City Council - workshop

Welcome everybody to the City Council Budget Workshop of August 4th, 2026. I'll now call this meeting to order. If you will, please stand for the pledge and invocation. Please bow your heads. Lord, Heavenly Father, thank you for everyone who's gathered here tonight, and thank you for another beautiful day in the city of Lake City. Lord, please help this staff and this dais make all the right decisions for our citizens, both living here now and in the future. In your name I pray. Amen. Thank you, Ms. Sykes. Sorry for kicking us off without you. But I will now ask you if you'll call the roll.

OK. Councilmember Jernigan? Thank you. Present. Councilmember Harris? Present. Councilmember Young? Here. Mayor Carter? Present. Mayor Walker? Present. City Manager Rosenthal? Here. City Attorney Martin? Here. Chief Butler? Here.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, the Lake City Council has opened its public meeting. Since 1968, the city code has prohibited any person from making personal, impertinent, or slanderous remarks or becoming boisterous while addressing the city council. Yelling or making audible comments from the audience constitutes boisterous conduct. Such conduct will not be tolerated. There's only one approved manner of addressing the city council, and that is to be recognized and then speak from the podium. failure to abide by the rules of decorum will result in removal from the meeting as you guys can see we do have a little bit of a reverse order tonight we will have our item first and then we'll have public participation and comments at the end The item tonight is the fiscal year 2026-2027 budget, where we will be going through the general funds, the CRA, the fire department, the airport debt service funds. And now I will turn it over to you, Mr. Rosenthal.

Thank you, Mayor, and good evening, everyone. Before we get into the preliminary budget, I want to touch on a few key developments that have helped shape this year's numbers. We anticipate finalizing the Fraternal Order of Police Lake City Police Department contract in the near future. The agreement will provide a total of $12,000 annual salary increase for all union officers to ensure competitiveness with other law enforcement agencies and to maintain appropriate staffing levels. This adjustment will add slightly more than $1.1 million to the general fund operating budget. For our health insurance renewal, we obtained three competitive quotes from different carriers. Although Florida Blue provided the lowest option, we still are facing a substantial 24% increase in premiums. Property, casualty, and workers' compensation insurance costs remain unchanged this year due to the existing two-year contract. Our revenue growth for the coming year is significantly constrained. Under this flat revenue structure, the budget can only sustain a 3% cost of living adjustment for all city employees. While this level of increase helps us maintain some competitiveness in the labor market, it reflects the fiscal limitations created by returning to the rollback rate and the need to balance employee support with overall financial stability. We plan to strengthen operations through the establishment of a new safety and risk department team to support maintaining ADA compliance and add positions to our organization structure to do so. This is going to contribute about $319,000 to the general fund operating expenses. We have also streamlined our organizational structure by eliminating three positions that are no longer operationally necessary. The grants writer, the public works director, and the procurement facility maintenance technician. Together, these changes result in a salary reduction of approximately $294,000, which has been removed from the proposed budget. Several community and capital projects are reflected in this year's budget, including the new splash pad and playground renovations at Young's Park. Continued work on Gwynn Lake restoration project. Repair is scheduled for Northeast Center Street, Northwest Ridgewood, Southwest Alamo, and Southwest Dogwood. Upgrading our service system by moving to a Nutri-Nix cluster at a cost of roughly $600,000 for a more reliable, faster, and easier to manage system. In summary, the initiatives and adjustments outlined this evening reflect a careful balance between operational needs, fiscal responsibility, and our commitment to serving this community. From personnel changes and rising healthcare costs to critical infrastructure improvements and major capital projects, each element plays an important role in shaping the financial landscape of the year ahead. With that overview in place, I'll now turn it over to our Finance Director, Angie Moore, who will walk us through the preliminary budget in detail.

good evening council members and citizens of lake city thank you for attending the city of lake city's budget workshop tonight we will begin our review of several key components of the fiscal year 2027 budget including the general fund the cra the fire department and time permitting the airport fund in debt service Over the next few days, we will be examining the city's proposed budget of $98,673,526, representing a 14.5% increase over last year's budget. The council has elected to implement the rollback rate, the millage rate of 4.7824 mills, which is a 0% tax increase, producing an ad valorem revenue of $5,711,069. The council has likewise opted not to increase the fire assessment or water sewer rates. Citywide, we have 31.5 million in planned capital projects. Of that, 23.5 million is funded through accumulated surplus from prior years. Each director, each department director will provide further detail on their projects during their presentation. I would also like to bring to the attention of the council as well as the citizens an important consideration for the future. The shift of the rollback rate and holding other major revenue sources flat will limit our ability to keep pace with rising operational costs such as fuel, construction material, technology, and labor. If these revenue levels remain unchanged in future years, the city will face difficult decisions including potential reduction in staffing and service levels. Sustaining a current service delivery will require additional revenue, whether through adjustments to ad valorem rates or other sources deemed appropriate by the council. Now these workshops are the time for the council to really dig into the budget. This is when you look closely at every part of it. Decide what needs to be added, removed, or changed. Work through any concerns you may have. The goal is to sort out all the questions and adjustments now so that we do not have to wait till the last minute changes during the final budget hearings. This is your chance to pick apart the budget and make sure it reflects exactly what you want. With that in mind, we'll begin with the council's budget for your consideration and review. So I'll turn it over to Mayor Walker and Ms. Sykes.

Thank you very much, Ms. Sykes. I'll let you begin walking us through it.

I will share that departments were asked to cut 15% of their budgets as part of the budget exercise as directed by the city manager. I did not cut anything from the council's budget, so what you have before you indicates everything that I thought you guys may want in the budget, so we can kind of start going through that. On contractual services we do, I did have a conversation earlier today with the city attorney and there's a rather large project in there for codification. That is a project that we were kind of in a holding pattern on until we got our code online up to date. That code online is now current, very proud of that project but now we need to do a total re-codification of all of our code. That project will probably take at least two years to do. It's going to be very labor intensive, and it is a recommendation of the city attorney that maybe we put that off at this time and just kind of let things be still for a little while. So that would be $30,000 that we could take out of the budget this year until maybe we wait until a little further down the road, maybe a year or so, to start that project. It is one that is desperately needed, but... I definitely have to have the city attorney to work on that project. So we want to cut that $30,000. Is everybody okay if we wait on that project for a little while?

What would it affect? What are the downstream effects of waiting on that project?

I'd say your code is not, the code hasn't been updated. The full recodification of the code I don't think has been done probably since, probably 68. I mean, we've modified sections of the code, but a total recodification project is where you literally go through every section of the code and every department that has input in that section of code will all provide their input. We have a legal review conducted by the company, which would be Civic+. And then they would look at the statutory requirements that need to be modified in the code. And then we work with the city attorney and all the departments. It's a major undertaking, not just for myself and Mr. Martin, but it would be all staff, all your management staff. Yeah, it's a major project. Mr. Martin, would you like to add anything to that?

uh the the reason for my suggestion is right now there are a lot of departments that are in transition are are taking on new challenges and new tasks under the leadership of mr rosenthal there are just a lot of moving parts right now and to layer this on top of that I think may overly tax the system. We've gotten the code up to date, which means that a resident or anyone else can go to our code online or to the book. And within six months of changes, know generally what the law is here in the city of Lake City. That hasn't been the case until the update that just recently was finalized in the last few weeks. You looked at our code and it may have been up to date as of five, six, seven years ago possibly. And so now someone can reliably know that what's there is at least the most up to date version It may not necessarily reflect what is up to date as our code relates to state or federal law, and those are the kinds of things that we now need to bring it into line with state or federal law. But knowing, as Ms. Sykes said, the amount of work it's going to take for everybody involved in the city and knowing that We're going to be doing this as everything else is continuing to move. It's going to be disruptive, and we just got a lot of things going on right now. I'm not saying we don't need to do it. I just don't know that maybe the timing is great. We're getting ready to do a rewrite just on Chapter 102 on utilities that's necessitated by some requirements by the state. So some of the things that would go into a recodification we may accomplish just organically anyway, as part of fulfilling some of our obligations to state agencies and those kinds of things as well.

Yes, sir. I would be fine taking the advice of staff and holding off on that, seeing how the next year or so goes. That makes a lot of sense. It also allows us to cut a little chunk of our budget right off the bat as well.

Yeah, if this is one of the few departments that has grown especially this much, I would favor that as well. Mr. Jernigan?

Yes, I would go along with the staff recommendations to cut wherever we can, but also remember that that is a project that's needed, but not at this time. Miss Young.

I'm good right now. I mean.

What did you say it would affect?

Make sure you speak into the microphone.

You mean the code? Yeah, not having it. Not having it? There just may be some areas of it that maybe are not totally current, and we can address those. If we notice something that needs to be corrected, we can go ahead and correct that portion of the code with two readings of an ordinance. So we can go ahead and correct those sections. but the total recodification would just, it would literally do your entire code at one big sweep, but it is a major undertaking.

And you said we haven't had it done since 68.

Probably since 68 when the code was done. It's not been done since I've been here, and I've been here 26 years, telling on myself, but 26 years. No, the code's never been totally recodified. It's been codified. but not literally reading every chapter reading every word every sentence in it to make sure that it still is reflective of how we do business so there probably is portions of it that is just outdated and it just it just needs to be updated okay yeah and that's just something that's been going on for just going to drop it for right now i'm being made i will make sure it's back in there next year if you'd like to readdress it next year yeah does that sound okay with everyone

And that was the $30,000 for a, go ahead, Ms. Young.

So that's with, as we're working day to day, and when you notice, then you, of course, make notation as we go along throughout. Okay, that's good. Yeah.

My question, the $30,000, is that for a consultant or is that for, what is the?

