City Government - Regular Meeting

Call order, please. Uh, welcome to the Lar City Council work session for Thursday, May 14, 2026. And before we start our work session, I'd like to ask, are there any public comments on nonaggenda items? Right. Anybody mind? Sure. But no hands up. Okay. Uh, seeing none, do I have any motions? Councelor Hun,

I'm working hard on this motion. Um, I move to suspend the rules tonight to allow open dialogue between council members and staff, including the use of first names for purpose of encouraging open discussion. Second, thank you. I have a motion for Newman uh second from Lard. All in favor?

I oppose. That motion passes. And before I turn the rings over, um, uh, Joe Shamray, uh, will not be here today. He has a, uh, family graduation function. And, uh, Melanie uh, will not be here this evening. So, without further ado, I vice mayor. No, she's Oh, yeah. She's on vacation. She's here. All right. Yes. Chickens.

Well, without further ado, I'll turn it over to the city manager and uh director Wayne counselors. Before I turn it back to Director Wade again, I just want to express my gratitude for Director Wade, Spencer Fury for their extended work on the budget through this time and for all the directors and you know first all that their managers have put forward to this. Uh tonight's the third night of budget meetings. Um so we're excited to get through this and um I'm excited for the presentations to see tonight. I need to give myself a little bit of time because I'm Nancy all of you tonight and I got to figure out how I can read her notes. So, I'm going to turn over to Director Wick.

Well, good evening, council members. It feels like we're so far apart tonight. My goodness, it's just like an illusion of space. Um, but tonight is going to roll just like the other night. You'll hear from departments and departments will go over their kind of most important budget requests and tell you a little bit about what they do and then we're done, right? We just have a special meeting on May the 26th. Now, remember, if you want to us to consider um if you want to consider as a governing body amendments to the budget, you need to have those potential amendments turned in by midnight on May the 19th. And so I know that um the vice mayor is working on some of those. If any of the rest of you have ideas running around in your head and you need some help getting those ideas into words, please reach out. And if you can reach out before the before midnight of the 19th, um then maybe if it's a hard idea, we can brainstorm together about how we might be able to implement and capture your thoughts. And so just putting the teaser out, you don't have all that much longer to think about those things. Um, before we get into department presentations, I want to make sure that I highlight two notes I had from last session, but it it was we just went a little too long for me to feel like I wanted to throw them in. The first is I don't remember if we talked about this or not, but you may wonder why we don't have a budget for the 2026 FET. Well, we we can't really have a budget for it because the budget book comes out on April the 30th and the election, of course, was the first week in May. And as you know from your goal setting, we you all want to have a kind of a public process, a work session to see how those funds are going to be allocated. And so that budget for the 2026 SET is going to be built mid year and really align with the priorities for that work that we all come up with together. Of course, staff will have a recommendation. We'll talk about

financing at that meeting. Um, but it would not be normal to see a budget for the 2026 FET. And so just in case any of your constituents ask you about it, I want you to have an answer for that. Um, secondly, there was something that came up in the meeting the other day that I realized we hadn't really talked about. And so, if you'll remember the first night, we talked about our need to kind of go through and perhaps rep prioritize some of the capital plan next year depending on the construction we can get out of the door. The other thing on our list for next year, just because we do think we're at a competitive disadvantage um when we put out for bid, right? Because everyone knows what our budget is and then magically the work always done. We've made it close to budget is for the team here to come up with some creative solutions for how we can still um achieve that specific purpose capital budget but with a little bit more ambiguity so that the amount we have for each project isn't um as obvious. and doesn't work to our disadvantage. And so we're gonna be thinking about that for next year because Chief Johnson is spot on in his observations. Um and it's not just Chief Johnson, it's across city operations. And so just wanted to make sure that you knew that was part of our plan for next year. And those are all the housekeeping items I had.

Ask a housekeeping item. We have a member of the public um insinuate that a new staff member is gonna make $100,000 in this budget. Can you remind us how do you factor what a salary student includes social security? That would be an all-incclusive cost. And so and open physicians are always budgeted with family health insurance coverage. And that the cost to us as an employer is $24,000ish, maybe rounding up to $25,000 a year these days. And so that $100,000 you take $25,000 off the top just for health insurance in case they elect family coverage. And then of course Wyoming retirement pension for general employees is rounding up to 10%. Um FICA and you know which is Medicare and Social Security is 7.65%. Workers compensation is right around 2% I believe. I may be a little off on that. And so the actual salary underneath that is probably closer to in the mid60s. Jen, in addition to that, could you describe the salary number that we include for unfilled positions?

It really just depends on the position because some are harder to recruit than others. And so, if we have a long established practice of being able to fill a vacancy, um, we will budget at near closer to the bottom of that range because we know we're going to be able to bring someone in for that pay rate and move them through the pay scale. If it's a new position um or a position that we tend to have a hard time recruiting for, we will sometimes measure it maybe the 25th percentile or maybe even the 50th percentile depending on the position. And so we work with our HR director to get advice on really what that number should be. Any other questions?

All right, Brian, I think tonight we'll start with Nancy's presentation. city manager, just for anybody watching, this is on last Tuesday on Tuesday's agenda. Best uh so we did roll over the city clerks and administrative services budget presentations through the time constraints. So tonight we'll have city clerk budget administrative services public works and parks and rec. Well, uh Nancy did want to say that she's sorry she couldn't be with us this evening. She did have family commitments. Um the clerk's division is appreciative of the time to review their request. Ryan Chefelt, our deputy clerk, is here to answer any operational questions. If you're following along in the budget manual, this city clerk's budget is on pages 41 through 44. Are you driving slides for me? I heard you. Got it. Got it. So, uh, I'm reading off fancy scripts, so I will do the best I can. The city clerk's office maintains the program for many of you know the city clerk's division has many duties that vary from learning state statute requirements to municipal code and then administrative functions assigned to the city man to the division. They serve a combination of city council, city management team and staff as well as our citizens. They serve as a bridge for communication between the public and city council. To further help elaborate the variety of

duties carried out in their office, they have put together a couple of slides to show some of their duties such as management and maintenance of city council agendas and associated materials, management and maintenance of city council calendars, reimbursements, travel arrangements, management of the budgets for their division and city council for equipment operating expenses and personnel management processing liquor license program, business licenses and alcohol related permits as well as compliance of liquor licenses. and alcohol liquor licenses, retention of city council records in accordance with Wyoming state statute, archives, retention schedules, and maintenance of the federal records. And that's just the that's just a tip of the ice city. Um, they also maintain the program for volunteers and boards and commissions, including accepting and processing applications, setting up interviews with council interview panels, creating summaries and resolutions for appointments for signed boards, and maintaining the records for expiring terms and advertising positions. They provide open meeting public and public records acts trainings as well as parliamentary procedures and records retention and management trainings. run municipal elections in accordance with rhyming safe statutes provisions and often in collaboration with the Albony County Clerk as appropriate administer bid opening proceedings and act as staff leads on and or clerk for the assigned boards and commissions. By this time she feels like she usually loses people with a few more items that they didn't include in the slides. maintational code, submitting code revisions to council and city manager as needed, cash handling for liquor licenses, um special events for upcoming events internally and externally. Um she

schedules travel, they schedule travel for the city counselors. You know, it's just a catchall, a jack of all trades for the city clerk's office. And I think we're all benefited by the the what Ryan and Nancy provide us. um I'm trying to catch up. So NY's vision over vision over the next fiscal year is to continue developing staff professionally through education and opportunities. Are we on the next slide? So um she would like to advance employee skills and increase the effectiveness and efficiencies within the division. uh they would like to continue to improve their communication and support they offer council the community and staff through collaborative expansion of opportunities to be out at public events. The city council has created goals over the past couple years to increase public communication through events and other forms of communication. They will be looking for more opportunities such as counter advice to notify council of upcoming events internally and externally that they may want to attend. They would also like to improve opportunities to tell the story of the city of Laramie at these events when important issues are at hand. They'll be looking for opportunity to streamline processes related to board and commissions to ensure that terms got catch up with keeps the screen keeps moving on me. I had to blow it up because I didn't I forgot my glasses today so I can see. So um still sorry thought I had this better organized uh process for related boards and commission to ensure the terms resolutions letters agendas etc are standardized. Um they would like to provide city council opportunities for research on hot topics, sharing projects and success stories with the county which remains back to helping to tell the story of the city of area. Who we

are, why we're doing them, what projects we're doing, how they are funded, etc. All right. So now on to NY's budget. uh 29% of the city's administration budget which is 4% of the city's budget. Um they've been building the impacts of increased division responsibilities over the past few years with additions such as rental houses and license processing web conferencing for city council and boards and commissions. additional staff lean proper responsibilities with the board and such as Laring Youth Council, Laring Police Advisory Board, Environmental Advisory Committee, records retention training. All those pieces have led. Uh the city clerk's office has requested a senior deputy clerk position to assist with the maintaining the high standards that their office is doing. uh high standards of operations with their division by assisting with some of the highle functions within their office. Um it would allow to relieve some of the boards and commissions duties from staff leaison and allowing them to standardize processes. This position would also make it possible for the division to assist city council with research support management staff in ways we have not been able to. Operating a division accessible to the public with two full-time staff members that are regularly in public meetings, staff meetings or trainings to maintain the highest level of professionalism can be difficult and was required extra spent in the office. She is excited to see the growth and services offered through this additional position. The additional personnel request is to have uh provisional records clerks that are going to help with records retention. Um, we've been using records clerks to uh scan boxes and to date they've been

able to ship 27 boxes of records surrounding state archives for permanent retention within the last 2 years. And what that does is reduces the amount of paper storage that we have in the building and in the offices and makes the the records more readily accessible as they go through. Uh the request is to increase either the hours or the wages. keep the hours the same, increase the wages to try to attract a better candidate or find a way to get a candidate could get a few more hours and work through and hopefully get the record for teaching process. I'll stop there. What are the likeifications?

