Board of Town Commissioners - Regular Meeting

all right good afternoon it is now 4 30 and the bella board of town commissioner's budget work session is now in session i'm going to call the roll commissioner foss here commissioner chismar here commissioner taylor here and commissioner hanley here We need, we need, we need Mike to come. Mine was on, but not really functioning. The green light was, the green light was on, but it's not really working. All right, we'll wait for Michael to come fix it before we.

There you go.

Started without him. They put two more racer certificates up there. Okay, so you got two more left.

Mr. Krantz, our microphones look like they're on, but they're not really functioning. Got to turn them on. That's your official duty.

All right, testing.

Oh, you got to do it over there, too. All right, now we got it. All right, now we're good. All right, so we'll continue with our meeting, and may I have a motion to approve the agenda?

Madam Chair, I move to approve the agenda.

Thank you so much. Do I have a second? Second. All right. And all those in favor of approving the agenda? Aye. Aye. All right. That's unanimous for our secretary. And the first item on our meeting next week will be the public hearing for Resolution 1268-26, the fiscal year 2027 tentative budget. Are you going to talk to us about that, Lisa?

Nope.

Okay.

Budget it out.

Had enough of the budget?

There isn't anything else to say other than we've already, right.

And we'll have more to come later this afternoon as we continue our budget discussion.

Correct. So how the meeting will work on Monday. I'll do a PowerPoint presentation under tentative, under the public hearing for the two enterprise funds and the special revenue fund.

And then it will move...

into final budget, which I know I'm jumping ahead of you, and that's where the budget will be final. There will be a motion with all the amendments that went from the tentative to the final. Gotcha.

All right. All of that will happen this Monday? Yes. So we will submit the budget or bring it up, and then we will approve it in the same meeting? Yes. Okay.

Lisa hopes we will.

Yes. That's okay, Steve.

All right. Any other questions on the timing of the budget for Lisa? Okay. Under new business, we will have ordinance 861 dash 26 prohibiting data centers in the town of Bel Air.

Yeah, so when we discussed this at our last work session and the posture that this legislation wound up in is we're going to clean up that prohibition section that Commissioner Chismar had mentioned. And we're going to rephrase that to say that if something is not permitted by right or by special exception or anything else, then it is presumed to be prohibited and we are going to include explicitly that among those prohibitions are junkyards and data centers but of course that is including but not limited to and I know that that's something that mr. Krantz and mr. bear are currently working on I'm sure we'll see a draft soon is that right mr. bear oh perfect cued you in perfectly for that

What we would do is add a similar footnote to each of the use tables so you can see what that looks like there. I actually, as you know, I was traveling and joined the meeting I think right after you completed the discussion of it so I did go back and listen to that and I had a number of conversations with Michael about it. Take a look at how that appears to you. We can definitely continue to tweak that footnote and make specific reference to it as well to the junkyards and data centers. I made some minor modifications to the other language there.

Yes. So I think what we want to do, and I know this isn't the final draft. So in the final draft, what we want to make sure is that that section that says junkyards are prohibited. That's where we want to change that language to say, if not permitted, then prohibited, including junkyards. Yes. And just for the public watching, this is also relevant that the county is currently considering similar legislation to explicitly prohibit data center. So it is a timely piece of legislation as our partners at the county consider taking a similar step.

All right, anything else on the data centers?

Right, then we will have resolution 1271 26, the fiscal year 2027 final budget and we so this will be the budget with any changes that we make to the tentative budget that we will be looking at. Okay, and we're still working on there. So and anything else on the fiscal year 2027 final budget I know we'll be talking about more budget issues later okay resolution I just had a quick question it's gonna be that budget will be posted like updated like the updates that we've done by Monday night so

probably I can't it depends on what we do later today how involved the changes are so with that being said the final budget will either be ready for the agenda for Monday or normal time on Friday when Michael's office takes care of that or in the morning on Monday. It's just going to depend.

Thank you.

Sorry, I know that's not a straightforward answer.

And based on what we've been looking at, it might be Monday morning more than Friday afternoon is kind of my thinking. All right, then we will any other questions will move 2027 final budget. Okay, resolution 1272 dash 26. The appointment of Rachel Diener as finance director. Michael?

Yes, thank you. Rachel has accepted the offer. She is in the process of moving. She has purchased a home in Maryland, and she is, I think, maybe here. I think, not here yet? The 7th or the 8th? I know she's traveling.

No, I think she settles on the 15th.

But I think she was traveling in. Anyway, I didn't talk to her this weekend, but she is aggressively moving towards and thrilled about accepting the position for director of finance. This resolution would satisfy the code and charter requirements of the board acknowledging and approving the interim town administrator's recommendation at this point. And you'll see it before you for a vote. Monday if you have any questions with the language that was drafted I just sent the draft around for you it's pretty straightforward

Like a question, the 18th is Monday, so we'll be voting on it that night, but it says your appointment is effective May 18th. Is that how we do the dates?

Correct. The language that I put in there is that the appointment would be effective the day of the vote, which would be the 18th, and then I wrote, and be it further resolved that the date on which Ms. Diener's employment with the town shall commence shall be coordinated by the director of administration. I thought that would create this necessary separation between the board approving her hire and then the actual first day of pay it was difficult to coordinate that even when Mr. Baer was appointed so we handled it similarly then God forbid she has to delay a date and then we have to ask you to reappoint because the dates are wrong on the resolution. I was trying to leave that a little open just in case.

Well, that's what I thought the May 18th was saying. It meant she would start on the 18th. Right. You explained it. We're good. Got it.

okay so we'll be approving her on the 18th but you won't really be starting on the 18th and and she and mike will work tentatively june 1st is her start date and i say tentatively just because it's a big deal in the move and everything so if it happens a couple days or a week later no harm no foul but i think it's comforting for her and everyone else to know that the board has approved and this is going to be finalized shortly

Well, we'll certainly if she's watching, welcome her to town. And she's been moving with lightning speed as far as, you know, moving all the way from the you know, other side of the country, practically. So I'm looking forward to having her here. And I'm looking forward to having some overlap with Lisa so that she can really, you know, pick up and go. So anything further about the appointment of Rachel Diener? All right, moving on to the sidewalk trip and hazard removal contract. Mr. Klein.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is the annual process of going into communities and cutting tripping hazards off of sidewalks where they've been raised by roots or other obstructions. we've had very great success from doing this I think this is probably the eighth or ninth year we've done it so I think it's just something that we're just going to continue to do on a regular basis this year we're gonna cut over six hundred and two sections of sidewalk to remove trip hazards in the homestead village neighborhood this year the price for that that I'll be requesting your approval for is forty four thousand two hundred and twenty five dollars any questions And in the package that you will get from me, you'll see all the locations and they really have a neat new thing that shows the actual streets with the houses on and where each tripping hazard is. So it's very, very nicely done. So I think you'll appreciate it.

Look forward to it. Any questions about the street resurfacing? I'm sorry, sidewalk tripping habit removal contact. Okay. Next, we have the by two minutes concrete street resurfacing at various locations in the town of Bel Air and Mr. Klein that you again,

Yes, ma'am. Thank you. This is, again, the annual street resurfacing that we do once a year, usually at this time of year in the spring. This year, we'll be resurfacing seven sections of streets in town, and we'll also be resurfacing the basketball court at Alice Ann Park. The streets that we are specifically going to be resurfacing are Linwood Avenue from Deerbrook to the end, Maitland Street from Churchville Road to Eastern Avenue, South Atwood Road from Baltimore Pike to Marketplace Drive, Grayson Square, Hall Street from Rock Spring Road to the end where it meets Harford County Hall Street, Wilson Street and Courtland Street from Main Street to Hickory Avenue. In addition, the contract calls for the paving of the basketball court at the Allison Park. We do have a good thing here where $53,894 will help pay for the Cortland Street project, and that's a community development block grant that the town was able to achieve. So $53,894 is community development block grant. The price of the contract is not to exceed $559,000. We got really good numbers from Barnes Paving, who is actually a local firm right in town, which is good. We had eight people bid on the project, so we had good numbers. They were the lowest bid, of course. So we're looking good. We're really excited to get going with it.

Sounds like a lot of people in town are going to be happy. Yeah. New road services. Yep. Any questions about the resurfacing?

Just a quick question, I'm having like brain fog or something, Wilson Street, where?

It's basically an alley right next to Alice's, I mean, Alice Ann. Alice Ann Street, okay, yes, I got it. I know exactly where, yup. From Alice Ann Street to Gordon Street. Thank you.

Yes. All right, next we have the Recreation Building Roof Replacement Contract. Mr. Klein, you're just replacing and upgrading and paving everywhere.

Yes, indeed. This is a project to replace the roof at the recreation center's building, which is directly across from the library. It's got a very unique roofing system now, and it's very expensive to replace, just because of how it's built with the parapet around the outside, and then it's attached to the roof, so all that has to be removed and then replaced. We were originally last year thinking it was going to be in the $60,000 range, which in my opinion was high too. $85,000 is the low bid that we got on this project, $85,873. So when you get your... packet, you'll see everything you're going to be doing with that project, what the roof actually looks like, because I know it's hard to explain it. But if there's some pictures that show like what we're dealing with up there on the roof, and why is it's more difficult than a standard roof replacement.

So I recall us, debating is a strong word, but discussing this project at last year's, around one year ago this time, during last year's budget cycle, and it was something that we invested a decent chunk of time into discussing. What... Why the delay? You know, was it a procurement thing? I'm just curious, why now at this point in the budget year? I'm not trying to, that sounded more accusatory than I meant it, but why, you know, what has intervened?

It's just we've been really trying to get the price and the fix right. You know, different contractors are talking about doing different means in which to do the project. So it was a little bit of that, of us working with contractors and us. telling us what we really think needed to be done. And it's just that towards the end of the year, and we're just finishing up all our projects, and it just happened to be towards the end of one of the last projects we're working on.

So is it fair to characterize it that we maybe in the beginning received some bids that we were not happy with?

Well, certainly we've looked at some of the numbers and we're very like, whoa, this is not what we were thinking. And this is the low one that we did receive. Okay.

All right. Fair enough. Yep.

Thank you. Are we still planning on going in with the county on this? Yes. The county we had originally again thought the project was going to be $60,000. The county parks and rec agreed to split that in half and give us 30,000. Lisa and I have been in discussions with regard to that. Is it fair for us to ask them to make up half of the price now that it's 85 and ask them for the difference between 30 and half of 85? And we were still discussing that. What are your thoughts?

I think we should still make the attempt to have them split the cost with us and just tell them the numbers came in higher than we thought.

Maybe perhaps a payment plan or something if they can't handle it all at the one time, maybe like two years or something. I bet they can. Can't hurt to ask, right? Right.

That's my feeling. All I can say is no.

It's only 12 grand difference. Right. For their, well, that's just, that's exactly right.

They're the ones that are using it. It's their building, really. It's our building, but we pay for them to have their stuff in there. It's a nice 50 by 80 foot lot. Probably could get 300 on the market if we sold it. And we wouldn't have these things to talk about. But just something I was thinking about earlier when I was looking at this high roof number.

Yeah, that's one expensive roof. And I'll be interested to see the pictures that you show us next week and everything. But man, that is a lot of money. It's not slate or anything. It's like your regular roofing product.

Today I was looking over some old agendas for roofs that I did. And I did, 2016, we did the armory, the big barrel roof, and it was 130. So you know how big that was. But it was a simple cover, you know, it was a barrel roof and it was just laying laminate over the top of it. This involves removing a lot of metal off and putting in new gutter system because of the way the building is built and everything. So it's a lot more intensive.

So we should definitely not build any buildings like that.

Right. Okay.

So will this make it easier when it needs another roof? Yes. It'll make it much cheaper than this version? Yes.

Well, at least we're getting something extra besides the roof. How long will this roof last?

We've got a 10-year warranty. I think I read that, but I'll double-check on that.

Gee, that seems awfully short.

Is it still going to be a flat roof? Yes.

I'll have to get back to you.

All right. Ten years seems like not very long. I think my roof had a 30-year warranty. Of course, it's not commercial and it's not strange. It's your basic everyday roof.

They don't like the warranty flat roofs.

Well, there's a reason for that. Because the water's puddles. Right. Yeah, flat roofs. Probably not the best thing to have on anything. All right. Moving on from the roof replacement contract to the accessory package for the Criminal Investigation Division Van Chief Moore.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My apologies on this. We were ready to move forward with an accessory package purchase for criminal investigation division van.

Basically, it's to upfit a 2020 Dodge van that we recently purchased. But we started going through this and we realized that it might be a little redundant because we have another accessory package that we have to purchase for a vehicle that was a patrol vehicle that was totaled last year. so rather than do just one we might as well just get them both packages together and i'm not quite sure we even have to get that much for the next accessory package for the patrol vehicle because what we're doing is um we're going to recycle things from the patrol vehicle that was total but there might be a few things we have to purchase so rather than try to present one let's just try to do both of them at the same time and the reason we're doing this is because of the procurement rules we've already had several purchases of accessory packages for other patrol vehicles so we're kind of over the rules we're over the procurement procurement rules for having to present it to you so that's how I understand it am I right with that Lisa

Yes, it's it's because the the initial packages that we brought before you were had to come before you anything else that is spent for that vendor has to come back before you. So yeah, and I agree with Chuck, it's it this way, we're only bringing it back before you one time with the two accessory packages together.

And it's not that expensive. That's why she had explained it to me. I'm like, this is only $7,000. It's the cumulative total that means it has to come here. Correct. I'm going to hold off until the next time. All right. Thank you.

