Planning & Zoning Commission - Regular Meeting

Okay, we're on the record. Like to call the May 2nd city council budget work session to order. And uh I want to turn it on turn it over to uh Terry Eubank, our city manager. Terry.

Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh members of council. Uh, I just want to take a couple minutes, probably state some of the obvious things, but I think things that need to be said. One, I just want to recognize the efforts of all of our department heads you're going to hear from here today. Um, finance department for compiling this document. It it really is a lot of work. Um, I think staff do an amazing job and and um, they are the city's greatest asset. So, with that, I'll just kick off with a little brief introduction and then I'm going to give turn this over to our finance director, Mr. Sworner, and um we'll walk through the rest of the budget. But um for me, that the FY27 budget that's being presented to you today, I think it continues um the city's tradition of sustainability. Um some key factors I think you'll you should note in this um that you know I think we are again continuing to invest in what's the city's most valuable resource um that's its people. Um it's got a 2% cola in here for um wages for all staff. Um we're sustaining the quality of our health and life insurance program. Um you will notice throughout this document significant decrease in the uh health insurance um cost in departments and and what's happening there is that you know what finance has noted over the last few years is we have a separate fund the employee healthcare reserve fund that we use to account for um the health insurance life insurance you know our our benefits there. Well, that fund has been amassing, you know, it has a significant reserve. It's a reserve that we think is more than adequate, probably uh over adequate at this point, and we're looking to to curb its growth and to reduce it uh a little bit over the next few years. Um that

doesn't mean our health insurance costs that we're paying for premium and things like that are necessarily going down. what is going down is what we're billing what that fund bills to the other funds for providing it to the employees. So we've been overcharging ourselves um because we haven't seen uh either utilization in that fund has been below what we expected or premium cost from the carriers has come in less than what we rejected. Um or we had um uh we may estimate that we'll have 90 people on our insurance plan and we only end up with 85. So we experienced significant savings there. Um that fund has several million dollars in reserves in it right now. And like I said, we're looking to um bring that back down. The result of that is a reduction of costs in in every department that has um health insur or employees that have health insurance in it. Um we've done there's a couple of pro I believe proactive adjustments in here to some key positions. Um, one, um, been working with our fire chief and the fire department, looking at some of our incentive pays, looking at how we compare to, um, other departments. And, um, the one significant gap we noticed was in our paramedic certification pay. We pay 5% of salary bonus or incentive pay for somebody who has a paramedic license. We don't require a paramedic license. We benefit greatly. our people benefit greatly for us having them. Um, you know, neighboring departments pay a 15% premium on salary. And when you compare a firefighter at the city of Kenai with a firefighter in neighboring departments who have straight up, we're very competitive. When you throw a paramedic incentive in there, their paramedics are making, you know, um, significant amount more than ours. So,

uh, this budget includes, uh, increasing that paramedic pay incentive from 5 to 15%. We also looked at the same thing with our police department and, um, on their certification pay. And, um, the one key difference is all departments pay a certification pay for for, uh, um, certification with the Alaska Police Standards Council. Um, ours was based on a fixed dollar amount. All other ones are based on a percentage of the um individual's pay. So we've transitioned from ours being on a fix I'm recommending transitioning ours from a fixed amount to being based on their level their pay like other departments are doing to make us comparable. Again just trying to avoid those discrepancies I think that that employees are looking at when they're deciding where they want to go to work and where they want to stay. Um, also in this budget, you're going to see uh a funding request for a temporary um police position. Uh, and I use that like that connotation may not be correct. So, what this is is this is looking at our police department. This is looking at um, you know, some pending attrition that we're going to have due to retirement and things. This is going to give the department the opportunity to um be proactive when they know these retirements are coming. Hire an officer. Um we're giving them 6 months worth of funding so they can bring an officer on early when they know a gap is coming. We have two chances every year to send um individuals to the police academy in Sikka. January and July. So, um, this is going to give them hopefully the tool to get people in here early, get people down to the academy that need to go to the academy if they're not laterals and try to keep us fully staffed. Um, reduce some of that overtime, reduce that, you know, extra wear and tear on the

officers that are still here when we have those shortages and things. So, um, that's in here. I think that's also a proactive step. Um, we're continuing proactive maintenance of city assets. Um, some of this is using some of the tools that council's helped us develop over the last couple years. You know, this budget has um 1.55 million in it for street maintenance projects. You know, that's design and that's also some construction funds in there. Um, there's 300,000 in this for design uh continue work on the design for the public safety um our public safety solution for our public safety building. Um, you know, our goal at this point is to continue through that process to try to um, you know, determine best sites, best location, actual need, and then start to refine our cost. And I think in a goal of of of moving forward with trying to fund this thing um, probably not this fall, but but the fall of 2027. Um uh I think I think it's likely it would take a bond issuance in order to to to do this and I think that would be our target to have something on the ballot in the in um I guess November now of 2027. Um that's um you also see that you know what also came out of our street assessment was um uh they recommended an increase in our crack ceiling and seal coating um regular annual maintenance. Um, we had 50,000, correct me, 50,000 in the FY26 budget. We've increased that by 75,000 in this budget to bring that to an annual amount of 125,000. um you know all of this maintenance on streets all these capital projects on streets um you know I think what's key to understand this is just so we can maintain the current level of roads that we have overall like a combined overall rating I think we are

76 somewhere 78 um that's this is what it's going to take for us to maintain we're not we're not trying to to pave with gold bricks here. We're just trying to not deteriorate overall as a city. So, it but it takes that investment. Um I think it also continues our forward-looking approach. Um you know, one of my uh projects I have in here is to work with council and develop a strategic plan for the city. And um we'll talk about that when we get to the city manager's budget. Um, again, we're using some of those tools that council um provided us funding for. You know, the street street assessment report I think is invaluable to the work that Lee's doing and informed them on the the roads that we need to to be working on. Um, we've got that street light assessment that they'll be putting to work this year. Um, also I'd highlight that there are no decrease in service levels in this budget and uh we have continued the tradition here of no change in the general fund mill rate or projected sales tax rate. So we stayed with within our current revenue streams. You know we have seen and I think the finance director will speak to this um amazing growth in our sales tax. Um, we continue to see some appreciation of of property values. Um, so while we haven't increased the mill rate, people are paying a little bit higher taxes because their houses are worth more or their property is worth more, but we haven't uh there's no projected mill rate or sales tax rate increase in this. So, with that, I would turn it over to our finance director and um just looking forward to the conversation today. Thank you. And uh thank you everyone for showing up today. Um I you're taking a day out of your weekend like like we

are. Um it is appreciated. It's it's a really valuable day for us. Um because this gives us kind of our guidance and direction for how we move forward in the upcoming year. Um and just kind of to go over kind of how the process of all this. Um, you know, we've got this book big book in front of us today, but you know, this really started back in November. The the HR director sends out her request um for any position changes that that staff wants to make. It goes out to all the directors. Everyone puts those submissions in. Um then then in early January or the end of December, early January, we we have our our budget goals meeting um with council work session and then um the city manager sends out his directive to the to the department heads as to what are what we're aiming to do with the current year budget. And um and so once that goes out um finance staff also at that time prepares and gives them what what our um off of our audited financials where we ended in the prior year. So you know in this case for fiscal year 25 we gave them their final numbers for 25. We gave them a five-year average. Um gave them the current year budget so they have some some data to work off of as as they look through and prepare their budget for the year. They get those submissions in. We then compile all that. We put it all together to where then the city manager can review and see those numbers and we can see where we're at in total. We look at our revenues and our projected revenues and and see that we we have a balanced budget. You know that um as he referenced earlier that we have a sustainable budget. Um then we sit down and meet with uh each department head and we go through their budgets and um during that time also we discuss any special projects and you'll see um that's part of what you'll see in here too is we list what we what city managers approved but we also um threw in this year as a slide um what he didn't approve um that was requested and

so you can see it's it's about 50% um but during that process we we take a look at you know what are the needs versus wants what priorities. Um, and so those are the discussions, you know, hey, you have 10 items in front of us here today. All right, give us your top three. Why why are they your top three? What, you know, hey, there's this other one. Why would that not be in the top three? And we have those discussions and help kind of kind of flush that out to where what we what we're putting before before council is the needs of the city. Um, and so from there, we compile everything, put it in this book, and and here we are as a group today. um to go over this and um I think uh you know the kind of the well I guess I can get started with the clicker here. Um think you have to me. So, what we're going to cover here today um kind of and not necessarily in this order. We'll we'll you'll see that we'll bounce around a little bit. Um we try to keep departments together. There's a couple of department heads that have have multiple um departments. So, we try to um not have them be here and then leave and come back. Um we try to nail them all at once. Um but we'll go over our budget goals. We'll talk about some of the key budget factors that are impacting this budget, which uh city manager has already spoken to a number of those. Um we'll cover the special revenue um funds, the airport, senior citizen, personal use fishery, water and sewer, utility, um congregate housing, then we'll get into the general fund. We'll talk about debt service fund, um our permanent funds, and then our internal service revenue fund or internal service funds, um the employee healthcare, the fleet and equipment replacement funds.

So, in regards to the goals, just kind of the overall um goal of this budget was for it to be fiscally responsible, making sure that we're meeting the needs and priorities of the community, and um but to also be mindful of some of our non-essential services that we have such as our parks and wreck, arts, library, and uh senior services. Um and you know, we believe this that we've achieve Well, I not believe we did achieve this. we do, you know, it is fiscally responsible, it is sustainable. Um, and so we consider this to be an achieved goal. Um, now getting into the specific goals. Um, we want to make sure that we can meet the long-term financial obligations and um that our meal rate and sales t tax rate meet that. And as city manager said um previously, we believe we have a budget that does not make any changes to either one of those. and that um that it is a sustainable budget. We're not kicking the can down the road on anything that is going to pop pop up later on and and be costly to the city. Um as you mentioned, you know what, we're actually increasing some of our street maintenance um in this budget. And so so that goal has been achieved. Um well I guess maybe just to touch base like as we talk about sustainability for the general fund for instance you'll see in here we're showing that we're going to operate at at a deficit of 317,000 is a projected but of that 2.18 is capital 167 is special projects. So, it's that one-time spending. You'll hear that kind of a little bit throughout this, too. Is is our capital um projects and our special projects are one-time spends. They're they're this year only. They're not something that's ongoing year after year. And so, that's where um you know, we could easily adjust that, make it that we're not operating at a

deficit, but we've been at the top end of our fund balance um requirements. And so we're seeing that this is um an opportunity for um us to spend at a deficit and not you know not put ourselves behind the eightball on that in the future. Um so the next one is um talking about the salary schedule and making sure that we're competitive and city manager referenced that earlier looking at some of our public safety um positions that we have is how do we you know stay competitive with our other neighboring neighbors um that have the potential to pull people away from our organization. how do how do we maintain and retain that? But um also like with the paramedic pay when you look at the work that they do, it's not a requirement, but yet here's here's how we provide even better care and better service to our community. And so that's um one of those things that kind of enables us to do that. And so in looking at this and um looking at the using the CPI and having that 2% increase in in excuse me in staff is is another thing that helps us just citywide kind of keep keep our staffing levels where they are and not have people coming and going on a regular basis and ensure that we do that. So that that goal is achieved as well. reviewing our health plan. Um he he touched on that a bit too. Um what we we did make a change this year. Uh in the past we we've um operated at uh employee shares been 13%. We we modified that to where they can clearly see what that percentage is because sometimes it's not just their premium, it includes broker fees, things like that. Um we've adjusted that to where it is 15% of the premium. they saw a slight decrease in in their amount that they're paying um this year. Um again, that

helps us bring that fund balance down, but it also makes it affordable, puts us at that 15% for the employee share just on the premium alone, and they can easily see that number a little better when they look at their payubs and that too. So, it it just kind of clears that up. Um so, we feel that we've achieved that. We're we're still providing good excellent health care to our employees. Um and so that that goal is achieved as well. Um identifying opportunities for cost savings and operational efficiencies. Um this is something that we covered um as we met with each of the department heads and discussed um their budgets with with the city manager and myself. Um, we're always looking at reviewing previous spending, their future needs or priorities that we can establish in the in the budget and how do we do things more efficiently. I know um I think the fire department um just added a software this year that um kind of brings a bunch of programs together. I think uh public works is looking at one or that we just recently did an appropriation for them to to do one that's going to help bring some of the building permitting processes and that and stuff and make them more efficient for for both our our consumers, our our our public that interact with those things, but also for the staff here that helps us better track things and and do that. So, we're always looking at ways there and that's always part of those discussions. And so, that's that was achieved as well. um compiling a list of capital projects. What you see here is actually our depreciation um for fiscal year 25 and kind of the different areas that that occurred in. And so as we look at capital, we want to look and say make sure that we're reinvesting in our capital. And you know, when we see our depreciation's about 5 million a year, we we want to be looking at investing that um each year.

And uh you know our recent capital plan um we had 152 million in that um 9 million in general fund almost 10 million in general fund dollars uh five 5.5 million in airport fund 5 million in water sewer and 500,000 in the congreate housing. Um of that we're looking at 131 in in grant funding. So, um, sometimes these projects don't happen in the timeline we'd like them to happen. Um, sometimes it's based on on the grant funding available. Um, but, um, certainly, and you'll see, you know, the airport's one where we really really benefit from the grant funding and and get a lot of good work done for the community, um, through obtaining those grants. And so, that that again is a goal um, that that has been achieved. Uh number six here is looking at the rates, charges, and fees across all funds. Um seeing that they're in line with inflation. Um we do have some some rates that will be changing and we'll we'll we'll get into that as we get into each department. Um but we did review all of that and um so that goal is achieved and we believe that the the rate increases that are proposed are reasonable and and and justified and and that we can support those increases. Number seven was to utilize the 2025 community survey to inform budget development by identifying um areas that were of high interest to the citizens and prioritize. And I think uh you know that's been achieved. We we discuss with this with each department, but the area you're going to see this the biggest is going to be in our roads. And like city manager mentioned, we've already the crack sealing, the maintenance on our roads. We're we're bumping that up. Um but you'll all see see in the capital project that that um we've actually pushed forward a the timeline on on a couple of projects in there in there

also and I'll I'll get into more detail that in that later on. Um but we are you know you we're utilizing that along with utilizing the the road assessment that um presentation that we had not too long ago. That information um that that was kind of our uh one of the things we used as a guide there is how much should we be investing? That was a really good thing to have come out of that and that's where the increase in the crack ceiling came from. That's where um looking at how much we're investing in the roads and the capital projects that we were utilizing that information. So So while we have these studies and and we're getting this information, it's not something that we just put on the shelf once it's done and say great great presentation. We're actually putting that to into effect and and putting it into the budget and and making it um making use of those And finally, number eight was um looking at project ending fund balance um of retained earnings of at least 50% in our other funds. Um so that was partially achieved. Um we we nailed it on the airport, the water and sewer and congregate housing fund, personal use fishery. We we fell we fell short by a little over $7,000 there. Um, we go back to that one-time spending in the budget for personal use fishery. We've got two utility vehicles we're looking at replacing um to the tune of $43,000. So, if we were to not purchase one of those, we would have hit that target. But looking at the needs um for that fund and for those operations, we felt it was important um not to game the system and and make this look like we we achieved our goal, but to actually look at at what are the needs for the city and prioritize those. And so we're we're comfortable with that and and not meeting that goal on this one.

So for key budget factors, um kind of the two big groups here are going to be our personnel changes and then our capital and special projects. Um for personnel changes, city manager um well the first one there is looking at a staffing increase for the IT department um for with wages and benefits and then um some equipment looking at a increased cost there of 140,000 for the finance department. Um that position will give us some redundancy. Currently we kind of have we have one and a half people essentially. We have a a part-time desk tech desktop technician primarily and then we have um our IT manager who handles all of the um all of the server related stuff. And so this will give him some redundancy there, some backup there. Um every time he takes vacation, we kind of cross our fingers and just hope nothing goes wrong. Um but this will this will also provide us an opportunity to look at um other departments and and in some departments um there's some IT functions maybe that could we could bring bring in house um back to the finance department. I know for the police department that they have one of their officers spends a lot of time on on one of their things. So that'll be those will be things we have further discussions about. Um, and I think, you know, when when we talk about being comparable to other departments or other organizations our size, they often have three to five employees. So, um, this is a this is a good step for us. Um, looking at our cyber security, we did our cyber security assessment. We've been making some changes there, but we realize we need we need some additional staffing to really move forward on some of that stuff as well. And so that's um part of what this position will be bringing to the table and and providing the city with is just greater security. The firefighter paramedic increase um that city manager talked about moving

that from 5% up to 15%. It's about a 73,000 $74,000 increase. um having a how we said kind of a temporary or or looking at six months worth of a police officer so that we can kind of get a jump start on some of the attrition that we're going to be be facing here. Um and and again primarily due to the timing of also that there's only two opportunities um twice a year for us to to hit those and so that'll be a $75,000 increase there. this the police officer certification pay. Um moving it from being on on step A of their position to their current based on their current wage. Um and now we're looking around about $16,000 there. We've also got a part-time janitor position. Um this position will be kind of the float. So they'll um anytime there's a vacancy, they'll cover for vacancies. Anytime someone's out on vacation, they'll be covering for that. that'll enable them to do special projects, do go do kind of some deep cleaning and things like that. Um provide some assistance um to to the other areas um where we have janitors and that's a 14,000 almost $15,000 increase there. Um and again I uh we talk about the CPI um increase of you know 2% um and so that um across the the entirety of of the city it's a $215,000 increase to to salaries and wages for that. Um the other thing we have in here is a PERS on behalf that amount increased from 7.84% or up to 78.84% 84% up from 6.3%. Last last year's that's a $220,000 increase. At the same time, our revenues increase that amount. So that those are funds that come in, but we still show the

expenditure that as we're paying that out, we have that expense, but we also have the revenues coming in. So it really kind of washes out. But that's where you'll see the, you know, the in the departments, you'll see their expenses for salaries going up. And that's one of the things that impacts that. You can approve. Sure.

And I just wanted to let council know if you haven't heard in the news, but uh one of the things the legislature has passed is um a return to a defined benefit retirement system. Um that bill's been transmitted to the governor. So we'll see what Governor Dunley does with it. But the one key thing that it will do is it does increase. Right now our employer share cost share for a PERS employee is 22%. So we pay 22% on cover payroll that will increase to 22 1.5%. if this um if that law goes into effect. Um I don't know that Dave's ran those calculations yet, but it's definitely something we're monitoring and um you know it it will have an effect on every fund in the city that does have an employee. So we'll let you know as as the governor decides. Um I don't just looking at how the votes went in the legislature certainly not I don't think it's a veto veto proof. um package. So, if he ends up vetoing it, I don't think the legislature will muster the votes to overturn it, but um we'll just have to wait and see here. I think he's got a couple of weeks while they're still in session to decide what he wants to do. Sorry.

Yeah, I think with that, just kind of looking at the numbers we we have in front of us here, um we're seeing about a one and a half% increase. So that would probably be about a third of that 222 or 220,000. So it's probably be about a $70,000 increase would be the impact of that. Just high level rough numbers looking at that. Um capital and special projects under the 5-year capital plan. Um we've got 3.3 million in capital projects and another 300,000 in in special one-time projects. So, um 3.6 million in in that um kind of that again that one-time spending that we're looking at. Um go back a couple. So, this is just kind of a little more um on personnel changes, kind of just highlighting them kind of um on here. What I didn't have listed before is we're also looking at um in planning and zoning um bumping their admin up from 20 hours a week to 24 hours a week. One of the changes that um and I won't I won't steal Kevin's thunder too much, but one of the changes we identified um with planning and zoning is that um his other admin um is spending a considerable amount of time on lands. Um, and certainly as we see kind of some of the things that that's going on when when we talk about the gas supply and those lands, he's he's spent an incredible amount of time researching and looking into that stuff. So, we've actually moved him to 75% lands, 25% planning and zoning. Um, so these additional four hours, basically that's 10 hours a week that we're we're taking away from planning and zoning and dedicating to land. So, so this additional four hours a week will help kind of fill fill some

of the gap that's going to be created by that. Um, the other thing is um library assistant position upgrade. Um, couple years ago we did that um employee assessment. This is kind of one of the positions that we're like, h did we really get it right? Um, maybe there's some movement here. Um, so looking at moving that one from a a library assistant up to an admin three. there will be some additional responsibilities added with that position, but looking at kind of what they were doing, it wasn't really on par. And so, um, through some lengthy discussions with the the library director and HR, um, the determination was made that that position really should be an admin 3. And and so we're looking at making that adjustment um there as well. Um again that PERS on behalf increase it's it's about a 1.5% increase the 220,000 and then um the CPI um on the right hand side there you're going to see that's kind of the breakdown of of where the different funds that are impacted um with the the projected pay increase based on CPI of that 215,000 that we talked about earlier on to capital projects. Um so here we've got the general fund. Um couple of things. Um these are these are really right out of the capital improvement plan. Um however, there are some changes that have been made here. Um one of the things that you don't see in here is the comprehensive plan. We had that in the capital budget for 250,000. Um we were looking at 50,000 of that being grant funded through the bureau. we didn't receive that grant um 200,000 um from for the city. So, we will be putting in for that next year from the bureau again. Um but at this point, so we decided to pull that off of um the

capital plan for the current year. Um but in in looking at taking that road assessment into consideration um we decided to put the lot and tinker swires repaving design um for 250,000 that was slotted in for 2028 in the capital plan. We bumped that up into 2027. Also by doing that the 1.9 million construction for that we move from 2029 into 2028 also. And so um you'll you'll see there's kind of some movement there um with that capital plan um so that the construction can follow in 2028. The other um thing we added in there was the public safety building replacement renovations. the the plan for that and and um we put 300,000 in there recognizing that there's more work that needs to be done on that and and that it's um something we probably need to do sooner than later like city manager said that it's we given the scope of that project, it's probably going to it's going to be something we're going to put before bond more than likely. Um and so we need to better prepare for that so that we can have that um in time for the election. Um the other thing was that on the capital plan is um for 2029 with that 1.9 million moving to 2028 we did add an additional 1.3 for roads. Again kind of going back to you know that recommendation on how much we should be investing in roads each year. Um so we did did make that change. Then special projects. Um we've got those all listed out. U total of 300 $300,300. Um 1677,300

for general fund. Um looking at you know some live chairs at the library cameras. You'll see cameras um in a number of different places here that um we were um doing a renewal of one of some at the library and then also adding some um some office furniture for the police department. Um fire hazmat response. I believe that's for trailer. I'm sure Chief Teagle will have more about that. But um with that, we have um I think some of that equipment was kind of outdated and so we're looking at refreshing or expired equipment that we need to replace. Um website redesign. City manager touched on this too, also the uh strategic plan development. He's got that in his in in his his budget. He'll speak more to that when he gets to that rec center. We're looking at some some additional cameras there. a bridge over at the golf course, some latches for kennels at animal control, um for the clerk's office, some mailin election envelopes, and these are not it's $6,200, but it is not a one-year thing. It's like a 10-year supply or something. So, it's it's just a um it's something she has to order in bulk, so she ends up getting a number of them. And so it's a pretty pretty pretty big cost um because she does it in um because of the quantity she needs to order to get good pricing in that. Um some tires for dump truck, radios for street operations. And then for personal use fishery, uh we're looking at a sign laminator, a ranger replacement for parks and wreck, and then a ranger replacement for public safety. I believe the one for public safety. I think we did one for police this year. Uh the one for this public safety would be for the fire department. So the difference in cost there, it's um they're going to have to have that to where they can put a stretcher on the back. And so they'll have to do some modifications to that.

So that's why you see a difference in the pricing between those two um vehicles. airport fund, um, uh, air terminal RTU, and I'm drawing a blank. I'm sure Mary will speak to this. I want to say remote rooftop unit. Rooftop unit. Rooftop unit. Okay. So, not even remote. So,

okay. So, again, I I'll defer to Mary on that one. Uh over at Congregate Housing, we're looking at doing some blinds replacements and um they've got uh the dry sprinkler heads over there. It they're it's due for replacement. They're they're kind of like your smoke dete detectors. They have a a shelf life and and we're to that point where they need to be replaced

except for when they fail just for a little bit more than something beeping at you. Um and then over at the senior citizen center uh a condenser repair um for 20,000 there. And so the next slide here is is items that were not included. Um and again this is where we have those discussions. Um you know city manager might might want to touch on this a bit but we look at priorities. We look at needs. Does it do do we really need to replace this? you know, um, you know, um, I guess and also just taking into consideration. I think one of the things I expressed to one of the department heads was like, let's take a look at all these kind of little things that you have. You have a pretty good list here. Maybe we look at spreading it out over a number of years and we do a few each year and we prioritize which ones are, you know, at the top of your list and and hit those this year. Um, and so those those are some of the discussions we had. I'm going to let city manager chime in here.

Well, thank you. I I think what I would say here is I I don't think any of the items on this list are frivolous. I think they all have merit. I think they all have um reasonable basis. You know, I'm just, you know, I think we're trying to, you know, still be a little bit conservative. No, we can't get everything we want all the time right when we want it. But if council has any questions, I really encourage you to talk with and the department directors are here today, talk with them about some of these projects that didn't get funded. And um if if if it's your prerogative to to want to put those in, I I would support that. I just um again when I'm looking at everything trying to balance, you know, some departments had 10 requests, other departments had no requests, and and just trying to to, you know, balance the whole the whole model. Um, not everything gets put in, but I think, you know, again, I would encourage you to have those conversations. And if you think something in here warrants that, then uh we can absolutely um uh include that in the document before it gets ready for approval for for you guys. um that list of not included is not in this document. Is that correct?

Um is there some way that we could get a um a copy of that for our for our understanding, please? Thank you. And I probably should have stated earlier um this is very much an interactive type of thing. So, at any point if you have questions, feel free to interrupt and and ask. Um, we expect to have questions throughout the day and to to pause at at, you know, I'm not we're not going to just grind through this, but to to take a moment and um clarify anything or or answer any any questions that you might have. Thank you. I had a question. Oh, excuse me.

Um, under under the general fund is the um kitchen workt and then under the senior fund is also is there two tables involved or just one?

Uh just one at the senior center the working with the clerk's office on the ones for council chambers here. um we looked at at pushing that till maybe some modifications get made back in some of these closets so she has a place to store and so she was comfortable with pushing those when we talked about them but they originally came in as a request um for like here in council chambers and things like that but it is something you know these are um heavy and difficult to move around and and get into tight spaces back here

but it says under general fund senior center kitchen worktable 4500 and then under the senior citizen fund it says kitchen worktable 4500. Is that just a duplication or is Yeah, sorry misunderstood.

It is um I guess I didn't catch that. Well, I caught it and moved up because the one thing we did is is a senior center is really general fund dollars. And so what we've done is you'll see that in some of the capital, you know, in the capital numbers and that we don't call out the senior senior citizen fund um separately because it's really general fund dollars that pay for that. And and I had made that change up above, but I must have gotten interrupted somewhere in between making that change and I forgot to delete it off the bottom there. I have a question. The previous slide, can you go back one? Hold on. Let me put my glasses on. The numbers are really little. Um, the website redesign for 10,000 it looks like. I mean, it's hard for me to connect the the number to the words because there's a space in between this far away. Is that right? The $10,000 website. Okay. So, what does that entail? I'm asking because you're adding an IT position um and including $10,000 for website redesign. Is that not something that it which would be potentially fully staffed with two and a half positions would be capable of doing?

Yeah, thank you. I think that's a great question. Um, and I want to be clear what that 10,000 gets you is. I think I think the complete redesign of our website is a $50 to $100,000 project. So, what that $10,000 is getting you is for us to get with a consultant that does website work to define what we want in a website. There's a lot of interest by I believe council and the administration to develop um you know I think what traditionally has been an app an app to that can link to a lot of city services an app that you can interact with the city and report potholes report needles report you know other problems um what I'm hearing from staff is that you know those are now called progressive web apps or they it's basically your website that functions mostly like an app. That is the new trend and apps are going away. You know, we do not have staff. We don't have the expertise on staff to um in web design in the newest and greatest features of web design. So, we're looking at at getting some help to help educate us on and teach us what is out there and we can decide then what we need and then we'll likely be back before council to request funding. Um the IT department I think is capable of managing a project but I don't think they have the skill set and the position we're hiring is a network administrator position is not to do web design and things like that. So I think we're capable of of managing a project and managing um you know consultants to help us with that work and then maintaining into the future. But we we do not have web experts on staff and that's not in our wheelhouse. So the $10,000 there is not to redo our entire website. It really is just to help us define exactly

what we want, what we estimate that's going to cost. Then we'll bring that back to council, ask for the funding, go forward with the solicitation to find the service provider, and then do the work. Thank you.

Two questions for you. One about the the system admin position. I noticed that it's uh currently sits at a total of about 127K. Um do you feel like that's going to be enough um to hire a system admin um for this role? I just know that that those are pretty high paid roles outside of um you know the just even in the area. and so to try to find a good person that might be worth adding more to that fund.

Yeah, I think thank you for the question. Um so I'll just kind of let council know what our process is. So, um, when the conversation comes up about either a reclassification of an existing position or, um, adding a new position, the the process is the it starts with HR and the department director and they work together, um, to define what the job roles, responsibilities, um, you know, all the qualifications. Basically, we're writing a job description. So the job description is prepared. Then HR takes that job description and they go through um our classification model here at the city which provides some level of insight into you know how that stacks up to other positions here in the city with with within that um algorithm and you know what that dictates the pay should be. Um then HR takes it one step further and they go out and they look in the market and they're comparing you know um trying to compare best they can position to position with um competing organizations or organization like organizations and so I trust the process. Uh I'm not telling you that you know it's foolproof every time but I do trust the process. So um based upon that work I think this is a place we're comfortable starting and um you know if if we end up unable to recruit for it or you know then we'll we we uh we're not above coming back and and admitting um a little bit of shortcoming and asking for additional funds. But I think we're comfortable with this starts and like I said I think we we work that process every single time and and it it seems to work 80 90% of the time. Thank thanks for that. And uh yeah, that makes sense. Uh my other question was

the the AV upgrades for this this space. Um I know it says 120, which does seem like a lot, but I'm curious if there's any room for discussion on somewhere between having challenges with the system that we currently have and and 120k some something in between there.

I had the same question. Thank you for saying that. Yeah, and I think it's a great question. Actually, Shelley emailed me and asked me if I'd be able to speak to this. So, um I you know, her and I discussed my concern with with that is is that I don't know that, you know, I've never seen um like a layout of what that $120,000 gets you. Um it it didn't get vetted through our capital project process. I think it came in relatively late. Um, I think that, you know, over the next year, we need to decide exactly what we want in these chambers. Um, what council's looking for, um, what staff's looking for, and and take time to put a real project together, better define it, and then be back with a funding request. I think this is basically help me. This is based upon similar work that Lee, I think, did over in council chambers at the burrow. Um, but I don't know that that's the level that council's looking for in these chambers. And so I I just I just don't think that the the project's been vetted enough to throw $120,000. It's that's a fair chunk of change to throw at something if we haven't vetted it. But

yes, so the the dollar figure I put together for that was for um AV upgrades um similar to what we did at the uh Burrow assembly chambers when I was over there. Um, and that was around a cost just for doing um, all the audio equipment um, and cameras. And they've got some fairly fancy cameras over there that are swiveing and pivoting to pick on individual people and put their faces up on the camera. Um, that doesn't include all the uh, reconstruction they did of the chambers inside, you know, redoing walls and the deis and all that type stuff. So, um, there is a level of, you know, uncertainty there as far as, you know, what council's willing to move forward with as far as how depth or or minimal depth you want to go, but, um, I know Shelley was concerned about audio issues with our existing equipment.

Thank you. And thank you. So, the AV is not air and ventilation, it's audio and visual. I appreciate the opportunity to have acronyms spelled out so that I have greater clarity in understanding what we're speaking about just for your understanding for my understanding petty too. I this is I thought it was a uh air and ventilation because we have an issue with that here and uh so okay thank you we are working on the air and ventilation here as a side project

that was not a criticism that was just my shortcomings on not knowing acronyms and I appreciate this document it's a huge document and it's Very well done. Thank you. Any other questions related to capital or special projects at this point? All right, we'll go ahead and uh we'll start diving into the airport special revenue fund. Um, so we'll we'll be covering the revenues, proposed fee schedule amendments, capital and special projects, and then um just kind of historical finance performance. We got do we need to take a short break or

they didn't have a copy of the budget last. Okay. And and if you would don't forget as we move forward on each one of these and tell us what page we're on because it's not sequential. We do I I have that mapped out.

A lot of fing around. So, page 206 is kind of where the the airport starts. Get that myself. Well, now Okay. So for the revenues for the airport fund um you can see that the interest on investments is you know 37% of that budget um and then we have our terminal revenues at 28%. Rents and leases at 19 usage fees at 12 some of the state and federal that's primar apparently the PERS matching that we talked about the revenue that comes in on that and then the other is is 1.8 8. Um, and um, just kind of a note there that um, when we talk about increases um, the increases that we're going to see in revenue here are in the airport operations agreements or the or the AOAs is is for acronyms um, that you might hear. And we just renewed those recently for um, and they're good for a 5-year period. And I'd just like to highlight for

council is I think it's really critical to understand that 37% figure there that um of investment earnings to fund the airport. You know um those investment earnings are coming largely from the permanent fund of the airport. So each time we sell a piece of property um deed to us by the FAA um we put those funds into the permanent fund uh to honor the mandate that we utilize those lands for the betterment of the airport. Um, I know sometimes users at the airport look at these rates and they feel like they're too much, but in all reality, you know, 37% of the operations out there are being paid for by from those investment earnings and not from the users. And um, I think, you know, I'm not suggesting that that should change. I'm just wanting to point out that we significantly subsidize the operations out there with those investment earnings. And that's a luxury. I think um we should um really really really appreciate um to have what $30 million in a permanent fund right now that spends off um a little over a million dollars a year for us is is an asset that would be very difficult to manage that airport without. So um yes, the airline operating agreement called for annual 5% increases. That was discussed with the all the operators before they signed it. And um you know this is year two Mary I think this will be year two of that agreement. So you do see a 5% increase in in the AOA airline operating agreement fees. And so then that's what you're seeing here on this next slide is looking at the land changes in the landing fees,

the terminal building rent for exclusive space and then also uh terminal building rent for joint use space. Um and so when you talk about joint use spaces, that's that's space in the airport that's shared by you know like multiple carriers that they share the same space. So for capital um projects at the airport, we have a a a taxiway rehabilitation. Um and then we have a perimeter and security fence line improvements. One thing I want to talk about here about the airport is oftentimes we pay upfront or we we allocate money in in this case um we've already allocated 247,000 in prior years for the SE security fence and 650,000 um previously for the taxiway rehabilitation. we often have to do the design phase first and we often pay for that out of pocket um before we start seeing the any of the matching and that from the FAA. So oftent times you'll see some of our expenditures kind of lead ahead of our revenues as we get reimbursed for you know for things that we've paid for out of pocket that later on we we recapture a portion of that back. Um and so so you'll see this when we when we look at how the the fund performs, you'll see that that's that's kind of what drives some of that um yeartoear. And then the airport terminal RTU that that Mary's going to tell us more about. Um

it's just a rooftop unit. Um and so here here's a reflection of um the kind of the red w red one there's our revenues the blue being the expenses and you can see how we have years where our expenses far exceed our revenues but later on our revenues ex exceed expenses and um and the yellow line there is where our fund balance sits and so this is kind of a real healthy look of how things should go. We should see that fund balance going up and down certainly as we have bigger projects. You know, uh this year we've got um I want to say it's about a $23 million project for the the runway rehab. You know, our portion of that's going to be almost a couple million dollars on that, I think. And so, um, when you see this moving up and down and some of those big big peaks and valleys are caused because we have a major project happening over there where, you know, something for a couple hundred,000 for a snowblower or something might not impact that as much, but a taxi runway certainly will. Um, and so, um, I think this this is a good example of how this fund should should function and operate and that, um, and that we're doing a really good job with it. And at this point, I will turn the airport over to Mary.

Thank you. Have patience. Five years. Here I am again. So I'll go through uh it's nice to be back. I'll go through um the five different departments of the airport starting with the terminal and that's p on page 208. So the mission provide highquality safe air service travel services to the citizens of the Kenai Peninsula and visitors through facilities and services. There's no change no change in staffing. Um the performance measures uh you can see for employments um we just went up about 2 and a half% again. We're pretty conservative. Um we're still not back to precoid levels. you know, we were around 100,000 at one time. Um, the good thing about um even though we're down to like 80,000, the FAA still gives us our entitlement money, which is around 1.3 million every year. And um our percentage of tenant areas leased is down. It's 78%. That's due to Kina Aviation leaving that space. And we still have one car rental space that's empty. Uh the goals that were brought um uh put in the budget last year um you know the least 100% of terminal of course not achieved due to the vacancies. There was not a survey attendance and uh travelers but one will be uh done over the next fiscal year. And then u three Terry you might I this is one you told me we're going to turn over to a new um director the policies and procedures document department policies and procedures. So the goals we are

implementing for this are getting 100% of the terminal spaces leased, do the survey, and also proceed with our security camera project in and outside of the terminal building. That project's been around since about 2017. And I'm very happy to say that we are moving forward. We are going to put um we had a meeting last week and we're going to uh move forward with uh cameras outside the terminal building and in the baggage areas. Unfortunately, we've experienced damage both from snow removal and our tenants damaging the outside of the terminal building. So, yeah. And um the same with the overhead doors. So this way if we have cameras in there, you know, we come in Monday morning and door 3 is busted, we might be able to go look and see who did it and what happened. In the past, if we did know, we did build a tenant for it and they they graciously paid it. So, um, we're excited about that. Um, future considerations, the terminal parking lot, um, is reaching its end of its useful life. It is in the capital improvement program for fiscal year 28. uh terminal expansion to accommodate a jet service. Uh that'll entail a lot. Um there needs to be TSA service or TSA area, passenger secure area. You have to get into bagging uh security badging and this is also being looked in the master plan is an alternative reconsidered. Then

uh I just I think Mary one thing I would point out on your um amount of lease space in the terminal. I don't know if council I think it just came out yesterday the packet for next Wednesday. So don't blame me if you hadn't had a chance to read it yet. But what you'll also see in there is there is a new carrier that's um would liking to come into Kenai uh Fox Air. Mhm. Um it's a they currently operate I believe out of Bethl Bethl. Um but they're they're also looking start service here in June

um they also will be flying the caravan. So same nine passengers that Grant's operating but we will again have three uh carriers at the Kai airport. So that 78's going to go back up uh a little bit. So um but that will be before you guys on Wednesday. Right.

Question, Mary, on the on the uh the the damage to the building. I I noticed by the uh the exterior wall, and I think that's what you're talking about where the baggage door is to the on the south side of the building. How it's like a three-part question. How did they do that? Because they had to go between ballards and hit the wall. How do we repair it? And what's probably a third part to that. So

yeah, when I came when I came back last August, I noticed a lot of things on the outside of the building and contacted Blazy and talked to the crew. And that specific damage at the south end, the crew thinks was one of our tenants that had a tote there of deicing fluid and probably went in between them and to pick that up and smashed into the wall. set of forks. Set of forks. Like a fork. Yeah. With the Yeah. With their loader with their forks and and crunched it. So, and what's the repair cost?

