specification list, there's a equipment list that is approved by someone in the city. Usually what happens is the department heads approve the specifications. Then the the money goes to the city manager or the finance manager one and two sign off on the finance side of it. Once the specifications are approved and specifications include manufacturer, includes all the little equipments. Is that a keyless entry? You know that that sort of thing. It includes what color lights it has on it. I mean all the little nuances.

Yeah. All all the little nuances that go into it. So, there's a it's a pretty lengthy list of things to get approved prior to us ordering anything. And because we don't want to bring a vehicle to the city and not be what you want, then we got to figure out what to do with this thing because we're we' be on the hook with the manufacturer when we order these vehicles and we don't want we don't want to have that happen. Can I make one more y

observation? Again, our mayor in response to a citizen, we would pay for service and maintenance the same as we do now. We budget for it. Enterprise has no maintenance plans for police and fire vehicles. So we send them out for service and Enterprise negotiates with the shop for the work to be done at a reduced cost. Then bills the city a higher markedup cost. That's also how enterprise makes money at the last meeting. That's entirely false. Mr. Mr. Smith asked you if you bill us and you said you build us dollar for dollar whatever we pay. Correct. And then Mr. Smith asked you specifically about that and then you said well it's not quite dollar for dollar

for on the on the police so on the police side of things on the the that fall under what's called our maintenance management program. So all the pursuit rated vehicles and all the existing fleet until go under our maintenance management program. So you whatever the shop builds this is what we build back for you dollar for dollar. It if it's one of the nonpursuit rated vehicles we can put it under a fixed cost program. So it doesn't really matter what gets spent on that vehicle. Um it's the same fixed amount for the entire time no matter what occurs on it during that period of time. But we don't mark up on like that was the police vehicles I believe. We don't mark up the maintenance expense at all. Period.

The the fee that I was Is that clear? The fee that I was asking about the last time that he was here was um it was a service fee for for having the fleet under his under his tenor. It wasn't it had nothing to do with u the maintenance portion. Okay. Does that clarify it for you? Mayor so the maintenance plan there is a maintenance plan for the police and the fire then. Yeah. So it's a it's called maintenance management program. So it's a pay as you go. Just Yeah. after we just like you said in the post that was correct. We negotiate the the repairs and the cost and all that. Make sure everything's in line and then what are we end up paying the shop is what we then turn around bill the city back for dollar for dollar

and you'd be happy to give us those receipts of whatever you would pay any garage if we ask. Oh, come on. It's all I asked. Yeah. 1000%. website you can click on you'll be able to see the I called Justin today and he said that he bills us currently at the same rate that enterprise would you would build enterprise that's why I was just asking if you had there is no markup there is no but you put it online that's the way it was so and you put it online that's the way it was and that's not true he said it already okay so I would expect that you would then retract retraction your statements so that

all our gasoline on our vehicles too No, we we don't we we we pro a fuel card and then that you and you get invoice for the fuel actually use less less the federal excise tax which are taxexempt entity and then if it certain stations we get discounts on at the stations too um so less that discount if it's goes to one of those stations Exon Mobile for instance we get five and a half cents off a gallon Exom Mobile so and what are the where we end up paying the fueling entity for is what hits your invoice that you get and we sent a completely separate fuel invoice. Okay.

So, mayor, can I expect a retraction on Facebook and the correction be so the citizens who do look at your post are informed of a Sure. If he wants to give me what in he's just said to me in writing, I'll retract it. This is I would like to see the contract first. Why? We're in a public forum. It's not yet. This is happening in real time. I mean, he's already refuted the three things that you posted. I know. And if he's refuted it and he has evidence of that, he can provide that with me. He just said just said it in front of you. He's gonna have a contract that we can read and I can see and then whatever the contract says, I can retract. You're you're allowed to put on Facebook something that's that's slander, but you won't take his word for it in front of your face.

If he's telling me the truth, he has no problem providing me evidence of whatever he's telling me. You're going to sign a master some master agreements that have all all the verbiage in there. Separate question. Yeah. Uh Jonathan, don't we have city fuel services at city over at the city works? Don't we have fuel tanks that we use to fill up fuel our vehicles? Yeah. Um there's a large tank over there. Half of it's filled with diesel, half of it's filled with gas. Yeah. I hope it's two separate tanks, not the same tank. Yeah. Oh, sorry. Yeah, but it's it is it's one tank. It's right. One is heavier than the other. Yeah, that was good. So So a fuel a fuel cart situation. Yeah, you got to take it from the top of the tank.

