City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome. Oh, there we go. Welcome everybody to the second night of our uh council retreat. Uh let's uh I will note that all five council members are present. I call right now. Um for the record, this is continued from last night. So we're going to see who the press presenters are and see if council can come up to a decision on budget. Stay tuned. Right. There's an award given at the end. Best presenter, best dress,

and we will proceed forward because only BYU's playing, but if they were to play, we'd be watching the game up there. Who cares about the Cougars, but go Cougars as well. Okay. All right. So, we are into uh uh parks and recck facilities on page 39. Is there anything from Nate or Brett before we get going?

No, we get right into it. So, yeah, first we'll just talk about the facilities. As you know, Cameron for the last year, we we asked him to help oversee the facilities and um and so he's done a really good job this this past year identifying areas of improvement. So in this budget you'll see recommendations from him items that need to be addressed sooner than later and then later he'll have more recommendations of of keeping the buildings that we should consider. So you've prioritized these ones or Cameron has and so I'll let Cameron present

All right. So Brad said I took over buildings in July. Um and they include parks and wreck building, the public works city hall, public works storage building, the salaker home. Uh it's about 60,000 square feet of floor area. Let's see. Let's see. Okay. Professional services. We bumped up $3,500 from 5,000 to 8500 because I would like to include an annual garage door and HVAC maintenance program and have the windows the outside windows clean that um maintenance and repair. It's gone up 5100 because we have a water heater that was put in in 2011. This is kind of more of a preventative maintenance item and a garage door. We're down to one in that building that's original to the building in 2001. The HVAC system in the office portion is um also original and is at the end of its life. It has been recommended by the contractor that it's it's working right now, but it is it's time to replace it.

You'll see that request on page 57. They go to capital and it goes to capital equipment projects. That's on page 57. So, we kind of go back and forth a little bit. Let's see. public works facility on page 40. Let's see. Professional services has gone up to 4,000 because I'd like to get the door maintenance program and yard gate maintenance which we have 4F program as well as an HVAC program and they'd like to get there exterior windows cleaned where

uh professional services. Okay. 310 janitorial supplies gone up 750. Things are just getting more expensive and we're just trying to keep up. Let's see. Maintenance and repair has gone up 7500. I'd like to replace the original toilets from 1990 that are old and tired

and we have two drinking fountains that are also original and are giving us some problems in leaking and lipping along. Um, in all of these facilities, I've added, and they're they're all separate, um, touchless faucets to all of our restroom facilities in all of our buildings. So, that about $300 a piece. That would be me putting them in, but you're going to see those in all of the all of the buildings. See, go to public facility. You can see in this picture, this is in front of our salt shed. It is a tired area. The pavement is tried to do this a couple times. The pavement is the salt. It's It's worn out. So, we have 40,000 in there for repaving that that area. And then in the upstairs 13,000 for HVAC. Upstairs we have um we've built that out slowly and our HVAC system is not it's a it's a furnace and air conditioner like you'd have in your house, but it's not sized or powerful enough to keep up with the offices. I personally added an office up there for Dave Walker. We taking storage off and we're putting more and more offices in there. This would be to put separate units in Dave Walker's office and then the big office that Donna works in so they can not have the huge temperature extremes. Um we've tried in Donna's office, we've tried wind window seal that's it faces um south and it gets really really hot in there. So that would that's to take care of

that. City Hall, we have decreased the part-time wages 55,000 and only include one part-time in there. Uh we have one part-time now and he comes in and he does carpets and he does a really good job. Um, and the reason we're decreasing that is because we've gone to a contractor for custodial work. And that's why this professional services has increased the $50,000. Um, it also includes the fire system window and uh the custodial services. The main uh mechanical service that's for our HVAC boiler stuff. Boilers are fine, but our pumps are still aging. Our air conditioner, etc., the blowers and so forth are need to be repaired. I'm already out of I'm already out of funds in our mechanical services budget this year. Uh janitorial supplies up a thousand just because prices of products are going up. That's 20,000 in the maintenance and repair. To add touch faucets, replace blinds in a bunch of upstairs areas, especially facing west where it gets really hot. Um, and the top in this picture that's just outside outside the bridge. Those pictures on top are actually plastic. I repaired one, the bulb went out, so I had to get up there and repair and they're cracked. They're they're original of the building. And so I'd

like to replace those with new just the tops with new fixtures. See, so capital capital equipment for city hall. That's on page 58.

We had we budgeted last year $34,400 to get a disconnect installed because that's what our quote was. I didn't get the quote that was before me, but our quote to do that was thatish price. Um, we went and did an RFP for it and that contractor I contacted them and said, "Hey." And they were not interested anymore. So, we did put it out to bid and we got some interest, but ultimately they said, "We need more information. We need to talk to a electrical engineer." We've set hired one. Um, they've got Rocky Mountain Power involved and the cost has gone up tremendously just because Rocky Mountain Power has their own standards that we have to meet. Now, if we touch anything out there, we have to come up with current code. Um, right now we can't shut the building off, fire, anything. We're waiting for Rocky Mount to come out and shut our power off at the pole um before we can do anything in the building. Um the transfer switches are not currently working properly. Um those are to switch power back and forth from the generator and the and the grid. They're also original to the building in 93. um parts are hard to come by with those and uh they are recommended to be replaced

and the critical part of this is this is our EOC so it's really important that this building functions with power on all the utilities um since it is our EOC um Cameron did have recommendations to replace these items also with the public works uh building that is our backup EOC I just made the recommendation let's focus on this this year we'll work on public works next Uh I mean it's not guaranteed but yeah we have applied for a grant to get kit generator transfer switch and the disconnect here at this building.

We'll see what happens. The generator's okay right now. We put it in there. It's out a couple of years to be replaced, but we have FEMA. It's a FEMA grant, right? Yeah. It's one of the congressional earmarks uh through which is through a a FEMA grant. So, I don't know what the odds are, but pretty low would be my guess. Actually, it's pretty. So, she's going to be able to do it if she's part of a different district. Will she continue working on this grant?

We'll know by tomorrow what grants we get. So, we we're actually Mike can talk about a little bit more, but we're actually mostly Mike, but Mike and I are communicating with the DC people. I just met spoke to Congresswoman Malloy staff. They really like a couple of our projects and we think this is one of them, but the other one is the $3 million well. So very promising. We'll find out tomorrow. So great. Thank you for continuing to look for opportunities that way. That's fantastic. Are these with these come true for them?

A lot of it's our staff put together, but group for sure has helped them guide and make sure we get everything in. In fact, the staffer told me yesterday we were by far the most prepared out of any of the applicants this year as far as what we submitted. And again, that's the person, but our staff is the one who's kind of run together. So who's finding Ferguson? The Ferguson group is helping us navigate. We already know about the congressional. This is different every year. Congressional

and Congress Congress Council Bal with Representative Moore and told what we're pursuing assuming he's successful. He's got a tough race on his head. So yeah, that that'll have to chber.

To Robin's point, I I hear what you're saying on, you know, who is finding them? I mean, it leads to is Ferguson doing their job. I will say that federal grants are incredibly difficult to navigate and they are probably saving us thousands of dollars. Like obviously maybe staff could do it, but if you were to go hire somebody to help you chase that, they're really expensive to chase. They're they're drafting the letters of support that

kind of they're probably making it happen where it's really easy to lose. They're they're really painful. I've done a few work and competitive. Except you don't know exactly what you're doing are not going to win. And we had four requests. So two of them are being seriously considered. I think for sure we'll get one of them next.

I was just curious as to whether we found out about them or they were just helping us get them. back to page 42. 42.

All right. I'm asking for $3,000 increase. Uh so we can include uh that's nine garage doors I'd like to put on an annual maintenance program and as well as the four heaters in that batch job and a few we're down to a few um oldfashioned security lights like showing that are not LED that I like to push over the top retrofitting all of Um, so I would

page 58. $30,000. We when we build the decamp, we did not besize our water line out in the road and it also does not have hot water. So, we're having to right now clean our plow trucks mostly in the decap and then drive them to the car wash and finish cleaning them out. So, this would be to increase the volume and also to have hot water so we can do the whole process at the camp.

Which line are you on? This is the first item under public work storage dec. So the last kind of three items there on page 58. Um $20,000 on that next line to replace the garage door openers. Um, that building was built in 2003 and we have six of eight garage door openers that are original. We have them go out and we were down for a couple of months this past year because these two I don't know why it was so hard to find, but we'd like to just replace them and get them all modern and up to date. Then the final one, we have four heaters in that back shop. I'm asking to phase do two this fiscal year and then two next fiscal year to replace them. Those are also original. They were actually looked at today and they are also pretty close to their end of their service life. They're running quite hot. Whitaker has 43 insurance or something negligible operation cost

insurance and the other capital projects I don't know they've been determined what projects they're pursuing we don't I don't know that I don't know what that by the tax the 27,500 in the Whitaker home capital projects as the wrap tax transfer

any questions public works. Good stretch. Come on down. 10:30. Yeah.

City Council thankful to be here tonight. I think it should be fun. Anyway, I kind of want to go a little bit about what public works have been doing, where we're going, and and where we've been a little bit. To start off with that, you know, we've talked a little bit about Ferguson groups. So, this is how I see it. Like Kevin and I, my staff will come up with with projects that we want to go after. Ferguson will look at and find projects that fit what it is that we want to go after, the grants. And so from there that they they'll look and find stuff and then they'll help us put it together. Kevin is a big part of it. He brings in a lot of the technology to to get the wording right and then from there Ferguson cleans it up. They help us navigate. They do all the letters of support. Then we submit it into them. And it's in honest. It's a team effort. And if you take away one of the teams people, it makes it extremely difficult. I don't know how we would have enough time to do it all because it comes so fast and we're trying to get all this information turned in and we really need somebody that is there and group that can do them through the final submitting. So,

how many times did you do that this year specifically? That little process that you just talked about, how many times did you do that this year? To give you an example. Nope. Nope. Just the number. The number of grants. that the number of times you did that you don't know how to answer that without saying how many projects I mean we have multiple tons of projects that we look at and then we evaluate so you know if you take evaluation probably 15 projects that we looked at and then we start honing them in for what will work out you communicated with them 15 times on 15 separate occasions we meet every twice a month we meet with them okay and communicate back and forth so

frankly we can we as a council can help them with that. We get those emails. They come to us. Every grant, every email that Ferguson sends out, they send to us, too. And I have sent several on to staff to say, "Hey, I just saw this. We've talked about this in the past." I mean, we can participate in that, too, and be helpful in catching things to do. We're get half a dozen or more. They they it is almost it takes a lot of time to really go through those emails they send out and make sure that we're reviewing. So reminds me I make sure Council Me you get on that list. Yeah. I'll be aware you'll get that.

It's I there's there is a ton of information that Ferguson is providing in those emails and I that can be a full-time job I think just tracking all that. I try whatever I see I try to send on but I sometimes I'm spending an hour or more just reading the emails and seeing if there's anything that would relate. So I think that staff has done a really good job of finding them and they usually are one step ahead. Like when I send it out and say hey what about this? They're like well this is why we can't this one doesn't apply to us because of this. So I think Ferguson is doing a good job with the every other week. It's kind of like finding the perfect project like the the tank which I'll talk about in a few minutes. You know, that project has come up perfect, you know, so it fit in and everything felt good. The projects this year felt really good. I think that due to why we're where we're at right now, you know, I don't want to say how hopeful I am, but I am pretty hopeful that we will, you know, be able to maybe put the canyon well in, drill a hole, get the building up. is my whole, you know, and in talking about that way with the grant, we had many more things in there. We had over $20 million worth of grants that we refined trying to work towards because we heard more or less go big or go home. You know, on some of our like our reservoir project, it was kind of small and so we were lucky in that, but they wanted to see a lot of projects. Well, we got going through there had, you know, Main Street water line in there that we've got in the budget tonight. We'll talk about You know, we had the other one on main street from four south to first south in there which was a transmission line. We had the hillside in there. So, we had all these things and then things changed a little bit and the mood changed from what the congressman want and so we had to adapt and change to that. So, it's a it's a big deal. I mean, it's a lot of work. So, when we talk about Ferguson

group, that's one group that we work with. So the other one is is WFRC and different types of grants in WFRC and one of my new favorite ones is their quarter tax. I love I love working with the county on these things and so I'll kind of talk about them unless you have more questions about the Ferguson group. Well there I just say Brent I I am getting those emails comes in as TFG. I didn't recognize that was Fergus. So, I'm getting that. And and my question, are we paying them a a yearly fee for their services or is it per time they help us?

We pay them $60,000 a year. So, each fund pays $15,000 general fund, drainage, water, and sanitation. So, so far, I mean, the big one, uh, I'm going to step on a little bit. We did give $ 1.5 million grant a couple years ago for the water tank that's being built. So they helped us and know as we score on this $3 million well pump house grant that we applied for through the earmarks. So very helpful.

We're not going to win every time, but I think I like the one thing I was a little bit worried about with Ferguson group at first was it's really easy. They're doing a lot of work, but whether or not we're taking able to take advantage of that is the question, right? And I have literally watched our staff like do her lean efforts to stay up on that. And so I I think we are still ahead of the game on that as far as what we're spending versus what we've got.

They also came out. They know our city. Those of us who have read the NAS and reviewed and applied for federal grants know how difficult it is and how much they save time. It's it would be it grant like the water tank is probably a 20 to $30,000 endeavor if you were to hire a consultant to help. Okay. So that's oneird of what we're paying, right? But we've gotten more than just that. Well, if you're paying 23,000 and not potentially not getting the grant. So you're doing that 10 times your grant. Again,

we we've applied for more than one of those. We went after a really big one that we did not get and frankly we wouldn't have been able to make good on it anyway if we' have gotten it because the states canled the um aquaer storage recovery. Council, give me $300,000. I'll give you $1.5 million. You taking that

because that's what we're at right now. The example for me would like this and I it's a simple story is we wanted to do a water smart grant and it was a 50% match. Our match was 75,000 and the the water smart grant was 75,000. So 7575 so total $150,000. I sat down with Rebecca because I expressed interest that I wanted to try to get a bunch of meters in town, get them radio reads so that we can read them all year long and get leaks

up to date real time leaks. We could notify people. It's still a plan that we want to move forward on. But for me, I sat down and she started asking me all these questions as she was putting it together. So, we submitted it. We got it back. I got a letter and I was actually head of the rural water and I went down to a guy that writes the grants for rural water and I I says what does this mean exactly? I knew what it meant but he goes I've never seen one of those before and I think if if I would have tried to do that myself I don't think it would have happened the way that she put the words in there and everything in there hit all the boxes checked everything out and that's what they bring to us. We give them the project. We give them the verbiage. you give them everything that they need to do to make a project and then they check all the boxes to make sure that it's in line with what's going forward. So, I mean, it's up to you whether you want to sign up to Ferguson again or not. But, as long as you pay the money, I'm going to do my best to get the grants. That's how I look at it. So, this is a perfect segue in. I want to talk about, you know, where we're at right now with grants. I kind of want to paint a picture if I can. So, grants going on right now. We have four east south or or pages lane that's going on. That's a WFRC grant. It's not through Ferguson. It's one that Kevin and the staff have put together and we were able to obtain that one. So 50% off is a pretty good deal in my book. And then you take four south widening. That was a WFRC grant as well. And that was to extend the curbon gutter over put the box well the county was putting the box cover in but then it was to make a trail from the frontage road all the way to Main Street. And you know as long as I've been here I don't know where the city would ever come up with enough money to put curb gutter going down south. You have no contractors to come in and put a subdivision in. So it was a perfect win-win. And so we received that 5050% match. Well, Kevin had an idea. Let's go

after the third quarter tax. And we met with them. They came in. Instead of paying 50%, we're paying 20%. So it's a 30% savings of what we received on that. So we turned the money back in WFRC so that another community could use that and we proceeded to move forward. the county really liked it and that the committee was there really liked it because it's conducive with what the county wants to have happen. They want to see places where people can travel and move back and forth and so I I felt like it was a great project. Councilman Hurst was there. I think the same thing. So that's one that's in the works right now. You know about the tank. I don't know if I need to talk about that, but originally it was 1.5 due to the EPA taking so long getting it going. We may be up to 600,000. They can correct me if I'm wrong, but it's still 150 or $1.5 million that we received from that.

