Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

It is 05:00. I will call the finance committee meeting to order. Roll call, the entire committee is present this evening, and it is first up is public comment. Anybody who wishes to address the committee this evening? Second call for public comment. Third and final call for public comment. Is there anybody on Zoom for public comment?

Okay.

Then I will close public comment. Then we'll move on to our only agenda item this evening, which is under discussion action items, which is discussion and possible action on the city of Manitowoc proposed 2026 executive budget. So we met last night. We had a couple questions towards the end. And I know there was a couple letters added to Granicus of support or different information things through finance. But Sean, don't know if there's anything you want to start off with information that was added. Just kind of get the committee up to speed before we see if there's any questions.

Certainly. So as it's, kind of similar to in the past, we do, a running tally of attachments. So the new ones that were on there from last night, we do have the Manitowoc Marine Band did a submitted a letter of kind of, what their support kind of for support or advocating for the increase of, contribution, for them to be there. So that's there for, anyone to read. But ultimately, they just talked about kind of how in the past we've, as a city, done parade the three parades and five concerts, but now they do a lot more, as they stayed in there about 30 times in the city that they performed.

So it's just kind of talking about what they would use the additional contributions for, how it would assist. That one's on there. And then, the other one is just a memo I drafted just to kind of articulate the, as we discussed we looked at the, full time equivalent full time equivalency report from last night. There were, as mentioned, some positions that weren't or active but not funded. So then we did and there were some missing.

So we did a deeper dive with collaboration with HR and determined, kind of what the memo says. There's currently three positions that are on the that are out there that are active, as we refer to it, but unfunded, meaning that there's not any dollars allocated to for those positions. One from the attorney's office, as mentioned last night, the assistant city attorney. And then two, revolve around the Department of Public Infrastructure, the business manager, who had retired towards the '24, and we did not fund that position or fill it. And then the, engineer or otherwise sometimes referred to as a staff engineer, they, that was funded in '24.

The individual left in '24, and we did not, fund it any further as well. We didn't fill it in '24, and we didn't fund it in '25, and we are not funding any of those in '26. So I think the intent, as I explained, is, to eliminate those positions, if that's the intent because they've gone unfunded for multiple years, would we'd bring a resolution to the personnel committee and then further to the common council.

So I

was just kind of putting on the black and white text what I what I just covered.

Yep. And thank you for that, Sean. And that's what I kinda directed is for a memo just to be added to the granite yesterday explaining what positions were still active but unfunded, kinda cleaning that up. And then there will be a resolution coming to personnel just to eliminate those since they haven't been funded funded for well over two years at this point or two cycles. Should say not necessarily two years, but two cycles. Just kinda cleaning that up so we could kinda accurate information going forward. So, mayor, do you have any issues with?

The company. We're company. Company. In excited about a

then the future.

Of in

So

eliminating And then we'll now

wouldn't be wouldn't be a a

harm. Sense Right.

Yeah. We could and we could have those conversations as we retool that that that department. So so any discussion on that kind of action that's gonna be coming forward as part of the the budget? I mean, that's a policy decision, but it's kinda laid out there, and that's why it'll come to personnel where personnel committee can take action on that going forward. Just wanted to lay that out to you. Thank you, Sean. I know there were some other information that was requested as well. I think Alder Dunbar had some information that he was looking for that we kind of talked earlier today that you had prepared or have information ready for?

I I unfortunately don't have it ready. But the I there was for the mean, the mode, and and other things of the assessed values of the the assessors were here this morning, and they did the file they originally thought they gave was to that would be able to get that information was the incorrect one. So they did get a full fledged file of, everything on there. So I will be able to calculate that stuff now over the course of the evening and can have that uploaded by tomorrow if that's at it if that's appropriate.

Yeah. No no no rush on that. I mean, don't Yeah. Don't rush tonight or work extra tonight. It's, you know, not not not a super time sensitive sort of a thing.

Sure. Thank

you. But, yeah, we do have that now as available, so we can extrapolate that data for for all to see what kind of is you know, the average is still the average as as stated, but it has all all the parcels and and all the various data points.

So Okay.

On there.

Was there anything else

Just a question. Will you be emailing that to us, or should we go out on the system or to to find it or what that what you're talking about?

I will probably I'll put it into a a spreadsheet, a one page summary kind of thing detailing it, and I will upload it. But I'll email alerting that the upload's there so that it you can go to granicus and

p On granicus.

Yep. On the agenda item. Yep.

Thank you. Okay. Otherwise, I'll be up till three in the morning going, where is it? Perfect.

Was there any other information that anybody was looking for that they have not received yet of questions that they had asked for? The only other one that was outstanding that I had asked was that you were having a meeting today with Two Rivers was about the transit budget with Route 1 and what their intention was with their 2026 budget.

Correct. So we did have that meeting this morning. I guess, Two Rivers does their budget a little differently than we do. So the recommendation of what they're going to put into transit is not public yet because they're still putting numbers together, I guess. I I don't know how they do their budget process.

But I asked if I could share that number, and they said, well, it's not in the official budget yet, so they didn't want me to share where they were thinking of. To that point, we we have the conversation over you know, if you're if you're looking at eliminating or changing anything, this is way too late in the game to do that because our budget is January 1, and we're we're not we can't we literally can't make route changes that drastic in the next few weeks here. This is one route. It employs two people. For example, just to give you an idea, has one bus dedicated to it. So it's we

20

of then of had

of of

twenty twenty twenty twenty twenty twenty six, one, everything we would be status quo. And As they go through looking at what they're going to do, we'll continue conversations with them. But if there are any major if there are any changes, they would have to be implemented by July 1. So we would know well in advance of of if there are any. We don't have necessarily a contract with them that states, you know, this is the exact dollar amount.

So that's one thing we're going to be working on as well. But they will fund full operations for the first six months of 2020, six for sure, depending on where their budget shakes out at the end of this. Once that number becomes public, we'll know a little more. But I told him I I already told them that we aren't in a position to change our levy or our revenue at this point. So it's on them to to fund it.

So just a question. Since how does it work logistically with the city of Trivers currently if we don't really have a contract with them? Do we just have a kind of a gentleman's agreement that we provide service and they pay what we invoice them?

So we invoice them quarterly. So that $150,000 is split over four different payments. Yeah, and it's based off of the true what we can get to as close to true cost of the Route 1 for them. We've never had them pay for the buses or anything in that number, so that's a 100% capital is on us. The agreement that we have the the handshake agreement, I guess, for lack of a better term.

Our attorney our previous attorney did draft, or did attempt to draft a contract that we never got meetings set up or never got meetings on the other end, to have to finalize anything. So we both sides recognize that moving forward. We ops obviously and absolutely need that, so we don't have conversations like this. But unlike Manitowoc where we levy, they're basically a customer. They write us a check.

