City Council - Regular Meeting

Last but not least, I thought that was her car. She's a high school graduation. How are you? Good. How are you? Just in time. I'll give you a quick second, Kelsey. Okay, thank you. You ready? Yes, sir. Good evening everyone. It is 6:31 p.m. Today is uh Tuesday Tuesday, May 20, 2025. I'd like to call to order our regular city council meeting. We are located in the council chambers here at Kermit City Hall. And if y'all don't mind, we'll stand and do our pledge of allegiance and Councilman Hazel will plead us an invocation. 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. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible. Let us pray. Most gracious heavenly father, we ask that you be with us tonight. Please keep your hand of

guidance upon all of us here, that the decisions made tonight will be for the betterment of our city as well as in the best interest of our citizens and residents that reside here. We ask that you be with everybody that is here this evening and bless them that they are here this evening to show the interest that's vital to our city. We ask all of these things in your most honorable name. Amen. Amen. Thank you, sir. Jump off to the nitty-gritty right off the bat. Item number four on the agenda and we are going to swear in our council members of the following district. Council member District 1, Rodney Hayes. Council Member District 2, Kelsey Short. And Council Member District 3, Miss Karen Shavez. So if you all will step forward, Miss Diana will administer your oath. Okay. authority of the state of Texas. I, Robbie H. Do solemnly swear or affirm Do solemnly swear or affirm that I will faithfully execute the duties that I will faithfully execute the duties of the office of of the office of commissioner Councilman District One District of the state of Texas of the state of Texas and will to the best of my ability I will to the best of my ability preserve protect and defender preserve protect and defend the Constitution and laws the Constitution and laws of the United States of the United States and of this

state. So help me God. And of this help. Congratulations. One more time. Congratulations, Miss Kelsey. Congratulations. Glad to have you. Thank you. You too. Is it mad? They're done swearing doing their swearing in those. We'll uh proceed with item number five, which is our election of mayor pro Tim. And this term is to serve uh this is to serve a term of one year. So I'll entertain a motion for anyone that would like to nominate anybody from a motion and we stay with Rodney for the next year for Mayor Pro. I'll second. We have a motion and a second. Rodney, do you want to decline? We have a motion and a second to have Councilman Hayes continue as mayor prom. All in favor? Hi. Any opposed? That motion carries. Congratulations, Ronnie. Thank you again for your service. Mr. Juan has again, but we will catch up to him eventually. We'll move on to item number seven, which is proclamation uh for National Municipal Courts Week. Whereas the office of municipal clerk, also known as city secretary, a timehonored and vital part of local government exists through the throughout the world and is the oldest among public

servants. And whereas municipal clerks provide professional link between the citizens, the local governing bodies and the agencies of government at any at other levels. And whereas municipal clerks have pledged to be ever mindful of their neutrality, impartiality, rendering equal services to all. And whereas the municipal clerk serves as the information center on functions of local government and the community. And whereas municipal clerks continually strive to improve the administration of the affairs of their office through participation in education programs, seminars, workshops, and annual meetings of their state professional organizations. And whereas it is most appropriate that we recognize the accomplishments of the office of the municipal clerk and the vital services they perform to the city of Kermit and the public. Now therefore, I, David Hullbrook, mayor of the city of Kermit, do hereby proclaim the week of May 4th through May 10th, 2025 as municipal clerk's week in the city of Kermit and extend appreciation to our city secretary and to all municipal clerks for the vital services that they perform and their exemplary dedication to the communities that they represent. In witness whereof, I here unto you have set my hand and cause the seal of the city of Kermit to be affixed on this 20th day of May, 2025. Mr. Diana, you come forward. Mike, will you present this? On behalf of the council, we want to tell you thank you very much for keeping us informed. Thank you very [Applause] much. Our next item is proclaiming uh national our public service week. and we are honoring our cit our heroes in service to the community. Whereas public service week is a time to set aside each year to recognize the invaluable contributions of those who serve our communities in all levels and

areas of public service. And whereas the city of Kermit is built and sustained by the dedication and selflessness of public servants, including administrative personnel, sanitation workers, utility operators, parks and recreation staff, maintenance crews, and countless others who ensure our city remains safe, clean, and functioning. And whereas we also pay solemn tribute to our first responders, our pre peace officers, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, dispatchers, and other frontline workers whose courage and vigilance protect the lives and property often under the most challenging and dangerous circumstances. And whereas during this week, we pause to honor the memory of fallen peace officers and fallen firefighters who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty, laying down their lives to protect others. And whereas these heroes exemplify the highest ideals of public service, honor, duty, and sacrifice, and their legacy reminds us of the importance of standing united in gratitude for all who serve. Now therefore, I, David Hullbrook, mayor of the city of Kermit, do hereby proclaim the week of May 4th through 10th as public service week 2025 in the city of Kermit and encourage all citizens to join in recognizing the dedication, commitment, and sacrifices of our public servants, first responders, and fallen heroes. Let us thank them for their unwavering service, reflect upon the cost of our collective safety, and recommmit ourselves to the values they uphold. a witness whereof I have here unto you set my hand across the seal of the city of permit to be affixed on this 20th day of May 2025. We have we get everybody come forward that everybody they won't let you join.

I want to tell you all thank you for what y'all do. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you very much. [Applause] The only unfortunate part is we're on a budget, so we only have one of these. Thank you all very much. Thank you guys. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. In our final proclamation for May, we are recognizing May as a national military appreciation week. Whereas the month of May has been designated as National Military Appreciation Month. It is a time to honor, remember, recognize, and appreciate all military personnel, those now serving, though have served, those who have served throughout our history, and those who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our freedoms. And whereas the United States Armed Forces, Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Space Force, Coast Guard, National Guard, and Reserves stand as a symbol of freedom, courage, and unwavering dedication to the values of our nation. And whereas throughout May we observe several significant military commemorations including loyalty day May 1st, Victory in Europe Day May 8th, Military Spouse Appreciation Day May 9th, and Armed Forces Day May 17th, and also Memorial Day May 26th. Each serving as a reminder of the importance of supporting our service members and their families. And whereas the city of Kermit recognizes the strength, service,

sacrifice of the men and women in uniform, as well as the vital support of their loved ones and encourages all citizens to show gratitude for their contributions to our country and community. Now therefore, I, David Hullbrook, mayor of the city of Kermit, do hereby proclaim the month of May 2025 as National Military Appreciation Month in the city of Kermit and urge all residents, businesses, and organizations to honor, support, and thank our military members, veterans, and their families for their service and sacrifice. In witness whereof, I hear unto set my hand and cause the seal of the city of Kermit to be affixed on this 20th day of May, 2025. Do we have any veterans, past, present, or current? Can you all please come forward? Any family members of military want to come forward? [Applause] to honor. All right, moving on to item 10 on the agenda is our public comments. Mr. Eugene Gold, are you here? You want to come forward and go ahead, sir? I don't have any kids anymore, but there's sixamilies on

that teenagers and that street in the morning going to school is busy. It's worse in the afternoon. It's mostly the parents. It's not teenagers. It's parents pick up their kids. That's the first street intersection right there streets when you get out the school and go understand Anybody have any questions for Mr. Eugene? It's that street. What number block is it? I've seen I would say vehicles going up and down the street in excess of 40 miles an hour. Mr. Leroy, would you like to get up and speak? Sir, people fly up and down. Well, actually from Popular Street to D where there's a stop sign and then from D to East Avenue, everybody that lives in the 900 block of East Avenue has asked for speed bumps and a four-way stop at D and Brian. Dina Hardway has his own video or security video. Somebody's flying down

east, no down H for the loose gravel. I don't think they did the seal coating right there. graveled everywhere. They turned spinning tires going up to the school. They busted the rear window out of her Suburban. She has three small children. Miss Ethridge doesn't agree with speed bumps, but she says something needs to be done with the speed. It's not only the kids, it's the parents, too. Anyway, here's a list of names. wants it. And right now we have a stop sign just on the D side, right? Or the Brian side. D's open. There's been numerous wrecks at that intersection. Yeah. Last one. My wife was one of them. Last one somebody went in the house, I think. Did they? Yeah. And what's sad, when she was in a wreck, the guy driving didn't have a license or insurance and the passenger took off running. I mean you can't control that but anyway thank y'all for what kind of study can go ahead sir. Yes. What do we need to do as far as looking into adding additional traffic control devices? Either stop signs or speed bumps or both. We can Yeah, I think on yours we probably need speed bumps. On yours may need combination of both. We can start taking a look at I can start working with our chief to figure out maybe where we need