Sounds good. Moving on to the Harper County Community Development Block Grant Notice of Intent. Ms. Robertson?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Since 1996, the Town of Bel Air has been part of a cooperation agreement with Harford County to be part of their Community Development Block Grant, or CDBG program. That's the program that Steve just referenced in the repaving contract that we're using that grant funding. CDBG is a federal grant program administrated by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, and it provides an annual funding amount on a formula basis to states, cities, and counties to help develop viable urban communities. In Bel Air we have a limited number of low to moderate income tracks that qualify us for use of funding from CDBG and we typically use the formula funded grant allocation for infrastructure improvements or economic development projects. In recent years we have primarily used it for paving projects like the one that Steve referenced on Courtland In the past 20 years, we have also used it for improvements to the armory for ADA accessibility, for armory marketplace, and for improvements to the culvert on George Street. CDBG, as I mentioned, is a federal program, and we can either elect to participate as a subrecipient of Harford County's CDBG program, which is what we have traditionally done, or we can choose to be excluded from Harford County's program, in which case we would have to notify both HUD and the county that we were no longer participating in the cooperation agreement. As it is to our advantage to continue to participate as part of Harford County's allocation, Bel Air as well as the other two municipalities in Harford County have been subgrantees for Harford County instead of applying directly through Housing and Urban Development. Every three years, we receive what's called a notice of intent letter from Harford County asking if we will continue being a subrecipient as part of their program. We recently received the letter for FY27 to FY29. So I'm just bringing this before you because it does require a signature from the Board of Town Commissioners and an authorized official that we will continue to participate with them. So we do recommend that. that it is to our advantage to continue that relationship as part of the cooperation agreement as we have for the past 30 years. And the notice of intent would just require a signature.

and that is why it is on our agenda for monday so that we can all take a look at it and just say yes we are still interested in participating um i agree with you i it's a program we have been participating in i see no reason for us to try to get out of it um so that'll be what we're looking at on monday

Because of the small allocation of low to moderate income housing that we have in town, our funding formula provides a small annual grant through CDBG. So to navigate the waters of a federal grant program and all the reporting requirements and not be part of Harford County's would be a real disadvantage to the town. So they do give us a lot of support as far as what projects will be approved and in helping us with the reporting and determination of projects. So it's a good thing. Sounds good. So we can pave streets and do other good projects. Correct.

Any questions for Angela? All right. The Harford County Town of Bel Air Sewer Service Agreement Amendment. Addendum. Ms. Moody.

Yes. So as each year, Harford County forwards us the calculation for the annual new bulk rate to treat the sewage. It's been reviewed by Public Works. It's been reviewed by myself. We sent back, I don't know, maybe 30 questions. They've all been answered and provided supporting documentation satisfactorily. So we're ready to move forward with the addendum. The rate did increase 30 cents per thousand gallons from 536 to 566, so another significant increase. increase to treat the sewage. So again, the addendum is just to the 1988 sewer service agreement bringing the the enr rate up the bulk rate. And it also has in it the system development fee in it. So it's just really housekeeping. We've reviewed everything.

And this is what the county charges us to treat our sewage. Correct. Which we no longer treat as a town, or if we ever did. I don't know. We own the system. We own the pipes. We own that. That's it. We send it somewhere else. That's good. All right. Any questions about the new agreement?

So, Lisa, is this the same rate that they will charge regular customers, I mean county customers to?

No, we're considered a bulk customer, we have a special 1988 agreement that is specific to us and the county. So this has nothing to do with their customers.

But we pass this on to our customers. Correct.

I mean, this cost wouldn't consider it a pass through. It's not a one for one pass through. I mean, obviously, our sewer rates, which I'll talk about during the budget, but our sewer rates have to be able to cover these costs, right along with everything else in the sewer fund, but I wouldn't classify it as a pass through. We don't pass this on to our customers. I just wouldn't phrase it as such.

So you're saying whatever percentage this 30 cents is, there will not be a same percentage charge as an increase to our customers?

No, that's correct.

So what that is, it's going to take out, it's going to, take away from we'll have less monies for maintenance and things of that nature correct that's absolutely correct capital capital improvements operating yes yep and i will speak more to this when we get to the sewer budget but so you've got a good segue going on there all right that's what you know he is anxious to talk about that if we're paying a higher bill somebody's got to pay for it money's got to come from somewhere yes sir

All right. Any more questions about the sewer service agreement? And this I know you ask a lot of questions was pretty much dictated by the by the county.

It is, the 88 agreement is pretty specific when it comes to the formula. I don't wanna say it's vague, but for the times it's vague as to what can be included and what can't be included or what departments can be included and what can't be included. Departments are included now that aren't specified in the 1988 agreement. we have tried over my tenure here to have conversations with the county and changing the 88 agreement we even paid for a consultant to come in gosh probably 20. steve do you remember that do you remember the consultant coming in might have been right maybe before your time So Steve's been here for almost 25 years? 26. So yeah, this was a very long time ago. They just wouldn't budge on it. So it's an 88 agreement. It really does need to be updated. I'm not saying what they're doing is incorrect, I'm just saying that things need to be laid out a little bit more appropriately and detailed for the times. Things change as you progress forward. For example, technology is not the 88 agreement but we all know technology is a critical piece when it comes to you know just services in in general and should be part of that preparation um that they do similar to what we do we do that pro rata with the sewer and the parking fund and they do something very similar to that it's just technology's not laid out in that piece of the agreement

So there are costs now that are different than they were back in 1988 when this agreement was negotiated. It was negotiated with an eye towards what the costs and what the factors were then. Things have changed.

Yep, yep. And the agreement has not. So, you know, like the addition to technology was never negotiated. It was just done. And we questioned it. And it's a reasonable change. I didn't have any issues with it. But if you're going to have an agreement – then it needs to be all inclusive. And if things have changed, then in my opinion, we should be updating that agreement. But it's just not something that's ever been favorable with the county.

Got it. All right. Anything else about the sewer agreement?

I can do that, too. As Lisa mentioned, technology. I basically ran the whole. All right.

I don't think we want to mention Lisa retiring. It's not a happy subject, although we're happy to have Rachel coming on board. All right, next we have the check signing policy amendments. Ms. Moody?

Yes. So housekeeping policy, as you all know, we just need to make some amendments to it. Add Michael as interim town administrator. Remove Mr. Hopkins. Also going to add... myself as the director of finance to have authorization to sign payroll checks. And I will probably go ahead, I haven't talked to Michael about this, but I'd like to go ahead and just add Rachel to this policy too. That's what I thought you were going to add. We're going to be one of the names that you're going to put up here. redo it you I do need to stay on here until I leave in July and so my thoughts were at when we have a new town administrator and I'm no longer here then you can hopefully make that last change to the check signing policy but I think at the same time let's go ahead and add add Rachel to it so I don't have to come back before you and and amend this in the next couple of meetings

Understood.

All right. Thank you. All right. Any questions about the check signing?

All right. Moving on to Commissioner's Liaison Report.

I can begin. Appearance and Beautification met last night. They are coming off of a very successful garden mart. Nearly all of the vendors were almost all the way sold out. I mean, the tonnage of greenery that left the armory that day is a marvel to behold. They did a great job. Special thanks always to Elaine Millard, who really puts that together. Amanda Berry, who's one of the new recruits, as she's taken under her wing, was also there to help She was manning the free book table, and we want to thank the Harford County Public Library for donating some free books for people to take. I was lucky enough to find a 1956 copy of Taylor's Gardening Encyclopedia.

Written by a relative?

I'm still researching that one, but you know it's old because on the front is Lex Hort, short for Lexicon Horticulturalis, or Latin for basically Encyclopedia of Gardening. So it was a really cool find. They had a couple of really old books, which I love old books. It's just so cool to see little bits of history. So it just goes to show that not only do they have the actual material gardening materials, But they also have some really cool gardening accessories. So it's a great event. It was very successful. And now they're looking on to their summer activities. One question that they did have that I'll put Mr. Klein on the spot now because I'm sure that you have an answer is the hanging baskets. We're looking at those soon, I imagine. Here we go. They're up. Okay. There we go. Was that today or yesterday? Okay. We were still having a question about it yesterday, so they must not have seen it. Well, perfect. So the hanging baskets are up. You did say it would be after Mother's Day. You were true to your word. And so perfect. And they had that question as well. they had that question as well. So clearly the warm weather has hit Bel Air in full swing. They were a little bit worried about the cold weather that we got last night and all the flowers that were delivered, but can I tell them that everything was safe and good to go? Wonderful. Yep. Sue and Bonnie offered to gather all the quilts and blankets in their house and take them up and tuck the flowers in. So we're lucky it didn't have to come to that. But good. So needless to say, Bel Air is in bloom, and it's a beautiful time to come to town, and our ABC is a critical part of that. And ECDC will meet this Thursday. That's my report.

The Rockfield Foundation is actually going to meet on the 18th at 8.30 a.m. And then, of course, the Bel Air Downtown Alliance will meet the 19th in the morning on the Cultural Arts Wednesday. I have a busy week, 17-18. They'll meet Wednesday at 4. Also, just on your calendar, just highlight it, the 13th. That is tomorrow, 4 p.m., the exhibit in the library, the America 250. I kind of peeked in the other day when I was in there with my grandson. You're gonna be really pleased. It's really amazing.

Planning Commission and the Board of Appeals did not meet, but they will be meeting. The Planning Commission will meet for the 4th of June. I believe there's one item coming up. At least one. Okay. Which we haven't gotten the packages yet, so I'm not sure what they are.

It's phase six of the mall redevelopment as well as the Dunkin' Donuts project that's coming in with Jimmy.

I heard the mall redevelopment. I missed the second one.

Oh, there's a proposed Jimmy John's and Dunkin' Donuts that's coming in. Thank you. Thank you.

All right.

The tree committee did not meet in April because of Arbor Day, the opening day of the farmer's market. The tree committee will be meeting tomorrow afternoon at 4.30 p.m. at the planning offices where Public Works is also located off of Churchill Road.

Madam Chair.

Yes, sir.

I think that meeting needs to be relocated. We are in the process of painting the whole entire office area of Public Works and Planning, and right now the room, the conference room, all the wallpaper's torn off and spackled and everything's covered with sheets and things of that nature. I don't know. Who does that, Michael?

That is WCOR, I believe. So we will have to look into, Michael, if you could check on moving if the town conference room is ready, that would be available. Also, the police. community room is a much bigger room and is also available I think well certainly all fit in the town conference room if it's open but we'll have to get notices out to all the folks that will be driving to the wrong location tomorrow if they don't know that we have been changed but thank you for that because I was not aware that you were undergoing renovations so I'll have to come and see what the new paint and everything looks like when you're done all right seems fair so we will be meeting the tree committee we'll be meeting tomorrow at 4 30 p.m but we may have to change our location um in fact i think we better change our location and we'll be discussing the um Rockfield Park plantings. There's some RFPs that have been submitted and also to make sure that we are in one on track for Tree City USA and we continue to maintain that designation. So that's what we'll be doing with the tree committee tomorrow. And then I'm not sure exactly when but there will be a summer recess the tree committee takes off in the summer.

Committee for Seniors and Citizens in Need will be meeting on the 28th. Mr. Erhard from the Downtown Alliance will be at that meeting. And then the Historic Preservation will also be meeting on the 28th. And we're continuing our preparation for the America 250 celebration.

All right. Staffing update.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The town has two positions posted right now it is a police dispatcher job and that job is about to end here shortly and then we also have a parking enforcement monitor position so both are open for applications we have 23 Active applicants for the parking enforcement monitor and 38 active applicants for the police dispatcher. And the police dispatcher job here will end in a few days and parking enforcement is open for another week. I know the police department is still working on background checking of the open applicant pools or the closed applicant pools for police officer lateral and police officer recruit. unless staff has any updates I'm unaware of any additional turnover knock on wood and how many how many applications did you say we have for the parking enforcer force 23 at the moment It's a popular job.

And Dispatcher had a pretty good amount.

They typically, we haven't posted parking enforcement in a while, but I recall last time we did post it, it was a pretty popular ad. And Police Dispatcher is always a very popular ad. However, I will say we do get an awful lot of people with zero experience in either one of those categories. So the town is always looking for somebody who may have done that job or something similar to that job. And we try to rank the applicants accordingly.

All right. Well, good luck with the ranking. You got a pretty wide field there. Hope you get some good applicants. Anything else Mike on the staffing update?

If you wanted to look at the appointed officials chart that I handed out.

And our most pressing one is the Planning Commission. Yeah. It's still looking at that. um interesting thing with that is and i don't know if there's anything we can do about it because of the state regulations is that we are having four people appointed this year it's somehow it got bunched up i'd like to spend their five-year terms and i'd like to spread those out i don't know how we can if we can do that because of the state yeah i think what we should do is talk to liz because i think they were supposed to be staggered and i'm and i'm not sure if maybe some people leaving early

you know, have caused them to all line up like this, but you're right, it's not supposed to be that way. Right. Because it's a bad idea to have, you know, maybe a whole new crew all at once. All at once. Often people serve another term, but you can't be guaranteed that, so.

I think what may have happened is that if people resigned or whatever, we reappointed somebody, we gave them five years instead of giving them the term, the remainder of the term.

I suspect that you are correct on that.

But I can't verify that, but that's probably how we got it bunched up.

We're going to have to talk to Liz about what we can do to straighten that out because it is a problem. All right. And then the other one is Steven Burdette, which isn't until August, which is, you know, plenty far out there. But have have we talked to him to see if he's interested? I'm suspecting he'll say yes, because I know that the board actually, while we need one has never met in your memory. So so it's not not as mission critical as the Planning Commission, but important nonetheless. Right, Mike, anything else on the staff? Thank you. And we have the calendar, which everyone should have. I don't know if anyone else noticed, but we got an invitation from Rockfield for like the unveiling of their plaque. The problem is, is that it is the same time. Yes. until the 9th at 5 p.m., and we have a work session at 5.15, so I did respond to the RFVP and said I couldn't attend because of that, so I'm not sure they are they're probably locked into keeping it that date and time um so the only things we could do is a all of us skip or b we could start our meeting later i don't know we can all you think about that where was this invitation it's to rockfield manners plaque unveiling it was emailed to us um for contributors and of course the town has been a big supporter so we have been invited and i must have missed that Yeah, but all of us are busy. It's not like one of us could go to the ribbon cutting somewhere else and we could go there. We're all busy. So I'm just pointing it out so that we could.

It might have just been sent to the two of you.

Well, that is strange. But regardless. Regardless.

I had it on my calendar just because I know that the e-mails that they sent out before, but I don't remember getting anything on that.