I understand they're like I just seem like I think that's in the 3200's in addition to what is already existing in the provisional budget. Um if I remember correctly Ryan, correct me if I'm wrong, it's 18 hours right now. 18 hours a week. Um they really are looking for somebody that's uh attention or attention to detail oriented because the scanning of a lot of these records are required to be held in archive for a certain amount of time and they have to be accessible correctly. And so there's a real system to how they're scanned, what's reviewed, what happens if they find duplicates, how they clean it out. And it's quite a process that it takes and pretty difficult. Uh so far they've been being uh supported mostly by upper level college students. Um and I think that's about the quality of candidate that they're looking to get. It's just a matter of person. Any other questions about personality? So the scanning is happening here records go to

correct correct if I remember correctly our most recent bills for the paper stories like dollar cents or something.

So we don't actually pay for the paper stories. was just the digital archives and it's very very minimal cost on how many games of records would be store and that it was less than like $5. Of course, the members of council are elected to serve as legislating body for the city of Larmy. They also approve the budget, employ the city manager, city attorney, approve our legislative actions such as land acquisitions, easement, leases. Uh the uh try to get down that bottom. I think you guys are probably council member serves as a council leazison that's elected boards of commissions. Um some of the items if you go to the next slide related to the council budget to address the council budget is we're asking for increases for priority areas uh promotional supplies for outreach events professional services and then there's one large equipment replacement which I believe was $50,000 for the tririccaster which is one of the uh pieces of equipment that's back in the broadcasting booth that helps convert the recording to TV or the website and so that piece of equipment has started to show ball and it's time to leave

and so on. Yes. And then we will go I think to her last slide which is inable fashion. Thank you with her email address in case you guys don't have it. But Jen and I are here. We be happy to answer a question for me afterwards. Pretty easy. We'll turn it over to Director Wade for administrative services.

Brian, I sent you an email with my updated one. if you could pull that one up. So, poor Ryan. Mine has a pretty quick cadence because it was a presy. So, we're gonna have to work together on this one.

All right. It's fast. Cool. So, we can just go ahead and go to the second slide to be a little more efficient. Works for me. Okay, cool. That'll do. I call that good. So, administrative services, we are officially the most ambiguously named department in the city. I have been here a really long time and I still wonder what that means on a lot of days. Um, but what I think it boils down to is that we provide a wide array of services in both judicial and financial operations. And I think it's really important to talk about that judicial piece a little more than we do. Um, in the end, they're both still administrative type operations, but that judicial component is really unique and pretty special, and it deserves a call out. Um, our department really creates value through our ability to design and implement quality systems to solve problems and to manage financial resources with exceptional stewardship. And so, you're going to see me focus a lot tonight on the systems that we administer, not necessarily the work it that gets done because all of that work is just part of the bigger system. Um, and so I'm going to try to make some of those connections for you. Um, so you see how how that is the case. So next slide. So our department uh really performs its work in three key teams. We have the municipal court function that really administers the judiciary. We have our customer operations team that manages that front-facing financial operation in

city hall. And we have finance that manages internal financial operations. Next slide. Municipal court. You have a team of two benefited employees. um who lead that um function supported by our customer operations supervisor Billy Yaridge. Although honestly the clerk of court Kelly Johnson and the senior court clerk Kira Monroe really are pretty self-sufficient. They are supported by I think one provisional employee right now but the bulk of the work is done by two benefited employees. As a reminder, um, if you don't really know how the court works, the new court has jurisdiction over local ordinances and certain adopted Wyoming statutes. You all, as a council, appoint our judge, who is Greg Wyn, right now, and the municipal court staff really ensure that the judge's orders are carried out. And so, they do that through a variety of mechanisms. So, you've got that judges orders piece and then they're also doing a lot of work to schedule hearings and trials and posting bonds and processing citations and tracking requirements for diversion programs and more. And so, there's an awful lot of work that goes into that court function um through the various pieces of basically the customers the inputs to um that court operation. Their team values really center on providing professional and respectful service to defendants, jurors, local attorneys, local law enforcement officials, and other people who are involved with the court. And so what you'll often find in people who work for the court is they actually care a lot about the system of justice and they want to make sure that defendants um who show up to the court or even people who are just coming to pay a parking citation really understand the process that they're in and they offer that professional type of service to a population that can feel pretty

vulnerable. Um especially people who are in court. You'll also find that they're typically interested in public safety operations, especially like the work of the Larby Police Department and the UW Police Department because they work a lot with those agencies. And so, a pretty special group of people um that really help things stay organized in a similar way to the city clerk, um but in also a way that really impacts people's quality of life, right? Because they're managing things like warrants um and once they put that warrant out there. So there's a judicial part of that and there's the impact on the other side to the to the party, right? And so these folks are going to be really aware of that and they try to do it with a lot of skill and professionalism. Next slide. Our customer operations team. Um this is the team that you see when you come into city hall. They're very front-facing. They're led by Billy Yaric, our customer operations supervisor. I think you all have met Billy and his very small team, Heather Bull, who actually works off site in Arizona and also supports public works, Grace Martinez, Tracy Schaefer, and Sarah Armstrong. Sarah is a provisional employee. Um, and this group provides support for and the design of the system for billing for our largest billing operation, which is our utility operations, right? So the billing for water and wastewater services and most solid waste services comes through this team as well as mosquito control. These are the folks who are working with public works right now to implement the utility billing phase of the software. For a long time we just called these guys utility billing. It's not really fair. It's not what they do. Um they also provide um kind of centralized cashiering services for that treasury function for the entire city. They also provide that front-facing service at city hall and they coordinate residential parking renewal. So there's more going on there than just utility village. So I try hard to reabel them as

customer operations and maybe one day we'll find an even better label for that. I have some ideas. Next slide. Our internal banking team is just what we call finance probably because we're lazy and can't come up with a better name. That team is co-led by myself and finance manager Jen Mther. So again, the joke is that if you say Jen, someone in finance will help you because it's true. Um there's two of us and we provide a host of accounting and financial planning and just basic business services. So this is the team where you're going to find mostly accountants on the team um as well as some financial analysts. And so Casey Phillips, Jill Hunter, Dylan Matlog, Spencer Couturi, all accountants. And Katie Robinson is also learning to be an accountant. She's a W student and a provisional employee. This team really focuses on designing what what I say I think in the budget book is that they build the business systems on which the city operates. And that is true. Um because when you implement a financial system, it's not out of the box. You actually have to build it to suit. And so this is the team of people with the professional skill to be able to design those systems in a way that they have appropriate internal controls and have the skill to be able to roll that out to the organization in a way that processes make sense. And so you might say, oh well they process AP or we do AP for finance or we do payroll for finance. It's not really what's going on. What's going on is something much bigger. um because you're managing that dispersement system or you're managing a revenue system or you're managing a timekeeping system and each one of those systems is going to have specific laws and regulations that you have to think about. Um, the one that is the stickiest, maybe not surprisingly, is actually timekeeping because there's an awful lot of FSA laws that applies to timekeeping and there's actually a lot of overlap with HR, a surprising amount of overlap with HR in terms of the administration of this function. And so

kind of unique in that way. Most people don't think about that. This team also is the group of folks who understands the language of accounting. Bless their souls. I'm so glad people do that work. So they look backwards to history to make sure our financials are correct and they also are good at looking forward to be able to plan for the future in things like our budgeting processes. This is also where treasury management investing um and that long-term planning loops in with those budget processes. Next slide. So administrative budget services budget we are I think I think Ryan I can't remember how these slides go. So let's give this a shot. So 81% of our method is for personnel only about 19% for operating cost and the lion share of that operating cost is actually the software license for for our um ERP system. Right? So it's not like things like pencils, it's actually software. Next slide. We have a $1.8 million total budget amount. Next slide. And that's a 4% decrease from last um that should say decrease from last year. Um that is just because we had a one time amount that fell off. It's not because we're shrinking. Uh we did have a small adjustment downward in municipal court for a centrally budgeted adjustment. Um but it's nothing that we're not shrinking our services in any way. Next slide. And one more click in. So um I love this graphic and this is how I feel about the budget in total which is probably not a surprise to you but I really think that budget requests are what transform any goal into a reality because most of our goals that are tangible in earth form right have require resources um and those resources whether we like it or not in the form of money and so for administrative services let's take a look at what we have going on this next slide we need some human capital support for the utility billing software implementation. Um, in total, this actually isn't going to increase

spending for the city at all. I'm going to transfer about $15,000 from the ERP phase budget into administrative services to fund a little bit of additional labor. Now, what you may not realize is most of the people who have implemented ERP so far are exempt. And what does it mean if you're exempt and you work a lot? Nothing. You get paid the same amount, right? So, a lot of the people who are implementing the UB pays are actually not exempt. And so when they work over $40 a week, you're going to need to pay them overtime. And so a lot of this this wage transfer is actually for those overtime wages as well as some additional part-time wages to help with the project. And we're going to fund those part-time wages through a transfer within administrative services. Next slide. We also have the carry board of our ERP software project. Our last stage utility billing will go live in March of 27th. Next slide. And you'll see level vending for existing services. Um, our teams are lean and we value creativity and commitment. Some days that goes further than others, but we really mean it. Um, and we think that's important because we are an administrative services, an administrative service. And when we cost more, there's less available to get money out into the community for tangible things that people see. And so we try to operate as leanly as we can. um and really look at ways we can be more more efficient in how we deliver our services and sometimes the things that we should just be saying no to because maybe they don't matter as much as we think they do. Next slide. So for the coming year, this is what we're looking at. Next slide. We have lots of training and development. So on the individually facing finance team, we have so much training to do at 27. We've been an ERP software for so long um that many of us who have been here for a while have been doing the existing work so that ERP could get done. So now our new employees get to learn how to do the normal work that is not ERP. Um and so we kind of

