City Council - Regular Meeting

WE'RE A LITTLE BIT SHORT-STAPPED HERE, BUT WE HAVE FOUR COUNCIL MEMBERS THAT HAVE BEEN ASKED TO BE EXCUSED, AND THEY HAVE BEEN EXCUSED. IT'S BEEN GRANTED. BUT COUNCIL PRESIDENT KNEBURG MAY BE ABLE TO ATTEND, AND WE'RE LOOKING FOR MAYBE ONE PERSON ONLINE, BUT WE CAN MOVE FORWARD. SO IF YOU COULD PLEASE STAND AND JOIN US IN RECITING OUR PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I don't see any citizen comments, so we're just going to jump right over that. This is being taped, so we're going to ask our council members to go back and review this. Next up is budget items, item A, parks and facility reports. We have our finance director here, Amy Gordon. Welcome.

Thank you, Mayor, members of council. I might be peeking at my phone every now and then just because I left all my notes at the office, so I'm just going to make sure I don't forget something. Okay, so we are here for our work session number two, and we're going to continue the conversation on capitals. In the first work session, we went through all of our public works capital budgets as well as some information on their operations and really kind of to drive the conversation on user rates. So here's a slide I like to show council each year, which is just a picture of all the funds that the city has. So when we write the budget for the city, we write a separate budget for each one of these funds. Those are balanced budgets. SO WE'LL HAVE A BUDGET FOR CEMETERY THAT'S BALANCED, MEANING THE REVENUES EQUAL THE EXPENDITURES, A BUDGET FOR LIBRARY, A BUDGET FOR EACH OF THESE FUNDS THAT WILL BE BALANCED. SO THE REVENUE WILL BALANCE TO THE EXPENDITURES. AND INCLUDED IN THAT REVENUE MAY BE THE USE OF RESERVES, OR IT COULD BE THAT WE'RE SPENDING LESS THAN THE PLANNED REVENUES FOR THAT YEAR, AND SO WE'RE RESERVING THE RESERVES FOR A FUTURE YEAR. THESE FOUR FUNDS ARE OUR ENTERPRISE FUNDS, WHICH ARE OUR UTILITY FUNDS, WATER, WASTEWATER, STORMWATER, AND SANITATION. WE'RE NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT THOSE TODAY BECAUSE DUSTIN DID SUCH A GREAT JOB DURING THE FIRST WORK SESSION OF RUNNING YOU THROUGH THE UTILITY FUNDS, HOW THEIR RATES ARE DEVELOPED, HOW THEY'LL SUPPORT THE OPERATIONS, AND THEN THE CAPITAL PROJECTS AS WELL. SHOWS YOU ALL THE FUNDS IN THE CITY THAT HAVE CAPITAL BUDGETS WITHIN IT. AND WHAT THAT MEANS IS THERE'S SOME KIND OF MECHANISM FOR FUNDING CAPITAL PROJECTS IN EACH OF THESE FUNDS. THE ONES THAT ARE SHADED IN DARK BLUE ARE WHAT WERE DISCUSSED DURING THE FIRST WORK SESSION. AND THEN WE'RE GOING TO DISCUSS THESE OTHER AREAS TODAY. THE CAPITAL FUND, WHICH IS THAT SECOND SQUARE THERE, IT'S HALF AND HALF BECAUSE DUSTIN TOOK CARE OF CAPITAL TRANSPORTATION. AND THEN WE'RE JUST GOING TO KIND OF HIGHLIGHT A LITTLE BIT MORE ON THAT FUND TODAY. WE'RE GOING TO START WITH THE GENERAL FUND. AND IN THE GENERAL FUND, THERE'S TWO AREAS THAT WE HAVE CAPITAL BUDGETS. WE HAVE A FACILITY IMPROVEMENT BUDGET. AND THEN WE HAVE OUR ASSIGNED BUILDING FUND. SO THE FACILITY IMPROVEMENT BUDGET IS AN ACCOUNT THAT THEY HAVE IN THE FACILITIES DIVISION. OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS, THERE'S BEEN $380,000 APPROPRIATED IN THAT ACCOUNT. AND THAT ACCOUNT IS USED FOR SMALL-SCALE PROJECTS CITYWIDE FOR FACILITIES. SO MAYBE IF THEY WERE GOING TO PUT IN A NEW HVAC UNIT OR A NEW PUMP AT THE POOL, I'LL LET JUSTIN KIND OF FILL IN THE BLANKS HERE. PRIOR TO MAYOR JOHNSON, THAT BUDGET WAS HISTORICALLY $130,000 A YEAR, WHICH ISN'T A LOT FOR MAINTAINING THE NUMBER OF FACILITIES THAT THE CITY HAS. AND OVER THE LAST FOUR YEARS, MAYOR JOHNSON HAS APPROPRIATED AN ADDITIONAL $250,000 FROM GENERAL FUND RESERVES. SO WE'VE BEEN USING THE EXCESS RESERVES WE HAVE TO HELP MAKE THIS BUDGET MORE TO ALLOW US TO STAY ON TOP OF SOME OF OUR MAINTENANCE PROJECTS. HOWEVER, I DON'T KNOW IF WE'RE GOING TO BE ABLE TO CONTINUE THAT BASED UP WHERE OUR RESERVE BALANCES ARE TODAY. THAT'S TO BE DETERMINED AND SOMETHING I'M WORKING ON THROUGHOUT THE REST OF THIS BUDGET PROCESS. SO WHAT THAT MEANS IS THAT ACCOUNT IS LIKELY TO GO BACK TO ITS ORIGINAL $130,000. IN 2016, THE ASSIGNED BUILDING FUND WAS CREATED. AND THIS WAS CREATED AND ESTABLISHED IN CITY CODE. THIS IS WHAT CITY CODE SAYS SPECIFIC TO THAT. BUDGET TO THAT ACCOUNT AND THE WHAT IT IS TO IMPROVE CITY FACILITIES. AND SO I'VE INCLUDED IN THE PRESENTATION TODAY A HISTORY OF WHERE THE FUNDS HAVE COME FROM SINCE THAT ACCOUNT WAS CREATED. SO YOU HAVE, WHEN WE FIRST ESTABLISHED THE FUND, WE WERE TAKING SURPLUS FROM THE YEAR AND PUTTING IT IN THIS ACCOUNT. AND WE WERE TAKING SOME OF THE GENERAL FUND RESERVES AND TRANSFERRING IT OVER INTO THIS FUND. AND THEN WE STARTED FUNDING IT WITH PROPERTY TAXES. ONE OF THE VERY FIRST PROJECTS THAT WE FUNDED OUT OF THIS ACCOUNT WAS THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE SECOND FLOOR OF THE LIBRARY. SO WHEN WE SOLD THE OLD LIBRARY, THE FUNDS FROM THE CELL OF THAT BUILDING WENT IN HERE. OUR LIBRARY PARTNERS HELPED SUPPORT THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE LIBRARY. THE FOUNDATION CONTRIBUTIONS FOR THE SECOND FLOOR CONSTRUCTION ALSO WENT IN HERE. AND SO THEN HERE'S A LISTING OF ALL THE PROJECTS THAT HAVE OCCURRED SINCE THE FORMATION OF THE ASSIGNED BUILDING FUND. SO AS I MENTIONED, THE SECOND FLOOR LIBRARY WAS THE FIRST PROJECT FUNDED FROM THAT ACCOUNT, AND THEN IT JUST GOES DOWN FROM THERE. 2017, THE NEW FIRE STATION 4, THAT IS THE AMOUNT THAT WE PAID FOR THE PROPERTY. AND THEN WE HAVE COSTS THAT ARE INCLUDED IN COMMUNITY PARK. AND THE MOST RECENT YEAR, THIS COUNCIL IS PROBABLY MORE FAMILIAR WITH THOSE PROJECTS BECAUSE YOU WERE HERE WHEN THOSE PROJECTS WERE APPROVED. ONE THING I'D LIKE TO KNOW, I'M GOING TO GO BACK A LITTLE BIT, IS 2023 WAS THE LAST YEAR THAT COUNCIL FUNDED THIS ACCOUNT. SO THIS WAS, YOU KNOW, THIS FUND WAS CREATED TO HELP US MAINTAIN OUR INFRASTRUCTURE FOR CITY FACILITIES. AND THEN WE WERE ABLE TO GET ALL THESE PROJECTS DONE. AND NOW POST-2023, WE'RE JUST LIVING ON THE FUNDS REMAINING WITHIN THE COUNT. THERE ARE NO PROJECTS LISTED FOR FISCAL YEAR 2023 BECAUSE THERE WERE NO PROJECTS DONE THAT YEAR. THERE WAS NOTHING SPENT FROM THESE FUNDS IN 2023. I JUST WANT TO POINT THAT OUT SO THAT YOU DON'T THINK I SKIPPED A YEAR OR FORGOT A COLUMN, BUT IF YOU SEE THAT LITTLE ASTERISK AT THE TOP THERE, THAT'S WHERE 2023 WOULD HAVE BEEN IF THERE HAD BEEN PROJECTS DONE THAT YEAR. SO WE'VE CONTRIBUTED A LITTLE OVER 13 MILLION, ALMOST 14 MILLION INTO THE FUND, AND WE'VE SENT 7.7 MILLION. Going into fiscal year 2026, we had $5.5 million left in that fund, and you have approved approximately $400,000 in expenditures from that fund this year. And so what I'm going to do now is I am going to turn this over to Director Glenn so that he can give you some updates on facility improvements and projects that are going to be going on.