Well, I asked you for about $28,000 for everything. And I think I got half of that. But that exterior sighting is special and unique. Each panel is numbered. It is. It is. So Blazy was able to give me a quote and they will be fixing that and a couple other areas down by my office um that unfortunately you know were damaged during snow removal. So yeah, but now we're going to see.

I'm surprised I'm surprised that there isn't already some sort of camera system there. I mean, I guess I just always assumed there was because there seems to be in most public spaces that you you are being monitored. That's that's correct.

Think that in your airport there is cameras. We did get um a small amount of money after 9/11 and we had security cameras in place, but they um what they were used for is not what they are intended to be. And um it's not uh our security program at the airport is a cat 4 which does not require that. Um now the one of the reasons we split the project up between the inside of the terminal and the outside is that should we be successful in getting our grant and having jet service then our everything's going to change there. We're going to be writing a 100page security program and we're going to get cameras and hopefully FAA funding for the cameras that are going to be inside the terminal. And you know it's and this happens so many times. People get to angry and go, "Mary, I left my iPad on the chair. Can you go see if it's there?" And it's gone.

I mean, that happens a lot. They somebody left something on the chair or their, you know, their duffel bag or whatever and I go down and look. I mean, probably 45 minutes has gone by and it's gone. So, it'll be nice to and it's a start. I mean, um it'll be good to have, you know, sometimes bags disappear. We've had complaints about baggage. So, um Yeah.

Yeah. And I think the most critical thing Mary just said too is that, you know, because of the security classification of our airport, the FAA will not pay for these cameras. They will pay for them in the sterile areas, those those secure areas, maybe some of the baggage and things like that. They will not pay for it out in the terminal. All of that changes depending on the security clearance or security requirements of the airport. So, I think that's why we're taking a little bit of a conservative approach in in how much we're going to spend because we we could be spending money now that we could um get 93.75% paid for in the future.

I think cameras also have the potential of reducing liability over time, not just property. I mean, property liability. I mean, if somebody's poking holes in the building with a forklift and now we're paying for it, um, you know, that's coming out of our pocket, but also parts of the airport that, you know, maybe aren't things are being stolen or people aren't behaving properly, whatever the case may be, it's an investment in reducing liability in the future. If you were to prognosticate um how close are we to um um securing an airline that would need those sorts of security opportunities.

I'm very very hopeful. I mean the application is going to be submitted uh today or tomorrow um for the small community air service development grant. Um I was um lucky enough to go to California a couple weeks ago and meet with um different airlines and promote um the chart their service into Kenai and I got some very good positive feedback. Of course, fuel was the number one consideration. I mean, and I'm sure you saw Spirit Airlines went down this morning. Um

yeah, so there's a we're I mean, we're in this environment again where aviation is really tough. I know airlines are adding um search charges for fuel. Um so yeah, it's it's just one of those times again that we've gone through in the past where here we are because of the war. We're in a fuel thing again. Illutian Airlines did not fly for April and they're not flying for May, stating that their fuel allocation was reduced from 120,000 gallons to 90,000 gallons. So they did not come to Kenai and they're not coming to go Bay.

And the only thing I'd add to that is I think we're one gas pipeline away from it happening for sure too. So, I think when that decision gets made, I think you're going to see a lot of movement because when you bring um thousands of individuals here labor-wise to the community to build the liquefaction plant in Nikkis, um they're coming through the Kenai airport and that's always been the plan. I don't think that plan's changed. I think you know so I think um between this grant and and those facts and I think just demand I think our leakage study um says that this is economical says that there is a demand um I I think we're close I mean nothing's for sure but I think we're close

well and Terry had brought up a really good point when we were working with Flet air about President's Trump's executive order to unleash Alaska's, you know, natural resources. So, um, that was also included in the grant. So, we hope somebody pays attention to that. I think our grant package, um, with the support letters from around the community, I I thought was really impressive. We may know something by September. Okay. I'm going to move on to airfield on page 212. Our mission to ensure the safety and security of aircraft the traveling public and to operate the airport in compliance with rules, regulations and standards prescribed but not limited to 139. Um we have we propose no change in staffing. Um our performance measures um as far as hazing activity is has gone down uh went down last year but we are seeing an increase. We're hoping that all the construction this summer keeps the sand hill cranes away and all the geese. Um we've had no bird strikes, our work orders, we're maintaining a good presence with those and we just had an FAA annual certain inspection last week. We don't have the final letter back. Um, we're probably going to be get um a letter of discrepancy on the air uh certification manual, the training of the fire department and the ops staff. Um, an obstruction light that's not on the wind cone at the float plane basin, and there was some issues with a couple of the uh ARF trucks on the proportioning system that we need to work out, but a lot of paperwork stuff.

um but nothing that can't be corrected in the next 30 days, 45 days. The goals um that were carried forward were received no FAA findings during the annual airport certification inspection. We'll probably have three or four and then the reduction of the wildlife interactions and or hazing events. The goal again is to get no FAA findings during the airport certification inspection, continue reducing our wildlife interactions and hazing events, and then successful completion of the runway rehabilitation project with the opening of the runway in September of 2026. And that's consuming most of our time at the present moment. Um and the future considerations for the airfield will be the completion of the master plan and the new capital improvement program. Uh looking for grants for the perimeter and security fence line improvements, taxiway Sierra with access control, lease lot developments of course um snow removal equipment, the markings, airfield markings, apron and willow street extension. And one thing I want to mention about the airfield markings that is now a going to be FAA eligible. So, I I programmed it in our last capital improvement program. Um, that can be a really costly item if if the airport was to have to pick that up.

It could be it depend depend on uh the wear and tear on your markings. But, you know, before I retired, we were um, you know, fortunate to have projects going that picked up that airfield marking and and crack sealing project. And the last couple years I was here, um, that wasn't happening. And so, we had to, you know, kind of pick up some of the markings ourselves. You know, of course, your center line gets the most, you know, your lead in lines, your old short lines. So, you look at those. We kind of spaced it out like 1 3 and 5 years to approach it. It would be my recommendation when we um put this uh RF invitation to bid out for the airfield marking that it be like a 5-year contract so the contractor knows that he's has this in place for five years. Airport Administration on page 216. Mission of the Kai Municipal Airport is to be the commercial air transportation gateway to the Kai Peninsula Burrow and West Cook Inlet. No change in staffing. Department goals of course is the air service development program. Um it's partially achieved. you know the linkage study was completed showing there's a market for additional services we worked with Valair and reached out to airlines to showcase Kenai ad the administration which I just told you I went to a conference in April um with Valair to talk to uh interested parties was interesting how many people there didn't even know where Kenai was so I took uh visitor guides the 2025 visitor guides I when the new one comes out I like to send it to the same parties that I talked few hats were a

big hit with the airport logo on them. So it was it was a good uh experience. So department goals are the continued for 27 of course the continued uh development and work towards an air service development market for an airline to fill the void left by Kina Aviation which is going to be Fox Air coming in um June 1st. their uh fees will be anywhere to 8,100 to about 8,500 a month. Um, Kenai Aviation was considerably bigger than that because they had more landings. Fox Air is going to have six flights currently. Uh, right now I believe their schedule is going to be like 8 10 2 4 and 6 and 8, but it'll depend on the demand. But they will be flying a 9 seat uh caravan. They've been in business in Bethl for about six years. And of course, all as always, future considerations is the diversity of the airport's revenue sources and pursue additional revenue opportunities. Uh, one thing I wanted to add that just came up in the past couple weeks. We've talked to the finance director about we had a Gulf Stream 5 in a few weeks ago and the pilots, we were collecting the parking and landing fees from them and they're like, "Why don't you have uh plane pass do this for you?" And we said, "Who's that?" And they explained to us um that there's a company out there that has agreements with Flight Radar 24 and this AB three different companies that track airplane air traffic and um they do all the billing and even parking fees for the airport for a

percentage of course. Um they have uh we've discovered in our meeting the other day that we probably are losing about 25% on the reports that we got for them. Um so we're looking at that. We're going to get a memo for city administration, get some more reports. Um so they'll they track everything. They track your signatory, they track your non-signatory, and like I said, they'll be able to know when they arrived and when they departed. if there's a parking fee involved. And um did I say they have a 99.6% collection rate at one year? Yes, we would be the first in the state of Alaska to use them. Um we going because of that they are willing to negotiate a lower price for the first year. So we're excited about that. It'll be It's interesting to see um because we're not there all the time. We're there Monday through Friday, 8 to 5. Planes come and go all the time. We don't see them all, you know, unless we're out there like Alaska Airlines that came in in on December 8th. Um I just realized we hadn't built them for parking and landing fees. It was almost it was $210. So that that type of thing, you know, we're missing some revenue that could be coming to the airport and this company does that.

Oh jeez. Uh what was the company name again? Plane Pass. P L A N E P A SS. And and Mary, since we're talking about cost, the charge that for you to charge that $220 or whatever you just said, I mean, how much effort does that take your department to go through that?

Well, we, you know, we take the time to contact Alaska Airlines, you know, and get the luckily I had pictures of the plane, so I knew what the tail numbers were. I knew the date. So then we had to reach out to Alaska Airlines and get, you know, the information of where to send the bill to. Um and it'll it'll al it'll save time because um you know right now parking and landing fees even for signatory and landing non-signatory is an honor system. So even finance may call me down. Well, they did actually when I came last fall and said, "We don't have any landing fees for Illusionire." And Illusion had forgot that they needed to pay landing fees. And so I contacted them and uh you know, so it's finance time is our time, you know, tracking, you know, trying to make sure we're collecting these landing fees every month. So, our signitories are supposed to pay it on the 15th of the month following the end of the month. And um we've got a pretty good rapport with Tina and she keeps track, but sometimes you know she gets busy too and uh you know it takes time to track. Yeah.

And I think what you're saying is reducing staff time equals saving money, which would potentially pay for I don't know how much Flame Pass costs, but I mean, if if we started tracking the amount of staff time involved in tracking these down, and that wouldn't count the people that aren't aren't being truthful and fair in the honor system. That, you know, maybe all those things told would make this more than worth it, more than pay for itself.

And that's what we're looking for. Well, that's where just looking at, you know, if we're missing 25% and they they want to charge a fee of 16%. Um, I I told her I told her, "Let's push back to tell, you know, tell tell him the finance guy wants 10% and see if we can't get to 12." We got 12, but did we? We got 12. Okay. For one year. So,

good job. So looking at that, you know, if we're collecting 25% more and we're only paying 12%, then that's a 13% increase we're we're going to see in our our our fees. Um, more importantly, you know, like she said, it's on the honor system. Well, now we have some form of data to tie back to what people are reporting to us and and that we can, you know, it's kind of trust but verify, right? and and so that just gives us a data point that it's um you know that we can trust that what we're being told correct numbers and and so I think that'll be beneficial too. But yeah, I think just not mention not you know not withstanding the staff time that will now save that we're looking at about a 13% increase

plus plus that number that we don't account for.

Right. Plus these pilots, they, you know, I go driving down there and say, hey, we have parking and landing fees here, you know, that a lot of times they don't even know, well, can you bill my office? We certainly can. Just give us the information. You know, we'll we'll bill you. So, um, it's it's a lot. There's a lot of money out there that I think um you know we've talked about it in the past of maybe having Crowley the fueler do it on weekends or after hours but they also wanted a fee for doing that. Yeah. And they don't have such a good call out program anymore for transit aircraft. So, um, yeah, and they're they're really excited about it cuz it we would be the first in Alaska and they've been in business for 6 years. And we're we're going to call for references, talk to other airports with our sites and hopefully uh it works out and it's cost effective for us. Any questions? Okay. U page 220 is other buildings and areas to encourage growth and development airport land by simplify simplifying and streamlining the leasing process to support the airport and city's goal of a thriving business communicate community no change in staffing our performance measures for airport lands you can see the airport land sale permanent fund is just under um 30 million and the airport as Terry said earlier receives about 1.11 million from that. Our land leases is 687,000 parcels in the reserve, outside the reserve that are all leased and our special use permits that are inside the reserve and outside the reserve. And

that special use permits are for like parking on the apron like uh FedEx's planes are on our apron and Empire's planes, excuse me, that fly for Fed FedEx. So those those are what the special use permits are. The float plane basin uh we have 35 slips available for lease. We normally have about 14 the same tenants that use that area. Um we will have two commercial operators in there this spring. One is going to start I believe around the middle of May and one around the 1st of June. So the F FY26 goals develop the west side of the airport next to the float plane basin that involves subdividing the lease lots in conjunction with the design of taxiway Sierra advertising for potential leies and exploring funding app options. um that was not rece um achieved but it is in the capital improvement program for fiscal year 28 and it is also in the program for fiscal year 27 and I might add that it is it was a number one goal of the airport commission also that the development on that west side and subdividing we plan to start the NEPA process the way the FAA process works with your grants is you do the NEP process and then you move the design which Dave spoke to earlier. Those we normally forward fund. The FA will not even look at a grant until you finish the NEA process. That has to be done first.

225 is the Alaska Fire Training Facility to be the premier aircraft and firefighting training facility for the state of Alaska by encouraging the use and maintenance of the equipment and buildings. We received uh information from uh Greatland who does the fire training over there. Um he had about the same number of students last year. There is two aircraft rescue and firefighting training facilities in the lower 48 that shut down last year. So he's hoping that you know that traffic will come up here. Um the facility repairs and mainten maintenance items that are listed here are directly related to the fire training equipment. Um we just issued a PO to uh a contractor to come up and work on the props again and that's just under 25,000. 26 department goals. Uh ran out the unused office space to another business partially achieved. Um one office is leased to the American Red Cross. And we do rent out um the area downstairs. We've gotten a lot of use. Uh we have a couple of safety companies and the burrow that come over and rent from us those buildings downstairs when they're not being used by Greatland. department goals. Rent out the unused office space to other businesses and look for additional ways to market the space, generate revenue, and establish long-term relationships. We do have currently a couple of parties that are interested in leasing space second floor

and then we also have the partnership for workforce development with KED. ABTE and to bring workforce development to this side.

One thing we're going to do, there's going to be a 40hour um I I hope uh you know, I mentioned to you before that we did the virtual scan of the airport terminal building and added it to our website. Did anybody go in and take a look at that? Well, we're going to do that to the fire training facility um in the next week or two when they have a 40hour uh fire training. So, they'll be over there with their drone and we'll also add that to the website. Yeah, we're excited about that. That's all I have. Just a kind of a quick question on the fire training facility there. I know Chief Tig is here too, but what is what what how does your department and the fire department how do they coordinate some of the activities that go there? I mean, I see the black smoke every other day or so. So, lots going on. So, um over there, but I was just curious how that

Well, the admin assisted the airport. She has a calendar and she tracks everything. So, the fire department wants to use the facility, they have to let Julie know. And um and then Graland, he supplies us his schedule also. He's in there basically from April to September. But um it's worked good. Everybody's been able to work around it. And I think the city's going to be over there a couple days this month on the 12th and 13th or 11th and 12th of May for some safety training. So yeah, we have a calendar and uh it works out good through the airport office. So before we move on from airport, I just want to take a special minute and just say, you know, Mary, thank you. Um, my my goal, my intent is for you to not be sitting in that chair next year. Um, I can't tell you how thankful that I am. I can't tell you how thankful I am that, you know, we have a lot of employees that are willing to come back after they've have left the city and um do special projects or or act as interims for us. Um I think that speaks to the organization, but it also speaks to these people and you know, being able to send Mary to California to talk to prospective airlines about coming. There's no better spokesperson for the airport. Nobody knows it better. Nobody's more passionate about it. Nobody's more energetic and excited about it or can talk about the airport better than Mary. So, I was um very thankful to be able to send her and and having you here this last year while we're trying to recruit for a new airport manager has just really been a benefit. So, thank you.

Thank you.

I will say if I'd known I'd been here for this meeting, I would have turned in a whole different budget. Can I request an add ease before we start this next presentation?

Absolutely. Want to take five minutes? You can request it. It's

You want to be on the record?

I just want to be on the record to say that uh you know other groups could also bring delicious snacks every year and So we get back on track here. Um so talking about senior citizen um revenues next you know the majority of this comes from state grants um about 30% so about almost a third of of um our funding comes from state grants. We did see an increase in that this year. That's part of um what drove the the new sheet. We we had some other tweaks too that um had to clean up the numbers there. But, uh, long story short, um, the benefit of that is is what you'll see in the upcoming budget is that we will see a decrease in what the city comes to the table with for funding for the senior

center. Um, we're seeing about about an $85,000 decrease because they've they've bumped that funding up with with the state. So, it's um it's a real benefit to the city for them coming to the table with those funds. Um the other areas we see um USDA grants we um that decreased by about 10,000 this year. Um but choice waiver, um the the Kina Puninc Bureau grant that we get um rents and leases, donations from others. And um we have the senior connection. Um we kind of break them out separately because, you know, that's 10% of this budget comes from them. And so we felt it was important to really call that out because we we really appreciate the the work that that group does and the funds that they bring into the city. And I'm sure Kathy will talk more about that as she talks about March for Meals and stuff. Um, and then uh just others kind of 300 miscellaneous stuff and then the general fund and and we are seeing that decrease down to about just a little over 200,000. So um in the upcoming year so that's um really beneficial there for us. Capital projects, we don't have any um major capital projects going on over there. We do have the condenser repair um for the 20,000 that we talked about that's on our our special project list for the year. And then our our revenue um the the kind of financial performance the goal of this fund is to operate at zero essentially. um you know if we find that we're coming in under budget then the contribution from the city decreases. Um in the prior year prior two years we've actually our revenues um cath Kathy's done a great job managing the expenses. It's our revenues um we had some decreases there. The state cut back on

their on their revenues that they provided us in the prior year by a little over 40,000. So we saw that that bumped up to about 54,000. um we were like 8,000 the year prior, 54,000 in total for um 2025, but with this additional funding um we just uh did an appropri appropriation for about 72,000 here recently. That's going to um help us bridge that gap and we should be back at zero and and that's um so our target when we budget this is always to hit zero um have a net net impact of zero. And so we're back on track with that. Um in a in a large part to the work that um Kathy's done to to kind of maintain cost and and keep them reduced as much as possible so we can do that. And with that I will turn it over to Kathy.

Hi. It may be hard to shut me up. I'm very passionate about the senior center and seniors as you know. So, but thank you for being here. Thanks for uh this is our time to get to talk to you about our department and it's exciting. Um we're excited. I do want to say I want to give kudos uh where it's due. Um if you on the new title 3 summary that you got today, that increase that we got from the state, the 72,000 that we had an ordinance to increase our um increase our budget this year was directly related to Ageet going to Juno and Red Piery who is our admin 3 at the senior center was on the board for Agnet at her previous job at Frontier Community. And so when she came over and we were lucky to get her, fortunate to get her, she came over, she asked if she could be a part of it. And age times that they meet co um they meet at the same time on a monthly basis that our council on aging did. So I wasn't able to be a part of it and so she's taken that on and they went to Juno, lobbyed for that money and we got it. So it's a big thing. She's going back to Juno again in February. So I am on page 231. Our mission hasn't changed. We're still a community focal point and um it uh just a fun place to be. As you could say, going to page 232, we don't have any staffing changes. We will be um very thrilled with the additional janitor that is going to come over. For instance, when our janitor is off uh or out, um this janitor will be able to fill in at various points and hopefully working excuse me to have um them do janitorial duties for after rentals for the senior center which is also that may be worked into that as well. So that's a

positive. Um moving on to page 233, if you look at our performance measures, things are increasing. uh seeing a gradual come back up again after COVID, but um happened in place for sure. New participants um you know that the Kai Peninsula is the second largest uh uh area in the state outside of Wasilla where seniors are moving to and seniors are the number one demographic that's moving into the state of Alaska up by about 18%. and um whether kids whether people are retiring and staying here and their folks are coming up um you know who knows it I I can't believe it's the winter weather but it uh but we do have we do have a lot of things uh the state is very good to its senior population and I I think that that's I'm excited about that aundred new participants for a year for this year is a lot that's that's uh that's exciting looking at our department goals for this last year uh marketing and promoting a positive active image. We saw that in the uh community uh survey that went out that folks were um they were pleased with what we're doing. Um happy with that. Also, Council on Aging worked on that and that was some of their goals too. Reaching out to college students and and schools and doing some inter intergenerational. We got a lot of positive feedback about that too. Number two, obtaining certification. Kayla Feltman uh worked through that in the fall. All last summer she took classes and uh she gained her activity volunteer coordinator uh certification through and I think that that is to say somebody coming in as just an activity volunteer coordinator, you have to understand the demographics of who we're working with. Not just folks my age who are retiring and up. We we're in the baby boomer age,

but we're also in an age that has a lot of dementia, a lot of Alzheimer's, and how do you how do you create um participation and activity levels that can speak to both groups? How do you uh how do you generate that? And she she did from somebody from a a business background, she did learn a whole lot. So, number three, we're still going to be working on um updating policies. And this is significant because the state updates policies. The state we're on Medicaid waiver. We just uh this week we uh submitted a reertification which is quite a bit. It's a big project but it um they update their policies all the time. So we have to update our policies and same for home and congregate meals, transportation, anything along that line. Uh number four, we're still working on the admin group that Christine and Stephanie have started and and been working with. They are targeting. Uh uh Kayla or Red will come back and they will um have uh different things that they've been working on in that admin group for the city website. So Kayla will say, "Hey, I know how to do this now. Let's add that." So that's a real positive. We'll continue to do that this next year. Increase volunteer engagement. Uh we did that. We have um we we continually have people walk through the doors um what can I do? How do we help? And uh you'll see that in fiscal year 27. Some other ideas for that creating emergency preparedness and support plan. Well, you know, we did that as well. Those of you who came and uh we did the whole presentation for council on aging and it's now part of the city's EOP. uh document 20 department policies and procedures within the new format. And it's it's kind of exciting. Something was just launched this week that um Christine put out that will be all of

our party all of our policies will be accessible and um so we are this is a continual gradual process that we'll be going through this next year and we're continuing to work on that. Uh 234 uh department goals for fiscal year 27. again, the state um updating our policies that coincide with what regulations are, enhancing the senior center website, documenting new policies, and recruiting and training three volunteer transportation and meal drivers. Now, three, you say, why not 20? Well, these aren't folks that just grow on trees. They are they're difficult to find. We currently have two and who is they have to be background checked. They have to go through driver certification. They have to be first of all willing and um so and retired. Most of them are, you know, you want to be retired. Well, one of them likes to take a five-month cruise, which leaves us in a limbo. And um so we're we're working on he was a former driver. He was a retired FAA and he started working with us as a driver. Paul,

he Yes. He we get pictures. He's been around the world this year. he's been around not the southern hemisphere, but he's been around more of the northern hemisphere and um so but wonderful that they'd like to come back and and he says uh I just want to be a volunteer. So that's great. Um future considerations for the senior center. We're working with uh public works on our long-term maintenance the condenser issue that is a special project this year. uh that was um the where the condenser is is a problem and getting to it to fix it is a problem. So they not only have to replace it, but they also have to reposition it and it's in concrete and it's on steel bars and everything and um so uh Carmemell has worked up quite a bit of a a study on what's going to happen and how that's going to take place. So thank you for that for putting that in there. So, um, the senior center, if you look at a funny thing I wanted to share. I, uh, the congregate meals, I noticed over the last month or two that congregate meals were lower and even pickup meals. And so, you know, I got to, okay, so we knew lettuce. We knew we weren't going to, if you read the newsletter, we didn't have iceberg lettuce because they had freeze outs and places around the country. So, we weren't supplying the lettuce uh for meals. But, so I started looking at our menu and what our beloved cook did was rename some of her good good things that she cooks. And so instead of having um uh so she had uh let's see, I can't think of the spice of it. Lime something pork. And I went to her and I said, "Lime something pork? Isn't that sweet and sour pork?" She goes, "Yeah." I said, "Well, 20 people came for your

sweet and sour pork and we normally have 50." And she go and I so I pointed out another one. She had a blueberry almond something salad or whatever. And I said, "Isn't that your homemade dressing that you put chicken and Thai noodles under?" And I said, "Yeah." I said, "People don't know what it is." So, if you notice on the main menu, so she goes, "Well," I was trying to get more restaurantlike. And I said, "We are not Charlotte's. We serve baby boomers and up." And I said, "They want meat potatoes. They want meatloaf. They want fried chicken. They want liver and onions. So, so if you notice on this month's menu, she has um she has gone to strictly what she's known for. And um so onions

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We had liver and onions already last week. You missed it. So, well, that was April. We're Yeah, we are in May. We are in May. Yeah. But she is amazing. But um you know, one of these days we're not going to have Missy. So, we're getting the cookies. Yeah, we don't. So, we learned rebranding does not work well with with that set of consumers.

It is a I I team at the senior center is amazing. It is uh when one person is down, uh David uh was ill this week. He's our kitchen maintenance. He's our kitchen assistant cook. And uh he lives in the Nilchick. He's in every day. His wife works at uh she is uh the food uh certification manager for Kenise uh for the Kenny Head Start and uh for the food programs at Kenise and their daughter goes to the junior high here in Kenai Middle School. And so he called in he goes we are all down and um so teams fill in. If a meal driver's out, teams fill in and uh we may be um it they everybody's willing to pitch in wherever they need to. And I really it makes a great team. We have a we have a lot of good folks and and we do a lot there. So, anybody have questions?

I I was just curious about the um the shades or the replacement. There was something about that. Advantage point. Vantage point. Yes. Oh, advantage point. Okay, no worries. I thought it was over at the Okay. Oh, we haven't Oh, I'm got the cart before the horse. I beg your pardon.

I was thinking about the uh senior connections. Yes. and and and a picture popped up on my FA, you know, feed like a few years ago with with the check for $55,000. Well, um that's changed quite a bit and and now they're a major 10% of the budget and if if you want to elaborate a little

I would be happy to speak to that. So, uh, March for Meals this year brought in, uh, almost 75,000 and, um, we're still funds are still trickling in, but we're we're ready to say it's just under 75,000. Couple years ago, it was a little higher than that, closer to 80 because of one significant donation that happened in the fall. So we start collecting uh March for Meals funds in September because folks contribute out of their IRAs and uh they have to do it by a certain timeline and so we will get some of those as they come in. Senior Connection um voted last week again to fund fiscal year 27. I asked for 120,000. They were happy to do it. um they knowing that the state contributed as much as as they have this year to our budget and uh so they will have 75,000 or around there's about $5,000 in expenses. So 70,000 will come from March for Meals and then they take the other from one of their investment funds and uh very much appreciate that. They're very supportive of our program. Uh they're hardworking group. Matter of fact, they're over at um the flea market today. We have a quilt over there and we were given uh some clothing a couple of years ago from an oil company who wanted to get rid of clothing and it's fireproof work clothes and Howard's over there selling clothing at the flea market with with um with raffle tickets for a quilt that was donated. So uh very energetic, very energizing, very appreciative of what they do. That's um that's a it's a significant part of our budget. We'll be back again to council.

Okay. So, we'll move on to the congreate housing, uh, Vintage Point. Um, so again, we'll review the revenues. Um, really the revenues here, um, come from the rents and leases and and interest on investments. Um and then the the small other portion is the the PERS related portion that that covers um employees. Um speaking of the rents, you go to the next slide here. Um last year we had that study that was completed. We had it completed in time for budget. So um in FY26 um in prior years we had been trying to bring rents up to market market rate. Um in budget 26 we did do that. Um so this year we're just seeing a CPI increase of the 2.11% that is the annual based on the annual um CPI for um Alaska. And so all rents will remain at market rate um moving forward um over there at Vantage Point.

Oh, I'm sorry. Um we are now 265. Thank you for the reminder. Um capital projects. Um, as we mentioned earlier, um, we've got 50,000 for hallway refinishing and 50,000 for apartment, kitchen, and bathroom remodels. Um, and and even in the long term, we're typically trying to invest about $100,000 a year um, in kind of replacing, refreshing, and keeping things up to date over there. For special projects, we have the blinds. Um we're looking at doing 12 units this year and then the dry sprinkler heads um for to so that gives us a total of $137,000 that we'll be investing in capital projects and special projects over there for the financial fund performance. Um you know generally we're kind of tucking away money. Where you see that big drop there is back when we had the generator and boiler replacement. And so that's um so that um you know we're doing some of these little projects every year, but occasionally we have these these more higher dollar um projects over there. And so that's where you see those spikes um or or see those drastic drops and I'll let Kathy make sure she speaks to the details of it, but we're on the cusp of you know the next big remodels we've got going on. We have 40 units that the kitchens and bathrooms are 30 plus years old now and in need of refinishing and um the architects in there doing the design on that stuff now. So that'll be the next big capital thing that you see start to come out of this. I'm on page 265 and uh speaking to that the remodels I'll

just jump right in since Terry brought that up. They uh the uh Chris Parker is working on the architectural design study for what would go out to bid for construction for these. Um, some things we definitely wanted to work on and and um and increasing the size of the shower, decreasing a jump a foot step into a shower, um the kitchen, making them more accessible, but not not completely ADA accessible, but um making them more usable for somebody who may not be 510, you know. So, um they were in need. The laminate c uh cabinetry is uh from 1992 when the building was built. it is that Bill has replaced it many many times. We also we're in the middle of an RFP out for the contractor and that ends in a couple of days and we're we're anxious to see how that develops. But um when that goes, we already have funding in the capital project that was put in over several years. So with that will be when the RFP goes out for the contractor to start that we'll take an empty apartment. Uh we'll move we'll take the one uh actually we'd have to start with uh say an empty apartment was now we would move um uh the first apartment that needs it the most and Bill has a list our current contractor has a list of which apartments need the most work the most and so we'd move the tenant into that building into that apartment work on the apartment that needs it and then move them back out move the next one in so it's possible we would have one apartment that wouldn't be rented for a period of time until the funding. Now, finding a contractor who's willing to do that on that level, you know, that will be a little bit of a fun time, but um anyway, we're we're very optimistic about it. So, our rents start, if you look on page 3 265, our rents start at

1051 going up to 1262. Uh two-bedroom oceanside, 1262 seems pretty good. So um looking to page 266, we currently we have no staffing changes for this year. Um you can see we have had recently we've had a lot of folks moving out whether it's due to um a multitude of physical, mental, um sometimes even just passing. Um so a lot of folks from here they'll go into long-term care and um we've seen that also recently too. We currently have 117 on our weight list. So we have gone through quite a few folks this year. Some have moved off the weight list, but every week we're gaining about two. So we we um we encourage but but we may lose two or three that week as well. So

can I ask you a quick question? What's the average length of time on your weight list? It is right now it's over two years. It is um at one point I could when I was calling folks for the weight list for years, I would say it's six months to a year and a half. We now tell them it's going to be two or three years.

Uh fiscal year 26 goals. Um we are working on the finalizing design plans. That's still in the works for that. I'm hoping that this will be done before fiscal year starts. Uh number two, implementing a schedule for antiquated lighting and heating system. We had some leak issues this year and so we're pausing on the lighting and um until those are properly addressed and and we can get those finalized. Um number three, the RFP award for construction phase that will be moved over into uh fiscal year 27. The hallway and commons areas lighting that will be moved over into fiscal year 27 as well as that came up on the capital project. um number 10 back to department policies as well and um working through that next year and initiating the comprehensive long-term maintenance. The same thing that we do for the senior center. We have a building the senior center is older than Finish Point. Um and uh so what we're seeing the dry sprinkler system is air. It's um it's a it's it doesn't have water in it. is air pressure. And um so there is a compressor unit on the second floor that that does that. It goes through the attic because we know now that if you have a wet sprinkler system in the attic, it will freeze as we found out uh several years ago. And so some of the heads on those are are embedded into um sheetrock and ceiling. So the cost of replacing those, it's not just the dry sprinkler points. It is um it is the sheetrock around it that's got to be fixed and repaired and that added a cost to it. So um on page 267, uh while we did the emergency oper continuity of operations, we're going to

do the same thing for Vantage Point. We're going to start on that. What does that look like? um and already started, matter of fact, to to work on that. And um so letting our tenants know, okay, here's what happens in the event of an emergency. Here's what we're going to do. Um they know there's vans out there that will be taking them away from the building if that if something happens, but what does this look like? Um again, number two, the modernization first floor east hallway and commons areas contingent on the funding finalized and implementation of implementation of the comprehensive long-term maintenance and renovation plan. So, brings me to the blinds, Glenise, your question on the blinds. So, we have um the the uh drapery, the drapes that were initially put in the building in 1992 had specifically designed railways for this. There's very specific and uh they were all ordered. Everything was was perfect for each one of them until we had to go replace them. and then trying to find a company that would fit this railway system that doesn't cost $5,000 an apartment until about two years ago. I'm in a budget meeting and our city manager says, "Why don't you try blinds?" And I thought, "Well, that was an easy one." So, we are replacing all of them with um those that need it. Some people still have nice curtains. They want to keep those, but those that have We know the curtains need to come down and um need to be replaced. We're taking out the railway system, finishing up so it does it looks and we're putting in a wide panel uh uh vinyl blind into the apartments and they love them. They really love them. So that's what we're continuing on this next year with the blinds. That is all I have unless you have questions for me.

Um, what is the current occupancy of Vantage Point? 40. 40. Y and you have almost triple the waiting list for that. We do. We do.

So, you know, um I was speaking with a former mayor and um if we had a mirror image of Vantage Point, we could completely feel that. And you know, I'm just putting it out there that our community could actually utilize more space for market current market price for those. And um I would like to see a long-term goal, maybe shorter term to do that for our community. And I would have to speak with the city manager, but um if we have the space available and with the um bluff erosion project having been completed, um I think it would be a great addition. I'm just throwing it out there saying that it looks like a need for our community and uh it would be a great asset for that space um and an asset for the city. Thank you. If I could address that, I believe in our long range uh capital plan is a feasibility study for additional senior housing.

And um the the issue feasibility studies have a life expectancy. They they do um they only are good for a period of time and they're going to be over 300,000 for a feasibility study. I we have the one from 1988. It goes into everything from um it goes to to demographics to the where it's going to be, what it's going to be for city utilities, what it's going to be for where it's going to be. Um and I I have no doubt that a feasibility study would show that there's a need for it. Ours are ours are unique in the fact that what happens if somebody applies for an apartment say in one of the apartments um that accepts low-income housing in this area that folks who are homeless and are on low income get prioritized. So, we just I've seen that this week where a couple came in and they say, "We we can't get we're on a wait list, but we keep moving up because people who are are homeless or lower income, they get first priority if they accept low-income housing, whereas uh Vinish Point does not. But I think um you know, I think it would be interesting to see the biggest issue would be funding." And uh from what we I have uh talked with Senator Sullivan's staff and there is not funding right now for a building like ours uh there may be funding for feasibility and we hope to find that but but the biggest issue would be funding

and I know right now in our current low interest rate uh putting out a bond for that might be advantageous and I had some questions for the finance director in regards to that. Thank you. Well, not to carry it on too much, and I I I tended to agree with that whole idea, but there's a lot of private activity going on with senior housing in the area right now. Some that hasn't been built that's going to be and whatnot. And I'm not sure how that's going to impact the need. And and do you have a feel for that? Is it going to make a whole lot of difference? Is that Can I see? Yeah. In particular, Yeah.

What did you say? KPHI

KPHI also um is uh is they do have low-income units and they are prioritized. They have uh Chuda House Woodridge Apartments um anybody on a government program. Uh, one of the issues with Kaiti, we're getting uh folks from um the the uh the housing that is owned by Kaiti in the building that um folks are losing their leases for these. And so we're seeing a lot of that. They may come to the senior center to get help on senior housing, not just for Vintage Point. But it is a huge issue. It's a huge issue and I don't know that it will fulfill all the needs. I know it will be very beneficial to a group of of uh lowincome and uh and members of kiti group. I know that so and I would hope KPHI we do have folks who live in those apartments who come to the senior center and are active Okay, up next we're going to have personal use fishery. Uh be page 188 is where you'll find that in the the book. How are you? And so this is just a graph of the revenues um showing kind of the different different areas um that that we've got budgeted for um the revenues

showing the beach parking investment earnings beach camping participant drop off dock launch and park dock parking and then and then PERS grants. Um so we're looking at about 536,000 there um for projected revenues. Um we did in FY25 we did hit over 500 the $500,000 mark there for the first time. So um so it's um continues to grow and is healthy. So for capital projects um we didn't have any for the PU fishery but we did have a few of the special projects. One is a sign laminator and then the two ranger replacements that I um spoke to earlier. One for parks and wreck and the other for public safety. And then again, here's the um showing the the performance of the fund. Um that yellow line again being the fund balance and and again real healthy seeing how it kind of bounces up and down as we we make additional investments in um you know and like just seeing the drop um drop down a little bit last year. We did replace like I said we replaced one of the sidebysides for police last year. So or or we are in the current year. So um so again that's that's looking real healthy and and functioning the way way we expected to. So I'll go ahead and turn it over to So um over the years we've done a number of changes at the PU fishery. Nothing too crazy this year. I think one of the most significant ones we did several years ago was on Spruce Street. We added a bypass lane so you could drive around the shacks. um that has been a lot of people have really enjoyed that. The the public has enjoyed that. It doesn't seem like we had many issues with Boys and Girls Club moving in there. The church has enjoyed that. Um and then our our return customers have uh enjoyed that where PU Fishery members can now leave

and if they have a valid permit don't have to wait in line. And I think our locals have enjoyed that cuz we haven't had any major uh traffic back up on the highway, which if you uh kind of look at our views down here, we have our total transactions are, you know, 18,400 and then we're projected that out to keep the same. Last year, we had good weather and lots of fish. So, the fact that, you know, I think our 5 a.m. is when we open up and our fees change, you can buy a day use pass. I got it reported twice. We were back on the highway but never going towards town on the which is huge. My first year with the fishery. There was one Saturday where traffic was backed up to the visitor center and uh I came in and the PD came in. We worked for about an hour to get that line brought down. But we haven't had that issue since we've expanded that bypass lane. So that's been really cool to see. Uh we've had we had a consistent vendor all year last year. Uh they also brought in a coffee cart. Uh I think we're expect we've had interest come out again. So, we're reviewing our current like kind of vendor policy so we can share that with the public to see if we can generate interest down there for local vendors and everything, but we had a person go down there and sell ice for the whole fishery last year. So, the members seem like the fishery members seemed like they really enjoyed that. We also had a couple days of a coffee cart and a couple days of empanadas, I think. So, uh going down to our department goal, uh we've we've done signage replacements. My first year with the fishery, uh, we had contradictory signs that were left down there. We we always have faded signs. We always kind of battle that. Uh, one thing we haven't had is a sign inventory. We started that process kind of during the fishery last year and it was a big bite to chew off and it's partially achieved. But one thing we've uh succeeded in doing I'll say at our dock we've set up a really good like map where it can kind of be easy for our team like logistically to set up where we have you know there's a number one on the map and that's this sign and that

kind of started building our inventory in itself. So you'll see in our next year goals is to create and complete detailed setup maps because that will double as an inventory and just help our park staff and our PU staff and even our I think our temporary enforcement officers and everyone to see a snapshot of what it's going to look like when it is set up. Uh and then we have move and repair one of the walkways on North Beach. Uh so we have a lot of uh pathways that go over the dunes on North Beach and that protects them and they're building up. Uh sometimes some of them washed away. Uh in November we the last two November we had some very big tides and it moved the ballards. They're still there. We go back in and repair those but the dunes are building up and those pathways are getting covered and it's more and more becoming what I call I I call it trail maintenance. So, one of the best ways to do it is to probably dig out and destroy part of the dune. Not really destroy it, but so you can excavate the sand off to the side. It's common when you do pathway maintenance in like national parks and everything to protect the woods. You have to kill some of the woods to make the pathway so people stay on the pathway. Uh, one technique we found is we have our backup snowb blower that that is a good way to move sand on a beach. Turns out that is a life hack that one of our maintenance staff find. So they were walking with a snowb blower after we used our backo to dig sand going up over the walkways and blowing it off to the side and that worked really really well and it's still functional. We we we spray it off and clean it really really well. So that's been really cool to see as we we battle maintenance with those every year and it can also depend on the tides. They can push sand up on the pathways. They can tear it off and make it more increased. So it was really cool to see our staff be really successful with that. uh our FY27 department goals, create and complete detailed setup maps. Uh we have a lot of maps, a lot of setups. We kind of want to standardize those. And I again, I'll give an example. You know,

we put up a bunch of signs on the beach uh that say, you know, please bring your fish down to the tideline and dispose of your fish properly. Do not throw it away. Uh we just have a lot of those. Uh you know, sometimes they break, sometimes we replace them. But to do a detailed map and have an inventory, I think would be really helpful for park staff. So it's not someone going off in house knowledge of where and why they go there. I think we always have that question every year like, oh, where are we going to put this jersey barrier? Where are we going to put this sign? So uh I think these are really good, this is a really good goal to steal there. And then restructure the website. Uh you know, one things we're kind of looking at is our DipNet app. If you look at the DIPNET report that comes out to the uh council in uh the fall after the fishery is our DIPNET app numbers have been going down consistently and uh the city manager mentioned it earlier progressive web apps are kind of taking over. So as we look at new websites to see what it would be like to restructure that and have put all of our information in one area. So we're you right now you can go to the Kai Dipnet app. You can go to the and go to the city website for information. But if we can funnel that all to one congruent site that would be really nice I think for staff and patrons as that apps are kind of progressing out as well too. I think you hear more and more I don't want to download an app.