to be at. I know that in the past where was a traffic safety committee that was formed. Uh, but there's nothing in the ordinance that even states that the traffic safety committee would exist. So, I don't know if it was an ad hoc committee that was put together by the previous council prior to this council. Uh, but that's something we can get start. Council, do you all want to direct staff to do that? Yes. Yes, please do. Follow our direct on that piece. Cuz when you from there's not a stop sign from from Austin all the way to to 302, right? Wide open. It's wide open. You want to look into that back to council. Okay, Mr. H. I um own a small business in town and whenever I open I was made aware of a $500 every 60day charge to stay open. That's $3,000 a year. I'm lucky if I employ only high school kids. So job to do trouble. Um I call the local Mons doesn't charge at all for a food truck permit. Odessa is $300 for one time fee for a year. Andrews is $50 and Simol is 15 for 75 for 180 days. So I'm considering

that we are just a snow cone and drink. We don't do that. We can't stay open any longer. I'm sorry. You currently are We're at 600 East. Did you Did you look into that? What exactly it was? When he came over and talked to me, I thought it was $500 for a year. And he said, "No, it's not." Showed me. And I was I wrong. Like, we to look into it. That's a lot of money for That's a lot. I mean, I mean, that's not promoting food in general. They don't money makers. And how long you've been up and running? Um, this year since April. Oh, okay. Food trips are open till 10 and after or a lot of them are some of them are not all. And you said yours is just like is it drinks and snow? follow the rules and all that state has come in certify we do get certified as a food and you're there you said B you're seasonal so like April to October is it the two day that we changed yes we went from a Now we have a single day permit that can be purchased. Okay. And don't we have a stipulation if they

have a established business in town that or or business location in town that permits? Yes, sir. Are you renting that? Yes. Space. Maybe maybe something to look at because I noticed your sign was in front of the building now even though your trailer's on the side. Maybe something. Thank you. Thank you. All right. This point in time, we do have executive session. Normally tell it won't take very long, but tonight I'll tell you it shouldn't take very long. Have an auditor here. Okay. We'll go ahead and let him speak if he charges by the hour. Oh, goodness gracious. We should have put him up first before we pour in anybody. Come on down. Is he under new business? Yes. All right. Uh item G. Uh we're going to move on under new business item G and uh consider accepting the fiscal year audit. Yes. Thank you for coming in tonight. Good evening. My name is Tyler Kennedy. I'm the audit partner in charge from BSGM and we're out of love, Texas. It's our first year doing audit work for you all. So, um kind of a change in perspective, I think, on a few things and and just kind of getting to know each other. in front of y'all today. Hopefully you have a copy of the audit report and the in our letter to government. There you go. So, you know, the goal is

not to read this word for word. You know, there's there's a lot of information in this document. You know, whether it's talking about your liabilities or your assets. Um, so I usually do this in two parts. Um, the first part we about kind of compliance um findings that we had as we did our audit work and then we can kind of take a quick look at your financial position and go over some of that information. Um so um compliance wise the first thing I usually start with is we have a letter that's included with the audit report. In this letter there's a lot of good information. It's really a letter directly between us the auditor and you the governance of the entity. Um in this letter we talk about changes in accounting principles, changes in accounting policy, anything that will affect the financial statements from from year to year as well as some other goodies. Um we we go into disagreements with management um misstatements that we found as a part of our audit procedure uh and and as well as our ongoing relationship with you all and the auditor. And so just covering that information, you know, uh work working with Kermit this year for us was, you know, it was straightforward. Um if the information was available, it was it was certainly given to us timely. So we we certainly appreciated that. There was an upload of our RFI so we could get some of the work done um prior to us showing up here. So we appreciate all of that. And and and as far as disagreements or any of that, you know, there was really none of that between us and and the staff here at the city. The one thing that I would point you to is at the end of this whole charade of the audit process, our goal is to produce an audit report that has financial information in it, right? And so um the rules that guide how we do the debits and credits that go into the audit report are defined by GAP generally accepted accounting principles and and those are um at times can be hard to follow for smaller entities. Um you know and especially if you have uh water and sewer funds um sanitation funds um

that's really where the the pitfalls come as we see it from the outside looking in. We find that most of our West Texas cities um really keep their books on what we would consider more of a budgetary basis of accounting. And I think y'all y'all would fall into that bucket. And so um we we did have to make 21 audit entries to get from your records to what we have included in this audit report. And so that's just a number, right? Um I would I would tell you that most of that is related to the water and sewer fund. And the accounting in the water and sewer fund is further away from budgetary accounting than your general fund um would be because general fund is more of a short-term approach to accounting. You know, fixed assets are expenses. They're not assets that go on the balance sheet and get capitalized and appreciated. Long-term debt is inflows or revenues. And so, um we spend a lot of our work really getting in the water and sewer fund getting those records. what I would consider to be fairly stated. So, um, just putting that in y'all, you know, out there for y'all. We're doing a substantial amount of work, um, to to get this audit report today that has a clean opinion on it. And so, we'll cover that letter for y'all as we get into the to the financial information. Um, I would I would certainly ask y'all questions, comments about the information that I'm putting forward kind of as the as the precursor to looking at the financial information. Um I would certainly tell you that um you know Leanne Dumbold was here when we were doing the audit and I would be you know it takes highle folks like that to make sure reconciliations are happening. We're looking after we enter it to see if it makes sense. Where did it go in the budget? Right? Does that make sense where it went in the budget? Does that expense make sense to recognize in this period versus that period? And so I was certainly wary about the city of Kermit's records when

it comes to being audited as we move forward to the extent there's not really somebody at that level looking over the shoulder on a periodic basis. And so um you know whether it's her or somebody else or whoever it is I I certainly think that I would feel the need to push y'all in that direction um at the end of this conversation. Certainly um make sure there's somebody there watching ordinances and how the accounting and financials just like changing the gentleman that just asked about changing those fees, right? So, if y'all change it here at council, how do we make sure that gets implemented down to the accounting, right, when they come in and get that um permit, right? How do we make that make sure that that information is what's pushed to the forefront of our accounting softwares? And so, it's very complex is what I ought to tell you. And and you know, we're not at control. Certainly, we're looking looking at those things but on a test basis, right? It's not every transaction that happens through and so I would kind of follow that into um our findings that we had for 202's audit and and certainly if you'all have questions along the way, stop me. We can go into more detail and cover those. Um so inside of the bound audit report um on pages 57 and 58 or 56 and 57 of the audit report um we are reporting two findings that we had um as a result of our procedures that we performed here at city of Kermit and and both are uh you might note are kind of vague vaguely worded. um it's really meant to encompass probably more than two findings, but in a way I think that's digestible um to the to the reader of the financial statements. And so on page 56 um the finding that we're reporting to

you all is is basically I think a finding that happens a lot of times at cities, right? Um we implement an accounting software and in that original implementation we had we have a set of rates for services. what we're dealing with. And the further you get away from that original implementation date of those rates or that rate structure, what we tend to see is that um you might have accounts that are not updated to the new rate structure. Um you might have a billing clerk that doesn't agree with the new rate structure. Um and so there's a whole control process that uh there um that really revolves around information from council. How do we get that into the software and how do we make sure that what's in the software is reliable and producing good bills for our customers? Um, and so, you know, we would I would probably tell you that historically that's been really weak here at city and and not a lot of controls have really been put around that because one of the things that we noticed when we were doing our test of customer bills is that there's not a lot of large variances. So, we usually get gallons build, right? But if there's auxiliary charges, we tend to have variance among customers here at city of permanent. And so one of the things that we would we would probably recommend or uh um before we would do another complete audit for you all is it is it is kind of a rate redesign or um going into the software and on a customer basis all of your customers looking at all of those customers and making sure the rates um from the rate tables up to auxiliary charges are right for everybody here at city of Kermit. And that's a monumental task and and we know that is but um it's it becomes hard to appine on your revenues um to the extent that we find deficiencies in our testing around customer bills. So that would be our first uh finding to report to you all. And and then the secondary finding um that that we're reporting to you all is use of uh

is really front-end controls that we can implement um on uh softwares that we have, computers that we have to make sure that people can't do certain things in the in in the in the accounting structure. So um the thing that I would point to first there would be billing adjustments, right? Just because we think that um the billing clerk won't make billing adjustments doesn't mean that that won't happen. And so we can use softwares to make sure that those things are not available um to employees to make sure that there's not what we call in the fraud triangle the opportunity of risk of fraud. And so um we we we would certainly think that anything you could do to lock down the abilities of your uh employees here um as it as it goes to me customer billings and use of the software um from a from a password perspective would certainly be something that we would recommend um be be reviewed and make sure that everybody's on the same page as far as abilities. So um you know I would go on to lead you into discussion that said um what happens if we only have so many passwords and we don't want to take the billing adjustment mechanism away from our billing clerk. Well there's other things that you can do to make sure that that's not happening. We can review adjustment reports monthly daily. So there's other things out there, right? We would just like y'all to choose what process works best for you and implement it here at City of Kermit. Um because as far as City of Kermit goes, we would tell you that the number one area of misstatement fraud or the ability to get funds from the city would be through the customer billing system, right? Um you you also operate, you know, we we have court or police issues, you know, so anything we're doing service-wise um where we're getting a fee is certainly out there. This is just the thing to look at and so really where we spend a lot of our time around the 2024 audit um questions, concerns, comments. So