It was. I got one on May 8th. at any rate, I'm just flagging it as a calendar item that we should perhaps consider because they are Rockfield and it is our property. I would certainly like to have some or all of us in attendance. But if we have a meeting, we need to be at our meeting. And then as far as the calendar coming up for the rest of the The month we have, well, Friday is Bike to Work Day. And, of course, the Freedom Truck is here today and tomorrow, which was a really cool exhibit. I encourage anybody to go that wants to sign the Declaration of Independence and meet George Washington. It's pretty neat. see if you're a patriot or a rebel depending on how well you know your history see if you can pass those i could do but they i haven't tried those were relatively i knew to side with people who dumped the tea in the harbor but i heard that the actual history quiz was much more difficult a lot of people didn't pass many people did not pass i did not take the quiz it that scared me so so i didn't take it but um then we have our our meeting on the 18th i did and i passed we have a military appreciation luncheon on the 19th tuesday for anyone that is is going to that monday the 25th town officers are closed but there will be a memorial day ceremony in shamrock park i will i will be there for sure um our next work session will be on wednesday the 27th we moved it from its original date on the 26th because of a conflict And then we have a ribbon-cutting at 3 o'clock on Thursday, the 28th. And the Bel Air Lions are having bingo on the 29th of Friday. Oh, and the big thing, of course, is this weekend is the Derby on Sunday, which is starting very, very, very early, very early. I think the races start at 8, but the drivers and all the rest of the folks will be there earlier, and I will be there between 6.30 and 7, apparently. I know. I was like, I will be there, but I might need to bring coffee with me. So it'll be fun because all the kids will be really excited about running their races. Anything else that anybody's noticed on the calendar as any kind of, like, conflicts or other issues? All right.

mentioning the Derby, don't forget to stop in the admin department, we have lots and lots of certificates to sign. So that's what I heard.

We'll get writers cramp in there. There's a lot a lot of participants to think that they came from the first year when they weren't really sure they were gonna be able to have a race because they needed to racers do cars to you know, this number of participants, it is really taken off. So that is, that is great to see. All right. Any more calendar items? I think we're good to know what we're doing. All right, staff comments? Mr. Krantz?

None at the moment, thank you.

None at the moment. Mr. Baer?

I will note that Gary Webb did come by the office today to meet with me and us, so we gave him his orientation packet. We had a great conversation. Great, all right.

Ms. Moody, you don't even want to comment that you're looking forward to the end of budget season, your very last one?

Just a little.

Just a little. Ms. Roberts?

I do just want to comment. Commissioner Foss brought up the library exhibit that's going on that has been done by the Cultural Arts Commission. It's been on your calendar, and you've received an invitation. However, no one has RSVP'd to CAT, whether or not they'll be in attendance. It is an event that only you all were invited to, so Cultural Arts Commission members plan to be there. Someone from the library plans to be there. Someone from Harvard County Public Schools plans to be there. But if none of you are able to make it, we will be canceling that event. So if you can let me know whether or not.

It is actually, so everybody, I think people, it is tomorrow. at 4 p.m. at the library, and it is an art exhibit, which is pretty cool.

It is an art exhibit for America 250 that has had contributions from four public, local public schools in Bel Air have contributed pieces, and the Cultural Arts Commission in conjunction with HCPS and the library hung the exhibit at the end of April for a May 1 opening, and it runs through the 30th. Okay.

It is on my calendar. Maybe we missed the RSVP.

It should have come from CAT in economic development. So if you plan to be there, terrific. We really want you to be able to see the exhibit. I want to see the exhibit. We will be there. Or at least some of us will be there.

And everybody, somehow the...

RSVP didn't get responded to but it is on our calendar I will be there in our very last paragraph it says we'd be honored for your presence and please kindly reply to this email I'm glad we can move forward with that and that you plan to attend And I'm glad that you pointed it out because these things happen

We were planning to attend but forgot to tell anybody we were coming. Thank you Chief Yes, ma'am.

Just a reminder you kind of bought up that the soapbox Derby is happening coming up Sunday Just a reminder to the citizens and Main Street will close around 7 a.m. It'll open up around 1 32 o'clock and Just please please be cognizant of parking along Main Street. Don't park on Saturday into Sunday keep your cars off Main Street and the Pennsylvania or the lot right next to the tower we got to keep that clear because that's they're gonna be starting you know right in that area lastly we have a new future officer starting today she was sworn in up at the county clerk's office Emma bloom she was a previous Explorer and we're happy to have her aboard yep

That's it.

I had the pleasure of meeting Officer Emma when I was here, I think on Monday, to pick something up, and she told me that she was a product of Rick Krause and the program.

He was very proud today. I think he even shed a tear.

As he should be. So it is great. The Explorers is a terrific forum team for the police department, and it's produced some really good officers. I'm glad to have Officer Emma Bloom join the town of Bel Air.

Very fortunate. Thank you, ma'am.

All right. And Mr. Klein, you weren't in your chair when called on, so you don't get an opportunity to. Any comments, Mr. Klein? No? All right. Commissioner's comments. No, we're all anxious to start the budget process.

I just wanted to, I went to that Fine Arts with my mom on Saturday and that was really awesome and it was, there were some great pieces of art there as well and then our own Marissa Canino had her display, great. My mother bought a lot of the little squirrel, she made all these little squirrel cards, greeting cards and all, but it was fun.

Well, the Freedom Truck, I thought, was really, really impressive. The things that they have done with that, when you walk inside, you would not know you were inside of really a tractor trailer. It's really impressive, the stuff that they have in there. It is so cool to sign the Declaration of Independence. It's so easy. Even a small, small, small child can do it. Graham Chismar signed. I don't think he did at all. You don't think he has some help? He did a great job, and it's really neat to see, you know, come in and have George Washington, the father of our country, talking to you. It is, it was really, really, I actually looked at some of the things that they did because they have panels that are like, they make fixed in order to make the room the sort of rooms that you walk through and the gentleman that was with the truck said it only takes him like an hour and a half to button it all up and roll out which I thought was really pretty impressive but it's kind of like an RV it's got like slide out portions and It was very cool. And even baby David couldn't make it. Baby David, he did sign.

Couldn't cause problems, right? Yeah, he did something and it all went blank. The Declaration of Independence disappeared. I thought it was gonna blow up at one point, but then they brought it back up.

They brought it back. It's never really gone.

There's six trucks in the United States and then we're the only one in the state of Maryland?

Yes.

That's just, what an honor that that is. And I live right down the street from where the Legion is and it's packed.

when I drove by it a couple times and even yesterday but today beautiful weather and cowboy eats they've been they've been eating so it is a great great thing and you know special thanks to post 39 because they're the ones that applied and brought it here and they said they had seen it and they jumped on it like the second it opened and applied and I think that had something to do with it also the fact that they're post 39 so you know We got it to come here and it's a real feather in their cap as well as ours. It's really neat. So I'm glad everybody's having a good time at that with the good weather and Cowboy Eats is a truck out there.

My dad also commented on, he was walking on Main Street on Sunday morning, and he said it was, he came back and he goes, Chris, it was just bustling. I mean, it was just incredible, because they had the Bel Air, the market there, and just, there were so many other things, and, you know, it was, it was really, it was really neat.

Go to the market, then the used bookstore, and, you know, get lunch, have ice cream, it's a full day. all right anybody else no it's the budget then all right the fiscal year 2027 budget discussion the enterprise funds it sounds like star trek but it's really not it's not that kind of enterprise

As we've done in the past, Steve and I will tag team the two enterprise funds. So I'm going to start out with talking about revenues and then some expenses. And then I'll turn it over to Steve to talk more about some things in the sewer fund. And we'll do the same with parking. All right. So 208. So as you all know, sewer funds and enterprise fund. Enterprise funds are supposed to be self-sustaining, self-supporting, pay for themselves, et cetera. The main revenue source in the sewer fund is the sewer service charges. By code, there is an automatic CPI increase each year that is allowed to be able to be instituted without further legislation. So this year, in fiscal year 27, we're proposing a kind of a two-fold rate increase. The consumer price index of 2.6% increases the rate by 20 cents per 1,000 gallons. But on top of that, I'm also recommending an additional increase of 7.4% for a total of a 10% increase. may sound like a lot, and I'll go over some numbers with you in a moment, but when you look at what the increase has been in the Harford County bulk rate since fiscal year 22, so we just talked about the fiscal year 26 rate increase, and Steve, this is where I said you kind of alluded to this conversation, that rate has increased 50%. That's a lot in those years. So when the town's rate increase has only been 21, we're not keeping up with the county rate increase let alone all the costs of everything else that has to be paid for within this fund it's been the last time that we increased the rate above and beyond the cpi was fiscal year 14. so it's been 12 years um So I'm proposing an overall, if you will, I just broke it down for you, but an overall 10% increase in the rate. That would mean that the rate would increase from $7.50 per thousand to $8.25 per thousand. The base rate would also increase by the same 10% percentage. Again, ran some numbers for the discussion today and say a household who has 9,000 gallons of water. That's a month that is a An average for a family of four is about 9,000 gallons of water in a month. That annual increase would be $85 per year. So that's why I said 10% sounds like a big number. And it can be a bit of a scary number. But when you break it down, it's roughly $7 a month or $85 a year. And I'm not saying that's not a lot of money. I know I understand that it is for some households. But when you look at it, I guess, in... cumulatively that we have not done a rate increase above and beyond and we are nowhere near keeping up with the rate that the county is charging us we have to start looking at this a little bit further so when i was putting the budget together this year i did some additional analysis and and Eddie and I had many conversations about this. And we just thought that, you know, this was the year that we really needed to bite the bullet and bring this before you for for discussion. We certainly don't want to continue to get too far behind the county just continues to raise their rates. I mean, it was a 30 cent increase from 25 to 26 alone. we don't know what those rate increases are gonna be from the county. It depends on their costs, it depends on the flows, it just has a lot of variables, but since FY22, like I said, their rate has increased 50%. That's a big number, that's a big number. So what can I answer?

so has the county been increasing the rates faster than or higher than the cpi over the last couple years to us to us to us yes so cpi like cpi has nothing to do with their increase right so right i know what you were saying that we haven't we've been increasing by the cpi and i'm just saying to count and we've only gotten 21 percent or correct increase since 22 and and they've upped ours by almost 50 percent 47 so that means they've been charged they've been increasing the rates more than the cpi that's correct

on average and that may have to do with things like the what they have to do to treat the water increasing standards and all that kind of thing that we find in potable water too with PFAS and things different but different things in the sewer side but similar issues that are causing it to be more costly to do that correct

And I believe the county found themselves in a position where they hadn't adjusted them for, it was something crazy like 20 years. So then they fell really far behind. And this happened last year or maybe a few years prior where they realized, oh crap, we're behind. So that's where the significant increase happened. And then last year they proposed increasing it by like a modest, I think it was a 4% increase over the next few years. it got political, so they decided to push that off, but I think we can expect that within the next few years for it to increase. I think a modest amount though, 4% was what was proposed at the time.

Yeah, you're correct Gavin. I don't exactly remember when that happened. It was several years ago and I had several, I was having discussions with my previous contact there, Tom Patty, in the department at Harford County. So I think it's been a while. But we would talk about it all the time because he could see the writing on the wall that, you know, He understood it wasn't favorable, but at some point it's gonna break and it broke for them. They went a very long time without any type of rate increases. And then I believe they had some type of step or gradual rate increase they didn't hit the customers all at one one time but it was a lot more than a 10 rate increase it was it was pretty big if i remember correctly um and and i also did call Harford County just to see what their sewer rate currently is. If you're under 32,000 gallons of water, which is really what we're talking about with my example, their rate is $8.98 per thousand gallons for their customers. And their base rate is $5.25. Our base rate would go from $3.47 to $3.82. That's for a 5-8 customer, which most residential households are. So we are still below the county's rate to their customers.

So the proposed increase, and I understand these two things are separate from each other because it's not a pass-through. The proposed increase is about 25 cents higher than what Harford County is increasing on us, right? So we're asking for 55 cents additional and Harford County's increase was 30 cents, is that correct?

Well, Not exactly because the rate increase we talked about was fiscal year 26. Right, sure. There's going to be another rate increase more than likely in fiscal year 27. Sure, yeah, got it. Again, so hard to determine what the rate is going to be.

That's an important reminder that we don't get this until December, and so we're constantly playing catch-up by the year. That's an important thing to remind people of.

Yes, thank you for bringing that up. In the budget, when I try to factor in the Harford County charges and what amount to budget, I look at the flows in the last five years and I take an average. And then I look at their rates and try to be reasonable with it but sometimes it's it's tough because again it could go either way right so I factored in a 3% rate increase that the county would would provide with an average you know flow you know like this this year so far in FY 26 were below last year's flows that's as of the third quarter so the more flows we have the more we're gonna pay the county right to treat the sewage so again there's just there's those two variables that we have absolutely no control over But looking at history, I don't see where the rate is going to go down. It's going to continue to go up. At what rate? I wish I could tell you. I can't. It's kind of been all over the place. I mean, from FY22 to 23, it was a whopper. It increased $1.08. 23 to 24 was 41 cents then 24 to 25 was 10 and then 25 to 26 was 30 so you know it's just again all over the place you we you really have to wait for their numbers to come in we've asked them in the past if they could give us some type of estimate you know not actual numbers we understand their audit has to be completed but could they at least provide us with some estimate there was a there was some discussion on that and then it died they just weren't interested in having further discussions on that at least that would be able to help us budgeting better but we didn't that conversation did not go go anywhere you know I mean overall our costs as with everything else are are increasing I think coupled with that we have not increased anything but the CPI since 2014. I just think it's time that we do this. You know, we want to start to be able to, and let me say this, let's say that we progress down this road, raise it, right? And for whatever reason, their rate either goes down or it's underestimate, the flows are down, so we're not spending as much. I think that's when we start putting money away into that sanitary sewer capital improvement reserve. Steve, you talked about that during the conversations with ARPA, and it's great that we have the ARPA money now to take care of these pumping stations that Steve has been managing with these monies, but what happens when that money rate goes away how soon are we going to need to do that next project and we haven't been able to put any money aside until just fiscal year 25 but that really had nothing to do with the county. There were some other factors.

And those pumping stations are like a million dollars, right? Yeah. Yeah, they're not a small change.

No, one project was almost 1.15, and then the other one was just under a million. So, yeah, you're spot on. So, you know, With me saying that we just don't know what the cost is gonna be to treat the sewage from year to year. with this ten percent increase it would also it would allow us that if we didn't uh... utilize those additional revenues to pay for our expenses because they were less than those monies go into the capital reserve if you will similar to what we're doing in the general fund and we then we make use of that those funds when we have capital projects uh... and so it's not a waste and truly your rate the rate really should be paying something for capital anyway and we have not been able to do that because we've been trying to keep it bare bones and i don't think we can keep it bare bones anymore i think we're doing a disservice because there's going to come a point in time if we don't that we're going to be like harford county And we're just not going to have it have a choice and I'd like to be able to I'd like to see us do it do it now and then see how things progress.

