Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Welcome to the finance committee meeting for March 24th, 2020 2026 at 6 PM. Um, I'd like to call this meeting to order. I'm your chairman Jeff Sassy from W three and I'll run to introduce someone else. Mark Borf, alderman, Ward One, Tamara Tamara Ingresol, finance director. Mark Evans, um, secretary treasurer, whatever that means. Ward six. Did you want to introduce yourself? Sure. Matt Elliot, president Hendersonville Firefighters Association. Great. Welcome. All right. First on the agenda is acceptance of the agenda. Move we accept the agenda. Second. All those in favor? I

So moved. And that is unanimous. Next is approval of the February 10th minutes. So move second. All those in favor? I I Great. That's unanimous as well. No one was on public comments. I already looked. Uh no ordinances and resolutions. That's the first. Yes.

So let's move right on to the good stuff. We got sales tax report. Go for it, Jam. First page we have on here is our local option sales tax. U this is updated through January. I do not have the February numbers on this one yet. I will likely have them at the end of this week. Uh it is important to note that um the budget amount on here does include the additional 300,000 that was added in the midyear budget. Um so even with that in here um we're looking, you know, projecting about a percent and a half over budget. So, this is still looking good. Great. I stole one of February. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It'll be the next one. It didn't seem to affect us too terribly. Yeah. We haven't gotten February yet. Just Oh, that's bad. So, if you go to the second page, the state share sales tax um the February numbers um came in almost exactly even compared to the prior year. I mean, still year-over-year we're a little over 3% up for the year. Um, and we are projected to be coming um couple percent over budget and again the budget number that's there does include the additional 150,000 that was added in the midyear budget. That's good.

All right. Thank you. Um the one that where the sales tax may have dipped a little bit because of the ice storm, the hotel motel tax actually um sees a bump because there was a lot of folks without power that went and stayed in the hotels. Uh double that one. Yeah, that went up pretty significantly. Um the hotel motel tax is, you know, coming in very strong. I think you mentioned it earlier that um robust. It's very It's coming in very strong. We're projected to be about 50,000 over budget at the end of the year. Um that's, you know, definitely a good a good thing. Good to see.

Investment income is continuing to come in um stronger than what we originally budgeted. Um like the others the budgeted amount we did increase the budget by about 46,000 um in the midyear budget. So that is included in this calculation. Um you can see that as um for the LGIP investment the next to the one called in from the right hand side the investment rate has continued continued to drop as far as you know the amount that we're receiving. And have we considered moving it to a new account that has a higher yield? Because I know there's some out there. Are there any restrictions? There there Yeah, there are restrictions on it. Um

was this a state one? This is the state pool. Um there are are restrictions on what we can and cannot do. Um some require process through the controllers's office. There's other um items that you have to consider. We did meet with an investor and talk talk about that. Um, but it didn't seem to be advantageous and then that money is not fluid with this. If something happens and we need to pull that cash back, we can have it the next next business day. So, it leaves it really fluid and that is really not so bad. Even though it continues to drop, it appears to be in line with inflationary pressures. Yeah. In in the general market. Absolutely. I was surprised. Pinnacle hasn't dropped in a year.

Yeah. Pinnacle. Yeah. Pinnacle is stayed flat. Pinnacle has been very good to us with in that respect. Helps me neighbors. Yes.

But, you know, regardless, we are coming in over budget on our investment income and that's definitely a positive for us. Um, the storm water fund, I do want to note I have March um collections in there. That's only through the end of last week. And the reason I did that is because if I left just February on there, it looks like February is significantly lower than February was in the prior fiscal years. That is because we went to the new um software for our property tax. In the past, any anything that was mailed prior to the end of February and we received that first week of March, it got receeded in our old system and then we would do a journal into our into our current system. Sure.

That would put it back in February. This is in live time when you're This is in lifetime when we actually are posting those bills when they're go or those payments when they're going to the bank. So there's there is a little bit of a Yes, I saw that and I did want to ask about that. Yeah. So the first chunk of of of that is really the payments that were um on time. So I put that in. That number will change when I do this report for next month because it doesn't have the full month of March. Still higher. We still have Yeah, we still have an increase in collections compared to the prior year. Yeah, it's great. Well, just for this month, but No, for the year. Well, for the year. Yes. Yeah. Any reason of that? Or is there any thought about why it's increased so much the construction?

Well, that that's part it's the increase for this is primarily for new properties that have come on, whether it be commercial properties last year,

and then the last one is um our pit fund. Um the pits fund the revenues just like the other sales tax are coming in strong. Um right now we're projecting to be you know over coming in over budget by about $780,000. Uh and yeah, that's definitely a positive. That means that we'll end this fiscal year with a positive fund balance that will be available to be spent in future years. How many longer do we have at this point? Is that six years? We're we're in year two. There's eight more years. Eight more years. Mhm. It's a total of 10 years.