Well, it started it originally was 75% right, which I my experience from my professional life in that is that man, you did really good if you got a 75% grant from the federal government. So that was and that was I love what Mike said that it is a team effort because frankly the mayor was heavily involved in that too and had some connections but so I and the that's why I'm saying we all need to be watching it because we never know when there might be something that you are you know something or someone that you can be a help to it too. So I just think it's a great way to try to utilize some of those tax dollars that our residents have spent. They've given it to the federal government and it's great to get a little back to Centerville.

Well, then the other one was a CB uh CBDG brand trans grants for the ADA ramps which Mark and Bryce and them have been working on over the years. That's something that we do do in house. So, what's the future? So, the future is this. So, we have uh fourth north from Main Street to fourth east in the hopper right now. We will know on the 25th on that one whether we're successful at the 50/50 match. So 50% of the cost center will get to pick up better than 100%. That's one that's in the hopper. And then the one that we kind of talked about tonight was the new canyon well is in the hopper. Hopefully we can pull that one off because I think that would be huge for our city. And then the other one is uh me and Kevin got a meeting with the uh the county on Monday to talk about another project to kind of get their opinion on what it is we want to do and what our ideas are. So we're continually going. So that's kind of the grants. Any questions on grants?

No, thank you. You've done amazing. You and your crew have done it's been fun.

Amazing on the grants that we've got. Frankly, frankly, I like honestly that is one thing that I can honestly say over the top efforts on that which is why we have seen some success and so that third quarter sales tax came about Colorado I think and and approved that and so when we don't submit a project they take the mayors that uh haven't submitted a project and know what the projects. So that's why last year I didn't spit a project. Uh but um it's kind of like federal grants. Do I think it could use the money? Not necessarily. So, but should we take advantage of it? Yes. Right. The reason I don't I've seen some projects where communities are taking all the risk off the contractor where they're putting curves and gutters, pipes, everything else. But that discussion is not for here. That discussion is for somewhere else. But it's there. And so uh we should take advantage of it. And uh then what's great about third quarter sales fact WFRC grants is they're right here. You can contact who who who do you work with Mike at WFRC?

Oh Ben or somebody else. But anyways, okay. So that's that's what's what that's what's so great about those all those grants that you described. outside. When they give a grant, does there ever any expectation in return for something? Many times it depends. Federal level has a lot more what you've done at WFRC not it depends more. federal for sure get Davis Bacon involved and they just it's pretty

there's a lot of people on regulations and oversight monitoring but that's where first group also helps us with the the monitoring of it well it's like the reservoir being you know I mean it's like you buy a fitting you got to have the documentation and you got to keep the documentation all the way through for these not so much on that kind of stuff so What about the WFRC though with respect to the communities they're helping? Like if if Centerville's got a lot the last few years are less likely to be looked at heavily with our neighbors have big needs. I

is that you can answer that. That's you know in a lot of cases if if you go to these meetings with WFRC you see a lot of projects out there and they do look to see which ones are the best and who it helps out. Now to our credit being the city, not just me, but we're shovel ready on a lot of our projects. So that's a big deal to WFRC because if we're ready to move on a project, they can bounce us up in there. Sorry. I was going to say on 400 East, didn't we get bumped up a few years in the

because projects? Yeah, we got it combined, right? Because we were ready to go and another community wasn't. So, they moved us up on the

We have a very good public works department and Mike and the staff and Kevin outside consultant. I think we're very honest on our applications. When I've been uh when we haven't submitted, I've seen some projects that are even close to shovel ready. And we won't name the city that have submitted a lot of not close to shovel red projects except they're a big city in our county. But uh but but we've never done that week to do it. But without taking any more time, I mean we have three other grants that we've already been approved on. One of them is 1250 west from Parish Lane to westbound limits. That's one of them. The other one is the trails going from 450 West from Parish Lane over to the the other trail which you know I mean we could spend all night talking about this stuff but the the state is going to put a path going over I15 over Legacy. So this path will tie in. So you're making more of a a route going around. So you know there's a lot of good things. It's it's hard.

I just want a clarification though. wonderful that we're shovel ready and and available to receive some of this funding, but my question is, have have we received a significant amount? We've got some great grants. So, do we need to plan on being more conservative because other cities are likely going to get that money shoveled their way in the coming future, or are we par with the course on what we've received comparable to our neighbors? And because if I were on those boards, you would lean heavily towards a city that wasn't assisted significantly the last few years if they had some needs. I just wonder where we fit in that mix.

I think in reality they're fair. I think it's a project number one. Number two, in one case we did get bumped for a year because we'd received so many grants. But the bottom line is everybody has the same playing field. If you have a good project, it'll go through. You could have a good project every year and you'll get selected every year. As long as you have a good project, it makes sense. They might delay you um in the interest of somebody who hasn't received one and they finally have a good project. But again, that's what's great about our public works department is they're it's always a pretty good project. And the mayor gets upset when he has to do the tour third quarter tax. He's like, "Why didn't you apply? I don't want to do this."

I I I do, but the years we don't submit something. Sure. make me aware what's going on in I think that's a great question Council Ber I can't speak to all Wrants but the third quarter sales tax there's always been more money available in grants than projects applications that have been put in but we have come back and said we're not giving you at this point in time because you're not shovel ready we're only giving you 50% of what you want 25% of what you want the the mayors that haven't submitted usually by about five make that recommendation to cog which is all three county commissioners and then vote on approval projects using the October meeting but that's just a third quarter sales tax grant for like our 1250 west extension and you you guys looked at one other WC

originally was a WFRC got to certain huh originally WFRC then move first quarter which they were grateful to have the money back in because I think they had some places to

so relationships matter in this and we have strong relationship with all these organizations in fact they come to us and say do you have a project because this one just fell through and we've got to spend this money or we're going to lose the money because it's from the federal government or whatever the case might be. So relationships are critical. The one big thing I want to point out, again, something I mention every year, um, but just important to mention, as we go for grants, we go for grants that are a priority for us and not go for the grant and then fit the project for the grant. We have the project already needed. It's already on our plan. And then we pursue the grant. Some cities will will go the wrong way and say, "Oh, that's a great grant, $2 million. We'll do that one." And it's a 25% max. You got $500,000. That's a 20-year project. And now we have to bump our shortterm one to fiveyear projects for a 20-year project. And that's where we're really careful of is we only pursue grants that are in our shortterm needs. Anything else on grants? Let me just try to help us get back up the on the schedule. So, couple things. I've got the list up here, but a couple things that I've added. Um, rant is I have a picture of all my crew outside my office and I look at it continually. And, you know, the thing that I'm having problem with is every year since I've been in, we've lost one to two staff members a year. You know, they're they're they're leaving for other opportunities, another city. uh maybe not with one with maybe just not the right fit for him in his in the career here, but it is one of the problems we have. I you know I have a lot of employee I don't have a lot of employees that have very much longevity. You know Dave will talk about that later on. I don't want to take from him but in one department in the water department we're having a hard time. I mean I've got a guy at six months I got a guy at two months but they will go into that. I don't want to get into that too much. But the other thing is training, keeping these guys trained. Right now I have six guys that are trying for their water

operator, three guys trying for their CDLs, and that's just a small handful of guys. So, uh, and Dave will be into more of that. So, part of mine and and Dave's responsibility is to try to build departments that we're trying to build the streets, we're trying to build the water, uh, the drainage. We're trying to build these departments so that they're sustainable and function our own like you'll see it tonight. I decided to share the leadership. So, I'm allowing Dave's going to do some, Steve's going to be up here, Mark's going to be up here in a minute. So, I want them to help sell their department to you guys a little bit more. So, things that are going on good. One of the things that I feel like we really boosted on is the web post. I think we're getting a lot of information out there to our citizens. Just like the green waste, we're trying to kick out as much as we can. You guys give us $20,000 a year. we haven't been able to use a whole amount. So, what we want to do, get the information out, get the people bringing the green waste. So, that's one thing I feel really good about is our relationship with the citizens I hope is getting better. Excuse me, that we're able to to get with them and get information out. Sorry. So, going back up the sheet. So, we have 65 miles of road and gravel that we take care of. Mark's been out crack sealing with his guys the last little bit, which I think saves the city a lot of money. We're not sure what the water worth rate increase is looking at at this point. I'm sure that some people get an opportunity. Thanks. You're all right. I needed that. Uh we have 106 miles of water main and services. We're doing about 50 or 51 thou thousand or excuse me 55,165 service connections. Part of the problem that we have and I'll take a pause at this next one is part of the thing that I asked my staff to do as we were

preparing the budget was to say I want you to look at each line item. I want to be a realistic number. If it can go down it goes down. If it's got to go up it's got to be justified. So as we did our budgets these are realistic numbers to us. I don't know where we can cut them to make things better, but we've done things to where we feel like we're staying. We're not putting fluff in there. You know, we're hoping that these numbers when the end of the budget year, we're at those numbers of what we're presented in our our budget. So, part of the control we don't have is we based our our rates 14.3%. We have one more year before they're going to level off and that's a huge amount of money for us. So we have 500 acre feet of water and so we don't want to lose the 500 acre feet of water. So what does that mean to Centerville? 500 acre feet. We can run our water system for about two and a half months on weaver basin water and the rest we have to run on wells. So that's kind of what it is. We do it during the winter months so it's not our usage isn't as high. So if you ran it during the summer, we would run out of water a lot quicker. So we like to give our wells a rest for a couple months, let the aquifers come up, kind of water and see where they're at, what's going on with them is part of the reasons why we do it. And the last clip is, you know, we're the public work is trying to do more with the same amount of money. So that's kind of where we're at. I'll jump into the next slide. So, one ask that I have is with things changing and losing people is when my administrative assistance gone, I have a hard time trying to find somebody to come in and take care of it. So, we're asking for I think it was $2,000 there to be able to pay somebody to come in. One way or the other, we end up paying for it whether we take it out of regular salaries or

what have you. So, right at this time, we have our old administrative assistant who comes in. I shouldn't say, "Oh, that's not right." My past administrative assistants come in and she comes in and the nice thing that she brings to the table for me is she knows everything. She knows about garbage pickup and all these things. So, for me, we have an hourly rate uh that she comes in, she's on as a part-time employee at this point. Uh but it's it's a way of being able to have somebody come in if she's sick or whatever. If we don't have that, then it's like everybody in the front office trying to cover for everybody. And it takes up a lot of my time sometimes when, you know, she's not there calls in sick and then being a young young family, you can kind of tell where that goes. So, we had an increase in memberships. The 211 account that was I wanted to add Dave into be a member of the Inter Mountain AWA. It's kind of like roadwater, but it's a lot bigger thing I've always appreciated about AWMA that they bring my scope in a bigger project. I think if you corner Dave off the site, he would tell you how good of a benefit that is. Our 250 account, we moved all the vehicles into into the public works administration. So, we had no present any repair money in there. So, we're asking for a,000 bucks to cover any oil changes and things like that. uh 340 we were trying to bring everything in so that we had like all data is a computer program Cummins is a computer program international uh the Snap-On is a program so we brought them in and then also if we're buying a computer that would go into that category

314 is what he say that's yeah sorry

so anyhow that's kind of what we're at the 480 account that's kind of for unseen things, small things that we need to purchase, things that just are happen and you don't have a really a nice spot to put it into, but but yet not big enough you can make a line item for it. So, part of our our uh focus is to or Dave and I and Lauren is to get our staff trained, see what we can do, how we can help incentivize people. Like I say, if you notice outside my office, there's many times I'll be on the phone and I'll be thinking about individuals that's on that picture saying, "Am I making them be the best that they can be and what can I do to help them get to that point?" That's something that's important to me that I that I feel I enjoy doing. I like to make sure that that stuff is going on. So, uh, 330 account is our education. Dave and I attend uh two major conferences. Both of them are just, you know, it's the information is out there. I mean, the water regulations are changing. We had lead copper we had to deal with. You know, we've dealt with byproducts disinfection. St. Steve has been dealing with the lead copper. So there's many regulations out there that we have to stay on top of to keep our water system uh current and in in compliance is the word I'm looking for. So these funds are five staff members that basically use those funds. So

on the 480 miscellaneous supplies 3100 includes a tablet. So, we put a tablet in there as well for they needed a new tablet this year. Should it be in computer services for that? Well, hey, why' we put that in there? We can move it. It's not a big deal, but I just in like I do agree with Rick a little bit like let's keep miscellaneous like oh, we don't have another code. So,

right. What happens to is it's is if a tablet is purchased, we'd be coded properly. That line item might go over by a couple hundred dollar, but if they're on that 3100, it's under $200. So, so it gets coded regardless. You might see line items go above what's budgeted, but it's because but at the bot at the end of the day, whatever that subtotal is down at the bottom, you live in that subtotal. Okay. Coding it properly. Very important. Okay. Well, that end the public work administration unless you have some questions. This point I'll have Mark come up and I'll slide over here. Streets. Yeah.

What page? 31. 31. You wish.

Okay. Um, budget highlights for the streets department. Um, we have a slight bump in vehicle maintenance. Um, that's basically oils, parts, builders, stuff like that. Uh, the hauling increase of the $1,300 for asphalt, concrete dumping. This one I see growing with the front growing and us not being able to get rid of the concrete asphalt um, at the pits anymore. We're having to pay to get rid of the material. So, I think it's a small increase this year, but I think it'll grow over the years. Uh, we have this the snow removal decrease $26,000 because it doesn't snow anymore. Hallelujah. Um, the sign decrease to $9,000.

Like your employees were sad about that this year. Some of them were sad. They were. Yeah. I was not one of those. That's good to know. Were you sad about that? I was sad. I wanted to go riding again. Oh, Chuck wasn't sad. No, Chuck wasn't sad. Chuck plow and Joyce plowing. Um, the sign decrease of $9,000. We didn't have any asks for any additional RFBs or anything like that. Remind me what the RFB is. That's those flashing lights for the crosswalks. Okay.

Um, and then we have a slight increase in the street light repairs. It just seems like the infrastructure is getting older. It's cost a little bit more to fix it every year. So that's why they have that. I'll put in a quote a little bit for Mark. Every year uh puts in here that maybe one day the city considers a street light fee on the utility bills. There are several cities who do that effect. Mark and I both pay a street light fee a $4 monthly fee for street light to to maintain street lights. And we're not arguing for that. We just wanted to put it out there. Mark brings it up every year. So, yeah, but there's a street light on every road or street that might be a

You still benefit. Mark Mark Street doesn't have any lights, but you still benefit when you hit the main roads. You still benefit when you go to other areas and the expectation is very high here that the street lights be working. Yes, it is. I've had a complaint this week. Yeah, we're not arguing for that. Again, that's just one of those items. Could we roll that into a conversation about transportation fees, too? Like could we address both of those? Sure. At some point

do we have any do we have any grow projects this year? 400 East that that's our main. Okay. Okay. And is that coming out of fund our portion fund 47? I thought I might have forgot. I I'm looking for it. So, go to page 59. Transportation. Transportation has Oh, it's there. Okay. Sorry. You're right. Mark, do you see uh for adding any new positions on streets? Not the next year.

Mayor. Are you seeing any of the Saints turnover that Mike mentions?