So they don't levy for transit services like we do. They just write us a check. Whereas you can see, transit is a separate levy line in our overall levy. So for them, it's paying for it directly out of their general fund. And that's where guess they're having struggles with this year's budget that they brought this forward.

But it basically told them it's we'll we'll look into we're we're currently going through the process of what's called a TDP to trend going going be next sure that nothing has changed over the last five years. So So in that, we're starting that process. In that process, Two Rivers has asked that we look at how does a route change look in Two Rivers. For example, we added, based on their request, to Rivers High School a few years ago, which extended the route pretty far because to Rivers is high school is pretty far out there. So we added that.

So what they wanna do is ask the questions of, well, how many people are riding on the bus to to Rivers High School. On their end, they want to check and see if Two Rivers, Public School District will help fund their portion of the transit, program because if that's a benefit to the school district, the city's cover covering the costs for it. So they know that and that's, again, why they can't just change this overnight or by January 1. So they wanna take the first these next months here to just assess what they truly want for service, and we'll move forward from there. But we're gonna do the same on our end.

We've done some studies on it already. It seems it seems very, very difficult to impossible to change anything up. For example, if right now, it's every hour we go through that route, that it's an hour long route. If we did that every every two hours, you know, what what does that bus do for that hour? Right?

Like, so we can't just cut the the route in half for the entire time. If we cut down to just from, let's say, seven to three service, right, that's only one person. But then you're you have a, you know, $750,000 bus that is dedicated to that route that just sitting there for the other half of the time that we invested in. Right? So we tried explaining all these different things of it's could be all or nothing.

So if they choose nothing, as Sean mentioned, there's if we choose to continue with the current level of operations that we have, there's ways to fund balance and everything that could cover moving forward. Otherwise, we make decisions on our end of reducing expenses because one route would be completely eliminated. So again, it's not the best answer for you because I know we like certainty, but will not be cutting it completely in 2026, and they want to use the first half to evaluate.

So back to the 156,000 that they're paying. So roughly the you know, we figure 75, 70

It's half. Yep.

Yeah. $78,000 is what we're gonna see in for sure in 2026. That dollar amount is what are we capturing in those payments? Are the wages for the driver, fuel, but not really capital of the the wear and tear on the bus, the bus itself, your maintenance of the

Yeah. We didn't when this started gaining some traction, the controller and I ran some numbers and kind of started basically outlining what is the true cost for Route 1 based on some input as well from Operations Manager at Transit, Kevin Bottesci. And just in the salary, because of the way the route runs, just in the salary benefits alone for the drivers to operate. And then we put kind of did some average, came up with an allocation for fuel, came up with an allocation for there for some other rent expenses. Just salaries and fuel alone, we were at like 100 and we're right around $157,000,000 We didn't so what you could really do if it didn't, as you all will know, is being business minded, go back and add depreciation for the bus.

You could go back and add the insured the one the amount of insurance that, that bus is for. You could go back and add like, we didn't do any of that. And you're already at that point of of there. Now we know there is a benefit the city receives too from running that bus out there too. So it's not you know, it's majority there's a collaboration there. But so that to that point, and we can if if if warranted, I can find that spreadsheet and upload it or or send it. I mean, it's not hidden data. It's just gonna provide what we ran. So

I mean, I think it'd be good as we just take a look at it. I mean, it it sounds like, you know, while they're looking to trim costs, they may end realizing that they're actually getting one heck of a deal for the service. Now if they want to take advantage of it, that's a different story. It sounds like either the federal government is already subsidizing a good portion of it, but it sounds like the citizens of Manitowoc are subsidizing portion of it as

well. Correct. Okay.

Okay. Yeah. I I think that should get uploaded to the to the budget just for information purposes as

information with them today too. Yeah. Surprised by anything of that. But

But, obviously, they're not gonna come to us in June and say July they're changing. So is there, like, the first three month, first quarter we're gonna have conversations with them? Was there kind of a

Yeah. So the the TDP that I've been talking that I referenced, they do have a representative on that that that they will have input for too. So and and it's a little urgency on their part because if, let's say, they only budget 75,000, you know, come January or July 1, they won't have any service at all whatsoever. Right. And just a reminder too, this isn't just buses.

This is also paratransit, which is probably even more critical to a lot of folks in the city of Two Rivers than the bus system alone. Paratransit is the one that picks individual cars that pick individuals up for doctor appointments and everything. That's very big in Two Rivers. Under the law, you cannot provide paratransit to a community, another community, or anywhere if there's not a bus stop within a quarter mile. I think a quarter mile from a bus stop.

So if they lose the route completely, they lose paratransit completely, which is that would be a very negative effect to a lot of lower income individuals in the city of Two Rivers. So the urgency is on their part if they don't fully fund what we are what they should be paying us. Yes.

Okay. Alright. Well, thank you for that update.

Yeah.

Okay. Well, that kind of takes us through all the information that I can recall that the committee has either specifically asked for directly or came up in conversation through going through the PowerPoint slides or additional deliberations, unless I'm not recalling something specifically. So I'll open it up to the committee if there's any additional questions or things that need clarification or items that we want to discuss. I see Ola Reckleberg with your hand first.

Yeah. I had asked Sean to put together a report that looks like a P and L with fund balance. And it's usually standard in a budget process. But it's relatively new, I think, in our process here at the city. And he feels pretty good about the top half of the spreadsheet and maybe the first column all the way down to the bottom.

It's moving across the page is something he's probably not as confident yet. But I would hope that he takes a look at those other columns, gets to the point where he feels comfortable. And then if he would put that out in there with the documentation or the other stuff is, that'd be great.

Okay. Did you want to walk through what that is?

I don't have enough copies for everybody. But basically, the statement just simply shows by category. Here's your revenues for like your taxes, other taxes, intergovernmental grants and aids. So the major categories in governmental accounting for revenue. And it shows you in budget layout what was the audited numbers from our '24 audit, what the adopted budget for this year is as perhaps amended I would assume, nine month actual numbers and the twelve month estimated numbers that they feel where they're going to end up at the end of the year.

And then the last column, of course, is here's the numbers in the Mayor's proposed budget. The next line down would be the expenditures by category, general government, public safety, public works, so on and so forth. And then the next line is basically are we above or below water? And then the other financing sources, which is in governmental accounting, there are certain revenues and transfers and things like that that aren't considered revenue. They're called other financing sources and uses.

And then at the very about in the middle of the page, it's either over or under expenditures. And then you put in your fund balance where you began and where are you going to end. And then underneath that is, for example, if you got a $10,000,000 general fund or general fund balance in total, How is that broken down? Because there's unreserved, undesignated, which is our bank account that cash flows us, but there's a number of that the City Council has put on, for example, compensation plan, NFL or non lapsing fund, fire safety equipment non lapsing fund. So you can see where we have built up some cash so that, for example, when the fire chief comes in and says, oh, by the way, Mayor, we got to go to the council and we want to buy a $2,500,000 hook and ladder truck or whatever they're running for now, we go, well, do we have some money already in an equipment fund for that?