have this really cool year of rebuilding. Um training and training and lots of training and mentorship are going to be the theme for our year. Um on the customer operations side of things that's going to come in the form of mentorship for that ERP software phase because that is new business to them. Next slide. We have the utility billing implementation. This team is so enthusiastic and every time I sit in the room with them, I'm actually just amazed at how prepared they are and how much they're digging in. And it really helps me because honestly I'm tired of the ERP. um because this is I've been on every phase and so I am so grateful for the spiritual people because they are bringing such enthusiasm to a project that a lot of people wouldn't approach him that way and I think it's important for you to hear that as a council. Next slide. Of course, we're going to be supporting your council goals, whether that's diving into revenue, which we're going to do a lot of in the next year, right sizing our budget, ensuring financial transparency, or helping plan for the new sp or the results of the youth sports study. Finance is always kind of like closet involved or outright involved, right? And so we kind of are the satellite that float around things and we make sure that we aligned with the work of the city council. Next slide. And treasury services will get an overhaul. So it's totally fine. Um, so we're really going to be looking at how we plan for cash in our budgeting processes and how we manage cash to get the best return we can based on the type of money that we have. And so if it's an endowment that we're really maximizing investment because we know that we're investing for the long term, we'll look at things like the land forclosure liability and ask whether we should be accounting for that, managing it as a trust. Um, and we'll be doing some of this work with settlement funds too, right? So become a little bit more sophisticated in this way to return more value back to our community. Next, next slide, please. And of course, we'll continue our transparency efforts. I have no idea where this is going to go

yet, but what I do know um is that we'll do some cool stuff together and we'll keep learning um and we'll be integrating that learning into hopefully better service for our community. Next slide. Our values. I love this picture. You know, you see all the different threads and they're all a different color because every human is a little bit different, right? But what matters is that we invest in each other and we produce work that models excellence. And one of the things we say in finance because you tend to get very dedicated people in these judicial and financial operations who want to do well, right? And sometimes they struggle with perfectionism. And so we like to say it's all about continuous improvement and not perfectionism because that's ridiculous and not possible at all. Next slide. And ultimately what I'm hoping to do with this presentation is to tell you that you know the notion of a being counter or finance person who just sends out a bill and shuts people off and goes to collections is really really silly and not true at all. Really people who sign up to work in administrative operations end up being pathfinders, problem solvers, analysts and honestly who sign up to work for government pretty good folks who enjoy helping other people and enjoy solving problems that most people don't want to think about. Next slide. And that's it in a nutshell. What questions do you guys have?

Brian, if you could go back to that thread slide. I appreciate that Jen has all these nice looking threads that are all nice and cleanly put together. I was thinking about what my thread in that string looks like and it's kind of kinky and frayed on the edges and it looks more like the right of Frankenstein than those nice. I do appreciate that. Thank you. It's all dirty.

Thank you. It's got a lollipop wrapped in it. Wait, those are different colors. I'm totally joking.

If there are any questions for Director Wade, um I do want to say this over the past five months. She's been my confidant and my guide and what we've done and any success that I've had over the past five months has been to Jen's leadership and guidance through this time. With that moving on, we will go on to I believe public works was next. All right. Good evening, council. Um, good to be here tonight. Uh, so this picture was actually taken a couple years during public uh public works awareness week. Uh Owen came out and did some videos and pictures with us. Was it was a good time. So, some of these people uh have moved on. There's some new people, but uh uh we try to get most everybody in there. Public Works has about 85 I think it's actually 87 full-time employees throughout public works. Um, the folks listed over on the right are are kind of what I would call our our I don't know executive leadership team or whatever, if you will. Um, Sean Klein, deputy director, is in the back of the room. Uh, Eric city engineer, you've all you've all met. Shane Johnson, our street fleet manager, is back there.

And, uh, Jr. Slingerland couldn't be with us tonight. Um, we also have uh Dan is our our meter supervisor. Hi, Dan. Gary Sanchez is our collection supervisor in utilities. Uh, Jay Smith, water administration and treatment administrators. Yeah, Scott Palms, our utility superintendent. Bill Shaw, we got our treatment plan supervisor. Um, so we got we got a bunch of folks here tonight and these folks are all very involved in the budget process as we go through it. Um, a lot of our supervisors have been working through kind of a mentor program on budgeting with with the deputy director and so this is kind of bringing full circle in the process. So anyway, wanted to introduce that. Um, when we develop the budget in public works, my my main goal, my main focus is is what we say down here at the bottom, maintaining and improving critical infrastructure in the most efficient manner. That's really what we're trying to do. Um, which in turn to me always goes back to improving the quality of life uh for for our residents in the community and our visitors. our process in the budget and public works. Um we usually start the process in September. I'll I'll bring together a large group of folks down to usually our crew leaders. I think a couple years ago we even brought in the senior uh senior folks. Um, so it ends up being a large group and we we talk about at a high level what the what the budget that was just approved and then and then what's coming up and um we we kind of looking through the capital our overall capital pro projects and you know did we miss something? Is there something else we need for next year? Um, and I ask I ask

the the supervisors and managers to really go back and and prioritize projects for the next year. And then we meet back in October and we talk about those those priorities for their divisions um in October and basically I request a list from them by priorities. um November we usually I usually spend a lot of time with the managers and uh the engineering group and we put those all together. Um each division has their own priorities but a lot of those projects as you've seen like on I said last week go together right so uh Gary in collections might be saying I need this project this is my number one priority but that street work is a number 10 priority and the water works a number 20 priority. So we've got to really mesh those together and figure out where they make sense um in the most efficient manner possible. Sorry. And then the goal is when we get the when we get the forms from from the budget team, we're ready to just plug and play, right? We we put in all our information, all our justifications, uh project descriptions. Um sometimes by then things have changed a little bit and Spencer calls and says, "Wait, what's going on?" But we work through it. Spencer and Jan both been great through the process. Um, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this because I know I know Jen touched on a lot of this for you all last week. Um, the public works we we span through a lot of funds, right? We we touched the general fund, the sped, capital construction, and all three enterprise funds. Next slide, please. So, in our general fund, um, we have five five division four and one recommended. Sorry. Um, administration

is uh is is basically me and um our divisional coordinator uh Cindy Sanchez who's amazing and keeps me on track and then our engineering group um we'll talk a little bit more as we go through our fleet folks, our street street folks and um the new surface water expanded um expanded service. up on the top right you can see as far as general fund goes for public works streets is is 46% of the general fund budget in public works um and then engineering at 24% uh administration 5% is the slide please so I just wanted to kind of high level uh highlight a couple of the divisions our fleet our fleet division maintains 343 vehicle and pieces of equipment.

Um, these are mainly the ones that are licensed for the road, if you will. A lot of the smaller lawnmowers and things like that, even though they they may work on them and maintain them, those aren't necessarily part of our fleet schedule. Um, this team also helps a lot with acquisition of fleet. So, uh, they'll help other departments, all departments on on specifications and getting the bidding documents together and all that. That's why sometimes you'll see me at council asking for a word of police cars because that a lot of that goes through through the fleet. Um, fire a lot of times does their own because they're very specialized. U, but for the most part, our our fleet guys handle that whole bidding process, acquisition specifications. Um, our street folks, you know, they they hustle. They're uh a group that does a lot of stuff. Anything in the rideway, uh, they got their hands on it. Pothole repair, snow removal, street reconstructions. They're part of overlay projects, gravel, road grading. They spend a lot of time over in West Laramie, especially in the summer. your traffic lights, your signal lights, uh all the signs, the pavement markings, if it's if it's in the road, they're it's those are the guys. Um I was going to say and gal, but she's she unfortunately is being um our engineering folks. Uh they administer the design and construction of our infrastructure projects in the city, not just for public works, but they do help other departments quite a bit. If director Burke needs help on on something uh pathway or whatever and reaches out, our engineering folks will help. If uh the chief needs help on his new police building, he reaches out all the time. Um so, so our engineering folks help help across the board when needed. um

that really focus in on on p on public works projects, but any any department across that needs help on on capital projects they help with. Um they also uh review and inspect all new development infrastructure. Uh so I wanted to talk a little bit about the proposed new division uh basically expanding the surface water drainage maintenance under the general fund. Uh city managers recommending a three-year commitment for this. Um I know we've talked about it many times. Uh this includes five person five personnel. Uh one engineering project coordinator for street maintenance workers. Um the the personnel I'm going to break it down a little bit more that on page 72 is where it gets into the surface water stuff of your budget book if you want to look uh but the personnel costs there are uh just over $411,000 for those five folks. And again, as councelor Dhy noted earlier, that includes all the costs, right? All the benefits, all the stuff. Um, contractual services, uh, like outside consultants, software licenses, concrete repair, things like that. Uh, is it $200,665? Uh, materials and supplies, which would be like office supplies, uniforms, small tools, things like that. Uh, just over 68,000. And then our capital investment uh for fiscal year 27 would be $481,000. And you can see what we're indicating there. It's basically those four items. Replacing a sweeper truck. That's big. That's the big dollar amount there. Um adding a crew cab pickup truck to the fleet. We're hiring four people to to do maintenance. They need something to get around in and to hold all their tools around in. Um the gutter bins, you know,

we have uh we have those downtown. We've got six of them downtown now and we've got actually four here at this facility. So 10 total. Um that's $15,000. The idea is that's two more events been. So is what we're trying to do is do two every year uh in the downtown area. Uh they've been really successful cigarette butts and silt and things like that. Um and then sewer jet head replacement. So it's not it's not the sewer jet truck replacement, it's the sewer the heads that go on there. So, there's different heads the guys can put on. They might put on a a a cutting head that'll cut through roots or uh I don't even know what they would call it, but a big flushing one that would send lots of water down. Right. So, there's all sorts of different heads that go on the end of the jets. Um depending on what work they need to do there. Any questions on the surface water drainage stuff over there? Yeah,

have a comment. I guess not a question. Um there's already comments kind of floating around the town that uh city council is going to rubber scan this budget. Uh but from what I'm seeing here and what I've seen so far tonight, almost everything that's on this budget that's like there more workers, more equipment, I came from work sessions that I don't know we proposed as council. And uh so I appreciate all of city staff taking everything that are our great ideas sometimes maybe not so great ideas and trying to do the best and um take the best of kind of what we hear from the public as well right especially this one we hear that we have a dra problem and hopefully this fixes some of it right it's not fix it all so uh I just appreciate that you guys are doing this um and taking what us council employers talk about in work sessions for a year and try to make it work.