That is Civic Plus. They bill it to you in increments. Say, for example, maybe the legal review might be $8,000. So that might be the first thing that they bill out is $8,000. And then they send us the legal review and then it's our responsibility to send that out to our departments and say, hey, this is what this first initial legal review and that legal review comes from Civic Plus. And then, of course, Mr. Martin's involved, and we send it out to our directors. Any director that may have a skin in the game, let's say Chapter 1 might be airport, it might be utilities, it might be growth management. So all those directors would have input into that Chapter 1, and then we would take all that. Mr. Martin would have to look at it. We'd have to get back with their attorney, and then we go to Chapter 2. Same thing, 3. And we go through the entire city code.

So by this time next year, you will be able to say, okay.

We're ready to maybe start the project by next year.

It's going to take this whole year to be prepared for then. We don't want to wait.

Now, Civic Plus will not give us that initial legal review until we sign the contract and do that initial legal review that they conduct. So we'd have to actually sign the contract, start the project, And it will span probably a two-year. It's usually a two-year project, depending on how fast you work it.

Okay.

So if we want to totally wait on the project, we will do whatever is the pleasure of the council. We can wait. Okay.

Mr. Carter. As it stands right now, I'm fine with waiting, but I am curious. Have we priced this out before? Has this been we're going to do it and put it off before? If so, since the last time, is it a significant price increase since the last time we priced it? And if so, when was that?

I haven't priced it in about five years, and that's why it took so long to get the code up to date. Back when we initially started this project, we were under different leadership, and we had a lot of turmoil going on.

Nuh-uh. Yeah. Okay.

yeah so and that actually was what delayed the project was um you know changes in administration because you have to have a city manager in place because the city manager is also very crucial in in this project they they play a significant role as does the the city attorney and in my office as well and um we just had so much turnover it delayed the project and uh So we got the project started. We had the first legal review done. We sent it out to all the directors. We were working on it. The last attorney that was working on it with me was Cobra Line, if that tells you how long ago it has been since we started the project. Okay. And I could get pricing, if you like. I haven't repriced it yet because we weren't quite ready yet.

Oh, sure. Yeah. Now, I would say, I mean, it sounds like we're kind of, it seems like we're on the same page, so we probably don't need to necessarily get pricing until we approach the next year's budget.

It seems like it was around $28,000 is what I seem to recall, but I could be mistaken. but I'll be happy to put it back in next year for us to discuss again if that is the pleasure of the council.

Yes.

All right. On the next big line item is the travel. Well, we have to leave the election expense in there. Sure. So that's a given. The travel, what I did is I went through and I basically allocated for five members to attend, I think, most events, unless I have it down... specifically who's attending an event. Like there's a couple on there that I have, like the mayor attending or Ms. Young attending or Ms. Harris attending. And I base that on history from this past year. And I try not to forget anything. So if there's travel that you take that I did not account for, Please, please, please let me know now so that we don't have to take it before council in the middle of the year. But I really tried to make sure I covered everything that everybody attends. And so is there any of that that needs to be eliminated or reduced, or are we good with that?

You probably can take me off for the next airport thing. Okay.

Yeah, I've got a small list that I'm going to be removed from as well.

Can you speak up? We can't hear down here. Sure.

Can you hear me, Angie?

Yes.

Okay.

I couldn't hear Ms. Young earlier.

Oh, okay. Ms. Harris, I think.

It was Ms. Harris. I couldn't hear, so I'm sorry.

I told her she can take me off for the next airport thing. I think it was in Fort Lauderdale. I don't have to ever go to that again.

Okay, Mayor Walker, you said you were not interested in going to that either?

Yeah, I went once for the value of the city. Okay. There's a couple of things, actually. I have a small list. Should I submit those to finance after this or between now and the budget or do it right now?

Angie, what's the best way that you'd like to address that?

If you can send it to me, that's fine. Okay. As long as the rest of the council's okay with it.

I'm just removing myself. Yourself, that's fine. Just removing myself, yeah.

Removing yourself from the airport thing?

Well, yeah, from a handful of events that I didn't go to this year and I don't plan on going to.

And I did put in, as you'll see there, I did do a miscellaneous travel line because it does seem to come up occasionally where there may be an event that may arise that one of you actually may want to attend and it's not budgeted. And when it's not budgeted, it makes it really difficult. so that that is the reason for the miscellaneous travel but i tried to like i said do at least five people i think on most of the trainings so if there is something that you do not wish to attend um if you would like to do follow his lead i'll be happy to facilitate those to angie or you can send them directly to her yourself and we can get those removed

I'll CC you on it, Ms. Sykes, but I'll send it straight to you, Angie. Sounds good. That's okay. That way you can just remove that or the portion allocated for me off the end. If anybody else wants to be removed from those, that's the same. Yeah. But I see about, I think, 11,000 or so that could come off of this.

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, honestly, it would be easier for me to send you a list of the things I will attend. That you will attend or won't? Yeah, will. On this list of, it looks like about 20, about four of them. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention it. Obviously, I made the point a few weeks ago, though the argument is probably irrelevant. I still don't see the cause for a city council to go to the Congressional Black Caucus. That's an $8,000 expense. To be clear, I haven't said anything at all about the Florida Black Caucus. I imagine there's some real value there. But other than that, no, I've got quite a lot of these events that I would not be attending.

Why don't you keep up with your travel wherever you're going?

We're working on our budget.

That's what you should be concerned about.

Thank you.

Okay, operating expenses, communications, that's the cell phones, there's really not much we can do there. Hostage, we just put a little funds in there. Miscellaneous repair and maintenance, that's just in case we need something, a copier breaks down, et cetera. Printing and binding. We have gatekeeper awards supplies in that, miscellaneous copy productions, supplies for proclamations, it's kind of standard. The next one is promotional activities, so I'd ask that you all look through that and give any feedback. When we get down to... the parade and float rental, I did reach out and I do have a little handout. I can submit it, circulate it through the council of a company that actually does float rentals and I can send each of you.

Would you hand that to Ms. Young?

to see if this is something you might be interested in since the- No question, Mayor.

Huh? Yes, go ahead. I saw your expression. Are you like against float rentals?

Yeah, I am. This was one of the items I had circled to remove out of our budget.

Well, the thing is, when it comes to float rentals, and I think I may have made the suggestion- And it really doesn't cost as much as we think it does. But when you consider the employees that we take to do those rentals, and then after hours of work, and when you consider all of that, you've probably spent more than what this really costs.

I guess my suggestion would be... Historically, and I know that we don't... Not everybody likes the fire truck, right? No, we don't. But historically, the fire truck or the police 4x4 have been available for council to ride in, and it's an easy, low-cost thing that I think that we should go back to. That's just my opinion.

Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

No, I just say thank you, but no thank you. Yes, sir. Mr. Carter.

Yes. So... I don't know how much it costs to sit on a hay bale in the back of a trailer, but that's fine with me, and I suspect it's significantly less than $13,000. So I would be fine with sitting on just about anything in a trailer and waving, throw candy, whatever we're going to do. Not throw candy, sorry. Also, you know, again, the council did not vote to fund the event called Love Fest a few months ago. And it was asked at the time for $10,000. Now it's in the budget for $15,000. So I have two thoughts on this. First, all the same thoughts I had before about the event and its lack of necessity. Second, I think there is quite a few events that exist in this budget, and this is less about an event and more about placement. So we have... Miss Terry's department, we have an event coordination department effectively. So some of this stuff here, I wonder if it's not in the wrong place. And also, oftentimes the stuff that's on our list ends up getting managed or at least partially managed by Miss Sykes.

My question on this, and I think the distinction is, is what is the difference between a city-sponsored and a city-hosted event?

Right. Well, that's kind of what I'm getting at. So, like, for instance, obviously, like when we do our Leah Cities event like we just did, it makes sense to go through us and Ms. Sykes organize that because we're coordinating with other governments.

You're talking too fast.

Am I talking too fast?

You're talking too much.

You can keep that stuff to yourself. Thank you. But I'd like to see Ms. Sykes involved in less organizing of parties and events, and I'd like to see events that are going through our department be council events, not necessarily an individual council or kind of semi-hosting an event. Things like that tend to become what feels like political events as opposed to city events from time to time.

The problem with that is you have some council that don't ever come up with anything. So to say that it is a council event, that would be a little awkward.

That is true. I do generally not go out of my way to find ways to spend taxpayer money. Thank you. I'm not usually looking for ways to waste money.

Ms. Young.

Okay. I want to go back to the float. I want to say that. And the reason we even came up with the float is because we had more employees who was interested in riding. So that's how the float came up. And then to have the, excuse me?

I just didn't, we didn't know that.

Oh, well, you saw more people out there. But anyway, um. to, that's how the float came up. And when we had, when we were pulling utility workers, actually asking them to do floats and pulling people from their day-to-day operation. That's how that came up. We don't have to have a float. I walk, I don't have a problem walking. So that's that. And concerning the events and Ms. Terry and the council, being a part of the events. I think the council members should be included and partake in even as far as the planning and even as far as coming up with the events because you get the information from the communities of what the members of the community of what they want. So and then you work with Ms. Terry to make it come. So I think that's good for the community. I don't know of, I think I did two events and I would love to continue doing. If the community comes out, we're all a part of it and I see nothing wrong with it. The money is going to be used, it's designated for that. So it really, why does it matter who's a part of the planning? Right? You were about to say something, Mayor. Go ahead.

Yeah, well, my thoughts. So since this is promotional expenses, right, in my mind, under the council budget, these are things that we sponsor either in kind or financially helping that event, not necessarily putting it on. So where I think it should be categorized, if we're actually hosting and putting it on, that should be under an operation. If the city's hosting and putting on an event, it should be operational, right? This, to me, is us either sponsoring again monetarily or in kind, not necessarily running the event.

Okay, when you say this, don't say this and that. Let's say what it is.

These events. The events that are on the council budget. Okay. So specifically events that are here on the council budget. And when I look at it, we have the Coke giveaway, the Unity Day backpack giveaway, Lovefest. And I believe that's it. And Trunk or Treat. But Trunk or Treat, I think, this is just a sponsorship or us participating with a trunk. It's not necessarily us. It's not the council hosting an event. It's us sponsoring or having a booth at that event. Does that make sense?