Or what do we look at borrowing or budgeting for in future years? So I found this report very useful, but I'm not happy showing it with everybody until our finance person says, yeah, I feel comfortable with the numbers and we'll just go from there, I guess. So I would have made more copies, but I'm on a budget at home.

Yeah. It's a page taken right from the county's budget thing. So a little bit of delay in getting that from finance director of the county. And we put in some numbers. And the lack of confidence when I told all the Ruckerberg sent it there. I noticed my formula wasn't coming out right. So I wanted to validate that before it's in there. And then the nonlapsing funds he mentions just as, it's, those are presented in the audit. And then also to those nonlapsing funds, the amounts do flow through the finance committee around the, anywhere between the April, June time frame. And I only articulate that just that it's not there are trails of where those numbers are coming from.

I will update those and get that uploaded as well. It's a very one good sheet of summary of basically the in all the if you took all the departments that are in your binder and sum them together by that category.

And you're going to notice on that equity section where it's itemized as to what it is. Some of them will have the same number from the audit all the way through, But they're usually small numbers. And so don't worry about that because it's something where you take a good stab at. You look at the big numbers where you go, hey, that's a big number. And you go through kind of the closing process to decipher.

Do I have to add or subtract under the balance, so to speak? So if a lot of those numbers look alike all the way across, don't worry about it. That's kind of SOP or standard operating procedure. But the important number when he gets done, we'll be looking at the undesignated unreserved fund balance to see where that number comes out because as you know, we're applying 3,500,000.0 of that number to this 2026 budget. So I just thought this is a good picture that I think most people look at and hopefully you'll understand.

I had a nice, very short conversation with Alder Brei. She said, yeah, you gave me numbers. I'm an English major. I said, that's fine. You teach English. I'm a numbers man, and I am horrible at English. So if I have to write a paper on one of these subcommittees I'm giving her a call. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Elder Reckleberg. I'll open it up to the rest of the committee if there's any questions. Alder Dunbar.

Yeah. Under the special revenue funds under tab eight. I'm trying to find exactly what page this would be. Let's see. One, one two three four from the back.

There's a section here that is parking lots, police parking division. In here, we have an looks like roughly the budget is staying the same, 5,750 In June, we had about 2,995, but we're estimating 11,000 by the end of the year. So we went from estimating over these next six months there being about 2,900 or so dollars to $8,005 being estimated. Where was that jump coming from?

Give me one second. I can get the exact details.

Nope. Yep.

Yep. No. But I can kind of as I I bring this up, just for everyone's, understanding. So with that, the two funding sources for that special revenue fund parking lots are the citations, the police department's rights for anything that's considered in the downtown corridor and then also all of the leases that are administered by the clerk's department for dedicated parking spots. So that's where the kind of the two amounts come from. And then ultimately, the reason why we put that in there is we use it then to improve or acquire more parking for the downtown area. The fines and forfeitures?

Yeah. It's two count two one two zero two one five zero zero.

It's cheap that email us not that long ago And

it could be. It was just the second half of the year was 134% of the budgeted amount. I'm trying to figure out what really caused the big jump in that second half. I mean, it's revenue, so I'm not necessarily planning it. I just want know if it's something we should look forward to and plan for this year.

Absolutely. Yes. So the uptick was just looking at the activity, low activity from January through the May timeframe through the June timeframe, but then also in August yeah. Really, through now has been a lot more citations issued, and they're $20 citations at a crack. So the the balance as of today is actually, it's $11,100 is the balance as of today.

So it is upticked. And from August 20 August 9, they start going up. So the only thing I think of too is I know they did get a newer what's the newer program or the newer piece of equipment? So they got a new device that was attached, and they got another two CSWs. So I'm wondering now you have more of a either a better efficiency as tracking that or more manpower that we had already, but now are reallocated in that. So Okay. Does that make sense?

Or Yeah. Absolutely. Like I said No. Yeah. Yeah. Perfectly. And that's more I just didn't know if there was, you know, a new lease or something like that that went down. And, not too much for the '26 budget, but that's definitely a number that if we can look and say 'twenty seven budget, we're adding 10,015 thousand dollars a year. I mean, that's enough to make a difference in some budgets here or there, so to pay attention to for the next one to see where we're at.

Certainly. This one is those special. So, yeah, if you wanted to take any of the revenues out of this and put it in the general fund, it would be an active council separate just because the council did vote to create this. So we so the council wouldn't just take the free money, and they would dedicate it toward, you know, maintenance of parking lots and everything. So just so

you're aware.

Yeah. No. Absolutely. Like I I'm not looking to change anything on this budget. It's just more for a tracking purpose.

Okay. Thank you, Alder Dunbar. Anyone else have any questions of the budget? Alder Dunbar, you still have the floor

if you'd

like Yeah, to Perfect. Yeah, yeah. I just got a few more in this. I'm sure no one's going have the answers for these today, which is perfectly fine. It's more we spoke about the AV system and all that last night. And one of the things mentioned, we wanna make sure that, you know, the citizens have the ability to see what's happening and all that. Do we know roughly how many people are actually watching when we do these meetings on Facebook? Like, do we average you know, I don't know if, you know, YouTube tells you a four average view or whatever. I just wanna make sure that as we look at this AV stuff, if it's like, nope. It's not gonna change the budget.

We just click a button. That's fine. But I wanna make sure it's not like, oh, we're we're adding this $20,000 piece so that the four people can attend eight meetings a year. It just doesn't break down. And on that similar note, another thing that I had a question about the feasibility of the sorry.

Don't remember the name off, but the the the tracking device that we're talking about, the program where we get we vote yes, no, all that. I think I if I remember right, we're saying that's looking like a $10,000 a year, somewhere around there. So $833 a month. Are we at a point to where signing a piece of paper and checking a box is not feasible enough, and we can still upload that and it'd be tracked. And 10 pieces of paper a month is a lot cheaper than $833. So I'm just trying to see exactly what we're hoping to obtain for what is a significant chunk of money Yep. Just to for a yes or a no checkbox, essentially.

Nope. No. You'd be right. And that that system still can work and and would. For the people sitting at home, they would visibly see how you vote versus just hearing I and nay all the time and not knowing what's going on necessarily. So, you know, I don't know how many people we track, but we can't get those numbers, obviously, because we see YouTube, and we got granted because how many people click on there to watch watch there. So we can definitely get those numbers for you. It does integrate also with what the clerk's office does, so it'll flow easier so they don't have to, you know, physically write down who does what. So it it's it's an upgrade. The current system can work.

It has worked just fine. But I think just to give the citizens a little more to see exactly what we're voting on, how we're voting, translating it to the clerk's office much easier to put into the minutes.