Yeah. I mean, I appreciate you recognizing that what we what we're building here is is exactly what we talked about in those work sessions with that enhanced maintenance, right? Um and and if you remember, I showed you some of those some of those enhanced maintenance projects that we were doing. And um I'll be working with with Shane and engineering on on building up that web page that we have for service water to really show that to the public. you're probably facing on, you know, how many how many miles of roads are we sweeping, how many how many lines are we clearing and things like that. And so we're going to be working on that uh pretty hard um because we want the public to see where their money's going and what and what it's providing. I

also saw that they were great in West Ly today, which I appreciate because those roads were pretty bad because of the I wouldn't call a winner, but whatever the heck they had, so I appreciate that, too. Good. Um,

I I'm so excited about this and I know when you describe what these schools do, um, I I hope anytime there's a camera that we get because it's it's just phenomenal what's going on underground and what's going on in the background. And I get to how appreciative I am of this whole team here today because it's just phenomenal. Yeah, it's you see the picture that's there, that's a a root ball basically coming out, right? Um today Shane showed me pictures of big chunks of concrete that were down at the storm drain and those those block the storm drains, right? The silt builds up around them and the next thing you know you have a dam down there and things aren't drained properly. It's we've got some awesome photos that we're going to get posted um that'll really shows what's going on underground

in relation to that advertising. I just caught up with Owen this morning and asked him to get with uh Shane Johnson, streets manager, right? Streets manager uh to start lining up and getting the news out about what we're seeing, what we're finding, what we're correcting, and the improvements that we're making with this group. And I actually was out today and saw the crew out. And so I jumped in the truck with them and was watching the van or watching the the video and the sewer and I saw those big things of concrete. And so I'm over here talking to the guys. I'm like, "How does a piece of concrete that's 3 ft long and about as big as a sausage get 400 ft down a sewer line?" And Eric, our engineer, says, "That's a lot of water that we right." So, but it was uh what they're doing, what this crew is going to mean for the safety of our community is yet to be seen in full, but it's going to be an impressive change. Brooks, just uh maybe another comment question, but kind of similar to Council Dhy and and I guess Aaron and Brandon said, um you know, one of the things I I hear constantly about my year and a half on city council is streets. Uh I feel like public works is always kind of under the scrutiny of the public as most city services are. But um you know, I I really appreciate the capital investment here and it's kind of a catch 22. I mean, if we don't have these folks that we're hiring on to do this higher level service, then we were probably contracting it out. So, you know, you're either spending more on contracts, managing that with with private folks or we're bringing them in house for a three-year period, see how it goes. And and I might have missed this. My question through all that is those four street maintenance workers like what will they be doing or is that kind of what city manager is saying to you where that you know as as we get them transferred over that you know we'll figure out kind of like the specialties that they'll be working on if this budget approved.

Yeah. I mean there's going to be enhanced street sweeping. Shame's working on a street sweeping schedule. We're hoping we're hoping that um with the new sweeper and the new people will be able to actually publish a uh a sweeping schedule, right? So people know to park in the street that day, the sweeper come. Um so that's one thing. And and the sweeping is huge. That's what keeps all the debris out of the the storm drains, right? Um they're going to be running the jet through, cleaning lines. They're going to be running the hammers through. We're going to be cleaning um the drainage ditches. We have um maintenance work. I mean, lots of maintenance work. Thank you. They get added. One more piece that I envision is that they'll kind of oversee repairs of large projects that they run into. One of the ones that uh Shane had indicated to me was we had a a storm sewer that had wasn't making the manhole. And that's a big repair. And it takes staff and time to see what the excavation is, look at the pieces. You know, Shane's got a big job already. And to get back into town to manage those contracts is difficult where this crew can manage those contracts for

I'm sorry, but I just have to add something. And this is to Brandon's point earlier, but I just want to remind the council of all those conversations we had about surface water drainage. So you all determined this new level of service, the one that was lower, this budget number before you, BER versus has done a fantastic job of letting this kind of new division represent that lower level of service that the council worked through. And so really all you're saying is to Brandon's point kind of where we picked up and left off and what we heard the council's direction to be was let's use that $5 million um that we set aside to match the the big level of service um and and let's go ahead and do the work in the general fund and show people um what this what value this creates for the community. And so that's exactly what we're doing here with this three-year authorization. Um that'll total about $3.6 million. I just I just want to say that while we were going through all those surface water discussions and exploration and changes, I really appreciate the resilience in the openness of you and the staff and the way that rather than working in an opposite ation. We all work together to figure out a solution for where we are at this moment in time. And I love that we were all part of the process together.

Thank you. I got another gray hair, too.

I don't know. I feel like Jim because I have to Columb because city manager said something. Oh, I want to do a ride along the streets. Can I do that? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I want to see some of that cool stuff. Absolutely. What's your number, Shane?

Yeah. No, absolutely. We can we can do that. If you want to just shoot me or Shane an email, we can we can get things set up for sure. Yeah. It's really cool when they're when they're cameraing to go in there and actually watch because they're sitting in the back of the truck watching the camera as they're feeding it through. It's uh it's pretty neat to see what's going on down there. Sometimes it's kind of scary, but it's it's pretty neat.

Comment about the police part of this operation. I think um I think the public body we are saving there because we have skilled people. I mean 230 some vehicles that they're keeping operation on. I don't usually see you stuck on the side of the road. Usually if you're on the side of the road you're doing work. So um kudos to them too.

Yeah, we we've got some great mechanics. It's it's pretty neat. You walk in shop over there one day and they'll have a fire engine up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up off off the ground, you know, they're working on and then you walk in the next day and it's always a police car, you know, they might be working on a load or whatever. I mean, those it's it's pretty neat. You don't see that in a lot of shops where a lot of shops are specialized to one thing or another, but our guys, man, they touch everything. It's it's pretty cool that they can work on that small engines up to big huge equipment and stuff. So yeah, pretty cool. All right, let's get the next work item. Thank you. So general fund priorities for operating equipment. I just wanted to highlight a couple items. Uh fuel inventory software. Um our our current fuel inventory fuel inventory software is through the Naval Enterprise system, which uh which we're phasing out, of course. Um, the new system is uh is an $8,000 one-time investment uh so that we can track our fuel usage and uh and and report that through our inventory. Uh another item is the walk block walk behind paint sprayer. It's just needs to be replaced. It's getting old and and we're having problems. That that paint sprayer is used to do uh like parking, say downtown parking, the parking lines, and then um also any of the stencils you see in the roadway. So, school crossing or the turn arrows or what have you. Um, so pretty important piece of equipment for us. And then the air compressor and air dryer for the fleet shop. Uh, when we when we purchased the buildings out here, there was there was one in there that uh had uh really was oversized for us. Um, they left that here and um it it's done. It needs to be replaced. Um it we were we looked at getting it repaired and it's such an oversized unit. It was like $80,000

to to just get it repaired. So uh Shane looked at right sizing that for the shop over there and uh it's a $21,000 replacement for air over there. And that that runs their air tools and uh you know airs up tires and a lot of their a lot of their tools and equipment they use over there are powered from there. this one. So, general fund uh capital highlighted projects, Spring Creek stabilization. This one we just brought in. What was it a month ago? I think it was just like about a month ago. So, uh our folks in engineering noticed that we had a stream bank failing um in Spring Creek near the Courtell Hill Bridge. And the real concern there was is there's there's a large sewer line, sewer main not too far from there. And of course, we don't want it to erode back into that sewer line. So, um, city engineer came to me and said, "Hey, we we need to do something here." So, we've put some funding in to do uh some design and and you know, it's probably going to be some gabian baskets or something along the edge there to protect that stream bank and ultimately protect that sewer line. Um, and so we'll we'll we'll get started on that uh this summer. Um, and try to get that buttoned up. And then uh the CIP lining for storm water mains. Um, you know, this is something we do every year. The curing place stuff has been amazing. People use it all over the world and it's uh I mean, your cost benefit is incredible compared to, you know, digging it up and putting in a new line. So, it's been really successful for us. Um, and Shane's actually got some really good pictures of the before and after of that that we're we're going to show. But, uh, so that's that's a project that we we like to do every year. And we we we

partner that with the sanitary sewer lining at the same time. We we bid them together with the same contractor. It just makes sense. They're found and they can just do that one time. Um, and then a couple projects in the capital construction fund for fiscal year 27. The harve street design. This is between 9th and 15th. full reconstruction. We'll be starting the design this year, lining up the uh construction portion for next year. This is one of those projects where we're we're looking at there's some phasing with it. As far as we've got another a separate project that's a waterline project that runs on 15th Street through the Harmony intersection. And so, um working those those together. Uh we didn't want to do it this summer because we're going to have so many other roads closed obviously. So, uh, we're going to we're going to phase that out for over the next couple years, design and build. And then our annual chip sealing project, um, we we put in there every year, say $600,000 to do the chip seal, extends the road by 6 to 10 years for roughly onetenth of the cost of an asphalt overlay. So, uh, those have been really great projects. Um, we got some really good pricing last year and and hopefully this year, you know, we've already got a few contractors that reached out and said, "Hey, are you guys doing that again?" So, that's good news. Um, so looking forward to that project.

So, for general fund, um, basically is what I did is I pulled out the three the three biggest ones. Uh the first one is the replacement of a back a 2008 backhoe for the cemetery 2008 dump and plow truck for the streets division and then the the street sweeper I talked about earlier which is just over 10 years old um for the service water. I want to note down there at the bottom it says enterprise fund fleet replacements are detailed in the budget book on page 81. It should say general fund fleet replacements. Just saw it today. So sorry about that. And then um SVET 2008 SVET projects for fiscal year 27 for public works. We've got outline 1.8 million in projects. Five projects that the two big ones are listed here. Four street reconstruction Grandson. So that's right out there in front of uh fire station one. Those trucks have just killed the asphalt out there. Uh we're going to go and re reconstruct that in concrete. Um and uh should last a very long time. Um and then optimized drainage pond at 19th Street. That's 19th and Reynolds there. Uh that drainage pond is the grading in there is all off. The inlet and outlet structures need to be replaced. The drainage channel through it needs to be redone. So, uh, design and build in fiscal year 27.

Yeah, that's still we use the walkway and all like that intention to have integrated.

Uh, I, you know, I think that that'll be through design, I imagine, but I I would think we would try to keep that in there if possible. I mean, I know it's I know it's used and and and people love it. So, I think if it can be incorporated in Absolutely. Um it it's more I know the grading there that goes the wrong way and then the inlet and outlet structures don't property is that. So, um, the city engineer is making a note right now to try to keep the pathway through the through Brooks. Where is that? 19th and where?