those are the those are the things that we're reporting and really you know probably not the funnest conversations to have but certainly I wanted to make sure that we got in front of you today and gave you I would tell you that as we went through the year um we certainly noticed a remarkable change from um accounting transactions from October 1, 2023 as we move forward to the that year. And so, you know, we would hope that that continued and certainly that the transaction and the journal entry cleaner as we look at that information because it certainly makes interesting auditing when you have information from here to there. Okay. So, that's really the records and and kind of compliance and things of that nature. If y'all are good there, I would move on and kind of just give you a quick look at your position. I know we're quite a bit removed from September 30th, but I still think there's some good information in here that we could cover that would still give you some some benefit as of as of May 2025. Anyway, um so first thing, you know, you hired us first and foremost to give you an opinion on statements on page one of the audit report. Um we do give you that clean opinion and so certainly I would ask you to take into account that we were making journal entries to get there. In paragraph two on page one, we tell you in our opinion uh the financial statements referred to above present fairly and all material respect the respective financial position of city attorney Texas as of and for the hearing of September 30, 2024. And so that wording, if you can't tell, was written by lawyers um but means that we give a clean opinion on the financial statements. We think that the information in here is free of material misstatement based on our case. Um, and then moving on to the to the financial statements, um, I I would cover for you exhibit A3 on page 12. And so this is, you know, as

we as we look at city of permit and your funds that you're using to uh, keep your records here at the city. Um, we really break those up into two different buckets. Um, things we're selling um, service revenues for, where we intend to run it like a business, and then we have things where we get um what we call non-exchange revenues and we use those funds um to the best of our ability to provide services for the um for the constituents here in city government. And so starting with the general fund um the thing that I would point you to first is we have unassigned fund balance of $3.9 million at the end of 2024 and giving context to that I think is is an important thing to do. And so the the way that Texas Municipal League measures your fund balance as a sign of health would be that you need between three and six months of unassigned fund balance as you move forward to the next fiscal year. And y'all are hovering right around four months of unassigned fund balance. So general fund looks, you know, healthy, not overly healthy, right? So we have some places that we go audit where they got two years of unassigned fund balance. You know, that's probably not the best thing either. So, you know, hovering somewhere in the middle there is something you're kind of looking for and plenty of liquidity on hand in the general fund as of the as of September 30th. And the fund that we're presenting as major there for your governmental funds. The first bucket is your hotel motel fund. And as it goes in oil field country, that thing usually carries a lot of money, right? Because it, you know, you have folks in and out of the city doing business up at oil field. And certainly that's not, you know, that kind of fits the bill. And it had 1.9 million of the signed for, you know, promoting tourism and the things that you can use the hotel motel tax funds, which is not anything, right? You can't go out and pay police with So it looks good on paper, but you got to use it for what it state stipulated use for. And so you'll notice that we have it restricted as restricted fund balance and it's not flowing through to your unsigned fund

balances. So that's a look at your governmental funds and and um and on the balance sheet anyways. And then we could look at exhibit A8 on page 17 and we have a look at your water utility system and your solid waste system proprietary funds. And so these funs are Oh, I'm sorry. A7, page 16. On page 16, um, we do have your balance sheets for your water and solid waste systems. And so, as I was mentioning earlier, we have two separate bases of accounting and financial statements. And in these funds, what makes them so tricky is we have them on the full acral basis. All assets are assets. They're not expenses where we budget for them. Long-term debt goes on the books. We have to recognize our pension, our oped liabilities that we we're promising to our employees also in these funds. So, you know, as mentioning those journals earlier, that's really where a lot of the work is spent um as far as getting these financial statements for the material statement. Um and so the thing I would point you to here on exhibit A7 is that um the the water utility system had cash and cash equivalence of $9.6 million at the end of September 30, 2024 and unrestricted net position is 9 million. And so we have liquidity and availability. That's kind of the theme. I think that the city of Kermit, you know, we're talking about records, but we still have financial help, right? And so I still think that that's an important thing to highlight when you're when you're talking about managing the city's finances. So um that that's kind of the indicator that I look for when I'm talking about these funds is we have uh you know, is our cash on hand similar to our unrestricted fund balances or unrestricted net position. That means that we can use that cash. It's not restricted. purpose that we that we've already defined as of that date. And then the solid waste system is is very similar of just under a million dollars there in the solid waste fund and unrestricted net position of $786,000 there in the solid waste fund.

Um the other things I would point out that are kind of pointing towards a pretty healthy economic outlook is when you look at the income statements for these funds on a on a year-to-year basis, we are seeing increases in fund balance and increases in that position. water and and solid waste funds. So I I think overall a sign of pointing towards financial health that um to the extent you needed that would be certainly something that they're looking at from a lender perspective. So the the last two things that I would really want to cover with y'all today would be just looking at our pension plans. Right? So as a council at some point along the way we promised our employees benefits and they they get paid these benefits after they retire. And so I think it's import keep your finger on what sort of liability do we have hanging over our heads for these benefits that we promise to employees is good, bad or somewhere in the middle. So, um and we present that information uh in this audit report. And so, I would also just quickly cover that with you all. Um so, on exhibits B1, uh two and three um in the back of the audit report on p starting on page 45, we have a schedule that's gotten too to read easily. Um, but this is a 10-year comparative schedule. And so, uh, we would spit split your retirement benefits up into two pools. Um, we have the supplemental death benefit that we give to employees and then we also have a pension benefit that we give to employees after they retire. And so, this will be the uh the second of those, the pension. Um, and as of the last measurement date for this audit, which was December 31st, 2023, um, you'll notice on the right hand side of exhibit B1 at the very bottom, the pension plan was 87.6% funded, um, at the end of the year. And so, you know, we do 30 35 of these throughout the year and what I would tell you is probably somewhere

around 85% would be a healthy funded percentage. you know, we have folks that are 130% funded. You know, I don't necessarily think that that's great, right? Because you can't call um you can't call TMRS and say, "Give us that money back. We gave you too much." Right? There's no way to get it back. And so, managing that over the long run would be something that I think is something they probably if they come here to council every so often would be talking to you about. The one thing that I would note is the further you are away from 100% funded, the annual uh service requ percentage that you're matching and the employees are paying um is going to well that you're matching is going to be higher than it would be if you were over 100% funded. Right? So um on exhibit B2 we have two uh two two separate sections um and just kind of looking at that information. We have the the top line item which is the actuarial determined contribution and so that's the amount that TMRS says you must pay this to be part of this plan. And then the the the the line item below that is what you actually contributed. And you'll notice for the year end of 930 2024 that you actually overcontributed to the plan by $16,000. So helping to increase that funded status anytime you go over and above that would be something that you could do to get closer to 100% funded faster. But you, one of the other things I think the schedule's also good at is pointing towards just the over a 10-year period, the inflation or the amount that you're having to contribute extra from 10 years ago is almost $200,000 um to be a part of that plan. And so just something that I want to put in front of you so you have your eye on it and you're familiar with that information as as I come into this first year and do this for you all. I don't think any of that's good, bad, but I certainly want you all to be aware of it. you know, if you were 60% funded, um, that's certainly not a good place to be. So, but wanted to point that out to you. And then the the last thing is on

exhibit B3, you do offer a supplemental death benefit through PMRS to your employees. And that benefit pays out at various at a pretty a set amount. And you can't really do a lot here to change what this liability is, but it really represents for people who haven't taken that benefit yet or aren't available to get that benefit, the liability associated with funding the plan on it on a 30-year approach. So, and that liability at the end of September 30, 2024 was approximately $174,000. And I would tell you that you can't really do much. It's that's really what I would call a gap liability or something we must do in these financial statements to make them compliant with GAP. Um, so we put it in there, but there's not a whole lot you can do to control that. So you can't go to TMRS and give them $175,000 and say, "Make this zero." You know, that's just not how that plan works. So just putting that out there for you. So I think, you know, that was the information that I really wanted to put in front of y'all tonight. Um, certainly a lot of change, you know, with DSGM here doing this audit for you. And so if y'all have questions, concerns, or comments, I'd happy to entertain. how we do things what we're looking at specifically I do on p on page four yes um the last bullet point there talks about our operating revenues decreasing by 240,000 on uh page four on page report yes Okay. The last bullet point. Do you think that number could be related to the utility clerk? We're not we're not our fingers at anybody and we're not fraud auditors. So I would

tell you that fraud auditors are very detail oriented and they go through every transaction. What we would tell you is the ability is there and that's really what concerns us, right? We want to take away the ability through controls or other things we can do. And so that's what I really um that would be my report to you. But no um you know I don't have the the analytic data in front of me but there usage is certainly a thing year to year that we would have seen drop um So this would have been um 2024 summer really you would get most of your revenue for the water and sewer funds kind of July, August, September and so really what I see a lot of times is how that be what we are saying is that we can do things with controls to make sure that we can't point our finger at people. Thank you so much for all this information. I have listened to these reports for the last three years and this is the most detailed information I think we've ever gotten. Yes. Thank you so much. Well, I mean there's a lot in here and I'm certainly on I'm probably covering about 25% of it, but I think it's the most important data that you could read in the audit report, you know, without the context and kind of us talking through it. It's just numbers on paper, you know. So, and if you have more questions, you know, we I'd be happy to come back and cover it with you. I've got one. because I don't know what it means on on B1 net pension liability as a percentage of covered payroll. Yeah. So this is okay. B1. So this is just one of another another measurement standard. Um but so your covered payroll would be um how much are you paying employees for the whole all of their salaries for the year that would qualify as matching? um to TMRS and so um for the whole year if you took your liability and divided it by 62.626% 26% that would have been your cover.