GOOD AFTERNOON. JUSTIN GLENN, PARKS AND RECREATION. SO WHAT YOU SEE BEFORE YOU IS PRIORITY LISTING AS WE'VE WORKED OVER THE LAST YEAR, PUTTING TOGETHER KIND OF WHAT WE THINK OUR NEEDS ARE AND ALSO STEMMING FROM A PREVIOUS WORK SESSION WHEN WE HAD DISCUSSED, YOU KNOW, WHAT'S IN THE ASSIGNED BUILDING FUND AND WHAT ARE WE DOING WITH IT. IF WE'RE GOING TO HAVE IT, WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING WITH IT. AND SO THIS IS KIND OF ANSWERING THAT CALL AS WELL. So a combination of things is how this list was derived. One, it's through conversations and needs assessments with our stakeholders in the city, our directors, the users of our facilities and infrastructure. I want to just briefly introduce David Center, who's our facilities and parks maintenance manager. And he has been, and you'll see more information, but he has been the catalyst for change when we talk about getting things done. He's a master craftsman, been in the community, built a lot of commercial real estate, private real estate, and has really helped us see ourselves better. And he and I, and again, the directors have kind of gone through this list and say, I think this is a way that we can action on going forward here. First thing is, looking at City Hall Chiller, I tried to identify a priority list, an estimated cost, the fund source, and then a projected year. And I think projected year is optimistic, but that's intentional as well. Because if we want to try to get these things expedited, I want to show that in that column. And for you guys to provide me some guidance and feedback going forward on this. So if we can go list by list on the items here at City Hall Chiller, we think we can get that done with our general fund. That would be that improvements pot of money that Amy spoke about. which we have 380,000 in there. We can make sure that we get that done. Right now, that city hall is operating at a percentage of its cooling capacity because we have a couple of those chillers, as Dave identified, that are completely offline and need to be replaced. And then a contributing factor along that is all of our kind of window infrastructure in city hall, in this building. If you go and look, there's a lot of cracked seals, old historical stuff, and that's not effective and efficient. So if we're looking at any cost savings or a positive investment with return, I think any homeowner knows that Windows is one of those contributing factors to some cost savings. So we feel like that's an important investment. Moving down the list, the next one is the fire station discussion. And that looks like a big price tag, but we've revisited the assessments that have been done. We've re-gone back. Dave and Chief have gone through this process, gone back to that vendor and be like, okay, here's what we did. Here's what still needs to be done. And those are very important things. And I'd be happy to come back to council and provide that information along with my teammates if and when needed. Sir?

So, a couple years ago or whenever it was last year, we talked about these issues that need to be done to the fire station. And what was presented to us first was just design and evaluation. So, is this considered inclusive of the whole project? This is the work. And that should bring them up to what standard?

That should bring them to a more compliant standard based off of the impact assessment that was completed. So what was done was some work, right? It was a little bit of paint. It was a little bit of surface remediation stuff and some airflow changes. But that didn't get after it. What needs to be done is some minor construction-type activities and some improvements to the overarching HVAC flow of each station. And that is the amount to get that work done. The next one on the list here is a police station feasibility study. This would come out of, well, I'm estimating it would come out of the general fund next year, but really what that is is considering another property in the city for a police station, an existing property, and seeing if there's feasibility and being able to accomplish that based off of the deterioration of the police station currently and the lack of capacity for the growth that they need there. Also looking at infrastructure resiliency, knowing that we've got a lot of resources in the basement of that building and are subject to potential flooding and we already had an electrical issue there once this year. Next on the list is Fenton Gym. This one's specific to the floor. I think we'll hopefully have a solution to the roof discussed later today. But I'll have some photos. I have a whole other presentation on Fenton. I'll also be happy to bring that to the tables in the future.

Sir? So this Fenton gym, oh, that's just the floor. I was going to say, you also have a grant as well for air conditioning?

That would be for the replacement of the rest of the roof. So HVAC was completed previously in conjunction with the Boys and Girls Club. And they also did the flat portion of the roof unfit. The issue is, and I have some pictures in this presentation I'll show you, where the leaks are coming from. And we don't want to get a floor in until we have the roof repaired. The other element, the next one on the list here is the completion of the cemetery expansion, which you guys have seen me present before. And that's coming out of the Cemetery Reserve Fund. So I don't feel like Amy, actually Amy will talk a little bit more about that coming up here shortly. The next one is community park and looking at how we can start re-energizing that space going forward. And it says a million dollars, and I think really what that could attest to is simply just getting the groundwork done to start putting in some resources up there. Ma'am.

Have we looked into, again, the auditorium tax to help fund some of that? I know we talked about it. I don't think we really got very far with it.

No, I've just recently dusted that off and restarted that conversation. Additionally, we started looking at almost a pseudo Friends of Parks and Recreation type of non-profit agency as well, so we can look at all angles, but But the answer to that question is yes, we are considering that.

Is that something that we might present on at a later date? I think you can do that.

Next one is looking at the service center master plan, having a master plan for the service center. The service center is up there off of Warner. That's where we keep all of our fleet stuff, streets maintenance. If you've been up there to that place, you know that maybe there is an opportunity for improvement in that space. I think it Functionally, we had a site visit. Dave was part of that discussion. But how do we get equipment in and out of there effectively and efficiently? What are the actual needs for that space? How can we maybe reorganize who's up there and what they're doing with that space versus going and looking for additional pieces of property or an expansion? Just using the footprint that we have and being more effective and efficient in that footprint. That would be the intent of this one.

So I was wondering about these... you know, these plans. It's not something that can be done internally and then, you know, something brought forward.

I don't think so. I think that's part of, you know, the purchasing process, contracting process. You've got to have kind of this starting block, and that's actually part of the community park stuff, too. I know we had a master plan developed, but as conditions change, I think it's important that we go back and at least have a starting document to go, and that's, you know, it takes in a lot of factors, and that's that helps go after. So when I'm asking you guys for resources, that I have a validated plan. I think my challenge and observation is actually using that plan and doing something with it, which is what the intent is.

Sorry. I don't know if you want to get through this first or want us to ask questions along the way.

Shoot.

Okay. So the police station feasibility studies kind of bump them back up. Do you know how long that would last as far as so we don't have to do one again? Because we've had notoriously where we've spent all this money, we get this feasibility study, nothing happens with it, and then it sits on a shelf.

I think the benefit of that is that we have some resources to start from, and I think that's why that's more of a cost-efficient estimate. It might not even be $30,000. I think what it is is more specific to the space we're considering, which is one of the region's properties up there that is currently

Okay. So we do have a property already in mind.