Yeah. Just I appreciate the every year being conservative with the budget so we can see good numbers like this. So we keep that up. I would much rather have it be this way than to be we're coming in under by 800. I'd be panicking if that was the case. We all would. Yeah. Yeah. We've still got 400 bucks left. Yeah. We've still got Yeah. Excellent. Thank you. Excellent. And then the second page of that is also related to um pit fund. It shows what our expenditures are and the projects where we've been spending um money what all has been being done. You can see a few more projects that are being completed and um you know they're

reiterating for our viewers our PIP fund stands for public safety infrastructure parks and paid income fund and so yeah thank you. And how much percentage is this on sales tax? It's a half a percent. Half a percent. That's right. Notice uh the dry suits for fire cost $5,000 less than projected. Oh, that's great. Um we have a $2 million purchase order for a firet truck that has not been utilized. So that's probably not going to be expensed until next year. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. We have a fire engine that was ordered this year and then a fire truck that was ordered um last year. Yeah. Okay. So yeah. So that'll just carry over into our next question.

Yep. Great. It'll just carry forward. What report? Thank you. Um I do have a question. Last year I'm sorry, are we done with PIP? Yes. Yes. Great. So moving on to discussion of the fiscal year 2027 operating budget. Uh first thing last year we were provided with an actual a calendar. You uh of of the budget cycle. You gave me like a chart of the each process. I was hoping I could get that again. Yeah, I can I can resend that out. I thought that had been sent out already. I maybe you did and I missed I may have missed

I I think it was sent out quite some the budget budget calendar. I can re I can send I can send it out again etc. Yeah, we've seen that. I'll send it again. It's been quite some time. Great. That'd be great. Uh but yeah, if you could walk us through the budget as it stands currently. Absolutely. Thank you. And we're going to be showing it on the screen here too. So even here.

So in case I need to take any notes, I'm going to do this. So this is just our general fund operating budget. This does not include our special revenue um fund budgets which the storm water states three um hotel motel those are not included here and then also our capital projects and special projects are not included. This is just the actual operational budget in our general fund that we're looking at today. Um what you see here there have been no changes to the revenue estimates since the budget first budget workshop.

Um there will be changes before this is finalized. Um, you know, as you saw, we've got, you know, another month. I should have one more month of revenue before it's done. We'll be able to do some updated estimates before it's finalized. Um, this what you see here is balanced, but there are some pretty significant impacts. Um, there is no paving in the operational budget again. And then there's no police vehicles um in the operating budget either. Those there wasn't last year either. And there was not last year either. But those are the two big things. Those are the two big things. So when we um no paving and operating budget this year, it wasn't last year,

but we're we would still be able to keep up maintain the plan, the paving plan um that we want to have, but it's going to be coming out of different funds. It's going to be coming from different places. Okay. Okay. And probably that would include the reser money from reserves which means and I've said this many times we might have to make a second time on one time withdrawal from reserves last year as a one time catchup. We might have to do that. Yeah, but we we've depleted it down to where the controller has indicated closer. We're getting closer.

What are we like $600,000 from it now? It'll probably at the end of this fiscal year, it'll it'll it will be more than that. Um, when we're looking at it from a budgetary standpoint, we're looking at it assuming we're spending everything. The reality is at the end of the year, we won't be spending everything this year. So, it will be a little higher than that. Can we take into account the anticipated reimbursement from all the costs we've had for the um the LIN pickup service after the two years? We won't see that money until I mean at the earliest 2028. Yeah. 2029. Yeah. It'll be some it'll be quite some time.

So I I have some information here just my concern about paving is if we get behind on paving it is so hard to get caught up. Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. While you go through your presentation come back and ask the question. Yeah. I think because I think you probably will have some questions on here. Um this is just a real quick look again of the revenues. This is exactly what you saw at the budget workshop um for the operating revenues in our general fund. Um budgeting about 2% above what we had budgeted in the prior fiscal year. But realistically you were talking about couple more months of of data that might change the trends. But that's not going to significantly change this number really.

No, it's not going to be significant. I mean, I think, you know, there may be some increases for the, you know, potentially for sales tax. Um, but maybe a couple hundred thousand. Yeah. It's not going to be, we're not going to find millions of dollars somewhere. So, I have a quick go. Can you go back to that? Oh, where's the back button? I go back. There we go. Oh, there. Yes. Yeah. So, 2025, our total revenues were 65.3 million.

2026, we're estimated at 65.6 million. So, an increase of 300,000. We're budgeting 66.06, which is an increase of about 3500. That doesn't seem conservative to me because

when we would typically budget the revenues down, and this is actually budgeting them on par with what we saw between 25 and 26. So, we had a in um 2025, we had almost a $900,000 um that falls in this donations and contributions line. It was um the developers that donated the funds for the um traffic signal out here at Mabel Row,

the new one that just got installed. So, that is included in this revenue here in 2025. Um, which so if you took that out of here, it would there would be there would be much larger increase. Yeah, it would be a much larger increase from that. Makes a lot of sense. Great. That answers my questions. Thank you. Perfect.