A little pain now to put off like the giant shock in the future sort of a thing.

Yes. Yes. I mean that's kind of what I'm thinking and in all honesty you know probably should have taken a look at this before now but I'm seeing a pattern with the county now. You know, it was before it would go up, it would go down. It would go up, it would go down. And sometimes the variation was small enough, not seeing anything going down, and I'm just continuing to see it going up. So I'm starting really to feel uneasy about this. That's why I think we need to do something about it now.

So, Lisa, if I got your numbers right, even still with this rate increase, if we go 10 percent, we're still paying less than the county. You're saying the base rate is 525 for the county and we're 382. And then they were like, what, 895 per thousand gallons and we're eight and a quarter. So we're still lower than a county resident.

We are still lower than the county rate for county residents. That's correct. Yeah.

And then, I don't know, 9,000 gallons. We were doing all that water. When we were doing the Maryland-America water thing, we were doing all those test cases to see what the water bills were going to be, what the rate increases they were proposing. I thought 9,000 is a lot. That's real high. I thought we were more family five. I'm just saying 9,000 is only $7 a month, but I'm thinking more like half of that. I use 3,000 a month often, so sometimes two, sometimes three.

$31.20, 5,000 is $49.20. A year. A year. A year, right. A year. Not a month. Right. So, yeah, I just, when I was working on this today, preparing, I just Googled it and thought, okay let's just see see what what what you know is out there and and it had 9 000 but i ran all kinds of numbers to have for you but yeah just again those three thousand and five thousand just gives you another uh flavor for the the rate i know we were looking at that

I googled that and they said 9,000 was the average Maryland water consumption for an average household and I'm like we looked at everybody's bills that I knew and nobody was near 9,000 gallons my daughter maybe had I think she was because I remember talking to Steve and I thought her bill was a lot but he said it really wasn't particularly for a family of six there's two adults mom and dad and then four kids so I thought it seemed like a big number to me but it's

bigger household and Steve said actually for the size of the household they were really they were not they should take more beds because it was kind of low so it's um it probably is I before I even googled it I I just took the file that we we get from Maryland American and I just scanned the usage column for gallons because we've got three units of measure with Maryland American right now, so it's a little crazy. But I tried to keep it at gallons so I didn't have to do the conversion. most of the most the time what i was seeing was five and below um you'd have the the unusual at 7 000 summit nine again residential um not not apartments not you know commercial but trying to keep it we don't want to look at what ibc's bill is because that's big they use a lot of water yeah

Say teenagers, we have teenagers. Teenagers. It's a lot.

My one big water bill from Maryland American was I had some toilets that were leaking when I wasn't looking, and they needed to be repaired, and then the bill went down to normal. But you'll see those outliers, you know, 6,000 or 7,000 gallons.

Yep, exactly. What else can I answer on this? Because I'm not done yet with the sewer fund, but anyway.

Do we have any idea of what the current balance of the capital fund is or the reserve fund?

I have that somewhere. Just bear with me a minute. I got a lot of papers.

And while Lisa's looking for that, I'll just say I hate to see any increases, but I feel the need to be responsible and not kick the can down the road and just leave the problem for someone else. And the worst thing that we could ever do is when a pumping station needs a huge repair replacement of a million dollars to not have money to do that because we will have to do it right away and that'll mean borrowing money so we want to be proactive and have a plan because it's you know it can't be an emergency if it's something that is that you know it's going to happen it's like your water heater is eventually going to go so you just need to have money to pay for it

Yeah, as of the end of fiscal year 25, you remember we transferred like $250,000 to that reserve. So right now it's... just shy of four hundred and twenty nine thousand but Steve's gonna talk about a project when he gets to his section about a projects that's in the budget that I had originally cut that looks like we may be able to fund now and without really trying to confuse you guys because it's accounting and it kinda goes back to ARPA. So in FY26, we will be recognizing the rest of the sewer funds ARPA money. The money that, or the projects that that money was used for are considered capital in nature because it's an enterprise fund. We don't expense capital items they get moved to an asset on the balance sheet, depreciated, and that depreciation expense, like with these pumping stations, we're gonna basically depreciate almost $2 million over 50 years. So that's how those capital projects get expensed over the years. but because you are recognizing the revenue from ARPA all in one fiscal year basically, and you have no offsetting expense, it's gonna make it look like you had a tremendous year with revenues over expenses. So when we get to the budget amendment for FY26, you're gonna see this And what I'm gonna recommend to you all is that we put all of that money into the capital reserve that will give you a great start at what you need for future capital projects that steve will have coming down the road it doesn't make sense to do anything else with that money and really when you think about it they were capital and that that money coming in from arpa really paid for projects that were capital in nature so let's put it back where it belongs and utilize it for future years so didn't I don't want to get too far down that road but I just want to mention that to you especially since we're talking about the the capital reserve so I've got that waiting in the wing to go over with you with the budget amendment to just trying to keep trying to keep things going that you know a source of money so we don't have to borrow money Let's not do that if we don't have to. That's just additional interest costs. And that's what we've had to do, Steve and I have had to do over the years. Once we get into the budget, you'll see debt service. We've had to borrow money for capital projects in the sewer fund because we haven't been able to we haven't had money in that capital reserve to use it so in in this direction with what we're talking about we we will which i think is a great step forward

Yes, it was.

That is true. That is true. So are you all comfortable with what I've talked about and recommending with the sewer service charges?

I think it makes sense. And I like that we're still under what the county is charging. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

And I don't think it's, you know, even at the 9,000 gallon rate, it's only a $7 increase, and I think we're going to be splitting that in half. I think for most 80%, 90% of our customers in town are going to be paying probably half of that. So it's not that much of a burden to pay now so we don't have to pay in the future.

Yep, exactly. So the way that that rate structure will be – structured is this the CPI it'll stay in the budget as it is however I'll have to bring before you all in ordinance that will change the sewer rate because we're asking for a rate increase above and beyond the automatic CPI So it'll be twofold. I probably won't do that until the June 1st meeting. So it'll be introduced June 1st, public hearing the second meeting in June. It will be effective, of course, 21 days after that, which will be fine from a timing perspective from our July 25th billing. So we'll still be able to start that with our July 25th billing. Okay. All right. I'm going to continue then. Still on page 208. The other revenue account, 0100, the majority of that $22,000 is when we submit our Bay restoration fee to the state, they allow us to keep 5% for our administrative costs. You know, any other of our direct costs, but it also includes our tax sale, auction fees, and then plan review fees that are requirement in the in the sewer fund. The next account 01-01 is the utility locator fees. We're estimating the budget to be almost $23,000. It is a $35 charge for new markings and a $15 charge for remarks. We bill this through our accounts receivables system and finance, but Public Works sends us the information.

And that's something we didn't do three years ago or four years ago. Yeah, I was like, oh. It's something new, which it's worked out really well, I think. Yeah, agreed. To the tune of $22,700. Agreed, yes, yes, absolutely. It doesn't take a lot of our time.

It does. Connection fees, you'll see on the expense side, too. These next two accounts, connection fees and user benefit fees, these are two pass-throughs to Harford County. Connection fees, we collect. for new sewer connections to the system again this is based on the harford county fee that changes every year in that fee schedule which we'll be doing soon next month the fifty thousand dollars is just it's what we budget every year but it's a it's an in and out so what the revenue is is what the expense is it has no meaning actually within within the budget Sometimes it's higher than 50, sometimes it's lower than 50. And then the user benefit fees, again, are a pass-through as well. These are billed based on the increase in the number of new connections in FY26. They're billed for the first time in fiscal year 27. They're billed for 25 years. and it's a direct pass through to the county as well. The only unfortunate, well there's many unfortunate parts about this. The first one is we do all the work. All the administrative work, all the costs, and we get nothing for it from the county. The second is the county. We bill all of these accounts in July. The county then bills us for past years and the current year. We have to pay that by September 30th. but there's almost always times where right now we're in the middle of tax sale and we still have half a dozen or ten accounts still outstanding but we've already paid the county so if we can't get people to pay they stay on our books as a receivable but we've already paid the county which not really how things are supposed to work but they do in this case this This was something that was agreed on the town and the county before I came on board. So it's a pretty old kind of agreement. Then the last account I just want to go over with you is on page 209. This is a new one in the sewer fund. But let me explain. It's kind of similar to what I talked about with capital projects. Steve's going to talk about a vehicle that he has in the budget. However, so in the budget it shows an expense. Again, what I talked about. It's capital. It's not an expense. It's going to be, it's budgeted that way. for budgeting purposes, but for accounting purposes, it will not show as an expense. It will show as an asset. You'll depreciate it. You'll see that depreciation come through probably about $4,000 a year until it's fully depreciated. So in order for the budget not to look kind of lopsided that you have an $80,000 expense and you're not funding that through with a revenue, For budgeting purposes, we're just showing that we're taking that $80,000 from retained earnings, even though we're not really doing that, but we have to show a source of revenue to pay for that expense that's showing in the budget. When you get to the audit, you're not gonna see that $80,000 on the income statement as an expense. Hence, we will not take it from retained earnings. I hope that makes some sense. It's crazy.

I'm just gonna take your word for it.

Just have to trust me. And I know I say that when I'm leaving soon. But it's just a way of, of on paper, showing that we're paying for that $80,000 vehicles and expense, even though it's truly not an expense.

So So how how are we paying for it? Just

I mean, you just have, I mean, it's coming from cash. Yeah. It's just coming from cash. Just coming from cash. Right. Okay.

So we have the money for it. Yes. Right. I understand that.

Yeah. Okay. All right. All right. I'm going to move on to expenses. Just have a few to go over, and then, again, I'll turn it over to Steve, who I know is just waiting patiently. 218. on 218 insurance 0215 this covers the cost of the insurance for our three vehicles our nine pump stations our no fault insurance and our relation to the sewer backups any other insurance claims for the sewer backups that come about during the year and we are estimating a 10 rate increase based on what Legit has provided us. So that budget's a little over $11,000. On the bottom of page 218, that's where the connection payments are on the expense side that I mentioned earlier on the revenue side. On page 219, at the very top, Harford County charges. I've kind of already gone over that already. Middle of the page are the user benefit fee payments, which again I mentioned on the revenue side, so this is the corresponding expense. At the bottom of page 219 are processing fees, $32,500. This is the cost of outsourcing the printing and mailing of our monthly utility bills. We mail approximately 29,000 bills a year. And so it covers the cost of the paper. the processing field, the mailing service, the postage, and the envelopes, their fee has not increased, I wanna say, in the last eight to 10 years. So that's a good deal.

Have we looked at going paperless?

Oh, we encourage that, but we have, we send out about, I don't know how many bills it is, but we have people signing up for paperless every month, but it's not a requirement. We are not forcing people to sign up for paperless. You get the option. But we do encourage e-bills. My staff does a great job, especially if somebody calls and says, well, I didn't get my bill in the mail. Well, if you signed up for e-bill, then you know you're going to get your bill. So we try to encourage that, but we don't make it a requirement.

Would that reduce that bill much? If people went e-bill rather than, if they went paperless?

If everybody went e-bill?

Does it reduce it that much?

If everybody, if we made it a requirement, then that would go away. We would save 100% of that.

it's really hard to do that because not everybody you know it's right there are some people that probably come up here with a money order or cash and pay their bills it's you know I personally love ebill anybody that's listening sign up for ebill sign up for automatic payment I never have to worry about that again and it doesn't really go up and down that much so it's not like I'm gonna get surprised with a giant bill or anything and I just find it's one of those I'm going to pay the bill so I just let it roll automatically and I love the convenience of it but not everybody is comfortable with that I know some people that are not comfortable with paying any of their bills on auto pay I appreciate that so I think we need to sort of stick with the system we have

Yeah, and we just keep pushing it, keep encouraging it.

As the years go by, I think we'll see more and more people on the automatic payment and the e-bill.

And we are. We are. We see an increase in both of those. So I think that's all that we can do. Yeah.

Honestly, in the coming years, you could probably get away with just grandfathering people in and saying, after such and such a date, all customers of the town will be e-billed. I'm not suggesting that we do that, but... You mean all new customers? New customers. Yes. And I mean, if you've got if you want your paper bill, you like your paper bill, you can keep your paper bill. But, you know, starting after this date, not saying that we should do that. But there's a reason why more and more people are, you know, I know that when I just can be I know that when I signed up to pay for it, immediately went to evil. I've never received a paper bill because, you know, yeah.

So, but you don't go back before paper bills. See, I go back to when there was no other option. Right. And the mail. And I get I'm not sure if legally,

governmental entity we could require everybody to sign up for e-bill maybe I don't know like Social Security payments and things are all direct deposit but it could be mandated from state to state yeah because I know other states there are other states just from going to my national conferences where it's it's all e-bill so I think it might be a state

maybe if we had the state say that we could do it then perhaps we could mandate it but I I just I think it's the juice isn't worth the squeeze I think we we have an older and poorer population in town than outside of town and I think that it would just be so upsetting to you know all those folks I wouldn't even attempt it although I encourage everybody to do it because I it's it's convenient and nothing can get lost in the mail right not that your bill to me or my payment to you.

I know.

So it works.

Exactly. Well, we'll just keep promoting as we've been doing and we've continued to see an increase.

And the other nice thing about it is if you go online to pay, there's a fee. But when you sign up for the e-bill, there is no fee. So that's, you know, because I would never make an electronic payment that costs me money unless I absolutely had to. So maybe we could have David promote that a little bit on our website with a link where people can sign up for it.

We can certainly do that. I know we did it last year. We try to do it once a year. So, yep, we can certainly.

or stick it in with the paper bills or something. I heard Commissioner Foss say she's still a paper bill. We'll be discussing that after the meeting, Commissioner Foss. Demerits. Demerits.