So it's more intentional in this perspective versus an overarching night, not a whole brand new police station type feasibility thing. This is what is needed and can it fit in this location? Yes or no. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Um, next one here is community center modernization. Uh, I have the pleasure of residing in that building. Utilization is up in that building. Reservations are up in that building, but if you walk in there, it's 1973. Um, And I feel like we kind of have an opportunity to modernize that facility, which has a cost recovery mechanism with it based off the utilization we already see increases in. But the types of programming and the types of reservations, if you want to have a celebration of life, which people do have in there, I would like that to be a nice location to have that. Something a little bit more modern and can benefit to include some AV improvements, things like that. I think that's a good investment because we get the cost recovery. We have a cost recovery mechanism for the community center through reservations and programs.

Would we have an estimate ROI on that?

I think I can get that for sure. We're tracking our rental utilization so far this year. We're already 23% ahead of what we were projected as far as revenues last year, so I could use that as a benchmark and put that out over the years. I think on something as little as a $200,000 investment, that's usually a five to eight year recovery method in the world that we're in. And then the next one is a general fund. This is a preventative measure of facilities surge protection. We have some infrastructure that has surge protection in it, but it's like, for instance, we had a failure at the police station. The generator failed. There was a power outage and it popped. That did have surge protection on, but it wasn't to the capacity that was needed. Dave, correct me if I'm wrong. I'm right. Okay, cool. He spent a lot of time over there trying to troubleshoot that, and we've come to find out the elevator that went out here and an ADA door system also was damaged, and I can show some more information on that. So I think that's just a preventative measure for our facility infrastructure that we should consider. Even though those events might be far and few between, I think you'll see that there's a mitigating risk there and a mitigating cost associated. And then standard... Ongoing break repair replacement modernization. I think we can walk in any building and say wouldn't it be nice if we? etc, etc And I think that's ongoing. I think eight thousand eight hundred thousand is a good benchmark.

I'll show you why in the coming slides here So look at this, you know and a couple years ago we had our big presentation on deferred maintenance and Are these issues that are checkmarked off of that? Or has that gone on the wayside?

No, it has not. We've seen that presentation. Dave and I have both digested that presentation. And some of the things that are on that list, we've addressed using maybe... I don't want to offend anybody. We've just got a higher level of skill set in that world right now. We're able to address a lot more things. And then we took into consider some of those factors in putting this list together, too. And also... voided some of them, and I think we have other alternatives to consider at this time. And that's where we started with this list. To highlight, facilities have been busy. For a division as small as basically it's three, but really it's one and a half as of most of the time lately, we've completed over 56 projects, repairs, and improvements at about $450,000. That includes some of these major projects listed here before you. This is where you can see the Bell Building elevator and ADA access repair of $59,500. That was directly attributed to an electrical event that shorted out some of those items we had to repair. We're halfway through the Burt Lips repairs. We've got some painting and lighting projects done. That's going to continue to move on. An orchards pool is open to the public today. Yep, it's great. We've done some repairs and some safety elements there that were much needed to be accomplished. We also had to put a new HVAC unit in over LPD. We had to fix and service the fire alarm panel based off an electrical event and some additional elevator repairs there. That all kind of building that, hey, we can either keep throwing money at it or we can try to look at other solutions going forward. We've completed the pickleball shelter up at Sunset Park. We've renovated very cheaply and relocated our offices our parks and recreation offices which are back to its normal intended location which is proven to be very beneficial and Public transit is moved in and operating out of the community center which again adds to additional foot traffic and customer service enhancement All of these coming out of a variety of fund sources so really what we've been trying to do within facilities and is look at all the opportunities and resources we have and strategically use those before we're coming before council and going, hey, I need $4.5 million. But the reality is we're going to need to have that discussion. And that's a big part of what we have here. I want to highlight some pictures here. Follow along with me. That's Mr. Sinner's hand at the bottom of Orchard's pool. That was the crack in the bottom of that pool. And we were losing water, significant amount of water. And so that's been repaired. And we actually repaired two joints in there and some other cracks as well, which was great. And the middle picture there is just... Ma'am? Sorry.

How long do you think that crack was there? How long do you think we were losing water?

We've been losing water up there for quite some time. I don't know how long. I didn't go back and look at... Lloyd does their water system a little bit differently than we would. But just based off the conversations, Dave, it's been a long time. I mean, it's been more than five years.

I imagine that would add up to quite a dollar amount.

The amount of chemicals and the amount of water and just, you know, the safety function of it alone, the pressure on the systems that we use to heat and and feed the pool. Those are pressurized systems. They had to have been under great stress. And I think we see pieces of that. And luckily, Dave's a trained HVAC technician and can troubleshoot a lot of those in-house. But we've had to replace a lot of seals. There is some craftsmanship stuff in there that's a little bit unique. But that's a huge cost savings to us going forward.

Is this something that we knew was happening, we just didn't take it out of commission, or we were unaware that we were losing that much money?

I cannot answer that. I know that from day one when I got up there and I saw a lifeguard stuff a rag and a crack in the bottom of the pool, I was like, oh, that's not going to fly. So we got through the end of the season, but it was, you know, that's why I presented it the way I presented it. It needed to be fixed and repaired.

Do we have future measurements in place so that we, you know, are getting ahead of that ahead of time or not?

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean, Orchard's pool is unique in that it's not necessarily our pool. I mean, it's our pool, but it's not our space. It's Lloyd's space, right? And so if we're looking long-term investment, I think this is a resource that is valuable. I think we just continue to strategically do the preventative maintenance pieces over the next couple years. I don't think we're going to look at a huge reinvestment into that resource because of those reasons. and the progress we're making on Burt. But what has happened is the water loss is significantly mitigated. There's still some cracks there. That's going to happen because it is not fully redone. But Dave's specifically spent a lot of time up there. We sent him to pool school, so he's more trained on how to troubleshoot those things. But the gutter system's got some cracks in it. There's opportunities. We can keep doing it. But the important thing is we're not putting flex seal on it. We're doing a product that it's designed for, aquatics. Next to that, you'll see a couple little projects looking at life health safety of our lifeguards. So on the right is an old metal, and it's got an electrical box on it. I'm not exactly sure what that process was for. But I identified that last year, and we replaced it with a new, modern, safe, ergonomic lifeguard stand there. And so we've outfitted both of our pools. We'll have those kind of new lifeguard stands. And that's just small measures that have big results. On the right is Orchard's Pool. So that was at the meet that we just did two weeks ago. It looks great. And it still has some water loss, but we're talking about inches of difference, thousands and thousands and thousands of gallons of difference of water loss. um, from previous below that, if you haven't been out to sunset is the pickleball shelter that was, uh, funded through our parks reservations fund. So the revenues we make off of reservations in the parks, we recapitalize to do these types of capital projects. This is an important one because we have a great partner in the pickleball club. It's the association up there and they're a nonprofit and they do fundraising and working hand in hand with them on what's the next project that we can collaborate on. and them coming to the table with some resources and us coming to the table with some resources. And now we're able to use this facility for reservations, for fees. So it's generating more revenue as well. Here's some pictures from Burt. So that was at the start of paint and prep. That's what it looked like. This is current kind of, this is what it looks like right now. Actually, there's even a more present picture than this one. But this is the pool deck facility. what it looked like before, and this is what it looks like now. And it's much improved. That's before, this is now. It's coming along great. In fact, I think you'll see Damien, one of our coordinators, he's got an interview with Tribune and KLEW. They're out there providing an update, and there'll be something in the paper soon as well, providing some cool pictures. This is Fenton, and I know we're talking about this roof repair, but this is the problem, is that we've got water intrusion coming in under the gutter system This is on the eaves inside the building. This is what comes down and through the walls and is deteriorating the floor as well.

Can we just put a new gutter system on?