That would have been the amount that you that you paid for the whole whole year to employees that would have been matched from um and it's really a measurement tool that's looking at um if you get over 100% there, not good, right? Because you would be your unfunded liability would be equal to what you pay employees annually. So that that was what led me to that question. And in 2018 we were at 131% and this year we were at 62.2. Yeah. So some fluctuations there. Um and certainly we were not your auditor then. And so I wouldn't know what went into that data. Um I know how we do it and that's the measurement that we use if we look at um your payroll that you would match based upon or that qualifies to match based upon for TRS. And then and then um and then that would be your covered payroll and we would divide that by your liability to get to that percentage. Would it have anything to do with with employees starting to age out at that 2018 range? You know what I mean? We have more liability because we start paying those pensions out or I would generally think that that would the thing that I'm looking at immediately is that your funded ratio is down substantially that year. Um net investment income is down that year. And then um um benefit payments are kind of heading up is is kind of the numbers that I'm seeing. Okay. Um that are driving that decrease in the liability. Um now it would probably I would probably think that you might have had some retirements that year and you had some new folks on staff that may not been making as much. Okay. Um that's certainly something that could answer that question as well, but I don't have that. I'm sorry. I don't No, you're good. Let's just I wonder why we were half half the percent. Anybody have any other questions for Mr. Tyler? Based on uh the findings and the would

you recommend like just re-evaluate in a year or should we come back and visit in six months, three months? Well, I mean Mike, I don't want to step on you. Um, you know, so here's the thing that we have is is complexity drives errors, right? And so if we could have a single rate for water that that worked for everybody and would generate the revenues or would point the revenues where you wanted, that would be most ideal, right? Um but the more granular you get or you start pointing um charges to certain groups of people or usage or users, you want to you want to maybe uh preserve water, so you maybe have a ratchet, right? So the more complex we get with rates, the harder it is for our systems to have those embedded in them. Right? I'm not saying that it can't do them. I'm just saying that that's where the complexities arise. So, um I would I would almost recommend I think that in the response there we're talking about a cost of service, maybe a rate, a new rate look or something of that nature, and then a customer by customer. We need to go into everybody's accounts and make sure that here's where they are on the map. Here's the charges we have associated with their with with those folks. Um are they right? Are they wrong? Um you know, I think to be from the ground up and just I think it's been not done not reviewed that way for a long time and so I would just recommend that and that's a t I know that's a big burden. I know I'm asking a lot out of out of y'all here. Um and so I'm not going to look at you and say that that's not a large burden but I that's what I would you know from the ground up. Okay. Thank you. I hear a motion to accept the fiscal year 2023 2024 audit from BGM as presented. I'll make a motion to accept the audit as presented.

Second a motion and a second to accept the audit as presented by Mr. Tyler. All in favor? Any oppos? Just kind of so you know of course when we brought in I told you the first I think it's evident based on two things one uh what she did at the time that she was here to get our book straightened out in a manner that was actually presentable and I think now you saw a gradual improvement from October one of 23 into the summer as our audit came in. And the second one was recommendation by uh Leanne to bring in this group in order to be able to do the audit and switching auditors, which I think is always a great thing to do after four or five years of doing that. Uh but I can tell you that one of the things that that we've had a discussion on is that utility rate study that we were talking about. Uh and the more extensive piece of that would be pretty much an audit as was talking about auditing the accounts uh which is going to be a much more invasive extensive uh process which we have to bring individuals in to do that which is not out of the realm possibility is kind of council aware the other side of that is the complexity by which we do have some of our accounting structures and accounting we do funds uh and then we begin when we begin to start talking about these projects and now you're talking about bringing you know, capital improvement projects, the complexity that that will now bring in and maintaining that, make sure that we're providing the necessary information that we need for the bond market, uh, for the investors, but also keeping in compliance with the auditing

aspect of it. Uh, I think that one of the things that that recommended, which I think I've mentioned to you in the past, is a embedded services through a organization that we can reach out to that would be able to embed a kind of a lifer. I call them that chief financial officer that has been with another city organization that simply retired and now just taken on projects and we could be one of their projects. They can come in and continue to maintain that same level of auditing and accounting that Leanne bought us. And so that's one of the next steps that we would look at and try to get to that point. We've been kind of I'm sorry. I've been kind of holding off to see kind of what schedule looks like. Uh because, you know, if I can get her back, I would, you know, again, I'd like to always get my fresh draft pick back. Um, but she seems to be pretty heavily involved now with the city of Farmers Ranch based on conversations I've had with her. So I think it's now time for me to start looking at other service to bring in someone that has that experience that we can continue to maintain this level of accounting. I think we have complexity of it so that we can continue to move forward in having these audits where they become pretty much clear and free of any type of mismanagement or any type of management that they would want responses to. So I think that's That's the next one we talked about in Yeah, I I would I would I would tell you and I think all of us are busy the auditors in West Texas, but um I've certainly been contacted over the last few years by many many cities to do their work and a lot of them are unudable and when you get unudable you can't get debt, you can't get grants and There's a there's a whole level there. You get behind under audits and it's

kind of a bad deal. And you know, with the independent standards that we're we adhere to now, you know, we can't come and fix it and then audit it. And and so there's kind of a line there that's kind of been drawn in the sand, but I would I would certainly I would be a second for anything. I think there still probably needs just from a you know debits and credit standpoint or pushing buttons or monthly reconciliations you know there's probably folks here that can do a lot of that but from the top down reconciliations um monitoring compliance with GAP I think that there's probably a spot there for somebody thank you sir thank you appreciate you all right thank you all so much you're off the clock at 7:26 I don't know I don't I don't want to be rude, but I I was certainly gonna head back to Leic unless y'all had anything else for me. Thank you. Thank you. Jumping back to item 11, we're going to adjourn into executive session. I I honestly I don't think it take 15 minutes probably the most. We just like to remind all of y'all it's 7:26 p.m. and we're going to adjourn into executive session. Thank you. Stove up too much work.

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get what I'm doing. We ran everybody off, didn't we? I know. We need going session more often. We had trouble makers lately. Ronnie, that one guy you called him your neighbor. Who is he married to? I I don't know. He used to be one of the um air traffic controllers up at the Hobs airport. And um they've lived here good while. I can't think of who the lady is. I don't know his wife's I can't think of his wife's name. They used to come softball in the little league games. That's where I'd seen. I can't think of who who his wife is.

We are going to reconvene after executive session with no items to discuss. Moving on to item 13, our consent agenda. These items consider uh to consider be the minutes from April 1st and April 24th, accounts payable and investment. Yeah. Closest I've ever been. Okay. So, we do have our consent agenda items in our minutes. Did we get Tony's gas card fixed? Believe so. We got to keep asking. Okay. They built one room and uh I'm sorry those are the water. So we have to provide a a room a shelter at the um water tanks. So we have our coordinators rooms. We have to have SCBA outside of where the machine is at. And so it's a requirement by TCQ and they when they came out did their inspection they kind of got us on that one. So we built two rooms in order to be able to hold the SCBA material and equipment. In the event that something happened, they just put that on rescue. It's a rescue type. Okay. So this whole all this is that building for those two rooms. Those two rooms. Okay. Yeah, we have one over at 302.