We've been pretty lucky the last few years that we've had a whole crew, but getting a whole crew, we had a couple years where we were months and months and months without anybody, no applications, no nothing. So, I think we went 10 months at one time with an open application. I remember the day when we would put out for an opening and we would get 150. I mean, you had a pile of applicants. Now, it's just like literally I feel like with the last two that we've brought on, we did some fishing and you know was able to get some good employees. I feel very very good about and I don't want to get into Dave still, but I feel very very good about the staff that Steve's got now, but the problem is is the age and Dave will talk about that. Okay, next we have um Street Department Capital Equipment.

Stop on page 58 57 or 57, sorry. We talk capital 57 and 58. Yes. Uh the first one is the 10 wheel rolloff hook truck with the plow equipment. Um, this is going to replace one of the 10 wheelel dump trucks. This truck is cities and municipalities are moving to this hook trike application. It makes you can use the truck for more than just one thing. Um, so that's where we're trying to go with that. Um,

well, with the hook truck too, tell them all the applications that we can do that we've talked about. They have sweepers, they have vacuums, they have the plow equipment, they have dumpsters. Anything you can imagine, they can build basically anything. We can actually liquidate our big flat batter F700 and just go with it truck. So that saves us maintenance on the motor and everything else. So it's kind of the direction we'd like to see go.

And then the ball tail with the plow equipment. Um, this is going to replace the 2021 with the plow. This is our asphalt truck. It It essentially has a conveyor in it with a conveyor system on it that we use for our asphalt patching and and stuff that we do with the asphalts. Um, and then the projects are 400 East, 100 South, Pages Lane, Road Creek Construction, Quarter Lane Main Street. Cat asphalt roller. Oh, I It's not on my paper. That's why. The cat asphalt roller. It's 59,000.

59,000. Uh, yeah. The asphalt roller we have now is it's a 5-year-old piece of equipment um set up with deaf. One of the perks of the new roller is we don't have to deal with the death on the equipment. That's hard on the equipment with the emission stuff. Uh we have a tradein value of 27 or $29,000. 27.

Um we think we can do better by reaching out to some of our contractors that we have dealt with in the past and work with and sell it outright. Uh, so hopefully that looks different. So I wanted to ask on that on on these prices you're indicating, are they already including some tradein value or some sell over the other equipment?

No, that's back to the first page, the sell fixed assets. That's where we account for in the revenues on the revenue page beginning. Um, that's what we account for. We don't we don't offset in the budget. We want the true cost of what an item is at the true sale of an item in that line. So our revenue is on page nine and you estimate it as the conservative lower amount. I assume usually we do better on the the price and the size and those other two vehicles that are so expensive there's some trade in realiz on page nine then for those

um us to plug the the roll off again is you get rid of the truck. You may be able to keep the flatbed, you may be able to keep the dumpster. If we end up with a back system down the road, you're able to keep that stuff and you just send the truck off the back in the budget. That's the attachment to this. So, that's this year's budget. Yeah. Um Quarter Lane Main Street to 800 West. That's the curb gutter and the widening. And then we'll have the various slurry seal projects throughout the city for the road maintenance.

And then our cracker stuff that the city does various and that is an amazing project that our city staff goes out and does and saves us a ton of money. If you drive around, you see Mark and his crew out doing that themselves. I didn't used to do that and Mark has taken that on and saved us a lot of money and I appreciate that.

Not only saving us money by doing it themselves, but also just the maintenance on the roads is really critical to the like we're we're really pushing the life of the road with our the budgets that we have and doing this helps to make it just extends the life of the road. By bringing it in house, I think we have a better handle on quality control. We're able to do a better job and use the materials more waste. But getting that down and protecting that surface is really critical to maintaining that growth base for as long as we can. We were still doing that where you're just hiring it out, taking it off. So,

but the difference is is when you hire it out, you're paying for labor. You know, it's there's a lot of different philosophy about public works employees, right? So Mark's guys are here. It's whether Mark can schedule the time in and get it in there to where the guys are productive in what they're doing. If they're able accomplish this over here and the crack filling, it's more efficient of your crew. So you get more bang for the buck. You get more miles of road to crack if we can do it in house. Well, like Mark said, we're getting a better job because he's there and she's very fussy about how it's done. which we are. I see Mark. I see Mark. He's very fuss. He got mad at me.

If you want a job done right, Mark does it right. He's all about quality. I'll testify to that. So, they were in my neighborhood last year and I was very impressed with how they were doing it. We compliment. I know. Oh, sorry. Did you want us to be a little harder? Um, well, that's cuz Mark and I have passed a couple times, but it's his quality, man. So, you're making it hard on the mayor because you're doing too good of a job. Agreed to disagree. Well, sometimes, you know, that happens.

Um, transportation. Y uh transportation budget highlights like mentioned the 400 East 100 to south of Pages Lane Rail construct or the 4.194 million175. Um we do have that grant um with UDA.

You can see in the top revenue side $3.9 million in grants to help with these fun these projects. and below the quarter lane widening. We've talked about the crack ceiling, slurry ceiling, we've talked about the sidewalk active transportation for 125,000 that still is getting this along. Okay. Um the area and way rebuild is going to be a project that's in conjunction with the sub drain project uh that the drainage is hopefully going to do next year. Um, and below's the grant. You might share why why are we doing that? Why aren't we not patching it?

Um, the cost different. For one, the road is 20 plus years old already. It's due for an overlay now. Um, and we're just taking advantage of the project and and doing the road rebuild instead of patching. Patching doesn't typically end up well when you're trying to match the existing surface. So redoing the whole road and putting it into the rotation is beneficial.

We'll also look at other utilities while before we do it. So it'll be it'll be done and over with, right? Which I like that idea. Cameron and come up with that. So the 200,000 is what what is happening this year? That's not a whole road. Um maybe some sidewalk, curbon, gutter. Oh, waterway.

It's really tricky with all of our enterprise or transportation as the fiscal year crosses right in the middle of construction season. Um, so yeah, very way they're doing that sub drain because of the timing. We don't know how long it's going to take exactly. We may spend some. So the actual dollar amount we spend won't change, but for budget purposes, we need to put a little bit into this year and then you'll see we'll see more next year

to finish it off next year. 64 64 head guy that keeps track of that last

um sanitation. We have the refuge collection charges that went up a dollar per can. Um the green waste collection recycling went up the 5% increase. I think we're RFP this year for that. next year at the end of 27. So next year

um disposal and tipping fees with wash integrated waste is increased a dollar per can. Um the glass recycling $5,500 for the year. We we started out with a few cans. We're up to a dozen cans now. Um, in this $5,500 number, we're we're monitoring the glass um, recycling at this point. We're not ready for a bin with the requirements of having to dump the metal bin. It doesn't make sense. Um, so the 5500 has enough in it to include two more cans for an additional six months. Um, so we'll monitor it and maybe if we need to add the camp over the holidays or whatever, we'll that. So that's where we're at with that.

It's kind of like though that was something as if the gal came and did the presentation. You guys all remember something that we thought was going to be very very inexpensive. You can already see the numbers growing, right? I mean, and it's it's a big deal. It's amazing during the holidays how many bottles we I won't say what kind there's amazing how many bottles we get during holiday season. So anyway, but I think what you're suggesting is that we're doing a really good job of recycling, Mike.

Yeah, exactly. That's what I would agree. Well put. No, it is. I still believe it's a great idea. I think, you know, you take all that glass that's being recycled versus sitting in our landfill that never decomposes. You know, it was the right thing. I'll be honest, I wasn't in favor of it. But, you know, in honest all honesty, it is the right thing to do. You know, it is a cost, but mostly our community that's using it or do you feel like maybe there's businesses outside? Are you

I think there's a lot mostly ours. mostly we're seeing a lot that maybe businesses are might might be using a glass recycling but again it's a good benefit even if it's a business outside of an area utilizing it that's okay it's not I mean what is the life of the landfill there is it 10 by the landfill six months to five years not much left not much left

and we're going to see our fees going to be transferring it to the desert and so we're going to be paying higher costs once that happens. So going back to the revenues, there is a recommendation to increase our flat can by $1. That's was integrated past uh an increase to $1. So we have to pass that on to our our residents. We did see an increase of 5% n from ACE this year. We're not we're absorbing that in our budget. We're not asking for that. We're just doing just recommending that $1 per can increase that was passed on to us. So, how often is that?

Uh, the eight we just rebided. I think we have three years left on this contract. Two years. Oh, wait. We did three years on this one. We did two years on the extension. So, that'll expire at the end of fiscal year 27. So, the start of fiscal year, but then during that time, the current contract before that can raise prices for 10. So those two separate things you got ACE was that integrated which the mayor supported that the landfill and we got ACE is our contractor we hired to pick up our cans for us.

This increase was included in the bid. Yeah, it was it's not a surprise. It was in the bid from day one as it goes up, which was pretty cool because they gave us the option of buying the cans. If we switch services, you know, we need garbage cans and so they would give us the option of buying recycling. Yeah, recycling, right?

Again, just a note that uh there's a diversion rate that we receive. Now, Los Angeles great is trying to encourage cities to recycle to extend the life of the landfill. So, what they've given us an incentive and Senator's doing pretty good with our diversion rate. We recycle quite a bit. So, it saves us 6,000. Is that what we're at still? Yeah, a little over 6,000 sometimes. 72,000 years, what we save because of the recycling. So, we get more residents to continue to recycle, the more savings we'll see here to try and keep our rates low. That's because we had a recycling program already in place and it's a high participation rate. We're one of the highest county and cities.

We had an opt out. It was first implemented centerville. You had to opt out. Not many people opted out. So we're 95%. Doesn't necessarily mean I should say 95% of people have blue cans. Participation is probably 50%. Active participation is is much lower. So, you were right once. They are the ones with the cans, but in the contract, the dollar was already there. No, no, the dollar is from Wasatch Integrated. The landfill people are saying, "We are going to charge you a dollar more." Ace is saying we have an escalator of 5% on your contract to do two separate things.

What is the 5% per household? And is the cost based on how many cans they empty or the weight ination shipping fees. It's per and population. I think Natalie did some had to do some math for

so if everybody had two cans it cost this. So they have our numbers of how many cans right that our whether you're using or not we're paying for the tipping fees is the weight customer. So you'll see in that here the tipping fees on that line item that's based on the weight I can send this document out to the council but the for trash can it's charging $549. That's what what that's what we're paying today. So that's the

that'll be the new rate. Okay. What are we paying today? Just 95% of that, right?

The people won't see that on the bill. All they'll see is an extra dollar on their cake. Correct. How does that information get out to the the residents? Is that a something that Well, start getting the information out based on these conversations. I mean, I mean, if that that number is going to go up, how does that uh get communicated to the residents? It would be on the utility bill for sure. Um at a minimum, but then of course we have social media. bill say on the utility. It'll more than just show up as a charge. There's a note. Yeah, there's places where you put notes on there.

So before it actually goes up, we'll say effective and public. It usually says when it's going to become effective, too, right? Again, it's all contingent upon this you as a governing body approve that and start. Yeah. didn't want to start notifying that.

Any questions for me before I pass it today? Thank you.

32 GIS Right. Thanks to everybody for uh letting me be here tonight with you. So uh with the GIS, you mainly get highlights because their budget is pretty pretty lean, but we wanted to touch on a few things. Um, as you all may know, the GIS department plays a huge role with basically every single department in the entire city. Um, some of the things that he's done this year, uh, he automated Davis County parcels and subdivision data into our zoning maps. So, he's connected with community development, upgraded zoning, emergency management, uh, trails, garbage interactive maps, all to our new platform that everybody's using. Um some of the apps, the enhancements of the app development for public works and parks. This has been uh quite helpful. Our street department uses it, our water department uses it. Drainage. It's not just the mapping of infrastructure, but we also have um on the EZRI platform, there's the field maps, which is our our day-to-day usage. There's also something called Survey 123, which is a place where he's able to actually develop different uh forms and data collection programs for us. Uh the street department uses it to track our salt distribution if it ever snows again. Um our drainage department uses it for a couple things. Water department uses it, vehicle inspections, all those things are tracked through there. So, it's a huge benefit. uh he acts as our tech support for the

parks and for the public works down there. Does wonderful there. Then of course he uh helped this year with the Whitaker Museum with some audio recordings and some printouts that we have. So Dave, I'm sorry. I don't know where it says when you're saying he he sorry Mike Smith. So I'm Yes, you may not have met him. Mike Smith is phenomenal. He's arguably one of the best in the state, maybe even further. He handles all of this. So, anytime you see anything with a map or anything, uh, you get information from us on infrastructure, he's had his hands on that and made that happen. And he's a full-time employee,

full-time. He's down at our public works upstairs with with the rest. The zoning map is is by far, I believe, the best zoning path amongst all those cities. Good to know. Very user friendly. He does great. Takes a tremendous amount of pride in what he does and uh so yeah, he's he's huge for us and just fantastic and he's always so willing to help you if you need anything because I go down with some pretty weird projects and I'm always surprised he's like, "Yep, we can do that." Absolutely. Some of the stuff he he does for us, we come up with weird ideas and it's pretty remarkable.

What's his last name? Smith. It's about as generic as you could get. Not even made up. So, some of the data that's coming for the general plan when we talked about this last time that a lot of that will go into his GIS database and then he'll be able to incorporate that into future maps and needs. Yeah. With the planning and different layers that show all the different stuff, make it very user friendly like he said for anybody that wants to log. Yeah. It's a GIS is a really powerful tool. GIS didn't know we had

uh so we move forward the button. Okay. Uh no real major increases in his budget except for there is a 57% increase to vehicle maintenance going from 350 all the way to 550. And that's because we have an aging Jeep Wrangler that he won't get rid of. Is it officially a Wrangler? I don't think Wrangler was I don't Wrangler. It is I love seeing his

economical to at $500. This year we went over a little bit in his budget because he had a couple quirky things. I think we're at, you know, maybe $1,200. We're not really spending any more than we do on maintenance. Cheaper than a $50,000 truck. That's fine. As long as we're I I just know that sometimes the viewpoint is, oh, rotate him because with the state contracts, it's then you sell them for pretty good price. We've suggested it and we don't want to fight him. It's not worth it. He loves this thing and it fits him. If you know him, those that know him, it's a perfect

It makes us feel rural like like he's he's the mailman on the rural, you know? Yeah, he's pretty awesome. So, uh, so that's really it unless there's questions on general line items for that. Otherwise, we'll just flip to the capital equipment, which comes out of 47 credit. I don't have that page in there. I apologize.

57 57 470 on 57. And the only thing that he's requested this year is a new laptop. He has a 9-year-old laptop and understanding the amount of data and that that he's pushing through nine years is pretty vintage for a computer trying to to process that much data. And then I had to ask him he asked for with parallels and what parallels ended up being is that uh it's a a programming that allows you to use Windows type functions on a Mac is so it's it's a software in conjunction. 15 minutes. Yes, that's what it is.

No. So, uh otherwise I just leave it to questions. Tell them not to wait nine years. Nine years is ridiculous for a new computer. That is so outdated. Well, especially with the data he's pushing. Yeah. Oh, you're just doing a little No, he needs he needs

Oh, yeah. He also has a desktop. A lot of his function is desktop, but he does he does use he needs his laptop as a supplemental thing sometimes. So, it's power. So this would just come as part of getting caught up with that. Okay. How old is this desktop? Is that two or three years? I was say that

Okay. Uh then I think next is water 33. Uh I don't um the first two lines. Yeah. Yeah. Page 333. First two lines for community development and inspection those are uh essentially pass through costs. So any work that ESI does the developers we're billing the developers for those costs. Uh and then the bottom two the parks and cemetery and then any other miscellaneous project or costs that are incurred by the city. We haven't changed any of those.