That makes sense. I don't know what happened with the temperature.

It's just on here. Just these events, they're on here. So there's four events that are listed on. And I think that it's important to distinguish the city sponsored events because it determines our level of our level of who's doing it. Uh, and by that, I mean, is it, if it's sponsored, I don't think that the public works guys are setting it up. It's, it's being set up by the organization that's running the event.

Does that make sense? Right.

When it's city-sponsored, my take on that is the city may have the tent, may provide the tent, tables and chairs, or advertising. That's sponsoring, right?

Yeah, any in-kind provision, yeah.

Right. It's not our event.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'd like to say about the float. The reason why I said about the float, I rode on the back of that fire truck. I don't want to do it again. This float to me would be good. And the reason why I thought it would be good, because To me, it just would seem much better if the council was together in a parade versus you got council up here, you got council back here, and then we're on a vehicle that's saying council members. And then you have a vehicle in the front and then a vehicle, you know what I mean? So if you had a big float for all of us to be on the float, I think that would be good. I just... That's why I wanted to play.

I know. I think I'm with Ms. Young. I'll either walk. So my preference would be to walk or... And we have this... I mean, it's just a really cool...

So now you're going to make the rest of us look lazy. No. Yeah, that's what you're doing.

It's just a really cool vehicle. That old fire truck is a really cool vehicle. It's from 1912. It's not safe, Mayor.

It's jerking and it's not safe, Mayor.

I've ridden on it. I would put my children on it. But I'm either going to walk or I'm going to ride the fire. I can't justify spending $13,000 on a float. I think it's kind of crazy. My thoughts. Those are my thoughts.

Those are your thoughts.

Those are my thoughts. But we need everybody's thoughts on this so that we can either keep it in or take it out.

How much do you think it cost for the float we had in the last float we had in the parade? The one that was built.

Add up the cost. So, again, I wasn't really for building a float. I was fine with riding the fire truck.

I don't know how it came about, but it happened.

I have a question. I've actually meant to ask this a few times. Chief. Can the fire truck pull a trailer? Does it have that kind of juice?

It's jerking off. I'm just asking. Not to mention the gas, man.

It's an old engine. It's from 1912. It's a cool...

Well, Mr. Mayor, I agree with you about the fire truck. I also think that $13,000 to rent a float for us to feel good in is preposterous.

Just a minute ago, you said you thought it was a good idea.

To be gathered is fine, but we can literally put some streamers on the side of a trailer and sit on hay bales.

You just say it.

Drive by and wave or walk by and say hey. I mean, one of them costs dozens of dollars and the other one costs $13,000. I mean, we've asked, we've advertised the rollback rate. We've asked every department in the city to cut their budgets. So, you know, more than ever, things that may be perceived as frivolous in our own budget, we should be looking at with a very hard eye. And it's not that it's... predetermined as you were saying before we're determining it now this is sort of a template of things we've done in the past or things that each individual one of us have mentioned interest in but again I think it's good that we advertise a rollback rate I think we have some interesting things coming down the pipe as far as property taxes go and if nothing else this is good practice for what we may be facing next year So I think it's good that we did it and everybody had to deal with the exercise of looking at the budget a little harder than usual. But I also think that, to be honest, our city already runs a really tight ship on most departments. So to be clear, I believe that we should be looking at this harder than ever.

Mr. Jernigan?

Yes. Don't get caught up in semantics, man. Just if you don't want to just float, just say you don't want it. I mean, I don't I don't want to float either. You know, I prefer to ride with the chief in a side by side with city council written on there, you know, because that that fire truck. It's major. I have written on it before, but I'm going to try not to write it on again. But if I had to write on it, you know, to sit with everybody on this council, I'll do just that. However, you know, just like you say that $12,000 or $13,000 for... for a float. I don't know if it's going to be ours once we get it and we just keep it. That's what I'm saying. So that rental, that's what you got to think about. If we're going to rent something for $12,800, I don't think that's necessary. I think that is frivolous, just like you said. But if I had to... rent this float or ride on the fire truck, I would definitely ride on that fire truck. I can tell you that. To save money. That's all I'm saying. I'm all about, just like Mr. Rosenthal, he's all about dollars and cents. You got to think like the city manager does. $12,800, it may not... It may not seem much to a lot of people, but to me, that is a lot of money, you know, for a float. And if we were to buy the float, I probably still wouldn't ride on it. I'll still ride on with the chief to side by side. I think that that's the safest way to to get in that parade. And again, that's me thinking and you thinking or whoever thinking. But that's the way I look at it.

So I think we have a consensus that renting a float for $12,800.

No, take that out. Is not good.

Yes, ma'am.

I just wanted to mention that last Christmas when Mr. Brown's department provided the trailer, we were very fortunate that he just happened to have a brand new one that was able to be available to be used for float building. So that may not always be the case in the future. He's probably not just going to have a brand new clean one just sitting around. So staff, I would respectfully ask that staff get some guidance, you know, as to uh what the plans are for the parades because um what miss harris have brought up you know um i think other each of you um have your own thoughts on on the on the parade situation and it makes it very difficult let me just it makes it difficult for my office to coordinate with all five of you when you all five have a different idea and you all are my boss so

I'm just saying. Ms. Archer, I apologize if I'm making it difficult for your staff, but I'm trying to make it simple.

Yeah.

You know, I don't want to float. I'm going to ride in the side-by-side. Okay. And it don't cost the city anything. I'm just going to ride safety with the chief of police.

Okay, so we will remove that amount for the float rental then, and then we will circle back and hopefully we can get a consensus on how we're gonna do future parades.

Yes, I do think in a future meeting as a discussion item, like in a regular council meeting, we can probably nail down what we're gonna do with that with what we currently own, though. That way. We'll definitely get you an answer well before the next parade.

Okay. All right.

So we'll have a discussion item at the beginning of September. Okay. Stop talking about a float in the boat. Come on. Then we'll never talk about it again.

Well, I mean, we need to have this discussion. Sure, sure, sure. Okay. So I did put in $2,000 for candy and supplies because we actually spent probably close to, oh, I think it was probably around $1,500 on candy last year for the parades. Okay. So... Let me know if that's something that we want to continue or not continue. How are we going to distribute that candy? Well, we walked.

And still threw it. We threw that candy. Tell the truth.

We threw that candy. Walking and throwing it?

Yes.

Let's have this as part of our discussion whenever we get to it. But I think that...

Put a pin in it, please. We'll come back and not discuss it. Okay.

But as far as a line item in the budget, that makes sense. Because I have had no one complain about how we're riding in the parade. Although I believe we would maybe be stoned if we didn't have candy in some fashion or another. Yeah.

Okay. Do we have a consensus to move the coat giveaway, the backpack giveaway, and the love fest to the managers under Terry's events to be stopped out then?

What I would ask, are we the host of these events? Are we supporting an organization? Yes, ma'am.

We sponsor. I know the backpack. We sponsor the backpack. Okay. And let me say this, and I already had a conversation with Ms. Seitz, so she's good. Ms. Seitz started out, volunteer, right? She volunteered to carry that out.

Yes, to help a council member, yes ma'am, that is correct.

Okay, she volunteered to carry it out, and it has become a heavy load on her, right?

Yes, ma'am.

Is what she said. Okay, so we sponsor the event, and I don't believe the lead person of this event has a problem accepting the responsibility, and the city is sponsoring it. continue to sponsor and do what we just said we do as a sponsor. Furnish the tent. Furnish the table. Furnish the chairs. And Ms. Seitz not be the event planner. I don't think he has a problem with that. But we just have to say it and stop beating around the bush about it. Just say it.

You were the event planner?

Yes, ma'am, for that one.

What do you mean? What did you plan?

Well, we reached out to the vendors. My staff and I reached out to the vendors that participate in the event. We send out letters as we did the same thing with the coat giveaway. So basically the same thing I did for you for your coat giveaway, I do for the backpack event. Like I coordinate the event. I show up the day of the event. We gather items for the event. I shop for the event. That's a lot. Yeah, work with finance, make sure that people get paid for the event.

Mr. Mayor, I brought this up a minute ago, but that's just one thing I'd like to see change in this budget cycle and in this government moving forward is that Ms. Audrey is not an event planner. She's our clerk. The charter pretty clearly defines what she's supposed to be up to, and organizing events is very generally not one of those things.

Well, I'm going to tell you this right here. Ms. Sykes loved to volunteer to help. She's a helper, naturally. Some people are. Some just aren't. So when you say as if somebody is putting a due burden on her, that is not true. She volunteers to do a lot of stuff. So let's be clear on that. Let's not try to act like somebody is making her do anything when she has volunteered on her own.

No, Ms. Mayer. No, I'm not suggesting that. What I'm suggesting is that we... We are her boss, and we need to make sure she's doing what she's supposed to be doing and not other stuff on city time. Privately, if she feels like volunteering for any of these events in the evening or after hours or what have you, she can do whatever she likes. But as far as a functioning member of the government, organizing these events is not under her purview. And I think that we should be doing our jobs to make sure she's not doing that.

Ms. Young.

Okay, so to just go ahead and clarify, I've had this conversation with Ms. Sipes. Didn't I say that initially? So everything is out in the open, it's plain and it's clear. Now it's up to Ms. Sipes, right, to let go of that, what she has chosen as a responsibility. And it doesn't go to Ms. Terry.

and so we have to have that discussion stop talking behind the doors and just have the discussion and it's going to be okay I got a problem with that because even when it was time to do the arm coat giveaway different people that Ms. Sykes and Ms. Terry. They volunteered to send, I know such and such, I'll make sure that I get something to them. I just don't like the look of it as if somebody is forcing them to do something they don't want to do when they have volunteered to do it.

Mayor.

I think we might clear this up. Yeah, go ahead.