Oh, Underwood and Walton. Okay. I see where Park Hill is getting after the meter the metering infrastructure. We had our first pre-construction meeting with Premier Waterworks last week and so we are now beginning that project. Great. Okay. The other Monarch stuff, the concrete slab, that's part of that same building or different park. Yeah. So, we have a concrete side that we put over at Plaza Park. And if you go out there, you take a look, we have two 5,000 gallon tanks that going to be used with a company in town called 5D Water has taken they're buying water from us and they're going to filtrate it even more for natural gas plants and have to have it pure for the igniters. And so they're using about uh 67% of the water. So they're still discharging about a third of it. As opposed to simply sending it down to our ponds, our wastewater ponds. We worked out a deal with them to uh take that water, transport it to the tanks, and we're going to use that to water the parks. And so the first one is over Plaza. And then from there we'll move uh try to get one over at cemetery and also actually probably best cemetery because we use a lot of water at cemetery. We don't know if they have enough water discharge to do that. Right now they're pulling in about 30,000 gallons a day and so they're going to be discharging about 10,000 gallons a day. At this point in time, they anticipate that within the next few months, actually about a year or so, they'll be up to about 100,000 that they'll be purchasing from and back.

Is there anything in the refuge? Microlastics or I mean, is it tested? No, all it is is our current water that they're buying from us, right? Is our drinking water. They're just purifying even more, taking out all the certain and as they stated to us, there's nothing wrong with the water. It's just that PCQ does not allow them to put it back in the system. So, they have to discharge it and what we have to mark it as nonpable water, but the reality is based on what they're tell you actually go and drink that water. All you got is just little extra minerals in the water. So the water be very pure when they take it to the natural gas. Are they putting the tanks in or is So you said they will they're going to put the tanks in and then the pumps and they're putting the concrete slab also and the transportation and Yeah. And they're doing it all. So they're paying for the all this. They have the initial cost and if you notice in the water rates that you have is that which we'll discuss later there's an item in there for them to get a discounted rate on the water until the project is paid for. So there's no initial cost from the city which is built in over the cost of water. So we paid this to Monarch and build it back to them. Yes. Okay. I would be very hesitant to use that on the cemetery. We don't know exactly what's in it, but it might affect There's nothing in it. There's nothing in it. It's our water. I mean, everybody says there's nothing in it. Well, it's the current water that you drink. It's our city, but it's refuge. I mean, it might have micro plastic. It might have electromagnetic particle. It It's If it's been through industrial Well, it's not industrial. It's not industrial

until it leaves the plant till it leaves the plant here in Kermit and it goes to the natural gas plants. We're not getting that water. They're taking our water. They're taking, as example, they're taking 100 gallons of water from us out of the tap. They're purifying it even more so and taking out all of the uh the BDMs out of it. And then at that point in time, they're taking that 66 or 67% of that which is now even more pure because they out. That's what they're taking to the natural gas plants. The remnant water that that third that's left, that's what's being put out onto the parks. There's nothing wrong with it. It's simply drinking water that they've taken the minerals out of the the two/3 of it. They've taken the minerals out of that one, put it over here, and that's it. That's all they've done. It's not the water coming back from the natural gas. That's not what it is. When they take the water out there, we never see it again. It just keeps it from going into the sewer system into the the wastewater pump. So they take this group of water and they're refining it. Are they desalination? No, they're just refining. There's no there's no salinization. Okay. So they're just they're just filtering it. Yeah, it's our current drink water. filter and whatever third they're taking the minerals out of 2/3 putting it back into a third and we're getting that back. We're getting all of our original back and the reason for doing that mayor was mentioning if we sent that down to the wastewater pond now we're looking at having to add another Yeah. Yeah. We're right at teetering on the edge of needing keeps us from having to do that by simply using that water that rem water that we're going to send down to the pond and we're going to use it to water. Now, according to TCG rules,

we're going to have to use it. We have to mark it as nonpable water, but there's really nothing wrong with it. Okay. Yeah, they're not adding anything and it's approved by TCQ. It's just it's just even more purified water than what you have already. We have a water right now superior and back to consent agenda items. The only other thing I had in the bills was Level Hammerheads Carpentry and this was marked as ad under the advertisement column page four. Oh, I think that was the replacement of at the shop in order to do the Okay, makes sense. Any further questions on the consent agenda item? I'm just going to move on to the investment report. Okay. Section. I just want to thank Caesar and his staff for the no truck signs around town. Other than that, I don't have anything. Anybody else? I make a motion we approve consent agenda A, B, and C. Second motion and second to approve agenda item consent agenda items A, B, and C. All in favor? Any opposed? Thank you. Moving on to 14, old business. We're going to discuss and consider on second reading ordinance 25501 which is a petition by Kermit MPS LLC for release of extr territorial jurisdiction and if y'all remember right we can't we can't dispute it so it's just a formality

basically and the supporting documents are there I make a motion we approve second reading ordinance 25-1 Second. Do I have to read that ordinance, Mike? Oh, I'm sorry. I don't think so. No, I just Okay. Have a motion, a second to approve the second reading of ordinance 251. All in favor? Any opposed? Thank you. Okay. Moving on to new business. Discuss and consider appointment of Dan Seal to the Kermit City of Kermit Board of Adjustments. I think uh Councilman Short, Council Person Short reached out to him and he did agree. That was the one uh position we had remaining. So, okay. I think all we need is a motion and a second. Can I make the motion we reappoint Dan Seal to the current board of adjustments? Second. Have a motion and a second to reappoint Dan Hill to the city of Kermit board of adjustments. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. Item B is discuss and consider resolution 258 which was creating the Kermit Economic Development Corporation and approving the bylaws and to take other necessary steps to finalize the creation of the Kermit Economic Development Corporation type B. This was passed by the voters item is exactly that. After the vote has taken place, we now have to incorporate the EC along with that there will be bylaws. We have to the reason that you find on there necessary to finalize is in the event that other documents have to be submitted by Slater to the comproller to the attorney general that he would just be authorized to be able to go ahead and send in those documents in his the bylaws and the certificate of formation to them which basically now establishes our type econ. There are some nuances in there that you

find you're deleting the bylaws. Essentially, the bylaws state that there will be seven board members that will serve appointed by the council. Uh the initial there actually there will be twoear staggered terms. However, in order to get the uh board started, the the bylaws are written such that uh positions one, three, five, and seven of the board members will serve the initial two-year term. And positions two, four, and six will serve a one-year term. And then we'll be reappointed after that for a two-year term. And that's where we'll begin the staggering that will take place. I will let you know that the positions that they have at one and seven are numbered based on your districts. So, uh one, two, three, four, and five are based on the district numbers that are assigned to you. Uh position six and seven are appointments by the mayor. So, position six will be an appointment and position seven will be an appointment by the mayor as well. But that will be the the position of the president. So the council will be voting on the president also based on the appointments that are provided to be and so yeah so what happens is that uh if you are in as an example position one place one then we would look that u the uh district one represent such as yourself would find an appointment. If if there's no one that you find, then they could recommend an appointment through another council member saying, you know, I know uh you know, John Doe is interested in serving, and if you're fine with it, then that could be your appointment. I will let

you know that the that state law allows up to four uh either elected or appointed officials, which could be also any city employees to serve. However, the bylaws state that no more than two Council members will serve on the economic development corporation. So, two members of this council could serve on the EDC as a member of the EDC. Uh, but I I will let you know also that this does not prohibit a council member from appointing a city employee as a citizen to that EDC board. Just kind of FYI. So our our first move is to create the is is to approve the resolution which creates the current ECD and also approve the bylaws and then creation formation and then the next step we'll get to will be appointing members with that. We have to do it two different steps. Okay. I'll make a motion. We Consider resolution 258 creating the perma economic development corporation and approving the bylaws. I'll second. We have a motion and a second to approve resolution 258 which creates the Kermit Economic Development Corporation and approves the bylaws. All in favor? Any opposed? That motion carries. Okay. Now moving on. It's this is where Mike was talking about is to discuss and consider appointing members to the current type B economic development corporation which you just approved. So uh if you're ready at this time which we really kind of need to take some names uh we can we can go through by district and then if you don't have a person you'd like to

recommend I have some people that have reached out and we'll go from there. Mike, do we want to give them the caveat of the MDD as well so that they kind of know? We can actually discuss that. Also, I think one of the things that we had discussed is that um just so you know the appointment of the board because of the size of our city then the representative can be out of Wro County. That's what the state law says that it can be out of the county that you reside in or the cityorated. corporation incorporated. Um I think the desire to have someone to be either within the city limits or the ETJ for the city of Kermit is is the desire in order to be able to have that. Of course, as you remember, the ETJ resides from one mile of limits out based again on our population. U so that's kind of what we had uh the desire of that. Now, you know, Slater and I kind of agree with that. However, Uh there have been entities and cities that I've been at where the EDC board is different than the I mean type B board is different than the type A board as an example. And so there are some caveats in there that you can do. Uh as I mentioned, you know, the bylaws state there's only two people from the council can serve on it. Doesn't prohibit individuals that are employees also being on it. Uh doesn't prohibit you from appointing somebody in week. uh it doesn't prohibit you from appointing somebody that lives out in the country on the edge going into county. As long as they're in W County, they can show a residence in Wer County. That's simply entirely acceptable uh based on the state statute that exist. But I think as we mentioned the preference was to have someone within the city limits of Kermit and the uh