Okay. 62. So So just while we're there though, there's no money allocated for cemetery expansion. Not right now. That's where we were using Kevin to assist with identifying spaces. Again, if if we spend the money, then we would have a budget amendment. If that's the direction we go, I wouldn't allocate anything into that line item unless we have clear direction. That's what we're going. We've talked pretty strongly about $10,000 for engineering,

but that would that would be us paying for it, not as out of the general fund, not through that pension. I mean, that's Again, we we would allocate it for something. We'd be okay. It'd be a budget amendment if that's the direction you want to go. But of course, you could also do it this year in this fiscal year and not wait next fiscal year. That's a conversation to be had. As you know, we're on June 30th, right?

Page 62 water. Okay. Um He's going to join me. If you don't know him, you want to know him. Uh he's exceptional. He's been our water supervisor for four years now and just been awesome. He's an awesome person. And so he's going to handle the first highlight portion, then I'll come back and do numbers with him. Okay. As you can see behind me, we'll have some pictures up there. Okay. Um, so we thought this would be good to go over this. Then Dave's going to go over all the numbers. He's a good math guy. Um, but as you can see, there's me with a few years of experience. And then there's our meter reader who's next with eight. Then we go all the way down to five with Jace. And then we have two at two years, one at six months and one at one month. So there's not a lot of experience in the water department. But I will say it's kind of cool that Dave and I have talked about it. Now I could obviously they all get along really well. Fact, the young ones tease me that I could be their dad. And I do have kids their age, so I could be

question is that picture of J. Yeah, that's

J. Yeah. So, I I guess the thing I want to highlight with this is they're all great. Um they all work well together. In fact, it's kind of fun on really crazy nights doing crazy water leaks. Everybody still has a very positive attitude, which is which is really good to see. In fact, um I was on a league with Brock oh probably three months ago and he goes he worked at his previous city before he came here. He said, "You don't get mad at me when stuff goes wrong." I said, "Well, that's not how to train people." And he goes, "I actually like working and doing this." So, everybody gets along great. I guess that my main point in sharing all this is we want to do everything we can to retain these guys because as you can see if if I were to get hit by a car tomorrow it would become Dave's problem and Dave doesn't want that problem because of our lack of experience. So um everything you guys can do to help help us retain these guys. They're all learning. Mike mentioned earlier that we have several guys taking the water test. That would be Joey. He's already studying. I budded studying for that. He just got here. Brock and Daniel need to pass the water test. We'll work on that. And all three of them need their CDLs as well. So, we got a lot of training to do in the next year or so.

Steve, we're looking at doing a compensation study, but I'm curious, what do you think is the reason that we have had higher turnover? Why are we not retaining employees? Is it is it a money issue or is it something else? I think that's part of it. I know a couple guys have left for a little bit more money because they told me that. And benefits one left primarily because the benefits were better in a neighboring city. Benefits way. Um his insurance is the one I'm thinking of was 100% paid for at the city he went to. Didn't one of them get pet insurance? They get hobby. They get hobby for hobby. I'm not hired for this.

No, I'm not. I'm not either. But they get $500 each employee of the 200500 500 a year for whatever hobby they want whether it's collecting Legos or going hiking or whatever. Anyway, strange but it's those little things that and you see a lot of correct me if I'm wrong but in your department a lot more switching amongst cities do truck the problem is once we get somebody certified in the water it's called your water distribution once you get that you're marketable to any municipality or water system anywhere.

Yeah. because you've got that they're like we can plug them in. they've got some experience and that's I mean it sounds bad but they're like it's a dollar or two more an hour I'm out kind of type thing you know and one last flexible work schedule 410 those types of things also I

I mean I look at this from the HR standpoint and it is hugely disruptive and incredibly costly to an organization anytime you lose an employee and sometimes I think that we can be pennywise and pound foolish when it comes to retaining employees. We are so worried about putting a little extra money on the table or looking at providing a little extra benefit to employees that we say ah it's not going to matter and we lose employees and we end up with this you know with really really inexperienced people that's a problem for our city. So, I hope that when we're looking at the compensation study that that's something that we're really actively looking at and we know that this is a high turnover department, I I want us to be cognizant of that because I don't want you guys to not have experienced employees. I want you to have that and I want our city to have that.

I want that too. So, we all our our public works is awesome. I'll be honest. It's fantastic. But we definitely could use more continuity and people stay in I think in the last five years we've lost seven guys out of the park and that's Mark was talking earlier about going 10 months we went this last one six or seven months without somebody we went six or seven hired somebody that's when we got Brock and two weeks later somebody quit so then that was in October and then you can see Joey started a couple weeks ago Yeah. Yeah. He hasn't even been here a full month, but he fits in great already. He's doing a good job. So, I'm hopeful. Any other questions on this? Okay, cool. Uh on to members. Uh the budget highlights that we did here. Let me get my notes so I don't over elaborate on things. Um, so 250 line 250 vehicle maintenance. Um, we did reduce this. It would have went down a little bit more because like we said earlier with the public works, we did remove a couple vehicles that were being maintained through this department. But then we also had to account for inflationary costs for the materials to do the maintenance. So we saw you know an overall net reduction but uh we still I didn't want to ignore the fact that there still is some inflation that's going on some of those things. The other one 310 professional services uh we had a reduction in that we had intended for is that the water worth correct? Yeah,

we last year we had had uh the water worth which is that program that helps us to understand rate increases the drainage and water both are participating in and um so we don't have that upfront expense this year. We have the the reoccurring cost but we didn't have that upstart fee. So that's why we see that uh significant reduction in that. Uh, next one, Mike alluded to the Weaver Basin purchase. Uh, this 500 acre feet, um, it does increase 14 plus percent that does equate to, you know, a $25,000 difference, but I want to also emphasize the value of this water. Um, not only is it 500 acre feet, we think about this amount of money being significant, comes to about $390 per acre foot that we pay for this. If you were to sign a new contract now, um, the new costs are up are right in the area of $2,100 per acre foot. So about a five times increase. So that's why we are very we're very grateful to be able to maintain this 500 acre feet. We're also very grateful to be able to produce our own because we're producing at a far lower rate than even the 390, let alone the 200 or 2100 that we would be spending to buy. Um, some communities are 100% reliant on Weaver Basin. So, you can imagine what those fees are looking like when they get passed on to those residents. Um, lastly, the 510 account. Uh we were requesting that go up $25,000 from 180 to 210. Uh the reason we were asking this is this is where we do a lot of our larger maintenance, valve replacements, fire hydrant replacements, things of that nature that we're able to do

inhouse, but yet so we don't have to pay all those contractor costs to do a small project. We're able to save some of that money. Over the last couple years, Steve's done a fantastic job to uh really put an emphasis on getting us up to speed on some of the areas that I use the word may have suffered some neglect. Uh whether the you know talk about the staffing, the experience, some of these things like PRVs that even your most seasoned operators sometimes they're a very complex thing. We have I won't cite a number, a ton of those for example. And so this 25,000 is to help support moving forward with a rehabilitation program to get these brought up and and get more in line with the maintenance schedule that he'll be able to do with these two guys.

Uh so questions on line items. So we had those major water breaks. Yes. Is that where the bulk of this money or good portion of it the 510 current? Yes. because uh I believe it right now it shows that we're close or overexpended. But yes, significant we just looked at it say 95 $95,000 went towards just the reconstruction of that intersection. We did all the other work on Main Street. On Main Street. Yeah. Y that was in July. So right out of the shoot we were out $95,000 of that.

So should we have another before Mike gets us the grant for that? So, so we will actually talk about that area in just a second in the capital. So, it's brought that up. Um, so if you have so line item questions, not line item, but two years ago we had a big break on Chase in January. 400,000 was 20. Yeah. Okay. And we determined talk with Mike Charles like just an aging valve and we estimated about 40 plus of those in the city

and we we have we've been replacing those. We have that's part of this 510 is that's another one of those elements fire hydrants valves things like that that they're doing replacements for the last I guess it was a long question in the last two months my crews replaced five valves in one area so they're all aging out and I mean that's within three walks so because I know when I talked I mean I don't know what the price was he quoted me what he he said off the top of his head but obviously very inexpensive compared Yeah. To even do the asphalt replacement and change bonnet bolts. If we can even go and do that, we're probably out less than a,000 bucks.

We'll pay a contractor three to $6,000 to do that for us. So, where we we're able to do it. Huge savings and again a potential tremendous savings and not having another catastrophic. We just did all the bonnet bolts. Had the contractors from Pages Lane to 100 South on Northeast. We had to redo all of those. Cost us a couple hundred bucks a valve to do replace it. Why? They were actually they were even less than that. They bid it wrong, but that was their mistake. They had to pay for it. But we got all those replaced and it was about 15 valves that got for that project and that road we built. So

that area is good for a while. We can't use that number because it they was unfortunate for them. Extremely they lost some money on that capital.

All right. So, uh here I highlighted a couple things. I'll start actually at the bottom. Uh the backhoe that is something that we've tried to keep on a rotation uh again to keep the equipment up to speed. Um we get a good return on it. We have an estimated $90,000 trade in if I remember correctly. Uh and it's 100 I'm sorry 100 sorry. Yeah. And uh and we're looking at $155,000 piece of equipment. We do this every three years. Um but still to retain 67% of

130,000 for the back. Oh yeah, sorry. Yes, better return.

Yeah, better return. I apologize. Yeah, that uh I have those numbers flipped in my brain. Um so yeah. Uh so that would be one of our requests. We do have the other requests above the truck replacement. Um we do have a return showing on those. That's something that you guys have been great to support on that four-year rotation. Um, we're seeing great amount of success. We're hoping for a 50% average return and so far we're nearing a 67 to 70% return. So, we're working ahead of what we originally thought when we started this by about years ago. Um, and so, but to emphasize the other thing, the other thing we have on here was a back trailer. I wanted to clarify that this was a request for a back trailer. like you often see these contractors going through town doing boring and that where they do the potholeing. It's a towbehind trailer. Um it would cost about $155,000 is our estimate. Um but if we were to be able to acquire the the hook truck in the street department request, we would actually be excited to be able to put this off. the attachment for a factor would be I think we got quoted around 220 to 230. Does that sound? Yes. And so um we would like to you know hopefully be able to hold on to a little bit of funds to be able to support that and maybe into next year. Um we do have a back trailer right now. It is aging. It's at about 20 years. And so we wanted to either make wanted to make it an advancement in this, but with our excitement for the the hook truck that would be a that uh would be bigger, more powerful, more efficient. So it would really put that

delay this 155. No, next year be 230 better.

The 155 is for a smaller piece of equipment that's a tow behind. If we can do it on the hook truck, it is more expensive, but the piece of equipment is actually a bit larger and more robust piece of equipment than the trailer would be. The initial request came in uncertain with the amount of enthusiasm for that hook truck. So those would kind of uh play into one. Um so then if we talk about capital projects, we have uh the 560 culde-sac. I don't have it up there. That's a project that we intend to do ourselves. Again, we did a small project like this last year and it provided a great amount of knowledge and training for some of the new guys because they put their hands on the pipe, they installed the pipe, they tapped the services, they did the whole process that we're asking them to. and uh monitor and pay attention to our contractors as they're doing the work as well. Uh it just helps them get a huge amount of education on the process. And we did a a street up there about three weeks.

Yeah. Three weeks.

Yeah. So, not much not much uh slower than we would have seen contractors do. And it was led up. Steve and Mark uh played a huge role in in doing the education and the leading that project. it worked out really great. So, we have that. The other things are the well property um at that price. That's kind of been discussed. I don't know that there's a lot to say. And then the last one is this Main Street waterline reconstruction project. This is a huge project. Again, it it uh is Chase Lane is 1700, which would include that um area that we've had some some big problems already, and we foresee that it's probably going to be a challenge moving forward. Um it is an expensive project and so it is being offset with uh from the revenues. Am I safe to describe it as a a loan from ourselves? and N. So what the the thought is that in fund 47 we have some reserves there we would loan to the water fund instead of going out for bond and paying a bank and doing all that we loan it to ourselves and and the repayment is repay ourselves the general fund and just only the interest lost since it's out of the bank. So very low three three and a half% more 10 years

and it'll save a lot of money. Yeah, it could save a lot of money. And the reason we want to put this in here and we would ask for the support on this is that um with I-15 reconstruction and all these other things going on, they're they're going to quit allowing us to do any kind of project through Main Street while they're trying to use it during the reconstruction. So, we're going to be Yeah. five to seven years. And you know, when you're talking $100,000 a week,

does that mean we can get you out to pay for some of it? At least we pay it. Uh, I won't cross my fingers on that, that's for sure. But I like the energy. So, yeah, that does come with an an offset there with that loan amount coming from there. But would ask that be which you'll see a 7% increase in the rates to help pay for that bond. See that? So 7% increase to the water rates to pay for the bond. Have we have we got I'm sorry. The loan actually caught up on the loan. The loan. So is that what you're suggesting is 7%.

Do you know how much that is for housing? Um looked at my water bill. Yeah. 47ish dollars. And over the next year they'll be looking at water work and adjusting those rates. I'm not quite sure where we are with the that was my question is are we still with this water worth study we should be looking at inclining block rate structures we've talked about that so we have that now but it needs to be adjusted yeah that's a big thing

well yeah we have it but I I would probably debate with you whether or not it's actually inclining block rate or if it's just slightly inclining yeah and that's the big problem that we're having water filters with is Uh my personal feeling is that we have a high base rate and a very low usage consumption rate. Um so we're really not incentivizing people to conserve water when you use a lot of water for so cheap.

Um so we're looking at it uh I mean ideally it wouldn't require much of a rate increase that we could restructure it so that your heavy heavy users are paying that higher fee and we can actually lower our base rate. Before we I was going to say before we look at a 7% increase, I'd love to see something along those lines that we do maybe when you start hitting high users with higher rates, they might they might conserve and then you may still have a balance issue. But yeah, I mean you look at like a summer that we may or may not be going into if we were basing heavy restrictions. It's so cheap for people to water their lungs, pulinary water, which we don't want.

We have We have that they're not supposed to do that. So, we may have to Where's our code enforcement officer? Can we get that guy on board before summer? With that, also, they have announced that uh they won't be turning on irrigation till May 15th, a month behind the normal. I did talk with Robert Burns from Little Creek Irrigation. and we had a conversation. He says, you know, we'll keep our eyes peeled, too, because we may start to see people trying to hook their irrigation systems to the culinary. There's a whole lot of concern there, right? We don't want anybody doing that. Yeah, that's the worst thing we could have. It's such a headache and we don't want to have a cross convention,

right? We don't. But then I do think they'll use more water. People are planting their gardens before May 15th. They're going to have to use culinary water to get their gardens going. I mean, they're not going to need to connect it. They're just going to have to drag their technically the ordinance is that they don't use it for outdoor watering. So I think that can we remind them? Well, people I will do it if I'm told and I didn't know like I think people try to conserve and do well. I think they do too, but I think you've got people who plant gardens and can their produce and that's their life and they're going to water their gardens.

But should we not send that out in the newsletter, I guess, is my point. So, we do have um some things that we're putting together as far as water conservation that we will be starting to put posts and different notifications out to remind them. Um this was I guess it's not officially passed by their board, but Weber Basin's board has always gone with Weaver Basin's recommendation. Dual Creek. My question is well this I'm sorry this came it came from Weber Basin and Dual Creek is simply following line with so my question is with Dual Creek and I don't know how much their snow pack is up there. Dual Creek doesn't normally use any weaver basin water until well into June. So that water is coming down. They may not have a lot this year.

But that's what I'm saying. I don't know that. But my question is, it's sad if we're just letting it go down the stream if if they could be watering. I mean, you're going to hear from people if our stream over there is running super high. I don't know if there would be enough to keep the reservoir full depending on how much people use but it's sad to let that water go away when normally Robert when when I was serving as a liazison he was pretty cognizant about watching it but what is the snow pack does anyone know% last man now it's down to 56% oh

is that a what we've got not necessar numbers. I looked at it's one year when it was high snow pack, we made it to July 2nd without having to use any bas water.