19th and Rails on the next to the is a daycare center there. Basically, okay, next page. I failed to tell you that on a lot of these I have page numbers at the bottom. of the slides. Um those page numbers are references for your budget fun. Okay, so moving out of general fund, we're going to start talking about enterprise fund stuff. Um so this is for our water fund. Uh those four folks there are uh part of our pumps and wells and treatment plant folks. I think they're all level four operators now. Is that right? Okay. Three. One level three. and they're all good guys. They work real hard. Um, so for the water fund, uh, highlighting some operating and routine equipment stuff, we have, uh, increased shipping costs for some overnight sample delivery. Uh, EPA has changed some rules on holding times for samples and, uh, requires basically within 24 hours. So, uh, overnight delivery, uh, costs for the samples are going up. uh equipment repairs of treatment plants. This includes a lot of small items like uh generator scales, some lab equipment, things like that. So, this is more small equipment within the treatment plant. Um and then our fire hydrant maintenance and replacement program we started last year. Uh we've got a lot of older hydrants out there in the system. Some of them honestly just don't work. And so, we're working on getting those replaced um over time. Uh for capital projects, our big one for fiscal year 27 is the water treatment plant PLC and SCADA replacements. PLC is programmable logic controllers and the

scattera is supervisory control and data acquisition.

So PLC's the PLC's are basically uh the programming at at the device. Say it's a pump, right? It's a computer at the pump. it if they can program the pump comes on at this time, the pump goes off at this time. The the SCA portion of it enables us to monitor and control those from remotely. Um, and so they they they go hand in hand quite a bit, but those are are really really old. Like really old and need to be I think we had EPA told us it was the second oldest they saw ever. So yeah, so the guys have done a great job keeping things operational, but it's time for us to to move on and get a piece of that state. Correct. Um I did want to note some of our big ongoing projects as own one tank. You guys have heard a lot about um came to you just a few meetings ago about the $10.1 million uh loan award with the 0% interest rate um for that project. That's in design right now. And then the 41T3 well and treatment project. Um I think we've got that around 2.4 million right now. And uh the city engineer told me that we should have final plans for the for that from a consultant here in the next couple days. And so we'll be able to get that out to bid pretty soon.

Receive them tonight. You receive them tonight. Perfect. Um and then also uh the fleet portion for the water fund. Um you may recall a month or two ago came to you for a resolution to apply for an SRF loan for a new hydro excavation truck that was uh really specifically for the lead and copper identification. Um and that that also is a 0% loan. Um, and so that's the big fleet portion in any questions there on the water thing. Yeah.

Wondering so fire hydrant maintenance and replacements. I'm curious why that's larger than the fire.

Um, it's part of the water system. Yeah. Yeah. I mean we our folks our folks uh in the water in the water division maintain maintain all those um fire does do testing and fire flows on them um and we work with them and they do that but as far as maintenance and replacements are concerned the water I don't know how to fix.

All right, next slide. We got Oh, you're there. Uh, the wastewater fund. So, there's the camera truck right there. Um, so capital and the wastewater fund, the north side outflow line. So, we we got a $2.5 million vote on this, uh, SRF loan on this. I think it was in 2018. Um we've been struggling with uh easements on that project and and without easements we can't get final design completed. I think we're making some progress now. Um but uh new estimated costs uh we need another 2.5. So this would be to go back for that 2.5. Now north seed outfall line runs all the way from the main lift which is over here by the river all the way out asphalt lane to 30th. Takes up that whole serious sky area up there. takes a lot of pressure off of the Reynolds line. Uh, and so it's it's a really important project for for the existing stuff that's there, but also any development that occurs up on the north side of town. Um, so we have partial design on that, but until we get the easements finalized, we won't have final design. Hopefully, we can get that done this year. We've had some movement there. So, um, anyway, it's going to take another 2.5, but, uh, that'll be a great project for this community, um, and really open up some development on that north side. Right now, everything a faster sky, there's not capacity of rentals for that. So, this opens up all the capacity.

And then ongoing project, the West Lammy lift station, 11.6 million project. That's underway. The bulk of that work is going to happen in the fall. We got to kind of wait for the water table to go down because a lot of the equipment is down underground and people obviously don't want to work with B table stuff. Uh big fleet replacement for them is the 2016 sewer jet used for cleaning sewer lines. Um and then operating and routine equipment sewer camera truck wrap which I'll talk about here in just a second. It's for public awareness. It's a onetime $8,000 cost. And then our annual manhole replacement program. We started that program last year. Also, we've got um almost 2500 manholes within the system. Some of them are very old. Uh we open them up, they're stacked red brick in there and the mortar in between them is falling apart and um too dangerous for our folks to enter for maintenance and um you know, if those collapse, we can have holes in the street and everything else. So, we've started replacing those uh those older man holes. Um, a lot of those if we're doing a sewer project or what have you, we those get done with the sewer project. And so, uh, our utilities folks and engineering folks has to have need to coordinate, you know, don't ever push that one because we've got a project coming up type thing, right? And so, um, but yeah, really important project that Gary's been leading on, um, and and been really good for us. Next slide, please. So, this is this is our Oh, yeah. percentage um you gave us the total number of bands but about what percentage be replaced last year you go to replace so what we've indicated in the budget is uh we're trying to do at least five a year um I think with the cost we've been seeing we can do more

than that with this as long as our contractors have the capacity to do that so this Um, we we got some talented folks over in our collection side. They did a mockup for our truck wrap. And so, and this is $8,000, which man, when I first saw I was like, that's a lot of money, right? But if this can prevent one bad backup and clog, u, we probably pay for that $8,000, right? Having the people out, the equipment out, if there's a plane that goes in because we back up into somebody's house. Um, you know, if this truck wrap can can stop one one clock, I think we're we're ahead of the game.

It's always on the weekend, right? It's always in the weekend. It's Gary's always on the weekend or late at night. Or late at night.

Yeah. So, anyway, we've seen this across other communities. They have done a lot of this, especially during CO there. There was a lot of it going on because there was so many so many wipes and things being flushed. But uh anyway, I don't know if this is exactly what it's going to look like when it's done, but this is uh this is their mockup right now. All right, next slide, please. All right, the solid solid waste fund. Um the landfill vouchers are ready. The QR code up there should work. We need a landfill voucher for this year. Um the Baylor building lighting is the first project I wanted to talk about. So that building out there, the Baylor building, we built in 2012, 2013 and and the lighting in there is just dying most. And that building can get kind of dark in there. And uh so we we want to update it with some some energy efficient, more energy efficient lighting first of all, but then just to give some lighting for safety for the public and for for our workers in that building. Um, we've got quotes in at around $17,000 for that. It's a onetime cost. Reynolds and leases. This is a $40,000 reduction. You may recall last year we we purchased a uh a grinder for the compost program. And so we don't need to rent a grinder every year anymore. So this is a $40,000 reduction in rentals and leases for the landfill. The big project we have coming up is the landfill stage two expansion. uh $4 million project. It's under design right now with Tri Hydro. Um the project will construct future cells, le ponds, and the storm water facility is out there. Uh we will be applying for SRF for that this year. Um we'll start that process here in a couple months and um it's just the progression of the landfill. Next one needs to be done so

we can so we can move on. And then as far as fleet, uh we are requesting an addition to the fleet, a new uh large loader out there. Um we have we have one large loader that just runs all over the place, 250 acres, and that thing is all over the place and really busy. And when we're turning compost rows, a lot of times wastewater treatment plant brings their loader out and runs it all the way over. And uh so anyway, we we have a real need for that loader. We've probably had that need for a while now, but um now we're asking we're asking now. Um the other thing I didn't highlight here is we are we are requesting uh one more FTE here for the landfill. Um there's been over the years, we haven't really added staff, but we've added lots and lots of programs out there. And the compost program, which has been, in my opinion, a real success, has blown up and takes a lot of time uh to monitor temperatures and turn the wind roads and do the grinding and the mixing of those. Um, and it's almost a full-time job for somebody just to do that. Atlantico is also a six- day operation. So that extra staff is really needed so that we're not so lean on a lot of times on Saturday or Monday we're kind of lean so that people can have two days off and rep. So having that extra person will really really help out there. It really came to light this spring when we had the really bad winds and we were struggling to keep up with the litter and everything else we needed to do. And um so talking with the city manager, we we decided, you know, now's the time we need to we need to get this done and get another person in there to help out.

Yeah. Just for anyone that might be online this watch this explain to the public what the voucher is.

Yeah. So the the voucher landfill voucher is basically for for one free load the landfill per household. Um so you can go online through through our new program and um apply for a voucher and um you get basically emailed to you and you take you can take it out to the landfill and it's basically a pickup truck size load of you know stuff. um and present your voucher at the scale house there and um and off you go. It's a it's a free load. So, encouraging people to to clean up the community, clean up their yards and um and get it to the right place. Yeah.

Along those lines, um you're talking about green waste is free, right?

Correct. Yeah, green waste is free. Um your glass, the glass you can bring out for free. um e-waste, household hazardous waste. There's there's a lot of those items that that that we take for free. Um mostly the stuff we want to keep out of landfill, right? Uh metals, most recyclable items. There's single stream recycling. There's there's there's a small fee for a minimum $5 fee for single stream recycling. Um but yeah, the green waste is that's one of the reasons I think it's been so successful is because it Yeah, it's free free to bring out there and then we divert that from the landfill into a certain area where we grind it and make compost out of. So my last slide um really on this this is just uh basically all of our main funds, a general fund and then our three enterprise funds. And really is what I wanted to show here and I think uh the the budget book kind of highlights it is that uh in the general fund our personnel is the highest percentage budget whereas in our enterprise funds they're very capital heavy and and that's where the majority of the funds are spent. So that's what I have for you folks tonight and I'll take any questions if we got through.

So I got to tell you I I sent this I sent this presentation over to the city clerk and city manager and director and none of them commented. Leonte Blake. Yes. I wanted to comment that, you know, you're adding in the service water drainage for 1.1 million this year or you know, previous years, but you were still able to keep the budget pretty much the same from 26 to 27. So, I understand that.