No, sir. The flat roof portion was new, but the sides, the gutters, those were not updated. No, sir. So that's where we get this water intrusion coming in. And there's some aftermarket, I'll call it improvements, where somebody ran a bolt through the wall to put some harnesses for batting cages and things, and water's just coming straight in and coming in. I have a couple more pictures from Fenton that will show you. The laminate on the floor is just completely deteriorated. The problem is that we have an average of 1,500 people using this facility every month. And we're generating a significant enough amount of money from our programming and rental reservations because it's a cheap, affordable option for doing birthday parties out of the elements. But we've also introduced other programs, indoor pickleball program during the winter months with the Pickleball Association. It really was a very much improved programming and revenue source for that facility. We're at the point now where I feel very comfortable in our ability to continue to invest into that and make it more profitable or at least create new revenue and continue to reinvest in it, but it needs a roof and it needs a new floor. That's the catalyst for change in how we use that space, which is, again, very well used. This is going down. I just wanted to highlight what the facilities division looks like. It's three employees, and currently one of those positions we've tried to fill and we can't fill it. And one of those individuals is on a limited duty status. Basically leaving one and a half employees and Dave to do all of the facility work. And the city's facilities consist of the equivalency of about three and a half football fields. So if you're talking about all the different systems inside of our building infrastructure, over 20 buildings, that's a lot for just a few folks to be able to do. But yet, they're still continuing to get a lot of things done. One of the things that we recognized early is that we needed to rely more on contracted services. So we looked at our blanket purchase order process and expedited vendors and a list of vendors that if Dustin needs a quick service in this building because something failed, he's not reliant on the one employee that we have to come address that work order. We're reaching out to local vendors small business owners in the community that provide those services and getting them in the building. So we're increasing the response time, but also the level of professionalism to address some of those issues. We actually have 30 unique vendors, most of them small local business owners. Looking at industry benchmarks, this is kind of a little bit of a nerdy portion of my part here, but basically, Standard for sustainable maintenance of our kind of commercial buildings is $5 to $8 per square foot. Where we're at right now is about $0.48 per square foot. And that's coming out of using the $95,000 that we currently have for facility maintenance, specifically in the general fund budget. And that breaks down to about $4.75,000 per building. And if you're a homeowner, I think you would recognize that If you budgeted $2 per square foot, you're pretty close to getting to that benchmark. So it's just kind of showing a metric that says, yes, we recognize that we are under-resourced for the amount of infrastructure that we have, and putting that against industry standards. If we took an optimistic projection and said we can be funded at $4.50 per square foot, below kind of the industry standard here, for all of the things that we need to accomplish with all of our 20-plus buildings, an annual operating budget of $864,000 would be what it would take projected. And we're not going to get there. We realize that. So we're just trying to make sure that we're taking timely service and doing the professional enough repair to make sure to extend the life that we can. Looking at the upcoming budget, just want to talk this real quick here is that I requested to reduce, fully remove that one vacancy in facilities and then take $100,000 of that full-time equivalent fully loaded and put it into contracted services so that we can continue to maintain that kind of what's called bills or mics or whoever and have them come do some professional grade work versus having one employee trying to cover all of these different things. And then I did request an increase of $55,000 to that $95,000. of preventative maintenance and building repair. So you'll see that in my budget this coming sessions here. That's where that kind of breaks down. And structures improvements, that's that $130,000 flat line that we've had that's been supplemented by reserve funding of $250,000. So if it's unlikely that we're going to have that other additional $250,000, we wanted to try to come up with a solution. This is one solution for consideration is look at a 1% levy for operational needs and maintenance, and that would equate to $240,000, which almost covers that $250,000 reserve loss. Amy, I think I'm going back to you now.

