Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

and it's patiently patiently. All right, so it's raining. Good evening. Uh it is August 26th at 6 PM and this is the city of Nsville Finance Committee meeting. I'm going to call this order this meeting to order. Uh my name is Jeff Sassy, alman 3 and chairman of the finance committee. And with me I have my other finance committee members Mark alderman board one vice chair and Mark Evans uh ward six I think and secretary uh and then we'll go around the room and if if you want to introduce yourself go ahead and do so. Sure. Tamronol, finance director. Jesse Earroth, chief of operations. Mayor Jamie Clary,

Jana Garton, Alderman, Karen Dixon, alderman, ward four. Don Ward, alderman, W two. It's Ray, city attorney. If you want to. Matt Elliot, vice president, Hendersonville Firefighters Association. Matthew Cole, a shift steward, Hville Firefighter Association. Jason Gallow, administrative services director. J, go ahead. JP Finnegan, GS coordinator. Scotty Bush, interville fire. Mike Cook, IT manager. Casey Lamar, communication manager. Terry Goodwin, Alderman Ward for Frank Arton, me citizen. Great. Thank you all.

Uh, okay. So, first thing on the agenda is the approval of the minutes for July 22nd. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry, I missed right went right by it, didn't I? Okay. Uh, first thing we're going to do is have accept the agenda. Um, and on the motion for that. So, and first off, um, I would actually like to remove item number three um, from the agenda. And, uh, I believe we just received some additional information today. Is that right, Mr. Ray? Yes. They have seats,

right? Um I think you were on that too, but uh we were thinking maybe dive down into it a little bit more with the new information and hopefully come up with some resolution soon. Yeah. Okay. So, um or or further discussion. So, we'll we'll put that one off until next meeting uh and discuss it more so we have more time to review the the qu it was quite a bit of information that was provided just this morning. So, and I believe you all got that as well, right? Yes. Yes. Uh, so we'll put that off until next meeting. I have one other I'd like to just remove item number four. Do we need a vote on that first or can we read? Can we do them together? Do them together.

We can group a motion together. Okay, let's do that. Uh, I'd like to remove this uh item number four. I don't think there's been a lot of information, a lot of new information, but we have a lot of stuff we have to discuss and for um time sake I want to remove this one for now. I don't think it's very person. So I motion be sure to conserve these two. Okay. Um I am I second that. Okay. Um so all those in favor removing number three and number four from the agenda. I and uh any other changes? Okay. And with the amended um agenda, we'll vote on that. All those in favor of the amended agenda, I I

All right. And that passes. So, we move three and four. And we're back up to public comments, which we did not have. Oh, I'm sorry. Approval of the minutes from last meeting. Make a motion we approve the minutes. Second. All right. Any changes? All those in favor? I.

And the minutes are approved. Unanimous. All right. Public comments. We didn't have any. Number one on our ordinance resolutions, we have uh resolution 202530, a resolution authorizing the mayor to enter into and execute a contract with the state of Tennessee to to participate in and offer city employees the medical plan uh plans offered to political subdivisions through the state office and to establish the city's contribution rate for the employ medical insurance plans. That's a mouthful. Just to say we're doing state medical plans. Yes. Uh and get a motion to discuss that.

Second. And and so um Mayor Clary, you are the sponsor on this. You want to discuss it?

Sure. Um I'm going to ask Jason and Jesse to help me out here. But uh the most important part of this is that we have the opportunity to sign on to a different say structure um going with the state plans than we have as a city. uh we have this will provide us more options. Uh most likely um the cost will not go up anywhere close to what they've gone up for us in the past and the coverage will at least be as good as what we have now. Um we're not looking at a trade-off between uh coverage and cost. Um we're looking at sort of a win-win on both of those in my opinion. uh Jesse and one other thing and the reason we had to wait was that had we done this at the beginning of the fiscal year uh employees would have been on their way to paying their full deductible for the calendar year. Uh so they would have essentially had to pay had to start over at zero for their deductible on July 1st.

Um it wasn't the easiest thing in the world bringing this in mid fiscal year for us, but the cost um it made sense to to do it that way. It wasn't ideal, but it it made more sense to do that that way. So, I'm going to turn over to Jesse. Jason,

yeah, this is a it's a two-year plan as well. So, it's a two-year commitment and like Mayor Clary said, you know, with the larger group, we we couldn't see the fluctuation from year to year increases. So um you know the state they negotiate these uh the insurance cost and this plan allows us the employee to go to either Sigma or Blue Cross. Right now we only have one choice. So I mean it's not cheaper on every plan but most of the plans the monthly premium was cheaper. Most of the plans have a less expensive deductible and then there's a mix between out-of pockets. Some out of pockets are more expensive on the state. some out of pockets are more expensive on our plan. So, um it's not there is a little bit of money savings on the monthly premium. Uh but I think stability going forward, this is probably going to be more stable for the city and the costs are about neutral with this the funding structure that we put in. Most employees will see a reduction in monthly premiums.