So, a fuel card situation doesn't really apply to Keen. No, no, not if you're using if you continue use your fuel tanks. No, we won't issue. We get bulk rate. We already get it tax the tax taken off and we get Okay. Correct. Okay. Yeah. And I have some cities that will um that you know if they have tanks they don't we don't issue fuel cards for um and then I have some that we actually can have them put they'll put readers on their tanks so that whether you swap the card on your on your bulk tank or you swipe it at a QT down the road that way you don't have data loss track it would track the gallons used on

yeah last time I looked at it um it runs somewhere between like 8 to $15,000 to put a reader on a tank. If y'all decide y'all feel val there's value in doing that, we can we can get a vendor to give us a hard quote on having that done. Yeah, if you already have some tech, it might there might be it might not cost as much because there's always some integr there. You just need to get there needs to be a a certain type of swiper because that can swipe the card because the the fuel cards that we we typically have the fuel cards are tied to the vehicle or the asset itself.

And then each So, for instance, say we all worked in the same department. Well, any of any of us could get in and and use that same fuel card. We all have our individual um employee ID numbers. Yeah. They give you access to it. Also, it gets it requires the employee to put in, you know, odometer readings at the time of pumping as a second as a secondary set of data data capture. As you as you probably get the theme here, we're all about data. Uh we we like lots and lots of data flow so we can help put future analytics together. Okay. But um yeah, I mean if you you want I can more than happy a type of response if you send me all the posts and I I'm more than happy a type of response to all all that and then you can

Okay. You can post it. Okay. And just a final just a final just so I'm clear. Yeah. There's been a lot of stuff said y on Facebook. And so this agreement that we're entering into is going to cover maintenance. It'll cover wrapping, lights, the whole shmear on the cars. And at the end of 10 years, we'll have approximately $350,000 to the good because of savings on repairs and gas and oil. And why are we still talking about this? Yeah,

re resell the whole the whole I mean it's it's meant to be a long-term sustainable plan. Get y'all out of the the roller coaster ride and we have no plan right now to replenish our fleet with with any sability to sustain it. You're on the what I call the no plan right now. Yeah, we're up. Yeah. Okay. Um mayor go ahead I know you are saying are we allowed to adjust the contract or we go by your terms whatever you give other cities you just say this is what we have we can't adjust it

depends what so the there's ma there's master agreements right that that sit above everything as far as what we're going to do how the finances work all all that right how the functionality of things and then you have each individual financial schedule. So when we go and order a vehicle, one vehicle, that vehicle is going to have a schedule tied to it. Spec, cost associated with everything that's going on it, the equipment, the wrapping, all the things, right? And so that is what the that and that's based on which vehicle the city decides it wants to go with.

Yeah. And the reason why I'm saying we can speak a whole year here and the contract will say whatever it will say the court only follows the contract. They work towards the contract not what the council discuss here. So and that's why I'm saying if we allow to see the contract and say okay what is in it. Okay. Another question. Uh, Councilman Rob Fosser was saying that you have spoken to other cities and yes, I've spoken to some cities and I've spoken to some counties even sheriff kind of fleets. Um, and

no, I've I've talked to some counties that have like police fleets and some few cities. So the the the thing that the problem that we having let's use Alfredo for example yes if you talk to the city manager he will tell you all the good things the employees they will take nothing is wrong with a new vehicle everybody love it the problem that we might run into I've already got a grant that fix most of their streets so they are not having that they don't hold money to be able to address the streets because they got the grant from the the federal um maybe the state most of the streets that were horrible They got a big grant which we don't have. And now that brings us to this problem. Remember when we got the the water uh improvement grant that we got 1.3 something, we did match it by 355,000 because we had cash. We could have either gone to get a loan or a bond or whatever it is. And that means raising taxes for the the the residents. And by locking ourselves to this 400,000 or half a million every single year, we have to write that check and go through that transaction every single year. If we have a grant for either sidewalks or maybe maybe a street or four street whatever it is and we are required to match it and remember right now we have only 300 and something,000 surplus. So if we were to be confronted by that scenario, leave alone the well number 11, well number six. They will be functioning just fine, you won't be able to have the cash year after year after year. Yes, there's projection homes are coming in. We have impact fee which normally comes once a year once those projects are ongoing.

So, and that's the concern when I'm speaking to the residents. They're saying is why is this a priority? Why can't you guys have these things come in? We have maybe at one or two years kind of projection seeing the funds that are coming in and then look into what the need is and and then that's what I want to bring before you council. It's not a priority. It might be our priority but it's not a priority for the taxpayer. And I just want to make it very clear in that there are other options like having preventative maintenance which we don't know if we have preventative maintenance for these fleet uh vehicles that we have we are having. I know we do maintain them.

Hey preventive maintenance is over buddy. They're 17 years old. Yes. And then there are other options that the city hasn't looked into. Yes. The employees have looked into but we have turnover. Sometimes we change departments you know and so the there are options that the city can look into so that we are not bogged down into a situation and saying Alvo does it we can do it they got a grant we haven't got a major grant except this few ones that we have got like fair view and others so we I don't think we have enough cushion to absorb committing a half a million or 400,000 every single year and still have a what is your solution solution. That was my question. What is your solution?