Yes. So conversations I've had recently some other mayors in uh with sensing munite is that the the increase in gas cost when this happens especially when it's it's so dramatic uh that it has an impact negative impact on sales tax for two reasons. People get scared and the and the big purchases they were about to make or just the clothing the groceries they're about to make they scale back a little bit. The other thing is is that now they're spent more of the taxes they're paying are in gasoline taxes, not in sales taxes. And gasoline taxes come back to us based on our population, not our spending.

So I worry that when Tamara goes back and and takes new numbers, it might actually come down. What will come down? Revenue. The revenues revenues from from sales tax. Oh, for 2026 or 25 for well I think her projections that are going to be based on the next couple months. Um so yeah so uh projections for fiscal year 2027. Gotcha. Okay.

And I know we mentioned this in the workshop but related to um the state shared revenues which you the state show sale tax and a few other line items. They're completely changing um the methodology for how they do their um population estimates and all of that this year. So we're guessing at what that's going to be. They're supposed to release that information sometime in May is the last I heard. So, but we have to have our budget put together and presented by the time that's going to be released. Is that affect July one? Okay. Is that anticipated to benefit us? Yes. Okay. That's what I think. Yes. Because they're going to basically do a b a mini census which you know our population right now is um calculated much below what what the population actually

they do statewide or is it just because we qualified for something? It's a new state. It's a new state law. They're doing it. Good. Thank you. So, so maybe the benefit we see with that offsets the negative we might see in the sales tax. So hopefully optimistic but yeah hopefully. I'm trying to be I've been very pessimist the whole time I've been in here somehow. Yeah. Okay. Well, James, so sunny side James.

Well, look, this is the um chart. I think y'all have seen this quite a few times now, but it just shows um represents how our revenues come in. You can see property tax and sales tax are significant portions of the pie. Our next grouping of revenues are um much smaller. So you can see that's you know how important our property tax and our sales tax are um to the operating budget. U this is our general fund operating expenditures by department. We will look I do have slides in here after that look at each of the operating budgets um one by one um by line item. This is a nice snapshot where you can see what the actuals were for 2025, our budget and where we're estimated to come in at the end of fiscal year 26 and then our fiscal year 27 um actual budget. Now,

can we define central services for me? That is line three. Yeah, central services is the city attorney. I'll say it's kind of a catchall. That is that is where we do um we pay for the ECC out of there. We pay for all of our um like our liability and property insurance um out of there, the city attorney, city judge. So kind of those costs that are central to they don't fit under a specific department, but it's still more of an admin. Mhm. So, I was one other thing I wanted to um say on here. If you look at your fiscal year 25 actuals Yeah.

and where we're anticipating spending in fiscal year um 26, you see that this is lower. Um but if you look at like our police and our fire, even though their salaries have come up um and our public works, we took paving out of here. There was almost $3 million in fiscal year 25 under public works that was caving. That is not there. So while this shows that this is a decrease in expenditures from 25 to our estimated 26, it's really because we took paving out of out of public work. Paving is out but then salaries were increased. Okay.

Yeah. If you would for me just uh before we go to dive into each of the specific departments as a um broad picture, what were the uh the assumptions made in putting this budget together? Like you said, the cola is in there 2.8. What are some other big assumptions that we did across the board or maybe that are the big ticket items? And so some of those items I'm actually addressing um in a couple a few slides down. All right. So I'll if I don't answer that question by the time we get to the departmental budgets um then we can talk some more but I am you know we're talking about some debt and some colas and some other things that are are addressed in this as we move forward.

Correct. Um quick look at how our budget our operating budget breaks down um by department. You know obviously our public safety police and fire are um you know over half of our um budget. very important. And then you've got your public works and parks and all of your other departments. Um, in here, our trash services is another larger piece of that pie. And then to break it down even further, looking at the salary and benefit amounts by departments, you can see how significant our salary, you know, our staffing costs are as a whole. You know, you go back 74%.

Yeah. You look at this and public safety is over half of our um cost and then the salaries associated with that are about threearters of our um overall salary. That's what we do. We provide services and that's what we do. We provide those services. Um our number one job.

Yeah. And then looking at um another way this is just um our kind of by type our salary and benefits is this blue wedge. our operations. That that's everything to keep the lights on. Basically, all of our day-to-day um supplies and you know the necessities. And then we have uh this year for there's no assets included 1% for debt services, a little bit sliver for community contributions. Um the community contributions the nonprofit it's it's in here assumed at the prior year's level. So that will update um based on the nonprofit community priorities on here. um keeping property taxes low, balancing our operating budget and then um debt reduction. So the total overall debt is reduced about 1.9 million compared to what the outstanding debt was in the current fiscal year. So that is um a positive um looking at this and this is one of the um big big ticket items that impacted the budget here. So you can see, you know, overall debt in the current fiscal year, fiscal year 206 compared to 27. Um, you know, we just talked about that the debt services payment for from one year to the next is reducing by about $900,000

because we stopped payment on one of them last year, right?