Hers is a city event. The cult was a city event, right? The cult giveaway?

Wasn't that considered our event? See, I honestly thought the backpack event was a city event. No, we clarified that before. But I'm talking about historically. I thought that it was a city-hosted event. We say sponsored and hosted. And like I shared with you, we just needed some clarity. Like I need the clarity on what my role needs to be professionally in that. And then I can definitely handle my personal with a volunteer. I don't have an issue with that. But whenever I'm here from eight to five, do I need to be working on these events or do I not need to be working on these events? So I need to know what is my role as clerk for the events? What am I needing to do and what am I not needing to do?

Ease the answer. Ease the answer. Pull up your job description. And does it say event planner? No, ma'am. Okay, stop volunteering, Ms. Dots. Stop volunteering. Okay.

And here's what I think might be easy from management, Don, is to put together a memo on what we do. Define what we will do as a city sponsor. And a host. But what we will do as a city sponsor, whether that's security, whether that's public works cleanup, or if that's in-kind contribution and what that value is. That way when somebody comes to us and they say, hey, you want to kick in $5,000 for this event? This is what we're trying to do. We say we've got an in-kind package for that that will provide security and cleanup. If that's okay with you, if you'd rather have X amount of dollars or X resources, then that's something that we can talk about too. And it could involve all of the above, right? But I think that that would provide a lot of clarity. Just a little memo, policy memo. Yes, sir.

Yes, I think we're getting caught up in this volunteered and voluntold. You're either gonna be volunteer or you're gonna be voluntold. I don't think there's nobody here has voluntold Ms. Sykes or anybody on this dais pretty much what to do. Now if you volunteer your time, I think all of us is aware when you're working a job, you are to stay within the guidelines from that time. You come to work eight o'clock, you get off at five. You don't volunteer. You're not a volunteer. You don't do anything. You do your job. Now, after five or six or whatever time you get off, you can volunteer. So there's a difference between volunteer and voluntold. I don't think anybody has voluntold Ms. Sykes what to do. I would hope and pray that they didn't do that. Take it from me. Don't ask Ms. Sykes to do anything. That's the best thing. Now, when you tell her to do something, make sure that you're within the scope of her duty. I mean, how simple is that? Volunteer, voluntold. That's my take on that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Are we ready to move on down?

Mr. Carter has one more thing. Just one final thing. I agree. I think that Mr. Don and staff should work on putting together packages, like you said. These defining terms are super important. When I hear sponsor, like whenever we're putting together an event for Kiwanis, I go ask a business to sponsor the event. they're writing a check and then we're doing everything, right? So when I hear sponsor, sponsor means write a check to an organization that's doing the thing. So that to me would be the difference. Is the city coordinating, like for instance, is Terry the coordinating officer of said event? Then that's a city hosted event. If we're writing a check or providing a service in kind, like security or trash or whatever, that's a sponsored event. And then we can come up with some sort of value of the hours for trash pickup and security or whatever and almost create a package thing and when people come to ask us for the stuff, that is good. Also, to be clear, I'm not, because I haven't, saying that anyone is voluntolding Ms. Sykes. Honestly, I think Ms. Sykes is just likes being helpful and is very helpful and I think we've developed a culture of she in an effort to be as great a clerk and member of staff as possible she's kind of gotten herself into too many things so I'm just saying we kind of roll that culture back a little bit and let her focus on the other things not saying anyone has made her do anything I think everyone's just trying to be helpful and we've helped put ourselves into maybe too busy sometimes with stuff that isn't the stuff that's all right thank you

Do we wish to discuss anything else in promotional activities? I did add, I think, a little bit of funds in there for a city logo backdrop. I thought that might be nice in case the council were to participate in an event.

oh step and repeat outreach we already have one i believe terry i believe terry has one yes okay so we don't need that okay all right um

And I did add $500 in there for trunk or treat in case the council, I know Ms. Phillips every year will circulate, solicit for people to come and set up and do trunk or treat. So I just threw a little money in there in case the council maybe wanted to do that this next year or this fall. So that's $500.

We're sponsoring the trunk or treat.

Not sponsoring, but let's say you wanted to, I don't know if you needed to buy, to decorate someone's trunk or something to make it look cute. I don't know. If you guys want to take it out, it is really not. I just put a little money in there. It could be a public outreach item, but that's entirely up to you all. I just tried to think of everything. Say take that out. Okay. No trunk or treat.

It's just my thoughts. Everybody has their own funding money.

Yes, but if you participate in the event, then you have to provide your own decorations.

It'll be coming from the council, that type of thing. Okay.

Yeah. Yep. We'll leave it in. So are we leaving it in? Leaving it in. Okay. Leave it.

Yeah. We'll probably participate. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think it would be nice. I thought it would be nice if we participated. I know we get asked, and it would be nice if we showed up. The question.

Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. The football ad and yearbook ad, and you have 300 for each, and what does that consist of? One ad or...

The yearbook ad and the football program ad, those are two different things. The football is a totally different program. I think those are the programs they hand out at the games. Okay. And that's the...

I think it's the photo.

A full member?

Mm-hmm. Okay.

Well, usually it's the individual photos. Historically, we would do the... the individual photos of the people who participated we used to do it individually if you paid your funds to do it personally but I just went ahead and start adding it in the budget and now we use just the council photo okay that's what yeah okay okay and moving right along let's go into operating supplies not not much There, let's see. Oh, I did add an incoming and outgoing council reception. We need to add a little funds for that for November.

Excuse me, Ms. Audrey, I think I missed something. You know, I'm kind of caught up in all of this discussion. The love fest. So did we decide to keep that in?

Yeah.

Who was we? It wasn't me.

Yeah, to be clear, I mentioned it earlier. It didn't seem to get a lot of traction. But to be clear, not just the Love Fest. I think a lot of the big ticket events and things like that. I mentioned to staff earlier in the year, because I know last year the budget item for the barbecue festival, for instance, was $30,000, which seems like a ludicrous amount of money as well. I'm not picking and choosing. I'm sorry. I thought I was just a lost argument there. I didn't realize I had any other support there. But to me, I'd like to see more of these events happening. us doing some community partnerships and sponsorships and things like that and letting some businesses in town have the opportunity to put their name on an event with the city and things like that, whether it be Love Fest or the Barbecue Festival or what have you. I know a lot of those barbecue festivals. I've been to a few and I know I have some people in my district actually who've been to a lot. and many of them are heavily sponsored by local organizations and things like that. So I think that when it comes to some of these events, we could probably do a little bit of boots on the ground, seeking out sponsorships with local organizations and things like that, and save the taxpayers quite a bit of money on some of these things. To me, I think that $15,000 is also, that's a ton. You can put on a small firework show with $15,000. I think we spend $25,000 for the one we do down there 4th of July so yeah I would say take that out of the budget in general but of course yes but of course what oh well like I said of course at the time when I mentioned it earlier I thought I was the only person that felt that way I didn't hear it clearly I mean you're talking very very fast so I didn't hear that

I would say that, um, the 15,000, uh, just like we, um, we did this year here. Um, I think that we, uh, whoever, whoever's hosting this event can, uh, come up with the money instead of get them from the taxpayers. I think that, um, uh, we should take that out. And then, um, Whoever is putting on this event, have them get sponsors just like we did this year to put that in there. And I would say like change, even if it was there for years, for whatever reason, change the name, change the atmosphere. I love the fact that Miss Harris, she's the one who puts that event on. So change the name to Boots on the Ground, just like you said, or something to that effect. But I don't think that $15,000 that the citizens of this community should...

Wait, hold on. Let's have order. Mr. Jernigan's going to finish and then Ms. Young's going to go. Okay. So that's my point.

I believe that we can get sponsors other than having put that burden on the citizens in this community. That's just my opinion. Now, again, I was, and I'm all for it. I'm going to be the first one to volunteer to say, hey, Ms. Harris, you need sponsors? I'll help you. But to put this on the citizens, I just can't see it.

Thank you, Mr. Jernigan.

Ms. Young?

And I was pretty much going down the same way with that. He didn't mean boots on the ground, though, like name it boots on the ground. He meant boots on the ground going out and getting sponsors. Oh, okay. My take on that is if we're going to have it, if we're going to name it, we need the budget for it. And when it comes to sponsors, I agree. I have no problem with sponsorship. I like that. But when we go asking, knocking on doors, we're usually asking the same sponsors to support these different events. So we're hitting the same people over and over. Now, if they want to sponsor, great, but we need to budget for it. What if you don't budget for it? You name the event and you don't get the sponsors. And then what then? you're not budgeted for. So I say budget for it, and then if we get the sponsors, great.

Okay, I'm going to say this. So with the Love Fest, it was something that my thought process was that it was the city giving back to the citizens. We were going to supply free food, free entertainment, and free stuff. That's what I, in my mind, I wanted to happen. Now, you all voted for a $30,000 grant barbecue which the citizens had to go to the barbecue. Now the citizens already, since we're talking about what the citizens paid, they already done paid $30,000. But you can't go down there and get a free rib sandwich because you're gonna pay for that sandwich. You're gonna pay for everything that you go down there and get. And then where's that money going? What happened to that money?

Mr. Mayor, one thing I do know is that the last couple of years it's been budgeted $30,000, although the event itself has not cost nearly that much.

But you agreed to $30,000, whether it was used or not. What is the difference between $30,000 and $15,000?

I'm pretty against it. I think I made that clear a moment ago.

Dee, you have something you want to say?

I'll pass it to the finance director.

When it comes to the barbecue showdown, that's actually a budget-neutral event. She does collect the money, and that even covers the awards for that event. That's at no cost to the city.

We budget it, but the folks that pay for entry... So we outlay the cost and all that money comes back to the city. So you're asking for a budget. What this is is a request for budget neutral.

The barbecue event actually broke even.

So this wouldn't be a city sponsored event technically. What you're asking for is a budget neutral $15,000 event.