That's great. Thank you. I have I've got a couple of question in this particular ordinance. It doesn't say when the plan should go in effect. Does it or am I overlooking like upon approval this plan will go into effect at Yeah. So we can only go we can only join the plan uh we have to join it when they have an open enrollment period. It starts in fall. Yeah. They start their open enrollment in October. So if we um you know sign the this plan soon with the state they can come and do education for the employees in September. So an open enrollment opens up in October. The employees have already had the educational sessions. What do those education sessions look like?

The state reps will come out and just answer questions. Like right now, we have our broker come out for our insurance plan, but they will have to come out to describe their insurance plan and they, you know, there's a whole another plan option that we currently don't have and they're structured a little bit differently. So, there will be a lot of questions and some of the questions revolve around, you know, generic drugs and and name brand drugs. So, they're able to answer those questions. Okay. Good. And so as soon as um soon as B this goes to BABA and then it's passed, we can get that ball roll. Yeah. Thank you. Anything else? Any questions? No.

Um this is something I'm really excited about. I think it's what something that's great for our staff, uh our employees, and uh definitely needed for the city. I mean last th this f this or this the last time they renewed our insurance went up likeund or went up 26% something like that plans that went up over 20%. Yeah. And the state plan went up over went up 8% if I remember. Their average was just just north of 8%.

Yeah. So we're adding ourselves to a bigger pool of people which can level the the playing field and level out some of that uh variance on the plan. So I'm very excited about this. something I've been looking forward to for a long time. Um, and if it's I'm not sure if this is appropriate, but I would love to have my name on this as a co-sponsor. Absolutely. Thank you. And and uh by the way, um the credit needs to go to Jesse, Jason, Amanda. Uh they spend a lot of time on this. Thank you. How long have we been working on this? Would have been over a year, was it? Um we knew it was a possibility probably about two and a half, maybe three years ago. and just doing the research to figure out, okay, is so so we knew it was going to be less costly.

Sure. But the next question was, is it going to be as good for our staff? Absolutely. And that takes a lot of time to figure out because we have multiple plans currently and they had multiple I mean they had exponential number of plans. So it took some time to figure that out. Thank you all decided about this. So I'd like to add an co-sponsor as well. There are no objections. Sure. Thank you. Thank you. Can you take care of that, Jason? Thank you. All right. So, uh, all those any any other comments, questions? Okay. Uh, all those in favor of Well, does someone want to make a motion? Let's put it that way.

We'll make a motion that we allow mayor to enter into a contract and get this ball rolling and do this for our employees. So, uh, you're making a motion to recommend, accept, and set. Okay. Yes. I second. All right. All those in favor? I I All right. Uh, so move. Thank you. And next up, we have reading ordinance 202516, an ordinance amending budget ordinance 20250 recognizing and compensating Hendersonville Fire Chief Scotty Bush for certain vacation overtime co carryover in excess of maximum carryover. Made a motion.

Motion. Second. All right. Uh, hit it. All right. Well, um, many of you know that, uh, in the last last meeting or maybe we need I can't really I tried to get this um before Bulma to to discuss and was um told that we need to go this route. So, I'm fine uh with that. Before we discuss this, I would like to make a change to what's in your packets because um what was presented to me, I worked on this ordinance along with um Attorney Ray, and I appreciate Lance your help on this and and getting this um in proper order and and looking like it need to be. And um but it took some time to get it done. We started working on this probably maybe a week after the last time we met uh as a and so and knowing this had to go to finance. But um I also understand that there has to be a staff report that goes with this and the staff report that I saw and approved was one presented by COO Jesse Echinoff. He and I spoke about this and we talked about what we wanted this to look like and that's what I thought was going to be in the packet and um at the last minute when the staff report or when the agenda was sent out um the mayor inserted his staff report. So I'd like everybody to include this staff report. I'd like for this to be included in as opposed to the mayor's staff report since this is my ordinance. I'll pass this round too.

So removing the current staff report and putting this one in place. Correct. Yes, there's two pages. Yes. Um it's uh what some paper.