Wasn't all the way to that look like they were just on the federal, you know, so this, you know, this this is one of the bigger assumptions that we made on the expenditure side was that the debt was going to um come down. Other considerations that's in here. There is a 2.8% cost of living adjustment that's been included. Um that is the social security CPI number and that equates to just over a million dollars. It was about $1.1 million um for that 2.8% 98% um full up. We did go back and look at the folks that are um still on that have not retired yet that are eligible for the sick leave payout. And in addition to what's in the departmental budgets, we put in our central services budget 25,000. That will cover almost every person that's out there that could potentially retire. The only ones that wouldn't are people that we know for a fact are not retiring in this next year.

So this is new based on last year. based on what you what we went through last year. Um there's, you know, in in all honesty, the payouts that we did last year, if every other person that's on the books that could get paid out got paid out, it would be less than what we paid out in this last year.

So, um but there is extra most almost everybody that's on the books, I think there's like five or six people that are above that dollar value, but they're incorporated into the departmental budget. Um so that's that is new that's been added. And then this is just a note when we put the final budget together you'll get a new organizational chart. You'll get the listing of the authorized staff um by positions that are um in each of the departments. Um that's not that's not put together now, but that will be as part of the um budget when it comes to Couple questions here if I may. So the two the cost of living adjustments is that that's for all staff including part-time. That's that's for all staff. Correct. Yes. in Yeah. including part time.

Okay. Yep. And then merit increase is a little bit different. That's why I had to pause and think about that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And this budget does, and I didn't note it on here, this does include a merit increase for um folks when on their anniversary dates as well. And sorry, go ahead. No, please. One other question I had. Um I know in the past we've had some shifting around of people going from one department to another. Is there any of that that's going on within this budget? Um not that I am aware of right now. Okay. Yeah. Well, there's not much of a need. I don't think we're just helpful with comparison year to year.

Yeah. Last year we had um a code one's position that was no longer needed and it moved over to out of position to parks. But as far as I if there's anything in the works right now, I'm not aware of that. So, we are looking at changing a position in police, but it will stay in police. So, okay. It just helps with the comparison from year to year. Okay. Thank you. Do you have a question? Oh, yes. Regarding their increases, what are those capped at or are they capped? It's 2 and a half% um on the person's anniversary date. Um until they we have a 17st step pay scale. Yes. So once somebody hits that 17th step, then they don't get the merit increases anymore.

Did that work? We're still are we still looking at the personnel um changes that came? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I'm good. So, so Jason sent out an email. Pretty sure you all were on it. Some of the highlights. Um, if you got questions about that or want to make some changes, absolutely. So, that I've let um um, right? What was that? We're we're still investigating it all. Absolutely. So, even though we passed second reading, it is very much open to still very fluid. Okay. Good. Thank you. It's a living document. Oh, that's a good way to put it. Thank you.

Yeah. Um, one other thing that I do want to um, notate, and this is another um, larger consideration that went into this um, budget in the current fiscal year for fiscal year 27. Um, one of the mechanisms that we used um, to help balance the budget was in the police department, we budgeted 10 vacant um, officer positions, assuming that they would be vacant for at least six months. And so there was basically five full-time positions for the entire year were budgeted were not not budgeted. Those because they've been running very close to being fully staffed, those are now included in the budget. It's about $420 425,000 more that's been added back into the budget um in the police budget that wasn't there last year.

That's good to know. So So there's not really any kind of what I would call uh high lag that's in the in the budget. You're budging fully if that all positions are 100% for the whole year. Okay. Excellent. Yes. Thank you. Um right now as it stands in here, this is um revenues, expenditures. We have a surplus of $24,000 as this is presented. Um I'm going to should I say but? So but so did Jesse Jesse

there like an hour ago. So, but about quarter to 4 this afternoon, um Jason Gallow and I got the email from TCRS that they have released their new rate for um fiscal year 27. Our TCRS, which is the retirement to the state, is going up almost 17%. So, it's just under a million dollars increase. Um and the rate, we're going from 14.74% contribution rate on our payroll to 17.09% 09% on our payroll. So we just got that this afternoon. Um so that 24,000 is really negative

a negative. So we definitely have some work that we will be doing over the next um few weeks before uh we end up bringing this back in our choices on it with TCRs. Yeah. Yeah. It's we don't have anything. Yeah. We have to write that check. Okay. Okay. So, I I do want to, you know, that was brand new. We just got that not notice this afternoon, but we I know we we were expecting um some sort of increase, but I didn't I mean, nowhere did any of us think that it would even be something significant like that. Conversations prior to this talks

not even I mean thinking way less. Yeah. Yeah. We were we were thinking maybe because last year it went up about a third about a third third of a percent. We were thinking maybe maybe another half percent or something. Um but it went up significant. And what was the compass? Anything?