I'm just telling you. No, no, no, no. Not telling. I want a solution. Mr. Gwis, what is the solution? I'm I'm just telling you. I'm I'm talking in terms of priorities. It's not a priority. But the cars, we got five cop cars in the shop. We got a to a Tahoe sitting down there that has new telling. What's wrong? What is your solution to that problem today? Today. What's your solution today? Before the day is over. Yes. And that's why I'm telling you, you're asking for a solution. It takes six people to make a decision in this room. Yes. Well, it takes four of us. But I'm just telling you what you're doing. You are binding. Once you write that contract, you can't back track for five years.

I I will pose another solution for you, Mr. Gwa. But we we buy five new vehicles next year at an average cost of $80,000. What's the math? We're at the same We're at the same number we're talking about with this lease program. effect say we're only getting five vehicles. Five vehicles and the next year we still are faced with five more vehicles because we have 30 vehicles in our fleet. If we replace five a year, it'll take six years to replace those those 30 vehicles. And at that seventh year, the first year vehicles you need to replace again. So it means you'll never get out of a cycle. Exactly. So it's continuous.

It's a Yeah, that's why I'm saying it's a trap. Once you get in, you can't back off. It's not a trap. It's a solution. Mr. G, one more thing. Mr. G, one more thing. Do you realize that a vehicle is a depreciating asset? I know that. Okay. So, why do we want to own depreciating assets? We have done we have done that since 1981. But, but what does that get you? If you own a depreciating asset, where does that get you? You know, 1981, 1893, whatever, we didn't have leasing program like 1981. No, I'm saying we have horned vehicles and we have just done fine. We know how to manage it.

No, we don't. No, we don't. We do not know how to manage it. Look at the age of our fleet. We suck at managing it. The average age of our fleet 17 years. I'm done with my question. But I have a question about the budget for Nick at the podium. So, we can let him I was Yeah, I'm good. Any more questions? So, I have Yeah, I just have Okay, just I'm done with the fleet. I done. Yes. Thank you, Dick. Thank you all so much. Thank you for having me. I really really do appreciate it. Thank you for Yeah, no problem. All right, council. Do you have any more discussion in regards to the budget? Yes. I was asking a question and then we went to a recess. Go ahead and do your question.

So very quick. Um so we move to page 65 under the old budget. Page 65. Find it please. Please first turn in your himnels page 65 development services that's under police department. Sorry 65 in my book says expenditures by type. Oh yeah it's a police department. I I don't know. I just got it. I don't know what department book you're coming from. The old book. The one original book that we got. Oh, but I think that the finance the finance director might have that.

Oh, Mr. Goodall, is that is that called budget book 8725? 162 in the new one. The budget book that's 825 2025 page 65. It has a pigraph on the top. It says expenditures by type. Yes. Yes, sir. Okay. That's what we need when you when you're telling us 65. Read that top line. Okay. I'll I'll try to do that. That helps me find the correct page.

Thank you, sir. All right. So, we have under this page year 65. And I'm not trying to nitpick, but I'm just kind of trying to find out what's going on. So, under the insurance, health insurance, I'm seeing this one went up by 15,927, which is 7.1%. Uh we did budget for last year 224,220 and we are projecting to spend next year uh 240,177 uh is why is the increase is it more employees or

I bet you that's due in part because we have a full staff didn't we add another employee to the police department? We we we started a 14th person this last year. Okay. And and just so you know, when we budget for incoming staff, we budget it at the highest potential cost, including their family. So that if we hire someone that, let's say, does is not married, doesn't have kids, that'll actually save the city money. But from a budget standpoint, we went to the very very top. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. So, so is that why even the retirement is going up by 13%. Okay. Thank you.

Uh so the difference between just FYI an employee only for curative is 8,959 and uh full family employee and family is at 22756. So um with all the six new positions, right, we budgeted full for our employee and family. Okay. So that

All right. Thank you. And then the same book. Don't don't don't don't don't put it away yet. Uh we have if we go to page 68 68 under expenditure by expenses type. I know Councilman Chucky easily wants to find that. Well, it'd be nice to follow along with you, but so far I don't have the same book you do, I guess. Oh, okay. My 68 says budget and history 26. So, under it's under fire and rescue department. Oh, okay. Find it in this one so I can follow it better. 68 looks like that. Oh, mine 68 looks like this. Ah, see you have a different book than I do. The old book.

This is the old book. This is dated the 87 25. Two old books. Okay.

So we we are having here under Oh, did you find it? Okay. So page 68. So the question is I'm seeing here there's an increase of the first line that the salary and wages and of of course over time um we have an increase of 296,98 because we did budget for 1,92,430 but we are projecting to spend 1,38938. So does this increase uh include the fire marshall that we did talk about in the previous?