Yep. Uh and then future considerations. Uh this one has been on here. Uh participants in the fishery have repeatedly mentioned that the city of Kenai should have a permanent campground available during the fishery and other summer months. So just one of those things as you'll hear me talk about probably a little bit when I talk about the parks and wreck budget going forward. But um I'm happy to answer any questions. We don't have any fee increase suggestions or any big major operational changes besides I know we're doing some dock work, but that is all in public works, managing the dock, not directly related with the fishery. So, did did I just hear you say that there were no fee increases? Yes.

Um, so with the cost of everything going up and the cost of running this PU fishery, why would we not increase those fees to uh compensate for our increase for running this? Please,

let's say uh we increased our fees I want to say three three years ago and then uh in the discussion it was also to be mindful of that this is a resource for Alaskans. So if we're covering our cost and we don't see the direct need for an increase just to always be mindful of that so we're not making that resource hard for Alaskans. But it's something I think we'll keep our eye on as you know as we get bids for like our toilets and everything and we do see increased costs so we can cover those. Great. I just want to make sure that we do not go as a city in the whole to provide this opportunity since we don't have any compensation for the state who mandates that we do this opportunity for our um fellow citizens of Alaska and that the um bulk of it falls upon the citizens of Kenai. So I want to make sure that that cost is spread out uh so that our citizens are not unduly um unduly Yes.

subsidizing this fun thing for our whole state. Thank you. And I appreciate all the hard work because I know that this is um a huge endeavor. Thank you. No, from from all departments, you know, I think it's it's really an all hands on deck uh for the whole city and it's uh it's been um parks, I think, took it over, not took it over, but took on to be the one point of contact as it goes forward uh several years ago. So, it's it's been a really cool to see how the city comes together and puts this on.

Well, and I wanted to sort of I guess piggyback on that a little bit. I I live the fishery is between where I live and where I work. So, when in the month of July, it's in my face every time I come or go from my house. And over the last I would say 15 20 years um there's a marketked difference in how much better it is being managed. I as a resident don't feel as inconvenienced or annoyed I guess um by by all the things by the traffic backed up um because of my work before you had that lane the the bypass lanes in um before Boys and Girls Club was Boys and Girls Club when it was the care center and I was going to the care center regularly that was a problem or when I was going to Our Lady of the Angels regularly that was a problem. So little things like that um have cons have have just there's been a little bit more every year and they've continued to build on themselves which I think has reduced the negatives as far as quality of life stuff goes for residents over the years. I mean I I guess what I'm trying to say is I can see a marked improvement and I and I appreciate it.

Thank you. And I'm in love with the snowblower idea and am going to take that home to my husband the next time that we're trying to sweep sweep it all out of the the driveway or the grass or whatever. So, we're I'm going to give it a shot.

The only thing I'd like to add is um you know, I think I I agree. I think over time we've really matured in in our management of um what I will still characterize as organized chaos has it really is I mean it's something new every year uh and a new challenge and I think that you know our staff do an amazing job of and meeting that stuff head on and dealing with it. The the thing I think we we still um as a city, as a community, uh need to improve on with the fishery is um learning how to capitalize on it still better. Learning how to, you know, um you know, enhance our revenue streams from it. You know, we still we we did have some vendors, I agree with Tyler, that that were able to to locate down at the fishery, but that's been really I mean, in the 20 almost 20 years I've been doing this, it's we haven't had consistent vendors down there. I mean, some figuring out a way to, you know, um you generate revenue for the community in a way that also provides, you know, something that the visitors want when they're coming here. I think we still have a long way to go and um it's one of the biggest events in the state of Alaska for Alaskans for a 3-week period and I think there's opportunity here for both them and us and and Keen I can benefit from that but it's going to take new ideas I think working with chamber working with businesses um just just trying to capitalize on it a little bit better

which I would sum up in one word camp round.

Um, since we have you here, Tyler and the city manager, um, do y'all have any suggestions on where this uh, city of Kenai campground would go? Because once upon a time when I lived here, there was a city campground which was on forest and that has since been um, stopped. So, I was just wondering if y'all have some ideas about where y'all might want to place that opportunity for our visitors in the city.

I I can try to tackle that a little bit. Actually, we had multiple campgrounds in the city. There used to be one uh right where Walmart's located. Um, and so, um, you know, I think if when you, uh, get to see and take a look at your master plan for the parks and recck department, there's some thoughts on that, you know, um, as the city's able to, um, grow and and things, the sports complex heading out of town to the north side, um, maybe moving some of the little league fields and things like that out there, um, and consolidate, um, that that plan's looking at. I I think that area right there on um South Spruce um right heading to the beach. Um I will remind council there was a proposal by the city at one point in time and it's now land that's been donated to the um to the Boys and Girls Club, but there was a proposal to put a um campground there, you know, and it met a fair amount of opposition. So, um, you know, I think this is something we need to work with the community. I don't have specific sites. I will say that there is information in the parks and rec master plan that that does talk about it. But, um, you know, it's going to take, uh, conversation with the community about what they want and where they would like to see that. But, um, I I don't disagree with you. I think a campground is um, it's hard to be a tourist town and tell people you want them to come stay in Kenai. Um and you know for for a long time the only place to camp was in Walmart. You know we do have two working campgrounds in town now. Um one at the old port of Kenai uh privately and then one out towards Beaver Loop that um gentleman is trying to work too. So you know I think um private enterprise is trying to move in and greet some of this but um I think there's still opportunity

We're up to general fund now. We're going to move on to the general fund and and um Tyler will be the first one up when when it comes to that. So kind of doing back to back here, but um at this point we're going to page 66.

So with uh general fund, we'll cover the revenue, sales tax and property tax, talk about our capital and special projects, um fund balance compliance, and um our historical performance here. So for the general fund um sales tax makes up um you know 50% and if you look at page 47 kind of shows you a breakout of of the different types of businesses and that that um and the different percentages. So you know 75% of that's retail trade. Um so uh but it does um amount to 50% of our budget, you know, followed by property taxes and then um the other is that's all of the fees and charges that we have in the city. So ambulance fees, inspection fees, traffic fines, plan reviews, permit fees, rec center, multi-purpose facility rentals. Um so any any type of fee that we charge um that's where those all go into that line item. Um our central admin fee, our interest on investments, and then our transfers in. So, that that is one thing that um with the PU Fishery, we do transfer in $75,000 a year is what we've been able to transfer into the general fund um to cover some of our our our overhead cost um related to more of our central admin type of stuff where those that are directly doing work like the streets department, the parks and wreck, we actually charge directly to the PU fishery. 75

75,000. Um so in regards to tax revenue, you know, that's been increasing. I I think um when you did the state of the city, I think I want to say you said 34 quarters consecutively it's been increasing. Um and we're seeing that continue. Um when we budget for this we're current year budget we did 2 and a4%. This year we're doing 2.75. In uh 2025 we saw that number for the year was at 3.3. What we're seeing currently um just in fourth quarter this year the most recent quarter we were up 7%. Um seven 7.28. Um the quarter prior to that was up 2.2%. So, um, that continues to be doing really well and you know, that's one thing that certainly as we see gas prices go up, so does our sales tax on, you know, every time you we pump gas at the pump, right? Um, so we're seeing that that is continuing to to stay healthy and stay strong and and um enable us to to support what we do here at the city. Dave, do we have have any way to track which sales tax is which what what the main he said fuel which I was thinking about, but then there's retail and other things. Do we have that data?

I I don't know that we do. I could probably reach out to the burrow and see what they might have. You know, again, this the information on that page 47 does kind of break it out by the types of businesses, but yeah, I imagine that under retail that um you know, probably you know, things like we're paying for gas is probably under that. So, I probably I I'll try to reach out and see if they can qualify that better. But when you're talking to a store like Three Bears that has a convenience store and gas, I don't know how well they get that get that broken out other than it's just retail sales. Um, we we can certainly inquire though and see because it it'd be interesting to see the impact that that that has. Aren't they taxed just slightly different because what I mean food versus I mean when you're talking about the if you're three bears whatever the gas would be I mean that's all taxed but if you're at three bears store buying things food is going to be taxed differently than

right that's done not by the city not by the city not the city it's only the burrow that's tax

so the burrow has a non-prepared food tax exemption that goes into effect for half of the year. Um we did not as a city um adopt that. It's also the primary that was the primary driving reason why our sister city decided to go to be a home rule city um because they didn't want to adopt that um non-prepared food tax exemption. But I think what what I really want to emphasize is, you know, like I think sometimes people question how the economy in Kenai is doing when you see our sales tax, you know, for 34 consecutive quarters have year-over-year growth. Our 12 our quarter ended December of 2025 was up over 7%. Year-over-year, okay? And it's not that wasn't fuel, folks. I mean, I'll I'll give you probably some utilities because I know what my gas bills were in my house during um this last cold winter, but this first quarter um of first calendar quarter of 2026, we we should be getting that data here in the next week or so, I expect our sales tax to be up significantly because of um gas prices. I mean gas is a um one of our larger contributors on sales tax because it's high volume and it's virtually all taxable right there. And so um our sales tax I think is going to be well exceed our two and you say two and a quarter is what we were for fiscal 26 year. So, our retail sales continue to be incredibly strong and um you know I think you know we've just this graph shows the you know this is this is all related to sales growth. There's not one rate change in here. There's not one exemption change in here. We didn't we didn't start taxing something we didn't before. Um some of that may be um online sales too

as we've implemented online sales um you know um tax there. So, some of that may be a little bit new, but this really speaks to how well um I think our local economy do and then our retails are do retailers are doing. Uh doesn't mean there's still not room for improvement and help there, but you know, I think our sales tax we're it's over 50% of your general fund revenue now. And I think Terry just covered this slide. So, uh, this is our property tax revenue. And so, what you see here is the green is personal property. Kind of the red there is is, um, the gas and oil property. And then the blue is the real property. So, like your home values that we see. And, uh, I think Terry spoke to this previously. Um, you know, we've not changed our mill rate, but what is happening is the value of homes are are have been increasing. And so that's where we're seeing that um along with some of the development that we're seeing within the city as well though. But that to keep in mind that as as your values increase so does the taxes that we pay and that we collect on those. And this is a great great slide. Um this is one where hey I'm a I'm a homeowner. What am I getting for the money that I pay? And so so we've broken this out to show um you know we take into consideration like uh the exemption that $75 thou $75,000 exemption that the um that the bureau has that they put in where this is based on a $350,000 home. Um and so you're looking at um two 207,000

of which 105,000 10522 is is um goes directly to the city. And then we've broken it out into kind of different categories here as to um where that money is spent between departments, between general fund, between public safety, public works, and and parks and wrecks. And so, um, I think this is a really good tool to be able to show citizens, here's here's where we're spending our money. Here's how we're responsibly spending the funds that we receive from you for your taxes.

Yeah. Thing I'd like to throw in here, too, is, you know, I mean, Lee and I got an email this week from, you know, a citizen, and, you know, they they live on a dirt road here in the city and, um, you know, it's it's a tough time of year to live on a dirt road, I got to tell you, right? I mean, it's break up and until we can get the water to dissipate and the ground to start taking it, it's it's difficult to to keep things smooth without actually causing more damage to the road than than just leaving it alone for a little bit. But, you know, this individual wants to quote to us how much they pay in property tax. And it's a slide like this that helps us remind them that, hey, I we get it. you know, we we totally understand where you're coming from, but what you have to remember, too, is that, you know, out of the $1,500 that this $350 um,000 house pays to the city, you know, $650 of that just goes to for you to have the opportunity to pick up the phone and call 911 when somebody your house gets hurt, somebody gets sick or your house catches on fire, you know, or somebody's stealing something from your house. I mean, this is there there's a whole bunch of these other costs that people don't think people take into account. And I think this we want this to be here for council to provide you a tool to talk to citizens about, you know, these are the services that the city pays for and here's a dollar for-dollar representation of what, you know, your tax dollars go to when you pay a bill.

I don't know. I don't know if um in if this could be a forefront on our uh website so that our um citizens have a greater understanding because I know it it greatly opens my eyes to recognize that uh for my property tax this is what I'm getting for my property tax and I think this goes un said and it's unknown and it's not because I'm not appreciative it's unawareness and so there was some way that we could incorporate this in some of the city literature to uh educate our our fellow citizens. I think it would be give a greater appreciation. So, thank you. I I think it's a selling point for Kenai overall, though. I mean, I think that the things that the city provides um in many ways are are more than other communities. And that makes Kenai a more attractive place to live, to work, to raise a family. Um, I mean, I'm thinking about the the master plan for um parks when the man was tell explaining it to us and he was talking about I guess there's a ratio for those things and we're ahead of the curve. I mean, things like that that Kenai has to offer, they cost money. Um, but the payoff is you can take your kids, your family, whatever to do these things. So I I I agree it would be really great to have it on the website, but I think this is something that we should consider when we're talking about come live in Kenai. The these are the things that I think people would be interested in knowing. I must say that um when it snows here, I frequently send pictures to my friends in Anchorage. and and let them know that it snowed last night and it's 8, you know, 7:30 in

the morning and I'm driving to work and my streets already plowed. Um, and not into the middle. I

I think there is a lot of value to what you said there that um we do provide some great services and I think that's just one example, but I do frequently remind my friends about it. I I have a lot of fun with it. Um so capital projects um we kind of u showed these earlier um the different street projects that we have going between Will and Airport Way P uh repaving the construction of that this happening this summer public safety building um design for lot and Tinker design for an oldtown playground. I'm looking at uh rec center locker room refurbishment, gravel road improvements. Um maybe that guy will be on on the list for this Terry. Um street light decorations replacement and senior door center uh door project. Um over at the special projects, I I I went through went through all these um previously, so I don't I don't think I'll repeat those again. Um but those are all kind of the general fund projects that we had there. Um the next slide is our general fund balance. Um looking at our policy compliance here. Um just, you know, real quick, the minimum fund balance is what that red line at the bottom is. The blue line at the top is our maximum fund balance. That that blue block that you're seeing that that's kind of the sweet spot in between the two of those. And for a number of years, the the yellow line represents where actual fund balance is at. Um, we've been riding along the top side of that for a number of years, primarily due to all of the funding we received doing during the COVID period. Um, and council was real good at putting those additional funds, you extra extra money we had during those periods, putting those into capital project um, projected for future capital projects as opposed to spending it on operating cost. Um and now now we're

starting to see where we've got some major road projects. Um and so that's going to kind of bring us down off the top end of that. Um and we've had other projects that we've done over the years that have um we've been able to do because of those funds being available. And so that's where you see that yellow line dipping down. And certainly in 28, you know, I think that, you know, moving that $ 1.9 million road project there, I think is is one of the things that's really impacting that. Um, and so you'll see that as we continue to build our out our capital projects that we we still are able to do those but stay within our fund balance parameters. And then general fund financial performance. Um, again you're seeing how that's kind of moving up and down as it should. The yellow line being the fund balance. Um you'll see there um in 25 it's kind of the the third one from the the right we had um we came in about $2 million to to the good that year. Um reasons for that is on a $22 million budget. We had projected a $1 million lapse. Um we typically look to um have five come in 5% under budget is kind of the challenge that we put before the directors. But also that year we um we our sales tax was almost 500,000 higher than projected. The other thing that we saw happen that year was our SEMT, our supplemental emergency medical transport funds. We typically get one payment a year. Um we've been submitting that uh reimbursement in March. We usually get it in October. Last year we submitted in in March. Uh we got the we received it in October. We submitted in March for 25 and we actually got it in June, right? Literally right the last week of June. So it came in a year ahead of, you know, in a budget year ahead of time. We're

hoping to maybe repeat that this year. We we'll see how it goes. We we got that turned in um earlier than March this year. So um it seems that maybe the state's kind of finally getting up to speed on that process. They typically once we submit it, they have six months to to get that out to us and they usually wait the full six months. They didn't last year. So, um we'll we'll see how that impacts us this year. And then our investment portfolio was up um 93,000 higher than projected. So, with with those things, we we saw that we had our um revenues came in above expenses um pretty significantly that year. But again, um we're looking at, you know, that fund balance and seeing that decline a little bit. Again, it's moving up and down and that's that's just what we want that to be doing. And and the only thing I would add there, again, I think Dave mentioned it earlier, is um I think there needs to be a real understanding and emphasis on reoccurring expenses and one-time expenditures. And while you see a projection for fund balance to be decreasing in the next few years, it's decreasing as a result of one-time expenditures. Okay? If that was if that was because of um reoccurring operational every you know recurring type expenses I would be very concerned and you should be very concerned as well. Okay. In my opinion that's what the state's graph looks like but it's worse and it's heading in the wrong direction because of operations. Not they've virtually cut all capital at the state. There's very little capital except for what they have to invest to get federal match now. Um, so I think that's a primary difference I think that we focused on here at the city. And yes, fund balance is projected to go down. That was planned. You know, for the last few years, council has taken action to set aside or to allow for our fund

balance to exceed what um the policy calls for, specifically to hold those funds for future capital projects. Now, we're starting to roll those projects out. Um, we've got staff in place. I think that we can get these projects on the street and get them done. And so fund balance is going to start coming down, but it's not because of recurring expenses. It's these one times.

But what I mean, what you're saying is we we were effectively planning for the future for whatever rainy day fund and now it's raining. So, I mean, yeah, it looks, if you just take it at glance, it looks like we're spending more than we should be, but we were we were bulking up our savings so that we could spend when we needed to.

Well, and that bulk up of savings, I think, is critical for taxpayers to understand. Um, the the majority of that came from, like Dave said, from the tranches of money we got during CO. This is money the city never expected. If you go back and look at our budgets before CO happened, we were rejecting um seasonal sales tax um increases and some other things because we didn't have the money coming in for capital. We got a significant amount of money that came into the community during CO. We pumped a bunch of that out to local businesses. We did a lot of things we that we could to try to mitigate the effects of CO here in the community, but we didn't take the rest of it and just spend it. We held on to it. We knew we were going to need it for these to get our capital plan kicked off as state funding is almost been completely eliminated for local capital projects and um that's where that money came from. It wasn't like we taxed people um to to generate that and I think people really should understand that.

No, I agree. Thank you for clarifying that.

Okay. And with that, um, we'll we'll go back to Tyler, page 171. We'll get into parks and reck or do we need to before before Tyler starts, you've been here all all morning. So, I think we got to complete that portion, you know, for parks that there is some food that has arrived and right after Tyler's done, we can actually bring some of that out. And uh, but anyway, just wanted to mention it. I got a note here before, you know. Yeah, I can smell it, too. I want to have a riot going here, you know.

All right. Parks and rack. So, I'll start off with going over just some of our performance measures. Our um you know, our total rec

Oh, sorry. 172. The budget starts on 171 with the introduction of the budget or the introduction of the department and kind of overall what we manage. So, if you turn to 172, uh we have our kind of year-over-year uh performance measures. We go over uh and I talk about those. Uh our total record center visits are just slightly down. Uh I don't know if that's due to a new building that went up or if anything in those lines, but one thing you'll see in the midmon reports I provide council a number I've started tracking over these numbers reflect our total signins. you know, so if you're there for an activity, if you're there to work out, play basketball, take a sauna, uh play volleyball, we have you sign in. But one thing it's not capturing is, you know, mom and dad bringing their kid and watching them practice or, you know, a family coming in watching someone play city league. So I think that number actually underrepresents the department and who we're serving in the total number. So, if you look in my midmons, I think you'll see like, you know, I'm going to throw this off the cuff, like, oh, 3,000 signins, but then if you start looking at our tracking data that we've started picking up, it's like 5,000 visits. So, I think, you know, that number could change in the future. If you look at previous narratives, you also notice there's not this huge paragraph underneath there, which uh uh when I inherited this list, I didn't have really an operational definition for all of these. So, I don't think our total program based activities really increased. I think we just accurately captured it at 16 for some events we do and stuff we do at the rec center. Our total pedestrian trails as we were getting ready for our master plan. We kind of remapped those. We did add about 100 ft of trail at Dobin Spec Pond because uh if you walk around that trail, it's a gravel trail, but it went down onto an open beach and it was super sandy and just accessibility. It wasn't the most accessible way to walk in there. It was a sharp drop off. So, we added a bypass around there. when the library installed a story walk, we partnered with the library and got a

storywalk installed around that loop, but accessibility was a big concern. So, we actually added a little pathway along there. Uh we haven't added that much path, but we've reaccur we've recaptured what we're actually taking care of. And then total shel shelter reservations did increase. Uh ice reservation hours were down. That was probably most likely due to our super cold winter. Uh we get a lot of cancellations when it's uh below zero. Uh something you'll see in our goals is to develop policies and one of those is to probably try to help mitigate that because we've had teams cancelled and one team says we'll tough it out and then they leave and then we're paying our contractor to be there. So it's one of those things we're trying to look at how can we kind of mitigate those costs in there that we see with that cuz if our contractor scheduled and there's a team that cancels what's an act of God, what's our balance? So you'll see in our narrative goals of policy creation so we can kind of follow up on those volunteer hours. Um you know I think in the last few years we've tracked these better and we've pushed you know to get more volunteers whether it's you know we do get called to community service or courtmandated volunteers but we also have a lot of great people that show up. Uh you know we had pickup day last week and we had 25 volunteers there who probably did two to three hours each. uh we have a log of it and we try to keep those people that show up at our events and help out in our plant days and we have some really great people that do that. Uh we just had a senior service project a senior came in from city of Kina sorry Kina Central High School and uh he did a new coat of paint on our uh hockey nets. So they're going to look super nice and fresh and that was it's always cool to get calls from the local high school for kids looking to do some service projects. So big shout out to that program. you touch. I know we talked about I got a suggestion from a council member about what would you like?

I got a suggestion about reach make sure we're reaching out to our commission informing them of opportunities to volunteer reaching out you know even the council and I mean I mean I know you guys are going to make a concerted effort in a year to make sure even reach out even more to get more participation. You guys are going to see a lot more signage that includes a term that our assistant director Jenna started using that we've gotten calls on when she posts these volunteers needed in a big yellow with a red lettering with just that line like you know we've we've said it in smaller font and everything but just that graphic gets us phone calls within 24 hours. So yeah, we are doing do a more concentrated effort to get those community volunteers and I think also work with our community volunteers and you'll see that in my goals with some of our local nonprofits and everything as well. Uh one uh tree uh removal permits, you know, this came about right before I started with the city as people we have beetle killed trees falling and getting cut down. Uh people can apply for a permit and uh remove trees for their personal use if they clean it up. I've only issued six of those so far this year. Um another way we're trying to benefit community members with this uh we do have a general pickup area right next to our cemetery off of first where we have a sign that says harvest at your own risk, but if we cut down a tree, we'll go put it there and clean off some of the slash. And we'll put some every time we put a tree there, it's it's usually gone within like a couple days. So that that's been kind of a cool benefit to the community as we've had some of these beetle co trees come down. Um oh and one thing that's not in my report and I know I mentioned last year but as trees keep on coming down uh last year we did successfully get a grant from the state and we planted over 700 saplings and like seedling trees throughout some of these areas that have been mitigated. So there we are always looking for those grants and those opportunities. The city

manager just forwarded one to me about putting forest back out there because I know there have been calls and concerns. So last year we got yeah just over 700 seedlings that we went through and planted. All right, going on to our department goals. Uh the most exciting one that meets all of the strategic the city of Kai comprehensive plan goals goals 1 through eight uh is our master plan. Uh this is a project that went out to bid last year and uh we started it we kicked it off with a meeting at the Kenai Chamber Center where we invited the public. We served them hot dogs. We did a community survey. Uh we got a lot of community feedback and then our contractor started developing the plan. Uh myself, the city manager, our city planner, and Christine were all in a working group that worked with the contractor throughout the winter to develop this plan to really fit Kenai. Again, I think with that public input really focused in there. Uh the plan was presented to the parks commission at their last meeting and then it had a discussion item to discuss if there's any changes needed. Um planning on bringing that forward to the commission for recommend recommendation of approval to council and then in the next council meeting you'll also see I'm requesting a work session uh to get that plan presented to council to review it as well. Uh this is this is huge though. Uh, you know, I think when I, you know, I started with the department and I've read old meeting minutes. I've heard conversations. I've heard, hey, you know, there was once talks of a sports complex by the Oiler field. There was a drawing. I saw one drawing once. I don't know how they fit that many fields in a small space. I I question some of those drawings. Uh, but there's been so many conversations and great ideas that I've also seen on repeat. I'm like, "Oh, here's a idea to do this from 2003 that came up again." So to have a full plan that the the public has seen, the council has seen, I think it really supports the public process and will

support me in development of our capital projects. Like this is what the community wants from parks and recreation. And it also identifies funding opportunities and it also helps with funding. If you find a grant, you like we have a plan for that. Uh we want to do that to benefit our community. So, this is something I think that's going to it's going to guide our department for the next 20 years and it's going to be a really cool tool for for me and awesome for the city of Kenai. Uh again, it's marked as achieved because it's planned to be achieved in the next month in this fiscal year as we're closing up the budget. Uh any questions on the master plan? That's kind of I think the most exciting one we have right here. So, I loved it. I just want to say sitting through his presentation in parks and reccks commission, I loved it and I learned a lot about the whole process. It was very, very informative and I think it's going to give you some really great directions to drive. Let's see. I know when I was formerly on the council, uh we um allocated resources for a bridge that went from the playground on Forest that goes across over to the ball fields back behind uh the Boys and Girls Club and there was supposed to be trails that go down back behind Boys and Girls Club all the way down to the beach access there. Um do you know anything about that and how is it moving forward?

I know a little bit about that. Uh that project was identified I believe through some funding that was available during co uh there was a handful of projects that were identified and that one was identified for between 80 and $100,000 and then oh did you shake your head? I was like okay. Uh and uh myself and the current director at the time uh who had a lot of experience with bridges I think identified that that was nowhere near enough money. So through council action that was actually changed to replace the playground at Greenstrip Playground. Um that land is also heavily protected. There's a lot of uh historical sites on it like fish catches and old cabin and stuff. So we saw issues with developing that as well. So that that money was reallocated to replace the playground that's now at the green strip because that was identified as a possible funding source through the grant. there was multiple projects there, but that was done through, I believe, council action in like 22.

Okay. Thank you so very much for clarifying that. I graciously appreciate that. But I still think that it's a great uh project um that should be uh continued to be looked at and um I think it would be greatly beneficial for our whole community moving forward. So, that's my two cents. And that path could be moved from back behind where you're saying that there's issues with um sacred grounds that perhaps it would be more advantageous for a trail that goes along the road there to make access for our community um uh a great path opportunity down there. Thank you.

All right. Uh and then going on to uh goal number two, which was not achieved. Uh last year I attended a lot of KA community garden uh club meetings and I was trying to promote our community gardens that we have over on our green strip ground. We uh we have eight raised beds and I think over 20 on ground plots and we've only ever rented a handful and we really went through a marketing spree uh to promote it and we ended up only reserving one bed. Uh, I think there are several issues with that location and with even the the approach I took was I think a lot of people in the Keenhan Community Garden Club have gardens in their own houses. Uh, I think our site also lacks some some accessibility and I think it's something our master plan does address, but it's not something we're stopping. I want to be very clear. I'm not stopping trying to promote a community garden. Um, as uh, council member Grie said there is a national standard in our community of its size. a community garden is a standard. So, that's something we do want to keep promoting. We added flyers to the aggro uh expo that happened a few weeks ago and we rented from two people four beds. So, we're it's something we're we're not stopping. So, and we're going to keep promoting and keep pushing in the community and maybe one day have better access or a new location for it. Any questions on community gardens?

You said access. It's behind the green. It's on the side of the green strip. Yes, but we don't have a park. We don't have a parking lot. Uh we don't have a pathway that goes up to it. Carry all your stuff. Okay. And then even if you look at location, I think if you look at standards of like are we going to put a community garden in a neighborhood that has, you know, acreiz lots where everyone could have that or where there's more multif family homes and duplexes and it's walking and bikable. Thank you.

Oh, here we go. Estab I almost skipped number four. Uh establish and support a volunteer group dedicated to help grooming and maintain the ski trails in the city of Kenai. Uh one of the first things the parks and recreation teams does when it snows is we start removing snow from city buildings. Um and then we go out and you know one of our guys does a walking trail at municipal park. We do the pond at Dob inspect and we also do the ski trails and another one of our laborers goes and removes snow from fire hydrants. Uh sometimes we fall behind or it's incredibly windy and then we don't have our main staff on there on the weekends to go groom the trails. There has been an ask to say if we could start a volunteer program where we could get some volunteers out there that could help and start grooming. Uh we did a online feedback. We got three people who showed interest. Other coaches called us too. Uh, I worked with the city attorney to work on a proper volunteer form to where we could have someone go out there and drive a piece of equipment to help groom the trail so they can be readily available for the communities. Uh, our local high schools use those. I don't know if we'll have our volunteer. We shoot down the road from the Oiler Oilers parking lot and we drive around on the school fields to give the middle school one training ground. It's a lot of work for them to like just go out and ski on ski trails with big hills. So, we'll do a couple circles on the middle school uh field and the high school field so kids can just learn how to ski. Um, and it's really fun when you're grooming. And this year uh when a couple staff were sick and on vacation, I got to go groom the trails. Uh, it was really fun as I was pulling into the Oiler parking lot, there was a mom skiing from somewhere with her kid in a wagon, like a ski wagon, and she was using it as an access point to skiing down the road. So, it's always fun to see the community out there. I had one guy who chased me down and asked if they could go sledding and I asked him not to on the ski trails, but he lived right off the golf course.

Council members, right? Was that my husband? No, we know where to where to sled and not to sled. Um I'm not sure if this would fall under your purview or not, but the um on one of the capital project lists that was up there earlier, there was $15,000 allocated for the Kai Golf Course bridge. Does that fall under your purview?

Yes, it falls under my purview. Uh last year, the contractor uh who leases the golf course was able to get some uh funding to replace one of the bridges. Uh and they were able to work that out really quickly, and they may be able to do that with some match funding. Now, that bridge benefits us and our skiers because some of the bridges out there are uh falling apart. They're wooden. So, he worked with state funding, I believe, and got funding for it. So, he he asked like, "Hey, if there's another opportunity, I'd love to work with the city." So, that's why I put some of that money out there so to work with our contractor.

Right. I was just curious as to which bridge it was cuz I was thinking and maybe it's just my memory. I thought that bridge was just recently done like four or five years ago. So, there's the one pretty bridge that's like the big arch that we don't ski on and then last summer they did a new bridge like they installed one last summer. And then there's a wooden bridge that hasn't been redone since I've been around. So about 5 years, but it needs to be redone because I know there's bridges that go over 1 198 and two cons like that 1982 across where that stream goes through. And I was just wondering which bridge.

I think it's one closer to 98. They did they did do the bridge at um hole one. That's the one they did last summer. So it's just moving down the moving down the creek. Gotcha. Okay. I'm as a former skier and I get out there. I don't golf so I know the trails, not the the golf course numbers perfectly. So sometimes I get a little on behind on that, but

but that was uh our our contractor down or not our contractor, the lease down there uh was just looking at getting those replaced and safely safely replaced since it is a it's like a waterhed. Yeah, cuz I I did notice that at least the the one far down towards the swamp, which would be hole number two, but the one way down, lots of new lumber down there, looks like they're already getting started on replacing some of those rotten bridges, which is definitely needed cuz those cross bridges are rotten. But it looks like they've gotten started. So, that's good. I was just when I saw the $15,000, I was just like, "Wait a minute. Didn't they just do the pretty bridge?" And they just and I don't know when they did the pretty bridge, but it hasn't been in the last 5 years. But the last year they did replace one with a metal bridge, too. They took an old ConX container and modified it to go across there. That shouldn't rot anytime soon.

All right. Goal four was to uh develop and implement five key procedures, policy and task outlines for parks and recreation department to improve efficiency, accountability and consistency. Uh these procedures include employee scheduling covering PTO requests, scheduling posting and advanced tracking, an improvement action plan, department task management, a reservation policy and a contract management procedure. Uh this is something we're also I think uh director Roma touched on. We're working on citywide. There's an admin working group uh where we're developing standards for our policies and procedures. But I'll give you an example. We had a ICE reservation form that had two or three rules on it. That was kind of our policy and procedure. Uh we've developed a much more comprehensive one now that says, you know, that's for me and my staff to say when you reserve ice, we're going to do X, Y, and Z. And then these are also our rules and our expectations along there. That has, you know, hasn't updated on there. Um Christine Cunningham who's led that I think that working group has provided us with a really good book that I think we're trying to go uniform across the city where you can have updated dates on it and it can just kind of clean up our task and procedures and make that stuff a lot easier for even shelter reservations. You know, we have an online form. We didn't really have a a calendar when I started for me and uh the assistant director to share to look at or away. So it sometimes we were feeling a little wild west and I think this is focusing us in a really good direction. And I think that's going to help with, you know, with community garden rentals, shelter reservations. If we can clean up that process, it's just going to be better and better. So,

well, and it's critical as we have staff turnover that we have continuity of how we do things because we have those things now documented and written. So, I think that that's the driving force behind why we're doing all of those. Uh and then going into our 27 goals, uh we have going back to the master plan, uh prioritize and execute projects outlined in this. Again, this is this is a huge document. This is going to be involved in my narrative goals, uh for a long time. And and in the goal plan itself, it does, you know, bring up you need to do an audit of the plan every 5 years. It's a living document. So again, just to really refocus on that master plan, especially since we have done sought out community input. It's gone through the public process. That's a very strong document for us to follow up on. And then develop five key procedures, policy, task, and outlines. Um, you know, I think me and the assistant director worked really hard on our five and we have identified another five we could work on for those consistency uh things we want inside our department. And I think that just helps us internally. It helps anyone else who may come in if there is any turnover and it cleans up the whole transition process and gets us away from the wild west sometimes. But and then uh this goal three is where I mentioned earlier about working with volunteer groups. Uh attend three to five board meetings of frequent users of parks and recreation. Uh I've already started this. Uh, I recently attended a Kenai Little League board meeting and it generated possible volunteer hours. Uh, they want to try to coordinate two field days with us where we can show up and help direct some uh, traffic and everything. So, that's something I just want to do cuz I have a lot of these people on my contact list. I've talked to a lot of people. Uh, someone on the Kenai Little League board was like, "It's so nice to see your face." Cuz they always meet after hours and it was

it's really good to connect with everyone. um and just tell them what our goals are, what do they need, and they're like, "We got a bunch of dirt donated. We just need help spreading it out, and someone to direct the project." So, I would I said, "This is something I want to do regularly. I'd love to come to at least one board meeting before the season and maybe after the season and just connect with the community members." So, I think that's a really strong one. I also met with our adult softball league. Um, you know, KPHA would be another example and any group that wanted to meet with me if they called and reached out. It's something I would plan on attending their board meeting or their group meeting. But I think it's great to get that face toface time. It's easy to send an email, but I think having that relationship built out helps us a lot and can increase volunteers. Uh like I said, they they were like, "Hey, we want to do field day, but we're kind of like, what do we need to do?" And uh I'll I'll give an example of working with a group that did Eric Hansen Park last year. Uh you know, a group reached out. They wanted to fund a renovation of Eric Hansen Park. They bought a bunch of gravel. They had 20 volunteers for four hours and they were like, "We want to do this." And I was like, "I think we have to do less." Um, not to say they had to do less, but you know, those little things can take a lot of time. And so, just to set them up logistically where it's like, "We're going to get X, Y, and Z done." And they're like, "Okay, we'll do that." And they were so excited. So, I think even helping these groups, they're like, you know, we could paint a dugout. We could fix the field. I'm like, "Okay, I will create a task sheet and we can start assigning those roles for volunteers." So, again, that's been super fun to start and I look forward to doing that throughout the year. Oh, and those are my those are my goals. Future consideration, uh, again, establish a structured process to regular review, assess, and update the parks and recreation master plan. You know, in the plan itself, it calls for a audit every 5 years. So, and I think that's something that's

going to come up regularly in parks and recck commission meetings and then in my budget narratives.

I just want to say thank you. I said it earlier, I'm going to say it again and then we can eat lunch, but um I think it's important so I want to say it again. I think that parks I think that a lot of the things that your department provides for our community are the things that make Keenai different and special and make people want to be here. I think it attracts young families. It keeps families as their kids are getting older and it connects kids to their community to want to stay or come back. I mean, and for the kid painting the goalposts, for example, um that takes time and effort on your part to facilitate that and make it happen, but that's something that is going to be there. That kid's going to remember forever. Other people are going to remember. They're going to be connected to their community in a way that can't be duplicated in another way. Um, and I think that is a huge asset that we have as a as a community that we're we're fortunate to have. And I think that all of these things that you talked about really emphasize that and and reiterate it and make it possible. Sorry to hold us back from lunch even more, but uh I just uh having sat on parks and rec commission for a long time and talking a about a lot of the things that are in your master plan or the accomplishments you had this year, I think, uh just have nothing but kudos to say to you and the efforts that you put in since you've been in this role. Um to see the things you accomplished this year that I think have been talked about for years is is awesome. So, um, to you and your staff, I just say thank you for that effort. Thank you for your plan that you have for this year. And, um, excited to see what you guys do.