So are we charging people to come to Lovefest now?

No, you never did.

Well, in order for it to be budget neutral.

It's only been one.

I think what he means is vendors, vendors and sponsors. Are you going to get vendors and sponsors to make it budget neutral?

That's how the other event is budget neutral is that people pay to be a part of it and it ends up balancing out. So in this case, the city ends up breaking even, give or take. This, the Love Fest, as you're describing it, is, if I'm understanding correctly, it is an event and it's as much free stuff as we can give out for up to $15,000. So that's not a budget neutral item. That's an item that just costs $15,000. Yeah. Right. and for me it's a no for me I think we can I guess have some part in the putting on of the event tents and seats and stuff but again I think just out of spite for me you got like a ton of sponsorship right after we talked about it last time so it seems like kind of event that your district or whoever reached out to you to help sponsor it would be happy to help put on so so I think we don't have it in the budget personally

My opinion is if we're going to be a sponsor, it has to be less than $15,000. If it's going to be a budget neutral, then it needs to be budget neutral.

But I don't know. The last time we was up here and you guys said that and the county was going to put in 10. You guys thought that was too much.

Sure. Again.

So now it's if it's under 15.

No, I'm saying that if we're going to sponsor it, we need to have that definition of what a sponsorship looks like and the value that's associated with it. If we're going to make it a budget neutral event, it needs to be a budget neutral event. But I, like Mr. Carter, don't agree that we should outlay $15,000 just to give things away. Yes, ma'am.

So if it's a city sponsored event, if we decide, yes, that it's a city sponsored event, then it need to come from under our expense, right? We shouldn't have any events. If we're saying, what we're saying is true, there should be no events under our operating budget.

Just sponsorships, just sponsorships.

But it still should go under events. In the manager's budget. Right.

If it's a city event.

If it's a city event, that's right.

But there's a clear definition of a city event versus a city-sponsored event. I don't know. So the city event is that we do everything. City-sponsored event is that we may provide things that are in-kind and or some level of financial help to the event to get it off.

I believe any event need to go under its proper category, events, and not under the council's budget.

Sure. Mr. Mayor, I think we're on the same page. So, like, for instance, Back to Back giveaway or the Coke giveaway, if I understand it correctly, the plan is for the city to write a check. Another organization is handling those events, right?

Yes. That's my understanding.

The city is writing a check. They're going, we are sponsoring... hands-off so that makes perfect sense to be in this budget this is something the council's planning the love fest is a whole event are we managing the event are we putting the event on is miss Harris managing the minute she put it on is an entirely separate organization but you know if it's an event and we're managing it it needs to be as in we is in the city it needs to be part of the events operation operational defense the events operational budget not the council budget And also to be clear, Ms. Terry does a remarkable job putting on events all year long for wildly less money than this. That is very community positive. I'm not entirely sure, but I think the budget for all of the markets and stuff that we did down there is half or maybe a third of this number. So it's not like we're not doing that. Also, these other things we're sponsoring are literally giving free things away for people that need it. So it's not like we're not doing that either. We are doing that.

Mr. Jernigan.

Yes. Take it out. I want to have the event. I'm all for the event, okay? I'm just saying I don't want the $15,000 to be where it is here. And whenever it comes up, I'm going to be one of the ones that helps sponsor that event, okay? but I don't want it here. I don't want the citizens in their mind thinking that we're going to give $15,000 to the Love Fest. The next person is going to come up and say, hey, I want this, I want that. We just keep on. So I'm all in supporting whatever event that Ms. Harris have that day, that month, I'm gonna support that. But I'm gonna support it from me, not from the city, not from some type of budget or whatever. I think that's the best way we should do it. Just take this out and then whenever she comes up, say, hey, this is what I wanna have.

Mayor, just go ahead and take it out. We're not gonna worry about it.

Okay, Mr. Martin, you had something to add?

I was just gonna offer a term for purposes of making it easier to discuss, and that would be maybe for.

Don't have to further discuss that. Let's just take that out.

Mr. Mayor, I'd love to hear what he has to say. Finish it up, Mr. Martin.

Okay. For events that the city is organizing, we've had several different terms battered around. I was just gonna suggest for purposes of unity of conversation that maybe we call those city-organized events versus city-sponsored events. And so that way we've got one term we're using, and that would be what I would suggest to Mr. Rosenthal that dovetails with ordinances and policies I've seen elsewhere.

So to be clear, I'm speaking about two totally different things, city-organized events and then city-sponsored events. City-organized events are events that the city is putting on with taxpayer dollars that may or may not be budget-neutral. City-sponsored events are where we are a sponsor providing an in-kind sponsorship. I think those are two different things.

Or monetary sponsorship.

Yeah. Yes. Those are two different things. Okay. Any other thoughts? Yes, ma'am.

So are we saying we're going to offer monetary for sponsorship?

A lot of folks come to us asking for some level of help in putting their event on in terms of security or barricades or monetary. And that's why I think that it would be important to have that defined, the value of that defined, the cleanup, the police security, et cetera, et cetera. If they're not going to hire police security, if they're not going to hire cleanup, there's a big value to the organizations when the city is a sponsor and we provide that.

So when you say monetary, money, check.

It could be. I didn't know that. It could be. I mean, we write a check and buy a bunch of these things for the backpack giveaway, right?

The backpack giveaway is budget neutral.

Budget neutral. What about the coat giveaway?

I think that was budget neutral last year. That was the first year she had it. But that actually would fall underneath a city hosted, if I would classify that one. It was an amazing event.

I think it's important. Making sure children aren't cold is important.

I do think that the backpack event next year, I think that one will shift probably to a 501c3 due to a funding mechanism that was not able to be obtained this year because funding requirements changed and they did lose a $3,000 sponsor this year.

But monetary, so the city used to provide money to organizations like the chamber to put on events, X amount of events per year. Correct me if I'm wrong. Terry's not here.

But Santa Claus.

Yeah, Santa Claus. You had fireworks, Santa Claus. You had one per quarter. And the chamber put on one event per quarter. And we were a monetary sponsor of those events.

But it wasn't specified as a particular event.

It was the four events. It was four events a year. So Snow Day was one of them. You had four events. Trunk or Treat was actually one of them too. Trunk or Treat, Snow Day, the 4th of July, and I can't remember what the fourth one was. Santa. Santa in the park. And so we provided X amount of dollars to that organization to make that happen for the community. But they had to put those events on and they had to be free to everybody. Yes, sir. Mr. Rosen.

Mayor, just for staff's clarification, is that $15,000 for Lovefest in or out of the budget?

It's out.

It's out. Thank you.

Mr. Jernigan.

That's what I was going to say. We studied talking about this conversation. Ms. Harris has already told us it's out. And we don't need to go any further.

We were talking about it. Well, it's important for every, yeah. We were talking about events.

Yeah, it's important for everything coming up. It's not specific to the budget, but it is important for us to actually. Sure.

I want to be clear. If we can figure this out, we might not have such a long time talking about it next year.

Every city event, it brings in revenue, right? Every city event. No. It's not.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I don't know. No.

I don't know that answer. All right, Ms. Sykes, guide us further along.

Okay. So maybe we, okay, if next year, if the backpack program is not going to be city organized, per se, and it's going to be a city sponsored, if it's not budget neutral, do we leave that $2,000 in there so that it'll be? They can get sponsorship money next year if it's a 501c3? Would that be applicable here? I would say yes.

But they were already a 501c3.

No, you're talking about the heel backpack. Yes. Okay.

Yeah.

Okay, we're looking that that will become a 501c. Yeah, I think so. And we will only be sponsor. Yes, instead of organized. Instead of organized.

That's what I think the goal will be for next year. Yes, ma'am.

Right.

So that they can capitalize on the grant that we talked about. Yes.

And there are... There are businesses who will not make a donation unless it's a 501c. That's why some of the funding were not.

It's tax deductible.

Yeah.

Yeah. And they can write it off. Did you?

He was getting funding, but it wasn't a 501c. It was coming under. It was budget neutral to the city. Budget neutral to the city.

Right. I just want to make sure. So when we say budget neutral, it's because the people that were sponsoring the event were giving the money to the city, and then the city was giving the money to the event, right? Yes. We were the pass-through for it. Yes. So it didn't actually cost the city anything.

No. Well, my time and staff's time, Terry's time, anybody's time that maybe public works, the tent, chairs, tables, same with other events. Now on the coat giveaway, are we leaving that? Is that going to be organized or sponsored, Ms. Harris? Do we need to put that one under organized or sponsored?

Organized.

Organized. So that one would need to be moved to Ms. Terry.

Is that all right with you?

Okay. Mr. Rosenthal? So wait a minute.

Oh, you say the coat giveaway. Yes.

That one's going to be organized. That's an organized city event. Okay. question i thought all the cults were donated they were no no no no the city the city well in a roundabout way we we collected dollars and then i had to go do a lot of shopping remember all the shopping i had to go do for the but yes they were donated okay you said collected dollars whether you collect the dollars yes exactly well many different yes yes so the city didn't fund this i don't did they fund they funded some of it i think they funded a couple thousand dollars i think two thousand maybe but did organize it i don't recall i'd have to look i'd have i can get you an answer on that tomorrow i can get you an answer for that for tomorrow night if you like well we don't need that all we need to do is decide is it going to be an organized event right or yes it's going to be organized okay that's done unless a partner comes forward i need clarification just what happened are we are both organized uh the annual uh coat giveaway is an organized event that would meet go to miss phillips's list and the backpack that one's going to stay here because it's going to move to a city sponsored okay yes thank you you're welcome Y'all need a break yet? I'm just kidding. I'm just teasing. Okay. So we're on 52. Do y'all have any questions about anything that might be there? I did put money in for hosting two dinner meetings next year. If you guys are not wanting to do that quite so soon, we can rethink that.

I would take one off. We just did this one at River League, so I would take that one off. I think we only do one and we alternate them.