It's three plus and a half, right? That's a fulltime fire. Apparently it's a part-time. Yes, sir. Okay. So, and that's what is driving the total uh total personnel expenses under that to half a million. Yes. Okay. Thank you. But that's including the subsidy that we're getting too, right? That's a reduced amount that because that we were getting subsidy for that will be yes the subsidi subsidy um the reimbursement you will see you you can actually see it in the revenue side because I do have to like set the goal okay so that's not including the reduction ma'am okay the subsidy okay okay so we are going to

yeah go ahead I'm just trying to of time I'm trying to go very quick hold on so we have page 77 I don't I can't track the new And I don't know what it is. Come again. I'm sorry. 77. Did you say a good one? Oh, page 77. Yes, I'm following. The top is expenditures by expenses type, but it's under animal control. I think we have animal control 86. Yes, page 180.

Page 1801 in the new book. So we we are having here under animal control. I got maybe I'm maybe I missed something on the chart. I saw the the the animal control was under police but the animal control here shows the animal control is under Dawn Martin the director. So yes because the PD department is so small we can't necessarily move her over to the police department at least not until we get the new one. So, she will remain in this building, but she will we are starting to transition her over to the police department.

That's what I was wondering. Yeah. Okay. And then that goes to the the ne the same page if you are having two pages. Oh, no. I I I I follow you. I have the old one too. Yes. Page 77. Yes. Under the salary. Yes. Uh we are having this one. It's going up by 22% which is increasing by $7,900 which is going up. So does this salary include the the 5% I'm seeing here almost which should be 1,700 if it was 5%. Yes, sir. It's because she is now fulltime. Oh, so that timeline. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Mhm.

And then now we move to the second page which has under development services. Very quick page 79. Mhm. Which is expense expenditures by expense type. I'm there. So I saw I'm seeing here the the salary and wages. Under the salary I'm seeing here there's a change of almost 80 Nice 13% $10,000 because we know this department makes more than 82,000 but I'm seeing here. Okay. Is it split also between A and B?

Yes sir. So um actually it's a 24 from general fund 33 EDCA 33% EDCB and this includes a new hire development services coordinator. So, is that why the health insurance going up by 12,665? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

And then there's a new item. I think it I saw it in the previous um No, it wasn't there. So, there's this new item, uniform. I kept seeing uniform, uniform, uniform. Uh it's new to this department. It wasn't there last year. $250. So what is the logic behind it? Like well so every every department has that now. It wasn't last year but it's in this as well.

That's correct. I think like we I think we all have been recycling whatever people have had in the past. So, like I wear the ones that other people have worn in the past and they keep a pretty good shape and but not everyone in my team and not everyone in um Mr. Martin's team actually have a uniform. So, I think that's what we want to be able to do. We want to have a uniform that says we are employee of the Keen City. Okay. Thank you. And last year there's a line below that page 81. It doesn't has councilman Chuck Eley. He doesn't has the

I'm actually done following you because uh all these answers are very sensible, very logical and I'd like to go home because I have to get up at three o'clock in the morning. Okay. So I'm I'm almost done. Sorry. It's just the taxpayers money. I mean they ask me these questions. I have to Okay. So the the under that there's the answer repetitive over and over. It's the same answer for these questions. It's different. No, they say she's repeated the same answer like five times. Okay, I'm moving on. Moved on. Okay, so the under page 81. Yes. annual software license. I'm seeing last year we did not spend any money. Now we have 6,995. That is I think that's a new software. Mr. Martin, would you care to elaborate?

Yeah. This this is a new software program for permitting which also includes animal control and code enforcement. Right now, animal control code enforcement have zero software. They use Excel spreadsheets. Um, this new software is probably going to say right now if a permit comes in, we have to copy it. We have to input it into fun view. We have to input it into the K drive and we have to input it into um the one drive. With this new permitting software, it goes to one place. It's all there. It's going to save probably 75% of man-h hours. Plus, this software will also be online where if somebody want to come in and do a simple permit for a water heater, they can do it online. They fill it out, it comes to us, it gets assigned as long as they submit all the correct information. It they can schedule their inspections through that. Right now, if they want an inspection, they have to call in, email, leave a voicemail, then we have to send an email or call the inspection company to do this. This is all integrated and it's going to save a ton of money ours.

Thank you. Thank you. So, it's well worth.

Yes. And then while you are I don't know um we have other professional services just the line below that I can see last year we did budget for 53,650 but this year and ne this year next year we are projecting to spend 150,000 um which is 179,000 179.6% 6% which is $96,350. So as as I've seen the salary of some of the departments, this is more than if we had to hire in hours, will it this one be cheaper than spending 96,350?