And then the last thing uh, I did want to bring up to was uh, we do have we had a couple fee changes proposed uh, where we added $10 to our ice reservation fee. Uh, we had a year-long locker rental policy. We had a request to change that to 6 months. Uh, so we added that in there. And we changed our shelter reservation hours. We had them available to book at 8. That is when our staff shows up. So if you did rent a shelter at 8:00 a.m., we wouldn't be there to go check on it right away. So we just changed that to 9. Um, and then we've struggled with uh high school verification at the rec center. The students don't always get IDs and we've had people, you know, I've called someone out with a tattoo and then they showed me a student ID that was valid. It threw me off. So, we uh we used to be high school students and then now we're changing that to just 18 and younger can access the building. I don't think we'll see any big changes or losses in theirs, but those were our changes on our fee schedule that I wanted to make you aware of.

Tyler, thank you for going the extra mile and meeting face to face with those community groups. Um it definitely for in the future down the road it it will set the stage for ironing out wrinkles and just facilitating an ease of relationship of dealing of those groups dealing with the city. So thank you very much. Of course and a big shout out to my staff. I want to say I think they as we were hiring for the summer I think they've facilitated a really good environment. Uh I think we have a almost a record number of returners for the PU fishery and for our temporary maintenance staff which is a great value for the city as well. So well thank you very much for the very complete report and I do appreciate the comments from council members here and I absolutely agree with that and I'm excited and looking forward to your master plan work session so I can learn more about what's in it.

Thank you. So, at this point, how about we take it's uh at 20 or 18 after we take about a how about 12:30, take a break, refresh, and and uh we can bring food back in here too for for the next presentation. Okay. Thank you.

everywhere you turn. And so I think if you're not able to Okay, we're back on the order on the record. It's uh 12:30 and next we have planning and zoning.

Good time now. Thank you. Uh transitioning from other duties as assigned to to planning and zoning. Um thanks for everyone for being here. Uh this past year has been uh I'll say year of transition for the planning and zoning department. Um last year I was pretty green when I got here. I' only been about 6 months on staff. Uh full year now under me. And uh I think we have a good direction that the planning zoning department's moving. Uh couple highlights that

Oh, sorry. 113. Uh so one of our big things uh that we've seen this past year is starting to work with other departments and uh either writing or we may also well now we do have one to administer grants uh to help move some of these projects forward knowing that our city dollars are limited but everyone here pays taxes and we want to take whatever we can get from the state or the federal government whenever those opportunities are available. Uh we're also looking to pivot a little bit more um looking we've historically always looked at economic development but really um using that information that we got from that survey to really take it to the next level. Uh and in thatstead um I'm currently on the board with Cape. So learning what a lot of things are going around the peninsula but also how can we tailor some of that to the city of Kai. Um, housing has uh bubbled up quickly over the past year as something that is um decidedly needed here in the city, but we also want to focus on how do we, the planning and zoning department, get out of our own way to um ensure that we're, you know, doing all the safeguards we need to do, but also making sure that the regulations are easy to navigate for developers, for land owners. So, uh, that has brought on a lot of code changes. I've given you guys a lot of legislation over the past year, year and a half. Um, that probably will not slow down. So, you get to see me at a lot of council meetings in the future. Um, one big push that we did have that will tie into another department here shortly is lands administration has grown. Um, so that has actually pulled um my colleague Brandon um most of you know him. he has been focusing a lot

more of his time in lands as we have a lot of land leases coming up for consideration. So for the planning and zoning department we've actually um he was last year half and half half lands half planning. He's now we've transitioned him 75% 25% which still might be under counting how much he's doing with lands. Um that is why we did request a slight bump in the admin 2 position from 20 hours to 24 hours to kind of fill some of that gap. Uh because we desperately need uh we had to keep up on everything else including code enforcement, planning and zoning meetings with all those applications. Um but we also know that lands is very needed. So that's why the uh staff request was was asked for u the um conditional use permits um some per performance measures um pretty status quo not a lot of uh change there. I'd say our biggest change that we had over the past year is a concerted effort to develop policies um and implement the policies for code enforcement. So standardizing, you know, when we get a complaint, what are all the steps? And if it's a serious emergency, that's going to be abbreviated. It's going to be very quick, could be within 72 hours. If it's not critical, could be somewhere between 7 to 14 days. And then if it's kind of your run-of-the-mill um you know, someone might have trash in their yard, like they get the notice, but then they have um up to a month to rectify and then we'll go check it, make sure that's going. So over the past year, we have received a significant number of violations, but we've also been able to usher that through the process and actually get a number of them cleaned up and cleared out. So having that policy, um, which, you know, thankful for the city manager's office for legal, um, but working together to help us, um, hold people accountable,

but also get our city cleaned up when needed. Uh last year uh we one of the goals for the department was to look at Kenai municipal code specifically tit t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t t title 14, which is planning and zoning, but also where it touches other parts of code um with other departments and uh address inconsistencies or if there's ambiguity. The sign code is one piece that has historically been brought up. Um that is partially achieved. We did initiate a review of the conditional use permit process. Um we being the planning zoning commission along with uh myself and my staff um that is ongoing. We've had some other uh council directives to to handle and those are navigating through. So we'll return back to the conditional use permit process. Uh we also worked extensively with uh the public works department due with the harbor commission sunset and that did kind of take a little oxygen out of the room when it comes to uh making some of those updates. Um, we looked at conditional use permits. Um, overall, again, I mean, it's we did a holistic look. Um, but we also wanted to see where it might be appropriate to reszone where the development has been there, has been there historically or has u possibly changed maybe in the past decade. So, because of that, we actually did reszone um a couple of properties on North Forest Drive where the greenhouse is. that has been there for quite some time, has been functioning as a commercial property, but has always had a cup. We were able to um work with the property owner. They got that reszoned and now it's uh an extension of the commercial uh corridor that goes along the spur and now it goes up for us slightly. Uh we also looked at Readout Avenue um where KPHI the city has donated quite a bit uh of land there and those larger

developments were in a rural residential zone as it was historically which required a conditional use permit but the housing those buildings aren't going anywhere anytime soon. And we realized that the development pattern there along that corridor uh was more urban residential in nature just because the number of units. So we were able to work with not only KPHI, the city owned some land there, the burough owned some land and can as well own some land around readout and we're able to make the zoning up there more appropriate. So some was urban residential, some's now suburban residential, but when a developer looks at the map, they can um it might be able to pencil out that because they now with those new zones, they can have slightly smaller lots. they don't have to have halfacre lots and a development might, like I said, pencil out better with that allowance. Um, we did intend to work on the hazard mitigation plan. Um, however, last this past fiscal year at the federal level, they eliminated the grant that the state used to fund those updates. So, we still have a hazard mitigation plan. It is technically expired, but we are looking for other types of funding that would help us get that. We were prepared uh preparing staff for a comprehensive plan update. We did push that out one year, but we have um gone through so last summer we actually went through with the split zones to uh get rid of those and really start cleaning up getting everything in order so that when we do kick off a new process, it's um on a sturdy foundation. Uh we did want to look at an economic development framework to guide our efforts. We deferred this into 2027. Again, things just got a little little squirly towards the end of the calendar year and then with the uh ramp up on the lands administration side, this kind of uh got pushed a little bit. But I think with pushing the comprehensive plan

another year, this actually gives us uh ample time to get something put together uh and to continue to progress uh progress the waterfront redevelopment project by seeking grants. Um we also deferred that to this coming year. Um again, just with a number of number of things and with some staff turnover last summer, it was um a little challenging, but we're back on track. This year, uh, we want to take a full review of the code enforcement program, um, now that we've had the policy in for about a year. Uh, we've been given quarterly updates to city leadership, but, um, and we continue to tweak the process and and, um, make changes where needed, but, we also want to, um, document everything so that this does not get lost in the weeds in the future. Um, we want to continue to review and update that conditional use permitting process. That'll be a project for the planning and zoning commission. Um,

excuse me one second. Um, is your code enforcement program is that driven by complaint only? Is that a complaint driven uh court code enforcement? Yes, code enforcement is uh complaint driven um complaints can be anonymous because we don't want to have you know if neighbor we want neighbors to feel safe if they have a complaint that they're not going to have retaliation. So, we have um developed a form. They not they can put their name, but they're not required to, but it also gives them a way to submit photos. Um they can call the office directly. They can stop by. We try to make it as easy as possible, but also um have have everyone feel safe to report.

Um so, yes, the conditional use permits u process. There's going to be a lot of work sessions coming up for planning and zoning and it's probably going to be a lot of food for them. But hey, um we we welcome their input. Uh we're excited to um hopefully get to implement a new records retention policy and kind of get our uh paper and digital life, if you will, in order. Um right now planning has to keep everything forever. That's our records retention policy. So, um I have a couple file cabinets I would love to see in the auction this coming year. Um we also we we acknowledge that there will always be a need for some sort of paper, but we're also trying to be as digital as we can working with people. Um that helps us streamline, automate procedures and um keep things moving quickly. Um, we're going to review our public notification processes, uh, which is going to lead, um, to an ask that I have. Um, we want to ensure that we have the widest possible distribution to the residents of Kenai for our meetings, for any other information we're trying to push out. Um, we're going to continue looking at Title 14 and we are going to, um, I I will ask that the FY27 goal six be stricken. um only because we pushed out the comprehensive plan to next year. So, uh that was a later decision that we have, but in the final draft budget, we'll take out goal six on this one. Um looking ahead into the future, I have to bust out my crystal ball. Um comprehensive plan is is 10 years old now, so it is about time for for the new one. Um, so we're kind of setting ourselves up for next year to be kind of spot-on. And with then we can take in all the stuff that we've learned with the parks and recck master plan, the

airport master plan, uh, and make it a much more robust document. And then we're also looking at titles 14, which is planning zoning, and 21 and 22 are city-owned lands. So it's a joint effort between those two departments. Um and then also working with other departments to ensure that we're not changing something here that then muddles up a process later on. Um so to jump back to page 314 which is in the fee schedule um for the planning and zoning fees. There's uh only one change or no there are two changes that we're going to ask for. Uh one was for the board of adjustment appeal filing and records preparation fee. Um and this is going to be common with lands administration. Uh the fee was $100. Um the uh request is to go up to 150 and that is driven largely with posting it in the newspaper. Um our standard legal notice just for our normal meetings went from when I started in November or October of 24, it was about $75. Now they're 130 per meeting. So, their uh fees have gone up and um in an effort to uh keep up with that. And we're also buying the uh not necessary for the board of adjustments, but those get bound uh and prepared, but for other instances, we also have to go get the yellow signs that we put up. They kind of look like almost like election signs. They're about that same size. Um it's another way for people to know that the public process is happening because they may not read the paper. Um,

I was going to Can I ask you a question about that? Because I mean, as we know, the Clarion, I mean, our local paper paper, the Clarion, um, subscription numbers have been way down. It's been sold, you know, all these different things. Um, and just across the board, people are using print resources less and less. Is there another option to be doing this that would one be more cost-effective to reach more people?

We are actively researching that. Um I just want to ensure whatever we do because of the quasi judicial nature of the planning and zoning commission. I want to make sure that anything we do to replace it meets all the requirements for any state statute that we have. Um so that's going to be part of our review if we were to find a a reasonable alternative that you know passes legal muster. looks good. Um we would then probably come back to council and ask to reduce these fees um back. But right now we're not prepared to make that transition.

Okay. Because I I do just I mean I want I guess to put out there that um increasing an appeal fee might reduce accessibility of appeals to people. And I mean and it's increasing by 50% which is dramatic. Um, so I just want to put out there that the appeal process should be accessible and if it's cost prohibitive, it is no longer accessible. I I would definitely definitely agree. Um, this is um and on this one in particular, um I honestly could go either way. I was just uh the big thing was to highlight that the cost to the city is

um grown substantially. I mean, it has nearly doubled in just over a year and a half. So, um, kind of balancing that, but ultimately I'll defer to council's discretion on this on especially on this particular feat. Thank you. Um, and then we did want to remove the uh maps and copies. Uh, we provide everything uh digitally. Most of the other stuff that is given to um some of our people, they um it's already wrapped into their application process. So, we didn't want to double double charge them.

The only thing I wanted to add for council on planning and zoning is um this is something I tussled with. Um worked with Kevin, worked with Stephanie and HR, actually developed a job description. Um got pretty far along in pricing a new position. I I really think um I really think I could have justified a request for an expansion in planning and zoning to bring in an economic development director for the city um position. Um I I I backed off and I didn't bring that, but I think that's something we should really council should be thinking about potentially considering for the future. Um, I think you see a number of projects on Kevin's list there that got deferred or pushed because there's so much other activity going on or things come up that that we never really envisioned like you know gas storage in the city and leasing of pore space and you know there's been significant amount of uh uh proposed development. We're working, you know, with developers right now on some big projects and trying to, you know, coordinate those and help, you know, facilitate them and bring them to fruition. And and I just afraid we're we're potentially missing out. Um, but I also want to be very measured in what we do. I don't want to, you know, go too far too fast. So, uh um something Kevin and I talked about a lot and um something I just want to put on council's radar, put in the back of your mind, think about it. Um I do think it's a direction the city um could potentially go in the future and and could pay dividends. I'd like to say thank you for thinking and having forward thought process in regards to that economic development uh position process and is that something that we could bring on temporarily

because I know that we do have that opportunity for a temp and if it uh works its way feasibly that it is um advantageous and profitable to the city that we could trans transfer that over to a permanent situation. Yeah, thank you for that question. I think it's a good one. I think in the case of like an economic development director, it it's a that's a difficult one I see to be temporary because I see that as a position that's you know realistically takes a person um you know one two years to spin up into and really learn the city, learn our economy, learns what what's working, learn all those growth things. So I don't know how conducive it would be to to temporary. Um but I think that's those are all the steps we always go through when we look at new positions or you know um how how else can we do this besides bringing personnel on frankly personnel are one of our b biggest expenses. So, you know, are there consulting services out there that are available? Are, you know, temporaries available? All of these things. But, um, that one might be a little bit diff difficult to do as a temporary. And that's also part of the consideration is that, you know, are we creating a one-off position for PERS that requires us to keep it around forever because of their rules. And um, you know, those are big hurdles for us to get over before we finally bite off that piece of the apple. But I I I think it it we put a lot of time and effort into the conversation because I think it has merit and um it could be something you're hearing again in the next couple of years.

Sorry to switch gears a little bit, but back to the little yellow signs. I was It just reminded me of a question I've had. Is is there a GIS layer or something that we have publicly available for folks to go see where those little yellow signs might be um short of having to like slam on the brakes on the keen iceberg to look at a little yellow sign and and I was just curious if that's either something that's exists currently or planned for maybe this year to help with visibility.

Yes, we did have one. However, due to some changes on the backend software, uh, our GIS went to more of a browser based. Some of the older maps, uh, our utilities map actually went down. We had to recreate it. Um, which that is back up, but, uh, the conditional one is one of the ones that needs to be rebuilt due to older technology, but it will be back online.

Thank you. a suggestion if uh that question also of the strategic plan that we might be funding it probably ought to be included in your departmental goals if we do just kind of footnote because that'll be that'll fall upon you but I thought maybe it would be a good time uh just briefly anyway to talk about we're not going to do the comprehensive plan the strategic plan is different if if you're comfortable about discussing you know the the differences and and how they would be implemented. I mean, the plan would be created. That could be a city manager question if you want to defer.

Yeah, actually the strategic plan won't be under the planning and zoning department. Um, the strategic plan will be under my office. It um and a strategic plan is really looking and focusing more on the operational side and operational priorities for the city. um your comprehensive plan is more focused on long-term growth and land use and and the planning side of life where um again the the strategic plan looks at operations and it could encompass you know public safety could encompass airport I mean all the different operational priorities so it won't be I mean planning will be a big component like every single city department will be a component of that strategic plan, but it won't be the focus of of planning necessarily. It's um more of a conversation with frankly council and the administration and the community about what are the community's priorities, priority projects for us operational that we should be working on um for the next 1 3 5 years. Um so pretty pretty condensed or you know narrow timeline not out 10 20 30 years like a lot of these comprehensive plans but very short you know shortterm narrow focused what we should be doing immediately and what the community priorities are. So that will be managed through the city manager's office and and won't um be under the planning purview.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that clarification because I I heard what you said earlier, but it just sounds like it's something that would be under your hat over here. But the other question just for a clarification on the uh uh the planning has been growing but the uh but the salaries and benefits and staff dropped about it's expected to come down 16%. And I'm not I was wondering what the if you'd give a clarification on that.

Yes. Um thank you. I um should have mentioned that a little more in detail. Uh part of that is as um our finance director said some of that is driven just by the overall costs especially with healthcare but a lot of that is just a transfer from 419 which is planning to lands. Um our admin 3 was 50/50 split evenly between the two departments last year and now we're asking for 75 under land. So it's not a it's a decrease from planning and zoning but it's an increase in lands administration. So in the general fund itself, it's pretty much a wash on the So it's not really a decrease in the general fund overall, just from my balance sheet and um planning over to the lands administration. Just reallocation.

Reallocation. Okay. Very good. And I presume that uh the airport has a percentage of that too since they have lands and you'd be working with the airport. Correct. We didn't uh we didn't change the airport. So under the airport um the planning director is the only one. didn't change that allocation. Um that's still at 30%. Um and my personal uh for the planning director that's that one is staying the same. The only thing that's changing is um that admin 3 position between uh 419 and 416. And

we're going to skip ahead a little bit here. Um, being that land administration is under Kevin, we're going to take that away from the city manager. We did we didn't do that here on this. Um, good idea, too. So, we're going to go ahead and uh skip to page 105 to cover land administration and we'll since we got Kevin up here, we'll go ahead and just keep him in the hot seat here for a little bit longer.

It's all the pressure. No. Um so uh thank you uh Director Sworner. So land administration is probably our biggest growth area um in terms of staff time, staff resources, uh brain power for sure. For sure. Um this is a better reflection of where our administrative assistant 3 position is spending a lot of their time. uh it's probably not 100% accurate because over the past I say 6 months it is really just went into overdrive. So uh again we're just trying to show the city where the effort is being taken place. Uh I will say the under performance measures um 2025 is our new baseline. We have scrubbed, rescrubbed and then scrubbed again the lease database to make sure that everything we're doing um measure you know measures up. So, uh you'll see that there are some numbers and um some changes with the number of existing leases, uh land sales, acquisitions, that sort of thing. So, the for the first one, these are just general fund leases. Um and then on the next table, which is page 106, has airport fund leases. Uh and again, all these numbers as of 2025, those numbers are solid. And so, moving forward, that's our new baseline. Um that way cuz both uh myself and my colleague Brandon have triple checked all of these numbers and we're we are very comfortable with those. Um that way we don't have to speak for previous uh planning directors or anyone else. Um our goals were to create an interactive GIS map and a printed companion map so we'd have something static for all city- owned properties. Um we do have it mapped. It is not published yet, but uh this really came up when we're looking for subservice mineral rights and various things like

that to see what did we have with the FAA. Is there any other land that needs to be released or we want to request to be released? So, we're expecting a final draft later this spring. Like I said, it's about 98% of the way there. We're just trying to make it coherent on the other, you know, on the public facing side. Um, we wanted to recreate the airport reserve lease app, which was basically just a GIS map of available lease parcels. We uh deferred this one mainly because the final airport layout plan from the consultant um is yet to be delivered. That's uh a project that's happening. It's going to go over the summer. I believe they're wrapping up in the fall. So, our map that will accompany that will be right after that. So, uh going to defer that one to this year. um this current or this upcoming year. Uh we wanted to update a comprehensive uh GIS map of all city lands uh but also resources so utilities various things like that. Um again that is achieved. We kind of had to fasttrack that one because it went down unexpectedly on a I believe on a Thursday night and by Friday afternoon uh Brandon had another one up. So shout out to him. Uh we wanted to uh review and update the comprehensive plan of visual zoning map to ensure the compatibility and consistency. Um we are doing a number or we have done a number of reasonzoning efforts in 2025 and there's at least a couple more in 2026 uh that are kind of better aligning both the land use plan uh and what we're seeing development wise over the past decade. Uh we wanted to consider incentives for infill and redevelopment of vacant properties. So, these are not going to be your large subdivisions, but uh sometimes there's a lot where there was a house, it got torn down. We we want to incentivize uh or looking where there ways to possibly incentivize or at least

bring attention to, hey, there may be some available land here. Even if it's privately held, um when developers call, we would have some sort of um knowledge of it. Uh we did not get to that. We've been tracking, you know, kind of a track a parcel here, a parcel there, but we don't have a comprehensive list yet, but that is a goal for this upcoming year. We wanted to uh strategize actions for undeveloped subdivisions. Um, looking at some, one got built last year. We have seven new homes off of fourth at KOA Circle. It was subdivided in the 80s, got built in 2020, so you know, 40 years uh lead time, but it got done. uh we want to make sure if there's other places in town where that could happen, you know, are there ways to bring that to the forefront. Uh we do want to market the available availability of parcels for lease and then communicate those development incentives that the city does have on city- owned land uh which may include an option to purchase. Uh we wanted to update the city lease lands brochure. Uh we need some new drone aerial imagery uh for the updated brochure because some of the lands changed a little bit especially with some of the trees out. Um but we do have we've identified every city owned parcel. We're just needing to update the actual document itself which means I have to go fly a drone which I think might be a hardship but it will definitely uh I anticipate it getting done hopefully by the end of this fiscal year. May take the end of summer but it's going to get done. um and looking at software subscription to manage leases and implement solution to uh streamline city's process of lease management. Um it hasn't been fully achieved. We have rebuilt the lease database. Um it's been reconfigured and completely updated. Uh once we have that then it's just a matter of putting it into software that'll make it uh easier to administer which we already have.

It's just a matter of making the two talk to each other. Our department goals for 27 is to complete and implement a brand new lease database that will will have all kinds of hyperlinks with fully digitized lease files. We want to be able to when someone's calls, we want to be able to get them the information as soon as possible. We don't want have to go track track down a folder somewhere, rifle through 300 pages to find the one thing that they're asked for. We want to make sure it's easy um and readable PDF so we can search them and uh get questions answered much more quickly. Uh we do want to create the interactive map for available lands within city Kenai. Like I said, we're about 98% of the way there, but got to function check everything on the back end and then look and review and subject suggest updates to title 21 to 22 which deal with city own lands inside and outside of the airport reserve and general fund. So uh ambitious if nothing else and uh we just want to make sure that our land management plan which was done I believe in 2018 2019 uh is up to date. We have had a number of sales um over time. So, we just want to make sure that everything's uh up to date and then make it easier to navigate. It's the one we have is good, but we think we can make it great. So, we're just trying to take it to the next level and I'm available for any questions. Just just kidding. Sorry. Um back to page 311. Um, back in the PE schedule. I'm sorry, make you flip flip all the way back. Um, again, um, like we pre there's a prelude to this with planning. um the land lease application fee and the amendments all these require this public noticing and we again right now are compelled to put

it into the a newspaper of general general circulation so that's why a lot of these increases went from 100 150 uh I know it's a steep jump um on these I feel it's I this is more of a personal feeling but um if someone is coming to the city with a proposal for development in the city Um generally those proposals for that is they're going to be in the several hundred,000 to possibly million dollar plus range. Um so jumping from 100 to 150 that's you know pennies um to them just pocket change um for the on the scale of that project. So, we feel more comfortable with these. Again, if we find a way to get public noticing that's that we think is effective for everyone and it may require some code changes, those fees could possibly go back down. But right now, this would help us recoup our costs for publishing in the newspaper. Um, we've also eliminated the tideland filing fee and lease filing fee. They've been baked into the the fees above. Um, they were separate. We brought them over from title 11 where they were when the when we sunset the harbor commission and then we realized that we could just get rid of the word land out of the lease and then all of them kind of fit better. So, uh just making it more simple. Um and then we do have a recording fee. Um we do utilize a a service that they'll come they'll grab all the documents, get them recorded with the state and bring it back. um and just documenting those so that it's easy to um show everyone when we do say here's your recording cost where we're pointing to. So we just want to make sure that was um documented here in the fee schedule. So it's not a new fee. It's just um abundantly clear where it is and what statutes drive it or what sorry what code drives it.

Well, thank you for the report and and back to the drone thing and I I know you've been you you flew it a lot last summer and um I appreciate that and I appreciate you going out last October during that 30 knot wind during a 25 foot tide and uh and flying along our our new bluff project which took some pilotage and some risk but you did it and uh I think that was very good data and and it was was curious and I realize it's a site note, but have you flown it again since all the ice is receded from the rock and all of that?

Uh, yes, we um I will say during October, I was like, if I crash this drone, Terry's going to fire me, so I better not crash it. Um, we did fly it in uh was it January when it was like 20 below, we pretty much threw it over the bluff and said, "Here, look at it." Um, just when there was ice, we did fly it again the beginning of April. I believe it was April 3rd. Um which is actually where we realized that we were having that issue um along the road right there on the bluff. Um which unfortunately within the next week then went um we did fly a couple of normal or what we used to do last year where we'd start at Packstar and make a loop down the river taking pictures and then video. Um, and that that started when the sea ice had broken up, but the river ice had not. Uh, I have not flown in the past couple weeks just due to weather and winds. But, uh, our plan is as the sun comes back to continually fly it. Uh, and part of that is, uh, monitoring for the grant, but also just so we have the information and watching how the bluff now that the toe is stabilized. Uh, we've seen some additional sluffage around and just keeping track of that. I appreciate that. And and I did walk around down there uh part of it anyway this spring and it we know that the bluff is receding a couple of feet or a foot a year, whatever it is or three and uh but it always went kind of went away. It's not just going away and it's behind that rock wall and it's it's surprising how much material is is building up in various places. So it's it's good to document the whole the whole system. Thank you. Invite Bald Aviation. So I I just have

Yeah. So um next on the agenda is legal and um Mr. Bloom's unable to be with us today, so I'm do my best impression, but um I have no comments, but I'm happy to answer any questions. Uh please. Well, in all seriousness, there's I mean there's virtually no change when you look at his budget. So, um but I know I know he would be more than happy to discuss or answer any specific questions if you want to email him. All right. Police dispatch and and animal control. Page

page 122. Been to a lot of these budget meetings. This is the one I'm most excited about today.

You said that, not me. I'm just excited about the meeting. Uh so for page 122, the police, you know, our goal is uh for people to live safely and without fear. That's the mission statement. I was excited to see the survey results this year for the city. The 88% of over 88% were very satisfied with the public safety services in the city. So, so when we get into the other goals and stuff, they're important, but but that's more important to me really that that the people here feel safe and in the community. So, uh if we go to the next page, page 123, there's not really anything changing about staffing except the thing that Terry brought up earlier. You know, a lot of agencies across the state struggle with staffing. We've been pretty lucky at Kenip for for a number of years. We've had a relatively normal rate of attrition. Uh but when agencies really struggle is when the retirements mix in to the normal attrition and that's going to come in FY27. Not just my retirement, but there will be a couple others likely in 2027. So that with normal attrition could really set us back a couple two or three years by the time you catch up in hiring. So, what we talked about was with with Stephanie and Terry was adding a the ability to prehire a little bit uh to maybe meet these academy deadlines ahead of time. So, he did add a half a position into the budget so we can kind of strategically try to try to hire somebody in advance and maybe use up that time to to get people on board to to help with that. Uh so, we're not super short staffed. Uh so, that's the only change in the staffing there other than certification pay. We looked at uh he also explained that earlier that uh uh basically it really comes in line with what most police agencies are doing uh keeping us a little bit more competitive in that most certifications pay are tied to the pay of the officer rather than tied to some specific uh pay

pay numbers. So those were the two uh changes related to staffing. If you go down to performance measures, I'm not going to walk through all those. They're pretty pretty uh pretty consistent with prior years. I will say this year we saw this this bottoming out I think of our call volume in 2024. We had a couple years or 2025 calendar year uh of 8 or 10% drop. This last year we're seeing about a 10% rise. So hopefully that levels off and is isn't spiking back up. But uh but I think we saw the bottom of that here last year. So if you look at our call volume, it's trending back upward a little bit. Uh down at the goal evaluation below, I would I'll talk a moment about accreditation. We're one of the very few police agencies in the state that is accredited. We were accredited in 2022 by the Northwest Accreditation Alliance and then we became reacreditited in 2025. So that'll last till 2028. These are three-year accreditation things. I think there's four agencies in the state and I recently saw a survey among police chiefs and there's a lot more interested in it that that haven't gotten there. Uh and I'll give a lot of credit to Lieutenant Lang. He's been our accreditation manager. So I think it is one of the things that sets us apart, shows that we're operating within best practices in the industry and and I think we've done a good job of keeping that current. Uh last year we added a 14-hour administrative assistant. So that was our uh other goal evaluation there. uh the state changed how they accept evidence at the department of law and it became very burdensome uh in in that office our evidence office to get stuff to them. So we added this position and it's been phenomenal uh help to our evidence custodian. So I really appreciate that we were able to do that and in that year this department of laws changed again what software they they they'll accept their evidence in. So, so it's been great help to our evidence custodian to have this position to to help navigate that. And we did have

turnover in that position, but we have another good person uh filling that. Now, excuse me. Does the state provide any type of grant assistance uh to update our software when they uh it seems from my point of view um frivolously change their software and we have to frivolously change ours to meet theirs. so that we are in compliance with evidence.

Yeah. So, so, so it's fairly complicated in that what's happened over the last uh I won't too long on this over many years is all these police agencies have got all these body cameras and all these car cameras and all this digital stuff and we all want to give it to the district attorney's office all in our format and so they're getting it in 50 different formats and they can't handle it either. So they're they're going to uh you have to give it to us in our format basically. Uh so there's an good argument on their side too that they need to not get it in 50 different ways. Discs from some people, hard drives from some people. And anyway, that's the gist of the rub. So no, we're not getting money from the state to to comply with their their needs in that particular topic. Uh the other goal evaluation there is we we wanted to focus on shoplifting and uh property crime. So we did a a a good operation with Home Depot this last year. They brought down their security people. We had other agencies there. We spent the day there uh focusing on on retail theft and I'm hoping we can continue that with with retailers here this coming year. As far as future goals, our drone program, I think the city now we have three drones. the the the there's the one for the bluff erosion project. So, the city has four drones that I know of. We have some indoor drones. Uh we've used ours effectively for finding lost persons in the woods. Uh we've used them for uh helping evaluate dangerous situations before officers went into them. So, so far we've had pretty good success. Not not a ton to to report, but but it doesn't take very many successes to make them worth the worth the cost. So, I'm pretty excited about the the future of that. I think technology will continue to make that better. Uh the next goal is really our percentage of available time. This is kind of the crux of law enforcement is you got to keep pushing back against all the extra stuff and and stay on the core mission of being out

there protecting the community. So uh we try to strive to keep our our time out there on patrol and protecting uh businesses and the community as high as we can. Uh the other goal is to prepare for the upcoming transition in department leadership. Uh you know the three people that can retire this year have about 75 years of experience in police work all at the Kenai Police Department. So so it'll be a transition and I think we've worked hard the last year to prepare and and we'll continue to do that in the coming months to ensure there's a a smooth transition. Uh future considerations just adapting to changes in technology. Uh, I'll just bring this up because it kind of goes along with what we talked about. The Department of Law accepts it in in evidence.com. We have three different softwares. We have something that we put all our digital photos in. We have a car camera and then we have a body camera that all go into separate softwares. And we've used online servers for that and saved a lot of money over cloud-based services. However, all of those vendors don't want to do that anymore. You know, they all want to push you to the cloud. So, this is going to get expensive in the future a lot more than it is now. And we probably need to go to what the department of law is using. Otherwise, we have to download it all to our server and then re-upload it to the department of law, which takes a lot of lot of time with big videos. So, I think that's something we'll be seriously looking at in this coming year and maybe back next year to discuss what that looks like to consolidate it all to the same software solution. Well, I I was just going to me mention that um the increase in liability too when you're talking about all this criminal justice information which which is covered under SEIS and which cloud operators you're working with and how they're storing your information, how you're getting it there, how you're getting it back creates a can create a significant

place for liability when you're talking about release of protected information. Um, and I would just as a side note would say since DPS moved back to Axion, I don't think that they're going to move to a secondary. I'm just I'm fighting the same battle professionally, so I understand. Um, and I have been reassured that this system is designed specifically to be compatible with the increased amount of data that is created by law enforcement agencies based on, you know, it you're not getting photos anymore. It's all digital video of phone calls and interactions. It's not recordings and pictures. Mhm. But I've been promised that they're going to stay

that they they signed like a three-year contract. So, at least it's three years. I agree with all that. I I firmly believe they've probably moved to the best solution and they're probably not going to move away from it. Both as the department of and the department of law have switched to the same software solution. And if we're in the same one, then we can send links instead of the entire video and then they can just get the video that way. So, okay.

Yeah. Uh, and then future considerations, the public safety building. Uh, we talked about that multiple times, so I won't rehash that. Uh, really in line in the budget line items on page 125, nothing really changed. There was a small project on the list for some furniture and another item a small project the negative7,000 item on software was a small project from last year that we finished. So nothing really changed of any significance in that. So that's all I have for the police. If you guys have any questions about the police and know Stephanie's timing me so I don't want to go over

well every course everybody else has but it's all good stuff so it's fine. Quick quick question maybe. Uh going to go back to the drones again which kind of intrigues me. It's something new for here. I was wondering can you fly those at night and can you see heat uh from an individual? Can you utilize it? You know thinking about your person in the woods? Yep. It's dark over half about half the time.

So yes, uh you know we are in a Kevin can probably speak to drone stuff better than I can. We have three drone pilots at the police department and we're trying to get a couple more and we're trying to get the fire department to get a few so there's always a drone pilot. Uh they can fly them at night. We are an exclusion zone because of the airport most of the city. So they have some special exceptions and for emergencies and and they have to coordinate to to fly it. But yes, we can fly it at night. Two of the drones, the big one and uh for the buff erosion and the other one have heat sink seeking technology. So that's how they found the person in the woods is the heat.

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, I just want to throw in there too because I have to um you know, when I look at a drone program, uh it really is it really is a tool to help our police department be more effective. But I think the biggest benefit that I see, it's near and dear to me, is uh the officer safety and personnel safety that um comes with um the use of drone technology now where we're able now to, you know, um insert a drone into a building rather than having to send an officer in there to see if somebody's hiding out or has a gun. I mean, we're we're able to, you know, use technology where we're not putting officers in harm. And you know, I don't think we're far off from the day when you get pulled over on the side of the road that you know, a drone pops out of the roof of the police car and and just watches the whole situation. I mean, there's they're they're coming that's coming that fast. Um, but officer safety is absolutely critical and I think it if nothing else, it warrants our investment in in the drone technology that we're doing and I think chief and the the department have done a good job of of a measured approach as we've moved into drones. But um I'm super happy that they're working to to put those in place. page 133, we'll talk about the dispatch. Uh,

you know, the time to put you on the spot's kind of limited here, Dave, so I'm going to jump in and um and take my opportunity since it's here. This doesn't count as part of my time. I I was just kind of curious. You talked about the reacreditation um and but you also talked about having some some senior staff um hitting the end of their terms. what what will that look like for the city um in the future come 2028? Is this something you expect to continue or or um is there any kind of succession planning for that to continue?

Well, if you're specifically talking about the accreditation, I think uh you know the timing is going to be good because we're accredited for 3 years before it has to come up again. So the next chief and the next administration will have time to to uh to get on board to figure that out. But but we've already been walking through that. So I I think uh there will be a good transition of that information, a good transition. What keeps it going is the policies and the annual reports and the reporting on use of force and the reporting on complaints and and the things we're doing regularly that are all part of processes over there now. So So I don't see any issue with continuing to be accredited in the future unless there's something that changes that I'm not aware of. page 133 dispatch. Uh so our dispatch center uh the mission is to protect the lives and property of the citizens of Kenai and its visitors through prompt, courteous and efficient call processing and dispatching of emergency services. Our dispatch center just dispatches for Kenai Fire and Kenai police. uh they do a good job for for the staffing they have. There's no new staffing uh anticipated for them. Right now, we had two recent vacancies. So, there's one dispatcher in training and there's one we're still trying to hire for. Uh which is a lot for there. That's that's 25% of the staff. So, we're working through that right now. Uh I switched too many pages there. If we go to page 134, you know, their performance measures are really uh based on the police and fire. You know, that's the calls they handle is the police calls, the medical calls, the fire calls, police calls are trending back up. Um so there's not not too much to report in regards to the

rest of those numbers. the goal evaluation. Uh so there's three dispatch positions in there and as time goes on, you know, there's technical issues. We're really trying to make sure all three are interchangeable completely. Uh so we're trying to get a we only have two EMD licenses. That's emergency medical dispatching. So if you if you're having a heart attack or somebody is and the and the dispatch is giving you instructions, they're doing it with the emergency medical dispatching. the computers telling them what to say and how to answer your questions and what to ask. Uh that we have a floating license that bounces back and forth. Anyway, so this was a a goal to to update that trying to get that position 100% the same. Then if the radio breaks in the other position, we still have two fully functional stations. So still working through that. We want to get away from the floating license to three full licenses. Uh again, probably a little down in the weeds. Uh so probably this was the huge one for dispatch this year. Uh the state switched from apps which probably doesn't mean much to you guys. It's their primary software system for criminal justice information and all of our dispatchers use it every day all the time as fast as they can to get information out to officers and the state completely changed it this year. Came up with new software. It has different features, different problems, different benefits.

They did change it. I mean I wasn't part of that project but it has impacted my professional work as well but in fairness to the state with that one the absson the Alaska public safety information network was still DOS based so I mean they were entering command prompts to get information and it has literally moved it I mean I would say at least into the 1990s now um so it was a huge change but there hasn't been that I have we have experienced dramatic like fallouts probably.