So a big portion of that of the TCRS calculation is based on our salary and benefits. So and TCRS does their actuarial studies. They're two years delayed. So they did a full actuial in 2024 and then they updated the cost estimates at the end 2025. That is what they're using for their calculations for 2027. If you remember 2025 is when police had you know 10 13% whatever huge colas all other staff had pretty significant colas.

Um fire got some larger increases as well. those are hitting next year for um TCRS for that calculation. So yeah, it's is what it is. Have we have we heard anything about insurance rates going up? Yes, our insurance rates are going up as well and health insurance rate. Um I was talking about city. No, like the the the property insurance, liability insurance, orders comp insurance.

That total is going up. The health insurance is actually um is actually down compared to what it did in the prior year. Um switching to the state plan, it has um g it is going down a little bit um for most departments. There are a couple departments that it's going up a little bit, but for the most part overall, it's gone down a little bit, but our health insurance was the property insurance I want to say um over the current year's budget is going up about $100,000. Okay. Not as much as I thought it was going to be. That's Yeah. Well, in in totality between all three of those, workers comp is looking very good. Um, and we don't have final numbers. We have estimates.

We have estimates um and but we met with um with public entity partners last week um to review some information um and we got a we have our estimates um that we could calculate off of that. So definitely yeah you know 100 125,000 something like that it'll be going up

any other questions now if we want to look at individual departments um we well we have we have half an hour we've got plenty of time um so executive um budget on here you can see it's actually um you know basically from it's flat that only $250 difference from the prior fiscal year. Um the biggest um thing that you can um see on here on health insurance, you can see on here the the estimated cost is actually going to be less than it was in the current year

based on the actuals. Um we budgeted here assuming a whole year of the rates under our old Blue Cross Blue Shield plan. um the year- end estimates. Look at what we did for the first six months and then uh look at what we've what the actual plan selection were under the state plan and what the cost of those are and then extrapolating those out and then adding in a um an increase factor of about 8% for next year. That's on the high end of what the state has averaged. They've averaged between like five and 7%. Talking with Jason, we thought it was prudent to budget an increase of 8% just on the off chance that the state plan may have on a little bit higher of an increase.

T um this is four employees. Am I correct? Me, Jesse? Nope, it's you and Jesse. Oh, it's me and Jesse. It's you and Jesse. Where's Natasha? She's in um and under administrative services. So, with me and Jesse here, it's me and Jesse. Next year, it's me and Jesse this year. Yes. So, it's Apple. Okay. That was what I was. Yes. 2025 um is where we we made that change that we took the other staff out. So yeah. So you're looking So you're Yep. So you're looking apples to apples now. Any questions on this one? Um finance department. We're actually reducing our budget a little bit. Um so finance

well we have in and all this other professional services line here. We've this is where we've been doing um a lot of our implementations of technology out of that line. Most of that is is done. So, we're reducing that line by about $40,000. Um the the line we're assuming the cost for our audits going to go up a little bit, but we're getting to the tail end of these implementations on on uh technology. So, that's going to we can scale that back as we get those implemented. What's the 10,000 for retirement pay? That is a placeholder for somebody's retirement for for an employee that's been with the city for well over 40 years that could at some point in time retire. Okay. And that would cover um about half of her sick leave payout,

but it would take time to recruit. We we'd cover the other half with vacancy. I thought we But isn't that what you're putting in in the essential services budget for ones that that that could potentially happen or that um department heads are anticipating? We have some budget in the department budgets still. Okay. And then that 25,000 is for kind of catch all for kind of a catch all if there if something comes up that's over what was anticipated in those departments. I've got just a little question here. I was looking at a tuition rate that's at zero this year. Yeah. I don't I had um one person that went through and got their master's degree and they are done and nobody knew has put in a request. I put a request in.

Nope. I have one person going through that, but um he's being funded through the VA for his college degree. So, we're we're good. But you will see you will see tuition reimbursements added in other departments as they've got staff that are including in that request.

This is our central services um department. So, you can see our this is where our city attorney, city judge are in here. This is where um Bulma members get um their monthly payment out of. This is where we pay for the um retirement medical benefits for the those that re um qualify for it. And then a whole variety of other things. Um the electric, water, the gas here at city hall since it encompasses multiple departments. Um this is where our general liability insurance and this is general liability insurance. This is really the amount for um workers comp, liability, and property insurance are all in that one line.

As we were discussing nonprofit, we were discussing trying to get some numbers regarding janitorial services and maintenance and buildings regarding Mont Haven. Uh because we were trying to put a figure on that. Um is this where that would come from? Yeah, the janitorial. We don't we don't service Mont Haven. So the janitorial Okay. Um, it would it would potentially be in this repair and maintenance of buildings line, but we don't code the transactions by the facility that Okay.