May I May I answer the question? Yes, sir. Um I it's I don't know where it is in the first page. I'm in the first book. It's under page 81. Yes, I'm trying to reference 187 in the new book. Thank you. 187 in the new book. Okay. 187 under 30 third party inspections in which I have I have a sneaky feeling it's those are paid inspections by people who actually want to get an inspection. So that money is coming directly from people who are paying for inspections. So there's probably a revenue side that matches that exact number.

Yes. And the revenue side is 17,000. And so the off so it there is a revenue side which I'm frantically trying to find. It book is under page 24. Um uh it's under permits and licenses and it's under development services engineering fees and the amount is $179,400 and so we have 29,000 in the black. So we pay out 150,000 and we collect $179. Okay. Okay. Thank you for that. You're welcome. So

be part of the $1 million we pay out every month. Yes, it would. Sorry. Of course. Yes. Just checking. Yes, sir. Is there ins and outs? Yes. And then if you move uh to the next page that 8 85 under the the municipal court which is under I think municipal code. Yes. Um and then you go to page that's page 80 84 I'm seeing under the salary and wages there's a jump of 72 72.3%

yes sir that is correct which is 19,000 is it 231 is it a raise why is the big jump so now uh we are splitting um so there are three people this is including a new hire and the new hire is actually under water, sewer.

Um, with all the incoming, the JSOD, everything else, all the new development, um, Alyssa is struggling. Uh, she's struggling to keep up and so we want to give her help and that is a new hire, a UB clerk under WWL, water, sewer, and 10% is absorbed here, and so is Alyssa's time. So, like I said, U, mayor, I'll be sending you the breakdown of the spreadsheet. Um I think it's very important that it's not a complete activity based costing analysis but it's it is something that we are doing uh to learn the cost of business. I think over over the next few years we will be able to see how much we charge how much we you know we we can we will have a more I can deliberate on how much money we're making if we actually know the cost of business. So what you're seeing here is uh cost for three people.

Okay. Thank you. So we're hiring a new person for Yes. for water sewer for the UB clerk, ma'am. Okay. Okay. Thank you. And then if you go to page 85 just next to that one, we have almost towards the bottom under the total professional expenses. We I know I did look last year's budget and we did take out special events and now we have the merchant service fee. Last year we did not spend any amount uh any money and now we are spending $36,000. So why is um are we paying for these fees or

so? Um I will have to correct you. Um it wasn't budgeted last year but there was an amount in there. So, this was something that I found going through all the bank reconciliation since last year. I found that all the merchant fees that we pay Card Connect have never been recorded. There's over $84,000 that are not recorded in our books. And this is the thing that I've been having about. We need to record them. We need to record them. But God bless the people who've been here. They've done a great job. And I think like this is what we're doing differently. Mr. Goodwa every single charge or deposit in the bank I can say in front of you before God that we have it on the day if not plus one uh we are diligently even um we working with HR Sandra would say hey let me know when this clears right there are payments that are clears u my team would go ahead and say Sandra would say hey watch if you know make sure that this clears and you know we watch it every day. So, um we would let her know when you know when a payment is cleared. And this amount of money has never been booked since 2022. So, it's not that we have never spent the money. The difference is this year we are budgeting for it. So, the net the net position the fund balance that we will have after the um the audit the audit is completed will be accurate. So what we're doing now is just we're monitoring it. We've always spent money. Um whatever money whatever money we get from municipal, whatever money we get from permit, whatever money we get from UB, everything it has a fee, has a merchant fee from Card Connect. It's like 3.75 or it just depends on what it depends on what credit card you use, but that's the fee that they collect, sir.

Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. And then we have page 87. Yes. under the community center. I know we have 36,858. So, I did see the repair and maintenance. Under repair and maintenance, I know we went up by only $160, which is $7,900 uh dollar. So, since it's a new building, so under maintenance, do you guys normally like did we spend this last year that we projected 7,740? Let me let me look it up. Is that Let me look it up real quick. Are you talking about this building? No. Community center. Community center.

Well, our warranty is probably expired. So now we we have to actually do a lot of these repairs ourselves. And I can see Mr. Don Martin nodding his head. Yes. So um I believe that's what that's for. So is 7,900 enough to do the repairs? I mean, we don't know what's going to happen. So it's just a guess. It's an estimated number of whatifs, right? So I mean we could be that whole ceiling could fall in. Yeah. Minutes. Okay. So and then if we move to page 89 we have done departmental and I'm running into yeah page 91.

Yes there's no headline just expenditures by expenses type. Um I was looking at annual software maintenance. We have last year we did project to spend 15,000 but now we have gone way up by 200% to 45,000. Okay. Why is that 30 why is it jumping by 30? I know $30,000. So the actual Can I go ahead? Sorry. No, it's okay. Um the three-year average for our annual software maintenance is actually 47,000 and that is clear gov and fun view.