Thank you. So, I'm just going to brag a little bit about public works because I want to. You know, you can't tell from these slides and you can't tell from the budget book because it's not rolled up in this way, but I did some quick math because that's my thing. And $43.2 million of the budget is for public works. That's what Brooks has just talked to you about. all the people in the room who helped him prepare for it. That's why it takes all that effort, right? It's half the city's budget. And that's in a year where we have we we pretty much said, "Hey, guys, no new capital. Let's just focus on design because we need to get caught up." So, that's probably a little lower than it is in a normal year. Um, and it takes a lot of effort and care and attention. um because when that doesn't happen, especially in public works, it has a pretty tremendous financial impact. And remember, these are your right supported operations. And so this amount of care is something that I really appreciate and just want to tell the council like how much of the budget you just saw in a really subtle way um in a very skillful skillful presentation. I just want to add this is the third year in a row I presented budget on my birthday. Oh,

he thought I must have missed the budget line in there to keep you here. Is that not Thanks, director. If there's no question further questions for Brooke, we'll move on to parks, recreation, and public services. Bob, do you want to sit up here?

No, I'm going to sit over here. thought was gonna get out of the film. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess I could podium. I'm not going to stand at the podium. I got cake ice cream cake.

All right. Thank you guys.

Thanks. All right, you get the bond department round out the email. Uh, so let's see. I guess we just go to the the next uh the next slide. This is just my title page, but I do like to put pretty photos of people using our facilities. So, I wanted to just start off by saying, you know, parks, recreation, and public services. Uh we're super proud to be able to contribute so much to the health and wellness, quality of life, youth development, natural beauty, uh and just really being able to be an integral part of creating a sense of place here in Laram. Uh the department's responsible for a host of services that contribute uh to these factors and some of them are are a lot more visible than others. Um everyone's familiar with our fantastic parks and trails and open spaces. A lot of people enjoy the programs, classes, and amenities at the recreation center uh or enjoy skating at the ice and event center. Uh but less familiar or maybe less public facing uh are the dedicated staff at the Green Hill Cemetery who provide services for families in their time of need. Uh or the maintenance workers keeping all buildings running throughout the city or the dedicated staff mosquito control uh and integrated pest management helping keep our city safe, protected, and better able to enjoy the outdoors. uh for everybody. Um parks, recre, and public service does all of that and more. Um so this first slide is just really just a real basic organization. We're we're in within the general fun. We have seven divisions. Uh we have administration basically myself and a small business office. uh our facilities management which manages uh all of the janitorial custodial uh preventative maintenance and repairs and and work orders uh throughout all of the city facilities. Uh obviously our parks and trails and under that is bringing old

cemetery and mosquito and and integrated pest management and then our recreation division with the ice and event center and our recreation programs. And then in addition to that, we also have our recreation center fund which uh I I just listed three of of many many that we have there, but our fitness and wellness programs, our aquatics programs, and just our general recreation programs as well. So that's just our general organization at parks and rank and public services. Next slide. Uh just as you you've seen a lot of these pull outs from the fantastic budget book that Jen and and Spencer created. So, you know, just like Brooks said, I couldn't help but steal some of those images uh to highlight. Um really the the main message on here is uh just like uh you heard from from others uh within the general fund of parks recent public services uh you know the the by far the biggest bulk is our personnel. Um but uh that's because of of all the all of the things that we do. It's very people centric. Um you can see the pie chart. I just wanted to to show again this this breakout of you know really how the general fund is is broken down throughout uh the division and really uh pretty equally spread between facilities management, parks and trails uh with you know everything else kind of taking up uh you know other pieces but we have a very diverse uh department with a lot of people spread all throughout the city. Next slide please. So, as we start uh talking about our our priorities, I wanted to just highlight a common thread throughout uh this this year's budget, uh which is our repairs and improvements line. Um you're going to see that through several divisions uh highlighted here. Uh and they're either called equipment and infrastructure improvements or repairs and improvements. And what this is is this is an effort to add uh some money into

each one of these uh divisions u for uh not taking care of everything but some of these uh repairs that pop up that that uh that are just going to keep happening as our facilities get older. Um so as you see like within parks it's $40,000 recreation center 75,000 uh ice and event center 25,000 and within facilities and cemetery 12,000 and 10,000 respectively. And what our hope is is we hope that this uh you know reduces some of the amendments that we have to bring you all. Uh you know as everybody knows some major system repair could you know cover it could be more than that 75,000. But what we hope to do out of this is uh if we can keep our our preventative maintenance uh on track and really recognize things uh get them repaired before they break. Uh we hope that this can carry us uh or at least give us uh this good first year test of you know did we hit the mark? Were we under? Were we over? Uh because this is also not just repairs. You can see it's also improvements and equipment. Uh so you know towards the end of a fiscal year if we've got some leftover money uh maybe we'll buy that extra pump that we know might go out. Uh it's old. It hasn't gone out yet, but great to have one on the shelf so it does go out. We're not waiting six or eight or 12 weeks for a replacement. Um so just wanted to highlight that as as one overall highlight theme throughout the the the department. Um and then we'll move into some of the more specifics. So next slide please. So within the general fund again specifically uh within our personnel operating and maintenance I just wanted to highlight uh a few things. Uh the first and and to me one of the most needed is a new park maintenance position uh within our parks division. Uh it's been over 20 years since we've added a full-time position at parks. Um if you can imagine and think about all

of the improvements that have been made in our park system in that time. Uh so it's definitely needed. Uh and so uh I thank the city manager for for approving uh this request and and moving it forward uh to you all. But uh this position is going to be able to help take some of the pressure off of our parks crews out there. Um but as importantly, it's going to allow uh to have another crew leader uh so that our park one of our our park maintenance supervisor uh Mike Mallaloy can actually do some of the supervisory duties that he should be doing. but often times he's pulled out into the field because we're short-handed. Um, and so this is going to give us a much better uh ability to again uh handle what we've got and and again we've got projects that we're we're developing right now that we're going to be taking on even more maintenance responsibility. So that's a that's an important position and priority for us. Uh the next I wanted to highlight is out of our facilities division. Uh this is I would consider not necessarily thinking out of the box but thinking around the corner. Uh in the summertime our facilities division needs a couple of vehicles but it doesn't need a couple of vehicles year round because in the winter time we can use the park vehicles that are in the summer being used by our seasonal workers. So we have plenty of vehicles uh in the winter time, but in the summertime we need a couple of vehicles for our pack park staff to get around. Instead of trying to add to fleet where then we would have even more vehicles sitting not used as much in the winter, we last year started going through United Rentals and just renting to light new equipment trucks. Uh and that has really made it a lot easier for our maintenance folks to to haul equipment around, cleaning supplies around. Uh, prior to this, uh, I I I wasn't aware. As soon as I was, I put a stop to it. They were putting like their like city vacuum cleaners and cleaning supplies into their own personal vehicles and driving from location to location. And so, uh, this was a way to have it is an

impact. It's $15,000, but that's a lot less expensive, uh, than adding two, you know, trucks onto the fleet. Um, so we we thought that was a great thing. Last year it was not budgeted for, which is why you see it in this year's budget. last year was an experiment and and worked out well. And then last uh one that I wanted to highlight in the just operating and maintenance is program supplies. You'll see a couple of areas uh in the budget just like Brooks uh at the bottom of the screen is actually page numbers that reference the budget but but the dialogue is on there. So if you've got a pull out uh you can see within the budget page uh what that is. But uh the recreation program supplies, we are really excited to be uh planning uh to launch a whole variety of different new uh youth and adult uh programs in the community. Um and so with that, if we're offering more programs, we need to be able to buy more supplies. Uh so you see slight increases in in several of our line items related to supplies and activities. Um and so we're we're very excited about that. Um and that covers the operating and maintenance highlights to councelor Dorty's point earlier the park position uh the maintenance position for 78,000 includes everything. That is not what that person's being hired for. It includes uh benefits, retirement, everything. You know, we on Tuesday had a constituent that saw that and thought that's a really high salary. And so I just wanted to point out again that it includes everything.

That is great. That 78,000 is with with benefits included. And I I can't remember exactly, but it's around a $50,000 a year uh entry level park payments. I think we could amend that a couple hundred to buy those vehicle magnets and stick them on rentals. Identify we bought them last year. We did. Yes. I did not want vehicles running around with bark stab in there. We might have to consider things that talk about dog food, picking up dog food on the drains.

I we can have a whole session brainstorming the rack that go around. We are considering ramps for the Zambon requests for for that as well. So you can still rest grab it all. I never get it on my jacket. not taking a course.

Okay. Next, next slide. If there's no other question. So, within the general fund capital budget project highlights, uh I wanted to highlight two uh that we've got coming up for this upcoming year. The first is the Walmart pathway lighting project. Um this was uh something that has been identified as a safety corridor issue. If anybody's familiar with uh between Boulder and Walmart, that very dark trail, there's actually a wide junction that has a light that you know, it's difficult to maintain that light just as as a standalone solar. Uh so this project would actually provide lighting uh from Boulder all the way to the Walmart uh pull in uh driveway. Um so we're we're very excited and that number was based off of some estimates that we had uh we had gotten prior. So we're pretty confident uh in that. And uh the next one is one that I know may have been talked about, but it's probably the first time it's been publicly talked about and I felt it was important uh to include this in the budget. Uh our cemetery I don't it has many many many more years of operational life. Uh but we are running out of sellable spaces. That's why, if you remember, we went and purchased some Oddfellows spaces last year because we realistically have about five to six maybe seven years of sellable uh full-size spaces left in our cemetery. So, we we requested $75,000 not to build a new cemetery, but to engage in a study uh about what we may need. And this may this we envision this study to include uh some site uh proposals looking at you know several potential sites in town um as well as best practice on design. Uh best practices even in some more modern operation. We've got a cemetery going back to the 1870s. It's you know been there a long time. Uh it's kind of locked into place of of how it could be set up. And I know that there's more