All right, moving on to page 220. Middle of the page, the miscellaneous account, 0700, works very similar to this account in the general fund in that we have $2,000 budgeted for unexpected expenses and then the 2.9% cost of living is budgeted here for our two full-time sewer employees. Account at the bottom, 0906, the debt service for inflow and infiltration. This is one that, again, mentioned earlier with us having to borrow money for I&I projects. the interest is only $688 but the principal payments are $40,000 but the good news is that the final payment is coming soon in fiscal year 27 this debt will be paid off on page 221 we We talked about the transfer from sanitary sewer capital improvement. That balance again for 2025 was $428,737. The next account down, 1003, is the transfer to general fund. Again, this account accounts for reimbursing the general fund for housing the majority of the personnel costs, the overhead costs, and the benefit costs, that if it was a standalone business, it would have to pay all of these on its own. and that is 472,000. And then depreciation, again, is based on actual costs for 25 and projected for 26 and 27. It is an increase from fiscal year 26 solely due to the two pumping station projects, because then we'll start to depreciate them in FY27 for the next 50 years, okay? All right. That's all that I have. I'll turn it over to Steve.

Okay. Of course, I take care of the operations and the expenses of operating the system. The town's system is made up of approximately 40 miles of sewer mains, 1,041 manholes, 13 pump stations, and collects nearly a million gallons of sewage a day. the system is primarily operated by our two guys wayne smith and steve green 365 days a year the regular costs operate the systems include wayne and steve salaries and the utilities to run the pump stations which cost nineteen thousand three hundred dollars equipment maintenance and supplies which runs around twenty six thousand five hundred We do a root control program every year to kill the roots that grow into the sewer lines and cause backups at 45,000. And then if there should be a main or a lateral break that needs repair, we have set aside monies in the amount of $35,000 for those. In addition, it costs us to operate the missed utility program about $3,700 to mark the sewer lines when anybody wants to dig. So several of the main items that I want to talk about today are just three, other than the regular expenses I just explained. The first one is actually not even in your book. It is on page 219, I believe. 219 and it's account 8400-0303 and it's Pump Station Engineering. This is a new item I learned about today, actually, in the year's proposed budget. This item was just in this year's budget. This is to design and upgrade for the Kelly pump station, Kelly Avenue pump station. So what we would do is design and upgrade like we just upgraded the Shamrock and the Gateway pump stations. This would be the design and what we need to do to upgrade that pump station to bring it into another 30, 40-year cycle. The requested budget amount is $165,000. This was scheduled to be done this fiscal year, FY26, but we were waiting to get Harford County bulk rate before we proceeded. And then it got too late after we got the bulk rate, so now we just, rather than not be able to complete it in this year, we're just gonna roll it into the FY27 budget. Any questions on that project?

I just wanna interject, if I can, Steve. So we're gonna, how are we gonna fund that? Because it's not in the budget, right? We're gonna use capital reserve in the sewer fund to fund this project, because as I mentioned, in FY26, we're going to roll kind of that excess ARPA money revenue over expense into the reserve, so we have money to do this project now.

So that's gonna eat 175 of the 250?

I'm sorry, say that again.

That's gonna eat 175,000 of the 250,000 that we moved over. Is that right?

no because we're going to be we're going to be transferring when i do the budget amendment we're going to be moving over a million dollars into the capital reserve okay for some reason i thought it was 250 000 okay you're right we moved at the end of fiscal year 25's audit we moved 250 000 into the capital reserve yeah steve has a project in this budget that i removed that we're now going to reinstate that he hasn't gotten to yet correct that we're going to use that and then this is above and beyond that that i know we have money in the reserve to be able to fund sure this okay

Thank you Lisa. So moving on to what Lisa was just exactly talking on page 220 the 8400-0803 that is crossed out. I was called this afternoon and says we're gonna put it back in so we got it back in and we're really excited about that because we really need to line this section of sewer main. It's a 15-inch sanitary sewer main, and it runs from Atwood Road all the way over to Route 24. It's in a wooded area, has a stream going through it. The approximately 1,200 linear foot section of sewer main will be cleaned, cameraed, and lined with an interior liner so it won't have to be dug up or anything. This project will repair and extend the life of this section of sanitary sewer main. In addition, it will prevent tree roots from entering the main and prevent inflow and infiltration. Again, the number you were just referring Jake, $250,000.

Any questions on that one? Can you describe the route that it will take?

Can I explain the route? Yeah. Where it's located?

Yes.

Okay. So you know where the professional center is? Yes. On Atwood Road across from those apartments? Yes. So it goes basically from there in those woods over behind the diner over to 24th. Okay. We have a sewer. So it's sort of a diagonal? Yes. It's a diagonal line. And it runs back in those woods through there.

Because I'm thinking to myself, wow, it sounds like they're going to be digging up the Target parking lot, but that makes more sense. The diagonal line makes more sense.

We're not digging up anything. What happens is we actually go into a manhole and we shoot an inverted sock of fiberglass. It heats it up and it adheres to the existing pipe and makes basically a brand new pipe without having to dig anything up.

That is incredible.

Yeah. It's a really neat process, and if you're interested, I'll let you know when they're doing it, and we'll bring you out there and take a peek at it. I would love to see it. Please do. Okay. That's for sure. We've done quite a bit of it, not for probably the last 8 to 10 years, but we've done quite a few sections in town in our regular 8-inch lines. This one, of course, is a lot bigger. It's a 15-inch line, and it's a concrete pipe, so it's good that we do this.

Is this something that we did over off McCormick? I think there were some pipes over there. Yeah, I think so. Because there were some drainage problems over there.

Part of the problem was, like, the pipes were in such not great shape. Yeah, I can't remember exactly. The one that really rings my bell is over off of Hall Street. We did some work over there before, too.

So my question is, this was originally in the budget, then it was struck from the budget, was in the draft budget, then it was taken out?

it struck through yes it was a Steve originally proposed it in I couldn't fund it but then after the audit was done for 25 okay the results from that allowed us to be able to do this through capital reserve okay so we're putting it back in so the original requested budget amount of 250 was originally going to come from capital reserve but you're like we don't have enough money no no we didn't have enough in capital reserve to do it okay yeah now we do now we do

And and finally, the last thing that I'd like to talk about sewer today is on page 220. Count number 84086 vehicles capital, we would like to fund the purchase of a new sewer van to replace the existing 2014 Chevy 2500 van. The van is used daily by the sanitary sewer department to perform regular routine maintenance and assist with emergency response calls. The requested amount is $80,000. and that's it for me with my stuff unless anyone has any questions i was just wondering what's the mileage on the 2014. i usually add that let me see and is this coming out of uh general fund or no sewer fund sewer fund

And is that a typo where we say the estimated resale value is $4,000 to $80,000?

No, estimated value is $4,000 for the sale of it, and $80,000 is the cost. So when we sell it at auction, we hope to get $4,000.

Okay, it says an estimated value of $4,000 to $80,000. Yeah. But I got you. Okay. That's quite the range.

And Paula I do not have that number in the budget but I can get that for you. Thank you.

It's Steve will that that will include all the costs associated with outfitting the new van with the tools and supplies and yeah, they basically will be moving, taking them out from the old one and putting them in the new one, like the racks and things.

So yeah, the storage racks and cabinets or whatever is all inside, there might be a few little odds and ends new that they need, you know, because of the difference in size or something like that. But majority Yes.

Okay. So then the van itself is actually the bulk of that $80,000 then?

Yes, absolutely. Okay. Yeah, the van itself.

All right. Admittedly, I'm not up on the van market right now.

No, I tell you, it's unbelievable.

And we're buying new? Yes. Yeah, okay.

And that's a one ton van. That's why it's looks more expensive.

Any further questions on sewer fund? All right, we're gonna move on to parking then. Page 227. So revenues, again, three main sources of revenues in the parking fund. The first one being meter collections. We're projecting $129,000 for revenue. The latest FY26 projection is $128,500. So this budget was... created using the FY26 projection. So I think 129 is still a good number. Parking fines is the second, again, based on FY26, which is now projected to be almost 140,000. We're projecting FY27 to be 135. Hopefully we can get a parking enforcement person, because that makes a lot of difference when you only have one out in the field. Leased fees is our third main source of revenue. Our projected revenue for FY27 is $73,321. The numbers that you see there on that justification were as of when the budget was put together. Some of those have have changed, you know, slightly, but our 26 updated projection is now 76,000. So we may see a little bit more money in that for FY 27. But it could also go the other way. That's why we kind of look at it at one point in time and stick with it because it's it's going to ebb and flow. Right. So those are the three main sources of revenue that we bring in. And then we have the county share of operations and capital, which are your next two accounts. Again, as you all know, the counties pays for 67.2% of the operating expenses for the parking garage, such as insurance, maintenance costs, the pro rata share of general fund. Um, the engineering conditional assessment is in here this year, uh, that Steve will review with you. And then, uh, the debt on the parking garage sweeper. So that projected revenue is 156,356. And then the County share of capital, the next account, um, within the MOU between the town and the county, we agreed to put in $15,000 a year to the capital reserve. Um, it's of course split two thirds third. Um, so their share or, um, the projected revenue here is a little over 10,000. The balance in that account is just a little over $178,000. and both parties have to agree to use that reserve before it's touched on a project uh... the last account uh... in revenue is the transfer from retained earnings uh... this a hundred thirty seven thousand eighty nine basically says that we're not bringing in enough revenue to fund our expenses so we have to take it from equity we've talked about that in the past we're still continuing down that road that is the number that needed to balance the budgets and that's what we're short on the revenue side okay moving to expenses on page 231 The budget is broken down in three sections on the expense side with other, which I'm going to go over next, and then also there's a parking garage as well as lots. Again, we do that because of the two-thirds, one-third split with the county. We have to keep our parking garage expenses separate for the audit, for the ease of the audit and reimbursement of the 67.2%. On page 231, the first one I'd like to discuss is account 0302, which is the parking fine charges. This account reflects a 19% collection fee that we pay to Passport for the processing of our parking tickets. So it's based on what we're paid, not on what's billed. The contract was just renewed in April, and it's a two-year contract with three subsequent annual renewals, and that budget is a little over $25,000. Account 0903 is the debt service on the parking enforcement vehicle. Interest is only $39. Principal payments totals $3,157. This debt will be paid off in fiscal year 28. And then depreciation, very similar to the sewer fund. Depreciation is based on whether you have additional capital improvements. The majority of that depreciation amount, of course, is the parking garage. And the budget is a little over $132,000. Moving on to page 232, this is the lots and meters section. The only account I'll point out is the 1001 account, which is transfer to general fund lots. Just like the sewer fund works, a parking fund is an enterprise fund. It should pay for itself. It reimburses the general fund for those personnel benefit and overhead costs to the tune of 228,000. On page 233 is where the parking garage section of the expenses start. The top line, O215, is the insurance for the parking garage. This line covers the cost of the property, the liability, the garage keeper's insurance, as well as the parking garage sweeper, and overall legit Preliminary rate for these types of insurance just mainly property and auto as five point seven percent or the budget is forty thousand five thirty eight At the bottom is the expense side of the capital repairs for the parking garage The total again fifteen thousand dollars a year with the county's portion being ten thousand eighty which you saw on the revenue side and The next account is the debt service for the parking garage JCI. That was the retrofit to the lights. The budget is interest only at 876. Principal payments would show against the liability on the balance sheet is 5,250. And we have a little ways to go before this debt is paid off in fiscal year 32. On page 234, another debt service account for the parking garage sweeper. $8 is the interest that we'll pay. The last principal payment will be 3,423 against, again, the liability on the balance sheet, but this debt will be paid off in this fiscal year, fiscal year 27. And then the next and last account, 1002, is again the transfer to general fund, but on the parking garage side. So it works just like the other two that I mentioned, but this is strictly attributable to parking garage. And with that, I'll turn it over to Steve.

I'm going to be real quick on these on page 232. The first two accounts on that is operating expense for lots and maintenance of lots. We've included $9,509 to maintain and operate the public parking lots in town. there any questions that includes signs, patching, seal coating, painting lines, and that type of thing to basically maintain, you know, our lots, as well as take care of the maintenance of the parking meters. Moving along. Of course, we all know the parking garage has approximately 1,010 spaces and two elevators and requires regular inspection and maintenance. The regular day-to-day operating cost is budgeted at $59,958. This includes the cost of an elevator maintenance contract for the two elevators in the garage, All the utilities to operate the garage, the signs, sweeper brushes for the sweeper, light bulbs, replacing light bulbs, etc. So the elevators are cleaned daily during the week and the garage is swept and vacuumed from top down approximately 26 times each year. On page 233, account number 940431, I'm requesting funding to perform a comprehensive condition assessment of the parking garage by a professional engineering firm that specializes in parking structure evaluations. The assessment will include a full inspection of the facility, updated chloride testing, building upon the previous testing conducted in 2010. This evaluation will provide insight into how the structure has performed since prior repairs and identify any deterioration or emerging issues. Once we get that assessment performed, the results of the assessment will then be used to develop a targeted near-term maintenance and repair program. The requested budget amount is $18,000 for that assessment. And that's all I really have.

So what's chloride testing for the parking garage?

That tests how much salt is getting into the concrete, which is a bad thing because when salt gets into the concrete, there's a lot of metal that you don't see in the concrete, and that salt causes corrosion, which breaks down basically the whole facility as steel and concrete. Gotcha. So it's a big deal.

And then the requested budget amount is $18,000. Is the county going to share in that?

Yes. They would do their two-thirds share. And I got this estimate from a company by the name of Desmond Associates, and they provided the last one. So I'll have to work with procurement, but I would love to utilize them again because they have all the information from the last time they did the study, and they were really, really great to work with. not only for the assessment but also during the actual repair project that was about eight hundred thousand dollars that they were on site and made sure that the contractor did everything properly but really the repairs that they made uh back then i've been really keeping a close eye on them and they've really held up well so i'm confident that i think the parking garage is in pretty good shape okay

And with the budgeted amount being $18,000, two-thirds of that would be the county's and one-third of that would be ours? Yes, ma'am. Gotcha. Total cost of $18,000. Thank you.

Yes. I thought the parking garage was a big expense reason why we're kind of in the hole on the parking fund. But according to your, you're saying, if I'm reading this right, the lots and meters, when you say the transfer for general fund for lots is 228,000 to take care of all the overhead associated with the personnel and everything to run all the lots. And the parking garage is only 110. So the lots are costing us more than the garage. Am I reading that right?

Yep. Which helps the general fund greatly.

Well, I thought it's really a... But then we have to end up paying that at the end, don't we? I mean, the general fund, aren't we?