Yeah. Yeah. I think in the long term it'll be better. I think you just take old experienced dispatchers on the old system. We got this transition time that that has been a little was a little painful. I think we're actually working through it. I I I was mostly speaking to how big of a project it was with our dispatch supervisor and them to figure it out to get trained and to immediately do it. You know, officers still want their answers just like that. And and dispatchers are slowed down trying to figure out a new system

and there wasn't much state support for that in fairness. Yes. So, so this was big and and that goal's been accomplished. We've gotten there and I think in the long term, obviously, yeah, getting away from the old system was was what needed to happen. Uh, so the other thing we've worked on with dispatch is evaluating whether they could join Northwest Accreditation Alliance with us. They do accredit communication centers. There aren't any accredited in the state of Alaska. It's not as common as police. Uh, but we did learn that they could. uh we had talked to the Northwest Accreditation Alliance about it and and we've also talked to another uh agency where we got their policy manual. So we want to move in that direction but probably over the next two years and maybe they could become accredited at the same time the police reacreditit. There's a fair amount of work to do. their policy manual would need to be significantly updated just just like the police was uh you know in future considerations. I guess I'll just kind of speak to the to the second one there is uh that dispatch center is very small. It's dated. The furniture is getting very old. It's hard to get parts for the furniture that raises up and down. The floor is a is kind of a disaster. Needs to be replaced. We're kind of in a holding pattern to see what happens here because all that stuff will be a very expensive transition to see what happens with a potential new public safety building. But whatever we decide, yeah, it's only it's only so long that some of that stuff's going to hold up and it's expensive to replace. But I think for now it's worth holding out a little bit to see what what what is decided with the public safety building. Chief, before you move on from that, um, last I don't remember when it was now, a couple months have passed, but I went over the police department had all all officers in for some training. And, uh, also had your dispatchers there, too. And so, I went over, met with them that I just talked for 15 minutes any issues

they were having in the department. You know, we're starting budget. um one of your dispatchers um made it abundantly clear to me and rightfully so um talking about the staffing in the dispatch center and I think it's worth would you just take a minute and talk about what what um that dispatcher communicated because I I do think it's really valid. I know it's on the forefront of your mind too and command's mind over there but I think it we we owe it to them to express those concerns and and things too. You know, one of the one of the weaknesses of our dispatch center is it's not always staffed by at least two dispatchers. And only having one in there is problematic. You know, if there's something bad that happens, it's it's slowed down because there's only one. And that is a frustration for dispatchers. Always has been as long as I've been there for 25 years that that them working alone can be challenging. Uh you know, if something bad happens, they can call somebody in and we end up with another one there in, you know, maybe 10 minutes, but 10 minutes is a lot in an emergency. So, it would be nice, you know, to be to a to a twoerson all the time staffing, but but that takes significant uh resources. It's not just adding a person. It's probably not just adding two people because, you know, they go on leave and then all of a sudden you're back to the same boat. So, uh it it's a significant investment. Uh but but best case scenario, dispatch center doesn't operate with one person. You know, that's not best case scenario. you take emergency medical dispatching and they have to walk through this questionnaire with somebody that's giving CPR or somebody that's choking or whatever and they have other calls ringing. You know, it is if they ring too long, they they're answering a dispatch. So, people aren't getting their 911 call not answered. Uh but best case scenario, someday we would have two in there in all the times is I think the gist of it. Well, and you and you have to keep in

mind that, you know, 30 years ago, they would get one 911 call, like one person would call in about an event. Now, I bet there are very few events besides something maybe that happens personally inside your house, that dispatch isn't getting 10, 15, 20 car. If there's a car wreck, if there's a fire, if I mean, they're getting dozens of calls that that one dispatcher sometimes is having to deal with while dispatching crews, you know. helping u with you know frankly with officer safety. Uh they are the officer's lifeline in a lot of cases. So it it's a valid point and I just wanted to make sure you got to hear it and know that I want those dispatchers to know that we we hear and communicate their concerns. So, um, Chief, I I feel like that that is an exceptionally high priority for our whole community because any one of our citizens or any one of our guests who were the second one in line having a um major event and it caused um a tragedy in their life. Um, I think that the cost that it would involve to add the necessary dispatching um is actually priceless. And uh and would it be from your point of view um so that there would be two dispatchers there at all times bringing in the thought process of uh of time away adding two new positions in that space and just spitballing it. What do you suppose that that cost would be for that? So, in advance of this, we didn't spend much time analyzing what structure that

would look like. Uh, when we debated taking on Satna Police Department several years ago, we did a bunch of work on that because I said if we took on Satna Police to dispatch for them, we would have to have two on all the time. We can't add more work to them. Uh, and then when that didn't happen, so I'm trying to think back to what we said for for staffing. I think it was adding two people, but it might have been more than two people. And and I'm not sure. Dave could probably tell you what each dispatcher costs. I'm not sure what that is, but it was probably two people or a little bit more than two people. You know, I agree with your concerns. You should also know that, you know, there's a period of time during the night there's almost no calls. you know, there's a period that, you know, when we staff two dispatchers during a certain time, they could have no calls. So that some sort of balance there has been reached over the years and we don't have to all the time, but uh but that's not a not a great scenario when the emergency comes in.

Could and maybe this is something you've already explored. I mean, like I don't want to say creatively staffing, but you know, you don't know when an emergency is going to happen. I don't know if it's 2:00 in the morning or 2:00 in the afternoon or if it's a Saturday night or a Tuesday night, but if you've got two dispatchers staffed 20 running 24-hour shifts, um is there other duties that they could help with like the evidence transfer or um you know, filing a clerk type things maybe that you're hiring additional admin staff to do that maybe dispatchers when they don't have calls and they don't have dispatcher work that they have to be focused on that they could help pick up slack for. I mean, just as a way to negate the expense.

So, I would say, you know, that's how we've operated for years. You know, most most agencies as probably has five or six admin over there at their building. We have one and a 14-hour one. So, we've managed to shift as much admin work as we can to dispatch. It's really hard to shift more because one, they have a high turnover rate. Uh, two, they they do shift work and they rotate what they're on. So, if you need stuff done during the week, then all of a sudden they switch to weekend nights, you know, and they're not helpful. So, you got to try to train somebody else. So, so we do that as much as we can. It's just hard to do it perfectly, you know.

Anything else on dispatch? No, no, no. I told Stephanie I would stay under 20 minutes and you guys have already done your last time. Your last won't be here. Got to make it count. Yeah.

Page 138. Let's talk about animal control. Uh, so I won't read the first page, but the animal control does animal control services for the city of Kenai. You know, they go out and find stray animals and respond to bites and stuff for the city of Satna under contract. They provide shelter services. So they provide shelter services for Kenai and Seldatna when we have capacity. We also provide shelter services for rural residents. But but we don't do any animal control services outside the city of Kina. We don't go respond to bites or anything outside the city. Uh if you go to page 139 and talk about performance measures, but the real issue we've had at animal control that kind of drove these performant meas performance measures, some of them down is staffing. The last couple years we had a twothirds turnover this last year. We had 2/3 being two out of the three people that work there for a long period. we had one staff member working there. So, so uh I think survival was the the mode there for a while rather than uh building on uh on these performance measures and conducting out outreaches and stuff. Uh they did a phenomenal job. The one staff member we had there for a couple months did a phenomenal job. When she went on vacation, the police covered for a little bit. Uh we did uh we survived it well, I think. And now we have our staff of three back. They're doing a good job. Uh at the same time, two of them have less than a year here. One of them has about two years here. So there's a learning curve going on. The animal control chief had experience out of state, so he's he's got a little more experience in animal control. But we're excited to see them shift into some new gears and and work toward the goals for this next year, which are are kind of revisiting last year's that we didn't get to, which is community outreach. uh

some of these events that uh help people know they can come get animals at the shelter and that uh to get them spay and neutered and all the things that animal control wants you to do to not have more unwanted animals out there. Uh what else did I have on animal control? They are also working on uh the this policies policy shift for the city to get all their policies in. They they've been doing that this year. uh in future considerations, they uh really want to look at the municipal code uh in that uh section and and probably make some updates to that. In fact, I think you'll see one coming in the next few months with working with Kevin and planning on some changes where where kennel licensing overlaps with uh with conditional use permits. So, they're working together to to maybe streamline that part of code. Uh, you know, the only other thing I would say about animal control that we've seen is like a year and a half ago, a year ago, that place was bursting at the seams with animals. Every kennel was full and they were finding places to put new kennels and and we came up with some policies and procedures to to only accept animals when we had capacity and to slow that down and to uh to only accept burrow animals when we had enough space for them. And I think that was part of the solution because today uh we can't even keep cats in the shelter and we're probably about half full of dogs. And I think part of it's a community transition of people wanting to adopt more animals cuz it was amazing transition in one year's time from being way over capacity to to being really something our staff can handle and the facility can handle well. So we're excited to see that for our staff there. It's pretty stressful when the when the place is over capacity and you have to try to work out which animals can come and which don't for for them. So, uh that's really all I have on animal

control. You guys have questions about animal control? Nothing. All right. Well, thank you all. It's been fun. I just wanted to say, chief, uh, thank you for your final reports on budget and, uh, I know how difficult it is for an organization to handle transitioning, um, from especially longtime employees to new employees or newer employees in a role. And so, I really appreciate your your plans for transitioning employees into this role um, and what kind of success you're setting them up for in this budget. So, thanks for everything and look forward to not having to have you here next year.

Thanks, I guess.

Okay, next we have fire. But since since Chief Ross went over so much, can you do your 20 minutes in two? I would love to.

Okay. Well, we'll give you the whole 20 minutes, whatever you take. All right, we're going to be on page 127. That's the uh introduction page there for the fire budget. Um looking at the organization chart and staffing. Uh no changes from the um staffing model we adopted last year with the three more firefighter positions. Um, just talking on that note, the one big change uh, personnel-wise in the budget would be the um, bump in the SER pay that we're looking at for the paramedics. Um, I believe you've discussed already. Uh, couple of reasons for that that gets us back up into um, an area where we're healthy um, pay-wise to compete with our neighboring agencies. Uh the burrow has been pretty aggressive lately at uh increasing pay and uh one of the key um attractants we had as a city of K9 was our schedule the 4896 which they also adopted in January. So that little bit of a leg up that we had we kind of lost but

so the crews work 48 on 96 off. Um it's one of the better schedules in the fire service most desirable. Um, it works at a fire agency that's not too terribly busy. Um, if you're terribly busy, call volume one wise the 48 can become dangerous having crews on that long. We're uh we're at a healthy place here. Um, as Ken Fire Department, our uh call volume and our staffing model that we had before we added the positions last year had gotten to a a breaking point. um great support from the city manager uh recognizing some of the trends and and uh risk factors that we were starting to see. We had firefighters working several hundred um hours of overtime every year. Some of that mandatory overtime, meaning they're getting off of their 48 and we don't have the staffing, so guess what? You don't get to go home today. And they get to call the wife and kids and say, "Hey, I'm working a 96 now or a 72." Um and so it was tremendously unhealthy. My first month on the job, I had three firefighters approached me and said, "Hey, chief, no offense. It's nothing against you being the new guy, but we just want you to know that we're looking for jobs and we're going to get out of here as quick as we can. We're just burned out." And uh all three of those same individuals have approached me in the last few months and said, "Chief, we love the changes. We love what the city of Kenai is doing for us, and we're no longer looking for jobs elsewhere." So, it's uh it's been a tremendous boon. I've had spouses call me or come by the station and say, "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." City of Kenai. Uh I get to see my husband or my wife again. You know, they're part of the family again. So, uh just want to relay to you. Thank you so much for supporting that uh new adoption for those positions last year. I know it's a tremendous expense to the city. Um but it was greatly overdue and has made miraculous changes uh in the health and welfare for

the crews here at um at at K9. Um any questions about the SER pay um for the paramedics? I do want to throw a little plug in there about that. Um I pulled some numbers for you this morning uh just so you could have some kind of some indicators as to the importance for those positions. Um, if you go back a year from today, we had 950 EMS calls. Um, out of the 950, 755 of those were transports. Um, if you do the math, that's about 10% of our population in the last year that we've transported to CPH. Um, probably be closer to eight or 9% if we do look at repeat transports for the same patient um, over the course of a week or so. But uh one out of 10 people in our community that we've touched and and and provided life-saving services for and transported to the hospital. If you look nationwide at um survivability rates, especially for cardiac and severe trauma, the nationwide average for survivability and walking out of the hospital for um a patient who's coded full heart attack, not breathing, no heart rate is less than 10%. Um, city of Chicago was 1 to 3%. They are now celebrating that they've gotten up to that 10% national average. Um, working with CPH to to to do a um an investigation of to the turnout and survivability rates for patients that Kenai Fire Department has transported, we're hovering around 50%. Five time higher survivability rate. Um, you're better off uh if you have a a massive emergency, you're better off in Kenai, the city of Kenai than you are in downtown Chicago, downtown Denver, downtown Dallas, downtown New York. You're getting better better services and better life-saving interventions in the city of Kenai than any of those departments. Um, four of

the five highest survivability rates for fire agencies are all on the West Coast. couple in California, one in Oregon, and two in uh Washington State. Seattle being the highest. We're only a percent or two off of Seattle um for survivability rate. If that tells you how great the EMS service here is in in Kenai and part part of that big big part of that is we're able to get a paramedic on scene for every one of those uh major calls. Um, the fact that we have not capped how many paramedics we can have in the department, um, and the fact that we're aggressively trying to recruit, retain, and and maintain paramedics in this department is huge. So, I just I just wanted you to be aware of how important that service is and the capabilities that they have over a basic EMT or even an advanced EMT, what they can do intervention wise, the drugs that they can push, and the things they can do in the field. um that normally most people would have to wait for until they got actually arrived at the hospital. So, thank you for the support. Um

and and chief, you know, Kenai is not a small area. No, it's not. Um so, that really factors into it and it would improve that. I mean, you got to go across the bridge, get over like VIP all the way north, east west. Yes, sir. Um uh any questions uh about the the staffing? Any more questions? I know you might have some about how the the three positions added last year might have affected operations, anything like that.

I I was more interested in in the morale of of of everybody and it sounds like you you you covered that and that was that was really a selling point for me because I didn't know if these young men and women wanted a lot of overtime to begin with. Maybe they want some for the but you know.

Yep. So, we rely very heavily on recall on a on a recall model. So, if we have a an ALS call that kicks off, that requires a minimum of three personnel. We typically have five or six um on duty at any given time. So, that puts us out of service for another ALS call or a fire response, but we activate a recall and we have firefighters come in off duty to staff the station, staff the rigs, and be on on on standby for another call to come in. our recall participation from staff was almost non-existent when I got here because of that burnout. Um we've seen a tremendous improvement in the numbers of recalled personnel that are showing up now because they're not um avoiding work um and avoiding coming in and doing more work because of all the extra overtime that's been required of them. And so if you look at all the markers of health for a fire department, we have tremended tremendously in less than a year back into a what I would say is a very healthy zone for staffing and participation and involvement for calls and recalls. So it's it's been tremendous. Thank you.

Um looking at performance measures, uh if you look at we we we changed the way we were reporting um things like our fire inspections. While we have over 400 commercial entities uh or or buildings within the city limits of Kenai, not all of those are required for an annual or even a bannual inspection by the fire um marshall. So we reduced that down to that 237. In previous reports, you probably saw that 400 number. We wanted it to be more of an accurate description of the percentage that we were touching every year. We try uh we meet Alaska requirements with the state fire marshall's office and every commercial facility in the city is inspected every two years or sooner. Um so that's where we're at.

Yes. Is you got 28 and 12%. Is that actual so far this year or projected?

Um so when this was drafted that was actual for just this calendar year. So if we were to update that to today that would be up significantly. So, you should be seeing 50 or higher percent every single year if we're doing them on a 2-year basis. And you'll usually see higher than 50%. And when you do the math for 2 years, you're like, "Hey, that adds up to 120%." That doesn't make sense. Well, some of those um facilities require a second inspection. If we have deficiencies and things, we have to go back and and reinspect that facility to make sure they've come into compliance. So, that's why that number sometimes looks off. It's actually not, but it uh sometimes just reinspections on the same facility. Um any other questions on that? So looking at our our goals from last year, FY26, uh that first one there was update accreditation with the state of Alaska. Um and that's for teaching and certifying inhouse. That uh has been fulfilled. Um, we've looked at getting a couple of our instructors reertified and reacredited to do training in-house. Uh, couple of our captains and deputy chief um have have been certified and accredited to teach and do certain in-house um certifications. It saves us the the money and time of having to send and pay to send someone else um outside that department. And we've also found other avenues and partnerships with neighboring departments where if they're hosting a class or putting one on, they're now allowing our firefighters to participate in their certification classes, which again saves us time and money um for those um certifications that our folks are required to have. Um number two there, work with public works for that phase three, that forest mitigation grant. Um we had to apply for extensions and were successful in doing that so that we could continue that work through into this year and this summer. um to spend out that money. I think if you looked around town, you've probably seen how many acres have been cleared of that beetle kill. Um I think the

contractors, in my personal opinion, have done a tremendous job uh in Leafrey and public works at managing some of those projects um and making sure that um they're accomplished and paid out. Have done a great job with that. It's made the city safer firewise. Also, I think beautifification wise, it's gotten a lot of that deadfall and and some of those hazards. You know, uh you probably remember in some of the most recent major wind storms over the last year, we've had a lot of power outages with deadstanding trees falling on power lines. I think we ran um close to 40 calls last year for down trees on power lines and several fires started by those trees on power lines. So, and getting those cleared out have been a tremendous benefit for the city. Number three there, improve and implement uh new personnel testing procedures to enhance candidate pool and acquisition. Uh the first hiring I did when I got here, we think we had six or seven applicants um to fill a firefighter position. Um we're averaging anywhere from 30 to 45 now. Um one of the things we did is the city fire department previously required folks to come here in person and do their written and physical agility test. And what we did is we adopted the national standard um the written exam and the CPAT candidate physical assessment test which allows us to reach a pool of candidates in all 50 states. They can do a CPAD in their in their home of record and we can accept that now as a physical standard test for their them to be eligible to hire on with C9. It's also um allowed us to hire paramedics and more advanced personnel. not to I I know I've talked with a couple of council members, but we are still also working really hard to craft our local pool of candidates. Um we're partnering with the high school with job shadow programs, uh um um interview programs and and things like that to en encourage our youth in the local area to attend KPC and then come

do firefighter one programs with us, Nikkiski or um Satna to stay in the local area. Um goal four there consolidate fire department uh database services. Um Mr. Schwarner alluded to that earlier. We had seven different software programs for management of various aspects of the fire department. We were able to go and consolidate all of those um with one software agency called First. Um could you imagine every day doing reports and having to log into seven different platforms and then the dup duplicity of information having to re uh reenter the same data in multiple platforms. Now they enter it into one module and it populates across all of our modules in one one software. So it's way more efficient. Um less time, better data reporting. One of the problems that the fire department's had over the years is uh the ability to data mine some of the key data that's required for ISO um um ratings and interviews and grants and so so forth. So we're now one year into the adoption of first due and we're already starting to reap those benefits of being able to provide better data um to our partners, to our leadership. So it's been a tremendous improvement. Um goal five there um improve paramedic and advanced EMT accuracy when um administering meds and interventions. Um we adopted and and implemented a new software called Handheavy. Um, every one of my firefighters has a app on their phone as well as the iPads and the ambulances and the and the fire engines. And what hand heavy is is basically when you have a patient, they have to do a lot of algebra in the field when they calculate med doses. And you can imagine 2:00 in the morning, you've run several calls and you're half awake and now you've got to push a drug for an individual that could be life or death. Um, Handavy takes the the the chance of error out. They input the data for the patient right into the app and according

to our medical operations manual and um and and national standard it'll tell them you got to give this med and this rate um and so forth. So we've eliminated that human um component for a mistake or or inaccuracy that obviously would be a huge liability potential lawsuit for the city and so that was a great um improvement this year for the fire department. Is that just a calculator then because it's not making a decision per se? So,

um yes, depending on what the intervention is that they're looking at. Uh so, our entire medical operations manual is customized into the hand heavy. It's customized specifically for Kenai Fire and state of Alaska and what our medical director requires. Um, and so whenever they look up a intervention or a medication guideline or whatnot, it's tailored specifically for what we're required to adhere to with our medical direction in the state of Alaska. Did I answer your question? I think I think so. Okay. U, but yes,

it it it does a lot of the math. Yes, it's kind of a fancy calculator. It does a lot of the math just to just to eliminate that potential for a miscalculation or or inaccuracy. It's not like talking to a doctor that's in a box, if you will. You know, it's it's a that's that's kind of what I meant. Yes, sir. I wasn't sure what it limitations were.

Um FY27 department goals. Um number one, improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our department response to emergencies, especially in limited access areas such as beaches and forested areas. um working with the fisheries budget and that um sidebyside ranger that we have asked for to be funded this year is going to be outfitted for us to get into some of these back areas for wildland response and then it'll also be used during dip net season for better access on the beach. It's hard to get our we can't get our ambulances and rigs out onto the beach. So typically we throw everybody in the back of a truck with all their equipment to get them down to a patient on the beach and half the time we get the pickup truck stop and so it's uh it's it's difficult getting patient access. We have had fatalities um on the beach in the last two years. We had a a cardiac emergency fatality summer before last. We've had a lot of lot of trauma calls, a lot of fish hooks to eyes and hands and and things like that. So, um, getting out there and having that kind of access is is is huge. And so, this goal really is pertaining to that particular piece of equipment and then also some go bags and things that are able to be better easily transported into remote areas. So,

um, was the, um, is the cost of that side by side figured into the expense and fees for the personal use fishery? show that um this this cost to uh our community is passed on to the user group. Is that I would say yes. I think uh Dave could probably give you more detail. Yes, that is that is um going to be paid through the PU fishery fund.

Um goal number two, develop a multi-year training plan and leadership development framework um to develop our company officers and chief officers. We don't have we haven't had at KFD a formalized um mentoring and training program for our officers that our officers are tremendously squared away operationally. Um but as far as large scale emergencies and even executive level management of programs and whatnot, they've never been afforded that. So we're kind of behind the curve there. Um I've already implemented several programs for our officers. They do a quarterly project every quarter. This quarter they're doing a budget project. They're learning how to navigate and and manage a an agency budget and they compare and contrast our agency with other similarsized fire departments to see kind of the nuances and changes regionally for managing a budget. Um they have done communication mentorship. We've got a partnership with KPC. one of their uh communications doctors that runs out there at the at the um campus has come out and uh done communication and skills testing and training with our our our crews how to deescalate a hostile patient, stuff like that. Things that they have not already been afforded in the past. We've brought online for the department. So, we're still playing catch-up a little bit, but the officer development program is looking good. there was a little bit of money added to the training budget um compared to last year for 2027 with $5,000. You'll see over there if you look at the side of the budget that is for um a sending officers out for some of that advanced training and b bringing instructors in um to Kenai in order to host some of these classes and training that the officers need um for their professional development. Um, number three, continue targeted improvements in data reporting, reporting, training, documentation, water supply coordination, and response reliability to position the department for a stronger uh score with ISO that uh

piggybacks off of adopting first due um improving our data tracking capabilities. um you recently had legislation before you to adopt our new autoate agreement. Um um that basically getting two bumped up to three personnel brought into Kenai and then what we also offer is that autoate agreement. So with the addition of the three staff positions last year and then now with our adoption of the autoate agreement effectively according to the ISO matrix we're getting two more personnel on scene which basically gives us credit for a whole another apparatus as well which bumps us into a much better category ISO wise. So when we do um uh put in an application for re-evaluation for ISO, it puts us in a lot better state. I know the city manager shares some of my heartache with ISO. Um and and most people are like, well, what difference does it really make? Um it it can be huge, especially on like commercial entity side and whatnot, trying to attract businesses into Kenai when they start running the numbers. ISO rating um can be a pretty significant figure um for commercial insurance rates. Uh little bit less on the private insurance rate for like private citizens, private residences, but there is an effect depending on the company. Um all the companies vary. A lot of the companies in this area have gone to a rate of occurrence or rate of risk model. They don't particularly lean so heavily on ISO, which our rate of occurrence for the city of Kenai is pretty low. Um which is great for our residents insurance wise. Number four, uh build on recent recruiting success by implementing retention focused strategies such as mentorship programs, structured onboarding, career development pathways, and evaluation of compensation competitiveness. Um several things we've already talked about the formal mentoring program training opportunities that we've added to the department the evaluation um that the city manager has really um um led and and pioneered for us with assert pay um increases

evaluating our competitiveness to other other local agencies is huge. Um I was trying to paint this picture for my cruise um recently because if you think about you know small increases in pay um sometimes minuscule amounts don't seem like much and and and you're like oh well I'm only getting a couple hundred more dollars a paycheck or something like that. It may seem pretty minuscule but when you translate that into life quality terms couple hundred that's that's a $2 to4 million life insurance policy every month for your family that you could add to your portfolio. you know, that's a that's a new camper payment to take your kids camping and enjoy the Alaskan wilderness. You know, that's a a hotel room for your anniversary. You know, to you know, when you start painting the picture of of of these small increases and particularly this one that we put forward this year is not a small increase. It's a very massive life-changing increase um for the for these paramedics. Um the again the morale, the desire to work for the city of Kenai, the the view of support from our leadership, from our city manager, our city council is huge. The transition I've seen in the last in the two years that I've been here of how these folks feel appreciated and and the willingness to go above and beyond and do extra work above the bare minimum has completely changed. So thank you for that. Number five, develop a a formal CR, which is a community risk reduction framework aligned with national best practices to proactively address leading causes of fires, injuries, and medical emergencies with in Kenai. So, um, the fire marshall and I have really done a deep dive this year into how we can improve our public education, um, programming. And then I've also worked with some of our paramedics on how we can minimize and even reduce call volume by providing better services with partners to some of our residents in Kina. I'll give you a couple of

examples. We have had over the last year and a half, we've had several I would say probably a dozen to to almost two dozen patients with medical issues that are repeat um um callouts. Um, we've had a particular patient recently that we've run on three to five times in a week, per week for the same patient. And part of that problem is is a lack of regional resources to get them what they really need. A lot of times they just don't feel good and they're lonely and they're happy to see the firefighters come in and spend 30, 45 minutes with them and and you find out when you get there, they don't really have a medical emergency. They just want to talk to somebody. So, we've really partnered with CPH. Um, I have worked very hard to advocate for better services. CPH just brought a mental crisis team online this year. um our our department as well as PD has used them quite extensively in the last six months where we can call them out and then they have other avenues and streams of revenue that they can tap into to get services for these individuals um that have not been afforded to them before whereas their only really lifeline was 911. So you've probably seen and you will see I hope over the next year um some incremental reductions in our call volume. Um, another thing that has reduced our call volume and increased our availability time for emergencies has been doing away with reverse transports because there were no organizations or entities that could get people that were being released from the hospital. A lot of our senior citizens that don't really have a support network um were relying on us taking an ambulance out of service to go all the way to the hospital to pick them up and basically be an Uber service to bring them back to Kenine. And so we've really kind of held CPH, we've held some of these senior homes that are within our jurisdiction. We we've kind of been holding their feet to the fire to

increase availability of those services. Um we've even worked with um Alleyc Alaska Cab to bring on another handicapped uh accessible van and we're working with a company called Mo on the Go, who is another private um entity to increase her capabilities and ability to go and grab people and give them rides back home. and and also um submit claims with Medicare and Medicaid. So, we're we're partnering with all these agencies to increase capabilities and services for the residents of Kai while also reducing our call volume so that we do have our ambulances available for that next call. Whereas when I first got here, it was quite often both of our ambulances were out on calls. Sometimes one ambulance was doing a reverse transport for a Kenai resident and then we'd get a call in, hey, my husband's in the floor having a heart attack and I don't have an ambulance available for you and then now you're waiting on a Kiski or or Satna um CES if they're available. If they're on a call, they might not even be available. So now you're waiting on on one of those outside agencies to bring you an ambulance within the city limits of Kenai and I'm trying to avoid that at all cost.

I serve on the board of cards. uh um and they have um opportunity to do transport and they have um um for handicap individuals. So that could be one of your other resources and they're 24/7. So Okay. Um just to let you know. Yeah. On top of that, I don't think you mentioned the new bus service because I know it goes to the hospital. I don't know its route, but I know where it comes back into Kenai at least. So,

and I don't know what kind of an impact that's making yet. I'm sure it is. Um, and I have not looked into what kind of an impact the bus has had uh as far as reducing those reverse transport needs. I know Life Med and Guardian have also met with us too. Um, private entities, private private uh for-profit ambulance services typically try not to step on the toes of a municipality and municipalities typically don't want them coming into the area because it does maybe cost some revenue um for ambulance transports and whatnot. But when you have a small entity like KFD and if you look at our call volume and what we had, we we we need some of those entities in the area to provide services for our residents um and keeping our ALS response um ambulances in service and available. Um any question on fire department goals?

Okay. Uh just also to put on your radar, uh we were the first agency I believe on the whole peninsula and one of the first in the state. Um uh Deputy Chief Coots um has been getting his feet wet um with some pretty major grant projects and the the rural health um transformation grant has come to Alaska to the tune of $272 million per year for five years. They've got hundreds of applications. We were one of the first in the whole state to get an application in. We've applied for the category. They have they have funding categories. We've applied to be in the $250 to $1 million fund category for this year. Um we have submitted requests for quite a few pieces of equipment um and and training supplementation with this grant. Uh all indications is it's very very likely we're going to get it funded. Um, and just so you know, certain pieces of equipment like our life packs, our cardio monitors, um, that we carry in the ambulances. We have life pack 15s right now. The life pack 15 debuted back in 2008. It's basically a 20 20 year old piece of equipment, um, technology wise. Um, the industry is moving away and moving into cardiac monitors that go from 12 lead to 15 leads. And so the life pack 35 is the newest model, which means we're going to have to convert because eventually they're going to time out the the life pack 15s and they're not even going to service them anymore. So for us to go to the life pack 35, that's about 60 grand per unit. So we got two ambulances and we try to have one in reserve in case one goes out of service. So So 60 grand times three. And I would rather not bring a special project before you saying, "Hey, I need 180 grand um to buy new life pack monitors for my ambulances." And so we've applied for those through this grant to go ahead and get ahead of that and get life pack 35s. Also, um some other mobility equipment in order to

better assist some of these um residents that we have um we have quite a few beriatric patients um in the area. Uh I give you an example. We've got a you know one 400 lb patient here within the city that we run on frequently. And I mean, you can imagine if I have two small individuals that are on the ambulance that day and they get there and they've got to move a 400 lb patient to try to get them into the ambulance. We don't really have the appropriate equipment for that. So, we put in four um electric modified uh stair chairs that would allow they're basically a track system. We currently have the manual ones that are great. They control bringing a patient downstairs, but if you got to get them out of a basement and up to the front door, they don't do anything for us. And so they have motorized versions of those now that we could throw a 400lb patient on and it's got little tracks on it and we can take them right up the stairs and out the front door. And my smallest firefighter can do it almost single-handedly.

You did a little video online of that, didn't you? Um not not those. We did the the power lifts, the gurnie lifts that that you all approved um the reallocation of funding for um which was tremendous. I mean, you can imagine the gurnie by itself weighs about 100 lb and then you throw a 300lb patient on it and you've got two firefighters to try to lift 400 lb up into the back of the ambulance and they were doing it all the time and now they don't have to. Now they just get to push a button and one hand load that patient. So, thank you for that. That's another huge morale booster for the department.

Absolutely. We did have two pretty significant injuries this year. We had a firefighter that had to have a shoulder rebuilt and we had another firefighter that had to have a pretty invasive back surgery um to repair some damage. And so, yeah, absolutely. Preventing injuries like that is tremendous. Our uh Yes, sir. Quick question for you. Uh could you just uh restate what that grant was and the the bracket of funding? Rural rural health transformation grant. It's a federal grant that's been divvied out to the states. Um Alaska was awarded 272 million over per year for five years. I think it comes out to a little over like 1.2 billion something like that. Um

compartmentalized there's huge sections for different and and what was the and then we we've applied uh in a funding category that's from 250,000 upwards to $1 million for funding. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, you bet. And if fund if funded, that's a huge huge financial burden off of the city in the next five years as we would need to look at how we're going to fund certain replacement for for those equip that that equipment that we've applied for. I

I just want to point out I like that your goals are equal part um staff development and retention. I I especially like number two. I mean you're you're you're saying train we're training our replacements now. um which I appreciate that it's it's f it's future facing and it's and it's focused on what what I think is our our greatest resource and that's our staff. Um but it's equal parts that and um meeting the needs of the community now and and thinking forward um you know community risk reduction programs etc. So I um I'm I just want to point out I'm struck by how uh I guess even KE these are and I feel like they're they're really good at at focusing on the two most important things. you know, the residents of Kenai and the staff at Kenai Fire.

I appreciate

I was my own critic on these goals because typically we try to do smart goals, you know, you know, strategic, measurable, you know, and whatnot and you can give timelines and actual figures and things like that. And I know um Terry probably prefers to see a little bit more uh strategic goals that can be measured and and and put into numbers. uh being new here um and not knowing the numbers very well and being able to have accurate data trends over the course of years, it's hard to develop smart goals. Um especially ones that are accurate and make sense. Uh I I do hope to have a few more of those smart goals in my in my goals for next year. But but but yeah, I I appreciate that a lot because I put a lot of time and thought into, hey, what do we need now? What are the huge priorities we can't afford to neglect? but then also how can we prevent problems in the future by addressing being proactive now. So, thank you for pointing that out. Appreciate that.

Um, we had a project, a special project. I I I would have liked to have submitted 10 this year, but I was trying to trying to take it easy on on on our city manager and and the council because you blessed us tremendously last year with a huge addition in our personnel budget. Um we've got some operational shortfalls um as a department that the city relies on us for. One of those largest areas being hazmat. So you probably saw a special project for um a trailer and some initial equipment. So we we are if we have a hazardous materials release in the city, we're we're the initial line of defense. Um most of our crew is certified to the hazmat ops level, which gives us a very minimal capability. Um really we're only going into a hazmat area if we have to affect a rescue. Um we currently don't have the equipment or PPE in order to do that safely. And my my worst fear was almost realized this year. We had a pretty severe ammonia leak over here at Packstar um with some of their refrigerant units. Um you know that's a pretty nasty chemical and you're not supposed to go into it with any exposed skin and and whatnot. And fortunately for us, all of their personnel were able to self- egress and get out of the the dangerous dangerous area. Had that had they not been able to and we would have had to sent firefighters in in just regular structural firefighting gear, we would have had burns and injuries and things like that to our firefighters as they went to try to affect the rescue. And so in that special project, you'll see a a trailer to house that initial equipment as well as some initial um suits, level A and level B PE suits. Um that will allow us to safely enter uh hot zone in order to rescue individuals within Kenai. Um and then also um you'll see some some uh small amounts of mitigation and damke and diverting um BMS and things like that. We had a pretty significant fuel spill over at

Three Bears this last year. And when we got there, we were pretty much relegated to digging soil um and and throwing soil out there to be absorbent and also create create BMS around storm drains and and things like that. So, you'll see in that request, and this is just a bare minimum request to get us to at least some level of functionality. I could have asked you for hundreds of thousands of dollars, but we're we're just trying to be realistic. Um, be fiscally responsible, and I'm trying to get the bare minimum amount of equipment to protect our crews and still affect a a a positive uh um response to that type of an emergency. Any questions about the hazmat project?

Yeah, thanks, Chief. Does that also include any additional training resources that you might need for that that type of response? So, we would be looking at I current we're for fortunate right now because some of our employees have worked out at Marathon um before and we also have a few that are part-time employees out at Marathon and they receive funded through Marathon that hazmat tech training. Um myself and I think four or five other individuals right now are currently hazmat techs which is a huge um boost to our capabilities if we have the appropriate equipment and PPE. Um, but we would have to look at developing some type of a partnership either with Marathon or with the state to to send folks to go get that hazmat technician certification if that's the level of intervention that we want to maintain.

Thank you. You bet. Prevention and response is another good one. Yes, we and we do. Yep. And we do train with them every year. Um the the the thing about relying on some of those outside entities is when they respond, there's a bill attached to it.

And I'd rather if if we can mitigate it here locally and and and not make too big of a fuss about it and not incur a huge bill, um I think it's best for us in the city. Uh let's see. I also wanted to just bring it back up to that we are hosting the 2026 firefighter conference this year which will be a huge it'll be a huge uh time consuming project. It already has been um for myself but I think it's also going to be a a boost to the economy towards the end of September in that first week of October if we bring 3 to 500 firefighters to Kenai um for the fire conference. We're hoping to host the majority of the conference um at the regional fire training center. We're also hoping to have use of the Challenger for a training space. Um, and then we've reached out to the high school for their use of their auditorium for opening and closing ceremonies and and so on. So, see a whole bunch of firefighters walking around for a week here in Kenai. Any questions on fire conference?

Sounds like it'll be a very safe place around that time. Thank you. Thank you for hosting this for our community. I think it would be a very wonderful boost economically for our community. Yep. I think so.

Um, if you don't have any other questions for me, uh, just looking at the budget and let me see if there was anything else there. Uh, just there was a note there under future considerations um on page 130. With the recent um expansion of the staffing, we've seen a significant drop in the reliance of overtime. Our overtime rates been cut in half. And we haven't even um realize the full benefit of those three positions because we we did have some vacancies this year. We had some injuries and firefighters out on FMLA or or light duty status. And then uh um we've had a probationary firefighter that didn't make it through probation. So, we've had to readvertise for that position. And so we haven't even realized the full true benefit of those three new firefighter positions. And we've already seen a 50% reduction in those reliance on overtime for just minimum staffing. And then uh Chief Ross mentioned it, but we also helped and participated in the public safety facility feasibility study. Um we're excited to see what council decides for direction on that. I know my crews would would absolutely love a a newer, better, bigger facility. I know my my female staff would like to not have to sleep in a room with a couple of snoring guys in a in a in a shared bunk room. Um uh so yeah, we're excited to see what direction the city takes there.

Don't ever say that. And then and then I also wanted to talk about I know in our capital budget we have programming for fleet replacement. Um one of the big elephants in the room has been our tower replacement of our tower unit. Those those rigs now fully outfitted and and equipped you're looking close to $3 million to replace that one apparatus. And so I've purposely drugged my feet um on replacing that apparatus and presenting um um an RFP or proposal forward for replacing it because I wanted to see get to know what we actually need for the city of Kenai um what's realistic and what's fiscally responsible um for a particular fleet and maintaining a fleet. and we've been looking at some pretty um creative solutions. So, we maintain the same capacities as we currently have, but we reduce the amount of cost to the city and then also maintenance and upkeep. Um uh Chief Coots and I while we were in Juno, we were able to look at um um uh Capital City Fire has the only right now they're the first to purchase a single axle quint that has a ladder and bucket capability. It's a truck that is about a million dollars less than a traditional tower, but has the same capabilities that we currently have with reach safety for doing roof operations and things like that. It would be a significant um um rate reduction for the total cost of the apparatus. So, we're looking at that as an option for replacing the tower. We're also instead of replacing full engines that we currently only use as as tankers, we're looking at replacing those not with more engines, but with with tankers because that's actually what we typically use them for. And you know, you're looking at a $500 to $750,000 apparatus instead of a million and a half. Um, and so I've been really trying to take my time, be realistic about what our needs are, what we can uh effectively staff even um in the city of Kenai, and then also what our rate of occurrence and what our actual response

needs are. Um, we have utilized that tower a few times in the last uh year and a half um on some pretty significant fires. So, I would I wouldn't say we don't have a need for a a full tower. Um, but if there's a cheaper option like a Quint apparatus that does the exact same thing, smaller, um, um, you know, probably doesn't have the lifting and crane capabilities of a full tower unit with dual rear axles and the weight ratings that we currently have on our tower, but provides what we actually need for a fire service that saves the city a million to a million, too, on cost of replacement. Um, I think that would be the way to go. So, would you just help me understand is a tower the same thing as what I know as a ladder truck?

Yes. And when was that when was that current tower? It seems like it was just yesterday that we got that. It's a 93 model. It was just yesterday.