Hey, this is look look what I I say paper at home and use the other side. But um yeah, the mayor certainly uh he he can add more at the Bowman meeting and all, but I just felt like that with this being the ordinance that I'm putting forth and that I had already seen the staff report from Mr. Ekoff, that's the one I'd like to put in there. Uh it was short, it was u to the point. And again, the reason that why I want to do this, and there's a lot of reasons why, but um won't belabor the point. If it comes up in discussion, that's fine. But um Chief Bush has been a long tenure employee, almost 39 years as an employee. There is precedent before us where we have done this before. when a person retires. And I'm not saying that we'll pay out to Chief Bush that it's just being held and we would do it at the time when he does sever his employer when he retires. Um and the hours that was noted somewhere that um this ordinance doesn't have the dollar amount, but that's what you have as a staff of it has the dollar amount there. And we're talking about 349 accumulated hours. That's what the hours were. I think it um that carried over from 2024. There was a little bit more, but he used some of those. So, we're talking about 349 hours. It will not be any more than 349 hours. Uh hopefully, it will be a little bit less than that. Um as the mayor, as the chief Bush might use some of those, but at the end of 2025, that's what the dollar that's what the hours would be. Um there's a lot of reasons why and I don't know that we get into what we've done in the past, why we did it

for some, you know, what happened, why it's been um allowed to carry over for all these years, but it has been. That's where we are. Um, I'm not here to talk about or argue about why Chief Bush didn't take those hours. You know, good or bad or whatever the reasons were. He didn't. And what I'd like to do is honor that. The fact that he is an employee, that's grandfathered. He was employee here before 1997 when we had a lot of these other policies. And I think we need to to do that at this point. Um, I don't see that there's any issue with any more carrying food for any employee beyond the or the allowable. Um, and what I'd also like to do is that maybe we entertain the fact that for the mayor's sake, there won't be any judgment calls that if that an employee will, and it's not written in this ordinance, but I want to consider this that if an employee doesn't use their hours at December 31st, they know about that for a year. they have they can use those up and that we get away from allowing some of those hours to be carried over. That's just I'm just throwing that out there. But um anyway, I just want to say that and and some of some of us may step back and we think, okay, why hasn't Chief Bush used these hours? And again, there might be a there's a myriad of reasons why he did or didn't. But if you step back and you look the fact that he is using four to five weeks every year and when I step back and I look at me using four to five weeks every year, that's a lot of time to be taking on. And um and I I think he's trying to use up those hours that he's allotted to in that year, but he's can't use that he's accumulated over those years. So, all that to say, I'd like for us to consider this and and

discuss more and I've got some if you have any questions. Thank you. Um, yeah, I don't have any questions uh as of right now. Um, I guess you really covered the base. You did when you did talk about it. There's nothing no stone left unturned this point. So that's why I really don't have any questions. Okay. Um, now regarding regarding HR, I may ask Jason regarding our policy. Mhm.

Um I'm reading here that we tell me about our current policy please. Sure. So whatever an employee acrews within one year is what they can carry over from year to year. So at December at the end of the year whatever is in excess of that they either need to submit for an approval to carry over three months or they lose it. And either way if they don't use it by March 31st of following year they'll lose that time. Now, that was recently adjusted, but we're now can be rolled into sick leaf. Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah. And that adds to their years of service retirement.

They can't. Yes. So, assuming they don't use that sick leave, Yeah. you know, because they're out for a medical reason or something like that, then Yeah. Then that would add to their TCS service credit. Okay. Great. So, do you because we've now implemented that, do you see us uh entering into a situation similar to this in the future? No, I don't. So, this is pretty well sewn out. This is I feel like this is the last of those issues that remain. Thank you. Good. Good. Glad to hear it. Yeah. Well, the other thing I I Director Gallow, I appreciate you saying that because I remember that we kind of put you on the spot

at the last meeting we were talking about this and and um we asked you I can't remember who it was but someone asked you know is everybody following the policy and you you had to say well everybody's following the policies except for this one instance and so what I think that we can do with this and I look I know any of us especially on the finance that we don't want to spend spend any more money than than we than we have to. But this is something I think that is is that we should do and um and then we can kind of predict the rest and

now as far as how much this costs we this we don't incur this until G push retires, correct? Or do we need to budget this now? I was told to budget it now. That was the direction that I was given. So, how much is our current surplus? She has $24,473. And um the total is 38 or so.

Are we proposing to budget the entire amount now or are we can we do half now and half next year? We we can't do that. No, we should set it up as a reserve. So, it's been I mean all of all of our balances for sickly, vacation, everything are in an acred liability already. We just can't spend them unless we have them appropriated. So, there there was a retirement and we had only budgeted half. We're only I mean we're only budgeting half the cost.