Yep.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

OKAY, SO NOW WE'RE GOING TO JUMP ON TO THE CAPITAL FUND. SO AS I MENTIONED, DUSTIN GAVE YOU A VERY ROBUST WALK THROUGH OF CAPITAL TRANSPORTATION DURING THE FIRST WORK SESSION. BUT I DID WANT TO INCLUDE FOR COUNCIL THE AMOUNT OF PROPERTY TAXES THAT GO INTO THE CAPITAL FUND. SO CAPITAL TRANSPORTATION, THE ALLOCATION IN THE CURRENT BUDGET YEAR IS $2,731,000. And the property taxes are allocated to Capital Parks as $100,000. If you notice there, when we were talking about the Assigned Building Fund, and we had showed 2023 was the last year that Council funded the Assigned Building Fund, you'll see in 2024 where Capital Transportation's property tax allocation went up significantly, that's because that was that shift in money. It came from the Assigned Building Fund and it went to Capital Transportation. PARKS HAS HISTORICALLY RECEIVED $100,000, I THINK PROBABLY EVEN BEFORE MY TIME HERE AT THE CITY. IT'S ALSO REALLY IMPORTANT TO MAKE IT KNOWN THAT WITHIN THE CAPITAL FUND, WE ALSO HAVE LIBRARY. IT HAS SOME RESIDUAL FUNDS LEFT OVER FROM WHEN WE DID THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NEW CITY LIBRARY. IT'S NOT MUCH. IT'S ABOUT $40,000. BUT WE CONTINUE TO APPROPRIATE THAT OUT SO THAT WE CAN USE IT FOR SOME SMALLER PROJECTS. I THINK THEY'RE LOOKING AT RECOVERING SOME OF THEIR FURNISHING. AND THEN WHEN THERE'S PROJECTS THAT ARE SUPPORTED BY THE FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY OR THE LIBRARY FOUNDATION, THIS IS WHERE WE WOULD RECEIVE THEIR FUNDS AND THEN PUT IT TOWARDS PROJECTS. THERE'S JUST NO PROPERTY TAX THAT'S GOING TO CAPITOL LIBRARY. SO NOW WE'RE GOING TO MOVE ON TO INTERNAL SERVICE FUNDS. SO THESE FUNDS, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF WORKER'S COMPENSATION, SO BOTH FLEET AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS, THEY HAVE A CAPITAL FUNDING MECHANISM BUILT INTO THEIR RATES. SO WHAT AN INTERNAL SERVICE FUND IS, IS IT IS A FUND THAT PROVIDES SERVICES TO OTHER CITY FUNDS. SO THEIR CUSTOMERS ARE ALL INTERNAL CUSTOMERS, CITY DEPARTMENTS. IF YOU HAVE A VEHICLE OR A PIECE OF EQUIPMENT, MACHINERY, YOU WOULD BE A CUSTOMER OF FLEET SERVICES. IF YOU HAVE AN EMPLOYEE, YOU'RE GOING TO BE A CUSTOMER OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS. SO YOU MIGHT BE A CUSTOMER OF BOTH OF THEM. IF YOU'VE GOT EMPLOYEES AND VEHICLES, YOU'RE GOING TO BE PAYING FLEET RATES AND YOU'RE GOING TO BE PAYING ISS RATES. JUSTIN, HE PAYS INTO BOTH FLEET AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS. I DON'T HAVE ANY VEHICLES IN MY DEPARTMENT, SO I PAY INTO INFORMATION SYSTEMS, BUT NOT FLEET. ALL CITY DEPARTMENTS WITH EMPLOYEES WILL ALSO PAY INTO WORKER'S COMPENSATION. SO FLEET, THEY ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR MAINTAINING CITY VEHICLES. THEY MAINTAIN ALL THE CITY VEHICLES AND EQUIPMENTS, INCLUDING ENTERPRISE FUNDS. AND THEN THEY REPLACE CITY VEHICLES AND EQUIPMENT FOR ALL THE GOVERNMENTAL FUNDS. THEY DO NOT REPLACE VEHICLES AND EQUIPMENT FOR THE ENTERPRISE FUNDS. THEY REPLACE THEIR OWN VEHICLES AND EQUIPMENT THROUGH THEIR CAPITAL MASTER PLANS AND THEIR CAPITAL PROJECT BUDGET. Information systems, they are responsible for replacing all of our PCs, all of our computers that we have at our desk and workstations. They maintain the network equipment, all of our data storage, our servers, all of our software contracts. And then they've also, in the recent years, taken over building security, so access into buildings, how we get into the buildings, the systems that allow us to use a key card or a code or some other device for entering those buildings. And then workers' compensation, the city is self-funded, so we fund our own workers' compensation claims. We have protection on those claims by carrying a stop-loss coverage. So we pay the first $500,000 of a claim for any individual employee. And then our public safety employees, we pay the first $750,000. And at that point, our stop loss insurance would kick in and pay the remainder of the claims. The workers' compensation fund, if we were on the private market where we were buying our workers' compensation through the state insurance fund, we would pay a significant more in workers' comp premium. WHEN WE CALCULATE OUT THE PREMIUM FOR THE VARIOUS DEPARTMENTS THROUGHOUT THE CITY FOR OUR WORKER'S COMPENSATION FUND, WE USE THE SAME RATE AND CALCULATION THAT STATE INSURANCE FUNDS. WE USE THE SAME RISK CODE, THE SAME CALCULATION METHOD. WHEN I CALCULATE THAT OUT, WHAT WE WOULD PAY INTO PREMIUM IF WE WERE IN THE PRIVATE MARKET IS $620,000, BUT WE FUND OUR WORKER'S COMPENSATION FUND AT $500,000 A YEAR. SO WE TAKE THAT, WE CALCULATE OUT WHAT THE PREMIUM WOULD BE, AND THEN WE PRORATE IT DOWN AND SPREAD THAT ACROSS THE DEPARTMENTS EQUALLY AT $500,000. SO IT IS A COST SAVINGS FOR US TO BE SELF-FUNDED. CURRENTLY WE HAVE REALLY GOOD CLAIM HISTORY RIGHT NOW. WE'VE HAD SOME BAD YEARS WHERE THE CLAIMS GOT A LITTLE, WE HAD A COUPLE OF MAJOR CLAIMS THAT WERE REALLY WE'RE PULLING DOWN OUR RESERVES, BUT WE'VE LEVELED OUT NOW. OUR RESERVES ARE STABLE AGAIN. THEY'RE NOT QUITE WHERE THEY WERE IN 2020, BUT WE'RE GETTING CLOSER TO THAT. WE'RE BUILDING BACK UP AGAIN, WHICH IS GOOD NEWS. YOU KNOW, THAT CAN ALWAYS CHANGE, BUT WE HOPE IT DOESN'T. SO THAT, WE'LL BE FUNDING THAT AT THE 500,000, OUR HISTORICAL AMOUNT THIS YEAR. Look at our other two internal service funds, fleet and information systems. They're smaller funds in the sense that they have about five or six employees in each fund. They're very stable employees. We have very little to no turnover in those departments. And so you're going to see an increase in their rates every year just to cover things like cost of living and increase in health insurance because they have the same consistent employees year to year. They're not having turnover to offset those increases. So there's always going to be a slight increase in operations. INFORMATION SYSTEMS IS A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT BECAUSE A BULK OF THEIR OPERATIONS BUDGET IS SOFTWARE. SOFTWARE IS KIND OF ONE OF THOSE AREAS IN THE MARKET WHERE THEY JUST HAVE EXPERIENCED HIGHER INFLATIONARY COSTS THAN OTHER AREAS. ONE OF THE THINGS I WANTED TO DO WITH COUNCIL TODAY IS WALK THROUGH HOW OUR REPLACEMENT FUNDING WORKS. AND I'M GOING TO USE FLEET AS AN EXAMPLE. JUST BECAUSE I THINK THAT THERE'S BEEN A LITTLE MISUNDERSTANDING ON HOW CAPITAL REPLACEMENTS ARE FUNDED. SO THIS IS WHAT FLEET HAS PROGRAMMED INTO THE UPCOMING YEAR, THE 2027 BUDGET FOR CAPITAL REPLACEMENTS. AND THIS IS A LIGHTER YEAR FOR THEM. THEIR CAPITAL RATE REVENUE BRINGS IN ABOUT $1.5 MILLION A YEAR. We don't always spend that because we have to build our reserves up for some of our equipment that's much costlier. So I think in 2028 we have pumper trucks scheduled for replacement. Those are really expensive. So in 2028, I think it's two pumper trucks and that's it. And we'll spend more than our annual capital replacement revenue. But what I want to do is walk the council through a model of how capital replacement rates work. SO THIS IS WHAT FLEET HAS SCHEDULED IN 2027. AND THIS IS WHAT THEY HAVE SCHEDULED OF CITY REPLACEMENT DOLLARS TO SPEND. I JUST WANT TO POINT OUT ON THE BOTTOM LINE THERE, YOU'LL SEE THE LIGHT DUTY BUSES, 35,000 EACH. THAT'S THE CITY'S PORTION. FTA FUNDS PAY 80% OF THAT. SO THIS IS THE CITY'S 20% ON THOSE BUSES. SO USING THE ambulance as an example, and those 2027 replacements as an ambulance. So we would have purchased that ambulance in 2017. That's our standard timeline of maintaining an ambulance is 10 years. It's about approximately 120,000 miles that we keep an ambulance. So when we bought that ambulance in 2017, we paid $185,000. Based off our more current replacements of ambulances and the quotes that we've received, we're estimating the replacement to be $305,000. So back in 2016, when we purchased this ambulance, 2017, we would have factored up a replacement rate for that ambulance based off current day prices and then factoring in inflation. This is just a model, an example. It's not the actual rates that were charged for this ambulance. It's just a simplified model for the council's information. SO WE WOULD HAVE GONE ALONG AND WE WOULD HAVE SAID, OKAY, WE NEED TO CHARGE $25,000 SO THAT 10 YEARS FROM NOW WE CAN REPLACE THAT ANDALANCE AT $250,000. SO EVERY YEAR WE CHARGE THE DEPARTMENT $25,000. AND THEN ABOUT 2021, POST-PANDEMIC, WE SAW A HUGE SPIKE IN EQUIPMENT REPLACEMENT COSTS. SO THAT'S WHY WE'RE ALWAYS GOING OUT THERE AND WE'RE LOOKING AT PRICES OF EQUIPMENT BECAUSE WE HAVE TO ADJUST THOSE RATES FROM TIME TO TIME TO KEEP UP WITH MARKET CONDITIONS. So this example here shows collecting at $25,000 for a few years, and then the rate jumping up to current day prices to capture the replacement dollars that would be needed as those prices adjust. So when we go into 2027, we've already collected the revenue to replace that ambulance. So we're using fleet replacement dollars to fund our fleet replacements. And I know in the past, It said, well, we're just not going to replace the sweeper this year and we can drop property taxes $300,000. It doesn't work that way because the money's already been collected for that sweeper. We already have the money in the bank to purchase the sweeper, the ambulance. I mean, at most, even if we extended the life of this ambulance to 11 or 12 years, we would still have to charge some type of replacement rate for that ambulance because we know we have to capture some more inflation. We know repair costs are likely to be A LOT HIGHER AND WE NEED TO MAYBE SHIFT SOME OF IT TO THE OPERATING SIDE. WE WORK REALLY HARD TO PICK APPROPRIATE REPLACEMENT TIMELINES BASED OFF WHEN THAT EQUIPMENT IS NO LONGER EFFICIENT OR ECONOMICAL TO KEEP AND MAINTAIN.

YES. CAN YOU, WHAT YOU JUST SAID, WHAT DID YOU SAY IT AGAIN?

WE, MAINLY ROBIN, WHO'S HERE, OUR EQUIPMENT SERVICE MANAGER, THEY KEEP HISTORICAL REPAIR RECORDS ON ALL OF OUR EQUIPMENT, AND THEY USE THOSE HISTORICAL REPAIR RECORDS TO DETERMINE THE APPROPRIATE TIMELINE TO REPLACE EQUIPMENT. SO THEY KNOW ABOUT WHAT NUMBER OF YEARS THAT A VEHICLE WILL START SEEING HIGHER REPAIR COSTS, HIGHER MAINTENANCE COSTS, AND WHEN IT'S TIME TO REPLACE THOSE. SO WHEN WE REVIEW THOSE, THEY GET UPDATED AS NEEDED. We don't always replace a vehicle when it was originally scheduled to be replaced. If it's working well and it's doing really well, our ladder truck is an example of that, we'll keep them longer. But we still have to charge some kind of a replacement rate on those for the inflationary piece of it.

So I guess to follow up on that, so there isn't a national standard you follow that a police car needs to be replaced in a certain way? You want to jump in on this?

Yes.

Each one of the manufacturers comes up Sorry Robin Braun service manager fleet manager for City of Lewiston Each manufacturers got a different standard they go by In a lot of it goes off of you know if we have and we've had a few vehicles that where they've had a good repair history on them and we've not had trouble. And it was beneficial to go ahead and keep that vehicle and maybe repurpose it into the city. We've got four of our patrol cars that are coming out that we're going to repurpose into different departments that can utilize them and get a few more years out of them. And that also gives us an opportunity that if we do have a troubled child, that we can get rid of them a little bit sooner so that we don't carry on the high-cost repairs and trying to maintain that vehicle. Make it so that they can use it instead of it being broke down.