So, this Yeah. So, so the industry service life for a tower is 15 years. your industry standards recommends highly you should um move it into a reserve service status at the 15-ear mark. We have uh we were finally successful at getting a company up here last year to do non-destructive testing on the on the tower beds and actually reertify our tower. So liability and safety wise we're okay. Problem is I can't get parts for it. So when something breaks, we're there's there's a lot of maggyvered systems on that truck that, you know, we've got bubble gum wrappers and stuff, you know, holding stuff together. So that's an exaggeration, but

if it didn't look brand new, it'd be easier to Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's a beautiful truck and it's got low miles on it, but uh you know you know metal metal metal and and systems and electronics and things degrade over the years. The SE air is not kind to fire equipment. Um, when you get rusting and pitting in massive structural members, it significantly reduces their safety and integrity. Um, and uh, I don't know if you've ever seen a video of a fire department tower when the bed collapses um, due to stress and fatigue on the ladder bed, but it it kills firefighters. Well, now I'm going to have to look that up on YouTube, too. So,

yep. Um, yeah, I'm right there with you, Mayor. Sure is hard to replace a truck that looks that great and and and is in that great a shape. Um but uh serviceabilitywise and and whatnot, it's it is a bit of a liability for us. A few years ago it was up on our rack because we they had the company appreciation or party over there looking under it too and I mean the tires were new looking everything you know but Yes sir. But at any rate, the numbers don't lie.

And the new rigs, um, particularly the one that we are considering and looking at, they they maximize staffing on the fire ground because right now, that current model that we have in service, I have to put a firefighter in that b that bucket to operate that ladder and that tower and our elevated master stream. To me, the elevated master stream is almost more important than even the ladder and the bucket itself because when we have a commercial fire or multi-story fire, that's our main our main access for getting streams lots amount of water up high on fires or or into the center of a structure that's on on fire. And so the newer ones now are remote operated. So my firefighter that's down on the ground operating the pump and everything can also operate the elevated master stream and the in the bucket without me having to pull a set of boots off of the fire ground and put them in that bucket where they're just up there operating some joysticks. So I get I effectively gain a whole another person for interior search and rescue and firefighting operations just by replacing that tower with one of these newer quints that are fully operated um down by the operator at the at the pump panel. Yes, sir.

Well, chief, unless you have something more. I mean, we're kind of over a little bit. Got a whole hour, believe it or not. But it was every minute was worthwhile. I mean, if you have something else you need to need to add. No, sir. You know, I want to say that I do appreciate everything that you've done for the department since you've been there. everything I've heard, everything you just talked about actually and uh great leadership and uh your forward thinking and all of that and I appreciate having you.

I appreciate you all very much more than you know. I was uh I was telling Miss Haskin earlier. I have zero complaints. The only complaints I have are the same that every fire chief has, but locally with our leadership here, I have zero complaints. I appreciate the support.

Mr. Mayor, before we move on, I do want to just point out a couple things. Um, when you're looking at the fire department's budget, you know, salaries, basic salaries up 136,000. That's really the majority of that is driven by two things. One is the cola. Um, you got a 2% cola in there, but you got to look, you know, um, original budget last year was 2 million in wages. So, you know, 2% increase on that, you know, 40,000 of that. The remainder of that is related to that paramedic incentive uh that we've already talked about. Um when we look at overtime, I know Chief touched on it. I still think we're going to see some benefit from u those three new positions here in the future, too. Uh we did have a bit of a miscalculation last year. Um you'll there's actually an ordinance you guys will be hearing uh on Wednesday night um to address that in this year's budget and it dealt with um some of the mandatory overtime um simply the shift that the firefighters work. So our firefighters, correct me on this chief, I think we work 192 hours in a 24-day work cycle. That's how we determine overtime. So, it's totally different than 40 hours a week or eight hours a day or any of that. So, with fire with the shift that we're working is um 192 hours in a 24-day work cycle. Um on a 4896 schedule um those crews are will work just working that straight 48.96. They'll work 160 hours of overtime each a year um just as a result of the shift they're scheduled to work. So, there was a miscalculation last year when we put the budget together on some of that overtime. Um, that's going to be fixed by this ordinance that we've got before you um Wednesday night. Um, and you see a $66,000 increase here. That's what is driving that increase in overtime. So, I just want to call your attention if you're looking at this and looking back. And then the other

increases mostly are associated with the benefits associated with those increases in pay, whether that's PERS or workers comp or or the other things too. So, you're seeing it a lot in this department. That's why I wanted to bring it up. Okay. Thank you for that additional information. Now, we have library. There's a request for a fiber and then we're going to take a 5m minute break. So, we'll be back here at 12:35.

If you're if you're kind of ready, I can get started. We're back on We're back on the record. It starts on one uh page 165. Yep. 165. I think it always starts on page 165. So, it's pretty standard. restaurant formal could be a good

I that's I like that. I like that a lot. So So the budget starts with our mission which is to provide a welcoming space for people to connect, learn, discover and grow. This is a mission that we actually as a staff worked on a couple of years ago. We added uh to this mission a a vision statement and a um core value statement and also our customer philosophy. If you're at all interested in that, please check out our website. And I'm totally segueing right now. Moving to our functions and responsibilities. Um we function as both a community uh resource and also a community hub. We provide access to a statewide collection that's more than three million um items at this point in a variety of formats uh through the Alaska library catalog along with uh technology uh internet access and public spaces. Some of our community members come in every day and for them we are the primary access point for things like computer access job u filling out job applications, filling out um government forms and printing and copying and scanning and emailing and faxing and all of the things. And um all of those things actually also mean that we as staff help them um with their basic technology needs. Looking at our staffing, um we are I am requesting this year a reclassification of our youth services position. Um this is to better reflect the level of work that position is doing and that includes things like um program development u collection development uh partnerships nurturing those partnerships and then also administrative responsibilities. Moving on to page 166.

Those are our measures and our goals. As we wrap up this fiscal year, we're anticipating about 62 to 63,000 visitors, uh over 100,000 checkouts, both uh physical and digital. Uh we are looking at over 760 programs serving between 8,000 and 9,000 uh attendees. And and this was amazing to me because um it keeps growing. Over 2,000 meeting room reservations and more than 4,200 hours of our uh room use. Some of our numbers in FY 2026 did go down our circulation and our attendance, but 2025 was really really um successful. And so I would say this year FY2026, we are overall still pretty solid in our engagement. Um, one thing that I wanted to mention too is our digital circulation. Since 2020, our digital circulation has gone up by 48%, which really shows you um where the where the community needs are or moving toward. This fiscal year, we had three main goals. First was to be a community hub, and we met that goal with our strong visit numbers, visitor numbers, our library card um applications. We added I think over 600 uh over 650 applications or new accounts this year and also our facility use. Second was promoting literacy and access. This was partially met. Um circulation did go down. It dipped a little bit. Um we also added fewer materials than we had anticipated this year and this is mainly because of uh the rise in costs also um because we keep shifting to digital materials because those are the ones that are more and more popular. Uh in terms of access to technology, we remain pretty strong and steady. Um the third goal that we had was offering

programs and learning opportunities and I would say we met that goal too. We had a ton of programs this year, strong participation, a little bit lower than last year, but still pretty uh significant and across all age groups. And then looking um ahead to 2027, our goals are pretty similar. This is on page 167. um they continue to align with the city's comprehensive plan. We accept we expect to serve between um 60,000 and 62,000 visitors. We want to maintain a strong um circulation, offer tons of programs, again between 650 and 700, expand our outreach and our partnerships, something that we've been doing for years now, and then also continue to improve our access to technology and to digital resources. Um we've and I have to mention our uh community survey. Uh we did see a very positive response with over 80 uh% of the uh respondents saying that they're satisfied with library services. We did do our own research uh re sorry our own survey last year and we actually had over 90% of folks being either um satisfied or very satisfied with library services. um looking at some future needs and future priorities. Definitely wanting to look into improving our space layout and our wayfinding. This is something that we've also been working on for a couple of years now. We've been looking at shifting collections, looking at adding um shelf dividers so folks know where different collections are located, things like that. Um we are also now like was it 14 or 15 years since the last renovation? Sorry, not quite sure of the number, but our furniture is getting to be pretty uh worn and ratty. And so we'd like to look into um updating that furniture in the main library. And then also adding more um shelving in the kids area because that's

our major driver for circulation. And then lastly, the budget. There was actually a decrease. So decrease a decrease in salaries and benefits but then we did have a modest increase in uh maintenance and operations and you'll see uh there is one uh count in particular that's repair and maintenance supplies I'm sorry operating and uh repair supplies 2022 which has gone up pretty significantly and this is because um the special projects that Dave talked about earlier it's part of that account so purchasing new um office chairs for staff um adding a couple of cameras and then also um renewing our current uh contract for the cameras that we already have the maintenance. Um and that is all I have. So if there's any questions, I'd be happy to take them. I know fast.

You weren't even you weren't even 10 full minutes. I should get some extra points for that actually. Yeah,

maybe maybe a special project this year. I think the library is one of our star features of our community and um and it is a beautiful representation of our city to our community visitors and uh y'all host many guests and I want to thank you for the excellent job and I always it makes my heart sing every time you come before council and we have a city uh ordinance uh to appropriate funds from grants that the library has achieved. So, I want to thank you for that.

I I was going to say the same thing same thing. I'm I'm consistently struck by how much money you're able to bring in through through grants, donations, and other things. Um, and I appreciate the fiscal responsibility there for sure. I um my favorite thing about the library for our community is that there's something for everybody and it grows with it can grow with every member of our community. You've got the children's section, you know, that promotes literacy from a young age and moving all the way through all the age groups, providing opportunities for parents to come with kids or um with somebody with a friend or somebody on their own to the different activities that you offer, you know, all the way to assisting people with technology who are maybe struggle with it but need need access to do certain things. um you're touching every every little age bracket on that demographic continuum and and I think that's a hard job to do to figure out how to meet those needs of everybody. And I it seems that that you're doing it that you're doing it and you're doing it well. Um, and I love I love going I loved going when my kids were little and I my my kids are adults now and I talked my daughter into going to one of your activities recently and and I I loved it and I appreciate that there's something for everybody.

Thank you. And just because you're talking about programming um our summer reading program is starting actually this month uh sign up start on the 18th. So let everyone know and also uh feel free to come and participate yourselves. Uh we have tons of programs lined up for the summer. Um a lot of new stuff as well. So and a lot of really amazing prizes that were donated by local community or organizations. So yes and it's for and it's for adults too. I participated last year and it's easy to do with 48% more digital very true digital materials. Yeah.

I just also wanted to thank you uh I mean my my family loves it. My wife and daughter particularly love it and spend a lot of time there, especially in the summer. Um, just I think the resources you have there have made it really accessible for my wife as a full grown adult to get really into reading in a way that she wasn't before. Um, not to say that she didn't read, but just significantly more. And then to have them be excited to bring me to the library this year to actually show me all the cool things that they enjoy there, I think was a special moment too, just to share in their excitement of what you and your team uh provide to the to the city.

That is awesome to hear. Thank you. I also Sorry, we would be remiss if we didn't talk about the book of things. Is that what it's called? The uh library of things. Library of Things. um like that goes way beyond reading and literacy and access the things that you're able to provide through that. We borrowed a metal detector. My husband was looking for a property marker and um I mean where else can you go borrow a metal detector or a VCR? I mean there's there or there's fishing stuff on there. Fishing rods. Yeah, there's everything you could possibly think of. Yes.

Oh, it's it's the I also I I really really want a a ghost hunting kit, so stay tuned for October. Yeah, let me know. My My daughter and I will be in for that one for sure. Yeah,

I got to say that, you know, I only get the Clarion once a week like everybody else, but I go there to keep score a little bit and then pride too of our what our library does. you know there's whatever that's a lot it does and that's usually the you know well you used to be over there so but but anyway but that really besides you know but I see all of that and I do read that every every week that's something I go to that's something I don't get too much online you have great Facebook thing about things you've done or one thing that's going to happen I'm not sure how it would go you know to have all these things you know for for for young people with families to to be planning but you and maybe you do it Maybe that's the question.

Uh we do submit events to all the local um to the radio also to the newspaper paper and Facebook. Um we are working with the Claron to maybe do a couple of summer reading um articles. So we did just one a couple weeks ago. Um this was about our Lego club. So there was an article about that. Yeah. But yes, I would like to add more to that too. Was it a criticism or just something that uh you know I appreciate seeing because it's it's what's going on in Kenai. I do appreciate you coming over from the dark side by the way and being here.

Thank you very much. It's always fun. Next we have human resources Stephanie Kandle. Well, uh, good afternoon and thank you for, uh, letting me come and share a little bit about what's happening in human resources. Um, I am on page 96 of the, um, book that you have in front of you. I hope you learned as much as we did while you were here.

I I really did enjoy hearing from from everybody. I think our staff is great and um it's exciting to hear when um department heads are planning for succession and um those sort of things are near to my heart. So um if you look at the mission of human resources, it continues to be supporting the city's goals and its employees in a fair and equitable manner in all the things that um I do through the department there. Um our my responsibilities are really what you would find anywhere. You can read through those. I'm not going to uh bore you with that section. Um, as far as staffing, the uh city has had one person in the human resources department that continues uh into the next fiscal year. Um, and then if you look at our performance measures, um, one of the goals that we have that's not formally written in here, but is to be an employer of choice. And I think you can see if you look at our numbers, um, we're uh, we're getting a lot of applicants for our positions. We're not having a huge turnover. Uh we did have a slight increase um of of our total recruitments and these are based on calendar year. Um we had 27 this year. If you remember, we added three firefighters. So three of those were our new firefighter positions. Um these are just our full and part-time position. We also had I think 40 um temporary positions over the um last year. So, um, and then if the the very bottom one is the average number of days to fill vacant positions. Um, what this means is it's the time between when a job posts and when someone an a new employee begins. So, just to give you an idea, it's it's not a fast process to get

someone in place. Um, sometimes sometimes it's quick and sometimes, you know, if we're bringing someone from out of state, it can take a little bit longer. Um but we have seen a little bit of decrease in that time. So that's that's moving in the right direction. Um that number is going to slow us. That number is not going to help. But we'll hopefully have some other speedy ones. Yeah.

Exactly. Exactly. So if you look at our goals um uh been working like the other departments on um getting our policies and procedures in um place clearly explained to employees. Um these are would be personnel policies for the most part. Um still continuing to do this. We've got uh I have a list of about 60 that I'm trying to get through and update. So, um that continues even though it's not listed on my sheet here. Um develop and distribute a supervisor guide book. This one I'm still um completing but planning to have this distributed by the end of the fiscal year. Um and then archiving the files and cataloging them. Um I think I mentioned last year we have 50 years worth of employee personnel files. That's our retention. Um 50 years is the retention schedule. Um it it when I got here they were not in any sort of order, but I do have them organized by termination date, which is what retention is based on. Um I've got about 30 banker boxes full of files plus a couple of file cabinets. So, um there's a lot of them and um getting getting there, but I'm substantially uh getting through those. With the simple records manager, you um input the box and where it's located and then you can go on to input all the files that are in the box so that it's really easily searchable to be able to locate the box. So, that's what that project is. um preparing for years make sense to to you? I mean to I mean there they must have risk it's a risk management.

I mean it is the state of Alaska has the same uh and I believe the biggest reason for it is PERS having um being able to go back and prove when someone worked and and have a record of it. So um it's a long time. Yeah, it's medical records also. It's a long time. And any risk animals? I think lifetime. It's like Yeah. Very long retention schedule for many years. Yeah. To go back. So

So um yeah. So that's that. If you look forward into FY27, I've got some goals. um uh as you know it's a oneperson department and one of the goals that I have is to create an a comprehensive desk manual. This would be something that if I'm out or um if I'm on vacation and someone's filling in for me or if somebody were to follow me, I want to have in place um just a list of all the things that the office does, the p the how you do them, where you find things. Um, I I just think it'll be really helpful. I I was out for a few weeks and the assistant to city manager covered HR. She was the acting HR director, which I hugely appreciate. Shout out to her. Um, but but we I try to leave a list of where to find things and this would just be a complete complete manual for anyone doing that. So, um, and my second goal, uh, we're a member of the Alaska Public Risk Alliance, APA. Um they provide our workers comp insurance among other things and um they also offer free training uh to any of their member organizations. And so one of my goals is to partner with them to bring them and I've actually got it scheduled already for October um to do some supervisory supervisor training with them. Um and then I got a goal to have another one as well. So, um, and then the third one is to take all those records that are now in some order and begin digitizing them so that a little step closer to being able to access them easily. Um, and so that's coming up. Uh, and then you can see my future considerations. Um, just ensuring continuity of operations is um a priority for the city but for human

resources. Um, and then I've got a note there that it's possible that at some point a part-time support could could be um added to the HR department. Um, and that's what I have. I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. Somebody's got to have an answer.

I have a I have a compliment more than anything. I I I just wanted to say that I had the opportunity to work with Stephanie this year um in her role as what she provides to the city and I would say in that very short experience I would put you up against every other HR director on the peninsula and at the same time and I think you would stand up. So um I think we're lucky to have you and I appreciate the work you do.

Thank you. I have two questions. I is it possible to look at um potentially outsourcing that goal number three of digitizing um all those old employee documents? I mean I just I'm asking because if I mean 50 to 75 per quarter that means you're going to spend you're going to do 20 to 30 a month. I don't know how long each one takes you, but and I don't I mean that is a good chunk of your time that we are paying you for. Would it be financially feasible to outsource that to something to another group that does that?

Um I I think it would be possible. We've talked about having a temporary person do it. We've talked about having another employee that maybe has light duty or something. So, um there's potential for that. Or even if there's an I mean you can send your pictures away and have them digitized. I mean I'm sure there's got to be a records digitizing company someplace. I guess that's kind of what I was was thinking if that's an option. I I just wanted to say I really like the idea of using it to cover uh light duty opportunities that keeps uh that cost down a ton

if we have it. Yeah, for sure. All right. And then uh yeah, as a department that's used third party records retention, uh I would caution anyone uh to do it or to pay someone else to do your own records retention. There's uh something to be said for having someone who knows that documentation um really well to do that.

Yeah. I don't Does it does it lend itself to for somebody to just digitize it? You put it in the machine, hit the button like I do at home, and I can do 50 pages and front and back, and then that's that's a document.

Um, it's probably not quite that simple. Um, Uh I I mean especially the older files have a lot of different sized papers and some a lot of staples and um so there's kind of just a process but I'm it's it's kind of something that I've started and I can kind of do in between in between meetings or something if I have just a just a short amount of time.

Yeah. And the only thing I'd add to that too is that the the real critical thing about when you're archiving records is, you know, the digitizing really is the simple part, right? That's just taking a picture. It's the metadata and and the metadata is what makes the the information searchable, findable, and frankly usable. I mean be and that's what takes the time is to input the metadata that makes that so you can go find that you know based on somebody's social security number or based on their last name. I mean all of that type of information has to be linked and that's what's critical about our records management system is to to to link everything so that you know it's usable

and then I think you would have to be concerned about the confidentiality of the sources of the information that's in there and u the liability of outsourcing it. So I know that you will work around this issue and figure out a a feasible efficient manner with which to do that but it is concern that your valuable time could be better used in a higher opportunity and I agree with what you said. Thank you. My I had a second question um and I don't know if it would be in your budget or someplace else. So it might not be a question for you. It might be a question for Terry. So, whoever wants to answer, please. Um, we talked um a few weeks ago about the um HR eval process evaluation um and you got a um estimate for that. Is that something that would be in um the human resources budget or someplace else? Because I don't see it here. So, that's why I was asking.

Yeah, great question. I would if if that's pleasure council, I would include it in the HR budget and that'd be a process I'd ask Stephanie to to supervise and manage that process. So it needs to be done through we need to approve it and discuss it and then add it to the and then that would be something that moves forward or what is what would be the step for doing that?

Sure. Um so this process here today I think just you know I don't think council needs a reminder but we are in work session it allows us to discuss and have good conversation we can't make deci we being you can't make decisions here now having said that I think what traditionally this forum has been used for is during that conversation that takes place um you know we're smart enough we pick up the hints and we we you know as that discussion goes on if there seems to be consensus or interest in something um before the budget is brought and the ordinance is introduced we will include things that it looks like the the majority of council wants and um the other option is is if we don't do that um council can make specific amendments to the budget before adoption at the public hearing. So, um I think it would be appropriate, this would be a great time to bring that up and have that discussion and if there's some consensus, Dave can include it before we introduce the ordinance. Um and again, um or you can uh choose to bring it back at um the meeting when we uh go to um adopt the budget and you can propose the amendment there. Um however you'd like to handle that.

Well, you know, it's fine. I'm fine with putting it out there now. And I and um after the last uh eval evaluation and contract process with um city manager, city clerk and um city attorney and we had amongst us conversations about the process and I guess looking for some definitions and some understanding and had questions about a number of things. Um, I asked about the potential of having um an I guess an HR consultant um review the process um perhaps survey staff, discuss it with council members, and put forth a suggestion for an improved process um for us to consider moving forward. Um the cost of that was less than $5,000, like 47 48. It's like $4,800. Um, which was about a third of what I was expecting to hear. Honestly, it was pretty low. Um, so that's what I'm talking about when I was asking about um the HR study or evaluation being included in the budget for this year. Was that that request or that process? as uh since this is only my second time going through this, I had since this is only my second time going through this process, I had a very similar revelation in how this process works, but just way later. Uh and so I think we would when we go to approve this at council, we would then propose this as an amendment to the budget budget at that time. If that was the case,

you could or like I said, if the conversation here today is that, you know, I'm looking and I'm getting five, six nods of the head, finance director will likely take that incorporate it into the document prior to introduction. So, it wouldn't require specific amendment at that point. Um if if that doesn't happen here today then absolutely the next step would be you can bring an amendment forward at that um for adoption before adoption and we can go about it that way. So I just this I think is like I said a great time to have conversation and see what the consensus or you know is in the room.

Um I'm I'm a bit cloudy on what's being requested. It would be uh about $4,800 for an HR consultant to evaluate the process that is currently used for the evaluation and contract for city manager, uh city clerk, and city attorney and put forth a suggestion for a a process to be used and followed moving forward that would address some of the concerns that were discussed during during our last goound something different than what's already in play. Is that correct?

Potentially. Yeah. I mean, they would evaluate the process and determine if there's suggestions for for changes or improvements. Thank you.

You keep circling it, so I'm going to press on it. the the process we do have, you know, is it is a little clunky, but then how many people have five or se seven bosses? And I know I keep saying that, but it's true. And that just that kind of adds on to it. It's not not an employer that has an employee and you're evaluating them and doing that. It's it complicates it. It you don't just have two, you don't have three. It goes on. But um and I I don't think that's really would would change too much, but there's often a better way to do things. So if you know council wanted to spend the money to see if there's a better way, and it may or may not be. So I don't know because this is how we've been doing it since I've been here, frankly. So um so I guess that's that's kind of a kind of a quasi nod. How's that?

So, would that come under the uh purview of the human resources or would it come under the budget of the legislative um portion since that's uh under the city council?

Yeah, great question. I I you know, my my suggestion would be that we put it under um the HR department and allow our HR professional to help work that process and guide that process with counsel. Um, I feel, correct me if I'm wrong, Steph, I think Stephanie feels independent from me enough and you know that I'm not going to um any of our staff are going to try to influence the situation or um but I think Stephanie would be um in the best position to help assist council work through that process, coordinate everything with the consultant and, you know, set it all up and and make it function as best we could. So that that's where I would recommend it to be. um just um and have somebody there to help you guys work through that process.

One more head nod in favor of looking into this and it was something that I I mean I did speak to you about it before. Um I and it was kind of you that suggested this would be an option too, like this would be something we could consider. And um I asked um the city manager, the city clerk, and the city attorney if they were comfortable with it or felt like there was room for at least an outside entity to look at the process. And maybe you're right, maybe there isn't anything to change. I don't know. Um

but that's we don't know. And I think that having a third party come in and and review it and tell us whether we're doing amazing, whether we're doing mediocre or whether we're really blowing it um could be useful. And for a low I think for what I said, I I mean, I'm still struck by how low the the price the price is for I think expanded understanding and comfort with this the process. Stephanie, I'm help my memory out here. What year did you come on board with the city?

Yes.

Yes. As HR person. Okay. So I and Henry obviously you've been here longer than me and I know Victoria has experience and Glenise has experience. Um I'm not saying I'm not in favor of this because there's always we always need to look at ways that we can improve any process we have. Um but I just want to give Stephanie kudos right now because I was sitting here thinking okay I was elected in 2021. So my first time through this was 22 22 23 24 25 26. So, this was my fifth time through this process. Now, it was way slicker, way more efficient, and way more productive than the first or second time. Now, granted, I have to concede that I was on a learning curve the first two times. But I remember sitting um in the executive room and I remember Mayor Gabriel asking me to write down and take notes and we were trying to consolidate all of our verbal comments grammatically and agree on them and we spent hours doing it and even back then I don't think the um PDF documents that were emailed to us they weren't accessible to fill out online. It was like you had to print them off and come get them, fill them out, and we had to bring them back here. Now, whereas now these PDF documents, they come to us, the link, we can fill them in, we can save them, we can email them right back to you. We don't have to get in our vehicle and spend that $5 gas, you know, to get here. Just saying. Uh, strike the editorial. Um, and then now Stephanie collates all of our responses and puts them into the categories so that when we get those papers back, they're there and we're not spending hours now going through and trying to figure out what we're going to

say and grammatically correct each other. And I Stephanie, I just want to say all that to say thank you because even though the process probably does need to look at to be improved, you have improved our at least my experience significantly since 2021 because you came in at 23 and I noticed a marketked change at that point and then going forward. So is it an awkward process? Yes, because again like mayor says where do you what scenarios do you have seven bosses to have to deal with to doing this type of thing. So is it awkward? Yes. Um but thank you for what you have done. Um so maybe maybe what you have done to make it more efficient and to make it slicker will maybe help the future process of making it more efficient by some consultant. And to clarify, when we talked about it, it was something that you thought would be helpful and be useful moving forward.

Yes. Yes. I was total I was in agreement with with you on that. Thank you.

It was the process we were using. I I didn't create. I came in and was told help help this council with this. Um, so I think and I think because it's different, it's unique that a consultant could potentially have ideas that, you know, I wouldn't know to bring up. So I think and and I don't mean to be talking out of turn here too much. I mean, lot executive session things, but we do have somebody from the burrow. I work at the burrow, too. and somebody from the state and they do things in a different way than uh a council like we do what our rules are in evaluating our employees and and I think what I was kind of picking up on was still a bit of a learning curve on on both of those and that might be something if we move forward that might might help clarify for future council members you know on how that works. Yes. I was on my

yeah I think some expl some I mean a guidance some guidance documents would have been helpful but I mean I don't I don't think the learning curve was necessarily the problem. I think a clear explanation of the process and the expectation of the process was the problem. For example, you're given an evaluation and you're supposed to check boxes. Um, no definition of what each box means. No, I'm I'm expected to check a box on how somebody relates to staff with no information about their staff relationships. Um, and I'm this is I'm making this up, but for all I know, Terry walks into the office every Monday and screams and yells at people. I would have no idea, but I'm asked to rate him on how he works with staff. um there is no mechanism for that information to be brought to our attention. There's no mechanism for staff to communicate that information um in a way that's I guess safe. Um and all of those things combined create, in my opinion, a process that's not defensible. If there was an argument about an evaluation or a decision about an evaluation or a contract, we do not have a a solid foundation to say, well, I chose box C because box C is defined as this and box D is defined as this and this person meets this many things in box C. We we have no way to objectively back up what we are saying or doing. We're simply going with what we feel at the time. And I don't think that's that's not fair to us. That's not fair to the employees and that's not fair to the rest of the city staff either.

Well, I understand and I' I've heard that every year and and something along those lines and and it's not I'm not just diminish dismissing you in that respect because it's it's it's it's true that you don't know and I don't work here. I work out there. I'm not here at 8:00 in the morning. I'm not here and have lunch with anybody. I'm not I might not be here for five days. Some of us aren't here for two weeks and we're only here a little bit in the evening. So, as an employer, you know, uh it it will lend itself to that and uh so how much you involve yourself in what's going on with the city and individuals and whatnot, but nonetheless, it's not like you're evaluating an employee under you in an office that you work in every day. It that just that will not change. And so it is it is what you feel and what you think and what you hear. I mean it will be

but I think that's part of I mean one of the things that was discussed that could be included in that is a staff survey. So that would give a objective data with which part of that decision could be based. How does staff feel when one of them walks in the room or they have to deal with them on something? That's that's information that we could be using to make an informed decision about evaluating them on staff interaction because right now we're doing it in a vacuum.

I'll just chime in here.

Are we going too far beyond talking about budget? Uh that and that's that was I think I I think we know that there's we all share different opinions about the process. Um and so maybe maybe that highlights the need for a reassessment of this. Um and then it can help remove the the differing opinions about the thing and uh hopefully end up with a a better result overall. So, I think we can all acknowledge there's always things that we can make improvements on and and doing this certainly wouldn't hurt the process. So, I'll also just add one more thing. I do sit on one other committee where there are six bosses for one employee and we do have incredibly well- definfined check boxes, but that's for the school district. So, shall we move on to do you have anything more for us?

Okay, so that brings us to the city clerk and uh Okay, thanks Stephanie. Bye. Thank you. I thought we were going to have to punt. I didn't realize you were behind me.

Hi everybody. Uh my director is out, but I have some highle notes that I'd like to discuss. Um the city clerk's budget is on page 74 of the draft document. There have been no changes to the mission statement, no changes to functions and responsibilities, no changes to staffing uh structure, except I'm new here. Hi. And uh no changes to performance measures tracked within the budget other than the updated data related to the year's activities. As far as fiscal year goals, um our first goal was explore and imple and implement an online business application platform for business owners to apply and submit materials. This goal had not been fully achieved but it is being worked on and with the recent funding for licensing software this should be in uh in completion for this coming year. Our second goal was to review and audit the city of Kenai records retention schedule. This is still in process. And then our third goal was to update the board and commission application process and forms. This goal has been achieved and this new form is available online along with newformational booklet that lets applicants know what the role of a commissioner is. Um the fiscal year 27 goals. Um and then a highlevel future consideration is that the audio and video system in the council chambers is aging with some components no longer eligible for updates. So items to um for replacement, we have to figure out if we want to just do it piece by piece or kind of do an o a whole overall haul of um what that process could look like. Um, those are my very highlevel notes. If you have any questions, I will attempt to answer questions for you everybody for the for the clerk's goals.

Seeing no questions, uh, I will go to the legislative part of the budget which is on 83 of the draft budget document. Um, no changes to the mission statement, no changes to the functions and responsibilities, um, and performance measures were updated to include the current data. And as far as fiscal year 26 department goals, goal number one of continued support and collaboration with the US Army Corps of Engineers and federal delegation for the bluff stabilation stabilization project was achieved. Uh goal number two was maintaining businessfriendly regulations, taxation and incentives to create a stable positive climate for private investment in support of the imagine Kenai 2030 city of Kenai comprehensive plan. Uh the city continues to work on this and continues um to try to develop that goal. Number three was to support continued community outreach and collaboration for the waterfront redevelopment plan. This has been supported in future development by private business is next and for future considerations uh provide pro provide sufficient levels of funding for the replacement of significant city assets as they near the end of their useful life.

Thank you, Logan. Uh and also thank you for uh both you and uh city clerk uh senior for adding some of the the items related to technology in this room. I know that's a a thing that I had emailed you both uh specifically on after watching a couple meetings where we were not able to go live as we were spooling up the meeting. So um thanks for looking that at that and putting this including that in this budget and looking forward. So, and then thank you for stepping up and uh giving the presentation so Shelley could be on vacation. Thank you very much.

Thanks for the presentation. And that was that was four minutes out of your out of your 15. So, if there's points to be had, there you go. Thank you. The library and the And you covered everything. I think bonuses. Thank you. I'm going to check online really quick. Okay, city manager Eubank. Looks like you have the visitor center next.

Uh visitor center. I was going to do city I was going to do city manager real quick if that's fine. That's all right. Um so city managers on page 91. Um you know we we start here with uh our mission, our functions and responsibilities. We have no change in in staffing in my office. Um when you look at my performance measures um the one here is percentage of department goals met and I really want to highlight that for council because I really think you know I think that's a way we try to evaluate ourselves. Um you know I think my primary role here is is to help all of the experts you're hearing from today do their jobs better and um remove barriers for them to get those jobs done. So, um, you know, we're we're hoping that we'll get to about 85% of those goals being achieved here before the end of this fiscal year. Um, but, you know, I just want you to understand like what the primary focus in my office is. And, um, uh, it's it's it's helping these folks do their jobs better. Um, you know, as far as specific goals, you know, goal one was budget preparation. So the FY26 annual budget was prepared, presented to council in compliance. Um you know and we we achieved most goals uh that council set for us. So that one was achieved. Um employee engagement and development. We've got a strong uh focus here in Kenai on our people and I I hope you're getting that vibe from the people that are talking with you here today. And um and so I think that's definitely an achieved goal. um support community development. This is an evolving one for us. Um you know, we're we're constantly uh looking at ways that we can remove

barriers to development here in town, potential ways we can incentivize that development. Um is this is incentivation is incentivizing really needed? Um you know, I don't I don't think uh as government we need to step in all the time. Um, you know, I think there are definitely appropriate times, but you know, we're also on the cusp of some massive projects for the state of Alaska that I think will create tremendous demand um on some city resources and land and things like that. So, but you know, along with that, we did meet with, you know, uh we we adopted those uh with both tribes. We've met with them in session. and we continue to meet with them and talk with their leadership um ways to collaborate, make this community better. Um the Bronze Bear project is something that we supported and that was a community-led effort to bring a I think a tremendous resource to our airport and something that'll be there forever for for visitors to take pictures with and remember or first thing they see about Kenai and the last thing they may remember when they're getting on an airplane to leave. Um, we're always looking to uh strengthen our community and public engagement. Um, we believe strongly in the public process. Um, even though sometimes I think it can be frustrating just because we don't see the level of involvement that I think we would desire or envision. Um, and I think sometimes that's why we're looking for new ways to meet people where they're at and engage with people because traditional models aren't necessarily working. But um public engagement and strengthening that is is always a continued goal. Um looking forward to 27. You know, again, working hard on this document. It's probably one of the biggest tasks we do all year. Um is is giving you the city manager's budget for then you to take and make a council budget out of. And um it gives us our marching orders for the

year. Gives us not only, you know, the policy and the direction that we need, but it also gives us the money to make it happen. So, um, look forward to working on that. Um, always going to be working on our people, supporting our people, and making sure that we have the ability to attract and retain the the best people. Um, continue working on uh community development. What should be in here that's not is uh that strategic plan. Um, and I think that, you know, uh is is a is a critical step. Um, I think it'll be a very valuable step and it it, you know, it will start likely start with, you know, discussions on what the city's mission is and a true mission statement for the city and we have them. They haven't updated in probably decades. So, I think it it I I look forward to that process. Um, I look forward to to working with you um to I I think I have a generally a good sense of what council's directions are, but this will formalize that process and it'll force it'll force some tough conversations. I mean, it's going to it's not going to be an easy process, but I don't think anything that's worthwhile necessarily is always easy. So really look forward um to working on that with you and you know implementing the the using these studies and these reports and everything else. You know here's our community survey and taking the results of that and putting it to work and and interpreting that and and changing policies uh as as we get that type of information. And uh you know lastly you know I think like the future consideration um you know this LNG project and as it starts to get closer and closer and closer to um you know some key decision points um you know I I testified at the legislature what week and a half two weeks ago um you know

city of Kenai is going to be ground zero for this thing. I don't think there's going to be another community in the state of Alaska that's going to be as impacted as this one. And you know, it was like a a light bulb went off for some legislators when they're like, you know, you know, they they don't know they don't they don't know where Kenai is in relation to where you know, the liquefaction plant's going to be and the fact that it's just outside our our municipal boundaries. Um, so no tax revenue will come. Well, that tax revenue will come through your burrow. I'm like, well, yeah, that's great to think, but that's not how it works. Um, you know, funding doesn't tax revenue doesn't flow into the bureau and then to us. Our tax revenue flows through the bureau to us, but the burough doesn't share their tax revenue necessarily with the city. And you know, they it it shocked me a little bit that state legislators honestly didn't understand those these relationships and they're making assumptions when they're looking at this legislation. And um I'm not here advocating. I mean, I can't tell you if a throughput tax is the appropriate one. That's not my my wheelhouse. I could try to get polished up on it and have an opinion, but that's really for somebody else. What I thought was critical about the legislation is the fact that, you know, um, one piece of legislation had, um, didn't take into account, I think, any funding for the city, like a city like Kenai that's going to have massive effect. the other the the committee substitute that was being pushed at least acknowledged these the the community impact and gave tools and mechanisms for communities like Kenai to to request funding. Um and I think I resonated with some folks cuz I've had more conversations with AGDC folks and Glen Farn folks in the last couple of weeks than I've had in the last year. And um so I think that's

positive. And um I did get word today um actually last night um the 18th the gas line folks are going to be bringing I don't know I don't know their number they're bringing four aircraft in. They originally wanted to bring in a aircraft and um I had to inform them that uh on the 18th on the 18th of May um for a site visit and they're going to have a meeting at our visitors center. Um they were chartering a 737 and going to bring it in. And I said, "Wow, that's great." Except for our main runway closes on the uh the 15th. And can you land a 737 on a 75 ft by 6200t taxi way? Probably not. We have a problem. But, you know, we worked through it with them. I think we threw every resource we had trying to we talked to QAP. Uh, can you delay the project? Absolutely we can. It's cost you $72,000 a day. Well, that's not a very good option. Um, certainly not one that Glenn Farn jumped on. But, uh, anyways, I got texts last night that they're still coming. They've chartered four aircraft. Looks like three King Air and something I don't even recognize. I'll be landing back to back to back that morning here in Kenai. um mayor and I have been in invited to it um to this at the visitor center. So um excited about that. I think um this is bringing a lot of um you know the the partners that are trying to put this thing together bringing them to so they can go actually see I think Nikkisy and what that liquefaction plant where it's supposed to be. So, um, looking forward to that, but it this all takes a lot of time and coordination and, um, you know, Keenai will be forever changed if we get a gas pipeline when we get a gas pipeline and we want to make that most

of that change, as much of that change as we can, a positive thing.

Pages 79 is the visitor center. Not a lot here at the visitor center. I mean, the primary the the the primary um function there at the visitor center is that we we have a contract with our local chamber to run that facility on behalf of the the city. You can see the number of visitors um that they're tracking over there on page 79. um number of events. Um recent board meeting which was just this week, you know, they said they've had more event requests this year than they've seen in the past. So that facility is getting more and more and more use. Um and um I think as the chamber, especially the the Sam who's been there now for a few years as a chamber director, um she's she's nothing but a ball of energy and she's always trying to bring more programs and things like that over there. So, um, and, uh, so some of those 26 evaluation goals, um, you know, had to deal with the cultural engagement and the exhibits, and I would say they're doing a phenomenal job over there of actually, um, displaying the city's collection and bringing experts in to talk and have creative ideas with children in there for story times and and and very very knowledgeable speakers come in and talk about history and Kenai and different time frames and different eras. And so if folks don't know what's going on in over there, you really need to pay attention because I think it's a great opportunity to learn a lot about the community that that we live in. Um tourism and event promotion. Again, these are a lot of things um you have to give a lot of uh credit to the chamber for doing. Um, I think they'd turn right

around and give our staff a lot of credit for the support that we're providing for them like, you know, on Fourth of July. And, you know, they do the heavy lift, but we're the people out there setting up tents, you know, and putting garbage cans where they need to be and making sure trash is picked up and things like that. So, um, you know, uh, the derby, uh, the Kina River Marathon, Christmas comes to Kenai. These are all just traditional events and things that, uh, our citizens really, I think, enjoy, make life, like Council Member Grimmie said a number of times here tonight today is things that make this community the place to live. So, and grant funding, I think, um, they're still working on their 501c3 status, and I think they're getting closer. I know they partnered up with Bridges. Um that's usually the bridge for a lot of organizations here in the community to to get that nonprofit status and I know that's something they're still working on. Um 27 goals again, collaborate with the facility manager and local native organizations um again to work on the collection um and identify those those items in there of cultural importance and uh again collaborate with the the facility manager again the chamber on um partnering on marketing Kenai as a destination uh and center for cultural and other things and uh we want to work with them to help pursue grants over there um once they're able to achieve that 501c3 status. Um budget's pretty much status quo. Um you know the professional services that's our contract directly with the chamber communications is um uh our data link over there that you know has our building automation system into it but also we are able to provide phones to them at a significantly reduced rate using our already our equipment um

utilities and then just a little bit for repair and maintenance. We didn't have any requests directly from the chamber for anything over there this year. Um and um but we had did have those discussions with them. So I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Terry. That brings us over to Dave with finance.