modern, newer uh designs that, you know, help maximize uh maintenance, lower uh, you know, green use of, you know, figuring out ways to to to lessen water consumption, things like that. So, um, we envision this to be the first step towards a a much longer discussion as we move forward, but we felt it was important to to get that first step taken. So, uh, we intend on engaging with a company uh to to help with that. uh if this is approved. Next slide. And in the general fund capital construction fund projects, uh two projects that I wanted to highlight. Uh Levante light pole project that 300,000 that is a multi-year project designed for probably at least the next two or three years uh of the same amount each one of those each one of the fields. So we've got three fields there. Uh it's estimated for uh needing to uh about 300,000 just to replace the poles and the lights themselves. Bring them up to uh more modern, get them upright so that they're not leaning uh and uh just generally make uh uh good improvements to that. Uh the next one is the replacement of the Washington Park waiting pool. Uh it is timed. Uh this $100,000 does not replace the Washington Park waiting pool. Uh this is to this is again a multi-year admission project. Uh this first year would be to engage with a recreation design firm. Uh we envision you know we we've got the removal of the existing uh waiting pool. Uh and our vision for the new splash pad spray park at the at that same general location is also to we have to include design for improved water and sewer. um possibly improved restroom facilities there uh as well as the splash pad. We wanted to to

really serve uh a large community uh area. Um it's uh there's a lot of great modern designs. So we don't really have I mean I gave an estimate for a potential total project, but I wanted to start this first year with just the design uh because there's lots of great new innovations. So this would start that project and uh we envision it to be at least a 2 three year venture. Um when you raised this idea earlier, I think we were gonna do something instead. But um I I want people to realize that with heat and and also that this is something that people of all ages and people with disabilities to pass. I think this is a great idea, but I I would like us to get conscious about light pollution with those those two lighting projects because those fields, man, they really end up sky. They're getting comments from constituents. I don't care if we be more thoughtful and I think we try to be, but I just want to be sure that's part of if you haven't had a chance. The parts crews recently replaced the lights at the

red green. Yeah. Green green. Um the new LEDs are so much more directional and keep the light on the field instead of having to display and spread out. I think you'll be pretty impressed with what the new technology does. Those lights on those bowls, I don't know how old they are. We're getting at the end of being able to replace ballast and do the changes. But uh we've also had good luck with a local electrician that's kind of come into their own on providing these lighting systems that has been a bit significant cost savings over the national brand. So pretty excited about what they proposed and the opportunities that that provide this.

Yeah. In addition to that um with those uh new LED projects that that the little field we also installed a new it's a test uh timing on and off system. So, uh, actually from an app now, um, our staff can actually turn the lights on and off. Um, we can have them programmed to go off and on at better times and that's been a problem at all, but people people just leave them on. Um, and we'll get, you know, messages at 3:00 in the morning that the lights are are still on. Those are expensive. Uh, lights, I mean, just just to have them on. Um and so all of these improvements both LED uh hand better onoff technology and timing systems putting more putting some responsibility um on some of our outdoor user or outside organization users as well on how to you know properly schedule and let us know when they're done or potentially even even enable them to turn the lights off with the with the app as well. So all of those are are great energy savers and light pollution uh reducers. Uh, next slide. Uh, and then within the general fund are 2018 specific purpose tax projects that we're still working on. And it looks like we've got the old file, an old slide still up there. It is not a hund00 million under the west side trail. That's a million dollars. Uh,

we all have had that tonight. It's totally fine.

Yeah. No, it is. But I I I actually corrected it on my slides. They are correct. Um but this is a highly anticipated project. In fact, you'll be uh seeing a contract bid award coming before you on Tuesday of next week uh for this project. But this is the funding uh to actually pay for it. This connects uh Pier Street and West Laram uh over to Snowy Range Road uh via the old railroad uh line and railroad trestle bridge. Uh this project includes a rehabilitation and repairs to the Trestle Bridge as well. Um so it'll be getting new decking uh new railings as well as some support uh structural uh shoring. Um so we're excited about that project. Um we're actually going to have our first uh bicycle roundabout. Uh you'll hear more about that on Tuesday as well, but our first bike roundabout uh as part of the project at an awkward intersection of the Green Bell Trail. Uh so we're excited for that. Uh but one million, not 100 million.

And then uh we've got playground replacements. There's actually uh three two playgrounds and and then another improvement. I just lumped them all together. Uh but the total project is 425,000 for all of them. evidence to replace the Lante East playground, uh the Odell Mini Park playground, and then begin a project of replacing the dugouts at Leonte Park. Uh they're not ADA accessible. They flood uh and retain water a lot. Um and so again, this would part of this funding is to do one of the of the fields uh probably the same one that we replace the lights on and then just kind of make our way through uh over the next few years. Uh but those that's going to be a great improvement project as well. Um next slide unless there's questions. So now we've moved over to the rec center fund. Uh and let me catch my slides up here. We did have a few notes. So uh I I thought this I was I was feeling poetic uh a little while ago. Uh the rec center is one of the jewels of Jen City. I know I'm not first person to say that. I know. uh it continues uh to operate as a central hub for uh the community's fitness and wellness and aquatics in the community. Um quite honestly, every time I walk into that building, I'm amazed that it's over 20 years old. Um it does not look uh its age. Uh and that to me is a testament to how well it was constructed at the beginning. Um how well people have cared for it over the last 20 years. Um and we have every intention of continuing it for another 20 years. Um it's it's still in remarkably good condition. So uh the other day uh at our first budget meeting, Jen covered a lot of the basics of the rec center fund. So again, I'm just going to focus the last two slides on just a couple of the highlights out of uh out of this next year's budget requests. Uh the first one is a

continuation of these two lead aquatic staff positions. Uh so we started that back in 2022 uh as COVID was really still in a lot of effect for public facilities. Um and these two-year full-time positions are benefited uh full-time lead aquatics people that um provide assistance to the aquatics manager. um the the duties as they have been split out uh wind up that uh one of them is more in charge of kind of staff development and inservice training and certifications and the other one is more in charge of deck schedules and uh scheduling of of activities and things like that. But I can say that, you know, just in the year and a half that I've been here, the value of having those folks that can be on deck, really dealing with the operation of the pool, allowing the aquatics manager uh to focus on uh more strategic things and and managing the budgets and things like that, um has been well worth it. Uh so we requested the the two the last two-year authorization uh ends this year. So we're requesting an additional two-year extension of that uh because it has it has been very valuable. Um, and then the the last one that I put on here isn't really a general or a rec center fund request, but uh if you recall, I brought a resolution to you all from from the last AC CRV uh rec county w board. Um, and in that request, the the parks train wreck board had not approved the adventure kids trailer as part of the original uh recommendation that they made to you. Um, when I brought this to the Albany County Rec board, they felt differently and so they added this project back in. Um, and it was one that I I was really torn on because as I am the administrator of the city's ACRB process, as the PTR board was deliberating it, I really didn't feel it was my place to be bargaining with them for it. They had to have their discussion and make their decision. But

this was one that really uh was impractical because not only is it going to house a lot of our our existing adventure kits activity supplies, but we're planning on using that trailer for an art the park or a wreck pro or traveling wreck program uh to start going out and bringing recreation out to all of at least all of our major parks um you know on some sort of a schedule and and you and having this trailer being able to haul these supplies was it was going to be you know kind of an integral part. If you recall, we've got a sports trailer that's been heavily used and uh you know is seen all over the community. It's wrapped also. I'm sure we'll get this trailer wrapped as well. Um but I I really thought that was a wise move. Uh and I'm glad that it was able to come back on and and that we'll be able to to move forward with this program plan. Um and again, I wanted to just highlight the same thing. If you see, you know, personnel in the rec center fund uh accounts for 60% of our of our budget. Um and uh and I know that we uh are are just super happy to have such a great facility and a fund that uh that can be of a special purpose like this. It's it's challenging, you know, trying to think more entrepreneurial uh in there in that business operation, but um we've got a lot of great innovative people uh in the rec center and uh something that was just launched today in fact that we've been working on is we are now just today launching a summer pass uh at the rec center. We had a lot of feedback from people that, you know, realistically they've got kids, they've got jobs, they've got things going on, they don't want to have a full rec center memberships, but they do want to use the outdoor pool a lot. Um, and so we created just a it's just July and August. Uh, if you purchase that, uh, recenter pass it 10% discount from our our regular rates and we hope that that

provides a significant boost uh to our summer revenue. And uh and we're super happy that staff is always innovating new and exciting ways to engage community. With that uh I think the last slide is just that should just be Oh no, sorry I forgot about the capital projects at the rec center. Also got three two of them that I highlighted. Um the first if you've used the gym floor lately, it definitely needs some resurfacing. Uh it's been a number of years since it's had a full refinishing. Uh in fact, it's been over 10 years is what we found. It's 2013, I think, was the last full refinishing. So, we're going to go in uh it's going to require probably at least a two to three week shutdown uh of the gym area. We're not sure how that'll work. We've got to keep it sealed so that we don't get dust in on on it after it's been sanded and whatnot. So, we're figuring out that schedule, but it'll get uh stripped fully down, sanded. Uh we've got old logos on the floor. So we'll get new logos uh put in that are are more modern uh rec center uh logos, new striping uh in the gym as well as the athletic or the the dance studios will also get uh sanding and refinishing up in the uh the dance and cycle studios etc. And then the last one is a really you know not you you all are probably not as excited as I am for window grease ceiling. Uh we we you know these windows are are original to the building. Uh and when we had a couple of breaks uh as we were inspecting the windows and as they were moving the seals to to fix the broken windows they were seeing you know the rubber is degrading uh as is expected with the UV that we get here. Uh it being rubber. So uh we propose uh this $60,000 to go in and replace all of the rubber seals throughout the building. Um, it'll hopefully, you know, extend the life but and keep water from intruding. We have several spots that occasionally a little bit of water leak.