Yeah, but the general fund's being funded through the parking operations.

Right, but the parking operations in general is costing us money, right? Aren't we putting in about $110,000, $120,000 a year? Because the parking lots, the parking fund, is that a loss? Yeah. Is that a loss?

yes the revenues aren't sufficient enough to cover the expenses right yep i and i you know i know when we when we spoke last about the parking fund and in general um you know there was some discussion on well are there expenses that can be cut mean steve can answer that question better than i but i don't see where there's not many in here to cut right it's just that we haven't our our revenues have not you know are not keeping up with our expenses. So I, I did email you all the updated analysis. And if I can find my notes. You all had also asked when was the last time that we increased fines? It was July of 2023. The last time that we changed lease fees was in January of 2018, and they were actually decreased. the reason they were decreased is because our thoughts were well if you made it cheaper they will come right lower the price on something and maybe you'll entice parkers but then covid hit and we really took a hard hit I wasn't able to find the last legislation that changed our meter rates. It's been a really long time. I know at one point in time the garage was 25 cents an hour. Everything is 50 cents. I don't ever remember anything else ever changing on the meter.

Lisa, can you help me with something on the worksheet page 230? Parking, transfer to general fund parking garage is identified as 99400-1001. And lots are identified as 1002. But in our book, in the justification, that's reversed.

Oh.

So can you get some clarification on that?

Yep. Let's see. Give me a second to look.

Parking garage is definitely is correct on page 230.

Yeah, the dollar figures match, it's just the account numbers don't match.

Yep, the account numbers are just, yeah, the 1001 on page 232 should be 1002. Okay, so.

Okay. All right. So the dollar figures are in fact correct, it's just the account numbers that are switched?

Correct, yeah, I went back and looked at the pro rata calculation, which is on page 235. And the 110 is parking garage burden, and the 228 is the lots burden. OK. Yep, I'll make that change.

So the spreadsheet is correct in terms of the account numbers. It's the verbiage charts. The verbiage pages are having backwards. Correct. OK.

Yes. so you know moving moving forward and this will be something that Rachel and I have already talked about this in general but we'll have some we'll have some future discussions next month about it but my recommendation is There should be some discussion as to obviously what to do.

The problem is those transfers aren't exactly things that even if we were to wave a magic wand and get rid of all of our lots, for instance, it's not like that $200,000 really goes away. Because the way that I understand it is we're kind of just... by doing this, we're saving the general fund money, those people are still going to work those hours, we're still going to pay them their salary, we just don't have a reason to expense it to the parking fund. Is that right?

Yeah, I mean, they they would. They would fill in other other duties, right.

And so then we're just getting it out of the general fund, which obviously would be a problem.

So yeah, the general fund would not have that that as a revenue coming in to the to the fund right that's correct that's that's correct yes because you've got an you've got you've got the parking and sewer fund that are reimbursing the general fund because those personnel the benefits associated with the overhead associated with it um would then have to be paid a hundred percent out of the general fund right right um sewer fund aside for a second because that's fine but just thinking about the parking fund um yes it it would have to it would have to find another source of revenue.

Yes, I guess the point that I'm making is that that is not truly an expense to the town in the same way that something in the general fund is an expense to the town.

It's not hard dollars going out the door, right? it is an expense to that fund because it's supposed to be self-sustaining. And it doesn't have those, excuse me, it doesn't have those costs. that fund if it were a standalone company it was parking fund company it would have personnel and have benefits it would have a building would have maintenance it would have you know all those those items it doesn't because all those are housed in the general fund so yes you are you are correct in in the thought process here yes Not looking to solve anything today, but again, I wanted to make sure I got you all the updated spreadsheet so you had it, and then answered those questions on when was the last time that we increased the lease, the meters, and the fines. I think certainly there's a lot to look at, a lot to discuss, and Rachel will be here to do that. I'll make sure of it. But this is, if there's anything else that I can provide to you all, you know I will, if you have any other questions.

My one question is, I know, apparently, have we lost a parking person, Mike, because now we're posted for one?

Internal promotion.

In terms of promotion. Got it. Okay. So we currently haven't. The open slot is the parking person and the parking people. Where do they live in the budget? Not in the parking garage, but in the police department. Police department.

Police department. Yeah. Correct. Any other questions on parking for right now? Okay. I have not. And I think Michael made you all aware of this but I have I have not made the county aware that we have the assessment in the budget I generally would do that with any type of capital or major repair work I would correspond with Aaron Schaefer so I have not done that yet with everything else going on I Don't know if you all want me to do that. I'm happy to do that because that would be generally what I would do every year.

And what are you talking about, the assessment?

The conditional assessment. The engineering for $18,000?

Okay, okay. Yep.

Anything that's really kind of above and beyond the normal expenses in the parking garage, I always have let her know ahead of time. Just so, again, it's not a surprise, and things have never been a surprise to them because we've always had that type of relationship.

I lean towards doing what we always do as far as the parking garage. I know there is ongoing litigation, but we are co-owners in the garage and need to work together on maintenance items, expenses, and whatever else is going. This may... be and and probably is maybe something that if we get a parking garage like workgroup that may be something that they want to address do we need one when do we know what does it need to address that kind of thing but that's kind of not so much a budget topic today but a topic that will need to think about but I'm kind of for just let them know like we always would

I'll send her an email tomorrow and I see Mr. Klein is raising his hand I just wanted to let you know that I have been in conversation with Steve Walsh deputy director of public works for Harford County and we've discussed this I've told him that I've gotten a good estimate on getting the condition assessment done so he knows that it probably will be forthcoming there you go which I think is a good idea we need to we need to work with our partners in the garage

so what I'll do is I'll just shoot Aaron an email and I'll base it off really what Steve just mentioned just wanting to make sure you're in the loop and let it go with that keep them aware we're putting it in the budget but we're not executing it until we go through the process with them we're not going to execute until because the agreement we have with the parking garages we have to both agree on things before we do them right Yes, I mean in the past that's putting it in our budget, correct And that's just so they understand it that we're not going through with it, correct We're just putting it in our budget and we'll deal with through it at a later date Anticipated expense next year.

That's correct All right. I'm gonna move on to special revenue fund then I nothing hot and heavy here it's pretty straightforward it's quick stuff all right page 240. so special revenue fund um it is not an enterprise fund it's considered a governmental fund just like the general fund but it's special in that It really doesn't lend itself to the normal course of budgeting. So any grants that are on a multi-year cycle would get budgeted here. Any of our fee in lieu accounts are budgeted here because they have a rolling reserve of fund balance that needs to roll from every year. So that's why they're all located this in this fund so just to go over a few the first one on page 240 is the seized property federal Department of Justice account chuck feel free to chime in on this one but we have uh... we still have some forfeiture sharing cases with the d a that are pending we expected to receive the money's back in f white twenty five still haven't received them yet so when they do come in uh... those forfeiture monies will go into uh... the revenue side and we'll spend them out of this expense account according to the forfeiture regulations. That's very similar to account 2056 which is the seized property federal treasury account. As a result of the partnership that we have with the local

Hartford County Drug Task Force. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

I drew a blank. Thank you. It's okay. We've been expecting to receive between $25,000 and $40,000, again, through various cases. Again, the monies have not come in yet, so we're just budgeting for that anticipation. We would spend those monies again with the forfeiture regulations. We just have to keep the Federal Department of Justice separate from the federal They have separate bank accounts, so everything is really regulated when it comes to forfeiture monies, maintaining their separation from everything else. Do you have anything to add, Chuck?

Other than we have, we occasionally send a request to ask for the status. They call it a DAG. Probably heard of that before. And sometimes we get a response and sometimes we don't. They kind of just go by their own speed, kind of like some other big governmental agencies that we deal with. So we're still trying to track it and keep an eye on it.

Thanks.

Yes, ma'am.

So just up still on page 240, but account 2001, the community development block grant. Angela mentioned this this evening with the intent. So revenue in this account is provided through this CDBG program. Again, that's federal HUD money. It's an allocation that is a pass through through Harford County. We have FY25 and FY26 funds, but both of those are expected to be used in the paving project that Steve mentioned this evening. So we just will have our FY27 allocation left to be spent, which are expected to receive notification of what that dollar amount is late in 2026 we don't have a current project for that yet but once we know the dollar amount staff will start to discuss this and it may not be spent in in fiscal year 27 it may be 2028. on page 241 Account 3051, Explorer Scouts. The majority of this budget is a grant that's received through the Governor's Office of Crime Control. We did submit the grant again. Stephanie did in Angela's shop. However, we won't know how much, if anything, that we receive for a few months, hopefully. But the projected revenue is just based on history at $27,000. and then the last account is 3052 which is the a e district projects this um account's been renamed it used to be the cultural arts projects But we've renamed it the A&E District since the majority of this money comes from a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council for the Arts and Entertainment District. Again, the grant is approximately $18,000. We have not been awarded that yet, but based on history, it should be around those dollars. And 100% will be spent on different activities any district expenses so that's it for special revenue fund unless you all have any additional questions all right well we have now gone over a hundred percent of the budget yeah okay so I got some Yeah. Okay. Somewhere in this pile of papers, I have the outstanding list for you all. That's three for you guys. That is for you. Thank you. So from the last budget session, I just added six through nine on here. And we can go in whatever direction you all would like to go.

I know I've had some discussions with Lisa that I have shared on some of the information but what I had looked at the budget I sat down with the book and went through and marked absolutely everything that was not a hundred percent a necessity and that is all the funds that are used for lunches and things during the year the $10,000 for the other toolbox the Boys and Girls Club $1,000 over what their ask was the disc golf course $10,000 pretty much like everything that I could even think of To put on a list and I don't know if anyone I could ask Mike to make some copies If you would like to see it, but I think everybody has seen the big spreadsheet of all those dollars Lisa then also a couple of projects I wasn't sure about and they were some things in Josh's office that were computer things that are now also on the potential list of all the potential cuts that we can make that doesn't result in anyone losing their job doesn't touch the 5% by making it larger and doesn't touch the 2.9% COLA With all that money, and it is pretty, it was a machete. I mean, it was like absolutely everything that I could locate. The Hartford Leadership Academy at $1,000 wasn't safe. You know, $50 for the MML emergency management dues, like every penny I could find. And I think we have enough to fund an additional police officer, which would be on my wish list for if, you know, we're looking to put things back in the budget. That was sort of my top priority for a couple of reasons. The biggest reason really is that I think it's really tough to be a police officer and not be able to get time off and to work every time. And you're really not you're just too tired to want more money. or you don't want to get your day off canceled because you were going to go to a family function, and all those things happen in law enforcement, and it's just part of the job. But if you don't have enough people, it makes it much worse. And, of course, our department is small to start with, and when we have, and kudos to them for being in the reserves, but when we have some officers who are in the Marine Reserves and they get called up to serve, that leaves the department a couple of guys light. So it's tough for in a small department to cover that kind of thing. So my wish list number one was another police officer. And I think we can do it, but it is really and truly a bare bones budget after that. I would like to spend the money on that if there's money left over and I think there might be I would consider what do we want to do with that but it's not going to be a lot of money it's not going to be another police officer money it's not going to be a big enough chunk to you know make too much of a difference in much of everything anything one of the things we could do with that is put some more money in the HSA accounts and I would have to, we'd have to figure out what we want to do to see how much money is left to see how much money that would be in the HSA accounts spread across all the employees. Another thing we could do is, I personally love the Christmas party where everyone is recognized for their five years of service, their ten years of service. I think it is a great thing for all the town employees to be recognized for their time and service and for them to get together and have a holiday meal. And I don't remember the dollar figure on that, but it is not a huge dollar figure. It's something that I think is a nice thing to do. and we could consider doing that. So that's kind of where I stand with the budget, but I do recognize that it means that many of these other things go by the wayside. The wellness program, the safety and attendance wards, all the employee recognition that's in the various miscellaneous budgets and departmental budgets that are used for crab fees, service awards, departmental things.

But those are the trade-offs.

and there's also the potential I know sometimes mid-year there's another budget adjustment depending on how the numbers come in sometimes things are a little better than we thought and at that time we could also consider what do we want to do with that money do we want to you know resurrect um you know the wellness program and the quarterly lunch and learns do we want to take that money and do something else with it and it would depend of course on how much it is if it's a hundred dollars it it's you know really not worth talking about but if it's you know ten thousand dollars then it would maybe fund something

So Paula, with that, do we know what a police officer is going to cost? What's the price tag on that?

What does a police officer cost? And that is sort of Lisa and the chief as well, but the full package for a police officer with benefits, salaries, the whole nine yards. How much? Probably $140,000. Yep. That's most of it.

It's a little high compared to what I've calculated.

All right, Ms. Lisa, I'm going with your calculations.

No offense, Chief.

No offense, Chief.

But it was a good shoot. It was a good shoot. Let me just run through the numbers and what they are, and Chuck, if you can, maybe I've missed something.

And it may also depend on whether it's a new recruit or a lateral is another factor in salary, so...

So from a a salary standpoint. I used. Chuck, I'm using the salary of an 0FF3, like you and Michael and I decided, which is in the budget for the FY26 officer and any vacancies that we have in there. So I believe that's a good number. I have the academy at 4,000. I have uniforms at $7,500. And then $180 for shoes. I have $1,250 for a weapon. Okay. I have $1,430 for a vest. The rest are all fringes.

So do you have anything that...

I went through the budget and anything that was struck through, I picked back up half of it because there were two officers. You know, I don't know from a supply standpoint if that's, you know. Okay. And then, yeah, fringes based on that, of course, you've got FICO, workers' comp, long-term disability, life insurance, pension. which are pretty well known once you know the salary. The one unknown is insurances. Is that person going to need insurance? Is that person going to choose family, single, husband, wife care? So, you know, that's the wild card in it. When I ran the numbers that I just mentioned to everybody, with a husband and wife assumption, I was at almost 120,000.

And that's 120 plus the uniforms and the academy and all that sort of thing?

That includes everything.

Okay, so that includes, 120 is the cost of a police officer, assuming husband and wife coverage. Correct, yes. Okay.

Yep. Yes.

And what about a car? Will we have to get one? Do we have one available?

Also, they come at a capital reserve. So that's a benefit. But the package that goes with them does not come at a capital reserve. So you're right to think about a car. What is the pay?