I guess that was my next question, was if you had a chronically vehicle that was in its half-life and it's costing a lot of money, how would you budget for that?

It's... Pretty much, that's where you're reutilizing those vehicles that offsets that cost to be able to get rid of that vehicle. And a lot of times, you're not seeing like, well, that rig's only been in service for one or two years. It's into its life, and then it started developing some issues. So we've got quite a bit of use out of the vehicle. It isn't like we're turning around the Vehicle that's only been used for a couple of years and now we're looking to get rid of it Something else we've done is like the current ambulances that we're getting I've changed them over to gas We've seen a lot of issues and downtime with their diesel ambulances and the cost repairs for diesel is very extensive Currently our two current gas ambulances have been in the shop for MORE FOR OTHER PEOPLE DAMAGING THEM THAN THEY'VE ACTUALLY BEEN BROKE DOWN AND NEEDED TO BE WORKED ON.

LET ME GO BACK, BECAUSE I DO HAVE A COUPLE MORE THINGS I WANT TO SAY ON INTERNAL SERVICE FUNDS. WE DIDN'T TALK ABOUT INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND SECURITY TOO MUCH, BUT ONE OF THE THINGS YOU MIGHT NOTICE WHEN YOU GET YOUR BUDGET GUIDES THIS YEAR IS WITH INFORMATION SYSTEMS AND SECURITY, THEIR CAPITAL SPENDING IN 2027, THERE WILL BE A LARGE POP IN THAT, AND THAT'S A PLAN SPENDING OF REPLACEMENT EQUIPMENT. What ISS has done probably the last 10 years is they have started including in their budget capital replacement dollars to replace certain equipment for both police and fire. So police and fire, they both have mobile data computers that are in all their vehicles as well as radios. And you have to replace those all at the same time. They have to work together. They have to be able to communicate to one another. So you've got to keep them... ALL AT THE SAME TIME SO THAT THEY CAN COMMUNICATE WITH ONE ANOTHER. SO IN 2027, WE HAVE IT SCHEDULED TO REPLACE BOTH FIRE'S MOBILE DATA COMPUTERS AND THEIR RADIOS. SO I THINK THE RADIOS ARE 45,000. THE MOBILE DATA COMPUTERS ARE 50,000. WE THROUGH THIS FUNDING MODEL CONSISTENT TO FLEETS HAVE BEEN COLLECTING THOSE DOLLARS FROM FIRES OFFERING BUDGETS, AND NOW THE MONEY'S THERE SO THAT WE CAN REPLACE THESE COMPUTERS AND RADIOS ON TIME. SO YOU'LL SEE THAT POP, BUT IT'S NOT NEW REVENUE GOING INTO THE FUND. And what's really important to understand about these funding models is this is a very budget-friendly way to replace equipment. Because if we sit there and we wait five to seven years and then find out fire computers aren't working, the radios aren't working, and then we have to come up with the money to replace them. This way we're providing consistent funding in the operating budgets. and putting this money aside so that we have it available when that equipment starts showing signs of replacement. That covers all of our capital budgets. So what Dustin reviewed with you in the first work session, as well as the capital budgets we talked about today. And what that means is we have designated funding to fund those capital projects. THIS SLIDE SHOWS ALL OF OUR GOVERNMENTAL FUNDS, AND THESE ARE ALL THE FUNDS THAT ARE SUPPORTED BY PROPERTY TAX DOLLARS OR COULD BE SUPPORTED BY PROPERTY TAX DOLLARS. WHAT I MEAN BY THAT IS ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ISN'T RECEIVING PROPERTY TAX DOLLARS, AND THEY HAVEN'T FOR MANY, MANY YEARS, BUT AT SOME POINT IN THE CITY'S HISTORY, THEY HAVE PUT PROPERTY TAX DOLLARS INTO ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. IT HAS SOME RESERVES THERE THAT ARE AVAILABLE FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PURPOSES. BUT THE OTHER AREAS THAT ARE IN THE DARK BLUE ARE ALL THE FUNDS OF THE CITY THAT CURRENTLY RECEIVE PROPERTY TAX DOLLARS. SO WHAT I WANTED TO WALK COUNCIL THROUGH TODAY IS HOW WE USE RESERVES IN BUILDING OUT OUR BUDGET. THIS CHART HERE, THIS GRAPH IS ACTUALLY FROM THE ANNUAL COMPREHENSIVE FINANCIAL REPORT. FINANCIAL REPORTS IN THE ACFR THAT THE AUDITORS ACTUALLY WALK YOU GUYS THROUGH EVERY YEAR. BUT OFTEN WHAT WE REALLY TALK ABOUT IS THE ITEM HIGHLIGHTED IN YELLOW, WHICH IS THE GENERAL FUNDS UNASSIGNED RESERVE BALANCE. BECAUSE THE GENERAL FUNDS, LIKE OUR PARENT COMPANY, IS THE ONE THAT CAN PROVIDE FUNDING FOR ALL CITY SERVICES. SO WE'RE REALLY INTERESTED TO KNOW HOW MUCH WE HAVE IN THE GENERAL FUND. BUT MORE SPECIFICALLY, IN THE UNASSIGNED FUND BALANCE THAT WE CAN USE TO HELP SUPPORT OUR BUDGET OR PROVIDE EQUIPMENT OR NEEDS OF THE CITY. BUT WE HAVE THROUGHOUT OUR OTHER FUNDS, OTHER RESERVE BALANCES THAT WE CAN UTILIZE IN OUR BUDGET. SO WHEN WE LOOK AT THE TOP HALF OF THAT SPREADSHEET THERE, THOSE ARE REALLY YOUR RESERVE BALANCES THAT ARE COMMITTED OR ASSIGNED FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES. BUT WE HAVE THESE SPECIAL REVENUE FUND BALANCES. AND WHAT THAT MEANS IS WE CREATE STAND-ALONE FUNDS, SUCH AS A TRANSPORTATION FUND, LIBRARY, CEMETERY, PUBLIC TRANSIT. THE REASON WE CREATE THEM AS THEIR OWN SEPARATE FUNDS IS BECAUSE THEY HAVE REVENUE THAT IS MENT SPECIFICALLY FOR THAT PURPOSE. SO LIKE TRANSPORTATION FUND, THEY HAVE THEIR HIGHWAY USER FEES THAT THEY GET FROM THE STATE. often referred to as gas tax, and franchise fees, those type of revenues that are meant specifically for transportation, to be spent on transportation. So there's also property taxes that have been allocated. So this council, as well as former councils, have dedicated property taxes to the transportation fund. So you had intended for those property tax dollars to be spent on transportation needs. So what that means is in the transportation fund, they have $2.1 million in their reserve balance. And that has built up from either prior year taxes that they've received or highway user funds, franchise fees. So they've basically collected more in these revenues than they've spent. And their reserve balance has increased to $2.1 million. And then if you look over at the far right where it's other governmental funds, That's a consolidation. They consolidate it for financial reporting purposes. Down below is a breakout of those. And so same with cemetery. They have fees that they charge, and the intent of those fees is to go back into the cemetery. Likewise, city council has allocated property taxes specifically for cemetery. So this is how we ensure that those monies are kept to only be spent in these areas, is we have their standalone funds, And these are their reserve balances that have built up in those various funds. So when I build out the budgets for each year, and I need to put a cautionary note out there. I've been working on the budgets, but I've been working on them internally in my office. The mayor and I have not sat down and reviewed these numbers yet. But what I will do is I'll prepare a preliminary draft of the budget. So I try to MAKE THE FUNDS BALANCE. AND THEN I'LL GO SIT DOWN WITH THE MAYOR AND WE'LL HAVE CONVERSATIONS ABOUT, WELL, YOU KNOW, THIS FUND PROBABLY NEEDS MORE PROPERTY TAX DOLLARS THIS YEAR. THESE ARE THE REQUESTS THIS FUND MADE. THESE ARE THE ONES I PUT INTO MY PRELIMINARY BUDGET. SO I JUST WANT YOU GUYS TO KNOW, LIKE, THE MAYOR AND I HAVE NOT REVIEWED THESE