It's not consistent enough uh for us to be able to track down, but we suspect it's coming from seals that just aren't quite working as well. So, uh that is the capital project highlights. We do not have anything in the uh capital construction fund this year. Uh and there's no uh upcoming SBT projects for the rec center uh this uh upcoming year either. So with that, I believe the next page is my if you have any questions with one of our beautiful Rotary Park new science counselors. I think uh although there may not be construction fund projects, the SMT projects that are probably most notable, the Spring Creek trip is to the West Larby Westside Connector, Coughlin Pole Mountain, uh Optimus Park, ADA accessible play or fully all

inclusive playground and bike park and dog and bike park

bike park. So there's a lot going on in parks and craft. I'm glad you said that because I was going to actually talk about that too. So, I want to add something because the folks you're seeing today, except for me because I have a tiny department, right? These are our multifund operations. Um, and so it can be a little bit harder as a member of the council to actually understand the scope. It's really easy with police and fire when you see the chiefs like because they're in the general fund and they don't really have capital projects and then the equipment they have also involves in the general fund in their division. So, it's easy to see the percentage of the budget they are and what they cost. A lot harder to see that with parks and recreation and public works. And so, um I just want to give you a sense of scope here. And so, fire um their budget in the general fund for the year is about 8.9 million. Um all of parks and recck's budget is about 9.6 million. The police budget is about 10.6 million. And so I don't think most people realize that parks and wreck is actually of a similar size to police and fire because it's really easy for that to get hidden. And then again, I'd say this is a year where we don't have a lot of new capital appropriations. Most of them are more like maintenance kind of things like Mike has pointed out. And so that's probably a little bit lower, but parks and recreation is definitely a department we invest in at the same rate at which we invest in our public safety services. And I'm just not sure most members of our community realize that. Now, of course, if you combine police and fire, you know, it becomes a little bit different. But but I I just don't think people have a sense of that scale. I also want to talk just a little bit about SPT because this council just planned an SPT investment for um the next decade and it looks every SPT like we've talked about before looks a little different. So, I'm going to go through a couple of fun facts to tell a story and then I'm going to tell you why I'm telling that story. So, in 2001, about

50% of that ballot went to the recreation facilities we all love. 50% of the ballot. That's why we have the recreation center. It's why we have the ice and event center. But for that work, it wouldn't have happened. In 2010, almost 100% of that ballot went to our rate supported operations because you'll remember us talking about on like two work sessions ago all those financial plans. Like that's when we were starting that 10-year planning processes and we we needed that tax revenue to support and get those rate supported operations off the ground or users wouldn't have been able to afford our rates. In the 2018 tax, Todd did a very good job allocating 27% of that ballot um to various parks and recreation um items. A lot of work for parks, which we hadn't been able to invest in before, and it was really important. Little bit more modest to the recreation center. I think it might have been two million or something like that. Um this ballot, we don't have anything for car parks, right? because we had this big need in public safety facilities and we have about $2.5 million for the recreation center. So I'm saying this to tell you that spat right that spet really supports the general fund and carries us through a period of about a decade. And so what I see is that the general fund is going to need to really get serious and continue investing in maintenance type items for parks and recreation in particular because they don't have a very good portion of this next bet. And I think we're going to have to work for it, right? because we have this stuff like the youth sports study and we we have this vision for the community and none of that's going to be achievable like maintenance stuff will be achievable in the general fund but the ways in which we want to grow this you know Mike mentioned being that having that more entrepreneurial mindset that's going to be really important to deliver the level of services that we we need for the community because there just wasn't room on the SPE um with the needs

of the county and the town of Rock River and Laram combined to be able to do that and So that's what's on my mind is I'm listening to the director and his presentation and I just wanted to make sure that everyone knows right the decisions we make have an impact. We're going to have to keep investing in parks and w maybe more than we did in the past but that's because we made a choice um to prioritize these other items in this bet and that's how that all works together. Do you guys have any questions about that or comments?

I would love to comment on that. Uh Director Wayer Jin, thank you. Um I that is such a helpful perspective I think to share and and something that I'm constantly learning on council is just that history to understand where we are and you know I think part of our job as council is we're laying what city staff does on on our ideas but the work that we're doing and finding ways to to communicate that to the public who might say you know the regular fees are too high and and you know that's looked at all the time I think by director Bour and and or whatever. But, you know, like to understand the investment that we're going to need to out keep some of these things and why is super super critical. So, I I really appreciate that. I think it's going to be in the next couple years too important to revisit that. And I know you're maybe prepping us for that, but I appreciate it.

Yeah, we're I'm just prepping you for what's ahead. But I think I'm talking about it early, right? If you have people who are critical, I think it helps to say, "No, we made this decision here. It means this thing here. Nothing's wrong. It's just how you balance all those pieces. And it would make one other comment. Sorry guys, you know. Um, but I think you know parks parks rec public services also just like all our other departments are really lucrative and how they can find funding and resources and you know this a budget can tell a story and and you know Jane you're doing such a good job over this course of trying to give us the tools to tell that story and I mean I can't every time I ask Mike a question about where did the funding come from? it's a grant here or it was leveraged from this sp tax that has match or it's just just amazing what what we're able to do outside of just this budget at these departments and I know those folks are finding funding and resources all the time. So just thanks to Mike and and all other department heads that are constantly doing want to say received all kinds of compliments about signage and uh as I drive around the county I have subsequently discovered parts I never knew were there. So that's I have a a question with the part-time people uh that are coming for the summer. Is that only access to the outdoor pool or does it give them rec center access?

It's it's full membership. It's just for a three-month period. I think it was really brilliant because it may be that once they use it uh they'll that's exact then I won't say that's our main strategy but that is a side effect of of the strategy really the the main reason is because it's been requested so

it has been requested and I think this responds to public requests it responds to a public need uh but it also invites people in where they might be assuming uh it's not worth a certain amount but once they get there and start using services this summer and I think last I want to make u do we have another presentation no um I think council received an email and where we were somewhat accused of collusion with staff. I don't think that's the exact word was used, but that's what it meant. And that uh we collude to rubber stamp your projects and that we're being led around by the nose. And uh I just want to say we have one of the most amazing teams I have ever worked with. and that rather than collusion, I think we're in a constant state of cooperation, consideration, collaboration, anything but collusion and and you give us information, we get these big ideas. You take those big ideas and kind of operationalize them, bring them back to us. And it's a it's an iterative process where we get information, we dream big things, it goes out what's realistic, what's not, what's feasible, what's reasonable, and it comes back to us. and

cooperatively we are making decisions for the well-being of our city and for the growth and development and pride. Uh I don't want to be in a city that doesn't take pride in its property and in its environment. And we want to maintain things. We want to keep them up. We want them not looking run down and dilapidated. We want it to be um something we can be proud of. And I think by our ongoing maintenance and our ongoing investment and kind of bringing some of our aging structures up to par that we save our initial investment and we bring it forward into the future. And the last thing I'll say is I recently was at a fundraiser where I was with a bunch of people from Cheyenne and the topic of the rec center came up. And they are so jealous. They are so jealous. They said we've wanted rec center for 20 years. You've got it. We still can't get s.

So I thought that was interesting. I like to rub that in the parks and right folks every time I can. This should we all know that when you do say that your throne managed three of the six campaigns that bailed on the right center in China.

I couldn't agree more. You know, I think about the staff and when you were talking, I was thinking about how we listen and the budget is a response to us listening to council over the time. And I think Brandon brought it up that you know a lot of the things that we're proposing come out of the programs or the ideas or the discussions that you have whether we're looking at the full investment but was the full investment in the surface water drainage really limited some of the things that Jim and I really wanted to try to do this year. And so we we had to pull back and think about the importance of what council would like to see where our community would like to see and how we bring that forward. And then you think about the position to support the rental housing or the sled program. You know, we're not going to get to those and do those effectively if we don't actually get them uh set up correctly. And then when you look at the capital and projects that are proposed, you know, it just it moves so well. And it is it's about communication, collaboration, and keeping the open lines of communication. Um the parking task force is a direct response to try to create something to solve some things that we've been hearing to try to get this done. And so to me when you talk about that it's about listening and I always tell the story sometimes I hear my wife and sometimes I listen to her. Um it's about listening appropriately to counsel and not just hear your words. We actually have to listen. Can I add that um we had it's not just listening to council. It was I mean literally at the meeting where one of our constituents just said right here in my face screaming about and he's turned down and couldn't hear very well. So that's why he was so close. But he was talking about street sweeping. He's like, "Why don't you do more street sweeping?" And and this water, you know, like so it's not just, you know,

listening to us. It's listening to our constituents law, listening to our constituents. Um this gentleman, well, it was a little breaking, but but it was um you know, like we do listen. We spend a lot of time listening to our constituents, to our staff, and and uh and I want to give staff here a round of applause.

I think it's for one more reminder about budget amendments and I will turn it over to Jen.

Okay. midnight if you're if you're in Idol, midnight on May 19th or somewhere, you know, really until like 5 a.m. um is the truth of the matter. And so, um complicated ideas, big vision, maybe let's collaborate just a little bit to make sure that there's not a ton of work to do that's like not achievable to get it into form by the 21st so that we can help Nancy meet her deadlines, which are super important. um like easy things. You guys all have experience doing this. Do what you do. Send that to us by the day and if we have questions, we'll reach out. You don't have to worry about funding sources unless you have like a brilliant revenue idea. Um and we're going to assume it's from cash reserves um or current revenue as needed.

The the other thing that I'd say is, you know, big picture ideas, remember, we could work on these and we can do budget amendments and do some things in them as we move forward. And you like to remind everybody that tomorrow is day and there will be coffee and snacks served at uh First Street Plaza and breakfast burritos.

Breakfast burritos too. So, it is begins at 7 a.m. until 9 a.m. and I have been asked to read the proclamation and 8 a.m. So, I'll be down there in front. The tires on my bike tonight. Yeah, I got to check mine. Okay. Anything else? So we finished this work session and I would like to ask if there are any u public comments on this agenda kind of

mayor. It's prudent for me to let you know that uh we had kind of omitted one function that has been a springtime function of our city council which is the open container area approval. Um so that will be added to the council agenda for next Tuesday under the consent agenda item. So we were working along. Our crack public works staff reached out to me and said, "Hey, you want the signs in the same place?" And I was like, "Oh, get this to council." So that does start the weekend before, if approved, would start the weekend before tomorrow day. So I just wanted to make sure that you were aware. Okay. And then um is this our third or fourth year? This is our sixth year.

That good catch, city manager. We have some issues already. Yeah. So, I I we've had plenty of public discussion about this and I think what we've received in general public about it. So, right any public comment on this agenda? I'm seeing none. um was immediately turned. Good job. Good job.