Which one is that? We literally have done, excuse me, we did the Northeast Florida League Dinner Meeting. We hosted that one in December of 25, and then we just hosted the Suwannee River League this past month. Yes, ma'am. How much of that was funded by the city? Whatever we put in the budget.

Yeah, it was split between the Suwannee River League and the city. So I think it was $2,500 or $2,500.

Yeah, we probably spent probably close to, I still have receipts I haven't turned in, probably close to $1,500 I think is what, but the Suwannee River League, they contributed a massive amount of money from their budget to offset it. So I think maybe $1,500 I'm thinking for the Suwannee River League. Okay. But now, we also need to keep in mind that we did receive the blanch for free. Right. And that would have been a... As they should.

Okay.

But I mean... Yeah, I mean, if we had to rent a place... We're not going to name everybody who donated, so let's not call out one.

I'm just saying. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

My point was, let's just do one of these in alternating.

I just wanted to double check. So obviously, because this is something that goes on forever and well before we were here. But if I was to understand correctly, last time I actually was talking about the way these are planned with Lake Butler and maybe is it Live Oak? Historically, we've taken turns every other year. And we've done both of them this year. So would we be expected by the other members of the league to do one this coming year?

We just need to let the league know that we're not going to. Okay. That specifically. But the – yeah. i think we just let them know as long as we have good communication with them and i would just merge these two i would take out one of those line items and just have host in the nefl dinner slash s srl that way whichever one we're doing that year okay all right is there anything else on that um 52 that we need to discuss No.

All right. The books, subs, and memberships, that's kind of self-explanatory. And then expense training, whenever I get the list from each of you about the travel, it will correspond over into the expense training so I can take care of that as well when I get that.

All right.

Okay. Was there anything that I maybe omitted from the budget that maybe someone needed to have added in the budget? Did I overlook anything?

Looks good. Okay.

Okay.

Looks good. Okay. Turn it back over to you, Ms. Angie.

All right.

Now that we got through the first hour. Sorry. First department, not even operational.

I know it's the first time you guys all get to sit together and discuss your budget. So I think the rest of the meeting we should zoom on by. So tell me to hit the brakes. I'm going too fast.

Let's go warp speed. All right. But not warp speed. Let's go understandable speed. Yes, sir.

Just curious. Do you think we found 15%? Oh, yeah. In our budget.

Yeah, big time. Good job, guys. Let's go. Maybe 40%. Good.

So next up, we have the city manager's department. And I'll turn it over to Dee Johnson.

Thank you, Angie. Mayor and council, proposed budget for fiscal year 2027 for the city manager's office is $1,087,893. That represents a 10.7% budget cut from the previous year. Personnel costs decreased by $82,979. Other current charges is where your events sit at was decreased from $62,500 I'm sorry, it decreased by $62,500 from $148,500 to $86,000. One of the events that we did take out was the barbecue festival. Not for anything because it is a budget neutral, but we're going to take a year off from it. I think last year was pretty big, grew out, so we're going to give it a year to rest. One of the exciting events that we do have that we're partnering with is TDC on this a strongman competition coming in October. So we did put money in the arm for in-kind services We average it's going to be ten thousand dollars I don't know what that in-kind service is going to be whether it is monetary or in kind through public works and PD Repairs and maintenance decrease seventy five hundred dollars travel increased by six thousand and due to the cost of training classes and travel. Rentals and leases increased by 9,400. Books, subscriptions, and memberships increased, and capital equipment added a line item for $352, where we'll be purchasing a vehicle for that cost. Any questions?

Could you elaborate what that strong man or strong?

Strong man competition. So strong man competition. Mayor, if you want to. Well, it is a woman who I'm definitely trying to do some bitch pressing against. But Don recommended that I did not do it. This is a worldwide event. One event has happened in America that I know of in Ohio in probably the last two years. Somehow they've seen the great place of Lake City and wanted to make this the second annual for the United States. You're going to have athletes come from all over the world to come and train. I think we had one recently come in here and pull a fire truck. So you're going to see a lot of gladiator games. I don't want to spill the beans, but there's going to be some special guests that come to Lake City. It's going to be televised on Amazon, possibly. I don't want to give too much more information up on it, but I'm definitely excited.

And what year is this supposed to be in? This is in October of this year. This October?

Yes, ma'am.

I need to go work out.

Yeah.

So overall, like I said, there's a 10.7% reduction in our budget this year.

fantastic and i'll turn it back over to angie any questions do we have any questions for d before we move on yes sir mr carter i just wanted to make sure the you are telling the folks when you're working on the organization of the strongman thing i want to pick something up and move it around i think me and you need to go i know we talked about the lake sure yeah absolutely We can take turns carrying each other around the lake.

I like it.

You first. All right. Thank you, Ms. Angie.

All right. So next we have Audrey Sykes with the city clerk's office. I just want to give her some kudos. She was one of the directors or office charter officers that was able to cover her budget, her operating budget, 18%. So we do appreciate that. Thank you, Ms. Sykes.

Good.

Good.

All right.

Thank you, Angie. Oh, your lunch now.

Give yourself a pat on the back.

Okay. Okay, let's see here. I did already do some cuts. There was a 39% cut in travel, 23% cut in professional services. Let's see what else we have here. Most of the training that's left in there is definitely tied directly to certifications for myself and Michelle and Nikki. So we did keep those. Let's see, everything else is pretty bare bones. I will say that in 52, our community Shred It days have been a huge success. I will tell you that the citizens that come by, they just express how thankful that they are that we do that event, and so definitely want to keep continuing to do that event for our citizens.

It's very necessary.

Yeah, they really enjoy it. I don't really think there was much more... Unless you guys had any specific questions, there really isn't much there. We cut a lot out of the budget.

Tight ship?

Yeah, it's pretty tight.

Thank you.

Any further questions?

Any questions for Ms. Audrey?

What is that various dinners, lunches, and events? The 700, what is that for?

On 52? That would cover things like going to a chamber event, if they had like a women's breakfast, the chamber ball, any type of various dinners or lunches where there is actually a fee to attend. Gotcha. Yeah. I didn't want to cut it completely out, so, yeah.

All right. Okay. So next up we have Human Resources with Miss Billie Jo Bible, if you can come up please.

Good evening. So my budget's probably one of the smaller ones in the city. I was able to cut quite a bit from my budget simply because risk and safety is coming out of my budget, so that would go into a new department. Also, we're able to cut professional services With contractual services, 20,000 you'll see is budgeted, but we will also be receiving a reimbursement for that 20,000 from Florida Blue, our healthcare provider for wellness. So that will be reimbursed back to us. Other than that, there's not a whole lot here. Any questions?

Anybody have any questions?

Yes, how much were you able to cut?

I believe it was 16%.

It might have been a little bit more than that. It was more than 15%. It was around 16 or 17%.

Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Villagio. Folks, we're about halfway, or we're an hour and a half in, so we're gonna take a brief break, five minute break, and we'll see you guys back in five minutes.

Welcome back, everyone.

We are, we just finished up with human resources and we are moving on from there. So I'll turn it back over to you, Miss Angie.

Okay, the next department we have is the city attorney, Clay Martin. He did an amazing job as well. He's an overachiever. He was able to cut his operating budget by 69%. 60 what? I'll turn it over to Clay. Okay.

so uh building on what uh billy joe said earlier i think i may be the the smallest and simplest budget and department in the city with the exception of two line items and operating they all went down by double digits the one that went up was rentals and leases because last year when we were forming this for the first time we did not anticipate that the Printing and copy volume would be beyond what a regular computer printer could accommodate, and so we had to get a larger machine, which cost more money. And then in books, subscriptions, and memberships, that went up by 37% because we did not anticipate last year a membership in the... the attorney's equivalent of the ICMA, the International County and City Managers Association. There is an International Municipal Lawyers Association. We didn't anticipate that, so we're adding that in this year, hence the 35% increase. Everything else is fairly straightforward, I believe. But we took the exercise very seriously.

Very good.

All right, so next we have non-departmental.

Wait, does anybody have any questions for Mr. Martin?

Yes, I do. I thought I'd seen something about rotary dues or something like that. Can you explain what that is?

So as part of my contract, part of I believe it's also in Mr. Rosenthal's contract, the city agreed to pay for dues to belong to a civic organization.

uh that is the organization that i am a member of and the city pays those dues on my behalf is that the uh rotary club here in lake city or is that the one the thursday lunchtime rotary club here in lake city that meets at parkview yes sir i just i just wanted to make sure that everybody's aware of you being a rotary club member right here in lake city florida i think that's pretty good

Thank you, Mr. Jernigan. Anything else? All right. Ms. Angie, back to you. Sorry.

All right. So next, we have non-departmental. This is kind of like the centralized account for the general fund. So it's like all the odd expenditures that we have. Flipping to page 70, we have our professional services. There's no change, really, from last year. honestly the only thing the property insurance went down that was when we were budgeting last year we went with the increase of our prior insurance carrier that's why it dropped so much so this is the second year with the contract with a pigeon and That's basically all the, there's not really any changes. We still have the ARPA transfer for the new city hall. That's 1.9 million to give that fund. I think it's roughly, we'll get to it. It's about 3.6 million towards purchasing a city hall or building a city hall. But other than that, that's basically it for non-departmental. Does anyone have any questions for me?

You said that the city hall item will come up in the future? What was that noise?

Yeah, that would be the three or four sales tax bond fund.

Okay.

All right.

Next. Next is the finance department. That's me. We were able to cut, I believe it was... We were able to cut 18% out of our operating budget. We cut out a good bit of travel. We only have the two conferences, the GFOA and the FGFOA. We were able to reduce. We found a vendor for the OPEB study. That's the other post-employment benefits study that's part of the audit. So we reduced that from 8,000 to 5,000. We did take the computers out of our 52 account because we coordinate with IT and next year we won't need any. And that's basically it for my department. Does anyone have any questions for me?