NUMBERS, BUT I WANTED TO PROVIDE THEM TODAY FOR THE PURPOSE OF THIS CONVERSATION. AND I WILL START BUILDING OUT EACH INDIVIDUAL BUDGET UNTIL I CAN BASICALLY GET DOWN TO THE GENERAL FUND, AND THEN THAT'S WHERE IT GETS REALLY BUSY AND TRICKY, RIGHT? THAT'S KIND OF THE ONE I SAVED FOR LAST BECAUSE IT'S THE MOST COMPLICATED ONE. SO CEMETERY WAS THE VERY FIRST FUND I DID THIS YEAR, AND I BUILT IT OUT IN THE CURRENT FISCAL YEAR. WHEN WE WENT INTO 2026, WE HAD ABOUT $400,000 IN RESERVES, AND THAT IS ABOUT 100% OF THEIR ANNUAL BUDGET, BUT WHAT'S REALLY IMPORTANT TO NOTE ABOUT THAT IS WE HAD MONEY BUILT UP IN THAT FUND THAT WE HAD PULLED FROM PERPETUAL CARE AND WAS ALSO BUILDING UP OVER SEVERAL YEARS TO FUND THE COLUMBARIAN PROJECT. SO IN 2026, WE DID THE FIRST PHASE OF THAT PROJECT. IN 2027, WE HAVE THE SECOND PHASE OF THAT PROJECT SCHEDULED. So you'll see kind of that spending down of reserves that's occurring in 2026 and then in 2027. So we're spending down about $200,000 in reserves in 2026. And then in 2027, we have about $130,000 of reserves spent. And then that will drop the reserve balance down to just less than 25%. That's something I'm comfortable with. That's something Director Glenn is comfortable with. because what we know is those columbariums are going to generate more revenue. And in addition, Director Glynn is looking at ways to create efficiencies within the operating budget. So we also have plans and hopes to see the operating budget decline in years to come rather than continuing to grow. So I think in a couple of years from now, those reserves will be back up to 25% and maybe even a little higher. SO I GO THROUGH THAT EXERCISE ON EACH OF THESE FUNDS, AND SO I'M ANALYZING WHAT THEY HAD IN THEIR RESERVES AT THE END OF THE LAST AUDIT YEAR, WHAT WE THINK THEIR PROJECTED REVENUES AND EXPENSES ARE GOING TO BE. WE RELY ON DEPARTMENTS TO HELP US IN THAT AREA SO THAT WE CAN GET A GOOD MEASURE ON WHAT THEIR RESERVES POTENTIALLY COULD BE AT THE END OF THIS YEAR SO WE KNOW WHAT IS COMFORTABLE TO UTILIZE IN THE NEXT BUDGET YEAR AND WHEN WE NEED MORE PROPERTY TAX DOLLARS IN THOSE AREAS. LAST YEAR WE DID HAVE A CONVERSATION A LITTLE BIT ABOUT RESERVES AND PROPERTY TAX DOLLARS DURING THE FUNDING OF THE BUDGET WORK SESSION, AND WE TALKED ABOUT LIBRARY AND HOW WE NEEDED TO, LIKE, PART OF OUR ABILITY TO FUND OUR BUDGET THOSE THREE YEARS WE WENT WITHOUT INCREASING PROPERTY TAXES WAS TO LEAN ON RESERVES. BUT WHAT WE DID IN SOME AREAS BY DOING THAT IS WE KIND OF PUT OURSELVES IN A CORNER WHERE WE'VE LEANED ON THOSE RESERVES ALL THAT WE CAN, AND NOW WE HAVE TO START WORKING OUR WAY to being able to fund the budget without the use of reserves. Library is one of those areas. In the current budget year, we allocated $55,000 of additional property taxes. When I built out this preliminary budget, so the model you see here has $60,000 of new property tax dollars in it. And so that's still only preserving the reserves at 15%. So this is likely a three- to four-year plan to get the revenues back up to where they need to be WHERE THEY'RE NO LONGER RELYING ON RESERVES. TRANSPORTATION FUND, WE HAVE A PRETTY SIGNIFICANT USE OF RESERVES CURRENTLY BUILT INTO THEIR BUDGET. AGAIN, THIS IS ALL PRELIMINARY. I HAVEN'T VISITED WITH THE MAYOR ABOUT THIS. BUT YOU CAN SEE IT'S SCHEDULED TO USE 447,000 OF RESERVES. THAT TO ME SEEMS LIKE A LOT. THE RESERVE BALANCE IS STILL HEALTHY. we may need to take a look at that. What would really help us is if we got the road and bridge tax reinstated, because that is about the equivalent of what the road and bridge tax used to be. It was in the high 300,000s. If we had the road and bridge tax, we'd be pretty sustainable in our transportation fund. I also want to make it really clear, we have our transportation capital that's in the capital fund, and then we have our transportation fund. The fund, which Dustin will refer to as a general fund, it's where... THEIR STREET MAINTENANCE, THEIR ENGINEERING, THEIR CONSTRUCTION MAINTENANCE, THEIR GIS, PUBLIC WORKS ADMINISTRATION, THAT'S ALL HOUSED IN THAT TRANSPORTATION FUND. BUT WE NEED TO POTENTIALLY TAKE A LOOK AT TRANSPORTATION FUND. PUBLIC TRANSIT IS LEANING A LOT ON RESERVES. I WILL POINT OUT IN THE 2027, THEY STILL HAVE THE RELOCATION TO THE COMMUNITY CENTER PROJECT STILL TO BE DONE. I KNOW DIRECTOR GLENN BROUGHT UP THE PORTION THAT WAS DONE INTERNALLY ON THE INSIDE OF THE BUILDING, BUT IT'S THE EXTERIOR PORTION THAT'S GOING TO BE THE EXPENSIVE ONE, PUTTING UP THE SECURITY FENCE TO PROTECT THE BUSES, AND I THINK MAYBE SOME CHANGES TO THE CURBING AND ENTRANCE TO THE PARKING LOT. THAT'S IN THE 2026 BUDGET, BUT THEY DON'T THINK THEY'RE GOING TO ACTUALLY GET STARTED THIS YEAR, SO I PROGRAMMED IT IN THE 2027 BUDGET. I adjusted the 2026 projections for that. So in 2027, when you see that use of, I think that's $160,000, that's that project that we have that $70,000 match on. So in future years, we wouldn't be using the reserves as heavily as what 2027 is showing because we have a specific project driving that use of reserves. So this is kind of how we use those reserves in budgeting. WE SEE WHAT WE CAN USE, WHAT WE'RE COMFORTABLE USING. WE GET TO A POINT WHERE WE'RE NOT COMFORTABLE USING, AND WE DO HAVE TO THEN GO AND LEAN ON POTENTIALLY NEW PROPERTY TAXES. MAYBE IT'S JUST SHIFTING PROPERTY TAXES FROM A DIFFERENT FUND. LIKE, THAT STILL HAS TO BE DETERMINED. SO WE JUST, I START WITH ONE FUND, WE START BUILDING OUT THE BUDGETS, THEN WE GET TO THE GENERAL FUND, AND THEN THE MAYOR AND I GET TO HAVE ALL THESE CONVERSATIONS ON WHAT WE'RE GOING TO DO. AND THEN THAT LEADS TO HIS PROPOSED BUDGET. I DIDN'T WANT TO LEAVE OUT FIDICIARY FUNDS BECAUSE WE DID TALK ABOUT ALL OTHER FUNDS TODAY WITH THE, SO WE WOULD HAVE BEEN MAKING THESE TO THE EXCEPTION. WE'RE REALLY NOT GOING TO TALK ABOUT THEM TODAY. I JUST DIDN'T WANT THEM TO BE LEFT UNNOTICED. BUT THESE ARE PROFESSIONALLY MANAGED FUNDS OF THE CITY. THEY HAVE VERY SPECIFIC PURPOSES. THEY CAN ONLY BE USED FOR THOSE PURPOSES. WE CAN'T USE FUNDS ANY OTHER WAY. THEY'RE PROFESSIONALLY MANAGED AND THEY GENERATE THEIR OWN REVENUE. SO THEY'RE IN THOSE PROFESSIONALLY MANAGED INVESTMENT FUNDS, AND THE GAINS AND INTEREST EARNINGS OFF THOSE FUNDS IS WHAT SUPPORT THE EXPENDITURES OF THE FUNDS. SO WHEN WE ARE BUILDING OUT OUR BUDGET, WE'RE NOT HAVING TO LOOK AT HOW TO FUND THESE OR PUT MORE DOLLARS INTO THESE. THEY'RE, FOR LACK OF BETTER WORDS, SELF-SUFFICIENT. I DO NEED TO MAKE CERTAIN COUNCILS AWARE THAT IF THERE WAS EVER A SIGNIFICANT HIT TO THE MARKET, YOU WOULD POTENTIALLY HAVE TO PUT DOLLARS INTO THE POLICE RETIREMENT FUND TO KEEP ITS FUNDING LEVEL TO A LEVEL THAT WOULD BE APPROPRIATE BECAUSE THAT DOES PROVIDE BENEFITS TO RETIRED POLICE OFFICERS. BUT OUR LAST ACTUARY WE HAD DONE, WE WERE DOING VERY WELL BASED TO THAT ACTUARY REPORT FORMING OUTSIDE THAT REPORT BETTER THAN WHAT THAT REPORT REQUIRES US TO HAVE. We'll have a new actuary done at the end of this fiscal year. It should be ready next December. And so we would have an update at that point in time if we had any concerns about how that fund is performing. But that would be a discussion for 2028's budget, should there be a concern. And that's all I have for you today, unless you have questions for me.