Okay. Which is not budgeted accurately. I think I think this is something that the city manager and I have been kind of like doing what we're doing is we actually going line by line uh GL byG and looking at the past three years average use I mean uh cost and we estimated how much we will spend by the end of the year and we look at the two the difference or whatever it is and we post a number that we think is better. Um, so it's not because the cost went up, it's because the budget was not okay. Reflected the actuals. You know what I mean? Like the budget wasn't accurate. And thank you. Thank you. Yes, sir.

And then under that there's other professional services, copiers. So there's under property liability insurance. It's the same thing, sir. I think like I think someone asked me this last time. Um the actual year to date is 142,000. It is a property uh liability insurance. It's just a budget. Um so does that include the new police department and No, this is so only this building or this other facility that we have. Can you help? Because it went up by 105,000. No, it did not go up. it

last we we did budget for 44,444 and4 444 cents and now we are projecting to spend 150,000 which is going up by 237.3%. Th this was something that we've talked about multiple times and in fact like when this whole thing very very started we specifically stated it was going up because this is the actual cost of yeah the insurance going up. So, I mean, it's just it is what it is. And and let me just make sure um council property liability insurance. That's why I'm just Yes. So, the budget includes CDO and other buildings.

So, it doesn't it doesn't include the new building police. Okay. All right. Okay. So, and then we move to I'm almost done. I know we want to go. Yeah. No, please go ahead. Yes. Um, so page 93 under street department. Yes. We have under the salary and wages. I'm seeing here we are spending that's uh last year we did project to spend 101,000. Now it's going up by 10,314. So does this include the salary for the new like field manager? That's correct. Okay. All right.

Field manager is split 33% um under street. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Yes sir. And then we have water administration. That's under page 90. What? 95. And you just have to go to the next page. And then I'm seeing here under the same under the under the same water administration I'm seeing also the salary going up salary and wages by 11% and it's going up by 40 46,117.

Yes, that's all the administration um that's the city officers that's uh Mr. Don Martin um Sandra over street myself Holly the city manager my team my full team um they all is the cost allocation that they have to absorb okay and then below that there's certification pay we did budget for $300 but now it's going up to 2,200 which is 1,900 increase what is the certification why did it jump like that okay hold on a second give me a second I have the answer

certification underwater Yes. If you give me a second, I'll tell you exactly what they are, who they are. All right. So, um, did you say water? Sorry. That's correct. Yes, that is. So, but we had $300. Did we under budget or what was going on?

Yeah. So, um, this year I made sure that I actually looked at our current certification pay and um, yes, this says uh, well, I I don't know if I can tell you who they are, but um, I did. So, it's I know who they are and the total is it 2,200. Is that what you're asking? I'm sorry. Yeah. Yes, it's 2,200 is four. Hold on a second. It's one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, five. Five people. Okay. Thank you.

And then if you move to the second page, that's 97. I know under professional expenses. Uh, for the sake of councilman Chucky easily, I know we are still underwater department. I think

yes. Yes. So under under ad under administration allocation I know our auditors I can remember back in 2019 they did say this amount that we have been transferring was too high and but I'm seeing this year we are transferring the biggest jump like 283,620 um that's under department um expenses allocation non departmental other expense allocation just general which is going up by 3,651.2%. Um so why why is the why is do we have a big jump here? I mean from the water department.

Can you give me a second?

Um no franchise vis on the other side. I'm guessing this is Hold on a second. I'm trying to think. Hold on. Let me just find my numbers, please. 291. 91 3. No, hold on. I'm sorry. I'm trying I know. Thank you. I'm I'm trying to find my numbers. I'm sorry. Hold on. You know, if I could memorize all the 1500 lines, it will help everybody, right?

I was telling Sandra that I have not passed my probation. This is crazy. Um, okay. Thank you, sir. Uh, I'm sorry, Council Goodwa. I'm just gonna take Time to actually look at this. Okay. So, expon we are having that's under the water. Yes. Water distribution department. Yes. No, just water administration. Oh, okay. 97. Okay.

Which one is it? It's under.

Oh, okay. Administration. All right. Wait. No. No. Okay. So, the professional services there is a virtue of having the new book. Okay.

So, in the new book is actually Hold on. I'll get there. I'm sorry. That's why. So, in the new book is actually 7,767.82. So, what I did was I thought about it. This is what happens when you stay up at night. Um, I thought about it. I'm like, "Oh, okay. So, there is there's like you said, um, this may not be the correct line items." So, if you pardon me, there we have over 1,600 GL accounts. I'm shy of six months. It's a lot to learn. Where does things, you know, where do things go? And so, initially I thought, well, this is allocation. This is the franchise fees, whatever. I stuck it on there. And then later on, I thought that's not smart. Let's put them. I didn't know that there's actually franchise water, franchise sewer. So, Mr. Martin is correct. It is now at 7,700 whatever the 283,620 is the expenses that you that I showed earlier um under uh um the franchise fees expenses.