So, I don't know. I mean, public works may be able to give some sort of of rough estimate on that, but I don't know. We don't track that. No, that's parks mostly. No, I don't know who does. So, public works goes over there and they've done some work on the roof, not on air conditioning. I think they removed a degree not I don't think public works most any regular maintenance and everyday needs are supposed to be taken care of by the the group that leases it. Oh, okay. I'll check check on that because that because that was an assumption we were working on. I'll check on that. Thank you. Check that. Appreciate. What's the reason for the increase in the city attorney? The amount of hours that he's working.

Okay. I figure that's but but you had the budget of 188 estimated we we took it down 10,000 so we're thinking that he's going to be able I mean it's requiring him to work more hours or he is working more hours short-term rentals is the big reason yeah so we think it that will get higher okay um something else in there's another reason for that I'll get you there's multiple lawsuits going on Um, is it legal services too or is that just his salary? So, no, it's that's just his salary.

Yeah, it's just his. I'll find out. I think there was something else that we needed to throw in there for some reason more than just his hourly rate. I'll find out what that is. And what is the agreement? Because I know he doesn't it's not fulltime. Right. Right. Is it Do we have like an agreement? I I've never known. Okay. So, um, is it 20 hours a week or we don't we well, it comes out to about 20 hours a week. Okay. But we don't pay him hourly. Um, we pay him uh we pay him a set amount each month. Uh, and if it's 19, great. If we need him 30, that's okay, too. Um, and that's we pay him per month. He uh he does keep up with

what he's been doing and he makes sure that he reports to me and Jesse every Wednesday. uh as far as what his workload has been. Um we anticipate that anytime we anytime we're in a lawsuit, we anticipate a conversation of do we turn this over to PDP, which means $10,000 right there, or do we keep it in house if it's going to be under$10,000 and Lance, you know, and he covers it with what what we pay him. Yeah. I think there was another reason though that went up. I'll check on it. He gets he does not receive benefits. Um Okay. Yeah. All right. Thank you.

All right. Any other questions on the central services? And I know we've only so HR um this one it does have a little bit of an increase. Um here this line here um this is for employee recognition events. Um so when they're doing like the public safety recognition event, they do like an all all city staff um meal around Christmas. Um there's a few of those. This line was actually in the central services budget in prior years and it's zeroed out for ne for fiscal year 27. So that's being added in there. Um and and then um increase in staffing cost is the majority of of this change here.

I'm sorry. I was kind of catching up. Sorry. Did you talk about the efficiency and Okay. Yeah, that was in the central services budget in prior years and it's moved under because HR has been the one that's been coordinating those events and they're really um HR ledge. Sense that would be there. Yeah. All right. Thanks. and then the information technology um budget. Um so we are splitting out now our software and our hardware lines going forward which should make it easier

um for future years to see that difference. Um there has been um a pretty significant increase in the um different technology platforms that we are using. Um but it's also allowed us to utilize the same number of staff to do more functions within the city. Um so you do see an increase um here compared to the prior or current year's budget. Um, we went through and met with IT staff, um, with Jason Gallow and with the IT manager and Jesse and I met with them and we went through line by line by line of every single item that we have. Um, and that came up with that. A a little piece of it, about 15,000 of this increase is actually part of that reduction from the finance budget, too, because our old software for court finance has been paying for that. That's going to be going away. It's going to be falling under our Tyler Tyler technology that's paid through it. Also on this one, uh when you compare the salaries budget to where we estimating for year end, uh it's a 6 and 12% increase. Um besides cola, I guess what else is entering into that to why there's such a larger increase than you're seeing in other departments. So where

the 660 the salaries are per 660 compared to the 620. It's about a 6 and a half% increase. It's colas plus merit increases. Okay. And then um that's what you're assuming. Yeah. Yeah. And I want to I want to raise this because I've noticed it and maybe that is the answer, but is there a are there situations where we have open positions and we're having to hire people in at a higher rate than what we budget for. So I'm I'm seeing that in some of this. Yeah. So when I when I budget, like if there's a vacant position,

I never budget assuming that it's going to be filled at step one, I always budget at like a step five or six just to give ourselves that space if that were to come up. Okay. Um for this, this is primarily I mean I will I will tell you I when I budget I take what the current is, we'll add in the merit increases which is 2 and a half% plus the 2.8%. And then I always just round up for the budget. Okay. Um, and that's and I round up a little bit more percentage-wise on the small departments because if something happens because you don't have the

you don't have a buffer like with police if I budget, you know, say, okay, well, it's, you know, 6, you know, 58,000 or 657,000. I can budget that because they're going to have vacancies that are going to make up the difference. Small departments like it or finance or um, some of them. All right. You know, you don't have that wiggle room. Do we have any open positions in it right now? Okay. I can think of three hires in the past two years that we would not have filled had we not gone to level five, six, and seven. They would probably still be empty. I figured that was probably

So, administrative services, this is where Casey and Natasha fall along with Debbie and then Jason Gallow. um this budget they were in budget 26. They were included in here. They were included in here as well in in 26. Yes. And I'm seeing pattern in your postage expense in some that are significantly higher and then others are just flat

flat. And and part of that is where like this one is is higher. We actually in this last year changed um the inserts that go into the property tax bill. In the past it was split between finance for the property tax billing and storm water because the insert was just for storm water. Sure. That insert is now only part half storm water and half of it is kind of generic um cost information about the city and where their tax dollars go and that sort of thing. So admin services because they're using it as a communication tool. I see it's picking up a part of that that postage now. Um so it's it's just shifting those that's why you see it.