Yeah. And I'm not sure where they'll how they'll be able to manage that. uh he didn't give any indication that they intended to turn about sooner just but to Rob's point is that something we could the city encourage I that makes a lot of sense to me to use some of that water so people the city has enough shares that they can share and and do something that you really want to do.

I think I think that the bigger issue with this is we have to remember how hot is it outside? Most of that will not make it to the creek. It it just will not it will evaporate and it will soak into the ground because there's that's just the way it works with this. I'm not an expert on that. I don't know what kind of I don't know either, but I do I do know enough about it to know that these high temperatures that we're having are not going to get there. We're not going to realize a lot into the creek bed.

Oh, share. We were basing this shared our soil saturation is actually pretty high. Yeah. So, not much is going to be absorbing. If we had a perfect on the Colorado River basin where they were talking about it and saying unfortunately it's so warm now in the mountains that it's just not making it to the Well, yeah. You keep these temperatures. I mean, I was out walking yesterday and couldn't believe a bunch of us running already, right? I mean, looking like that.

Yeah. In our brief conversation, he also did indicate, you know, he wouldn't want to turn on any sooner because you can imagine the blowback if he were to turn it on May 1st and then the creek runs runs dry and he says, "Hey, we'll be off for another week and a half." So, I think there's going to be some of that, I guess, for lack of a better way, kind of the politics of that. So, trying to shut them off for a week after you have something. Listen, again, the army is, and this isn't the conservation route, is go ahead and use the culinary water till we make more money. Um, but in all honesty, we do not we do not want to run down when we're already in a mega drought.

Yeah. So, that's ultimately we we're not encouraging and we do need to educate the residents on it. Wow. There's a handful. We have businesses that are also on But probably the same rule should apply to them as which we try every time. We tried it in our drought a couple years ago and many don't listen particularly the businesses who have they contract out their landscaping and maintenance rates. Mike does a really good job visiting them. I've literally been in and shut off people's clocks for them because they didn't know how to do it in several businesses. So or or set their clocks for them because they're like I don't know how to do it right.

Because I go out it's 2 o'clock in the afternoon. It's 105 degrees and they're watering. I know. And that's where and I've seen it happen a lot where we've had we've had water on in October and November at businesses that I'm sure they just didn't realize how to turn it off for the season. But but that's where the inclining blockade structures going to start helping, right? Like if they're getting hit, I give them what they need, but if they're wasteful, they should pay for it. We'll educate and we'll enforce as I think we always do. Any other questions on

I have a question maybe J can help us too. If we got in a situation don't get some grand plants since I need to do Main Street and if you do DOT disallowed us making an improvement that would preclude the repairs we anticipate would would emergency money would you not have to help because we don't have an alternative at that point. How would that be managed?

So, we're not pursuing a grant for this main street. This is a loan from ourselves to ourselves, right? So, um if there was an emergency repair, obviously we have to go repair. They're just not going to allow us to do a large stretch of reconstruction or I'm sorry, the water lines um because we have to get permits through them. And while they're doing while they're because ultimately they're adding the lanes right now to legacy. I get all that. If their work was precluding us from being able to do what we really want to do

and then we had a leak and they'd be expected to help participate in part of the cost that they can reject our permit. It's their their road. In fact, part of this is when Main Street was redone, we should have done the water line at the time, but our funding was extremely limited with all that road construction with Main Street being redone. We we believe that part of that's the problem with all that equipment. Tell me if that's being an outturn, but all that equipment running over our aging water lines and and then they if we wanted to do the water line replacement short, they would have denied our permit. It's like we just put in this road. You got to wait five to 10 years before you come back. And that's what we've done. We've waited five years. Now we need to fix the water line when we have a chance. So no, they no help you.

And so how long this project do the chase lane to um few months? We would hope it to be we're looking at uh they're actually taking considerations for bids soon. We would hope to have it done in time to ask all which is the general deadline. We have the other day that the barricade off the pl before we started. Not not the No, we want some symmetry between the two. While we're at it.

Yes. And that'll that'll actually be something that we'll talk about in the next section. Okay. Anything else?

Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Okay. Still stuck with me ahead of time. And here we are. I don't know if Cameron saw this, but it's part of it. So, this is Cameron and Drew and and for those that know him, know them, nailed it. I feel like I feel really good about this one. Um, you can put them into whichever spot you want, but uh yeah, no, they're they're a fantastic complimentary pair of individuals. um excellent work ethic, phenomenal products we're getting from them and with the addition of Drew, it's really enhanced some of those things that um Cameron's been able to work on. That's what we'll talk here. So, uh the first thing I have here is the tremendous progress in the permit compliance and you guys may be familiar with this uh the all the storm water regulations set by the state and the federal government and this is a thankless job. It's an unpopular job. Speaking from experience, it's arguably one of the worst jobs you could possibly have. There's and I I say that it's a little bit, you know, poor me, but there's very little gratitude. And the reason I say that is that you do all this work no matter how hard you work. And then the state comes and they say, "Okay, we're going to audit you." They don't ever tell you anything you did right. You could do 90% right. And they will emphasize 10% that you got wrong. And when they say wrong, they they don't even say it like kind of wrong. They're like, "Nope, it sucks." So, uh, a thankless job. Drew is doing a tremendous job moving us forward to where now we're actually, um, looking like as he puts it or headed towards maybe being kind of poster children for compliance on this permit because he's been able to dedicate such a high

percentage of his time solely to getting us caught up in compliance. Now, the reason we haven't been in compliance isn't anything that anybody's necessarily done wrong, but the job was taking in all of this compliance that we're seeing one person take. And then we also were saying, hey, at the same time, take care of all the drainage infrastructure, take care of, you know, finances for that department, take care of problem solving of the residents, things like that. So, with that, we've actually been able to um allow Cameron a lot more time. And one of the things he's done is he's modified how we've been doing some things where we were straight just cleaning everything and assuming everything was good. He began to allocate some of his monies differently to do a more vast inspection process on all of our drainage infrastructure now. And so unfortunately you'll see a reflection of some of that a small budget increase request because we do have things that are broken and we need to get them fixed. Thankfully, there's technology to be able to do them without digging up roads, but there are needs out there that we're going to we're starting to see plenty of. Uh the other thing is that frontage road subdrink, it has been a big project. It's an exciting project. They're um almost tied into Jennings Lane and then they're going to come back and work near the park, remove some of that infrastructure and that overhead fill station, re relocate that and prepare it because then UD do's going to come and push frontage road back. Um I can't remember the exact footage. I want to say about 20 feet. I may be wrong so I can't quoted on that but um so it's a very exciting project. This is a U DOT uh funded project to help us get all this underway. So, it's been really neat and we hope that they'll be wrapped up in a couple months, which would leave it open so that if we can move forward with Main Street, we have less chaos going

down front to move. So, all right, we will go to highlights. Uh so here professional services again this also had that reduction uh because we don't have the startup fees for water. We did have a nearly $18,000 reduction there. The next is system maintenance and repairs. Uh this was let me why I didn't get my note out. Uh, I want to say we went from 20 to $30,000 on this request or Oh, the additional request for the line. Yes.

Yep. My mistake. Yes. And so the lining. So what I have here, these examples, um, it may be hard to really understand. You look at it on the left is a storm drain that we have video inspected. You can see where it looks broken and things like that up on the top. These are some of the things that we're starting to find whether they've been whether it's just deterioration. It may be damage during install, you know, 50 years ago and we never saw it. Now it's just worsened. Uh there's many different things. Then the other is a sub drain and uh that's that underground drain that takes away the groundwater and due to a damage we're starting to see rocks and things like that get in where normally this is a very pure and and easily manageable water and so these would be um elements that we would want to be starting to work on. So he's identified those things and starting to put put together a priority list of of the more significant damages. And so yes, sorry that went to the 75 and it didn't make where I printed off. So my apologies for that.

Do we have our own cameras to do that?

Not to this extent. We have a push camera, but it's really restrictive on doing, you know, maybe a 4 inch pipe, something really basic. The stuff these guys use, they have tracks on them and wheels. They drive up uh they just did the frontage road a portion of it, you know, nearly a half mile and they just set up at one just can keep driving, keep driving and has 360 views of everything, take photos and everything. And the cost of those is just contracted through our maintenance group which right now is twin and they've they've been doing all cleaning and jetting. They also offer this service. So that's where they're the ones that run the cameras. Correct.

Okay.

Um so the other things we have on here, uh the decant hauling and yard maintenance and that one is the has a 100% increase going from 15 to 30. Uh the decant is when they clean all the storm drains. We have this big building, they dump it in there, it takes care of it properly, kicks the water over to the sewer, we haul the rest of the stuff off. Some of the impact we're feeling is that bountiful sometimes takes the stuff, sometimes doesn't. We have increased tipping fees up at the late landfill. This also would incorporate other storm water compliance issues that we have on our own facilities, for example, a manhole that we would need to set so that we can inspect appropriately where we're discharging to our own main lines. Um, things of that nature. And so we wanted to have a little bit extra to help offset some small projects, bring ourselves into compliance. Okay. Any questions on line items? Oh, sweet. Okay. Then on to the capital equipment and projects area. So again, you'll see a rolloff dumpster of $25,000. This again would go in conjunction if we do work towards that hook truck. Right now we do contract out to have a dumpster for our street sweeping and things of that nature. We pay to have it hauled off. This would just make it so that we would have our own manage our own haul our own use our own. Um so if we don't do the hook truck, please do the hook truck. If we didn't do the hook truck, this would be obsolete for this year. And then as mentioned prior, the Aryan waist subdrain replacement uh $750,000. This is a significant subdrain replacement. It's an area we have had a couple challenges come up. Um it was

laid at a time that inspections were modest at best. Um the material is nothing that we use now. Uh we started to see, you know, laterals that we didn't have identified as well. This is part of what he's been going through as part of our video inspection. And so this is an area we feel very strongly to avoid claims or flooding or anything. It's point of connection everything that this would be an excellent project to get us. So I don't have anything else that I want to yap on unless you have questions. the debt service item number 740. Remind me what that is and then also when is that when does that retire?

Yeah, that was a water uh drainage bond that we took out in 2012. 64 bottom of the page on 65. It's on 65. Oh de uh and I believe it's 2030. believe it's 2030. If you look in the water fund, it's also the death service there. Oh yeah, I saw that. So water takes the majority of it drainage.

So with a city of our size, it's pretty amazing. This is the only we don't have much debt, which is pretty awesome that we've kept our debt relatively low. Again, debt serves a role in some extent to help save money and extend the costs over time, but I think Senator's been great at keeping our debt. Is this Utah Water Finance Agency that's in the W? This is back on the water page 110,234. Is that through 2032? Yeah, it's it's the same one. Oh, okay. through BR. Everything that's been presented to us tonight, you've been over this is what you're recommending in your balance budget.

Correct. But after our review, this is the recommendations from as as your budget officer. This is the recommended budget from me to you. And then from here, it's entirely up to you from the policies to try to decide. But in your ballot budget, that whole budget, we can have everything we've seen tonight. Correct. And that's using 1.2 million or so from the fund 47 for not including the $2 million loans,

right? back to our story. Uh can I just can you help me understand how last year uh in addition to the 50% increase we we incurred as businesses and as property owners there was a substantial amount of money and maybe you can help me a little bit with an amount that how much was retrieved by solely back charging for those four years and and then my question is that money I assume was built into part of last year's budget budget and part of the 2006 budget. There is not going to be another retrieval of a significant amount of money like that in the storm drain fund. Yet, our budget was incorporating that. Am I correct? Am I thinking this right? And so, next year's revenues in this area, help me understand.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, when we budgeted, we didn't include the budget uh for that audit and the back billing that came with it. Uh we had budgeted for the 50% rate increase to go into effect July one. So, that's where you saw the our budget number of last year. Um that didn't go into effect until March. I think uh I think the amount we collected on the from the audit around 400,000 360 I have to double check was in that range. Um so we actually didn't budget any extra for the back billing. What we did budget was for the rate increase to go to effect July one but it got delayed till March.

Okay. So that meaning the 50% increase is is going to be realized in this year's budget much more significantly than it was in last year's budget. Correct. And so we aren't able to reduce costs much in storm even with the 50% increase. Am I understanding that?

Yeah. But they I think it's important to remember what a year ago or two years ago when we started this the recommendation was for 100% increase. And so I think that's I think what's important to remember is the whole the recommendation of the increase is based on a capital facility plan that was presented to the council last year and saying this is how much money we need in the next 30 to 40 years. So ultimately it's a 30-year plan. this is how much money we need to collect, which then says we need a 100% rate increase to be able to afford all these things. And that's not even including inflationary costs down the road of what it'd be 30 years from now. So with the 50% increase, we take that 30-year plan of all the facilities we plan on building over that time and saying, "Okay, we'll build maybe in 40 years." And we're pushing projects back 10 years. We can't build them as fast as we would hope. So we have to delay that. So the 50% increase is based on that number saying we need x number of dollars and we need to collect that amount of money and so much time with this many meters and that's how you get your increase. So that's what the 50% increase realizes now that the four-year back pay goes into the fund balance to help fund those projects. So it it doesn't necess we can delay the fee increase of 50% with the fund balance that we can use until rates need to go up again because they will need to go up again. Not sure when we there recommended increase this year

and and we are transferring fund balance to make this enterprise fund hold which 341 best practice would not be to do that. the these enterprise funds should operate. We should be charging and they should be operating within what we're bringing in. They have to operate they have to operate independent from the event section. Right. So that's that's my concern is what I'm still seeing a fund balance transfer of 334,000. Yeah, that's the fund balance of drainage has their own fund balance just like sanitation and water. So it's not the fund the fund 47. Those are all separate and it's not the reserve. It's it's not the general fund. It's coming out of the drainage fund.

Yes. When you look at the fund balance of use of 341,000 in your capital projects, again for one-time projects, $750,000 of the airing way subdrain replacement. So it's okay. It's a one-time expense of that replacement. So it can be justified, but we got to monitor the cash flow of the enterprise.

Okay. Now the next big question. Uh I don't know if everybody here is aware that just recently we had a meeting that only two of we council members were invited to addressing whether or not some revenue should go for the city's footprint to the storm drake and that amounted to a significant amount of money $42,000 a year that the city should be contributing if they were paying the same as businesses are required to pay. So there's no there's no reflection of any of that discussion in this budget.

No, because that would not be my recommendation. By law, we are not required the city the general fund is not required to pay for the enterprise funds, the use of water or the use of drainage or sanitation because it's considered minimum. It's such a small percentage. Now, if we if it was a large amount like in a previous CD I worked for where we owned our power, it was a greater amount. So each year we had to have a public hearing, but ultimately the general fund still did not pay for the use of those utilities. We have public hearing notifying the public, but we do not intend on paying that. So by law, we're not required to do that because it's such a dimminous amount. So that's not my recommendation that we go that route. Now, if it's the direction of the council that you want to go that route where the general fund pays for its use, then I would recommend an increase in the property taxes to pay for that new cost, that new ongoing occurring cost to the general fund. So, and then you have the two funds. And my recommendation again is that we do both. You don't just pick drainage enterprise fund and say we're going to pay drainage and not water. My recommendation is that you would pay both enterprise tax which would equate to $85,000 or so which would equate to a 5% profit tax increase.