ETJ understanding that whenever a a deal comes economic bill deal comes the funds will be used to to incentivize that corporation or that company will come from the EDC sales tax that we're collecting and the MD sales tax that we're collecting. So the uh the board that they hear that one deal because it's just going to be one pool of money that we're looking at trying to uh to provide that incentive for that that uh economic development purpose and that's that's reason we're you know we can have two discussions and the the thought is that whenever we come together that they will have a joint meeting between the EDC and the MDD because we have the seven board members but it doesn't say that we can have an EDC meeting you gave out and you go meeting to an MD So I mean those are that those are just some of the the possibilities that are there. Uh you know there are some preferences but it's it's whatever the council wants to do. So your appointee can serve on both. Yes. Okay. Or you can have two separate appointees. That makes sense. They just have to g out being distri one. You want to you have any names for consideration? We can come back to you. I can nominate my husband, Cody Short. Um, at one of my TMO meetings, we discussed that up to five members of an EDC board can also be spouses of council or immediate family. Yeah, I don't think there's any prohibition against that. That's up to five. And that's when Well, I know Rodney

hadn't asked anybody because I can't think of anybody. What about you, Ashley or Derek? I don't know. I talked to them. I mean, they're young couple. Could ask them for sure. Do we have to have names tonight? Well, in order to get the appointed and if we don't have a full board then we could bring it back but the plan is to get started projects that we discussed in session and to have that deal would you just need a majority of the board to get it started and then next month they can appoint the remainder if we don't have a majority I mean after the majority so we would need at least four names tonight so you've already got three two You got some names. Yeah, I've got I've got three names. And then so I I was thinking of Whitey McDaniel for president. And then I have Denise George, which is Mile's wife. She's expressed a lot of interest in it. Who's Miles George with Rango? They do a lot chamber. They he owns He has a drone service. Supplies. count of cho. Yeah, possibly. And then uh Irvy Peneda

said he would serve if anybody needed a person to serve. So you have those names if if they appeal to any of y'all. If they don't, then I'll narrow my three down to two and that'll give us a majority and then we can come back next month and back. The city employees and any of the city employees Well, my thought was and he said the survey because they're building that new the new cleaners building. Yeah. Kelsey interested in doing it. Who? Kelsey. Ask him. Would you be interested? No. Who's Kelsey? I wouldn't think so. She's busy enough. And I can tell you that Councilwoman Williams did give me a name. Actually, she gave me two names. One was that was Joanie Taylor, I think. Taylor. And then another name was herself. Was that all of them out there? That was the three names I had. Joanie Taylor and Judy Williams. She had Yeah, those are the names that that Council Williams Taylor has won, but she said that she would be very interested in serving on the EC board as well. Your decision everybody. Did you decide who Irving? Yeah, Irving. I was writing a couple of names down. He was kind of the first one because he did volunteer. And then you said he had volunteered with your That gives us uh right now we have five and we can accept Judy either herself or Joanie make six and then we can come back to those two later. It doesn't you

don't have to make a decision tonight since we have a majority. So right now we have one is Irby pened. Second is Cody Short Jose Chavez. Greg still thinking Judy has two names that we can either narrow down or let her decide next month. Denise George and number six and you said the president would be spot seven, right Mike? So we've all told May Whitey since he's on a cruise for that. Let me ask you a question. Would it be a good experience for assistant? Great, great experience. I'm going to nominate him. And he can't say no. No. No. I don't think he's talking knows I'm talking about he can't. Okay. So, learn did say that she would serve. Okay. So, let's put Judy. So, let's read these names real quick. How? And y'all tell me if anything. Pened one, Cody Short two, Jose Chavez three, Jamemy Ramos four, Judy Williams five, Denise George six, and Whitey number seven, which will serve as president. If he volunteered, then he he does not know. Okay. But he will. Yeah, he will start code violating him and all kinds of things till he gives in. Okay. So, we have that list of names to uh I hear a motion. I'll make a motion to accept the list of names for the EDC um spots to be filled um that you just named. Okay, second. Okay, we have a motion and a second to approve the list proposed by council and mayor to form the board of the EDC. All in favor? Any opposed? Motion carries. Now,

moving on and this goes hand in hand. Uh the 25 resolution 259 is to create our current MDD. Basically the same thing. We have to take the bywalls, approve those, and then create a list. We can use the same list if y'all so desire for item E. But item D is consider and approve resolution 259 for the permanent MDD. I make a motion we consider and approve resolution 259. I'll second. Have a motion and a second to approve resolution 259 creating Kermit MDD. All in favor? Any opposed? Moving on to item E. Dis discussion. Consider appointing members to the Kermit Municipal District Corporation. My two names will stay the same. Ronda, you want to keep your name the same for that board? Yes. Kelsey. Well, I was going to change names, but if everybody else is going to keep their name easier, I'm gonna change the question, right? And and it keeps it simple, but it also all they have to do is adjourn that meeting, come back to the second one. So, it it doesn't. So, if you want to appoint somebody else, you're more than welcome. I'd like to appoint Misty Smith. So stay in four dirty look. So keep Judy in five, Denise. George in six and Whitey in seven. Joey Misty Smith was too. Did you get that?

Okay. So, we have a list. Do I have a motion to accept the list as presented? Make a motion to accept the list as presented. Second. Have a motion and second to accept the list presented by council and mayor for members of Kermit MDD. All in favor? Any oppos? Okay. Okay. Moving on to item F. discuss and consider the proposal from Kimley Horn for the Kermit assisted living facility located in 2000 Tommy Thompson Avenue and accept the task list and fee estimate provided in our pack as you're familiar with Thompson. We're now beginning the process of the demolition to that point. There is a lot of required steps to get to that point from an environmental standpoint, regulatory licensing, ensuring that we're meeting the asbestous requirements. And so I've engaged Kimley Horn, which by the way, I'm thankful that you allowed me to have a a qualified engineer. It made so much easier. Uh so I've engaged Kimley Horn to begin to start that process. So, what you have before you is a estimate of what we it would take to get to the point of the demolition process. Uh, which I'm sure they would probably help us at that point from a bid standpoint to go out and find someone to demo it. But this is a bid list that pretty much requires that they would be able to go through and through the storm water prevention as you can see in there in order to ensure that uh the expenses is removed and that process actually put it

out there for this remediation study. And so all of that will be in there. So they're here to answer any question that you might have uh concerning this task list. But this is the next step in order to be able to get to demoing the facility. Have we picked a date yet? No, that'll be once we start this process with them. When they finally go through that whole thing, I you know, I anticipate that the demo won't take very long and then have to level it and get it leveled out. I think that the hope as I've mentioned in my meetings with Kim Horn is that the property is level by the time we have celebration. I think that that is kind of a target that I put for more kind of puts more forefront to get this process started and if this is approved then we'll kind of get a better date from them and stuff. I'm sure as far as the demolition unless y'all are willing to share any of that right now. Do you have a date? we preliminary work and all that, but do you see an issue with meeting September for demo? Um, there could potentially there could potentially be um depending on the analysis for the environmental um even the SU there just could be so many items that could probably push that. But the sooner we can get started, we

can start tackling those things and fast for days. If it's not this year, then hopefully next year. This is Thanks for coming. I call it Sounds like we do have Crystal and Ray both from this Alta survey um sub consultant assisted living facility is 8,000 and then Alta survey sub consultant medallion home 8000. Yes. So um we were asked to put that uh like that land title survey and since we are already looking at the assisted living, we wanted to also go ahead and get the medallion home in there in case there's any changes. Oh, okay. I want you to know also that one thing that you'll have coming for you in the next few months is a a voluntary annexation of those properties because seems like the medallion home and of course the nursing facility are not in the city and so we purchased the property. So now we need to annex it annexation but the home is actually outside. So we're going to come in and even though the city owns it, we're going to request that there be a voluntary. So we're going to ask that you voluntarily accept your own. Okay. Any more questions for item 14?