Okay. So possibly you looked at postage as a whole for all the departments. It's probably going up just a little bit. It's just going up a little bit. Mhm. Guess post is expensive. Yeah. And you're not going to get mail in 2027. Supposedly mail. Well, we'll see. We'll see. So much to planning. And then planning is our next department. Um this

um the majority well about 15,000 of this increase is actually they're budgeting more to begin with um for tree bank expenditures. That's about 15,000 of that um total increase and the remainder is primarily in their salary and benefits. Their budget is extremely flat from one year to the next. fit in. Can you go over why uh other professional services went up so significantly in 2026?

Yeah, in so in 2026 this this ex this expenditure they had some of the expenditures related to Westlake the Westlake project in their budget. Um in prior years I want to say it began in 2025. There was open purchase orders that actually continued and they got paid out in fiscal year 26. We have since taken that out of their operating budget. That's a special project. It it should never have been budgeted, but it had been budgeted for a few years in their operating budget. That's not that is no longer in going to be in there. So, we're paid up with that. So, we and we don't anticipate this next fiscal year to go over what's been budgeted. No. Okay. Good.

No. And then our codes, our codes department, um the majority of this increase is related to salary and benefits. Actually, I will say the entirety of this increase is their salary is a salary and benefit increase. Well, and he removed one person from his staff last year, didn't he? In 2026. Yeah. 2026 it reduced. Yeah. Mhm. So, and that's weird cuz he's had there's been some vacancies and stuff in code's department though, too. So, yeah.

Okay. Because I still see an increase from 25 to 26 and 27. Even though he's cut one, I know some positions were moved around there, changed uh pay scales and such. Yeah. I thought we would have seen a little bit of a decrease there, but from 26 budget to 27 budget, it's a 6 and a half% increase, which is what the other. Mhm. So, yeah, few thread around that same. And then our parks department, this is one where you see for tuition reimbursement. There hasn't been any in the last few years, but he does have staff this this coming year that have put in that are requesting for tuition reimbursement.

You know, requesting total up about 2 and a half% um they're the majority of that is salary and benefits. If you look at the operating budget, you know, actually the original budget to this request is is actually going down a tiny bit.

Um, we are to start to begin with increasing the recommended budget for his their part-time salaries to get really where we need to be. We've had to go back at midyear the last two years and add part-time salaries. They've got that nailed down now. They spend a lot of time really evaluating what they need from a sta a staffing perspective to run all of the programs and um I think we've got a good handle on what that really should be. Now what percentage of the overall expenditures is parks 4.1 million divided by 67 million whatever that is 6.2% 67.

Any questions here? All right. Budget. Um, this one, the bulk of the increase again is in the salary and benefits line. Um, you can see here they also have um tuition reimbursement that they're anticipating. Um they've had some general cost increases. You know, nothing nothing huge. You know, their maintenance of equipment has gone up um a little bit. Um they're requesting a little bit for their office supplies. Um another one here can professional services.

Oh, we're budgeting $65,000. We spent $10,000. Yes. So that is they normally spend around $10,000 um for for different things they have and in the current year they have it as well and then they're requesting it next year an extra $50,000 that's budgeted and it's for the um behavioral health workers that go out with the officers for the domestic funds. That agency they work with is grant funded. I remember now because I asked this last last year and so they've been told that that grant is likely to end. They thought it was going to end this year. Fortunately, it has not. So, we haven't had to spend that money, but they do want to have that money available in the event that it doesn't so we can continue working with them. Thank you.

Yeah. Um, I would recommend increasing the gas, oil, and diesel fuel budget. Probably want to bring I know that we spent 290 on a budget of 316, but I'm just thinking maybe we need to up it a little bit. Yeah, we might need we might need to fire. And that well and that may be some that may be something that we want to look at across the board. I don't know if we want to look at that now or if we want to see if it goes up and then comes back down a little bit. Right. Well, in fire I mean we'll just skip fire. We're not going to talk about fire.

Uh but in fire they budgeted 95 spent 98 and now they're budgeting 90. So that definitely got to look at that. Yeah. one of the things and you know Chief Chief Edwards can probably explain this better because I am not a fire organization or person at all but he said that they have they they've been making some changes in the way that they respond which should save in some of the fuel. Um I can't explain what those are. That's all I can explain to you. But there there may be a reason why he um is doing had requested it in that manner. Yeah. Hopefully they can find some efficiencies.