Okay. Hey. Uh, for finance, um, we do have the addition of the IT systems administrator or sorry, page 100. We do have the addition of an IT systems administrator position. Um, I think I've pretty well spoken to that um, in detail enough. Unless anyone has any further questions, I I won't go down that rabbit hole again. Um just looking at uh you know number of purchase orders, vendors checks, things like that. Just kind of some um updated information. You can see we we run pretty steady there. It's uh to some extent kind of status quo for for what we're seeing on on the level of of things we're doing there in that realm. um you know with the finance department we're we're you know I oversee all the accounts payable all the payroll um all the purchase orders and and account um and all those things that come through along with the IT department there um so um I I'll go ahead and just jump right into the department goal evaluations um evaluate the cyber security assessment recommend and implement cyber security improvements that plan is achieved or that was achieved. The cyber security um plan is on track. We selected a vendor developed and documented disaster recovery plan um in the process of developing policies and that's going to be a continual ongoing project. Um, again with that IT systems administrator, that's going to be one of the things we look at at is um expanding what we do for cyber security and and implementing more more safeguards for the city. Completion of the automation of the PECARD process um that is not achieved. We've kind of put that on hold. Um with

Wells Fargo moving out of the community, um we're going to be looking at changing our banking services. We're not sure. We currently have that process with them. We're not sure if we would have to transition that or not. It's not part of our RFP, but we're going to have to have to see how it integrates and and whether it plays well or or not. And if it doesn't, then um because right now it's kind of the premier um as far as PCR processes and that they're they're kind of the leader um with some of the banking. So, we don't really want to change that process if we don't have to. Um but we're going to just make sure that um when we select a bank that that we can continue to um have that function the way it has. Um complete complete documentation of 10 department policies. Um I have this marked as achieved. We've got probably seven IT ones and um now that we're kind of done with the the the heavy lift of budget here um we're going to that's what our focus is through the end of the year is to get the other the other three done and get the get all those turned in um for review with the city manager. So for FY27, we're looking at implementing changes of cyber security improvements. Um completing the FY26 goals that are outlined in that remediation plan. Um complete the automation of the PECARD process and update the PCARD policy to support that process and then continue to document another 10 department policies and procedures in FY27 um for future consideration. um you know for years we had additional IT staff um in this section um we've addressed that with this year's budget. So now I'm looking at, you know, what we what do we need? And and just in looking at what I'm coming up to is in the next couple of years, I'm I'm probably going

to backto back, hopefully not in the same year, lose a couple of our senior senior employees that are um long-term staff that are very well dialed in is the best way to describe them. And um and and I think Terry might be able to speak to this that when you take someone that's been here for 15 20 well I think one of them is a 30-year employee I believe

over the years you gain more experience. You get more efficient and you just kind of know what needs to be done and and how to do it. And um and when you take someone new and put them in that spot it's it's a big learning curve and it takes time for for that transition to happen and kind of get back up on step. Um but also just looking at some of the changes that have been made. Um with a controller position, we really have a big gap between our account our accounts payable or our payroll person and our controller. And it'd be nice if we had an accountant level position. And so that's um that's what I think the need for the department is. Uh controller positions um pretty heavily loaded with workload. There's a lot of daily stuff that I think could be done at accountant level. as we talk about, you know, levels that people are operating at that um it, you know, there's not currently there's no backup for her, there's no backup for me. Um having an accountant that maybe she could push some of her duties down to, I could cross train on some vice versa, she could cross trainin on mine, that that would enable us to do some of that. Um so that's something that um and and we're going to evaluate as as these retirements happen. We think there might be some some room there to maybe adjust a position up to an accountant level, but but I don't know um I don't know if that'll if if that'll be enough because there's still that workload that has to be done. So, that's that's one thing that um I I need to get with my controller. We're we're going to sit and have discussions about, okay, what does this look like? If and I always say, you know, there's kind of the way we've always done it. and to say we're going to do it the way we always have. Sometimes we got to take a step back and go if we had to start from scratch, what what would it look like? Um sometimes you make decisions based on the the people that you have and where they're at and um you know and where where we're at that's worked really well, but times are changing and our staff is going to change. I don't know that we can

continue to do that. So um we we'll probably look at um to do it over. what would it look like and what do those positions look like? And so, but I think that um what I'd like to see is a path of progression for a career for someone to come in at an accounting tech, move into an accountant level, move into the controller position, move into the finance director position because because that's kind of somewhat my long-term goal is to prepare my controller to be able to step into my shoes. Um because then you maintain that that continuity with operations. You you pass on that historical knowledge. you're replacing someone because that's that's been one of my biggest challenges is not having the historical knowledge of the city, you know, behind me to where I understand why we did things where I could look at something and go, "Oh, yeah, that happened because of this back 10 years ago, right? I I don't have that where here's staff that they they've probably processed the purchase order. They've been or or they've been a part of the budget discussions or things like that to where they understand why things are what they are." And so so that for me is is something I want to um kind of dive deeper into this next year and look at and come up with some sort of a recommendation. I'm going to have to look at succession planning and how when I have these retirements that are not far off in the future, um I think I probably will have one in the next fiscal year and one uh probably the year following that. So, um, I keep telling them they can't leave before I do, but I I don't think that's a reality. Um, so anyhow, that's that's for for the finance department. That's that's one thing for future considerations is for us to take a look at that and and see how we might kind of change things up a little bit.

Hey, good question for you, Dave. Uh what if any security framework are we shooting for for the cyber security? Are we shooting for like NIS compliance or or something of that nature to for our overall cyber security plan? Um to be honest, I don't I don't know enough about that. I probably should have um done a little boning up on that before before being here today. um you know that's something where we did do have a third party come in and do um D and provided them a whole lot of information and we got this assessment. So we've kind of got a checklist of things that we're working through and we've got a plan that we're we're working on. Um so

we can have Dan respond to you though. Yeah, we we we can certainly

Yeah. So, um I'm going to have to apologize because um when Logan did his legislative presentation, um either he or either you or the city manager, I had a question. Um and I think this would be a good time to address what I forgot when that was happening. Um, I know that we're responsible for the audit and the professional services and um, this next year it's gone up $14,000 20% and so I was wondering what it was that caused that great increase and did we go out for a a bid for that?

We did put that out for an RFP process. um they were the the lower bidder. Um but but like this year it it it dep it's kind of a it depends answer here. Um we have our standard audit for our financials. Then we have um uh we have our single audits, state and federal.

And this year I think we only did the state one. We didn't No, we only did the federal one. We didn't have a state one. So we don't have those every year. So, I want to say the audit itself was $56,000 and then um trying to do math in my head here. So, what's that? Quick numbers. 8456. So, another $18,000. So, it was like uh $9,000 for the for the single audits to be done. So, so if we did what we did this year, it was $70,000 is what we paid this year. We might be looking at $73,000 next year um if we don't have to do a state audit. Um but so it depends and and there's times where we might have to do two state audits or two federal audits or you know so depending on the makeup of that um will drive that. the what we've booked here is is that we might have to do a state one state and one single or I mean one state and one federal along with our annual financial audit.

Okay. So there is a possibility that that number actually could come in less but that encompasses the whole ball of wax if we get right all of those. Okay, thank you for that clarity. I was just a bit and this is a contract that we put out every five years. So, it's been 5 years since we've had a contract renewal for this and their costs have gone up and that was I mean that was something we increased last year um because because we were seeing that. Thank you for helping me understand that.

Sure. It's a secret. So, the other thing on here that I would say that I um that in reviewing this since we've done this document is I probably need to do an increase um for our professional services because we pay a 13% um fee to for the um tax collections. We get charged a fee for that and our online sales tax. So, this is where we pay for our online sales tax. And originally, we had it at 880, but looking at the trend that's been happening, we've actually boosted that out up to a million. We're expecting that we're liable to hit over a million dollars in online sales um this upcoming year. Yeah, it's it's amazing.

Yeah, that might be my fault. Yeah, it's pretty amazing how much that that's grown over the years significantly each year. When Amazon was here and presented their Amazon hub where they pay businesses to deliver packages for them at $2.50, I volunteered to do the ones to my house cuz I figured, you know, I I could save a lot of money if they paid me two buck $2.50 for everything my wife orders. So, she didn't think that was that great, but

she knows me by first name now and comes almost every day. I know. So, any further questions on finance at all?

Just just a comment, and it's only because I'm not sure where this would fit best. I mean, it has to do with the council and making amendments to the budget, and it's actually for both of you guys, and it's something you're probably going to bring up, but I want to bring it up now, is it's it's kind of a train wreck if you come to council when we're we actually approve these uh the budget and you want to make a change somewhere and and it and it works, but it's not one change. It's multiple changes in different places. So, it's uh and maybe I'm speaking for you and I shouldn't be, but if if you if council can give Terry or or Dave an amendment that you want to make after this meeting or whenever I want to do this and you're going to present it, at least administration has that amendment so they can be prepared for all the changes that may need to be made. And of course, council may make an amendment to your amendment, but you know, but but at any rate, it'll be considered. And well, the other thing too is you might also get some factual information from them that may negate it or maybe you want to make it more something like that. So Terry, you want to you want to elaborate on that at least once?

Sure. No, I think I appreciate that, Mr. Mayor. Um, yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, anytime, you know, council can give the administration a head up heads up on something, the better we can be prepared to help you do what you want to do. Um, so especially once the document once this document gets introduced um and the budget will be introduced at the second meeting in May. So, not this next coming next council meeting, but this the one following. Um once that's introduced, if you'd like to propose an amendment, we'd be happy to write that amendment up and and be able to calculate all the changes that need to be made to the budget ordinance and have that prepared for you. Um and then um like I said, it just I think it it makes the process go smoother. Um certainly not a requirement, but um we would appreciate that and happy to work with you. We can deal with things on the fly the night of as well. um it's not our preferred method if we can help avoid it. It

is also easier to not have your idea shut down the 6 to1 live in the meeting. So, not that I've done that last year, but

okay. Terry and Dave, are you are you complete? Yes. Okay. So, uh Lee, quit. It's like I take that back. I've got non-EP departmental also. Oh, you do? Um, which is Yeah, I'm so excited. I, you know, I wasn't sure if we were going to need to time up here like five minutes. This is a quick one. Um,

page 111. So, this is where we're going to be adding the uh the janitor position, the part-time janitor position. Um, that's the kind of the biggest change in here. Well, not the biggest change, the other change is PERS, which I talked to you um previously is that's where we're seeing that this gets um this is where it pro the account that or the department it processes through. So, that's where you're seeing that 189,000 there. That's the PERS on behalf on for the PERS on behalf

and then what you're seeing for the decreases are really some one-time expenses that we had in last year for special projects. And then uh down below under transfers um the we're going to see a decrease of about 50,000 in there um from the senior funds from some of the changes that sheet that I handed out earlier today. We'll see an impact there on that also. That's all I had for that one. Um, yeah. I have a question. Has the city ever considered um contracting their janitorial opportunity out? Yeah, thank you. I think that's a great question. And um we used to um yeah we used to and um it it became problematic for us. Um uh one of the problems that we have and and this problem hasn't been eliminated either. But um is we have a public safety building that we do janitorially in and anybody that's going to be unaccompanied in the public safety building has to clear absson has to have background check and clear have absent clearance. Um and it may be called something else now but take a long time.

Um so it's it it's that security side of it but we did look at it. Um, and what we found was these 14-hour positions, um, they come with a little bit of effort, you know, but what we're finding is people that frankly have other jobs that are able to squeeze this one in and and it's it's been working well. Um, we are proposing to add that 14 hour an additional 14 hour to give a little bit more coverage. Um, and give a little bit more time to do some of the the, you know, when it comes time to maybe do a major floor cleaning project or something like that where you need a little extra horsepower. But again, this takes into account um janitorial here, public safety here at city hall, at the library, and over at the senior center. So um yeah, we did look at it and we think this was the most cost effective way we had back then. Well, before we give Lee the next two hours, do we want to take a 5m minute break?

Yeah. How about we do that? That gets us back here at 405.

Okay, it's uh it's it's 4:05. We're back on the record. So, we have public works, right? All right. So, we will start off with safety. Um, budgets pretty much exactly Oh, sorry. 118.

Yep. Um, so I'm just going to hit some of the highlights here. Um, with safety, um, as Stephanie already talked about, we do have APA coming to do training with us on the 12th and the 13th. Um part of that is about um establishing and setting up safety committees. Um so we do already have one established with the city. Um but we're looking at some ways to improve that. Um so that's one of the things on my uh to-do list for uh safeties is kind of reestablishing um how our safety committees done um and shifting some of those role responsibilities. right now the the safety manager position um primarily lies within the building official um which can work if that person has a good you know safety background um sort of thing um but that is not um Shandra's you know strong point she's primarily just a building official um and that's where where her career has been so um looking at taking that back up um primarily with me and Eric um and just kind of reworking how we do that and getting some other shifting some responsibilities among multiple users um so that we're getting different touch points as far as you know people that are operating heavy equipment um and building safety um so she would be involved um but just just getting other points of views um to make sure we're hitting all sorts of different things as far as um safety goes throughout the city. So um with that we are working on going to be working on um different things like redoing accident report forms and all sorts of stuff just so we can get some better tracking um and data going and and better uh follow-up processes to make sure we're actually learning from mistakes and um doing things better in the future. So, um hopefully we evaluate that um and get some things moving, have some different performance measures in the future, um that are a little more reflective of, uh what we got going on, u and an improved safety culture. Um so, that's about all I have for that. Any questions?

Nice reduction of um workers comp claims as far as we get. And if you had specific questions on a lot of that, we'd have to ask uh Stephanie. She keeps track of all that data and feeds it into this report. So, uh I only have some of that stuff available or could could only answer so many questions on it. Okay, moving on to public works administration. This is page 143. Yeah. Um so most of the changes associated with this um are just the regular um salaries and benefits changes as far as budget goes. Um public works administration mainly comprises um measurment um and administrative assistant and uh Eric Gene our assistant director. Um so we've got a pretty good team going up there. Um we've uh just switched over to Bid Express a couple months ago as far as um procurement for our RFPs and ITBs. Um that's been a very successful switch. Um we've been getting a lot more interest on bids and uh u proposals. Um and it's easier for contractors to be able to see who else is looking at the project. So they can, you know, subcontractors can throw money throw numbers out to contractors and engage more interest on those types of things. Um we had four biders on the pump house project. So that was a very successful, very competitive bid. Um we have a number going out right now. Um and we also have a uh ordinance being introduced this next meeting for or was introduced last meeting for um reducing um notification requirements now that we're using um bid express. um code respon says we need to notice in

newspapers locally for um maximum visibility of our projects um and we're getting way more visibility using bid express um for the contractors to be able to automatically see those notifications um as opposed to what we're seeing in the Clarion right now. So, um in addition to that, um there's some goals and responsibilities as far as, you know, how many projects and uh active projects we have going and um what we're looking to close out. Um and it's going to be an extremely busy summer for us. Um main projects we've got going on this summer are the airport runway project. Um the crack ceiling of the apron, um Aliac Street, portion of that is going to get repaved in the storm drain. Uh that's failing. and we just had a huge pothole out there last week because of it. Um repaved and and that storm drain removed. We've got architectural design services going on at multiple buildings. Um mostly Vintage Point in the senior center. Um a little bit here at city hall. Um so that's going to be the bulk of what we've going on. Um in addition to smaller things like crack sealing and all those other things that we have out to going out to bid um on Monday actually is the crack sealing contract. Um, in addition to that, um, the road specifications are coming up, um, at the next council meeting. Um, we went through the the whole draft process with that. The the final ones are in your packet, um, after some of the comments that we've incorporated. Um, we have a draft version of water sewer specs um, currently internal um, that I'm reviewing. Eric put all those together. It's like 150 pages of stuff I need to read through, so it's going to take a little longer to get through that one. Um, but that's next on our list as far as getting something out publicly. Um, and I guess I just wanted to highlight, um, we've we've taken on, you know, pretty much all of with bid express. Um, all proposals and invitations to bid that

the city normally done. Um, anything over $35,000 is now coming through um, our office to put out and make sure that we're getting all the proper documents in. So, um, in the past, you know, other departments would have done those things on their own and put them out into the website. So, um, we've tried to standardize that process, um, and take it over. So, um, everything's consistent. When, you know, Scott's reviewing all of our contracts for everything, he knows that, you know, all this stuff is boilerplate language and hasn't been changed by other departments. So, um, just trying to to get all to be a more efficient process. Um, but we've got a pretty great team there. Um, I'm really happy with uh Eric and Lisa and um, you know, Lisa keeps me straight pretty much every day up there. Um, wouldn't know where I'm going if she wasn't there. So, um, yeah, it's been good and uh, we'll move on to the next one unless there's any questions.

I just want us to maybe highlight be aware of or I'm going to I'm ahead. Are you on the fun? Nope, you're good. Um, just the loss of capital funding from the state. I just I guess I just want to I just want to put that out there on our radar for future thinking and planning that that's something that we need to maybe have in the backs of our minds as we're moving forward.

Yep. And I know uh Terry highlighted that um earlier that you know the state is basically only funding you know what they need to match for federal grants and stuff like that. Um we are still seeing um a fair amount of money coming through the SRF program. Um, we did get SRF funds for uh the pump house project. Um, and we had the EPA loans or grants for the uh the blower project. Um, so the SRF program seems to be uh pretty I think a lot of that money comes in federally. Um, but um, as far as other projects like road projects, we're not seeing a ton. Um, we are getting the working with the state on Wildwood um, and expecting that to get paved this summer. um still had some conversations with them this week. So that still seems like it's um in the works to to happen. Um but other than that, yeah, it seems definitely less and less that we're getting major major money for funds. And I'll I'll probably hit on a couple specific uh departments when I get into that. All right. Um, moving on to the shop on 147. So, our shop, um, maintains, uh, what I think is a pretty significant amount of vehicles. Um, we have three staff over there. Um, Scott, Morris, Troy, and Mike. Um, Scots are foreman. Um, they all do a fantastic job over there. Um, I've always been pretty impressed with the, uh, the work they do on the police vehicles. Um they basically outfit all of our police vehicles um in house instead of sending those out to any places. Um some of the numbers I've seen from um going out to the companies that you know like the troopers might use or or you know I'm assuming that's what they do to get outfitted are extremely um expensive as far as a lot of those light kits and stuff that they can order individually um and save a lot of money doing quoting processes instead of ordering them in those packages. Um, and

as well as whenever there's an issue with it, um, it gives them a lot of ability to know what's wrong with something, where the wires are, and how to fix it. So, um, they do a great job with that. Um, in addition to that, uh, this last year, um, Scott did his first, um, auction for the city. Um, so he is just gearing up for the next one that we're going to be doing this summer. Um, and I've asked him to to put some outline and some some policy in place, procedure as far as how he's doing that so that we can um work to firm that process out in the future um for it being passed down. Um, he is uh has some ideas of far as the auction of possibly doing it during July when there's more people in town. Uh maybe putting up some QR codes around like dip neck shacks and stuff like that so people could see that our auctions going off, get more visibility. he just seemed he felt like we weren't getting a lot of visibility when we just, you know, posted it on our website sort of thing. Um the people that really go after those things or are monitoring those sites daily, but you know, getting getting more people looking at it would be a good thing. Um

does Vid Express lend itself to that? It's diff It's a different process, but it does go out. I mean, contractors see it, so

No, it's different. Um it goes through the public surplus website. Um and we get a deal on that with um as a part of AML um some sort of a discounted rate that it goes through but it doesn't bid through the same thing. Yeah. Um other Scott other projects they're working on over there is uh inventory just trying to continue to work through the backlog of uh various you know pieces and parts of vehicles um that we don't even have anymore that we might have parts for. So he's been trying to um go through that in his free time which isn't much um to work on that. Um the one main thing you will see in the budget is the increase to 5041. Um there's a $4,500 increase in there and that is for their uh we have a tool replacement um allowance for each of the employees there. Um and that was previously not um captured in there. So um that was caught by finance this year when we were under budget significantly in there. So um just shifting that money in there so that we can handle that in the future. Um, and the main issue I think that, um, Scott has just with vehicles in the future is, uh, warranties and recalls that we're seeing. Um, we have a fair number of police vehicles and, you know, every day he seems every Friday he comes in to check in with me and gets mail and stuff like that and he's like, "Two more recalls." Um, he's just constantly getting recalls for various vehicles. Um, and trying to schedule those to get into the shop is difficult. um and you know trying to make sure we're keeping vehicles in. How serious is the recall? Those types of things. So um he's he's concerned about that just as vehicles um have more and more chips in them and things that have to go to a shop to get um dealt with. Any questions on the shop? Okay. Uh, streets department 151.

Um, so first I guess I'd like to say uh I I'm really impressed with our streets crew. Um, you know, people thank me for, you know, the great job we do maintaining the streets. Um, and that's not me at all. I'm I'm just sitting here in an office and taking phone calls, but um, Kurt and his staff over there, um, Bob Dawson, Kurt and Al are the ones out there doing the work. Um, and those guys are fantastic. Um, I, you know, I think the biggest thing is those guys really care about, um, making sure that the streets are clear and, um, you know, they take pride in it and, you know, knowing that they're doing a good job. Um, those guys will work a lot of hours just to make sure, you know, they make a first pass through town so that everybody's getting hit on a snowstorm and, um, they're not calling it short cuz, you know, they've hit 10 hours or anything like that. So, um, we do have the retirement, I believe that's been announced, of, uh, Kurt Brower. um this next week's going to be his last week with us. Um so we wish him well in retirement. Um but he's going to be hard shoes to fill. Um so we do have that open right now. Um and received um several applicants. So um we'll start doing interviews for that soon. Um we promoted um Bob Flake into that lead position. Um he was one of our existing operators. So I'm looking forward to to him stepping into that. Um, in addition to that, um, main things we've done is the the street assessment that I think's been talked about several times, but, um, that helped us a lot with planning, um, for streets moving forward here. You've already seen, you know, what our our kind of project list moving forward with for repaving various roads throughout town is starting with uh, Willow and Airport, moving on to uh, Tinker and Lton. Um, but it also helped us a lot with the crack ceiling. Um the main um budget increase you see for the streets department is in that uh 4538 repair and maintenance where we're adding the uh $75,000 on top of the 50 that we added last year for crack sealing. Um so

that's going out to bid on Monday for crack sealing. Um and we're we're basically putting it out so that um if if the budget is passed with crack sealing funding in here, we can extend that contract starting July 1st. Once that um contract is or once those funds are available, um the main plan to target right now is for the crack sealing this year is uh Beaver Loop Road is our priority number one um to get that get some good cracking on that cuz it's in fairly good condition. So we want to make sure it's not deteriorating as it's getting a lot of cracks. Um and then uh it's going to be the neighborhood um just north of Lton um east of Tinker um is going to be getting all the asphalt over there crack sealed. Yeah. Oh,

so it doesn't seem like it was that long ago that uh the state did Beaver Loop and is there any guarantee on that road? Is it is it the age now that it needs to be crack sealed or is these premature?

Um it's not premature. So, um basically what we'd like to get on a schedule of doing is basically every road is hit every 5 years as far as crack sealing. Um so it's just preventative maintenance. um the quicker we can get out there and you know seal up cracks, it just stops water intrusion, freeze thaw and keeps that asphalt in good condition. Um so that's that's the goal of the the crack sealing and putting the extra money toward it is so that every 5 years we're kind of making a loop through town touching everything up and getting everything in good condition so that our existing asphalt will last longer. Um, so in addition to that, um, our, uh, streets department has been building the the floats, um, in-house for the for the boat launch. Um, they're going to have one set of floats replacing the oldest set of floats ready to go. Um, they all look really nice over there. Um, the other ones are going to have to be built throughout this summer and next winter to be ready to go. Um, planning on doing that. I want to say we're hoping to have the dock open May 18th. Excuse me. um they're waiting for the next low tide um deep low tide so they can get in there and do the dredging and and get all those floats set. We got a little delayed this year. We're usually open around May first. Um but with all the the late ice and everything, we push that off a little bit. Um so that's the next good tie that they're going to get in and do that. Um heavy snowfall this winter kind of delayed how much free time they had to be working on the floats. So we're just going to get those one really set um really old set of floats replaced. And I don't know if anybody went out there, but you could see one set of floats that was sitting maybe a foot or two higher in the water than the older set of floats that were pretty water logged and hanging down there. So those ones will be out of commission. Um, in between all that, they're also going to be working on ditching this summer. Um, we do have money for um improving the dock parking lot. Um, so we got quotes to um bring in a bunch of gravel there and we're going to try and freshen up and redo the the dock parking lot there, regrade it, um, get everything so it's a little better

shape down there is our plan. Um, so that's kind of the main uh thing to attack once they get done with sweeping and grading all the roads and probably calcium chloride. Um, is trying to get all that done and then um, they'll start working on ditching after that. Um, other than that, main things we have is a couple asphalt patches. Um, we have a web set um, that we replaced a hydrant on last year. We had to get patched and we also had the water main break um, off Skyler that we have an open gravel patch in right now. So, we're going to be trying to get a couple patches done. There's a real bad spot on Main Street um edition. So, um there's going to be going through the potholes and we'll probably putting minimal effort into Wildwood this year as um we're hoping for that to get repaved and looking way better than it does. But, um that's about what I got for streets. Any questions? It's uh it's not a streets question, but since you mentioned the water main break and but water services, are we still having uh water services freezing?

Um I have not received any calls. No, I take that back. I got one call this week um from a place in Oldtown. Um they were closed all winter, so they went and turned their valve and they said uh we thought it was maybe a hydrant issue. They said, "We're getting low water pressure." And I talked and they said it was on a Sunday and I was like, "Oh, we weren't flushing hydrants." So, your water service is frozen. So, they risk a welder and get on, but it could have been frozen a month ago and they just didn't know about it. So, um it seems like it's gone down quite a bit. Yeah. And and a lot of those that you were getting notices on were recent services that a contractor had.

What do you mean? Uh I met more recent construction like in the last few years uh you know uh plastic pipe that kind of and maybe in a direction.

Um no I mean it's it's quite varied. Um some of it's just older houses. Um we've had a lot of calls this summer that were people you know saying you know what's what's wrong with the water and say your service is probably frozen. And they were like well that's never happened before and we're getting a lot of that you know. Um it was just a lot of people that with the the cold temperatures we had just freezing around town that you know weren't used to ever running their water cuz they never had to before. So um it it varied. Some some people were plastic and you know we're trying to new construction we're trying to you know do our inspections and make sure everything's buried properly and all that. So it's it's just varied. We we have poor records from a lot of older stuff that was installed to say how deep it is in the ground. So we just we just don't know. Okay, next is buildings page 156. So the building's budget comprises um the building official and it also is um our building maintenance department um consisting of Carmel and Terry. Um we changed this last year during the operating during the um cycle that um we moved Carmemell into a foreman position and he's now managing all the janitors. Um so he's the one that um was also bringing up having that floating position that we could move around. Um so although the janitors run under him, they are the janitorial positions are all still within the departments that they're actually operating under. Um not not in the building's budget, if that makes sense. So, um, Carmemell's done a great job, um, putting all the janitors into one into one place. Um, I think it's helped with, um, consistency across the positions. Um, you know, he's coming up with weekly, monthly, yearly checklist of things so that we'll have things for those that floater position to work on that are kind of the special yearly projects that we want to get

done. Be it, you know, some window washing or, you know, carpeting, um, shampooing, other things like that. Um, Shandra is our new building official. I think she's been here just about three months, so she's getting settled in as we're kicking off here on the the summer construction season. Um, we just approved the contract for the new permit software that we've discussed several times. Um, so we we've got all the paperwork signed with them and uh we are waiting for kind of an implementation kickoff to start with them and hoping to get that rolling. Um, we're seeing lots of good possibilities for that for, you know, permits for not just public works, but also, you know, maybe animal control and planning and zoning. Um, so we're hoping to really move forward with that project and and help with us with a lot of digital recordkeeping instead of a lot of the paper that I think you've heard discussed about a lot today with various departments that we'd like to get rid of. Um uh main thing on goals is trying to move forward with some more building assessments. Um Carmel and Terry both built um the with parks um the dugouts over at the softball fields last summer. Um spent a lot of time doing that. So uh we always find good projects to take up Carmel and Terry's time because they're both um you know really kind of jack of all trades guys that are really good at getting all sorts of things done. Um, so we we do tend to pull away from their time, but we do want him to continue inventorying all of our buildings and kind of creating assessments of um tracking, you know, how old of our a lot of our boilers, our HVAC units, and all these types of things are so that we're getting good um life cycles in place so that we're not, you know, waiting for something to fail and then saying, "Oh, no, we need to replace it." Um, last thing I wanted to discuss with the buildings department was um some fee changes. Um, so we did propose a couple fee changes for the building official or

building department this year as far as permits go. Um, we are recommending adding a uh an application fee for the buildings um when people are submitting for building permits. So, we're recommending a $500 fee there. Um, previously or the way it's occurring right now is people submit a building permit package. We essentially take it and do all the plan review, figure out what their fee is going to be, and then ask them to to pay the fee after we've spent hours doing plan review and and all the work up front. And then some people never pick up a building permit or just say, "I'm not going to do that." Um, so this is similar. I know HA does a similar thing. If you're trying to get work, you have to, you know, pay like a $500 fee to for them to give you a cost estimate to actually put in time and effort to tell you what something's going to take. So, um, this would be deducted from the actual building permit fee. So, if you're, you know, if the building permit's going to be $2,000, you're going to pay this $500 fee up front. We're going to take that off. So, when you pay the next part of it, it's just going to be a $1,500 fee to to get the remainder of that. So, um, it's basically just making them put some uh, skin in the game. Yeah. Um, as far as making sure they're committed to the project um, and moving forward. So, um we are also adding a or recommending a uh an 8 80 cents per square foot um for renovations and remodels um because it's hard to put a lot of value on what what those are going to be. Um we use um IC IBC building codes for um you know a residential building of X square foot is you know at this dollars per square foot per the IBC. That's what the assessed cost of the structure is. So we just plug that in for the IBC tables and then our permit fees that are already in our fee schedules create a dollar figure based off that. So it keeps up with inflation because as the IBC changes tables change and say construction's getting more expensive, our fees are just going to increase based on the IBC. So we don't need to go in there and

adjust our fees accordingly. Um but when somebody comes in and says, "Hey, I'm going to redo my kitchen." We're just kind of making up a number for how much a kitchen is and agreeing on it. So, in this case, we can just say your kitchen's 500 ft², your permit's going to be 80 cents times 500 ft², it's $400 permit, you know, whatever it is. Um, so that we can do some level of of easy effort. It lets people know exactly how much their permit's going to be. So, it'll make the the calculations a lot simpler on that sort of thing. Any questions? Uh, next is street lighting. Um, essentially nothing's really changing in the budget here, but I did want to touch on some streetlight things. Um, we are expecting, um, I got to work with Shelley and Logan to figure out when we can do a presentation. Um, I'm sorry, 161. Um, to do a presentation for our street light assessment. Um, that's either going to be the end of May or probably the first meeting in June, I'm thinking. Um, I'm supposed to get the draft report for that on Monday from them. I've seen a lot of the pieces and parts of it. Um, and this will just be the kind of the draft of the final report to go through. Um, a couple things that we're going to be doing um, in relation to street lights this summer. Um, we made a lot of repairs to lines last year in various things. Um, did a lot of repairs in Inlet Woods and Woodland subdivision um, that I think were good fixes. Um so this summer with some of these funds and some of the capital funds we have um and we have a grant that I've been sitting on and waiting on um to replace um nonLEDD street lights. Um so we'll with the assessment completed we have the big inventory of that so I can you know point to the specific 30 or 40 nonLEDD lights and put those out to bid to be swapped to LEDs um this summer and that's what that grant was for. Um, in

addition, we're going to we got a bunch of lights out that um we need to order replacements for. Um, and we have a couple uh issues that we've been waiting for ground to thaw that we have some damaged lines um that we need to fix. Um, and uh my main plan after that is going to be working on Oldtown. Um, we have some some old not great lighting there and I think we could potentially reduce a lot of that with um putting in some more like our roadway lights that cast a wider net um than the the uh acorn style lights that are out there that don't really provide a lot of light. Um, so I think there's some potential to improve the overall lighting that's down there um and put in some cheaper fixtures um in the future. The acorn fixtures that we have down there are very expensive to replace. bit trivial, but the the uh public works director picked those specific lights out of a magazine and I spec them. But anyway, it's time to replace them.

Yeah. And I'm I'm perfectly happy to have that discussion and get everybody's approval on it before we do it because I I believe that was selected as a you know, character of Oldtown thing. Um so it's it's just something I'd like to look at and see if we can do something that provides better lighting for the area. So let me ask you this. Y um I think that um LEDs uh were promoted so as to be cost-saving. Mhm. Have you found that this has been cost savings for utilities? Yep. And what is the percentage? Do you know off hand?

I do not know the percentage off hands. A lot of them were swapped before I started. Um because we I mean we have what is it? We have 302 lights and I think almost I I want to say it's close to 270 of those are already LEDs. Um so most of our lights are already LEDs. So I'm not and I know it was kind of a gradual shift that they did it over in the past years. So I'm not sure exactly what the switchover is. I could probably get some data on you know what the average energy switch is. Um a lot of what we save. So there's there's also a break point here. um HA will put in lights, you know, and if we put in a light versus HA putting a light, we're paying a meter charge and base electricity charges on that light versus so it's cheaper in a lot of cases for us to have HA go put a wooden pole up and just have a light up um in certain places and that's what we have a lot of areas throughout town. Um now when we can put a string of 10 lights together all off one and we're only paying one meter charge and charge paying all that. um especially when we don't have lights on in the summer, we're saving a lot of money versus um HA is paying we're paying the same dollar figure for that light year round every month. It's just a a charge that we're paying for that regardless of usage. Um and they do have a fee based on whether it's a an old metal halite or an LED. Um, and it's a little bit cheaper if it's an LED, but it's not a ton cheaper because they're they're charging you for, you know, the the cost of the fixture and all that type of stuff that they're building into that cost. That's all approved through the RCA.

Yeah. Did you have something you want to add, Terry? Drag this out. Um, and I think the last thing that we're we're currently looking at with street lights right now is um Kevin and I are Kevin's kind of taking the lead on it as far as um looking at some safe routs to school funding. Um so as part of the the Len and Tinker project that we're looking at in the future here, we're potentially looking at doing some expansion of lighting over on Lton or Tinker. Um I know Lton has some lights but is not consistent down that stretch at all. Um and I've heard of you know kids walking down the school there in the dark. So, um I think that's a potential good avenue there to expand some street lighting.

I know what it was. Does do all the lights that we put in do they have light sensor monitors so that they photo photo cells? Uhhuh. Yep. Okay. Thank you. Um not all of them work, but we're we try when we get calls that say, "Hey, it's the middle of the day and there's a light on." We try to go and take care of that. Um we have uh spent a ton of our funding. I think we're almost maxed out right now um for our fiscal year going on with street lighting. So um we're basically be waiting till July one before I get started and making some more fixes to street lights. Is your question does cuz a photo cell just turns it on when it gets dark turns it off when it gets light or are you talking about because there are systems out there

there are systems out there that will report when the light is not functioning and we do not have that technology. No. Right. I was asking. Oh, the uh you mentioned Lton. Uh are you going to put some lights in to the west of the high school too or does it go that far? I've had some complaints about lighting kind of diminishing as you go that way from from the neighborhoods. I think if I was going to do and we can get it grant funded, um I'd probably be looking at Tinker all the way to uh is it Walker? Is that the Yeah, that covers it. Yeah, that covers it. Lton. Oh, from Walker to Tinker on Lton. On lot.

Oh, gotcha. Gotcha. So, that whole that whole stretch. Yeah, cuz I know there's there's neighbors neighborhoods all the way down there to Rogers and to Walker

that go down turn and all that other stuff. Um, boating facility on page 178. uh we have really changed I think the only increase we have is for repairs and maintenance and that's with doing some uh cathotic protection on the boating facility um on the docks there. Um other than that there's really nothing else to add other than you know we're working on the floats. Um I'd like to get the concrete ramps um potentially bid out to get some work done this fall after fishing season's over um with some of the remaining grand funds we have there. But that's not too much going on the dock other than floats and ramps. Any questions? And then moving on to utilities, water and sewer fund. Just give you a real quick count there. Came in 10 minutes under.

Nice workly. Actually, I had I had five minutes under. Okay. So, moving on to water and sewer. Um, we got the projected revenues. This is the usage fees, um, interest on investments, um, the PERS portion, and then kind of a miscellaneous other. Um, we are recommending a 4% increase for FY27 on the utility rates.

I'll let the answer.

So, we spent a lot of time reviewing this. Um, you know, we're we're definitely seeing inflationary costs for chemical purchases, um, you know, for our our staffing, um, utility costs, everything we're seeing. We did not do any, um, rate adjustment last year to the fees. Um, so we decided to keep it flat last year, um, and just go level. Um, and I think the the biggest thing that we're seeing is although our revenues, expenses are, you know, fairly matching, um, the biggest concern for me is long-term capital expenditures. Um, I know moving forward in I think I have it as FY29 off the top of my head. Um, as a potential um, extremely large um, wastewater treatment plant project. Um, we just have our our wastewater treatment plant is uh, very old. Um we have a lot of you know just pieces and components over there like screens and the the influent um tank and um the effluent and the contact chamber that are just not in the best shape. Um there's potential that we you know it's it's going to need to be a major overhaul project. So I'm concerned about long-term capital for uh infrastructure that we need to spend. We're we're spending quite a bit right now with the uh pump house and the blower projects going on um and everything else and you know lift station projects. So, um, I'd like to start building up some capital, but even though I think it's potentially we're looking at a bond project for that in the future, um, but just trying to keep up. Um, and I can show you, you know, if you're interested in coming in, um, Eric put together, um, with, um, the Rural Water Association kind of did some evaluations of our our utility rates versus other utility rates. Um, and Kai is one of the lower ones um, in the state as far as water and sewer goes. Um, and you know, everybody else is doing increases as well. So, we we think we're pretty justified right now in in

doing the 4% increase. Did you say ARA, the Alaska Rural Water Association? Okay.