Okay. Yes. So, the new book has $7,767.82, sir. Okay. Oh, okay. Good job, Don. You can do my job. Good job. Yeah. And and the reason and the reason why I'm asking because I know in the past we have transferred. I can remember the last meeting I did tell you when we bought a skis skisia 43,000 and there was another vehicle 22,000. That's when we actually transferred the money from this account. Some years we have touched it a little bit. Sometimes we don't touch so much. Yes. To balance the general fund. But M. Councilman Goodwill, just so that you know, yes,

if I'm still here, I will always use transfer. It is the correct way of showing that first of all, the water sewer enterprise business belongs to the belongs to the city. And the way that you do that, you transfer because I was looking for the transfer account for the longest time. And apparently we call it administration allocation, but I don't think that is correct. Um, since I'm dealing with the Zacttax financials, I do look through other people's financials, you know, GL numbers, and they do exactly what we're supposed to. It says transfer. And I think like I think it's I think it's just good business sense to say it's transfer. Yes, sir.

Yeah. Anything else? So anyway, so and then there's the next page that's page 99 uh just the next page from the one that you Oh, you are having a new book the reference. So that's under water distribution department. I know we did fix I think back in 2019 we did allocate some money uh for that's well 11 and well six and then there was another well that was down. Um, but last year we did budget for $45,000. Wait, I'm I'm I'm not following you. Can you tell me which page? That's page 99. I'm sorry, I'm using the old book.

Yeah, I'm using the old book. I'm following you. Page 99. Under we have under facilities, we have well the electricity wells. Yes, we are under wells and boosters and I'm seeing we are going up by 30,000. Is it because of the cost increase of Um I I can't tell you. Hold on a second. And then the electric also went up by 30,000. That is true. It's probably because Well 7 is now online fully where it wasn't last year. In fact, if you remember, Mr. Batla was trying to get that online, but there wasn't a budget line item for it, so that wasn't part of it. And now it is active. So I bet you that's what that's probably for.

Oh, okay. That that that could be true. Um the actual year to date is 167,000. Uh um and I will get back to you if you want me to pursue that. I I can get back because that's Derek's number and I will have to defer to him. I'll appreciate that. And then the next page is page 100 meters and boxes. I know last year we did not budget for um amount in this under this line item but this year we are planning to spend $50,000. Can you show me which line? I'm sorry. It's under equipment maintenance and repairs. So water meters and boxes.

I'm so glad you asked. And if we are paying for it, how are we coupling this amount back? Thank you. Water box. Is this meters? It is the meters, right? Is it the meters? The water box.

Right. So, so if if it's what I'm thinking it is, Derek wanted to add a line where we were tracking meters for new developments that were coming in. So, this money is based on the house projections of the growth so that we can track it to see what that actual cost is. Okay. So, how are we recouping it back from the So, there is a water box. We we recoup it back in water. Yeah. up front and then we'll get it slowly as Okay. But there is a water box cost

and it's 125 per water box. Water taps is 500. Water meter is 75. That's the revenues. Correct. Correct. Yeah. Correct. Yeah. Yes. Right. Okay. So that line item should actually just wash itself. Actually we that's correct it's another one of those things we recoup the revenue on this side and this is just the expense and then page 101 the next page from that there is total capital asset CIP item I know 2024 we did plan for 164,000 yes this year we are we are projecting to spend zero which is negative 100%. M

um yes uh it was what was it? What was it? It was page 101. The 164 total I'm going to get it. I'm going to get it. Hold on a second. It was the something. What's the line item? Uh it's at the at the bottom. Uh the water distribution department. I'll get there. Hold on a second. The line item. It's under capital assets. I don't remember. We don't need it anymore because we purchased it last year. Um, it was Yes. Yes. There it is. Yep. 64. I remember that. You're the man tonight, dude. Okay. Yep.

That's right. That's right. Okay. We're almost there. Yes, I'm ready. Well, you got agree with. So, I I think for now I have a few questions, but because of time, I'll let Yes, sir. Other council members. All right. Council, do you have any other questions about the budget?

I'd like to make a comment on this. Uh before I say uh um obviously I didn't go over this book, but I went through the other book that we had and I was super impressed with the time that you guys put in it. I know it's been a lot of long hours and so I I want you to know that I appreciate the fact that you guys have taken so much time being that both of you guys are brand new. you dug in deep and you guys you probably fought tooth and nail because it's the first time. So,

it's it's and it's probably very stressful. I mean, he's over here pushing the stress ball to the limits. Um, and it's just it it's just amazing to see how well you guys have actually done.