How much are we currently putting in the transportation fund? Because I know we pulled... I SHOULDN'T SAY PULLED FROM THE ASSIGNED BUILDING FUND, BUT WE REALLOCATED. I DON'T KNOW IF THAT'S THE RIGHT WORD. REALLOCATED INSTEAD OF PUTTING SO MUCH TO THE ASSIGNED BUILDING FUND, WE PUT TOWARD TRANSPORTATION.

SO WE PUT IN TRANSPORTATION CAPITAL $2.7 MILLION, AND $1,650,000 OF THAT WERE PROPERTY TAXES THAT HAD ORIGINALLY BEEN ALLOCATED TO THE ASSIGNED BUILDING FUND. SO WE'RE DOING THAT ON A YEARLY BASIS?

ONE MILLION OR MINUS UNDERSTANDING THAT.

THIS SHOWS THE HISTORY OF WHAT THEY HAVE RECEIVED IN PROPERTY TAXES. SO THIS SHOWS THE LAST FIVE YEARS. THE TRANSPORTATION, AS I MENTIONED EARLIER, WE HAVE, YOU KNOW, TRANSPORTATION CAPITAL AND THEN WE HAVE THE TRANSPORTATION OPERATING FUND. PROPERTY TAX DOLLARS GO INTO BOTH. SO YOU HAVE 2.7 MILLION THAT GOES INTO CAPITAL. And I think the amount that goes into their general operating fund is around maybe $2.2 million. Because I think the total property taxes allocated towards streets, because we levy those together in one levy rate, is $4.9 million. I can get you the exact number. We'll have it in the next work session because we'll talk property taxes.

Okay. Because I was just trying to, you know, if we did talk about maybe splitting and allocating those and sharing. Like, so I'm understanding we've always put $100,000 since 2022. That's how much we've dedicated to that account. I'M SORRY, WHAT WAS THAT? 100,000 SINCE 2022. CAPITAL PARKS. CAPITAL FUND PROPERTY TAXES, YEAH.

CAPITAL PARKS. CAPITAL TRANSPORTATION IS A TOP HALF. OH, I'M SORRY, YES. THAT HAS BEEN 2.7 MILLION A YEAR FOR THE LAST THREE YEARS. OKAY. AND THEN... IT WENT TO 2.7 MILLION IN 2024 FROM WHAT HAD PREVIOUSLY BEEN 1.4 MILLION.

OKAY. AND THEN, YOU KNOW, IF THERE'S A POSSIBILITY THAT WE HEAD IN THIS DIRECTION, WE COULD POSSIBLY, I DON'T KNOW, SPLIT THAT EVEN AND THEN PUT SOME BACK IN THE ASSIGNED BUILDING FUND AND START BUILDING THAT UP AGAIN.

YOU COULD START FUNDING THE ASSIGNED BUILDING FUND. WHERE YOU GET THE MONEY TO FUND IT, THAT'S UP TO COUNCIL, BUT, YEAH.

SO THAT'S AN OPTION.

YEAH. OKAY. That's what I was thinking the same thing.

Thank you.

Yeah, I would encourage you to have those conversations with the mayor. So when we're finalizing his proposed budget, he'll, you know. Give you that direction. He'll know what you're thinking and wanting and take that into consideration. Yes.

So I have a question for Director Bunn. I'm going to pick on you just because you're the one here. So when you're filling out, doing your budget, I was looking at like last year's budgets and looking at your supplies, materials, your services and charges, that line item. And it looks like it tracks pretty darn even across the last four years. So when you go in and do your budget, how do you determine, do you look at what you need for the year? Do you add on what you had last year or how do you handle that?

So my, I guess my chance for that from, cause you're asking me as the new guy, I'm, I'm looking at it through a lens of what have we already executed percentage wise this year and then forecasting out, but then doing an inventory of the supplies that we have and going, okay, I know that for us specific to parks and recreation, because I know it's because I did it myself, is I inventoried all of our balls and pads and equipment and all that. I'm like, no, all this stuff has been here since I was in middle school probably, and that needs to be revisited. So there is some, to that line item you'll see in my budget, a request to increase some of that amount so that we can do some of that lifecycle replacement because I recognize the same. It's been a pretty flat trajectory as far as operations go. But if we're doing more, we're going to need more things to do more, to make more. So that's really just common sense budgeting in my eyes. But that's been my approach so far. Luckily, our reports have a percentage of execution there. That's how I know that we're ahead on some revenues. That's how I know we're lagging in some other areas. But we can reprioritize that to address some of the things we need to address, like contracted services and supply items.

I appreciate that. You're actually looking into it, not Cut and paste from the year before. No, I mean, sure.

And five percent. No, I think what for me specifically has been value is I'm coming up on a year that hasn't been. This is what we're seven months, six months into this budget year. But this is my first real year of having something. And so I'm using this as the benchmark to go out and make adjustments into the following years. And I'll do the same exact thing next year.

COUNSEL, IF YOU DON'T HAVE QUESTIONS, FURTHER QUESTIONS, YOU CAN ALWAYS, I'M GOING TO ASK YOU TO FOLLOW UP WITH ME IF YOU HAVE SOME QUESTIONS, BUT CERTAINLY YOU CAN TALK TO STAFF AS WELL. BUT IF NOT, WE'RE GOING TO MOVE ON. ALL RIGHT. SO WE'RE GOING TO MOVE TO ROOM NUMBER 6, UNFINISHED AND NEW BUSINESS. COUNSELOR COMMENTS OR MAYOR COMMENTS, COUNCIL, BEFORE TONIGHT?

Mayor?

Counselor?

Obviously, we're coming up on the budget. We're in it. We're in the budget. We're talking. So, I would just highly consider whether dipping into that foregone to cover some expenses is maybe necessary. We're getting tighter and tighter, so I don't... It's gonna be difficult to make more and more cuts And then expect the city to continue to record and not continue the deferred maintenance list to get bigger or drainer reserves so I think as a council we got to get really creative of how we're gonna do that and Reserves has been our foregone taxes. Excuse me account has been quite substantial and we haven't pulled from that and so That's something to consider what that might look like

THANK YOU, COUNCIL. ANY COMMENTS? I'M GOING TO RESERVE COMMENTS FOR TONIGHT. SO WITH THAT, I WOULD ENTERTAIN A MOTION TO ADJOURN.

SO MOVED.

SECOND. IT'S BEEN MOVED BY COUNCIL PRESIDENT CLAYBURG, SECOND BY COUNCILOR SPECKAMAR TO ADJOURN.