Okay. And then the capital projects. Um, we kind of covered these earlier. um water main line improvements, airport reservoir pump, utility truck, um affluent monitoring and water meter equipment and software. And there were no special projects um for the water and sewer fund. And then the financial performance. Um what you're seeing here is is again kind of we've seen this throughout the day looking the yellow line being the fund balance. Um where you see that significant drop. Um that's where our expenditures exceeded our revenues. We had some major projects going there. We had a sledge replacement and digesttor blower project. That's where we allocated those funds. um the the peak that you're seeing there at the top where the revenues are are exceeding um that's um in part for the leech eight that we've been processing which has been about uh $340,000 a year that is coming to an end. It's been been nice for us to to get that. but it's actually been helpful to our system. Um but that is coming to an end and so um we're reflecting that in the budget as well and that's where you see a decrease in revenues um in the budget too.

Was that coming from the city of Sog? Yes. No or Bur. Okay.

Yeah. So I forgot about that. that was a major budget impact having that lead go away. Um, as far as our revenue side, um, so main projects we've got going or we'll talk about staffing first. Um, so we have seven staff there. Um, James is our utility foreman. Um, Eric does a lot of uh, work as far as the admin side. Eric Gene, our assistant director um, managing utility department since that's where he came from. Um, and Eric and James can talk circles around me as far as water and sewer goes. Um, but we've got a great staff. We're fully staffed right now. That's the the first time we've been fully staffed for a little while. Had a lot of turnover in the last year. Um, but I think we're at a good place. Um, and those guys are all great. I just got a call this week. We had um somebody with a broken water man underground um that they went in to, you know, he's calling trying to figure out get his water shut off and had some issues with this curb stop and all sorts of things going on. And you know, the guy called me the next day and said, "You I just wanted to reach out and let you know uh Eric and Justin Wick that I dealt with on site. Those guys were both great and you just, you know, have some fantastic employees and they did a great job." And you know, it's unfortunate I had to deal with it, but you know, they they were doing everything they could to be helpful. So, um the rare times we get those those calls of kudos, we we'll take them and and pass them on. Um main things we have going on right now are obviously the pump house and the blower projects. um blower project has kicked off. We've got excavation going on over there. Um they've dug out the the foundation for the the new structure. Um done a ton of submitts going on that. Um the pump house we just um finished contract paperwork on. So um we've seen a couple submitts rolling on and we're we're starting to get in talks with them um for start dates and things like that. Um, we do have uh the lift station project that we've been we keep kind of starting and stopping on and figuring out some things internally, but I think we're going to get that going

here in the next month or two. That'll be out on the street to replace all of the uh control panels on our lift stations. Um, we just have a lot of aging uh network equipment and communications on those. That's we're having a lot of failing issues with. Some of them are on radios that we're trying to get fixed now um to get those over to cell networks and and things, but um hoping to just get better communications. Um a lot of those are alarms and control panels and you know when our guys are getting calls at night, we want that stuff to be reliable so that we can know if a pump's failed in a lift station. You know, some of them we only have, you know, an hour or two that we have to react to those before it might cause a backup somewhere. Um, other ones can go for a day and it won't be an issue, but we just want to make sure we're getting accurate communications from those. Um, SCADA, that's our supervisory control acquisition and AC data acquisition software. Um, so we have uh some old software for our water plant. Um, and we're potentially having some issues with that. Um we're going to investigate that right now with um the contractor for the pump house is our plan and see what we can do moving forward to that. Um but we might be having um a large change order or we might be doing a request for proposal soon to try and um come up with a path forward on our SCADA system. Um we're just slowly getting to a point where we can't really service the existing software that we have and um a lot of our infrastructure and stuff associated with that is just getting aging and to a point where we can't really um control it very well and and that's not great. So um kind of like just with the lift stations, we want to make sure we're getting accurate information on our water system and our pressures and all that type of stuff. So, um, in addition to all that, we are working on, um, as well as with the building department doing their permits, we're working on the water and sewer standards and permits that I also discussed. Um, I'd like to get our water and sewer permits to where we're

capturing a little better data um, as far as when these um, water and sewer services get installed. Like, you know, Henry was talking about earlier with people calling about water and sewer services freezing. Um, a lot of these old ones, you know, we'll we'll check the building permit file and see what we can find for them. We just don't have any information. We don't know. All we have is a date it was installed. We don't know what the material is to tell them if it's copper or plastic, how deep it is, how big it is, any of that stuff. So, um, just trying to build that data so it's better for the future when somebody calls. You know, a lot of people sell their houses off and somebody buys it in the future and, you know, they just don't have any of this information about the house that they're buying. So, we become that repository for them and it'd be better if we could uh have a good way to to get that to them in the future. Um, in addition, other projects we've got going on is a water hydrant flushing right now. Um, so they're starting on the west side of town or east side of town right now. I'm working their way west. Um, I think we're going to spend a little longer doing flushing this year than we have in the past. We're trying to make sure we hit every hydrant. um before they you know in kind of a rush we'd skip hydrants just to try and make sure we're getting a good overall system and not flushing hydrants so long. Um but I think we're going to spend a little longer on it with staff this year and making sure we're getting a good flush so that we can uh have good water quality all throughout town. Um and I already talked about the my concerns with the the treatment plant that we we've got down there um and potential bond project for that in the future. Um, I think that's kind of the biggest hanging out there thing that I've got right now for the utility department is just um what's going to happen with that plant in the future. Um, and as far as hydrant flushing goes, we do have the we did apply for a grant with um to add more hydrants to our system um so that we can include our increase our water quality. Um, we did put one in last year where there's we have a lot of deadend lines, um, where we can't flush water for certain houses and they, you know, they might call it the brown water complaint, but there's

nothing we can really do to fix it because we have no way to run enough water to actually purge the builtup iron and um, tannins out of that line. So, this is kind of the goal of that project. So, hopefully we're successful with that grant application and we can move forward with that. Um, and you know, fire department will be happy to because we'd be supplying more fire hydrants throughout town. Um, and we're, you know, we're hoping as part of doing the pump house project that that helps us with our pressures throughout town as well. We're going to get that big 16inch water man that's been sitting across the road connected into the system. So, uh, hopefully with these new pumps and the new connections and uh, we can increase some some pressures and quality throughout town moving forward into the next year. And I think that's all I got for water and sewer. And oh, I should say it for sorry a big change we made this year. The the water and sewer budget is now all one budget. This used to be three different departments. We had a water, we had a sewer collections, and we had the wastewater treatment plant budget. Um so we made the request to put them all into one budget um this year. Um before we'd have just you know we're buying boots out of this budget and then you know buying it for the next guy out of this budget and it was things would get mixed up here and there. So uh we think this will make it a lot cleaner and easier for the department as far as um pulling all the funds and and keeping all the costs tracked easier.

Sure. Um, certifications um are an interesting thing for uh water and sewer in Alaska. Um, it's one thing I hear those guys complain about quite a bit. Um, our state seems to be harder for guys to get certifications to operate the water and sewer plant. Um, so we don't put people typically on call until they have a level one operator for all certifications in our department. So you there's two for there's water treatment, there's water distribution, there's sewer collection and sewer treatment. Um sometimes like if you were working in Anchorage like you might be part of the hydrant crew. So all you're doing is water distribution and that's the only thing you're earning time for. If you work for city of Kinai you work on all four of our systems all the time. So basically your time split up 25% to each one of those certifications. Um, so it takes our guys a long time to get their certifications because they have to have a year of experience in each of those before they can get their level ones. Um, so they get their provisionals and things like that and moves on. Um, so it just takes a lot of effort. Now our treatment plant for water is a level two and our treatment plant for uh wastewater is a level three. So we only have two people with level threes for wastewater treatment right now. Um, so we're trying to get more of those. That's why we have testing requirements that once people qualify, they can move into those. Um, but we we um have employees that we just hired and moved up here and they came from states that have no certification requirements to do certain things. So, they're moving up here and they may have years of experience, but those states may have just gone away from even doing testing requirements. And, you know, they might have a water wastewater treatment testing requirements um for certifications, but they may not do anything for water distribution or sewer collections, and that's just, you know, a utility operator job. So, um certifications vary quite a bit um throughout states, and it just seems um getting certifications transferred up here when people move up here is um

extremely difficult. So they don't have the certification but they have the time and position. So correct that that can transfer. Correct. Yes. There there sometimes it really depends. Um you know sometimes they'll give them partial credit not full credit. Um and it depends what all their experience is in. Um we've had people that have come from wastewater treatment in the oil fields that they haven't given them time um experience for wastewater treatment even though it's essentially what they're doing. I do have a question uh about uh the security around our um water system. Could you address that? Um what are your

Well, well, you know, uh there is sabotage. So, um I guess the first thing I will say is we have a system that we took offline um in the last month um because um there was it notified of us of some potential concerns for a specific component or software that we were using that was supposedly being targeted by Iran. So, um we took it offline. we have now developed some workarounds that we are using um instead and it was a part to deal with a remote access system that our operators would use. Um so there was a month there where um if they got an alarm notification on their phone, you know, they might be able to to check in on their computer and see, oh, it's just this alarm and I can turn it off and I can go back to bed. It's not a big issue. We'll deal with the morning. But now they can't check in to do anything that. So for about a month or so there when anytime alarm went off, somebody had to get up at 2:00 in the morning and drive to the plant and make sure it wasn't a big issue because our software was essentially cut off because of that. Um so we take those issues seriously. Um I mean other than that, you know, we're we're a secure facility as far as having things fenced off. We are looking at doing um electronic gates um at the waist at the water treatment plant as part of the pump house and potentially to the sewer plant in the future. Um, we also have some funding set aside for redoing some fencing around those facilities.

Is there cameras around the water treatment? There is not. Okay. Well, I would like to see that maybe on one of your future goals. Thank you. Quick clarifying question. Was there an actual issue with the software or this was a preventative effort? Preventative. Thank you. Nobody tried to hack us that I'm aware of. Um there you had big reductions. I mean several reductions, but a couple of big ones were operating and repair services, professional services, and postage. Um can you share with us what what contributed to that? I mean I mean it's about $100,000.

I would have to check and get back with you. I don't know those off the top of my head. Um, and it's going to be weird the way cuz we combined this all into one. So, I'm going to have to dig into each of those. I submitted everything for the three and then finance combined them into the one. So, I'm going to have to look specifically at each of those. But, I can look at that and get back with you. Thank you. I was just curious. That's a big that's a big chunk of money. So, so a couple of things. Um the 48,000 reduction you're seeing there was related to the polymer and then the uh the $46,000 reduction. Um actually it was a reduction of $50,000 in that line item because we had a permit renewal that we we just did in the current year.

Right. Right.

Before Right. Right. Yeah. We we allocated $50,000 for the permit renewal and then we ended up that was for possible consultant services. Um but Eric and James did all of the permit renewal inhouse and we didn't have to outsource anything. So we actually didn't use that money, but it was in there as a potential special project for if we needed consultant help. Um and the polymer, we had that in there as well. We recently switched over to a different polymer at the water treatment plant. It was about a year ago. But we kept the budget high because it was um we had to switch over twice. We switched over one um and it wasn't giving us as good of a water quality as far it's the polymer is just for taking the color out um at the treatment plant um and it wasn't giving us the quality that we had with the original polymer, but it was like half the cost of the other polymer that we were changing. So, we were able to switch over with a different one with the same company and now we're getting equal roughly equal um treatment level um but about half the cost of the polymer.

So, now that that's working, we're taking that out of the budget because we're have the lower cost in the budget. We don't we don't need to switch back to the other one. Do you have do you have any notes about I'm just curious because it didn't it didn't look like the number of um customers changed when we were looking at that earlier today. Um, and I know I still get my little postcard in the mail every month, so I'm assuming others do. We wouldn't have changed anything for the CCR. Um,

so I can't think what that would have been. A lot of our postage in the water treatment is for shipping off um for testing. So various tests that we have to ship up to Anchorage to get various water tests on the treatment plant or the water plant that we can't do or annual tests and things like that. Um so that's what a lot of that cost is. Um but I don't know why we have that much of a reduction. So I'll have to look at that and get back to you. Well, and for what it's worth, I'm betting maybe there was something big that occurred in the

in this last because it was pretty con I mean it was 10,8900 and then 199. So something big must have happened last year. Yeah. I just can't think of any special project we had for postage. That's why I jumped out.

Yeah. Our consumer confidence reports we do every year. So that wouldn't have been uh any sort of a change that we would have taken or added. So But that's what I've got. How' I do? I don't know why I was good. Okay, you can come back. And I didn't realize Dave I was giving some time to Dave do stuff there, too. So, you know. Yeah. I think we're exactly on teamwork.

I got to say that before I missed

we we've still got time today. Sabala.

All right. So, we're on page 252, which I handed out an updated page as um as we made some changes to this and then and somehow we broke it and it made its way into the book broken. Um this is our employee healthcare fund. And so for this one um what we have is the charges for services and then the the participants premiums and then interest earnings on this fund. And um this is where we talked about previously that we're not decreasing the cost to the city, but we are seeing a decrease in what we charge out to the departments from this fund because we built this up to where we've got um you know, we finished last year with just a little over $3 million in this in this account. And we're we're looking to kind of get this dialed back more to like a million and a half is is kind of what we're targeting at. And in the current year, we're going to look at reducing that by $350,000 rough roughly. And so we want to kind of just slowly do this over a period of time, certainly as we see rates increase that that may might be opportunities where how how we cover some of those increases that we get to over time. But um but then you you can see down below um and it's been kind of confusing in the past. We decided because this is one where it changes at January 1. It doesn't follow our fiscal budget. It follows a calendar budget or a calendar year not not a fiscal not our fiscal year which which goes from July to June. Um, so that's where we did see that uh

we did have a decrease um for employee cost in um 26 and then we've anticipated a slight increase um that would go into effect January 1st of 2027. So, the only thing I'd like to do maybe a little bit for council and you guys tell me if this is redundant, but I really just want to talk a little bit about how this fund mechanically works. So, if you look at at page 252 in the new handout that you just got, um, you've got the revenues in the fund and then you've got the expenses of the fund. The expenses are the costs that we are paying to outside parties for these benefits for our employees. And you can see that you know um the projection for fiscal 26 is about 3.15 million. We're projecting about 3 million in um fiscal 27. So you're not seeing a huge 25% reduction there. Where we're talking about a reduction is this fund accounts for all of those expenses that we pay and then we determine a billing rate that we're going to bill other city departments where the employees actually work. Okay? And that's the revenue side of this. That's what's up here in the top side. So, the revenue that comes into this fund, the charge for services, so for each department of the city that has a full-time position, we're billing them. Last year, we build them $26,722 for the benefit for that position. This year, that's dropped down to $20,000. And it's because we've been building too big of reserves and that the the reserves of this fund have been growing. So we're ratcheting that back and that's

why you see the health insurance savings in all the other departments of the city. Also what's revenue in this area is this is what employees pay for their share of the premium. So when we talk about down below, you know, an employee only on our um fully insured plan, low deductible plan, they're paying um $168 a month. um if they're on our high deductible plan with an HSA, they're paying $152 a month all the way up to, you know, if you're if you have family coverage, it's $486 a month. So, um I know it's confusing and and I'm trying to help explain that a little bit, but the cost of providing employee healthcare has not gone down by 25%. the cost we're billing ourselves for providing that we're reducing by 25%. And and and the result of that, like Dave said, is um this is what we're trying to avoid is that where that yellow line is right now. That yellow line's gotten too high. And the result of that getting too high is we're billing ourselves too much money. and we're we're we're putting money that we can put into other services here in the city or into capital or into something else. We're going to start putting it into that rather than start keep building the reserves of this fund over here. So, over time, we're hoping to reduce those reserves and like Dave said, bring this from 3 million back down to a million and a half. Uh it's going to be a balancing act. I think you're going to see, you know, we reduced it a lot this year. you're going to see that gradually start to come back up and hopefully we find a a happy landing spot about that million and a half in reserves. Um so, um I know it's a little confusing, but I think this is uh really important and um we're absolutely maintaining the same level of service or benefit for our employees. Um

our costs really haven't gone down out there of the third party. I think we've done a hell of a job at the city of trying to limit what we pay and been pretty creative with our plans, but the 25% savings you're seeing in all the other departments doesn't mean we're paying Promera any less. So, are we somehow self-insured if I misunderstood? Yeah, great question. No, kind of. sort um kind kind of sort of. So we're in what they call um uh they like to our broker likes to call it self-funding light um

Bud Light.

So what that means is in a in a sense what we negotiate with Promera is um a premium that we're going to pay. Now that premium includes a couple of components. um they they and they divi they define these buckets. One bucket is um our claims bucket. This is how much money out of your premium you're going to be allotted to pay for claims. It also has a component for um administration overhead and profit of of Premier. What happens is is no matter what actual claims come in at, we pay no more than that that original premium. However, if premium or if that if we don't pull all the funds out of that bucket, Promera says if you renew with us, there's the catcher, there's the catch. If you renew with us in the subsequent year, we will share with you half of the savings from those claims that you didn't spend. Well, this year that was about $180,000. We got that check. We brought that to council. That's why we did a premium holiday to share some of that back with our employees who are paying 15% of that premium as well. Um, so is it a fully self-insured environment? No. Is it a fully fully insured environment? No. Um, so we're we're I I think we found kind of a sweet spot and it's been working for us. I think two out of five years we've received a significant refund on premium and um and we've also kept our renewal rates down. I think we achieved a 4% this last year which is uh you know our broker told us going in expect 10 to

12. That's what we're seeing. and we came in at four and but I think that's a result of our claims history as well. But um so we're in the middle. So, so Terry, uh, understanding the the graph, the yellow there, the the yellow the N dot there represents funds that employees paid as well as the city those funds and and then that's what we're we're giving back part of what they had in Well, if you could explain that.

Sure. So, um, what our cost share to our employees is predicated on now is 15% of the premier premium. And I think that's the transition we made. It used to have a lot of other components that only a few of us here at the city understood. So now an employee can look at the quoted rates we get from Premier and they can multiply that by 15% and that's what they're going to pay. Um, so our employees, you know, do they have some skin in the game in this and when we get those refunds coming back to us, we feel like it's appropriate that, you know, they paid, you know, theoretically they paid 15% of that $180,000 that we got back. And you know um so we um think that in order to um incentivize or make keep them aware of of doing good medical practices, getting your preventative care, going and getting your physicals, checking your blood pressure, you know, everything that you know we can do to help keep our large claims and things down. Um you know that it was prudent to share some of that back with the employees. they paid for it in any ways. But it's also a good reminder for them that that if we all continue to work together, we can try to do our best to curb some of this and some of these cost increases cuz healthcare is still one of our largest. Um, you know, at around $3 million, $3 million, we have what, less than 110 full-time permanent employees. $3 million.

Yeah. So that graph the yellow there and I'm just repeating I think what you just said it does represent what the employees put in it kind of helps justify in a graphic is saying no but you just said that it the uh the employees pay in a percentage and that would exceeded what was actually due so that's why we we we uh re reimbured them through the holiday so that would help reduce the the uh the fund balance which is the yellow which includes the employees put in. Correct. Okay. Yeah, that's definitely a component. The line share that is I'm just trying to understand it out loud.

Yeah. No, employees are absolutely responsible for some of that. You know, the lion share of that I think um we had some pretty conservative assumptions. We um conservative being we overestimated what premium increases were going to be over time. um we underestimated or overestimated what utilization was going to be and um so our expenses were coming in well below what we were projecting they were going to be. Um and our revenue side because we were billing ourselves came in surprisingly right where we thought it would be because we controlled that. Um, so yeah, it built these reserves over time and we're just um it got to the point where like I said, there's there's no benefit to the services we provide by having a massive fund balance sitting over in this employee healthcare fund really needs to be back in the funds, the operating funds um that can use it and put it to work.

Thank you. That graph is very helpful to me now that I better understand it. And then we'll move on to the general land sales permanent fund. Um so the revenues on this fund are um it's based on interest. Well, primarily interest. um if we have any land sales that this is where um you would see that we don't project land sales because we don't always know from year to year what we're going to be selling. Um if we had a heads up and also you never know what it what the price is that you're going to get for that. Um so this is just showing a kind of the history of this. Um and on this fund annually we would we would um essentially you know pay ourselves a dividend of 4% off of this would come into the general fund if we hit the excess inflation adjusted principal balance. So we inflationp proof this this account and if we don't hit that inflationary rate where you can see in FY23 we didn't and so therefore we didn't have a distribution. Um so

well that that's also if council remembers that's because this fund was created in charter so the city's charter and it says in city charter that that um you cannot spend the corpus of the fund. So what we're employing here is very much like the Alaska permanent fund scenario where we monitor and created basically an earnings reserve. So as earnings happen year-over-year, we track those earnings, sometimes those earnings get gobbled up like in FY23 by a significant market adjustment. and we went from having $428,000 surplus in the earnings reserve the prior year to a negative earnings reserve. We couldn't pay a dividend that year because if a dividend or a transfer came to the general fund, it would have decreased the corpus of the fund. Um so you know the projection is for this fund to return um you know our long-term projections are just south of 7% I believe that we get from Alaska Permanent Capital. Um we plan to pay ourselves 4% a year if there's an earnings reserve available and the other roughly almost 3% is to inflation proof. So you know over time we think we've built a model that consistently we can the general fund can become more reliant upon that transfer every year. Um but um and you can see at the end of calendar year 2025 that earnings reserve was back at you know almost 600,000. So very capable of of the transfer of 176,000 I think is what's being projected. So, and that's contrast to our airport fund. It doesn't have the same limitation in charter.

Then the next next slide here is just kind of showing that performance and showing how it's it's kind of constantly growing over the years and just the ups and downs with the the market or um or if we have land sales right there in 22 you can see was that huge decline that market. What do we want that fund to remain at? I know the last one we wanted at right around 1.5. Is there a set rate that we look for on that one?

Yeah, I our goal for that one again um I think charter dictates it. One, we can't touch the principal. So the the policy that's been drafted with our financial advisors is we tried to create a fund that um can spin off 4% a year um and inflation proof itself and you know maintain that corpus of of the the principal balance. So um what do we want to be? We want it to be as big as it can be some point in the future, but you know, um we're trying to make sure that it we also inflation proof it because um make it worth what it is 10 years from now, what it dollar for dollar should be today. And so

yeah, thank you for that and thanks for repeating yourself. I appreciate it. Sorry. airport land sales, permanent fund. Um, again, for the most part, set up the same way, but not completely. Um, you know, um, we do have some contracts out there where people are making payments. And so, that's where we have interest on those contracts um, included in this one. Um, if you'll bounce to the next slide.

Oh, I'm sorry. We're on page 250. And with this one, the payments made based on the 5-year average. Um, and for this year, it's it's um at the 3.8%. So, we're looking at a,151,000 that will um be going into the airport revenues. And that's where we, you know, we talk again about this makes up about 30% of the the revenues for the airport fund. If if I could, David, before we did this, before we invested this money, the it was a a very negative um line and we would have been out of money, Terry, in 20 2016, 2015, say, you know, I mean, the airport would have run it, it would have run itself into the ground financially. and uh the the city council at that time chose to go through this process and it's it's recovered very nicely. Terry was part of that 2008 call was 2008 and I'll give the majority of the credit to my predecessor Larry Simmons started that process. I was you know lucky enough to bring it over the finish line. Uh we transferred wow hold me to those numbers but uh I think around $14 million we rolled in late 2008. It was um very advantageous. It was this was right after the um housing crisis and um a major market correction. I I will never forget how many meetings I had in Rick Cook's office between, you know, November of

'08 and March of ' 09 when we'd lost a million dollars of $14 million. And he kept was, you know, did we do the right thing? Do we need to bail out of this? Is what? And it was just like, you know, and I know Rick was calling Larry and I'm okay with that totally, too. Um, and Larry and I were we had the we were unified. We had the same message. You know, it's the same message I would say to this council today. Um, just stop watching the news, stay the course. Um, trust our investment methodology. Um, you know, since that date, we've we invested like $14 million to start. Um, we've, uh, I think since inception, we've earned just right at an 8% rate of annualized rate of return on this fund. Um, that thing's grown to $30 million. And we've spun off um, I don't even know how much money at this point, 1520 million worth of uh, funds for operations at the airport. And don't forget, it's like 30ome% of the airport's revenue um, to operate the airport now. So, um I I appreciate your words, Mr. Mayor. Um I think this is a great success story for the city and um something that really will benefit, you know, hasn't just benefited the people for the last 15, 20 years. It's going to benefit everybody in this community for the next hundred years if we stay the course.

Just real quick, um is this the money that they talk that people in the community talk about? We're so we're hoarding our money that we're so rich. Yeah. Is this the fun?

Uh, great question. I wish I could say I I think that this is it. I I don't know where they think we're hoarding money. I mean, I think, you know, we're very transparent. You can look at the fund balance policy in the general fund, and yes, we have very healthy reserves in our general fund as well. Um, we're starting to spend those, too. And so um the city of Kai is very financially sound. Absolutely. These permanent funds one are dictated either by charter which only the people have the ability to change by the way or they're dictated based upon a uh a deed that transferred ownership of the property to the city in 1963 for operations and maintenance of the airport. So I think we have a legal obligation to the federal government to utilize revenues we receive from the lands that they deeded to us to continue operations of the Kenai Municipal Airport. So is this a a Yes, I think this could be one of those pots of money that people think we're sitting on, but there's very good reasons why we are, very legal reasons why we are. And Terry, just to go into that a little bit further, you know, it would be a diversion of funds if the city were to buy or use those money to buy a road grader or do something else. You want to explain that because I think that kind of nails that coffin closed.

Sure. Revenue diversion is something we take very seriously. Um, we're unable or well, I don't know, we're unable. It's wrong for us to divert city resources or city cost to the airport um to pay for things that aren't for the betterment of the airport. What's at risk? What people need to understand is what's at risk if we start to violate those covenants. I sign a grant assurance. Every city manager, it's not just me. Every city manager signs a grant assurance with the federal um with the FAA before we get a grant. And we've got a $22 million grant to redo our main runway on our airport. Those grant assurances say things like we're not doing revenue diversion and they monitor this stuff and they're double-checking on this. So, you know, the general fund can't utilize a piece of airport land without compensating the airport except or in certain cases. You know, the softball fields here in town are on airport land. You know, they allow us to use land for community parks and things. If that land over there is ever needed for an operation at the Kai Municipal Airport, we won't have softball fields sitting in the middle of town. Um there's just things people need to understand about how our funding works and the commitments that we make in order to receive, you know, tens of millions a year um in in funding. We're looking at over 3 to 5 years of the airport getting in excess of $50 million worth of assistance um from the federal government. That's what we'd be jeopardizing by by um having the airport they if you wonder how ridiculous this gets like we have to call the FAA. Uh, I remember one year it was a few years back. We had a ton of snow. I called the street department and I'm like, "Hey, it's about time to go blow the snow the soccer field over at the high school." Yeah, Terry, I don't know that we're going to be able to do it this year. Our

equipment's not big enough. I'm like, "Yeah, well, that's not an option, guys. Like, we have to find a solution." Well, can we use the airport blower? I don't know. we call the FAA and you know they and they got a hundred questions because the last thing we want on the front page of the paper is some reporter to put a picture of this big airport blower blowing snow at the high school and we all think it's great and the FAA slaps us with a revenue diversion clause. You know, um it it's serious stuff and there are are serious ramifications. So, you know, us being true and and maintaining these funds in the proper way and utilizing like we're supposed to, I think is is critical to the long-term success of us operating. You know, again, we're one of three municipalities in the state of Alaska that have a Part 139 airport. All the rest are stateowned. All the rest are ran by state DOT. So, um it's a big responsibility. Um but it's a huge asset to this community. Huge asset. you know, we are the gateway to the peninsula. Um, it is a huge economic engine for this community and, you know, we think direct air service to lower 48's the next step in that. So, debt service fund. Go ahead. This shows that for the 2027 budget, we're going to have $125,000. Um, the only debt service we have is the bond for the library. And as we move to the next slide, you'll see that we're down to four years left and that will be gone. Um, so that graph, the the blue part shows our outstanding debt. The red the red part's the principal, the green parts interest, and it shows

how it's quickly diminishing and going to going to nothing. Was that a variable interest rate or was that a fixed? Because I know um on this document it it looks like it was a variable um from 2% up to 6.341.

Yeah, great question. It it is variable just in the sense that when when you're issuing bonds depending on length of maturities and things like that they try to take advantage of um you know uh the yield curve and where things are in the yield curve. So um you know every every component of that issuance can be at differing rates. We tend to blend those rates over time to to like effective interest rate over the whole term of the project. Um we also um defeased the original bonds. So at year 10 those bonds were callable. Um we obviously didn't have the funds at that point in time to um well maybe we did but we we didn't devote the funds at that time just to completely pay the bonds off. We actually like like you might think about refinancing your house. We refinanced our debt at year 10. Um, we put money into a defeasement account, meaning that we effectively put the funds to we issued new debt. That new debt took a portion of it, put it into an account over here to extinguish the original debt and we dropped our interest rate um for the last 10 years because, you know, as you step farther out in debt issuances, you're going to pay more interest at the longer terms because that's the greatest risk. Everybody knows what rates are here in the short term. nobody's what they're going to be in 20 years. So, yes, they were at variable rates. They're kind of all over the place. We look at it as more of a blended and our payment schedules g get to it more as a blended rate, too. So, and we issued these through the Alaska Municipal Bond Bank. And then for equipment replacement fund, um the departmental charges is what we charge out to the departments. And this is based on on kind of that um

repayment, if you will, or or future um as we buy equipment, we basically look at what future costs are are going to be future projections that that's what we charge. And um you go to the next slide, I believe. So that kind of shows um what those payments each piece of equipment. And then on the far side is what those payments are going to be each each year or for the year to the departments. And the next one will show that what we're looking at this year is um buying a fire tanker. As chief said, this is going to be replace an engine. It's just to haul water, so it doesn't need need to be a full-blown engine. Um the one of the benefits of that will be it only takes one person to to operate that piece of apparatus where typically an engine you've got a an engineer and a captain at a minimum two two bodies on that and typically a firefighter to go with them if they're on a response. Um so so that's what he's he's reassessing and looking at that. Um we've got an aerial bucket truck that we need to replace. Um, and that's uh projected at 174,000 for that. And so

that's for streets. Don't confuse that with the uh aerial at the fire department. It's $3 million.

And then this is showing how how this fund has been building. But the the biggest reason for this being as high as it is is because of that aerial apparatus that we need to purchase that um it's been you know it was due last year I think and so um I know chief put in for a grant for that he's looking at other ways just because the cost in those have gone up so much in in the last few years here. Um but then also he's looking at other options versus a full-blown ladder with the you know with that tower with that platform on it. Um, so that's where that's why this fund has such a high fund balance. Once we buy that piece of apparatus, it's going to significantly drop.

Yeah. What do we do with the nicely used truck? Sell it in the market. Can we auction that or do we give it away?

Uh, I think code permits either both. I mean, could give it away. we'd have to find another agency that may be in need. But, you know, that that I think all comes back before council, but generally we put these up for auction, you know, and I think generally what you're seeing is um, you know, not fire departments buying them, but other people buying them, taking, you know, the motors out of them, the pumps out of them. And I mean, the guts are the guts are still, you know, really good. you know, you know, the the beauty of these equipment replacement funds is um one, they do a couple of things effectively. They're really designed to smooth um the impact to an operational budget. Okay? So, you can understand, you know, how much your budget, you'd have to explain your budget increasing year-over-year by $3 million. And that $3 million could just be the purchase of a firet truck, right? So the idea of of an these internal service funds or these equipment replacement funds is to bill yourself. So in year one, you replace you buy uh they bought that ladder truck over there. For the next 33 years, we pay an annual amount into a fund that at the end of 33 years when we have to go buy a new ladder truck, we already have the funds set aside and those funds are available. That's why this fund builds reserves like that. Every bit of those reserves can be linked to a piece of apparatus or a piece of equipment to justify why we have those funds. We have schedules that go out 20, 30 years looking forward on on what we target is when we're going to replace equipment, what we think it's going to cost when we get there. And and believe it or not, we're not always right. I mean, when

you're going out 30 years on on apparatus, but you know, I think that's where uh what we ask of all of our departments like Chief Teague is, you know, yeah, I know what it says is in there for you to replace. Is there a better way to do it? Is there a more efficient way to do it? do we really need that piece of apparatus? Can can that thing last for another 5 years? And um so we've been able to stretch our our funds um in these um we've got we this one's been around for quite a quite a long time. The equipment replacement we put the fleet replacement in in the last 10 years. Fleet replacement is more for your your daily driver vehicles, not not graders, snowblowers, um you know, fire trucks, things like that. And and the other beauty about internal service funds like this is the people that live here now that are receiving the benefit from us owning this equipment, every year they pay a little bit of a charge for that. So that in 30 years if they move away they got the benefit and they paid for everything that they got and we have the funds to buy it for the next generation and then they get to pay for it as they are here to utilize it and rather than you know save save save save and then spend money and then you move away and you never got the benefit of of you know using the thing that you had to pay for that you never got. Um, so I think these funds really work well, but every dollar of that yellow line can be accounted for in a piece of equipment. Tell you when we think we're going to replace it and why it's there. So, it does grow and then it crashes when you spend a lot of money.

I think it also gives us the benefit of potentially saving money as well. We're not we're never in a position where we're financing something, so we're not paying interest. We potentially are earning interest on what we're saving. So, we're making a little and saving a little. Um, it's like a to me it seems like a Christmas club account sort of. You know, you're putting a little bit of money in and then when you're when you need it, it's it's there. I am I am curious though from what Chief Tig was talking about going with tanker trucks rather than the full apparatus which is something I don't think we were contemplating or I was understanding or nor the ladder truck and getting a it it seems like uh we're going to be way money ahead um here in the next few years we are you kind of looking at that based on what he's he's projecting his needs are they changed

yes and So, um I think for the my memory serves me correct here. Um I think for the So, as we talk about the ladder truck, I think we had about 1.3 set aside for that. We're looking at 1.9 for something like that. He might this quint. So the quint doesn't have the big platform on it, but it's got a a a ladder to it and it and it has a nozzle up on the top of that that allows them to get the the height advantage that they need sometimes when they're when they're at a fire. Um so there's different levels that kind of can meet the same needs. And so it's kind of like what what you know that's what he says. We're kind of doing a needs assessment of what do we really need this apparatus to do? That's where when they looked at this engine, well, here's, you know, I think we had a little over 600,000 that we had earmarked for this. Well, that that cost savings that we're going to look at having there. We're going to be able to apply that to that ladder truck or that Quint that we end up getting where we're where we're short. Um and we'll see that in the the fleet um equipment as we talk about that here shortly that we we saw some savings this year. But last year we ran over on on the the bands for the senior center. But this year we saved we went went about 15,000 over last year, but this year we saved about 10,000 on some new vehicles that we're currently in the process of purchasing. So that that's part of this fund too is that yeah, some some places you might have a savings, other places you go over. The key is to never fully expend that those funds so that you're all and you're always replenishing it so you're able to fund and pay for for future purchases.

And assumptions have changed over time. Like when I started at the city, um the assumption in this fund was half of the fire apparatus that we'd be buying would be replaced with grants.

So they would get 50% grants for these. you know, we started to curve and change those assumptions as, you know, that reality got less and less and less. So, um, assumptions change over time, too. Fortunately, we have sometimes 15, 20, 25 years in order to implement change. So, it doesn't hurt so bad um at all at once. But um, yeah, those assumptions do change over time. So, here's a fleet replacement. Um, again, looking at the departmental charges, interest on investments, other incomes, just looking at what we might receive in in auctions and that as as we sell off some of the older equipment. And then this again is at schedule. And again, we talk about, you know, how we talk about that yellow line as we add to that every year. It's based on every piece of equipment. So, we can always tie those dollars back to a given piece of equipment as to what we've put away for that fund. And um hit the next one. So, coming up um in the current year or in 27, we're going to be looking at a couple of uh trucks for the shop and then two police vehicles. And I think if you reached out to the department heads, the other benefit of of putting these funds in place is that we've really been able to modernize some of our fleet and um you know, police I think Dave would sing the praises of this program and the number of patrol vehicles that they've gotten for staff. Um, so I think, you know, we've got better quality and like I said that this is a hell of a list of vehicles that the

city's maintaining. And um, but we're also contributing about $175,000 a year on an annual basis to keep that fleet going. This is a very not important question. Uh, but I have been curious for a while. Why did we move from red to blue on our police vehicles? I've got the answer to that one cuz that's what the department wanted.

I I I want to I want, you know, I want to I want to kick this to the next chief. It'll be the next chief. I got Dave gave me the next chief answer to my my tough question. Um, no. It I think it was just a matter of department um and what they wanted. So, different chief probably had a different desire for what they wanted. We only had two I think we only had two red ones. That was a Gus thing. Which I supported wholeheartedly. I still bleed red. So, I get I support the red uh police cruisers. Yeah. So, there was Yeah. Well, that is a Yeah, that is

okay. Well, thanks for the reason. I don't like it, but okay. Thank you.

I get where you're coming from.

So, Mr. Mayor, I'll kick it back over to you, but I just want to take just one minute and just say uh you know, thank you again. I know it's been a long day. Um honestly, this this meeting, I don't know about for you, but this meeting for me is energizing because my staff doesn't get a chance very they don't get very many opportunities just to sit and talk about what they do. you if I I feel like I see the pride in the work that they do when they sit here in front of you and talk about what their departments do, what the people that work for them and with them and everything that they do. Um, we've got a great team at the city of Kenai. You know, you got to see a large part of it here today. It's why I'm so thankful for the job that I have to be able to work with these people. And um but we're also here to answer any tough questions you got. And um if if you don't have them right now, but they come up, let's talk. And um this goes from my document that I transmit to you and you guys get to make it your own. So um looking forward to that process and really appreciate your time today. I know it's been a long day.

Okay, moving down our agenda. Do we have anybody online? So, we have no public comments. That brings us down to additional council comments. and uh council member Gmy Sonart. I would just like to thank everyone of the um employees here at our fine city who came and um gave their presentations to help us have a greater clarity about our budget and answer our questions extemporaneously. And thank you gentlemen for this very comprehensive document. And I recognize all your intense um work that went into create this and I'm very proud to live in Kenai, very proud to serve as a council member. So thank you.

Council member Cassetta. Thank you. Well, it's hard to follow that one, but uh I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you to both of you. I know the work that you guys put in especially and uh thanks to your staff and yeah, I appreciate everyone's efforts. I know how much effort goes into putting together a budget for this. I appreciate them taking their Saturday to be here. Um especially those that had to, you know, kind of play waiting game and so um yeah, thank you very much and uh appreciate your efforts on it. Thank you. Same here. I appreciate both you Dave and and Terry for uh for you putting this on and uh I realize it's not your document completely. You're responsible for it, but the staff that did help put that together and then spoke today, you know, I think that's hugely valuable. And as a as a New Yorker council member when we started doing this uh some years ago I I learned what those different departments did. Um you know partic well all of them frankly there were just lots of details I didn't know down at the senior center. I still find that to be a complicated thing that goes on down there with the with the with the different funings and where it comes from. But it's it's it's complex and I appreciate it and I appreciate what they do down there and and I learn more every year as we do this. So with that um we are adjourned. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you Logan for for being here on your Saturday.