No. Absolutely. And I guess my biggest concern is, you know, we do this, and then are we committing in two and five years another 20,030 thousand dollar upgrade? Because as we see stuff electronics fail, pen and paper doesn't. So it's just something I Yeah. I guess, less looking for direct answer. I mean, I would like to know roughly how many people tune in Sure. Digitally. But just something to take into account that, you know, once we start that ball of spending that money, no one's ever gonna vote to remove a $10,000 or $20,000 system completely. So once we commit that money, we just need to realize we're committing for the next hundred years to upgrading this every five, ten years or so. So there's something to take note that I've I was looking at.

Oh. You're right. You're and and we've looked at systems like this for many, many years. We've we've tried several systems. Alder Sitkwitz, I think, was last the only one on the council time when we've tried different systems, and we've ended them because they weren't successful. So we've been looking over the years as to what would be what would fit what we're looking for. And and as I mentioned last night, the county system, this is exactly what the county has for their voting system and and their transparency to the We liked it. It's been proven to work and be successful over a one year period of when we tested it, the little machines didn't work at all. So it's been proven to work, and that's why we are finally recommending going forward with it this year.

Okay. Thank you. Yep.

Yep. Just to kinda piggyback on that too. You know, I don't know if we can always track. I mean, we have some statistics of YouTube videos, how many people are watching. With the granite, guess, you can I think click kind of could kind of show you how's who's watching or or the number of people that have watched that video?

I don't know if it can necessarily always tell you who's clicked on an agenda item to to be able to pull it up. There's more integration than just some of the audio visual side of it. There's the integration of being able to search for an item, look at it, be able to go right to the video of that portion of it because we live in a world where, let's be honest, patience and time are precious and patience isn't always there for it. So if you can just search for an item and go right to the video clip where you talk about that and don't have to sit through an hour long meeting, I think some people appreciate that a little bit more. But I could also tell you that I get a text once in a while at the beginning of a meeting when channel four isn't working, or the audio isn't working on channel four.

Because there still is a group of individuals that that's how they get the meeting. So as technology changes, that's going to go away. Now we have to find a way to reach those people as well. So I think that there's always an evolution for that. And we see it by the seats aren't always filled out here. We know that. But we do know that when I go out and I talk or people run into me and I run into them, they tell me kind of what we're talking about. So I know they're getting the information from somewhere and it's, you know, they're they're informed. So I think the better information that we can get out there, the better it is.

No. Yeah. I absolutely agree. And like I said, we're just gotten I's crossing T's, making sure it wasn't a

Yeah. But I can speak the mayor's right. We have tried many systems. We had systems where it looked like a garage door opener of a yes, no type thing.

Red and green.

Basically. But it turned out that we all couldn't push the button at the same time. So we were sitting up here, okay, I can't you stop. And it was my nine volt is dead. And it was a system that worked. It could be effective, but it was more cumbersome trying to get it to work than the end result was. But the printouts were really nice for the clerk's office, if I remember right, from that system. But it was clunky getting to it. So that's where we just piecemeal stuff together, trying catch up and not really investing into the system. So I'm in favor of moving towards a system where it's all intertwined.

Not a cheap system. There's no doubt about that. And there will be upgrades just like any anything else. We've seen it with Granicus. We've seen it with our software. Know? Spring Springbok had upgrades all the time for the accounting softwares that we had. You know, that's that's the nature of the beast. So like it or not, unfortunately, that's it. So, Alder Fleye?

Real quickly. Thank you, mister chairman. I have the feeling this is going to become a boilerplate issue in the future where it's going to be something that's nearly required of us in our information age. And right now, I mean, 10,000, I don't have $10,000 in my wallet at present. So it's not exactly chump change, but in the great scheme of things, not as much as it could be.

And I think investing in it now is probably going to save us money down the road from when we're going to be in a position where it's made incumbent upon us to have it. So I think it's probably wise to invest in it now when we're in the $10,000 range because these things do in information technology, things inflate quickly. So that's

it. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Any other discussion items from the committee?

Alder Recklenburg? Just a comment. Regarding the software, if you buy the right stuff, it lasts. Yeah, you have to keep on maintenance. There might be some upgrades. But when I was at Brown County, I was down here in Manitowoc as the finance director for twenty five years. And I called Brown County, and they were still using the same financial software that I installed back then thirty years ago. And Manitowoc County is still using the system I bought thirty years ago. So if you buy the right stuff, it lasts a long time. There is maintenance to it.

But there's longevity if you do first time. It's getting it right the first time sometimes can be a problem.

That's right. And I think the bigger issue we're going to have is the mayor made the point is we're looking at a system that Manitowoc County has been using. So it's tried and tested. It's not like we're going to be the first ones out the gates be the guinea pig and how does it work, right? We have a local unit of government that's using it.

Good guinea pig, we can really hit the ground running by that. I think the larger issue long term for the technology side of it is the storage of everything. That's really where the expense is going to come a long term. Right now I can just pull up on the iPad real quickly videos back from 2018. I can look at council meetings, committee meetings, all the way back to 2018 and then I can go online and go actually back farther.

They're grainy, the audio is not very good, but they're there. So that is invaluable at sometimes the drop of a hat because my memory isn't the greatest, but I can go back and look at subject matter real quick to get up to speed on a meeting. I know Alder Bryant mentioned the other day that she went back and watched last year's finance meeting so that she could get up to speed on just the flow of finance meeting and budget deliberations. Had to be exciting stuff. Really quick, it's really good that we have that storage capabilities and I think it makes us better alders to be able to have that and the public to be more informed. So

Yeah. No. I understand. I wanna make sure everyone knows. I'm not, like, saying we shouldn't. I'm not advocating against it. I just wanna make sure that I you know? Yeah. We we understand that it is. Anything that's gonna make citizens easier, make the clerk office, you know, be able to track stuff easier, perfectly great. I just wanna make sure it's a it's a good amount of money.

So Oh, definitely. Definitely. Okay. So that kind of brings us to a point where if we don't really have anything further to discuss, is there any more information that we are looking for to continue our deliberations? I know Oliver Reckleberg has his general fund summary that he wants checked over from Sean to kind of go through and make sure his formulas are checking out. We're still waiting on our manufacturing numbers to come back. Correct?

Correct.

Okay. So we have a little bit of things that we need yet to get some finalization to the budget, even though it's it's 99.9% there, I believe. We do have council next week. We cannot if there was a motion tonight to approve the budget, we cannot act on it next week at council. We have to wait until December 1, which there'll be a special council meeting to approve the budget that evening with the public hearing for the budget due to timing of of the cycle for the budget this year.

So we do have time. It's kinda what I'm kinda laying out if we feel that we need more time. So I know there's a couple issues hanging there, but I'm gonna kinda defer to the committee on what do you want for time. You know, if there's not a lot of questions or concerns outside of the basically, two things we're waiting for is the general fund summary back and for the finalization of the manufacturing numbers to come in. Are those two things that we're waiting for that gonna kick off further deliberations? Or we're kind of looking for guidance from the committee on where we currently sit. Aldo Reckleberg? Could you just

give us the outline of the time frame again, please? Sure. The the public input or public listening session is going to be when? And then when would we, as the city council, be voting on adopting, not adopting, or whatever? Please?