Well, maybe I'm oversimplifying this but in my world we call that coming um you know maybe it's not that but different. Yeah. Yeah. But uh I don't see that one that when these enterprise funds are supposed to operate on their own correct that we should be taking funds like that general fun

it's a policy decision if the city feels like the general fund should pay for its share of use of utilities I'm not not opposed to that it's a it' be an increase in the property taxes to then fund it either Either way, you're moving, you know, money from one pocket to the other. It just depends on how you want that paid for. It's it's the policies in your stamp in your position, but it's not a recommendation from me. I think it

and and I feel like if you do the drainage, you also have to do the water. So, it's about double. It's about $84,000 that comes that the city is using between drainage fees and water fees. And so that's I mean I

and let me let me add to that too that uh it's more absolutely more transparent and and it is it is a fairness issue to me and I completely disagree with the mayor and the mixing it is a way to to enhance the transparency And then we've just talked about raising the water fees a little bit and the public the only way they're going to have any input on that is start paying the bill because they're going to get a not little notice in their in their water bill that it's going up. They have no opportunity to come and say hey we're going too much this way that fee for it to be increased has to be uh public hearing has to have public input. people have to have their opportunity to say uh whether or not they can support that or they think I need ought to be found in in a different way. I mean all the reasons for public hearing tax increase and taxation and I and I believe that we heard plenty from the business community and and others that uh it the perception is Centerville's getting a freebie when they're I think it would make Centerville the second largest contributor to Centerville City to the storm drain fund. There's not another entity that has more than what we huge impervious footprint.

Sorry, this is part of the discussion tonight, but I don't know if it's the discussion we want to have tonight. I think uh it's something obviously we uh council wants to have discussion about we have discussion about I'm waiting to hear that the business owners are all upset at this they'd rather have a property tax. So that was my concern was I talked to a couple of people

and I don't have these numbers. So, it's kind of like the streamliner. I'm not I don't have the answer, but I have a question because I know a couple of business owners that are concerned that we might save them a little on their drainage, but because they have to pay 100% on their property if we raise property taxes, actually, they're going to end up spending more money out of pocket. I've had the same comment from two different business owners that have said, "Hey, don't make that decision thinking I want it."

I just don't know how we get those numbers to say, "Okay, so if I own a business and I have to pay $5,000 a year in drainage, so we're going to not have to raise drainage, but yet we're going to raise their property tax." And they're paying 100%. So, we're going to raise property tax on our businesses way more than on our residents because they're only going to pay it's even gone down. So, it's what 40% now of property tax. So,

it didn't pass. Okay. So, at 45 they're paying property tax at 45. Our poor business or 55. Okay. So, our poor businesses are paying it at 100%. I'm afraid we're going to be harder on our businesses by doing this. So, I'd like to see I'd like to see four or five businesses where you show me this is their drainage fees and if you raise their taxes in order to be able to pay the city's drainage fees, am I going to raise their taxes even more? numbers would have to be frank and it depends on the volume and the property tax of each each individual business. Of course, right,

but there's also got to be an accountability for us. Do I really agree with Brent that we need to that we the only way to do that for the city to pay their share would be to raise taxes by that much? No, I don't agree. I think there are we would need to need to modify the proposal budget and make some changes. Where would that be? Well, because here here we've got we've got the budget. So, I think that helps me to understand where the cut is. Where are you cutting? I think you have to tell me that so I can understand that part of it. Okay. If it's if Brent says we need to raise it by 7%, we need to ask our department.

3% is what you'd have to increase three to three and a half% property tax increase.

But but here's here's where I think it's if we're not going to approve this budget, we have to direct them where they're going to cut it. So, we would have to cut this budget by about $84,000. We'd have to look at everything we've looked at in the last two nights and cut $84,000 out of that. But I don't want to do that if in the long run I'm hurting my businesses who were trying to house and you're taking no responsibility for the city which is a part of the businesses and a part of the residents uh contributing to the biggest the biggest impact of anybody in the community is our city and our buildings and our infrastructure. I think that's where I struggle with with the conversation, council member Banger, is that the city should pay its fair share. If we're the separate entity, but we generate revenue some other way. Our revenue is generated from the taxpayers. So those that are going to benefit from it are the the taxpayers, but those who have to pay for it are the taxpayers. It's not the city should pay its fair share. That's fine. But I need to understand the city is the businesses and the residents of this community who pay the city's fees. So it's not like we're this entity that we generate revenue some other ways and in some different means. We have to get generate the revenue from somewhere. And if you're cutting 84,000 out of the budget, it can't be cut out of a one-time expense of a truck. This is an ongoing expense every year and it's got to be cut from an ongoing expense in the operational budget. So again, that's when you have when you introduce this new ongoing expense, it needs to come from an ongoing revenue source. It can't just be a one-time cut. It's an ongoing cut that potentially could grow. So the property tax increase is the best way to do that to to verify that it's going to continue forward. I there are no cuts in my mind of where I feel operationally makes any sense to try and generate $84,000. Again, my recommendation would

be to increase property taxes for a new ongoing expense. It's all still coming from the same people. If you want transparency, we can notify the public saying, "Hey, our footprint's $84,000, but we're not going to pay that to keep your property taxes low." That's a transparency argument if you want to do that way during the budget process. That's a transparency option. It doesn't assume mean we have to pay it, but we can do that, which is what I did down in Ephraim. And then it if if we do the way I'm proposing, then it's its own entity. its own funding, the property tax or whatever. They are paying for storm drainage uh and the city business contribute through the city's input to that too to a significant degree. And those storm drain fees can be managed within that. And in your 50-year plan, the four year down to that that becomes manageable because they have that bigger chunk of money that $42,000 every year more for that. And that those things it's a balancing game.

I think but it's already balanced is you want a transparency. It's already balanced.

I think it's a tough education thing. the public understands property tax all your residents and businesses for the most part too not drainage utility fees. So it's it's it's a tough sale to be an education thing. We're raising your property taxes so the city can pay itself uh from uh revenues it's going to collect drainage utility fees on its own property. I don't see how they're going to get personally. Ran, how you feel? I think that it's going to be difficult to convince people that it's uh worthwhile to raise their property taxes for it. But I I I think that if we were to do it, we would and it sounds to me like we are headed towards a truth in taxation. Um that we propose um you know the county did just one. We're going to do 30%. Can we have uh A, B, and C? We want to say a uh to incorporate uh the drainage fees uh and have the city pay for it own drainage fees, we need to raise the property taxes 10%. That's option A. If we uh have option B, we're going to raise it 7%. And that way we won't be doing drainage fee payment to ourselves and then C would be zero. But can we do it that way where we're

then proposing to the public and then we can educate the public on these options and say we do need this but these are some thoughts and uh have some of those numbers that would actually be relevant to businesses like I think it's actually very important to have that number for businesses that are uh going to see their property taxes increase and go significantly, possibly significantly over what they possibly would be paying for just the drainage. I I I think that we just need to have more information, more education before I start saying that's the way I want to go. I think that I I understand what you're saying and I like to actually have more transparency, but I think that this may convolute a lot of that. And it does sound to me that it could be an added expense to some of these bigger businesses that um may not that that have lots of area that would be or excuse me that have high property values and are going to be paying 100% of their property taxes. I mean 10% increase will increase their property taxes quite significant. So I don't know it's uh I think we need more numbers. We need more information. One of the ways I approach it from again is the city is not going to pay for its share of utilities in lie of we don't have to increase your property taxes by this percentage. Right? And the residents

love that. Only one guy showed up, but he showed up to everything upset. But the rest of the residents loved the idea, and that's the transparency component of it. We're we're not going to pay it, but instead we don't have to increase your property taxes. And they're like, great, thank you for not increasing my property taxes. I'm fine with the way it is. Which I think when you start proposing it like that, you're going to have a lot of people uh really pushing back on your proposal and and it's going to be residents obviously. And yes, uh, the commercial were hit very hard because of that sub drainage fee, but again, do we want to hit them hard again with property taxes with a 10% increase as opposed to just a seven or whatever. What did you be three and a half%?

Three and a half. How is it okay that we we pay electricity bills, gas bills, other bills for the city and that's that we don't own those facilities, right? Again, I and Ephraim we own the power. So again, we didn't pay the power. We owned the sewer. We didn't pay the sewer. We owned the water. We didn't pay the water. So it's not necessarily a family. It's not an entity that belongs to city. So it's not just one pocket to another. It actually we're we're the we're the beneficiaries of the payment, but we're also making the payment. And so it's a wash. It doesn't it's it's not a fairness thing. We pay those bills because we don't own those facilities, which is part of the game.

The city doesn't pay any property taxes. I'm not paying myself. All the property all the property all the uh city's real estate They're exempt. It's exempt. So, they're not even That's what happens with Well, that's interesting. I That That's a very interesting I haven't thought about that, but that they don't pay property tax. That is It is interesting.

I mean, if you're looking at fairness. I don't think that this is I don't think it's necessarily um a fairness issue in the sense that this is just something that is the way it is across the state. It's just not here in Davis County. All government, all churches, they're all exempt, all uh schools are exempt. They don't pay property taxes. So, we raise the property taxes. city's going to benefit, of course, but they're not going to pay more property taxes because they don't pay property taxes. And I'm just relating that to this subdrainage fee. I think Brandt explains it fairly well in that regard. But I do understand what you're saying and it would be, you know, well, the city's paying its fair share. I understand that and I think that is something to be said. But again, to pay our fair share, we're going to have to raise property taxes.

Well, I think the reality is that this is this will be a shift. I've run a few calculations from some of the data we received. This will be a shift onto the residents. And I don't think I I get what you're saying, but I'm not sure that that is okay either. I because of the fact that we don't pay property tax on our city facilities and I just think that's fine. We can do that but I think we'll have residents in here upset too just like the business owners are upset. So, who are we gonna

and the the more I think about it and I' I've heard it quite frequently recently about property taxes and people wanting to abolish property taxes and um I I understand some of that, but and I understand that we want we don't want to have people at least I I don't want to have people that have lived here their whole lives priced out of s because we had to raise property taxes to pay ourselves to pay the train. That's that's makes me a little nervous. And so how do I help the uh the widow uh if and I I looked in it too today with the circuit breaker and uh certain abatements. I was like trying to make sure that the people still have an opportunity to uh make sure that they have some sort of relief if they qualify and it's still there. So um I feel comfortable about that and I hope that people can take advantage of that. But I feel like we can't just uh push this off and and and do a 30% in, you know, a couple years. We need to be a little bit more responsible and do something a little bit smaller. But if we do this like what you're proposing, we're going to have to do something bigger and it will offset that. I I I I truly believe that we once we see the numbers, it would shift some of that tax burden to the residents as opposed to the

Well, and I will say, so I talked to Victor when he first brought this up to me. I was 100% on board. I like it. Well, of course we should pay it. If we're if that's going to help our businesses, of course we will until I thought, okay, but then I got to raise that 42,000 or 84,000 has got to come from somewhere. That's very obvious in my brain. So, we've got to raise property taxes in order to cover it. So, then I was like, "So, am I helping my businesses?" Because we're not, if we were the only city doing it, I feel like we were being dubious, but but we're not. We're doing what everybody else is doing. Have you checked with other cities to see?

I would love to see comparisons of how other cities are charged with storm drain fees and how Centerville compares. So, I can tell you right now, many cities do not pay for their utilities. Many cities do not pay. who do would be it'd be really I have not come across one city who does is what I'm trying to say. No, what I'm saying is how they cover their storm drain utility needs. Again, if they own the infrastructure, they're not paying again. Are you talking about like the rates? Are you talking about how they do their calculations? What are you

Well, yeah, they're calc how do we compare? How does a business or how does a resident in Bountiful in West Haven, you know, cover their their storm drainage fees? Every city has a different way to calculate it and I would dare say that ours by probably one of the best. It needs to be updated for sure. Like we've talked about the square footage and those amounts, but I think the way we do it is actually pretty spot on.

I did I did double check once again. And I reached out to some friends that do this type of work and there are a few different ways to do it, but frankly they said what you're doing gets the same amount as what other cities may do slightly differently. They may calculate a little different. I agree with you. There might be bigger rooftops and bigger, you know, more concrete for RV pads and driveways and whatever. Maybe we look at that just to make sure that the residents are covering their fair share that way. But as far as how Cameron calculated it, it's a very solid best practice way to calculate it.

But calculation is going to be city. I could say pretty much confidence and send text 14 mayors. I'll bet we won't find anybody that's charging themselves for their starting rate. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I'm just talking about how the rates were calculated. I'm not sure what Rick was asking. Grant seemed to wonder what if we were talking about what if cities are being charged for their use of drainage versus the

Everybody's city's drainage is going to be different because some people are going to have a lot more drainage problems than other people. I got concerned. So, I'm very tight. You haven't been on the council for a long time and they'll tell you they bring up a a property tax increase and it's usually Robin that's like probably not. Um, but I was very concerned when I went up to the property that's being developed on Quarters Lake or on Parish Lake and I met with Mike was there, Kevin was there and a couple of neighbors were there because they were very concerned about the drainage into their Granite Squares property right there. And when they said to me, "Well, we've got this little debris basin right here. The water's going to run in. It's going to come out that pipe just above their driveway and it's going to run down Parish Lane. I'm like, are you kidding me? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Why are we gonna have water running down Parish Lane where the school kids are all going to be wet on their way to school? I mean, I was just flabbergasted. I'm like, this sounds like I designed it. No, this is really dumb. And so I said, 'Why aren't you hooking it into the storm drain underground? And they're like, we don't have enough money in the storm drain. When we redo Parish Lane, then we will, but right now we don't have the money in the And we also did it, they either told me one or two other places. And I'm like, so now we're not doing things correct because we don't have enough money in our storm drain. Now I was concerned. Like I said, there's been they will tell you I said native every every pro everything they brought we've had to lower because Robin wouldn't go along with it. So I'm I'm tight. If you go to dinner with me, you cannot order a drink. You only get water. So that's my philosophy.

I'm going to dinner. And all of my kids when they reported or not mad order soda pop just to tell me that they come to city hall and get your soda and then go. So we need

we do this. Nate gave us the layout at the start of this yesterday as far as time frame. Obviously we need to get through the rest of these and personnel which is a big one tonight too falling behind. We're going to be having more discussions on the budget. You're going to council's going to be deciding too whether you do a truth and taxation. We're going to have to decide that pretty soon as well too. that I guess if you want to part of that discussion uh put put more tax in for storm drainage fees you know well assuming you approve taxation you know just because you approve a truth in taxation doesn't mean you're going to necessarily raise the taxes but

would you propose having a truth in taxation if that was something that well that's what we would hopefully try to decide either tonight or first meeting in April for once we get on the calendar. Right. We have to get off. So you would like to see it done before July 1st. The truth and taxation. Oh, not the meeting itself? Yes. No, it happens in August. Truth and taxation meetings. But we have a quicker time frame to to say that we are going to do truth and tax than we used to, right? Don't we have a deadline? Uh

we've notified the county. Um and then we just Yeah, we Sorry. Uh I need to read the state law that just went into effect um to see if it goes into effect for this year and next but that law says that we have to declare it on a separately listed agenda item on the first meeting in May when the tenative budget is presented. So assuming that that goes into effect on May 1. I don't know effect May 1, but also it does require us to prepare two budgets essentially. one with the tech truth and property tax and one without

but we do need to get on the county's calendar sooner later. So the way what I proposed and asked you would need to actually do three budgets for park budgets because I asked for not necess not necessarily I mean again the hope would be we're not we don't need to do an A b and c I mean

I mean whatever that recommendation is um we for us it's not that hard for parceptance because it's tied to something one is tied to an officer if you don't you don't and we can't go out for recruitment sorry chief and tell that truth. in taxation actually has been approved. That's the frustration from the state legislature is that we commit you as a council. Let's say chief started recruiting and and then you as the governing body said, "Well, we got to approve it because the chief's already hired some guy." That's what they don't want. I don't think a lot of cities are actually doing that, but that's the fear of the state legislature. So our budget would just be that the property tax increase is tied to an officer. Property tax increases is tied to fire and property tax increase is tied to inflation. The only thing that changes is our fund balance is our use of our fund 47. But um you better check your truth and taxation dates because on Monday the fire board approved building and truth and taxation and we as commissioners haven't even seen the budget yet. I don't think you guys can. So the fire board has taken kind of a different more official.