I didn't mind the questions. I felt like there was a lot of, you know, easy answers to those questions. So, I'm glad that we were able to get through that. um as as far as the fleet goes, I'm I'm actually super bummed that there was some negative rhetoric um spoken on Facebook and so that is a bummer. Um, but I hopefully the citizens tonight when you're watching this, you got to see and hear from the individual from from the expert um on how fleet worked and so that way we can we can make a a good decision going forward based on the information that we got. So, um, so I would like to move forward with the budget that we've just been given and tell staff that I would like this to be something that we use as our budget.

Yeah, we have already received a report and reviewed and discussed the budget. So, yeah, at this point, we're just giving direction to staff concerning the proposed budget. That's what I was doing. So if there's anything that you wanted to see removed from the budget, this is the time to give direction and we have to do it by consensus. If nobody has anything, then we can just leave the budget as presented. Okay, that's I have a question. Okay.

Um for some time I know I did bring it maybe two years ago and then I did also bring it be um before Brent Butler. We gave him some priorities. If you go to that budget, there are some priorities that were listed that the council wanted the city manager to focus on. And for those who can remember, uh, behind cyol here, I think behind the the the swahu pond, there's a street there. Some Yeah, Lynen Street, I think.

Yes. So, some of the residents have been bringing this before my attention and I brought brought this before the council here and um they want street lights. It's so dark there that sometimes they always you always almost run into an accident. Uh use your headlights. Yeah, they do use that. But it's so dark that sometimes people just don't stop. There's a small stop sign there. Is this a are we is this a different agenda item here? No, I'm saying according to the budget, can we look into what it will cost to have some of these lights? It's not agenda item.

I think we're at the 11th hour. I'm not sure that we can. Yes. Yes. We are just saying to look into it how much it will cost under the budget. We are requesting for something to look We just requested for our fleet and say no. We've had the fleet conversation since May. Fleet. Fleet was already in June. I understand. So you're talking about a non-aggenda item. So probably then Okay, then I agenda item. Okay. I'll request I request for that agenda item then. Okay. Okay. So do we have a consensus to pass this budget the way it is? Yes. I'll say we're not passing it. I didn't say I excuse me. Yeah. To move forward with the budget as it is written.

I'll still say that you're moving forward. Move forward. Move forward. Move forward. Move forward. Okay. Okay. So, we're not going to take any action right now on agenda item 7A. We're going to move on. I don't have a B, do I? Okay. All right. Moving on to agenda item number eight. There is no executive session scheduled for tonight, so we can omit agenda item number nine. Agenda item number 10, request for future agenda items. That's where you go, Thomas. Um, we have on our agenda discussion on widening FM2280, installing of a turn lane between North College and FM 805B.

I had one. Um, we had I had actually brought this up before and I believe I actually asked for it to be delayed until we got done with budget season. Uh, but it was to go over the fee schedules for municipal courts, all the things that that our police uh give tickets for, things of that nature. I wanted to make sure we are in line with other cities and if not maybe adjust those costs. I think those are set by the state.

Well, there is a master fee schedule for the city that again is a smaller stack on my uh desk and I know uh mayor's kind of tasked Jacqueline with kind of helping with some of that and of course I'll be looking at that. So that is something that once we get through this budget that we will be addressing because our fee schedule hasn't been updated I don't think since before COVID. So that is on my whiteboard list of things to do. I think it is by city because in Alvarado back in 2018 I got a ticket for $52 but in Halum City it was $378. So they set a range. I think it's by the city. The state sets a range. Yeah. the state sets the range judge and the city can set the

okay the judge makes the decision based on the range and as a city we don't get involved with the court because that would be unethical. Um we can look at the fees for like ball field rentals and you know community center rentals and those types of thing. But when it comes to actual tickets we have to the judge is the one that determines what that fee is going to be. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay, that answer your question. All right, Mr. Foster,

I I know we just recently implemented um impact fees, but in light of the growth that we have coming, I think we should address just kind of take a look at surrounding cities because I suspect that the fees have gone up since we um implemented those. Yeah, I I don't know that we can raise them right away. I thought there was something about that. You can't raise them after you adopt them for like a period of time, three years. Yes, sir. and and we do have some information on that so we can add it to an agenda item so it can be a discussion and I can update you kind of on what's going on so that we're ready we can adjust it when when the time's right okay we can do that anything else council

yeah we did talk about this the street yeah we need to talk about the the lights there so I'll bring more information you would like to talk about street lamps yes and funding those. Anything else, council? I think we all need to give Mera a big round of applause. [Applause] Her entire staff, she survived tonight. She should make her. You all are good. I'm going to adjourn the meeting. All right, it's 10:17 p.m. Meeting is adjourned.