Well, you have to come to us and get to approve the remainder remaining amount or Well, no. I mean, if so, if someone decides to retire, they're they're given that those funds. So, um it would be um it would be paid out regardless of whether it was whether it was budgeted or not. If an employee retires, when we budget, we budget assuming, you know, for that there are going to be some retirements. I work with department heads. They they let me know the employees that they anticipate retiring over the next year. I look at their leave balances. I budget assuming we're going to have those payouts during the during that next year. Um

yeah, so in between years would just be would be it. And the reality for this employee, if they were to retire, we would have to do an amendment because the payout sick leave is significantly more than this amount for the excess vacation. So, do we need to make a budget amendment then to account for the shortfall or are we going to just handle that at midyear because this will this is a budget amendment. Right. But it's depleting our reserves

entirely and then an additional $13,000. And I'm saying, do we need to adjust something else to account for that additional 13,000 or even or we just wait till mid year? In other words, are we carrying a a negative budget until Yeah. I mean, this is using um an assigned fund balance to cover the difference. Basically, reducing our unassigned fund balance. That's the answer. Okay. Okay. Well, you raised another question I had. You talked about um the sick leave. So, is that sick leave? Is that already sitting in an acred liability? All of all for all employees we have sick leave is in there. Okay.

And it's reported on our um audit every year. You can see it reported out. Yeah. It's it's already accounted for, but if it's not appropriated, we we don't have the funds to What about the allowable carryover hours? Is that sitting in an acred liability? Yeah, because it's it's the part of our total vacation time. Okay. Yes. So, the only part that's not sitting in acred liability is the allowable carryover or the carryover that we're talking about vacation. Even all of it is currently sitting in an acred liability and we have to pull not this 349. Yes, it is. All of it is in an acred liability. It's just the money's not

the money is not appropriated, but it's but it's but it's booked. So, we know what that liability would be. If we were to have to pay it all out, we know exactly we don't know how much that would be. We have to report that as of June 30th every year for all employees. And from a staff level, this makes the authorization for payment really simple. Yes. I think as much as anything, that's what we want as easy as possible. Okay. Yeah. We don't want to make your lives harder.

No. Um something that to consider and maybe this some another piece that we can talk about or have a resolution on is um my wife works for a company that if you don't they we they have the same program right every October 1st there there's resets there is no three-month carryover but you can donate unused hours to employees that may have had a rough year and needed some extra time Um, so maybe that's something we can consider as well. Yeah, we our ours will have a sick bank, an employee sick bank that you can take. Oh, we do. Yes, sir.

But not not vacation. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, yeah. And yeah, that makes a lot of sense cuz she doesn't have sick time at all. So, don't keep saying they do. Yeah. Okay, that's great. Um, any other questions? The only thing I would like to to say is, you know, before we vote on this, um I'm going to be and I talk with COO about this. I'm going to be on vacation first meeting in in September, first bone meeting. So, I'd like for this ordinance to be presented at the second meeting and then for the first vote and then the second vote would be the first meeting in October. Uh would we need to we'd have to get since the mayor's meeting, we'd have to get approval from him or

Evans is the only sponsor. So discretion if you want meeting if I wanted to add other people to the sponsor do they have to agree that too or do I just since I'm Yeah. I mean we can add them at a bone meeting. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you. And I'll let Annette know of not put it on next meeting. We'll wait until the second September meeting. Okay. Thanks. Perfect. All right. Anyone want to make a motion? I'll make a motion on the whole second. Motion two to send ordinance amending budget ordinance 20259 recognizing and compensating Hendersonville Fire Chief Scotty Bush for certain vacation carryover hours in excess of the maximum carryover. I for approval

for approval. All right. Do you read? Yes, sir. All right. Those in favor? I I All right. That passes unanimously unanimously. Words are hard. Uh, moving on to we skip. We took off three and four, so we're on number five. Always our favorite sales tax. Okay, now it's your show.

So, we finished last fiscal year, first month of this of this fiscal year. Um, first one in your packet is our state shared um sales tax. Um they came in stronger than I thought they would this first month of the year. Look looking looking good. Um for the first time in a long time if you look at the second page for our local option sales tax stats um the increase over prior year is actually um a little bit less than the statement taxes which is um it's been opposite. So

I'm not sure if that's a a fluke or not. I mean, but still we came in over last year about $28,000. So that's the positive looking looking good so far. Just keep that trend going. It's kind of hard to It's kind of hard to project here when you've only got one month. But but it is good that they're positive analysis. Can you identify what sectors have? Is it restaurants? Is it shopping? It's a No. No. Why? Um I mean you could to some some degree but it's not um delineated out. Okay. Um very easily to discern.