So we I can speak to our portion, and I'll let the mayor speak to his first. So the mayor, you have your budget listening session scheduled for

Next Thursday. But those aren't legally required, so

it's different. Right? And you have two of them, one in the At

10:30AM and 06:00PM next week. One week from today.

Okay. So the the twentieth? Correct. Okay. So the mayor has his listening sessions again, not statutorily required. Just just something that he's doing. We would be meeting on December 1 is the special council meeting where, hopefully, at that time, we would have a recommendation already from finance to either well, to approve the budget as is or as amended. And then we would be forwarding that to council that night. There is a public hearing scheduled, the first, where we will have the public hearing. And then we would have a special council meeting where we would bring back our recommendation from finance, and we would have the entire council deliberate it.

And the anticipation would be that we would be here until we have a budget passed because we need to have a budget passed that evening or early in the morning

of It would would

the second that week. If if all of a sudden everything falls apart and I have to veto it on my end, and we would have another meeting in two days because it would have to be yeah. That's yeah. It has to be pretty much then.

So I would you know, knowing that, I think that there's a time crunch there that if things are gonna go sideways, south, up, down, left, right, that I'd like to have somewhat of a heads up to the mayor to have some of that pre work done ahead of time, to Sean ahead of time, to the departments ahead of time, that if there needs to be some changes or conversations that we can get that stuff done earlier than later. I'm not hearing that. Just frankly, I haven't heard anything from I know Alder Norell attended last night's meeting, but I haven't heard anything from any of the other alders of questions back from the email I had sent out about, getting things back early in this process. I'm not hearing a lot of general concerns overall. I think there are some that are there, and there are some legitimate concerns in any budget, not just this one.

But I'm not hearing some overall, you know, five alarm fire. But I'm just kinda opening up to the committee of what what's your thought process, where we're at, what we're looking for. What do you guys need information yet before we can move forward?

For me personally, I don't know if there's necessarily more hard information. Again, nothing that's going to make or break anything for me. There's some stuff. I think a lot of that is my first year sitting on finances. This is my first just trying to learn process. Is there any meetings before the Committee of the Whole on Monday, this coming Monday? I don't know if there's, you know, public safety or is there anything that right before?

There is not. The only thing I was thinking, and I didn't know how tonight was gonna go. If and I I was hoping we'd have our manufacturing numbers back tonight. And I thought if if by chance that there was our manufacturing numbers back tonight, there were no concerns. If by chance, was a motion to approve the budget, which I'm not going to recommend that we do tonight without having the manufacturing members back because we've seen those change things for the worst in in I think it was last year they came back and kinda messed with us.

I was hoping that we would maybe if if that was the case, was looking at maybe doing a recess at council. Was gonna talk to the mayor about doing a recess at council and having finance a whole special meeting at that point to approve the budget if if it was just that. And then we would have the meeting on the first, but that we don't have that number yet, so I don't know.

That that's where I was leaning towards is trying to do what? Communities 05:30, doing a 05:00 convening of personnel to do right before. I can't remember if it's five or 05:30, six. So a 05:30 meeting for finance right before

Yeah.

And then walk right into

Well, if tonight, if everybody was saying, listen, we're set with the budget, all we need to do is wait for the manufacturing numbers. If nothing changes in the budget and the manufacturing numbers come in and everything stays the same, we're good to go. Then we could hold a actually during council, a recess of just the finance committee meeting and approve the budget then and just move on with the rest of the meeting, bring it back on the first. I don't know if we're there. I haven't heard that we're there. I haven't heard we were not there. But, you know, that I'm just kind of kind of gauging where we're at.

Yeah, absolutely. I guess my next question would be for you, mister mayor. You like to have council's approval before or after? I mean, are you worried that there may be during the listening session that you're gonna have to bring back to council and then we're gonna have to meet again even if we do it? So is this something we should just move towards? Would that be the twenty third? Whatever that Monday after the twentieth is, twenty fourth. So we just plan on that just in case there is something that you are going to change so we're not worried about it. In that way Yeah. We we know there's, I guess, the public comment side, the the influencing side would be done.

Right. No. I no. I mean, no. What I presented is what what's pretty much set. I the the only thing that would change is if one of you made a motion to eliminate the the open meeting government software. Right? Like, have you made a motion to get rid of that 10,000? It's do you backfill it with a different project or you just reduce the levy by that much? Right?

So for us, what we would like to know is if there's anything in the budget that you're considering eliminating so we can be prepared to get you the numbers on what would the new levy look like, things like that. The budget listening sessions really are to inform and share you know, the the details of the budget with the citizens. Of course, they can say, well, can't you do this, this, or that? The way our budgets work is it's very difficult to just add a brand new thing, you know, that we haven't thoroughly vetted up to this point. So it's really a recommendation for, hey, think of this for next year for the citizens, you know, at this at this point for specifics.

But if, you know, if a vast majority of citizens came to that listening session and said, nope, don't increase taxes a single penny or increase the levy a single penny and 10,000 people stormed City Hall, I think we would have to listen to that and take that into consideration. But I mean, it's been public and out there. There's been news articles on it, shared the details kind of sort of specifically. And like Alderman Reckleberg said yesterday, went through kind of exact scenarios of the average is seven point whatever percent. Right?

So, that would be the only thing that I would so if there's anything that you're looking at changing, like Alderman Sequoia is saying or voting to make a motion to change, we'd like to know that before finance committee approve or recommends approval.

Yeah. And that's the other and just it's very difficult the night of council to get motions correct to get the budget altered because you're adding revenue, you're taking out revenue, you're moving expenditures. It's very difficult to get it done in a way that makes sense in the budget. And we want to make sure that your motions are captured and your intent is captured correctly because this may not always be on that one line item on what you're trying to do. We wanna make sure that there's no unintended consequences or that something's been missed by something you're trying to do.

So even if it's something that I don't agree with or the mayor doesn't agree with, we wanna make sure that your intent is captured so that we can have a true up or down vote on it and that there again, no unintended consequence is happening.

And whatever you want to know. So for example, one year, an alder was going through the budget and saw that the mayor's personnel salary line was, like, a $125,000 or whatever, and they wanted to make a motion to cut that because they wanted to lower the mayor's salary, but didn't realize that the mayor's assistant was also in that line. Right? So those types of things that we want to answer for you upfront, if you want to cut the salary line for that, that's your choice, that's your right as an alder. But give us the information so we can get you how it would look if you want And

we had one year where they were trying to something, but it was actually a revenue line.

And yeah, that was So

we just want again, I'm not worried about the actual item. We'll get to the actual item of what it is. I just want to make sure your intent is captured in whatever you're trying to do Okay? Alder Reckleburg?