No, ma'am. Thank you.

And next we have information technology with Jason Dumas.

Jay's son.

The fun department, the technology is always just something happens, right? So the biggest thing on our budget this year that's made an impact, an increase in our budget, is going to be our servers we have to replace. They're five years old, and it's time to replace them. So the cost of that's really expensive this year, but once we buy it this year, they're good for five years. You don't hear me?

Yes, start over.

We can hear you. Just speak a little. If you could start over and speak a little. Okay.

So the biggest change in our budget this year is the servers we're having to purchase. Ours are five years old right now, and they're due to be replaced. The cost of that is pretty expensive right off the bat, but we'll be good for another five years once we purchase those.

Is that the repairs and maintenance? That's the 64 count. Okay.

Yes.

That's a big expense. Yeah. Okay. And so over the next five years, it'll look more like the budget.

You'll have just the maintenance of the software, which we have that already now. I think it's fancy.

It's our own little data center.

Bad words.

Anybody have any further questions?

The only other items within your budget that was alarming that set off a bell was the 46 account. Can you walk us through the repair and maintenance? Is that just spread out over a handful of

So yeah, this year we received the grant on some network security software we're using. And because the grants are inconsistent, we need to budget to continue to use that software. We're hoping that we'll get that grant this next year and we'll make sure we don't have that cost. We just don't know that going forward. Very good.

Does anybody else have any questions for Mr. Dumas? All right, thank you, Jason.

Thank you. All right, up next we have procurement with Ms. Brenda Carr.

Good afternoon. We were able to cut our budget 16%. We no longer have a vehicle lease. We now own that vehicle. And we are putting a mini split HVAC unit into the office at the warehouse. That's pretty much all the changes that we have. Are there any questions for me? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Brenda. Oh, my goodness.

And up next, we have vehicle maintenance, Mr. Steve Brown. Here he comes. Steve, Steve.

We're going to start out with the Steve Brown. If you look at the first page or second page of our budget in fleet, you'll see that it's 80% personnel. That's because it's a very small budget from that perspective. We have three technicians in there and an admin assistant. The way we operate our fleet is each department pays for their own material as they use it. So if we buy tires for the PD, that comes out of their budget. So we really don't have an operational budget from that side. We did have this year our lift that we lift the cars up to change the oil and everything. It's getting antiquated and we need to replace that. So that's really the only thing we have in here this year. Questions? I don't have any.

I don't have any questions. Anybody else have any questions for Mr. Steve on vehicle maintenance?

All right. Good job. Look at the city of Lake City.

Right, so next we have general building. I had Ms. Brenda Carr help me with this budget, if you don't mind.

So overall for the general building, we were able to cut the budget by 10%. There was $75,000 that we took out for repairs and maintenance. But out of capital building, there has been a significant increase because of their repairs that five-point school will need.

Where is that located?

It's under the 62 account capital outlay building.

It's on page 102.

That's the $281,000?

Yes.

And that's all for five points. Everything else in the budget is regular maintenance for the building, utilities for this building. Everything else is about the same.

Why is the dog park listed in this budget? I thought it was the budget that we're in now.

Well, if it's not completed before October, we're going to still have that money in the budget to finish the project.

If it gets completed, then we'll remove it from the budget.

Oh, right. Yes, ma'am. So y'all got to win. September 30th. Thank you.

Are there any questions? uh mr mayor i do have one quick question just uh just for my curiosity um what all was involved in the hvac repairs or replacement do we have to replace the entire air conditioning system for the well so far for the um at the school we've replaced 16 um we have put in many splits two in each classroom of eight classrooms um because the units that were in there um were not operational. They did not function and they weren't repairable. So if one of the units, so now that we have too many splits in each classroom, if one of the units go down, we still have a backup unit. So it doesn't displace if we do have children out there.

Is the $140,000 what we expect to spend on it in totality, doing the mini-splits throughout the facility?

That would be for 16 more mini-splits.

And would that complete the HVAC process for the units, at least the areas we're using at the moment?

It would.

I'd like to mention too that we're due to receive $100,000 of this $281,000 back from the county as soon as we get the agreement and everything signed.

What's that for?

Well, that's the agreement that we have with the county. We're going to pay, you know, they're going to pay $100,000. Gotcha.

So this budget, to be clear, what we're looking at now does not incorporate the fact that they're going to be pitching in, or is this just our portion?

No, this doesn't show that. So we're going to get $100,000 from the county. We'll subtract it from what we spent. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Brenda. Oh, my. All right.

Next up is our police chief, General Butler.

Good evening. The police department budget this year There are no capital projects. Talk to the city manager. Anything we need to do, we're holding off on. I'm going to try and find some grant money for a couple of items that we do need. We are currently in contract negotiations with the union for a three-year agreement. So the bulk of my budget is labor intensive. It's personnel costs. And again, I have no capital projects. Initially, I did ask for additional officers, the city's five-year strategic plan. I was five officers a year for five years. Last year, I asked for increase. I received one officer, which helped greatly. This year, none, and also no records clerk. for the public records issues that we're currently experiencing. The one increase I did ask for two additional licenses for the AI software for redaction to try and get the most out of the current records personnel that I have. However, with the annexations that going on in the city, I'm not gonna get into specifics obviously, but it will require me to redeploy officers and shuffle our beats around. So basically my budget is bare bones this year for the PD.

Any questions for chief and comments? What are some of those capital projects that you would have requested?

We're looking to get a couple of vehicles. The SWAT team, we're going to need something. The building is not big enough for the department anymore. I'm running out of space. So instead of buying extra vehicles through a grant, actually, which you're going to be getting in a report to council for us to purchase, We're going to be putting evidence processing equipment into a trailer with air conditioning and a generator so I can clear out a room when we do have a major crime scene. Instead of trying to get everything and throw them into one of the trucks, we'll have it ready to go. We can deploy. uh as far as with the building we had to include a second interview room which we're currently uh paying on that uh to get that i had to actually take our supply room get rid of that and move that into another area uh so really and i've spoken with the city manager uh anything we do at this point i'm gonna have to do with an outbuilding

We should probably put together that list so that we can send it to our lobbying firm as well for state funding because they're supposed to create a large fund to help.

And one of the issues is up at where my current impound area is, up at the barn, we can't put any more structures up there. So if I take somebody's vehicle, I could have it for months or a year depending on the case. Homicide, I could have for a long time. I'm responsible to return that vehicle in the condition I got it in. And right now I have nothing left for storage in order to put those vehicles in. They sit outside.

Just touching on what you just said, I think it would probably be a good idea to If we're not already doing it, especially as we're cutting back in every department, putting together that wish list and making sure that those things are presented to Tallahassee.

Yeah, every director.

Not just with the PD, but as we're cutting everywhere, anything that is potentially something that we could need or find very useful, you know, but that we're not doing now. See if we can get some.

That's an impending capital outlay. Right.

Like using every inch of the building you've got. Right.

So how much did we cut the police department by?

There's an increase due to the contract negotiations. The salaries are going to go up. But again, without that, I tried to keep it as revenue neutral from last year as I could.

Thank you. Any further questions for the chief?

Thank you.

Thank you, chief.

And next we have risk safety ADA. City administration tasked me with putting that budget together. And what I did was I gave, basically I think it was 2024 was the last time we budgeted for risk safety. I took that budget and just basically duplicated it for this year. And then I added the two positions based on the budget. job description salary so to fit in line with that so it's pretty straightforward it's a pretty small budget considering uh with a budget total of 319 000 any questions for miss angie on this one um okay i'm sorry we have a question

These are the two different positions that we created, one position, and then at yesterday's meeting agreed to create, split it into two, so we don't, these people don't exist yet, right?

No, they don't.

Okay. When do we hope to, have we already put out for applications, do we have people?

We have, I would defer to Billy Joel on that.

Sure.

They exist, they just haven't been hired yet. Oh yeah, they're out there somewhere, right.

We already conducted interviews for this when it was the director position.

Sure.

And so Mr. Rosenthal felt comfortable going with those applicants right now. And so one, the manager position was offered today and accepted, anticipating that person starting on August 17th pending background check and that kind of thing. The other one we're planning to hold off filling until October 1st.

Okay, just to begin the new year.

The safety portion. Yes, sir. Mm-hmm. Thanks.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am. When would these applicants actually take, they've accepted the position, is that right? Make sure they're speaking to the mic.

You will have one start on the 17th and one will be offered the job on October 1st.

All right.

Yes, ma'am. I just had a question. Since this person's going to be handling the ADA and as much conversation as we've had about that, should we put some money in there for some training expenses for ADA conferences and things like that? I don't see any of that in this budget, nor any memberships to any type of ADA professional organizations, and I think that's going to be critical for this person to be successful. Absolutely.

Mr. Mayor, I completely agree. It sounds like Mr. Vela agrees too, although I would say any number we chose would be relatively arbitrary until we know what those sort of things are. Usually a department director or something like that tells you.

So the budget is tight now. We're just not creating it. We're researching and looking at training for them. When we find that, we'll put it in. But the budget is very tight right now. We're concerned with getting them in, seeing what they know now, and then going from there.

That doesn't sound...

I would say it sounds like a reasonable... Ms. Young and then...

Okay.

So the person will actually assume the responsibility of the position.

Mm-hmm.

And we already know they're not trying for the position. I'm sure you know that.

No, no, we hired. The reason we split it up is that we were looking for those skill sets. The person has some ADA skill sets already.

Okay.

So we wouldn't have hired him if they didn't. Then the other person has some safety skill sets. We wouldn't have hired him if he didn't.

Okay. So we're going to work them a short while to see what they know and to see what they need training.

Absolutely. And we're definitely going to have some training, but we need to know what they know before we spend money on training.

I say it still needs to be budgeted some funds for that.

And we will be budgeted something, but we want to do it after they come in.