I think you're right though. We need to look at gas and fuel across all the parts. If you look at public works and parks, they're flat compared to budget to budget. It's just you in fire and police. It's just it's out there. It's very evident because it's such a higher number. Yeah. And then one other thing related to the gas and the um fuel um in the midyear budget, one of the projects that was approved was to replace the fuel tanks at Freehill Road because they're currently not functioning right now. And so we've been buying at the at the point of twice state basically. So when we're able to buy the fuel in bulk, it is less expensive. No, not yet. There it's out to if it's not out to bid, it will be out to bid very soon.

But that is that will be done in the next few months and so we will be able to purchase in bulk and you know actually have a little bit of savings from that. Did you say that was a midyear? Wasn't that a mid year? That was approved in the midyear budget. But it that will that will impact these to the betterment of Yes. Um and just I'm sorry real quick on the police um the budget in 26 and the estimated excuse me had the reduction of the 10 positions uh or five you know roughly five positions but in the budget for 27 it's fully staffed. It is fully staffed. Yes.

Thank you. Um in FIRE uh the a biggest big chunk of the increase is related to salary and benefits. You will see in here that um overtime salaries are being budgeted um much higher than they have been on there. So that way um you know we're starting out in a position where we think that realistic where where it's a little more realistic.

Thank you. And then there's, you know, a handful of, um, items that are, you know, changed. A lot of this is very similar. Um, the repair of, um, their apparatus repair line is also, um, increasing to be, you know, similar to what we are anticipating spending this year, simil which is just more than what we spent last year. So that's a little more realistic as well. You know, starting out in a much better spot. Um, one thing to note, um, on the emergency gear line here, um, this year, this has been, um, I've been asked to move their expenditures for their emergency gear, that's their turnout gear to the PIP fund for next year.

It's it's a year where instead of spending right around 100 125,000 every year, um, next year is the year when they have like 70 sets of turnout gear, it's it's like signant. It's like 300 400 like $400,000. It's like four times what the normal replacement is. And it's just the cycle. It's just the cycle of of all of those replacements. What if we just continue um budgeting that same amount though here and putting the extra amount into the PIP instead next year? Is that where you're going? Yeah. Yeah, we're talking about that. Um, so

I I'm do I'm not a fan of us eliminating the expense from the general budget because that PIP is not permanent. It's going to end in 10 years unless the unless we're unless the people vote for it again under referendum. So I prefer having those expenses at least some of them in the general fund what we would spend if we did not have the PIP and then putting any overage in the PIP. Yeah, I can talk to the mayor and see if he wants to normal but the normal part of the budget and know the standard here just a placeholder. Yeah. To not lose that. Yeah. So I can I can ask the mayor if that's what he wants to do if he wants to transfer that back in what he presents.

Great. Thanks. Um public works budget. Um again it's this is a very flat budget. There's almost almost no change compared to the current year. Um you know salaries are up. Um and then you know this one thing to note coming down the street lighting um we're estimating that that's going to come down um about 75,000 from what we budgeted in the current year and that's for the LED lights um they are starting to do the installation on those um so we will see some savings there. I noticed that was a reduction in parks

in parks in parks. I didn't mention that in parks. Yeah, in parks as well with the LED lights. Why is is that also due to the reduction in machinery, equipment and transportation equipment or what's the reason for that in here? Um so the transportation Oh, those are capital assets. Yeah, these are capital assets and so those those vary from from year to year. They're never Yeah, they're not going to be consistent from one year to the next. Looking at U other professional services again in public works 2025 58,000

and then we had year estimates at 90,000 and just on the idea what that was. Yeah, a lot of expenses a lot of those are just the initial um engagement for doing um like the plans not not full like specs and plans but projects but it's the new parks and it's it's the news new projects that are coming on it's those new conceptual drawings and those sorts of things. All right, great. Thank you.

And then the last uh department we have in here is our trash. It's going up about 2%. cut it. She's not not a lot we can do on that one. We're under We're under contract on that one. Not a lot we can do. Um what's coming up next?

Um estimated date is April 27th for the second budget workshop. That has not been scheduled officially yet, but that is what we're aiming for. That workshop will go over all of the projects, the new projects that have been requested, the projects that will continue from fiscal year 26 and need to be rebudgeted in fiscal year 27. And we'll also go over our spent revenue funds um during that workshop. That will be a busy one. Is there not a workshop for to go over expenses or does that happen later? Is that I know we do it all of the committees. We we do it in all of the committees. Um and that's what We need we have in the past. I think you should.

We'll we'll we will at that second budget workshop we will go over a summary of of the operating expenses. Yes. And we may do a special finance meeting. Special finance meeting and just to just for that looking Yes. Special call finance meeting. We will have to do probably do a special call the middle of May to just do just the budget. Um yeah. Uh and then at this workshop we will go over a summary of the operating budget too. One minute spared. Oh nice job. Uh can I get a motion to motion journal in favor? I have a

Thank you all. That was good. Well done. Thank you. You've been practicing that, haven't you? You climbed up just right. Well done. Over.