Yeah. I listened, and I must be slower than I'll get out. So we have, on Monday the first, a common council meeting. It's special. That's where the public has the so called required legal input on the budget.

Yeah, public hearing.

We have a finance meeting on the second, according to my calendar year. Is that where we're going to meet after listening to the public input and then make a recommendation? Or are we supposed to make a recommendation on the first?

No. So what there would be is somewhere between tonight and the first. Okay. There will be another scheduled finance meeting. I'm sorry, maybe I wasn't clear on that yet. Because we're going to be scheduling some more finance meetings.

I got to clean my ears also. No, that was my question. So

somewhere between tonight and the first.

Now I understand because got the I think the the mayor sent out something and I'm going, well, okay. But it didn't catch

and Yeah. First will be a council meeting

Yes.

Where we look to adopt the budget no matter how long it takes that night. We plan on working late if need be. There'll be a finance meeting prior to that.

Okay. That's not on the schedule.

Not on the schedule at Could this

we use that meeting prior to the first that finance meeting to make any changes? Or would if we communicate that way ahead of time to kind of, yeah, we can put it on there or here's the problem.

We could. However, looking at the calendar Sure. You know, we go backwards the week prior is Thanksgiving. So that really, Wednesday evening is out.

Yeah.

Thursday's out. Friday is is most likely out. Sure. So now we're looking at Monday, Tuesday, and next week is really what we're looking at. So while that seems like a lot of time when we say it's only the thirteenth, the calendar starts to get condensed really quickly when you start taking Fridays out because city halls closed at 11:30.

You know, I don't wanna say we don't have a lot of time, but it starts to get crunched pretty quick when we start taking a look at, well, you know, the seventeenth is council and and what have you. So that's kinda where I wanted to gauge what does the committee need for meetings, where are they at. I mean, I could tell you where I'm at just from a philosophy philosophy point. Point. Today, obviously, your general fund statement is gonna be once that's vetted, I think that'll be an interesting topic.

But when I look at the budget overall, it's an increase, and there's no denying it. The mayor's been upfront about that. It's been stated multiple times that it's an increase. It you know, the in an evaluation year, it's hard to quantify where the increase is to the general taxpayer because the evaluations are all over the board. Right?

It's hard to have them look at it and make any sense of it just because of the percentages. So I'm really surprised that my phone hasn't rung more on the evaluations in budget just because of how the evaluations have gone. But I think it also has been that this budget has been pretty well explained and out front is forthcoming. When we take a look at operations in general and take personnel out of the operations, the budget isn't much different than last year. It's a pretty cookie cutter rollover from last year.

I can't find many households or businesses that could say that they've controlled their costs almost identical from 2025 going into 2026 when they put their budget together. Outside of personnel costs, the city's pretty well done that. Now there are line items that are up, but there's some line items that are down or been eliminated. And that's how you control it. Know, it's not line item for line item that's the same.

But at the end of the day, outside of personnel costs, those are our expenditures are pretty well in line. So you take a look at, you know, the personnel costs, those are what are driving it. And we made a commitment as a council to invest in our employees, and we've done that. We've done that through, you know, contract negotiations with the the unions, the the fire union, the police union, and the transit union, which we hope to get done. Did we negotiate those contracts at some timing issues where the market was at its peak?

Yeah. But you're not going to always be able to negotiate when it's always in our favor. So, you know, that's the market. We know that the market maybe the market's cooled a little bit, but, you know, it is what it is. If it cools a percentage here or there, it's not going to be drastically savings. When we take a look at the non reps at 3%, that seems more than fair of what I see in the marketplace. I mean, especially when the other ones are getting fours and five, what do you do? How do you look at your employees and go, this group is different than this, but it's already out there. We've run into those problems before. And we fix things with the compression.

So we shouldn't see these issues compounding. Will we see issues? Yeah, we'll always see issues. But we try to fix them. We try to keep people.

This is one of the first times where we don't have a lot of open positions. You know, I watched the county meeting the other night where they were arguing between 1% and trying to get to 2% and talking about where they have mass openings at their public works, where they're not sure if there's a snowstorm, if they're gonna have enough people to plow the roads, but there are some roads that may not get plowed till the afternoon. Now I hope that was just some political rhetoric and that's not accurate, but it seemed that it was pretty passionate and pretty, you know, fired up speak. So, you know, we struggled with that at DPW for a while. We don't have that problem getting laborers because we adjusted our mentality to be proactive instead of reactive.

I feel that if I have to defend this budget to a taxpayer and go, listen, we kept your services that you're receiving flat. But in order to keep those flat, we had to invest in the people to keep the services running. I think the majority of people will understand that. I say majority because not everybody's going to understand it. Not everybody's gonna like it.

But they'll like it when their streets plowed. They'll they'll like it when they get some of the other services. So when I look at it from that perspective, the budget looks pretty good to me. Now I do share some of all the Reckleberg's concern and I think it'll come up when this general fund sheet is vetted is that we've been using money from our reserves to backfill and balance our budget aren't the correct terms for that, but that's what it is. And then we take the money from our surplus that we haven't used during the year and roll it over as a savings.

And then we use that money to backfill again going forward. And we've been successful at it. We've been in a position where we've budgeted conservatively. And then we've through open positions, through savings in line items, we at the end of the year, we haven't spent all the money and we're able to roll it over, which has been good. Will some year it not be as good?

Possibly. But that's on us to make sure that we control that. And that's where we can try to make everything perfect. But we put policies in place, the non lapsing funds, like the special revenue, where we put controls in place so that we don't try to get in those situations. We put in the special revenue fund or the non lapsing fund for snow removal of $100,000 because we didn't want to get in a situation where we ran the general fund so dry that if there was a snow emergency that we didn't have money to do that or equipment breakage or the, you know, I go on and on for why we have all these special funds.

But, you know, when you take a look at why we have restricted funds, there's reasons for it because in years past, it was easy for people to get greedy and raid those funds when there was a needed for the back fill a budget. You know, those are the hard decisions to make of when that money is sitting there and it can't be touched because, well, that isn't the special reason. Right? You could easily just take it from that cookie jar and push it over there, but, you know, that's planning. That's the that's the hard part is when you actually have to execute the plan.

It's easy to talk about it. So that's where I come in looking at this budget of, you know, it's been a lot of hard work getting there to be able to, year after year, to make that cookie cutter work. And the one variable that really is there that's the hard part is the employee part of it that really is the uncontrollable. And it's not just the wages. It's the insurance costs that come along with it.

That really is the uncontrollable part. We've actually done a pretty darn good job of being able to control our costs at that. When you take a look at the just the cost of the healthcare market is 13% and that's what our increase was. So we're actually just matching the market. Well, if my investments would match the market, I'd be doing okay. Sometimes that always isn't the case, but, you know, if you could match the market, you're doing just fine. And that's where we are with our insurance. That's my 2¢ of where we are at the budget. So if somebody can I'm sure you can poke holes with some of that. And I'm sure Elder Reckleburg will give it a try. Elder Reckleburg?