Is it 25,000 for the 20 25,000 25,000 budget. But yeah, Chuck and I talked about the the car and because that what I wasn't sure and he had mentioned like he did this evening that that wouldn't be needed in FY 20. Seven.

And this also does leave a loan. Lisa, I just want to make sure that there's no cut to any of our volunteer recognition lunches or whether they choose to have polo shirts that they use that money for, whatever that is, we left that alone. That is not included in the cuts.

Correct. I didn't touch volunteer recognition.

I just wanted to make sure that I didn't accidentally touch volunteer recognition.

No, you did not. You did not. And I also want to mention, too, because, again, Chuck and I did talk about this piece, is That's assuming that 120 is assuming that the officer starts on July 1.

Right. So it might be a little less. The officer's not going to start on July 1. Exactly.

Exactly.

And that is okay.

Just wanted to mention that.

So that then leaves us, if we're assuming 120 for a police officer and we're looking at the cut list over here, that leaves us with about $40,000. Correct. Okay.

Correct.

If we want to take all that out.

I mean, it was brutal. In that $40,000, you can look at what you might want to put back.

Correct.

Correct.

And I just, I needed a clarification. Paula, you had asked me about the wellness program.

Right.

I took you had wanted everything taken out of the wellness program but I did not take out the water coolers so yes I did not I do not think I wanted to take the water coolers out I just took out the quarterly lunch and learns the newsletter and the gym membership there you go I just again I didn't want to make any like you do I'm just I'm just checking but all of the

and actually I'm gonna ask Mike if you could make copies for everybody of this because it is a spreadsheet so you can you just look down the side and see what what there is so if there's anything that you want to reconsider with the $40,000 you know we could certainly do that

The other thing I was looking at also, what is the lexapole? Lexapole.

That is the policies of the computer,

They keep up on the town's and the police department's policies they also provide like some they stand behind us legally on policies that are issued it's very it's a very good program for us it if we didn't have that it's just a lot of a lot of work constant work on us to stay refreshed on our policies because the laws and everything is changing so quickly anymore it's just hard to keep up on it yeah no I just didn't know what it was and it was a 22k for both police department so yeah and I've double-checked the policies on occasion I'll just randomly double-check to see if it's current with it they'll put the code and everything in there that they pull the policies from you know they build their policies from

And then, Mike, what was the YubiKey Wasn't that just another way of logging into your computer? It's a security thing.

It's like a VPN kind of thing. And I don't think, I didn't think the YubiKey was something that was still, that we were looking at, Michael. Is that the case, the YubiKey for Josh's shop for meters in NCIC? It's like a VPN. It's a secure protocol, internet protocol kind of thing.

I mean, it's in the budget. I don't have it cut, so it's definitely in there. yeah I just couldn't Josh thinks it's the absolutely most secure way to move things forward to the future right Steve what line item is that where are you it's in the IT yep 530-035

Okay. Yeah. Chuck, I think this is something different than what you're thinking of. This is about my understanding and this is this was for all employees. Correct with regard to their, their PCs.

The description sounds like another way besides using a username password, but some other way to log in.

Yeah.

Like RSID used to be or something like that. Right.

I think it's the next evolution of, and Michael could speak more to it, I'm sure, but it's just, it's the next evolution of keeping us safe from, you know, fraudulent activity or getting in.

The description right there at the top, The second and third word, phishing resistant is what makes that critical.

It's an actual hardware key apparently that you have to use with your computer with a serial number associated that connects to your Microsoft account. So it requires actually the physical key and a pin to log in instead of a password so that it's more secure.

the sheer amount of attacks that our system prevents on a day-to-day basis I would consider this like the canvas system did with the school systems recently they've had some sort of data breach yes that uh and they received hostage you know threats you know for their data you know so i'm not sure how that got resolved but i'm not either but i'd rather not be in that position

the tuition reimbursement in there can you explain that like is that is that utilized I think this is the first years been back in the budget okay no it's it's been in the budget for several years it's just been under the police department he has the employees that have taken advantage of it but I believe this fiscal year 27 be the third year

With the formal policy.

Did a lot of people take advantage of it last year?

We have three employees pursuing their bachelor's degree.

Which is a worthy thing to do. Like I said, I took a machete and wrote down absolutely everything that wasn't a person that was occupying a job. the other difficult thing is like some of the big ticket items the trenching it's coming out of capital reserve so it doesn't really help to cancel the trench at $100,000 we do not have that available to spend on salary health insurance or you know anything else and we can't find some current year revenue projects that we could move in to capital reserve sure me you could move the

hold on a minute in town buildings you can on page 40 you could move those first four bullets into capital funded through capital reserve but just keep in mind that the the two Rockfield Manor projects it would only just be 50% of that because the other 50% is already in the revenue from Rockfield well I think if we're so we could certainly do that I think we should do that that would be my vote How much money is that? You could also do the $10,000 toolbox that would fall into that as well if you want to do that. So let me include that.

I think that gets us to around $60,000 if I did my mental math right, but I'm going to defer to Lisa.

Yeah, the toolbox is on the cut list and we can certainly move that to the capital store, but it won't save anything.

Let's say $50,000 then.

Do you not want me include the toolbox?

Yeah, don't include the toolbox for the purpose of this calculation.

Okay, I understand.

So it's the capital reserve.

We could use Rockfield. So it would be 16 plus eight.

It's $49,955. There you go.

I was off by 45 bucks.

That's why we have to have Lisa here.

Yeah. No.

I took half of Rockfield already.

So Steve, it's 16 plus eight plus nine plus around 17. So that's about $50,000 there. Right. No. Right.

Correct.

So that's almost $50,000. I would agree with you.

Jake, what did you want to do with that money?

Look at, well, look at restoring some of the things that maybe we don't want to. Restoring it. Correct. Absolutely.

Okay. I'm with you.

I know that first on my list of restoring things is employee recognitions in this list here, and I think that $50,000 gets us there.

I think that would be much appreciated by, I think, your department heads as well, for sure.

and that's what we're looking for you know okay here's sure worst case all of it yeah what do we how much money do we have what where are we gonna get our most bang for a buck and put things back in absolutely so that $50,000 that can that can restore most all

So if we look at on the spreadsheet that you have there, if you look at employee recognition, departmental budgets, it's 19,000. Employee recognition in the miscellaneous budget, that would restore everything in that line on them, which is the crab feast, the service awards, the Christmas party, and their certificates, at almost 13,000. I think our safety and attendance awards program is is a great program right i would hate to see that i would too um i mean but i would i would say chuck and steve you're it's your it's your guys that really work this i i want to speak for you but i think that would be an important i think it's a great incentive for them to you know it's something that they they they appreciate it i do know that good steve right okay all right so um So those three together are 39,316. So we've got another 10,500 to go. The wellness program. How utilized is that? You know, not much anymore. I would ask, again, Steve, your group attends, but I would say I probably wouldn't be heartbroken if that went away. But I don't want to speak for everybody sitting here and Michael. I think there's other items on this list that could be reinstated more than that and we're only talking $2,700 because I you know I I certainly think I think that the the things that we just talked about are critical I don't mean to sound callous when I say this next thing but I get those emails and I'm like how many people are actually doing this no I get it yeah you know I totally get it yep so no I wouldn't be heartbroken It had a time and a place before COVID, and then, you know, it kind of went south. So I think, again, the water coolers are not included in this. I think that is something nice to have, so I would like to keep that. But that's not in the cut anyway.

Right.

So it doesn't matter. You know, you've got – You've got tuition reimbursement, the toolbox to talk about. I mean, both of those are $10,000.

To me, the tuition reimbursement, to me, would be the next thing that I would want to add back in. I said the tuition reimbursement would be the next thing on the list of things that I would want to add back in. It's not a good idea.

Well, then we're there.

If we're also putting back the toolbox that gets us there?

So you could, no, the toolbox would be above and beyond.

Okay, I just wanted to make sure I understood you.

But, I mean, you could use capital reserve for that toolbox. You added $8,000 to the capital reserve for one of the projects in town buildings. So I mean, that's that's possibility. If you all want to do that. To reinstate that. That's the way I would reinstate it.

And we're making choices here because if we if we spent we buy another police officer and then we put all these things back in then there is no additional money left over to do anything for health you know the health savings accounts or anything like that so you know it's like there's only so much money you know and like none of these things are bad things I mean but you know you have to pick and so our one of our important picks I think we seem to all be in agreement is putting back in the tuition reimbursement but every penny we put back is a penny you don't have to spend somewhere else.

And so I know that we found $50,000 worth in current year revenue projects that could be considered capital. If we're looking to hunt down the other $46,000 that we nixed with the H-Man, does anything else come to mind? No? Okay, that was the end of that.

The H-Man, $46,000.

It was $96,000.

Oh, that's capital reserve.

So what I'm asking for is you can't, off the top of your head, you're not thinking of any other projects that are current year that could be moved into capital? Okay.

No.

I mean, hey, finding $50,000 was great, so I'm not mad about that. I'm just curious if there was anything else that would qualify. Again, the toolbox.

The toolbox would qualify. No, because all your vehicles are coming out of capital reserve. Right, understood. I don't recommend taking out, hold on one second. You know, so every year Josh has in the IT budget the monitor replacements, laptop replacements, computer replacements. While those, can be construed as capital, they're still reoccurring because they're on a replacement. And they're not $100,000 or $200,000 like a vehicle that should come out of the capital reserve. So I don't want to see us go down that path of starting to pick things out of the technology budget to take out of capital reserve.

Sure.

So there really, there is no projects in the armory. The floor that's gonna be redone, that is not considered capital, that's considered routine maintenance. So I would not recommend that.

And is considered by whom?

considered maintenance so it's considered maintenance because it's it's it needs to be done and so it's not extending the the life enough to be considered a capital

And is that an accounting decision?

That's the way accounting. I mean, yes, that's accounting.

Yeah.

Yep, that's accounting. Because, again, I would prefer, would recommend that we not look at... individual types of maintenance maintenance that needs to be done coming out at the capital reserve yeah i just caution i understand the wisdom in that i just think we want to get all i know everything out in front of us nope got to talk about it i i i get it um all of the vehicles are already coming out of capital reserve um we've removed the pump park and the um The disc golf is already out.

And I think when I took out the MML fall conference, I took half of it or something, because I think somebody needs to go to maintain our something.

I actually took that out of the administrator's budget. I didn't touch commissioner's budget at all. This was something that Eddie thought he would be attending because of his new membership in the emergency management, but it's not something that the town administrator has attended in the past.

I cut that on my own when I looked at your list thank you it just it just made made sense I just remember one year I went to the fall one I was the only one that went and I went because we needed to go to maintain something Banner City so we just need to have enough money for one of us to go in the fall it's not really a popular conference as much as the summer one but we do need to attend and I mean what is that a couple hundred dollars

it's not that much because it's usually just a day or two and well this last time it was in western it would be about 800 because there's two in the budget right now so it would be a little over eight hundred dollars yeah savings you don't have to worry about that that's a tenth of a drop in the bucket correct so the the so what what summarizing

We had 161 identified in savings and then another 50 or so that we're moving from general to capital. So that'll give us another 50, right? So that'll give us about 210. We're gonna take 120 out for the officers, right? Our spreadsheet shows 161 without any cuts, without any adjustments.

Correct. But that 50 you mentioned is not additional savings. That's reinstating items on this spreadsheet.

Yes, that's what we want to do with it. But what Steve is asking for is before we reinstate anything, that takes us to 210. Before we reinstate anything.

Yes.

It takes us to 210.

Yes, correct.

And then we've got 120 for a police officer. So that brings us down to 90. and then with that 90 with that 90 then we can start reinstating right some of these things and right now I've only got backwards what we are reinstating were the employee recognition department and miscellaneous yep the um safety and attendance awards right so that's getting me up to about 39 000 right the toolbox no no well no okay we're not so we're not no toolbox Tuition reimbursement. That's the 49,000. That brings us to 49,000. So we still have another 40,000 to go.

I think that's where he's going with this.

Well, that's where I'm, you know, we still have another 40,000. Lisa, tell me if I'm right.

What would that do to, like, HSA?

Okay.

Hang on. Would that make an impact?

I think the point that he's making is that we're taking – Out of this 160, we'll call it the draconian list of cuts. The point of that was to find money for a new police officer. So that then leaves us with $40,000. At the same time, we are going to find $50,000. Yes. that was gonna be current year revenue that's gonna be moved into capital. And that's gonna allow us to reinstate some of these things. $50,000 worth. And 40, plus the 40. Plus the 40. Yeah, so hold on, hold on. Okay. I know where you're going, but I'm trying to walk through this step by step. Okay. We found $50,000 in the capital.

Yes.

And we found a corresponding $50,000 worth of reinstatements. Yes. Yes, we're on the same page. Yes. So that's a wash.

Yes.

So if we take the 120 from that 160, notwithstanding the wash, that 50,000, that's where we have $40,000 remaining. That's where Commissioner Chismar is getting that number.

Yes.

Are you on board with that assessment, Ms. Moody? Okay, so now we have to find what are we doing with this remaining $40,000, which tees up the conversation about HSAs. HSAs, yeah. And what does that look like?

That's around $400 more or less each employee. I just used 100 for ease of math. $40,000 divided by 100 employees, that's like $400 more in your HSA account. Or we could buy a toolbox or we could, you know,

again it depends upon what level of coverage the person is in you know if they're uh individual you know 35 25 26 27 20 29 whatever percentage of the deductible that we would contribute is based upon the deductible that they have so there are multiple employees with a individual deductible and then every other it would be $40,000 but we split up differently depending on whether you're deductible as the family deductible or the individual whatever percentage that would increase the 25 up to

Lisa's pencil is moving.

I'm listening. We know you are. What is like 1% of the premium? What would that be?

I do not know the answer to that question, what 1% of the premium is. By my computations, about 16.2.

16,200.

I think it is less than 20. I do remember doing it, but I don't.

No offense, but I'll wait until Lisa weighs in.

I would always welcome a double check. I'm just saying by my calculation.

I'm sure you're in the ballpark, though.

What would be most advantageous?