Yes. So we have a motion. I'll make a motion to accept item number um um on item 15 concerning the demolition of the former nursing home with the bid that's presented by Kimley Horn. I'll second a motion and a second to approve the proposal from Kimley Horn for the Kermit assisted living facility uh to accept their task list and fee estimate. All in favor? Any opposed? Thank you all very much. Congratulations y'all. You have to start on that tomorrow. All right, we have handled item G already. So, we're moving on to item H, which is discuss and consider ordinance 252 amending appendix A, article A6.00 utility rates and charges division 2 solid waste A6.032 collection service outside city limits and A6.034 deposit for service outside city limits. Mr. Mike Council I you have before you an ordinance that um is creating a new section within our utilities and rename it on the existing section which is essentially we have inside city limits and we are proposing changing outside city limits to inside ETJ and then creating a new section that we will call outside. And so we do have services that we provide in each one of those areas. And so this basically will amend our current ordinance and the solid waste and it will create a

different collection rate. for outside ETJ. So understand that anything that says outside ETJ now be I'm sorry outside city limits now becomes inside ETJ. So I kind of want to start with that premise of saying that outside city limits is now inside ETJ. Those rates will stay the same. They will not change at all. But there will be a new uh section as I mentioned that will be outside ETJ and that is a new fees that we're proposing uh in the solid waste. Uh as you can see on the second page of my summary I gave you the monthly collection rate for residential will be at $74 per and for commercial be $150 per the deposit required for residential be 160 and the commercial will be 250. I'm proposing that this uh become effective on July 15th, which gets us to the two and the two advertisements. And at the moment after the advertisements, then we will have the rate come into effect. Are we providing water to anybody that would be outside of the ETJ? Yes. aside of the person or side of the organization that decided they don't want to be in our ETJ. That would be the organization. So, we could go up on the rate of outside ETJ uh substantially to encourage them to be in our ETJ. Can we go higher on that rate? We can go recommended rate based on kind of an analysis that I did on the inside and uh what was outside but it's now inside ETJ and the the delta between those rates I

just simply kind of transformed those numbers and moved it into a new outside ETJ number that you see they're fairly proportionate as far as the rates differ between them so of course the Council chooses to rate that higher, it's up to them. I'm sorry, up to you to raise that high choose. But the delta between the differences is kind of I did give you what I'm calling a edited amended copy. Uh if you would like a clean copy once once we got this I can get you a clean copy of this. This makes it very I understand it makes it difficult to follow sometimes because scratching out inserts and stuff but that's pretty much what you see there. Like I said I could I can email you a clean copy of what it will look like. Do we have trash customers that would be outside the ETJ? Yes. A lot like I'm good with the proposed. So, we got here a motion on ordinance 252. I'll make a motion on ordinance 252. I'll second a motion and a second to approve the first reading of ordinance 252 appending amending appendix A uh utility rates charges division 2 solid waste and collection services. All in favor? I oppose. Thank you all. Moving on to the next one. It is 253

uh which is um Mike cover that. Yes. This is kind of following the same line. This time we're in discussion of this item concerning the water and the waste water. Uh again moving from outside city limits now become inside ETJ and a new section again called outside EPJ they'll be in reference to the water and wastewater charges um the tap fees as you can see will increase also and I just kind of want to start from there the uh in A6061 we distinguish between the city limit and outside city limit and that's where we can talk about the outside ETJ uh A6.062 which are the fees those will increase So 3/4 in meter would now be 1,250 for a tap. A 1 in meter would be 1,675 for a tap and 2 in will be $3,200 for a tap. The deposit for uh water services uh we now have outside ETJ the deposit is $500 A6066 which are monthly rates and this is just the base rate for the water services 3/4 in residential be 5625 commercial be 6525 the 1 in will be residential of 5725 commercial 6625 the 2 in will be resial of 5825 commercial 6725. The 4 in will be residential 5925 and commercial 6825. The 6 in would be residential 6025, commercial 6925. I can tell you those would be rare ones that you're looking at. Uh now the water usage rates which are rates per

thousand that does increase. Uh the 3/4 inch resial is 790 per thousand. Commercial is 840. The 1 in residential is 810 per,000. Commercial is 860. The 2 in residential is 830 per thousand. Commercial is 880. The 4 in per,000 is 850 and I'm sorry residential and commercial is $9 per thousand. The 6 in is residential 870 per thousand. Commercial is 9.40. I did mention earlier about the bulk water rate. those that are providing discharge remnant water to the city services and city uh parks and property that's in there. Also, uh there is a uh monthly sewer rate that creates now for outside ETJ which now equals a rate multiplied by two. So whatever our current sewer rate is, we're now multipate now the discount for seniors and disabled citizens that it designates now that resial accounts inside the ETJ are eligible. So basically have residents that are inside the city limits and now those that will be inside the ETJ would be eligible for the discount. Could we decline to provide sewer services to anyone outside our ETJ since we are currently teetering on this? Maybe we need another pond. That that's entirely possible. I can tell you that there was a decision made years past to provide water and sewer services for uh businesses and residential outside the city limits. That's the reason that these rates were created. But that has to come before the council based on our ordinance. That request has to come before council and the council has to approve that request

in order to provide that service. And so I guess that being the nature and kind of taking a step further council chooses to not provide that service any longer to anyone either should be outside the city limits that will be decision. And that could happen without any it would just simply be a decision by the council no loss. Well, I guess you can sue anybody. You find out how good our repealer claus is. I'm kind of ly done. Yeah. I don't think we should be providing sewer services to those outside of our EJ. So that can come up in in another council meeting on this one. Hold that off. Yeah. Well, it's not on the agenda, so we have to we have to hold that one off. But the item 253 is to increase the rates uh and change the wording to outside ETJ. I would remind you of course that this ordinance the previous one they require two meetings. So you'll see it again come up in June. We'll post it in the newspaper twice after the second meeting and then again July 15. But you can't bring something up to council. Next agenda. Do we have a motion on 253? I'll make a motion to accept article 253 with the rate change and increases as presented. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the first reading of 20 ordinance 253 amending the rates as presented. All in favor?

Any opposed? That motion carries. Okay, that catches us up to staff reports. Like I said, if any questions you particularly want to ask any of our department heads, they are here tonight. I'll give you all a few minutes to kind of put those thoughts together before we move on. Anybody wants to kick off, you're more than welcome to if you have talk to us about dog bites. Yes. One was the owners which was quarantined. One was out of ours and the other one was a ticket for two tickets for Are we carrying over 32? We're going to try to keep it there or less. We still looking at a July August start date on new shelter. We I'm sorry. Go ahead. Are we getting scheduled for fertilizer this next week? Yes, they had started already fertilizing stuff. Awesome. And I didn't put it on the on the but I called today and that that new roll off we just ordered. They said it should be getting to the body shop by June the 15th. Then about two or three weeks the truck should be ready to send out over

here. So hopefully by the 1 of July or so we should have that. Awesome. Thank you. Thanks for that update. Manuel, we're going to go pick it up. You going to go drive the truck? Yeah. Along that same line, I'll let you know that that we have also again got back into a bind with the rolloffs. Uh the truck went down for a bit. We were renting a truck out of Houston. We sent it back uh and then our truck went down again which caused it to get behind. The truck is back up and running but caus it to get behind. So we are sending one of our team members to Houston on Monday, sorry, Tuesday on Tuesday to uh pick up the rental truck and bring it back to try to carry us through until we can get the new truck in. At that point in time, we should be okay to let the new truck plus the backup truck and hopefully by that time we won't fall behind. The problem is when we fall behind on the roll off by having the truck down, we end up having to close CCS down because there is no reason to call the rolloffs as fast as we can. But something good because people are taking their debris out to trash trucks. New trash trucks are doing good. Yes, sir. doing real good. Waiting for the last two which we should be around think around June and the second one to run office the end of June and the end of August. They should be begin if they're not here on time. You're going to sit in their office every single day all the way to Yep. You can sit there and show up every single

day until they have our truck ready. Any other I had one thing on the budget that that's this section on our water and sewer fund. I noticed that we're at 42% of our estimated annual budget and we're a little more than halfway through our fiscal year. Is there a reason we would be at less than 50% or more than 50% through the year? I'm sorry your question again. So on like the water sewer fund and the sanitation fund there's at 42% and 40%. So, we have we've collected 40% of what we estimated we would. Yes. So far, but we're a little more than halfway through the year. Is there a reason we're not at 50? Understand that the summer months we get a lot of our water. Okay. So, because they water, they use it, they're taking more baths. Hopefully, they may fill up their pool. And so we we'll see an increase in the water usage in the summer months probably beginning about right now. Okay. So we should see that start ticking up pretty dramatic in the next probably three four months. You have any more information on our Pine Street water station? I do. Uh so I did receive a uh bid for the uh bulk water station over on Pine Street and I've approved the bid uh to so we will now get a system out there that'll be a coded system. So when people want to purchase uh bulk water. Um what we found out is that currently it's on the honor system and we found out that there's very few

people. So we're not going to use a code system. They'll have to come in apply gives all information and when they go out their code will simply ask you know if they say I want 100 barrels of water then they say 100 barrels we'll know exactly what we're going to build them and the system will shut off at 100 barrels so know that they're actually going to get what they want I can tell you the price on it was relatively uh it's actually was a lot better what I thought the price came in about 23,000 which is not bad and so we met with the uh tank logics out there last Wednesday. Uh Daniel and I did and we kind of talked what we're looking at. You'll see some refitting of those pipes out there. We'll take some off. We're going to have a 2 in and a 3 in spigot out there for them to be able to load, but it'll be in a fence. The uh the uh the bank system that we'll have uh will be under an awning. We'll get rid of the shed that's out there right now. That'll be gone. We're still going to use that concrete platform to put the put it on there, but the um piping and everything will be in the fence and it'll just be too stub out for the two of the bridge for the motor. I I do believe that I'm not sure if we'll see an increase in water revenue, but I do know as I was telling the mayor, I do know what we will have is a decrease in water loss, which is which is a plus for us. I think intrinsic revenue source that we can't put on the books, but we're going to be able to realize it. Thanks for looking into that. It's been one of my missions for Yes. Honey, can we up these property maintenance numbers? These are weak, weak, weak numbers. There's weeds all over town a foot high.