Yeah, I would say that it, I mean, obviously, like everything else, that line item exists for every department for various reasons. But I just think, I mean, I mean, That seems like a reason, because we're creating the positions now and hiring them at the beginning of the next fiscal year, that seems like a reasonable budget amendment once we have a number. Because, I mean, we could put in $1 or $10,000 or $50,000. We don't know what it's going to be. So, I mean, it's certainly necessary. I just don't know what putting kind of a random number in now would help.

I think we should have already done some research concerning the training.

Maybe.

Okay.

Ms. Angie?

So actually in their travel and training combined, they have about 20, almost $20,000. So I believe that's a fair start.

Okay. So there is some.

That was a good start. Thank you, Ms. Angie. That's probably plenty.

Great start.

Now we have Public Works with the Steve Brown.

I like how you did that. So just doing the math on ours, roughly we would have had to cut $1.5 million to get to the 15%. By taking our original budget, working with staff, we went ahead and cut $1.5 million off the top. Then we cut an additional $400,000 today. This budget is inflated in some degree because we have the splash pad in there, obviously. And then we also have the Gwynn Lake project. district 12 so each district has one road in it that is approved or in the budget to be approved other than that it's pretty much business as usual there will be one correction we accidentally took out some of our operation which was just 85,000 so we'll put that back in there whenever we go back in but other than that we've took out the two million so far go ahead miss Harris One road per district. In order to get down the 15%, we had to take out a million 50,000 just to get the first 15%. So we took it down to one road per district. That's how we achieved that.

Yes, sir, Mr. Carter. You said you cut almost half a million dollars today. Is that reflective in the books we got when we got here today?

Should have. They corrected them this morning. That was the equipment out of our 64 account. That was cut this morning. That was.

So that was equipment that was deemed not absolutely necessary, I'm assuming?

So what we've got is, again, a lot of our equipment, as it starts to get dated, we go ahead and start looking at replacing it. We separated our warehouse out there, and some of it went to distribution collection, some of it went to gas, to update our forklift so that we can load and unload equipment out there and supplies as they come in. We had put a forklift in the budget. Our asphalt trailer that has an automatic dump on it, rather than having to shovel it out, we had put in some of that stuff. So that's the kind of stuff that we cut off the top.

see that i'm satisfied gwen lake and the splash park yes sir mr jernigan yes i'm so grateful that you um clarified that we we can only do uh one road basically a year and every you gave a um at least a million dollars in every district that that's that's pretty good there i really appreciate that yes sir some people don't understand how how this work and and i didn't understand in the beginning when i first started but however uh i totally understand now that we get one paved road for every district

So what we've done historically is we try and do at least a road per year. And that is based again on safety. If we have two in one district that is in really dilapidated conditions, it's really bad. We have erosion underneath it or anything like that. There are times that we would look at that scenario and say we need to do those. But historically, we try and do at least one road in every district.

Thank you.

Have we ever looked at, and I think we might have talked about this last year, a heat mat for road damage? We did. Where roads are the most damaged in the city rather than making it a political district allocation, allocating it to where it's needed the most.

So we did look into some of that stuff. There were some devices that they said on the dash of the vehicles where they drove around. There was cost associated with all of that. So we resorted back to, again, we go into the roads that we've got the most maintenance on. Working with IT, they've got a new program now where they can actually, when the guys go out and do a repair on a road, they take a picture of it, they log where they're at and what they've done. So we can go back and look where all the repairs have been made in a calendar year. We've been using that data as one of our factors. If we've got five patches on MLK and 10 patches on Aberdeen, we kind of look at that as a qualifying factor as well, again, with how many people live on the street and the condition of that road as an overall totality.

My thought on that is if we had a tool that would keep us from doing all those patches to begin with, it might save us time and money on the back end by repaving those roads that are falling apart before they...

so i'm going to say i'm going to say this for y'all run me out of the door that is definitely doable but it's hard to do with a rollback rate we have to fund that in in some form or fashion paving roads is a very expensive task um again you can see when you go to a just a small rose 150 200 000 if you do one in each district you're you know you're getting over me and north of me and two million dollars so but that it's all very doable mayor definitely

Mr. Jernigan? Yes, one other question. Do you collaborate with the county on any of the monies that they may have left over in their budget to try to get some things done in the city?

Yes, sir. So not necessarily leftover budget. We don't share budgets like that, but we do compete for SCOP grants through the DOT, so we're all digging in the same pot of money. Okay. Yes, sir. Thank you so much.

Ms. Young?

Mayor, I need you to elaborate on or clarify that it being political. And the reason I say that is because people who hear you, all they heard was is that we make it political when we choose roles, and that's already been said, and that's such a great myth. I'll need you to clarify.

So that wording comes strictly from... boundaries right so a political boundary is a state line a district line a county line I don't mean anything by an area that is politically leaning toward any one person or any one party I mean strictly within those political boundaries because the districts are political boundaries the city of Lake City the borders of the city of Lake City are political boundaries so rather than rather than saying that there's one per district uh defining where those the worst roads are um based on on heat maps and and addressing the i think it would save us money long term but you're right it is real it's hard to do uh to implement these things um And we take, there is so many factors we put into it. He's pinching them together to try to create two pennies out of one.

Well, every time I go in his office with two pieces of paper, I come out with one.

Sure. He just rips it up in front of you. Doesn't even look at it, just rips it up in front of you. I've seen it happen.

Okay, so I appreciate that. And I just think that's very imperative that we get some clarity on that. Because It'll take just the political roads are chosen by political district. And that will take it and blow it out of proportion. So I just want everybody to be clear. Mr. Brown, he's very good at what he does. He shows no favoritism except to me. I'm just playing. He shows no favoritism. I'm serious. He shows no favoritism. And when I've gone to him, He explained to me why he can or why he can't. And I appreciate it. I don't take offense to it. I appreciate it. I think that's valuable to the city. Yeah, he could be brutal.

It's always straightforward. I was just asking the question because it was brought up that there was a road per district.

Thank you, ma'am. Mr. Carr. Yeah, just to add a little bit to what Ms. Young was saying. I think one other important aspect to it, too, is... if you were to go with like a heat map solely as a way to determine these things you'd you'd find that you may end up spending a ton of money some of the worst roads that i've seen in the city uh are also some of the least traveled they've not gotten the attention because they're the least used um so you end up with if you focus too much on the ones that need the most repair you also may be spending a lot of money on roads that almost no one's driving so i think that with one of the things that we all should be doing and i think do pretty well as be tied into our individual districts. So, I mean, I have people mentioned specific things to me and I have a large amount of people that mentioned a specific roads and things like that. And each of us are probably experiencing that. So I think that there is a political element to it and that we serve our people in our districts and the people in the districts are the ones telling us what needs doing. And if we can only do one thing and I got 20 people asking for this and two asking for this, I'm telling Don.

We had 18 roads when we started. So it's not like we're not taking a swing for the fences.

That would have been a budget buster. The software specifically that I'm talking about, what it does is it overlays traffic patterns with the roads. So it's a dual, it's data-driven. Interesting. Yes, ma'am.

So, and another thing is if I see a road that I believe is in worse condition than another road. Looks is not what determines how bad of a condition the road is in. And so I explain because I was taught this by the dynamic Steve Brown. It's not what we can, it's not what our physical eyes can see, right? But most times it's under the asphalt.

That's correct.

And engineers come in and they determine, right? the condition of the road. So I don't get to choose what road I want. So that makes it not political as well.

Thank you, Ms. Young. Mr. Carter?

I have a procedural question on the roads that we're looking at paving. What type of paving are we looking at doing? Is it tearing up the old roads?

Yes. So one of the things that one of the hardest challenges I had when I took over Public Works five years ago was the The norm, if you will, was they would go in and overlay the roads. And that causes stormwater issues. It causes damage to vehicles because they can't get out of their driveways. I spent my first year really getting beat up because of this. So what we did is we would rather do two roads correctly than five roads incorrectly. So now we mill them. Whatever we mill off, we put the same exact amount of pavement on. And if we do a parking lot, we do substrate, six inches of lime rock, inch and a half of asphalt. So we have a standard now that we try and go by. To Mr. Jernigan's point, that is something we have partnered with the county with. When we do a road or something, we use DOT standards. It's not a standard, it's the standard, and it's just the easiest one to go by. So when we have a contractor come in and they ask us what our specifications are, we roll right back to that.

sure because the uh yeah the pour over stuff has turned into a nightmare so i wanted to really make sure that we weren't doing that anymore uh my neighborhood's got some and you have some because we're built on a swamp when they put a pond at the end of it so um uh one last question the am i correct in understanding what you said earlier that there's a particular type of vehicle that we've decided not to get we've taken out of the budget for this year that would help with this long term

It was a trailer that we were using. So we've been progressively trying to improve our fleet. We went from just putting down straight cold mix to being able to use asphalt. We've got machines now where we can mill small areas. We have an intersection in District 12 that we're fixing to go in there. We're going to mill the intersection ourselves. The paving machine or the trailer that we would use, we go to Anderson and buy it. It's called a hot box, and it keeps the asphalt hot until we get it out there and get it to lay it down. It was a trailer that was better equipped for that. We're using a smaller trailer.

So when we're repaving roads in the city, the hands and feet doing it are us, right?

Depends on the size of the road. If it is a small intersection, there is a very good chance that the public works department is putting all your concrete down, all your curb down, your gutters down, and putting in your asphalt. Once it gets to a size of a road where a machine is needed to make the asphalt flat, then we don't use it.

What's the rough price tag on a trailer like you're talking about there?

I believe it was $30,000.

I want to say.

Yeah, I can pull it back up for you. We cut a bunch out of the top of them this morning. I would definitely make sure that we add that to any kind of wish list, grants, et cetera. Sure. Give to the lobbyists. That's a whole lot less than a million-dollar fire truck. Yeah, we're a lot more proficient in the fire department.

And we have a wish list.

I'm suggesting we kind of make it.