Okay. Right. I'm sorry. Yeah. The other the report that we get we get totals but it's not necessarily total by category. It's just total. Yeah. Um the report that I go ahead say the um next one on here is the hotel motel report. This one I was very pleased to see um this month. I know director Gilly will be excited to see this one too. Um came in very strong um compared to the last couple of years. U first month in quite a while where we've seen um significant year-over-year um

growth. Yeah. which is it's very a very good thing. Uh starting the year out strong. Hopefully it continues like that. Um we had a full month of of rooms rented out in in July and I think the cost per room has gone up a little bit. Therefore, the person tax has gone up a little bit as well with that. Yeah, I noticed we actually ended last year down and part of that was because of the tornado I believe. Yeah, for FY24 the tornado impacted and then that would have bled into the beginning of FY25. Yeah. So now we're back full steam. Hopefully we continue that way. Absolutely.

Um the investment earnings is our next one. If you look July this year compared to last year, we're about $10,000 less on our earnings. I'm I anticipate we're going to continue to see that amount. uh reduce. We have a lot of uh very large items that are budgeted this year, a lot of new projects that are going on. Um some existing product projects that are starting to go. So, we're going to see our available cash that we have to invest reducing. And then if um interest rates drop anymore, obviously that has an impact on there. Still, we're looking positive um compared to what we budget, but our budget assumed that the interest rates were going to drop and that our revenues throughout the year were going to be reduced compared to prior years.

Yeah, always uh I appreciate always planning conservatively. So, thank you for that. Yeah, I'd much rather go the other way and say, look, we've got a little extra than we've got to, you know, find a way to make ends meet, right? Um storm water report. this one. Um not a whole lot to report this year. Um we did actually receive a little bit of um revenue in July, which is um as normal, but we've had a couple of um where we collect made some collections on prior year um late storm water fees. So folks actually came in and paid in July for some late

ones. We normally end up collecting those along with the current year, but we've got had a had a handful of those that have come in and paid in July, which is nice. I'm surprised to see, and maybe you can explain this, that 25 was less than 24. Mhm. And the collection there's more I more houses, more buildings. Understandable. Um, I have asked staff to look in and see, but I at initial look we had more that were are delinquent. Really? Mhm. Do we have Do you have a number uh of like just the number of how many are delinquent?

No, I've asked staff to look into that for me. Okay. You could report back to us on that. I'd appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. That's one that um had a reassessment then 25 where everybody's assessments went up but that wouldn't affect their storm water. Yeah, the tax has changed a little bit. The tax has changed a little bit but the storm water storm water remained the same. Yeah, storm water remained the same. It's not a percentage of Okay. It's 72 per residential and commercial something. I forget. I think it's based on square footage right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Thank you. We'll continue to watch. Um hopefully by then by next month I'll be able to provide a little bit more information on that to you. The last report on here is our HIPP fund. Revenues came in strong on here. It does look so July it is down from last year but remember we had the tax the additional tax on groceries at the beginning of the year last year. So now we do not

um compared to budget we're we're projecting after only one month to come in about $80,000 over budget if we stay trending the same way as this first month. So, I think um we're right pretty much where we want to be on that coming in um with our revenues for the HIPP fund. And the groceries went off in February of last year. Yes. Okay. Thanks.

Yeah, you can see you can see the big drop um for February. And then the second page of this um shows our expenditures. Um this one is a little it's got a little bit different than last year. similar. Um, about halfway down that first section for public safety, you can see where I have the fire truck. I have in parentheses that it was ordered in FY25 because the purchase order is still outstanding. Um, and then there's a new fire engine that was ordered in fiscal year 26 that's on there. I did that because there are a couple of items that were outstanding from the prior fiscal year. So that way you knew that that was an outstanding item that was ordered last year. We haven't received it yet. It'll probably be re be received in FY27 if we're lucky.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it takes it takes a bit. Do we expect to receive um any engines or or trucks this fiscally? No, I don't think so. There's there's Is there one that's engine three should be replaced? Yeah. From It was ordered in FY23. Mhm. Yeah. three years ago. Yeah. And it's expecting it till next year through the book. Hopefully this year. Oh, hopefully this year. What is it? It's about about is it chief? Is it about a 36 month lead time on the Well, they've cut it down to 24 to 28 now. But back when we ordered that one, it was 36 months.

Okay. We should have uh 23 should be replaced uh February or March and then 21's on the hook. That's the one that was bought. 26 and then the truck should be here. I'm going to say probably 28, not even 27. Yeah. Okay. It'll be a while. Yeah. A while here. Any other business? Want to make a motion? Ajourn second. All those in favor? I I thank you. Thank you.