Yeah, I'll be brief. I hope my wife watches this because she always yells at me when I get home. You've to be brief. Very simple. I got two concerns, basically, with the budget. And that is that we're using $3,500,000 again to fill the gap, as you say, make it balanced. We used $3,500,000 this year. The original estimate says we really needed about 3,800,000.0 I think. But when Sean's comfortable with his worksheet, we'll know is it 3.8 or is it 3.2 or whatever. So basically, let's say it's three point five and three point five.

3.5 this year, 3.5 for net. That's $7,000,000 If you go back to the ACTFR, you're going to find out that the general fund on designated, which is where this money comes from, isn't much more than that. The other thing is, once again, we're borrowing more money than we're paying off on the capital item. It's over $600,000 more we're borrowing than what we're paying off in debt. When we get those statements from who is it?

Barrett? When they say, here's what you're borrowing and here's your principal and interest payments, and they always put a column or two in there that says, well, and if you plan on doing something next year, they give you a kind of a pro form a. Take a look at that sometime. You're going, jeez, we're going up. We're going up. We're going up. Two Rivers just redid their so called bonding thing. Think they said 3% state law allows you 5% of your equalized value. And they made a policy, according to the radio, that they're going to limit themselves to 3% instead. So the use of the fund balance, once again, the debt.

And overall, the average, about 7 and onetwo, I don't can you live with that? So I'm done. I hope I was brief. I'll find out when I get home. Okay. Well,

thank you, elder Reckleberg. And I'm just I I don't disagree with anything you just said. So I'm just gonna let's then I'm just gonna challenge. Let's let's pay off more debt than we're gonna take on. So we have our capital budget on tab six. So here's your capital budget. And you said we're paying off we're we're incurring $600,000 roughly more than we're paying off?

Roughly. Round number.

Round number? Let's use the round number. Find me $600,000. What do you wanna cut? So when I when I look at these, I'm automatically gonna not take anything out that has other funding sources included.

We kinda talked about them last night a little bit because there's some of those are grants, some of those are are matching funds. So if we're looking at getting the best bang for our borrow dollar that we can, we would want to take advantage of any matching or other funding sources that we can get. So I'm automatically gonna eliminate anything of those in that other funding column that that are there. So that's just my personal preference because we're gonna try to get as many dollars into it as we can. Alder Reckleberg?

I agree with you. When you get funding, the only thing is I think we may have bid off a little bit too much where, Okay, we've got funding. And you always have to look at what our portion is. And we've projects out there that I'm not going to argue against. For example, Red Arrow, that's a big project. We're halfway into that. So do it or do it There's an expression for that. Public, so I'm not going to use it. The other thing was like the fire truck, the tower ladder truck. I mean, we're in the midst of that.

That's a necessity. I mean, I want you guys to have the right the only thing on the list that I could see that I would ask a question on is the rescue truck. That's listed at 773,914. Taking that out would more than make up the difference that I'm looking for. But on the other hand, I've been the benefit and my wife has been the benefit of the city having a rescue squad.

Is a rescue squad next year absolutely necessary? Or is it one of these situations where we could order it for next year, but they don't deliver it for two or three years sort of like our hook and ladder? So I would ask our fire chiefs if they could address

You can't sit in back all night.

Because then you showed up.

And I apologize for making fabulous. Putting you on the spot. Spot.

So the rescue truck that you see budgeted there isn't necessarily an ambulance. The rescue truck that's listed there is what's used for a specialized rescue. It's something that we haven't had in the city of Manitowoc, yet we are responsible for specialized rescue being confined space, rope rescue, trench rescue, and some limited high angle, low angle type rescues as well. We do a lot of that work with MPU for standby that we are put on call. Currently, we're using a 1980, I believe, trailer, which is in great need of repair.

Number one, it's just not practical to use it. You have to hook it up before you respond, and then you have to make sure that you have someone that's good with the trailer that they're gonna be able to back it up in the emergency situation. I mean, twenty years ago, it probably made sense to have that type of model because we were just getting into it. The other thing we've done is we made a great investment in updating this specialized equipment through past budget years of the confined space, the trench rescue material, and so forth with that. So the purchase of this vehicle more or less is a good way to haul that equipment, if you would, in a time of emergency where it's efficient and it's, you know, something that's gonna get you twenty, thirty years also, of use rather than this trailer that's rather flimsy.

It can show you the war wounds on it from people trying to back it up and poking a hole in it from cutting it too sharp. And but, you know, in time of emergency, that's you know, all bets are off with that. So this is really something we identified moving forward within our capital plan for the the fire rescue department of sort of like we're looking at that station configuration. Where are we with our current assets and our capital, and what do we need moving forward into being sustainable, not so much sustainable, but giving the best service we can. And this is probably more focused on the industrial side of the city than it is the general population, if you would.

But we've been ignoring that for way too many years here as we've been trying to bring ourselves out of some of the challenges that we had probably a decade ago. That this was something that was always on the radar. We are finally to that point with looking at some of the opportunities that working with finance through the I'm sorry. I'm gonna use the wrong term. I always do the nonlapsing fund for our emergency vehicles to purchase ambulance to help offset some of the tower ladder costs.

I mean, we have a very aging fleet of equipment here. All this being a new replacement vehicle, it's something that's needed when we look at how we put our five year budget together with the, our own capital improvement plan with the finance director. This was one of the items that came to the top of the the list of those needs. It's something we work very carefully with the fire administration to even put this in place because of just such questions as you have, alder Eckleberg. We want to be transparent and be able to show you at a time of why this is such a need and, you know, what it's being used to replace for and really working with finance of how we go about doing that.

I don't mean to speak where he talked about something like this could be two or three years out, and I think we've done a job of that with the finance director. I'd let him speak towards that of when we have a good year when it comes to revenue of making sure that nonlapsing fund has a certain amount of money in it, not that will ever be sustainable. Actually, it started back with finance director Corbell, who really started that out, and we've been very fortunate that it was a good program and through council support and, you know, current finance director, mayor, and councils, stated, that we've been able to enhance that plan and to be the place right now where we're able to get the equipment that we need moving forward.

Yeah. I would just to also comment to to all the Reckleberg's thing. So it is it's obviously the borrowing and funding being 26, but it is about a twenty four month lead time before the apparatus would land. So a tentative delivery date of '28. So we have done that in the past where we've had large lead times with either our tandem trucks for DPI and other things that have had these two, three years where we do the halfs or one thirds.