Okay. I'm just I'm just saying we talked about because last year there were cities that uh with the change in the law they went by by the old and found law that they were up without we're on the list and that's what we're so we're on the list with the county. The county is fully aware that we have intent, but we don't have to declare it until later. Would you be

I have one comment on and I'll be quick because I know you're trying to move us on, but on the truth and taxation and raising the taxes, I was on the council when we raised it 40%. At that meeting, 18 people showed up, 17 were against it, and one was for it. And we went through and we passed it. Now, when they started, they wanted 60% and I pushed it back to 40. So, I had agreed with the 40. We needed it. It was proven. And so, we went ahead and passed it. And a man stood up in the audience and he said, "Why do we even come? You don't listen to us. You went ahead and approved it anyway." And I said, I was kind of new. I stood up and I said, I was my feelings were hurt because I really struggled with it. And I said, I did listen to the residents. There's over 16,000 residents and only 17 people are against it. So, I would say I listen to the residents. But here's your problem. You don't hear about it till it goes in and they get it on you. What?

You're talking to all of us. You keep looking at Oh, no. Well, I'm just telling you because you weren't here. So, you're in trouble.

What? Yeah. What I'm trying to say is you don't find out until afterwards because there were 17 people here. Did I hear about it after it went into effect? Yes. But that's the thing that frustrates me is we can do the truth and taxation and you'll get maybe 18 people here if you're really lucky. The last time we raised it, we didn't have one soul in the audience. So we may have nobody. When it hits their taxes in November, then you get the phone calls. So it's really hard to make a decision on what people, you know, to say A, B, and C. You may have three people that come and tell us A, B, or C. So I feel like we have to make that decision with the knowledge that we have.

And I think that's you're correct. And having A, B, and C would basically be for us, right? Compare,

right? Because people don't, like I said, that's what I learned. I was appalled that more people don't come out when we raise taxes. I believe I was on the council when you had yours, probably your second one, and I did have people call me beforehand. I don't know if they came to the truth and taxation hearing. I do think that um it's really helpful when we know why we're raising it. Like I we we have very specific things and in the case of you know, the one that I was involved with, it was significant increases in salary mostly. It was for our police officers and there were some employee increases that needed to happen too. And you know, I was able to say I this is why I voted for it. And when I would say that, they were like, I don't want my lifestyle to change. This is I get it. We have to pay.

And so I'm okay with it. But what I'm saying is I'm stressed to do it for for the drainage fee because nobody's going to know about that or comment to us until it shows up on their thing and we've already done it. So that's my concern is I I think we need this I do think we need the information to find out how other cities are doing

and and why and I think you the drain utility page going to be that discussion I'm not saying it's not forecast I'm just saying that when I look at this budget tonight uh I see below operations line uh in many cases not a lot of changes I see the uh expenditures and personel line and it's it's anywhere from 6 to 9%. So, we haven't had personnel discussion and that's that's a big change in the budget. So, I don't want us to be all be weary and and and not get to the personnel discussions uh because we're hung up on something else, you know. So, that that's why I'm just saying uh I think it's been aired. I mean, uh, we've had a good discussion about it, but but

and I think we just need more information and if we could have that in the future and and maybe compare cities and the way they do it and some their larger pay payes in certain cities that compare similar to our payes and how much they're paying and how much we're our larger I mean, you could take a Home Depot here and a Home Depot in Leighton how much what's the difference? Are they about the same? Let's look at that and then we can go forward from there. But I think we just need more information. I would like to to have that study, but I think mayor is right. We just got to move forward because we're going to be worried personnel.

Yeah. The last last please understand though that that our city is there's no incentive for our city public works administration to decrease or control the amount of impervious surface we create in this city and every business is under an obligation for economics of things to manage it to try to control costs and that's a big one now for especially the business community it should be a bigger consideration I would like to see I I don't know can we work to uh help or incentivize I don't know how to mitigate that subsurf or the hard surface uh but can we do that can we incentivize commercial or property owners to decrease their hard surface and and have it more permeable is that

yes lower rates if you don't put per impermeable surface in that's your incentive right There is some of that but can we can we find other ways to incentivize and uh I don't know that is something a future discussion. Okay. Do you want to break uh right now or break go through those utopia quick and then break for the personel? Yes. Let's get through that personel like after the break. That one's going to be a big one. Is it? What do we I don't know, isn't it? It usually is. Maybe it's not.

It doesn't seem very like we were supposed to be done at 7:30. We really Well, we were supposed to start based on the agenda. We're only 17 minutes over. If it's okay, let's get started. And if you feel like personnel is going to go on longer, we kind of take a break after we introduce the personnel. If you think it's going to go a lot longer, then we can break and come back. Okay. If we're not if we are not taking a break at all, I would request that we have at least a three or four minute break. Take a break right now. Let's take it right now. I feel like

All right, welcome back everybody. After a break, we'll cover we'll cover utopia fund, telecomation fund, nonpart transfers and and the RDA before we end the night of personnel discussion. So Nate, you said you're doing Utopia, right? Yeah, the Utopia fund fund page 60. Uh, so this is where we pay our bond payments to Utopia. Just want to note that we don't have our so Utopia gives us a rebate. Anyway, they called opex, but they don't call it that.

U, they give us funds in return. Um, we don't know what that number will be quite yet, but I know that they're trying to make it so that our our side, even though the bond payment is going up, they're trying to make our portion of it stay about the same. It's been their goal for the past few years. So we don't know what that rebate will be but but Nate's estimated the 179 because if you keep the transfer the tax of 385 586 the same then the difference will be the 179692 and so so we anticipate the rebate being but we haven't received but unless you have counc um and just an FYI currently the RDA the funds from the RDA actually fund this. It doesn't come out of our general fund. It comes out of the RDA fund which is really beneficial. The RDA funds with the parish lane gateway and all that. We got the haircut for seven years. It's still generating some revenue and we use is it generating revenue still? It is. And then we can use those funds to help pay for this bond payment which is great. It's an eligible expense under the

Awesome. Try not to give us the money again. I'll be really mad enough. I was going to say we was

the last time they tried last time they tried to keep that money and I had to get So what happened is your 2024 that's before there's a point where we weren't getting the rebate because Centerville opted not to participate in this cost. So other cities who participated received an operational expense or an opx payment. We chose to say no, we'll pay a little bit more instead every year instead of paying a whole bunch of money up front. So we didn't get the rebate until recent.

Um fund real quick. It's on page 67. This is when Tokyo was first set up. the property owners could pay for their connection to their property. Some chose to do a loan of 10 or 20 years. So, this is where the customer gets build for that loan through their utility bill. So, we see that decreasing year after year as people start paying off their loans for their utility connection. That should be pretty close to that was about 10 years ago that all those went in.

Yeah. So, most of the 10 years are dropping off. Um, but those that elected the 20 year payment still have a little ways to go. Oh, and they're terrible. The interest, you know, one lady called me. I said to her, "No, it couldn't possibly be that." It was like five times what she paid. And that's what it is. It's terrible. I felt terrible for it. Customers can pay it off at any time. So, yeah. But she called me and she's like, "I called to pay it off and I owe more than I did to start with anymore. I called Nate. True. The advantage for her though is that she's going to get to pay it off. She's not on the rental program.

We want to go to page 49. This is our transfers general fund. We'll just go through that list. Um for the transfer, the first one's the cap transfers to our capital projects fund. Um this is essentially a plug number. So when we look at revenues minus our operating expenses, this is what's left over that we're able to transfer to our capital projects fund uh to continue to fund our capital projects equipment list to fund 47. Uh the recreation fund, what's that? $21,000 that we're essentially subsidizing the recreation fund that we talked about last night. Uh the transfer to the redevelopment agency fund of 180,000 that is the uh sales tax incentive to Young's Powers Sports. So that we collect the sales tax in the general fund. um here next month I'll calculate half of what we received from them and we'll transfer that over to the RDA to give back to them as part of that deal that we made. Uh the transfer to the drainage fund of 12,000 that's to cover a portion of our drainage supervisor salary who's also helping us out with our buildings. Just since the buildings are under the general fund, it's just covering this cost of this salary use buildings. And then the final one is our transfer to our transportation fund. I believe this is part of the property tax increase in 2017 was specifically for for the reason they did the property increase was for transportation purposes. And so that's the that's the increased amount of revenue we received from that property tax increase. And so that number it's always been that way since then. We're not obligated to keep it the same

number. But uh direction we have a conversation about the transportation utility fee that we just continue. When was that property tax increase?

That was part of the large 40% Okay. Then we want to go to the RDA. That's on the very last page. Um formal that we receive our tax increment funding which is our primary source of revenue. We will get that end of this month at the start of April. Um so the way I set next year's budget is based on the numbers that I'll receive this year. Um, since I don't have those, I'm using last year's numbers. Um, but those will change once we get our tax increment. You can see below we have those contractual obligations to those certain businesses. Um, but if we want to go down to uh our capital projects, you'll see uh $200,000 there. The purpose of this or the idea behind it is to put some essentially welcome to centerville signs on our borders.

Yeah. So um a few ideas we have talked about welcoming the center bill off the freeway off legacy might on main street. Again, this is just a placehold we need to have a much broader conversation. Um, actually, I'm sorry, more detailed conversation in the future. One of the others ideas is having potentially a an LED message board on parish saying what events are happening, what people are actually driving. There's been conversations about putting one here in front of city hall. To me, that doesn't make a lot of sense because you're driving 40 45 miles per hour, you're not going to actually see what's the the sign says. But if we had one near the Chili's at 400 West and Parish is off, you could be at a stoplight seeing the messaging. And I the idea came from I was driving in Leighton off Gentile. Their Lake City sign is actually off of Gentile, not next to city hall. And I there's a lot of information that I get from just being at that stoplight right there. So potentially an idea of an LED sign in the future to help get information.

Northlight does off and you stop the stoplight. They don't have an LED, but they have this big board up that colors. You can really see it really well on fourth north in front of the rec center, I guess, in front of the park by the rec center.

So, that's the idea is find it doesn't have to be in that location. It was just a you know, we identify a better location. Um, but I think it's good to get information out on those. I I mean I Anyway, so that that's $200,000 using RDA funds to help fund some of what the Senator Bill sent. That's the budget. Any questions?

I'll give them to you later. And again, if there are questions, if you want to chat offline, even individually, you're welcome to call me. I'm happy to go into more detail about specific things if you'd like more information. I don't want to get caught up in what we were last year. I want to get through this personnel. And if there's big questions, even if we don't have the time discussing tonight, I want to make sure that we schedule time discussing before uh we're voting on finalized budget. What's our what's our deadline? So, in the first meeting in May, I'll present the tenative budget. Yeah.

Then it'll be open to the public for a month and so the first meeting of June is when we'll start the public hearings for the final budget. The name and I would really like some real clarity before the tenant budget because that's when so the May before the May meeting we so meeting in April whether we've got general plan conversations happening and other conversations happening. So, we'll need to find some time as you have some time to think about it, research it. Um, and I'd like to have one more followup conversation before we present the tend

work session or a special session. Work sessions and general plans. It might be tough fitting everything on all at once. I think the budget should take priority over the general plan so that we have get the budget done in an appropriate time frame and we can focus on a general plan that when we could focus on it. Sure. Yeah. That would be a lot going discuss.

I'll just say I feel the same way. Instead of trying to stress over two things, I'd rather get the budget done and then move on to the general plan and get it done rather than half doing you do it all. Just kidding. Whatever. Yeah. No taking for sure. That's fine with me too. Okay. Personnel. Sure.

Okay. Right. So, uh, personnel, uh, what's in the budget right now is the same as I' I've requested in the budget every year for seven years now as I've prepared these budgets, and that is cost of living using the western region as our metric and plus 2% merit. Now, again, the 2% merit is an automatic for an employee. We use that number to create essentially a pot of money for the department heads to use and give you up as they see fit and reward those high performers and um but they have the ability to use that money and we have department heads who actually use it that way. It's not an automatic 2% for all employees. So I know employees hear this and they think I'm going to get 2% and that's not necessarily true. Department heads are pretty candid about it with them. Chief and Mike for sure do a really good job about doing that.

What's the cost of living in the western region? So the western region is December December it's 2.9%. When we use western region if you use the mountain states region it actually tends to be higher than the western region and the the countrywide the nationwide one doesn't truly affect what we're doing within the western. So I I've always used that metric even before here in centerville I've used this as the recommendation for merit or so it's been consistently used for the last correct. So, so I've been debating on how to approach this to be honest with you. So, that's what's in the budget page. Sorry, it's it's your folded. It's your kind of folded one. Very last tab.

So, the approach that I I debate what's in here is that what's in the budget is the 2.9% plus 2% merit. That's what's in the budget. And that that amounts to approximately 230 $30,000 for those two. When mayor you bring up the six to 9% that includes the new officer and promotions those are treated a little bit separately when we're just talking about the cola and the the merits about 200 probably because I'm looking above line there probably benefits in there work

and keep in mind this includes a 10% medical and that medical is coming down to 7.9%. So that you'll see a decrease there. Um, so what I've been debating is with a comp study coming up, um, and I haven't finalized this, so I'm speaking out loud here now, is that a 2.9% occurs on July 1 for all employees to withhold that merit of 2% until we do a comp study to see where our employees fall because some employees might fall a little bit higher and some might be right on target. It's really critical that right now we take this snapshot to see where do we fit in compared to our other cities. And so that's ultimately I'd love to leave the budget the way it is but only implement the 2.9% and on July one withhold the 2% for a moment till we comp study done and then we can go back and individually address each employee.

How long will that take? Pretty quick. It wasn't Bryce isn't here, but it's I mean, if we can get started sooner than later, that'd be really great. But ultimately, if it takes a couple months, I would recommend we retro back. Want to go back to July first? For sure. So, we'd retro back to July one. That would be my recommendation. So, again, I I'm I'm open to hearing your thoughts on that. But I um that's kind of where I am is 2.9. Does everybody get their possibly their annual reviews on July 1? You wouldn't necessarily have to retroact. I mean the merit the merit is on July 1. It's not on the date of hire or anything like that.

It's a separate conversation I'd love to change. Uh anniversary date would be definitely a better way to go. However, this is the way senators always done it and undoing that is really hard. So anyway, what would be the rational in withholding the 2% pending the compensation study? Because if Dave Walker is already making more than he deserves, then I he doesn't get the 2%. I that's actually exactly what I was thinking. Is that is that the reason that you would just hold the two?

So ultimately, again, it's not to punish every but this is important for us to see where everybody is. And I'm not I don't want to say all the employees, but some employees may not qualify because we've actually done a really good job keeping them with market, right? But everybody gets the 2.9% because when we also do the the cola, our ranges shift with that 2 point whatever that cola is. So our ranges have always stayed up.

Um and so then the 2% you're moving within that range. So I really want to be a take a hard look at each employee and say here's you've got 10 years experience. here should be in that range compared to other cities. It's not saying they may not qualify for an increase at all. It just allows me to make we have requests by department heads right now where they'd like to look at different employees who they feel are doing a much better job and this gives them some flexibility as well. So, here's my concern and I and I will and I put a lot of difference in your opinion on this because you certainly know staff, but I would really hate to hit morale of staff by saying, you know, every single year you're going to get a two you get up to a 2% increase if you just killed it and you knocked it out of the park, but this year, so sorry, we're gonna we're going to withhold that from you. I I guess part of me is thinking I I would prefer to just go forward and do it in the regular course and if the compensation study ends up that they're overcompensated, I would rather adjust for that on the latter half rather than the early half. And I and I say this just mostly from a a staff morale stand. It's there is some expectation and you want people to work hard so that they're going to get their bonus or their merit increase.