I think on that too uh we should some of the other numbers have probably come up a little bit in in action that she's focusing I know she was focusing on uh some of the abatements kind of learning that system from Andrew's enforcement and maybe focusing on some other things other than than that I I think too we need to probably look at an additional maybe part-time code officer, part-time animal control officer that can fall into both roles or something as we start our our budget process for next year. I think we're a half a person or more short on most apartments. I can tell you she's been having trucks that she would take care of. Oh, yeah. Make sure they're not parking where they're supposed to parking, you know, disposal of just debris. Yeah, there's tires cleaned up. I have noticed that. That is fantastic. Track that down. So, and I think the mayor is definitely on something I think there's enough add to a lot going on and I don't see it slowing down the amount of traffic that we and the things council wants. We want to see some more property abatements and things of that nature. So, I think I think we'd be supportive of that come come budget time. Why don't she hit the ground running? She she rattle rattle some pages out there. And and thanks to Andrews again for for what they've done. and they've come over and supported and done some training and she's gone over there and done some training, showed her some programs that they had created uh to track things. So, I think we'll get a whole lot better accountability as she continues to get her feet wet and these these guys continue to support that department. I do want to point out one report to you that I've been working with on I think in the last meeting we

had zero in the last three months. Uh I went in there and filled that in because where those numbers were at, but after visiting with Judge Wright, she she correctly pointed out that those numbers are not correct. So, we're going to have to go back in and do some research to try to figure out why these numbers that are being brought into our general ledger system through just a batch entry are not being correct. And we're trying to figure out where that's at. The issue that we have is that even though we've taken municipal court into the cloud, there is still not a between the general ledger system and municipal court. So that's going to be the next step to try to get that talking to each other so that as an example when Gabby post at the end of the day all her daily totals that it automatically moves into the general ledger system and post in that area correctly so that our numbers are correct. So we're going to go back and do some more research. We hope that by the time we go back in June that the work that working with Judge Rabby that we see back numbers as to what they're doing there. They're still knocking it out of the park, but there's still some question about the numbers that are being sent in. It's an under reporting right now. Uh well, we think that there's an overstatement in the PD fines and the state. Okay. So, over over Okay. Is it an incode issue? No, it's it's a batch issue. Anything else for staff? Moving on to item 17 on the agenda. Any public comments or anything that was not on the agenda. Anybody here wish to speak tonight? Ray? Nothing. Ray. Okay. You've been here all night. I thought maybe you had something to say. All right. Moving on to 18. This is any items for council, city council manager,

anything. Uh Rody, starting with you. You got anything? I just want to tell you I think the mural looks totally awesome. It's it's coming along. It's even greater than I had envisioned. And um then um I just going to remind everybody um they're going to have the um Memorial Day service at the cemetery Monday morning I believe at 10. And then they said a brunch will follow at the new community center afterwards. Legion is doing that and county has is offering some help. I think we we need to show our support there. I just want to say thank you to the staff. You guys go above and beyond and I appreciate you all very much. You and your team and I'm so glad to see Kermit PD finally pulling people over. 302. Well, like thank everybody for what they do and going above and beyond and also have two things I should ask while we go. The motel hotel tax customers pay that, right? Wonder why organization didn't want to. It's a mystery. The only thing I can tell you is that when I had visit with the attorney representing Kermit NPS, um his comment was that they would be uh more competitive from a per night standpoint by not having the additional tax added on to theirs as opposed to the other

hotel years. have to pay that and so it's just they would simply have to pay the the room rate plus the sales tax. So that was his comment that he made to me was that they would be much more competitive even though I think they're probably 95 96% and are all our new trucks in Yes. Yes, we're completely done. I can tell you the only that are not on the street yet are the animal control vehicles and we're waiting on the boxes for those and I think they're anticipating what July I had anything thanks for your service on the board just kind of want to add a little bit more the mural is expected to be completed about the first or second week of June. Uh Taylor when she she was she already had her schedule laid out. Uh the wind really pushed her off and being able to complete it and finish it because she had got to the point doing the detail. If you go and look at the yellow jacket, you can actually see the hair on the yellow jacket, but that's the detail portion that she had to go back and now do the entire mural. And she can't do that with a lot of wind. So the wind and the weather kind of hampered her from completing it. Uh so when she comes back, I'll tell you that she left here and I believe went to Georgia and then she was going to Spain to paint some and then she's going to come back go to Austin and take a small one and come back over here. Expect to be back over here like maybe the first in June and at that point in time she will complete the middle. So, uh, Memorial Day, of course, uh, the

cemetery event starts at 10 and the the chief is actually doing the pledge that day and then brunch at 11 and for some unknown reason, they've asked me to be the speaker. So, I will be speaking at the event. I understand you're cringing there, man. Oh, I'm sorry. Something bitter. Uh, tomorrow night there is a meeting with um at the civic center beginning at 5:00. The meeting is to uh answer questions based on the 765 KV line transmission line that they're proposing. Uh that's going to be I believe on the other side all the way into almost crawl. It's going to be north of Kermit, but they're having a meeting here in case anybody has any questions. Civic Center from 5 to 7 tomorrow. Um, and we have 12 days left in the legislative session. Still working to try to get our bill that we have through more information to you. I got one. I I don't know if our guys were involved in going getting free hamburgers for the night at McDonald's, but if they were, we appreciate it. I mean, we're not used to doing that or they're, you know, getting Yeah. probably have to be up there a little bit. I was just by the group of King Horn who doing the best part project. Uh there will be a survey that we'll be pushing out in the next couple days. You'll see it on our website. You see it on social

media. It's a survey that they're asking the citizens to give feedback on just any type of items on the on West Park. And so you'll see that that survey out there. So we're going to encourage everyone to go out and to fill out that survey. So I said we'll push it out. What we're looking at also doing they generated QR codes and so the plan is take these QR codes through the I knew Ray had something he wanted to say. I knew he was just sitting here to be pretty share. Yeah, I'll share tag a dog fight or something on it. It'll go crazy. Sorry. Uh, anybody else? Before I close up, Rodney, I know you and Charlie had agreed to paint that mural behind the building. I ordered uh city came by water water cleaned it. I ordered some primer. It came in busted, so I've reordered it. Soon as it gets in, I'll get that wall primer. She's already ordered paint, brushes, whatever else. So, and Miss Judy's mother wanted to kind of help you out a little bit. So, cool. We'll all get out there, try to knock out another quick mural. That was going to be a armed forces mural that uh G's father kind of approved it. Charlie did the sketch and and he approved it and Rodney so graciously accepted to kind of help. So, should be fun to get another mural up. Mike is tell I've got the projector. She'll be ready. She gritted it out and she's got all that part all that. Um, we're also, just so council's aware, we we are going to try to get some uh artistic renderings for a first responders wall over here on the annex building. So, that may be the next mural that comes through for us.

Um, Evertale, this is just a note. I'm getting some some feedback that we're not getting a lot of followup on some of those. So, that we just make sure that council or somebody sends something on there that we we try to respond back if we can. Uh great job on trash, great job on patrol, everything. Y'all thank Thank y'all. Diana, thanks again for your uh your help in keeping us all in line. And other than that, I just got one more thing to hear. Make a motion we second. A motion and a second to adjurnn. All in favor? I. Nobody opposed. 8:58 p.m. That's very long, but look at the packet y'all gave us. Start making Charlie. I told her as soon as I get through Memorial Day should calm down a little bit. The weather should be where yall going to put it insurance on the building right behind her state bank where insurance Edwards own that building and we're going to do he was in the air force believe it's going to kind of be around that I've seen the drawing Charlie did a fantastic job where's it going to be Yes, sir. See how I can't get mine back. You okay? You I don't know. She's allergic to one of us. I don't know which one it is. I'll take this because I'll make you want to do this open right now. You can do it. And then I have a mint if you need Oh, you got some of this. Yeah, I tried it. It

didn't work. Thank you very much. Greg, you good? You, too. You all Yes, sir. You better, Kelsey. Thank you so much. Once she gets away from whichever one of us it is. Did Miss Carrie make it out of here before you could catch her, Gri?