That is plausible, but I just wondered if that is a motion to reduce that down to half, should I be aware that then that other half will show up next year in 'twenty seven. So it would as long as everyone's comfortable with that, that's definitely a method that can be used. That would limit

My only question with that is, so we have it and we know that we're going to budget the other half. When we sit here next year, the question always comes up, we only have half the money budgeted. You want to put in the order. It takes twenty four months. Will they accept an order knowing that you only have half of you know what I'm saying is when you deal when government deals with a private business, you better show them the cash in hand or they won't accept the order. You know?

Yeah. I mean, I can't speak 100% certainty, but I can tell you other vehicle purchases that we've made that we've entered into contracts, there's always that you can pay ahead to reduce this, or you can pay upon delivery of it, you know, 10% down. It's it's not something we have to throw the entire amount money at it right away, but there are some cost savings when you do that. But today, I can't tell you what that would be on this piece

of equipment. That would be my question that maybe you could get answered between now and when we meet next is would they what are the terms and conditions could we meet them that you could get your order in and only budget for half? That would be my question. And then we could make up our mind that night whether everybody agrees with that approach or they tell me to go to heck and we don't do it. I'd but I would appreciate that. At least I'm making an attempt and hopefully trying to get somewhere.

Right. Yeah. And I think the interesting thing with this piece, just think of it as some of you have mentioned, the longevity of it or how do you look ahead? You're going from a trailer to an actual apparatus, correct?

Oh, meant to say that when they redid 8th Street with the underground something or other and there were like elevators that used to go down and from the sidewalk there was you could get to the basement of certain buildings. I remember something went horribly wrong and the construction guy was buried up to almost his neck in sand. And I wish I remembered the fire chief's name, but he came out with that trailer, for example, and they got the equipment out of that trailer to basically rescue him. It was unbelievable. I'm sure I'm sure nowadays you you got you assign that to somebody else.

You wanna don't wanna be up to your neck. Get the guy out. But

We're there if needed. Yeah.

But So I've seen it in action, that trailer. And I under I know what you're talking about. It's just a trailer. It's not equipped with other fancy things that might be conducive conducive to a rescue. So I'm not denying it. I'm just trying to figure out how we can accomplish it, but yet try to say, hey, we're you

know. Understood.

Thank you.

We will take that as an action item to reach out to the vendor that provided the quote to find out what the financing options are.

Does that work? Yes. If we can you can come back at one of our next meetings and say, yeah, it's an option. You can take half off it, you know, and we could still make it. And then we just vote on it and send her out as is, you know?

Okay. I'd say the other item that that's hanging out there in the capital is the design work for Franklin Street, which I think is, like, the one time it's it's an early request for the design work that I think is normally ahead of what we would normally timeline. So when you're talking about we're doing $600,000 more than the principal amount, that one's kind of an oddball one this year as an amount just because of this complexity of the design work on that one for thinking planning purposes. So I mean, if you threw that one not out of the budget, but out of your calculation just because of timing on that one, I think you're right in line of of where we would be. That was just, I think, is is drawn ahead in this process just because of timing.

Is that one we could have too, depending upon when the engineers do require the payment?

I don't have the expertise on that one. And with having Dan and them not here, I don't know.

But that would be my question. If we have that, would we still be able to do it because of the timing of when they require the payments? You know what I'm saying? Because if we got half of it there and half of the other one, we're even on the debt or close enough.

I mean, that one more than likely that one will be done within the calendar year, unlike this one where it will be actually Sure.

Okay. That's one thing I didn't

The engineering and design has to be done within the calendar year because next year we're budgeting. We're we're gonna we would go out for bid.

Sure. You know? Okay.

Approve the project for next year, go out for bid. So yeah. That I'm I I begin to check, but I'd be dumbfounded if that wasn't a full cost in next year.

Just point of order, we're looking for exactly 600,000? No. Roughly.

And not that that's the number. That's just the number that all the reclamation Yeah. Principal payments versus what we're looking for.

The reason I'm bringing that up is I I divided that fire truck and the rescue truck in half. It's $3.86 500. So we're pushing for there.

Yeah.

So we're getting closer.

Well, we don't have to hit it. I'm just trying to

And it doesn't reduce the levy at all.

Right. I like to be able to say we're holding our debt steady. We're not going up, up, up like we have the last umpteen years. But we're getting the job done. Because nowhere in this conversation did I say, cancel the truck. I want to get it. I just want to do it such that we can financially make it more appealing to the citizens.

Well, does anybody have anything further to discuss tonight? We've had been here about an hour and twenty minutes, and I think anything over an hour and a half kinda loses its roster in a budget meeting. So I would if everybody kinda take a look at their calendars then. So I would be looking at what does the eighteenth look like for everybody? That's next week, Tuesday. Tuesday.

I'm out of town.

Lucky you.

That conference in the Dallas. And no. Not lucky me. I'd rather be here. Thanks.

When are you back?

It's a rough conference. We

leave there I wanna say 03:30.

Oh, okay.

So it'll be late.

What does Wednesday, the nineteenth, look like for everyone?

We have plan commission scheduled at 06:00.

I'll have CDA before that, four to five. So three after five.

Could do an hour. I mean, I don't anticipate

I'm I'm So, yeah, plan commission's at six, so they meet in this room.

Would everybody be available on Wednesday, the nineteenth, from five to six? Sure. Sean, can we get Wednesday, the nineteenth? Does that work for

you? Yes.

Not for us.

Yeah. Or do you also wanna schedule maybe another just because because if we don't have state manufacturing numbers by next week, Wednesday, it also kinda would be a waste to not a waste to meet, but that's a big number you're probably waiting for. Right? I just wanna if we don't have it, I wanna make sure you schedule a meeting that you actually would, or you could cancel that one if you didn't have the information you wanted.

Let's do the nineteenth. Let's get that one booked first. And then

Twenty fourth?

The twenty fourth? Yeah. There's nothing.

That's the fourth Monday, so there's nothing

There's a 10 good MPU, but that's at four. And that's yeah. Most likely gonna be canceled. Canceled. Yeah. Does 05:00 work for

What are we gonna do with that one? Or we can't do with the other one other than know the final number.

If we don't right. Exactly.

I mean, That's what do. Even when the final number comes in, if we've already gone through all the pluses and minuses, and he says, well, this number came in, which changes all this. Are we going to change the budget after we've argued about everything already? I mean, it's kind of like it just falls where it is, I guess, to me. I mean, maybe you.

I guess I'd want to see the number.

Okay. That's fine.

I'm hoping we'll have it for the nineteenth. Let's get those two on the calendar. We could always cancel the twenty fourth, which would be hope hopefully. And, again, department heads do not have to

k.

Based off the discussion tonight, I don't see any any reasoning for that. We can get those questions answered separately.

So What time are we doing there?

The nineteenth is at 05:00. We might as well do the twenty fourth at 05:00 as well. Alright. I will send out the invites. Thank you. Is there anything further for the budget or go to the committee this evening?

Other than I'll move to adjourn. Second.

Alright. We are adjourned. Thank you.

Thank you.