That is the question as Commissioner Ross is saying it that is out right or Mike wasn't on that is the question if we have $40,000 you know what is most advantageous to an employee paying 4% rather than 5% of the health insurance cost having the money in the flex medical account

which our health savings account like what you know if you think about it in the terms of contribution to the premium which the employees have never contributed before the proposed budget has them going from zero contribution to five percent contribution and then reducing the 35 percent town contribution to the health savings account down to 25 percent We're all clear on that. What would a person prefer to have back? I hesitate to say, because it'll probably, it'll probably be different. What would Michael Krantz prefer? It'll probably be different amongst many different people, but for the participants in the healthcare plan, Money contributed to the health savings account is theirs to keep, even if they separate from employment. It's almost like another retirement plan for those who use it as it's intended to be, because maybe, God bless you, you're healthy and your family doesn't use or doesn't meet your entire deductible every year, that HSA continues to grow. and you know sooner or later someone's going to get sick someone's going to twist an ankle god forbid hopefully nothing worse but they will then have to use that and that money will have been built up i've advised people over the years your goal ought to be to try to save two times your deductible or more before you would back off putting money in your savings account which I never really advocate backing off it because we're all getting older and we're all going to need it sooner or later so when you when the town does contribute money towards the HSA you remember that's something that the employee keeps even if they separate employment and then it's that money that's there god forbid in the time of need because there's nothing worse than the employee coming into the hr office and saying i don't have enough money to cover my deductible and that's that's when we did institute a zero interest loan policy for employees to help them then we would cover the difference in a payroll loan to uh to make up that difference of their deductible and then would pay it back over a period of time. We've only done that maybe a few times. It hasn't happened much at all. But that's, when it has happened, I remember being a crisis for that person.

It clearly would be if you don't have money to pay for your medical care. That is absolutely horrible. And I can't believe that the town is so generous as to have a zero, a loan, an industry loan in essence to help people out.

The people that that hits are folks who are on health maintenance prescription drugs. And sometimes those prescription drugs are those drugs that they take day after day, week after week, month after month, whatever form or delivery they're given. sometimes a person can hit that deductible within a month or two of the new fiscal year you know because sometimes those prescriptions can be injectables and they're very expensive and suddenly their entire deductible is due within 30 60 90 days so that's so for those people who do use the health care and hit their deductible every year I know they would likely appreciate having the money in their health savings account well Michael I you've convinced me part of the reason is that it is your money to keep as an employee That makes a difference. That's huge.

And if you leave the town, it goes with you. Plus, it's tax-free going in. You don't pay taxes on that money going in.

And you'll never pay taxes.

And it's tax-free coming out. So you don't pay taxes on the money that went in, and you don't pay taxes when it comes out, even on the gains is my understanding. Correct. I've never been fortunate enough to have one of those accounts. Yeah.

and the premiums the premium of course is also pre-tax correct and the premium of course something you have to pay whether you use your health insurance or not you know so reducing that does benefit everyone across the board of course there is more money in your hsa so does more money so where you would prefer to have it When it's in the HSA, it's there for a specific purpose. When the money is given back in the premium, that money is back in your paycheck and you can really use it for whatever you want. And what I don't like to be is the person that says, you know, this is what I think you should do with your money because far be it from me to put myself in any employee's shoes and say this is really what you ought to do with it. I'm sure many people would probably prefer to have the money in their wallet versus in their HSA, but when push comes to shove, when there's an emergency, when somebody needs that HSA money and they need it to hit their deductible, it's one of the most emotional trying times for that employee and for the HR department because they ultimately come directly to us for advice and guidance. So maybe my heartstrings go in that direction towards an HSA, but I think as I just talk through it with you here, I would suspect people would probably want to have it back in their paycheck.

I would agree with that.

I was going to survey this side of the room too. I would agree with that.

I appreciate what Mr. Krantz is saying about the HSA and that in case of emergency that money is great to be there and it's still there as if they separate but in I would say most employees cases that would not be the scenario that they would be encountering. course there are advantages for tax coming out pre-tax but I think given our current economic environment a lot of employees would prefer to have that additional percentage if that's how it comes out back in their paycheck since they're going from zero to five percent in their contribution to their health insurance premiums that would be my perspective as well

I would agree with that as well. Same from the police department. Employees may or may not use that HSA.

But they get paid every two weeks and see that money not in their pocket.

And I think of it in the respect and Michael and I have had this conversation back and forth as we've been working through this for weeks. but the way that I look at it and what I hear too is, you know, trying to get, especially the younger generation to contribute to their 457, right? When the town has a match and there are some that won't do that because they want the money in their paycheck. And in fairness, they may need the money in their paycheck.

That's what I was going to say. When you're a beginner on the pay scale, $20 makes a difference.

I get that.

thinking about that reasoning yet that's why I said I think they would want that 5% to come down I would agree I am on the percentage using it to reduce the percentage to whatever degree that however before that goes and they could also choose to put that in their HSA should that's where they want to save it correct that's right that's a very good point if you do it the other way

They have no choice. They have no choice.

And we still have that ability to, like you said, with the people that might need that, with the deductibles, and they needed the zero. But we'll still do a loan, of course. We can still do that.

That policy has never gone away, it just hasn't been utilized lately.

Right.

Well, I'm glad nobody's had to utilize it, but it's nice that it's there if you really get in a jam. Yes.

Yes. So... if that's what the board, and I'm gonna run through all these changes before we're done. I also want to mention that if there are any, after all of these changes, including the percentage, reducing the percentage from five to whatever, if there are some dollars left, savings I would like to be able to reduce some of the revenue accounts that I inflated slightly not talking a lot I'm talking maybe at most ten or fifteen thousand dollars that's what I would like to do if there's anything left so can I run through these changes with you all yes okay all right we count on you to make sure that our math is correct all right so we are going to add to the budget one additional officer for a full year at approximately 120,000 with the assumption of the husband-wife coverage. I'm going to reinstate, not reinstate, but the town buildings items that were listed, they'll now be funded through capital reserve. On the spreadsheet here, I'm just going to go down the list, guys. I'm going to start from the top and go down, okay? We are still cutting the code enforcement part-time person. We are cutting the $2,500 for the Microsoft team's phone licenses and buy if they're needed. have not talked about that but that was something that michael and josh reviewed those two items um the 2500 and the 2000. are you all okay with that i am okay with any cuts that josh agreed to without being wrestled to the floor and having his arm twisted because we need to be careful

We can buy the team's phone licenses when we need them and he's suspected they could probably be turned on pretty quickly so probably even backpedaling that out of the budget and then the Starlink We already have Verizon, Comcast, and Verizon Wireless. So we already have three modes of communication. Adding the satellite would literally be a fourth, so perhaps the fourth is one too many redundancies.

OK, so those two are going to stay cut 2500 and 2000. The next one is 6215 for the Accessibility Compliance scanner for the website. That was again a cut by Michael and Josh. The 4300 for the no before security awareness training that stays cut. The employee recognition will be fully reinstated in all departmental budgets at 19120. The employee recognition and the miscellaneous budget of twelve eight ninety six will be fully reinstated The safety and attendance awards of seventy three hundred will be fully reinstated The wellness program items shown there of the quarterly lunch and learns the newsletter and the gym membership will be cut however, the water coolers will Expense will remain The next, I'm not going to touch because they're definitely savings. So the savings in dental, vision, life, long-term disability, workers comp, so I'm skipping right over those. The disc golf is going to be cut. The toolbox will be cut. The Hartford Leadership Academy in the planning department's budget will be cut. Boys and Girls Club contribution will be reduced by $1,000. In the town administrator's budget, the emergency management dues of $50 will be cut. The fall conference will be cut of $1,075. Tuition reimbursement will be reinstated. The pump park will be cut $5,000. The MML Municipal Managers Association, or Mayors, I'm sorry. Mayors Association will be cut of $100. The Hartford Land Trust contribution will be cut of $500. And the MML Conference for the Public Relations will be cut of $2,000.

That's it.

And then I will take the remainder. And we'll see if we I can get however many percentages that I can get out of that difference. Okay, to reduce from 5% to again, whatever, whatever I can do. I have somewhere just going back to the outstanding list now guys okay we can go back to that I think we answered the question for number one then that will be cut Two and three and four were already done. Did you have any questions on the investment report that I sent out? I never asked, okay.

Looks good.

Okay, all right, thank you.

I was just curious how much we had in assets.

Yeah, no worries. The COLA will remain at 2.9%, correct?

Yes, ma'am.

Okay, we've already talked about six and seven. believe we the decision was made on the trench project that it will be cut even though it's coming out of capital reserve it's still going to be cut that was my feeling is that it's a huge expense okay yep all right then the next one and i'll ask michael to chime in here um at the last budget session we talked about should we fund the secondary fiber optic connection with the armory DPW and Michael and Josh got back to me and said that DPW needs to be done not the armory so that 13,000 comes from capital reserve so we'll maintain half of it if that's okay with the board yes I'm good with that because I read somewhere it's really critical for Public Works to have this connection so we need to get them connected Okay, so a couple things that are not on this list that I was jotting down as we went along. Ironically enough, the alliance got me a revised Christmas parade and tree lighting profit and loss summary than the one that's in your budget. And the one that she sent me still had some issues with it, but the bottom line is that they still had a profit, just not as much of a profit as they showed before. So I just wanted to mention that to you all. I'm assuming we're still going to keep them flatlined. But, again, just full disclosure.

What did they ask?

They asked for 7,000. They're being funded 5,500, but they had a profit in 25, so.

Did they say what their profit was?

It was $1,400. And they had a profit in 24, I believe, too. So not much.

Well, I mean, not much of a profit.

No, no, but.

Well, you're saying $14,000. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

But again, I just think it's something that you revisit in next budget. All right. Oh, so some good news that doesn't change the budget. Don't get excited. But the treasurer at Harford County sent all the municipalities the stormwater management contribution for fiscal year 27. which they've never done before. But I think the reason they did this year is because the county is transferring 5.2 million from the general fund to the stormwater fund for fiscal year 27. So that revenue is also split with the towns according to the MOU. So I think this was probably been the first time that's happened. That means that our contribution is $632,846 Steve. So that's just gonna go into the reserve, because we're not gonna spend it. So again, it would have to be spent on stormwater. We already have a project in the 27 budget that we're utilizing from the reserve. So this money, while it's a much larger revenue number than I have in the budget, it's just gonna transfer into the reserve. So good news for future and future projects. So again, just wanted to mention that. And then... Michael and Josh went through their budget a second time and are recommending that on page 98 account 0812 line 3 and 4, which is the server replacement redundant file server for the rack at DES and the domain controller server for DES, again, rack redundancy, be cut. And I'll let Michael give some background on that.

The simple background is we didn't even ask for enough upon further review we couldn't afford to do what we need to do for $25,000 it's gonna have to be more so we'll just defer that to another fiscal year And that's current year revenue?

It's capital I would have brought it up much sooner than that.

I was really hoping, because earlier we were talking about not capitalizing the tech budget, but okay.

And the only reason we did this, Jake, was because these were really one-time capital for a specific purpose that would not come up again. Sure. so are you all okay with cutting those again it'll reduce capital reserve those are the only other items that were on my list that I just wanted to share I just had a quick question the Alliance the Christmas parade tree lighting that doesn't cut them short then no like you had said that because they they made that profit and they were asking for They asked for seven. We're just flat funding them at the $5,500, which is the same as they had in fiscal year 26.

And that is assuming that the reason that they show a profit is because they have been able to secure sponsorships from local organizations. it doesn't cut them short as long as they are able to secure those sponsorships from local organizations. So that is to be determined based on the general climate of businesses and their willingness to sponsor community events.

So if they didn't, would we have money to be able to give it to them?

Yes, I'm sure.

I'm sure kind of the answer is always like maybe you know it depends on how much they need and it depends on where we are because as the budget year at the beginning of the budget year we don't have any money as the budget year goes along sometimes we have savings from other things or increased revenue and I am sure that if they find themselves in a birch of let's say a thousand dollars that either the town or some other organization will help them

yeah and if that did come up it would not I would not make that you well I would not make that unilateral decision I would of course bring it to you all because even though let's just say was a five or a thousand dollars it's not a lot of money but the point is is that you all through the budget process kind of dictate what the nonprofits get so that's not something I would decide on my own I would bring it before you

It would be like not everybody went to the summer conference and there's $1,000 that we could find.

For all we know, it takes three months to get a new police officer started and there's a quarter of that, not necessarily the whole 120, but there's a good chunk of it right there.

So even Lisa doesn't worry about like the thousand dollar kind of issues I can't thank you enough for going through all this though Paula I mean you and Steve took a lot of time and Lisa I mean hey oh my gosh and Michael everyone Everyone because it's a group project it was a long list some of it was Josh's you know some of it it's spread around where everybody's got a little bit of pain and hopefully this will be you know something that is somewhat more acceptable to the employees i i i get it and i'll tell you the guys i feel sorry for is everybody that's on the low end of the pay scale that's just starting out with the town and you really haven't gotten you know your your merit or step increases and colas for several years and then you know you have family health insurance and that's the most expensive coverage you have to have it it's a great program but feel sympathy for those guys what with the cost of gas is over four dollars a gallon and the cost of food at the grocery store is just scary every time you go so I'm you know I'm sensitive to that and I think you know whatever we can do right we're gonna try to do to make it just a little less painful

I know when we first started going into this, we were hoping to get two more police officers and still maintain the same level of benefits that we had given before. And we got a nasty surprise. Along with the merit increases in the COLA. That was the goal until we got the one.

until we got the draft budget where we found out that those things have all been eaten.

Yeah, the health premiums. So that was not.

It's nobody's fault. It's no one's fault. It's just the market.

It's not the way we had foreseen things going down.

It had not been. It had not been.

That's not the way.

So the motion on Monday for the final budget will lay out all of these changes that will need to be read okay And I'm going to assign that to Commissioner Taylor Walk right into that one

and thank you Lisa I know you'll have to go through a lot of changes in math and I really appreciate everyone's efforts on putting together the draft budget you have to start somewhere and everyone's you know kindness in working with the cuts that you know there's some of the things that are going in and I think it's not as good as we would like it to be but somewhat better than we started with All right. Anybody else? Anything to say? What else is on our agenda? That is it. That was the last thing, discussion by commissioners on the budget issues. And it's also the last thing on the budget, unless somebody comes up with something between now and Monday. So may I have a motion to adjourn?

So moved.

Do I have a second on the adjournment motion?

Second.

And all those in favor? Aye. That was unanimous. Thank you all.