Oh no, for sure. I recognize I'm jerking this, right? I I sure for sure recognize but this is also a reality check. Yeah.

To say because potentially the method we've been taking is is we we have been pushing further ahead than maybe is comparable. And so it's somewhat of a reality check to make sure that the process we've taken for seven years that I've recommended is working or sustainable or unsustainable. Um, so I I love the idea of doing a four the four point or uh the 4.9% for all employees and then having the compensation study adjust but the reality is that where's that money coming from? If I have to make adjustments and say water department they are below 4% then I've got to find 4% in the budget and if there's support from here to do that then that's going to be potentially a property tax increase next year to make up that difference to fund it ongoing. So that you see kind of the I'm trying to be cognizant.

I get exactly where you're coming from and I and I don't So I do worry about morale and I might be worried and I want you to know I don't fault you for where you're coming from because if you're telling me like no staff is going to understand and they're going to be totally fine with Oh no, they're not going to be fine in an understanding of it. But I you know I just I just want to be a little cognizant because I also still want to give them up here question how they feel about it because I haven't flown it with them. The 2%'s up to the department heads how they want it to. Right. Right. So, and do they use all that 2% every year or do you get turned? Actually, no. So, I mean we have uh you know some department heads will actually withhold so you get 1% unless you meet certain conditions then you get the other 1%. Give somebody else right. Right. That's

they may or may not but I would say for the most part they spend all but okay for the most part but there are some that you can use it as an incentive of hey there's these items that we need to correct so let's meet again in six months re-evaluate and then correction implement another

my that was my concern was I'm even a little bit more on our lower end we've talked about these employees that are just coming on The city doesn't pay a great living lot. I mean, they're not living here in Centerville. So, I don't want people to think if I can just make it till July, I get this big of a race. So, that was my concern is I want to make it retroactive and I want to make it as quick as possible. So, they may not get it on July 1st, but they're going to get it on August 1st or September. It's not going to be Christmas time by the time they get it.

Well, we could start the compensation study today, right? This is one of the things we could start it now and kind of find 10,000 in the budget. It might be a budget, but we could start it now and then take it out of the budget. I want to do it if we did find that some were underpaid. Um, how would that would how would you fix that? Would that be something that we'd have to fix in the next year or do we do a budget amendment to fix that now? And then would that mean that we then pay the merit upon the newly adjusted salaries that they would be made?

Yes. So a couple things. So we would make it retro to July one in that fiscal year. So the way compensation study studies work is the big deal is if we commit to a compensation study, we commit to fulfilling and implementing them. I was a brand new city manager seven years ago and I had a council who was reluctant to implement the compensation study. Not council me not everybody but and that's how it came back that uh it was really tough. we were under

but ultimately it came back that we were well below mark in a lot of positions mostly in our department head positions and so there was resistance to implementing it and that's really the morale killer there is we say I want to go see what the market says by the way you're all underpaid and we're not going to give you your pay raise to match it. So that's why it's important to make sure um that we do it right. And so yes, you look at certain employees, you say this person qualifies for 7%, this person's 1%, this person's 5%. Um I think we've done a pretty good job keeping up with COLA. I mean, we had we've had inflation of 7.1% one year. And so we had a nine 9.1% increase for pay raises one year during COVID

22.

Yeah. 22. And so we've kept up and that's where I think it's really important to see where we are and making sure we're still comparable. Um we're definitely in the 90 95th percentile in police. We're doing really well there. Um but I do worry about public works and a few of our other departments were um council mink was great a couple years ago making sure we take care of public works. Um so they got a little bit higher of an increase than the other departments. It is tough set because doing the research I have what I'm discovering is about right now three and a half% is kind of the average private and public sector is about three and a half% in our pay rate. So we're asking for 4.9 which is a little bit higher than what our our region private and government is is saying. So I'm I'm cognizant of that. That's where I think the 2.9% is still a fair increase with some money in that 2% to make adjustments to employees. So, you're absolutely right because our employees expect this recommendation from me every year. It's it's an expectation. So, I'm deviating a little bit. You can ask them how they feel about it. I haven't the 2.5% cola is

I think it's fair% over what the county did. So, I think it's fair and then a merit. What did they give this tried to remember, but I'm pretty sure it was 2%.

Here's the other thing that I want to make sure happens though because again, I feel really strongly that people should be incentivized and they should be rewarded for doing good work. So, if we have a compensation study that comes back and says, "We think you should make X and that person is making exactly X, but they killed it over the last year." And normally they would get a merit increase, but I don't want supervisors to go, "Oh, well, the compensation study came back and said, "You should be pay X. You are paid X. We're not going to give you any merit increase this year, even though you killed it over the last year." Because that's what it that's what it is. I just want to make sure that we're not disincentivizing.

So, I have two department heads who are who are kind of punks about this whole thing. They'll come to me and say, "So and so is killing it. How do I give them more money?" And he says, "Well, your opportunity is during the merit. You've got to figure it out. But then you get they're going to give 4% to that person who's killing and 0% to the person who's doing a fine job. But that's their opportunity to make adjustments. And that's really hard, right? But is a compensation study going to impact the way that supervisors give out merit bonuses this year? That's

well it's the department heads are responsible. So this will give the department heads and I say pumps in a loving way because what they try to do is they want to make adjustments to one employee who's killing it. But the impact is is well now so and so is making as much as this person who's been here a lot longer. And then you have this potential cascading, well, wait a minute, now we got to make all these slight adjustments. The compensation study with this moment, it will allow them to make those changes. So if a supervisor, an employees killing it, this is their opportunity to say, you know, you're going to get 7% this year if they're killing, right? And I think there's an opportunity to make those changes. So really, it's going to be a lot of effort on the department. Maybe that's why they're mad at me and looking at me with daggers, but this is their opportunity to make those changes. And I don't the best way I can say this council council Haymon is you and I operate in a service sector. We can value bill. You really killed it. You did a job that heck we're going to build 50,000 bucks even though you only put three hours into it, you know, because it's worth it because you save the client. But you don't have that in the government. So, you know, uh we don't we don't have that ability. We can't value bills. when I first got married to a man with Shay on this as far and I don't know exactly that we're on the same but here's my concern people worked all year long and this is what they're thinking they're going to get and then I have done my homework and talked to some department heads and I know that the department heads really like having this incentive for their for their people. My question is, would we be better off to do it this year while they're expecting it so that they know next year there's going to be a compensation study? They're going to know where they fall and they're not going to be be expecting that big rate. I mean, I'm going to be really sad if I'm thinking I just stay here till July, I get $5 an hour more. And then all of a sudden,

you're like, "No, you only get 250." and then look at the compensation study. But if I got my $5 and then you said, "But next year we're gonna have a compensation study in about September, you're going to know if you're over, then you probably aren't going to get that whole." But right, you're saying everybody's going to get their 2.9 anyway. So everybody is going to get a bump. So everyone is still going to get a bump. It's it's not that they're not going to get a bump, but if I'm looking at this the other p the other direction, right? I'm like, I might get an extra 2% but if we do this compensation study, I might get 7% more because I find out that I mean there's a way to side to side, right? But there are there are significant benefits to saying we're just going to do it on the

I'm not I asked the council this then and I as well too if you could do a compensation study in my opinion more than likely it says you probably have to come up with more money. Uh, what if it says you don't have to come up with more money than we're overpaying people for that? What do we do in those situations? Sorry, say that again. What if what if it says we're over what if we're overpaid? Yeah, you leave it right. You don't you don't ever take value away. You don't taking someone's pay away. And that's where I'm saying that if I gave you 2% to find out when you've been overpaid. But again, this so I don't mind what you're saying. overpaid that should

we've been competitive right be competitive. Let's keep in mind too that at some point we know from the last compensation study that we did that we kind of aim for about a 60% median. So I I mean the reality is is we're probably not overpaying because we've been sitting kind of at well but we're still going to be that's where we're going to be is 60%. We're not looking at going over that on this. Okay. Now that I have a chance to think about it, let me propose this. We're probably not overpaid. Let me propose this and it's based somewhat on what council me saying and that is

that we do a compensation study. We don't rush it and we do it next year sometime with the with the idea that there July one. That way I have an opportunity to meet with all the department heads and staff and scare them a little bit that this is a reality that's going to happen. But I need commitment from council in next budget year that if we do a comp study, we have to implement the findings of the comp study in 2017. In 27 asking that question comes back, are they committed? Again, this is a last minute I think I thought about this last week and brought up with Nate. Nate's like, I don't know. And I brought up a chief and she's like, what are you doing? So,

so honestly I haven't fully vetted but I feel like that's critical is is that we need to do a comp study to see where we are but it is last minute. So what's in the budget is the 2.9 plus 2% merit and if that's what we want to pass this year with the idea that we do a comp study and we start it in August September of next year with the intent of implementing July that way we can correct. The only concern I have with that is just that I am concerned that we may be underpaying in a couple of sectors as evidenced by um inability to keep positions filled. Well, let me I hate to put it off a year and those people continue to be maybe really underpaid. Let me let me also say this

too because I said something that makes us think that we want to delay it. I definitely I'm not sure I want to do that. I'd rather do the comp study earlier if for underpaying people. I want to get them paid. The the reality the the reality of for me is I've worked for the government and I've worked for private sector. As a government employee, I didn't ever expect that there was going to be a merit and a cola. Now, I worked for the state when there was a lot of noncllas and nonmariters. It was just there's a reason why we don't work. What? There's a reason we don't work. Yeah. They're paying the lot of employees left. Their benefits are sometimes better than ours

sometimes. But um I guess what I'm saying is is they are they do know they're going to get the 2.9%. They do know that there's potential for more than that. Um, so I'm personally I think the 3% is a pretty good cola and um I would like to make sure that we're you know if we're really really under on some I think we need to catch that up but not a year from now. Well, then the other the other recommendation I do have uh the two punk department heads I love here. Um they have employees they'd like to make adjustments to. And so that's not built into this budget that if there was some it's those two. It's the chief and

you know what way to be awesome if you're looking out for your employees. I love it. So honestly I you that's not in this budget but if if there is some support there we can do and use TechNet. Bryce can help me out with this and Bethany but in those positions I can do spot compensation studies and or comparables and see where those employees are and make those slight adjustments. That's not in this budget. But if there was a little bit of wiggle room that I could address, look at just spot check on most of employees that we would hate to lose that it is possible we can lose employees. So

if there's some wiggle room for me to address those immediate needs and compensation study can happen and that would be

quiet. Rick, what do you think? Well, my experience, there are a lot of employees who underp seems to be pretty well staffed and department head seem to be pretty pleased with all of their employees, but I wouldn't say everybody deserves even the the colon every year. I mean, you might have some more money there to highly compensate the higher performers. everybody thinks they they deserve that if they're underperforming or had some challenges for the year, but maybe we don't have any. I don't know. I'm not part of that.

Fair. Um again, that's the process we've taken. There's there's some cities I had a conversation with a neighboring city where they have step in grade which is an automatic increase regardless of performance which I am I oppose stepping in grades and luckily we don't have a police department who wants that but that eliminates the non-public safety they get the cola plus 2% it's automatic regardless of performance and the public safety gets the cola plus 5% which is automatic again that's what I like challenging our department is to use that merit That's their wiggle room. But those are kind of cities that we're competing against to to maintain our staff. Those are the levels that

and I think you have to take that into consideration is all the other government entities that we're competing with. They're all offering colas and I take that and we did get a 2% cola at the county, but then they tacked on another 2% but they decreased the 401k match 401k match. So there was a lot of give and take at the county level as well. So employees 60 64

you initially came in with recommendation that we do a compensation study was something that we talked about the last budget year. Does that mean that you have a do you have somebody lined up and how quickly do you anticipate coming in with that?

They're ready to go right now. Right. So, I mean, if if um potentially a budget amendment we can get for this year because it's not budgeted this year. I don't need to ask for, but we can spend the 10,000 this year, not spend it next year and get that started sooner than later. Um, big part of this compensation study is recoming our job descriptions which are outdated and antiquated. So, that takes some time. There'll be interviews with our employees and just to make sure they understand what is the full duties and responsibilities. So, it'll take it'll take a couple of months, but we could have it done. I don't know what Mike's schedule is like right now. It might be three or four.

I would take a different approach that we're doing it next year. Well, let's get it in continue doing it next year and continue on this path going ahead because I just think it is cancelled. Uh you I think you're going to have enough questions and enough play without trying to help jam uh compensation study this changing the budget.

I I like that mayor and I think okay let me throw this out there then and that is we we implement what is here what we've done every year we do the compensation study as quickly as possible we come with you a recommendation and then you as a council can decide whether that's implemented whether it's July one next year retro July one at that time and then you as a council whatever that mentation might be. Again, my hope is the implementation is not these crazy numbers because we've kept up and we've stayed relatively competitive, but it gives us a chance to make those adjustments. I don't like spot check. I don't like taking one role and saying what are you getting paid without adjusting everybody around and I think that doesn't really give you a fair sense of what's 60% for everybody. I don't like doing that. I've had to do it a few times, but we could address those. That was my concern when you said you could do that was I'm like, "Yeah, but I'm the employee right above them or right below them." And I think

drives me crazy. And that's that's what the police department situation like put me in. I think I like I like doing this compensation city councilman Summer Hayes used to always say, "Is this sustainable?" I think this is going to be helpful and telling to us if you know we have been able to keep up based on the kind of the system we've used at least since I've been on there's a balance of sustainability as well as competitiveness to make sure we don't absolutely so again

the hardest thing to do with cities I I've worked for a city element city manager where there's a lot of turnover and you couldn't pay people enough to get them to come work for the city because they just developed that reputation um and Then all of a sudden you're overpaying for underqualified people. You're overpaying for someone who has less than a year experience in water. You're paying them higher than what you just paid your guy that at 10 years that just lacks. So you're overpaying for underqualified once you start creating that turnover. We've been really good about trying to we have low turnover for the most part except for water struggle. I just think where we are paying um and kind of to your point, Councilman Bager, I I do get what you're saying, if we were paying 90%, you know, if we're on the high end, I'd say yes, that we should probably look into that, but where we're paying kind we've kind of been in that 60% I I do think it behooves us to stay up on this and make sure that we are

we don't go below 50%. Yeah, exactly. because it will be too late by the time if we get to that point we're too late. We we have harmed our um morale and our reputation and our people will not want to be here. One of the greatest things we have for Centerville is that we have very loyal influence who've been here a long time. Mike has been here as long as as I am old, right? So, it's pretty awesome.

But she's been here a long time. my day's been here a lot. We have employees, but there is going to be a time where they're going to retire and and I get really nervous about that and and if we are losing those like middle of the road 10-year veterans, then we're gonna it's going to be a lot of work. I think that's a really good point, too. We are we do have somewhat of you know some of our really like our department heads have been here a while and you know I don't want I keep telling none of they can none of them can leave but the but the reality is is when they want to go retire we should be wishing them well see because they've worked long long years and been loyal.

Yeah Mike's mad I keep saying no hang on a little bit longer. I know. I know. I get to say the same thing. But but when he wants to go, I also we but we need to have people to fill in and we want them to be and we do have we do have succession planning going on to back field. But then again, what's under that is the but we got to we got to make sure that we're compensating correctly. So we'll lose that middle. I I think you know I always advocate for staff app and they appreciate

in in this case I because you've already budgeted in the 2% plus the 2% mer increase just like normal. I'd be inclined to like stick with that now but let's get the compensation study done. Let's get it back and then we as a council can decide do we want to make it retroactive? Do we want to apply it to the next year but then we'll have the actual data to know where where we are. That would make I really like that. Okay. I don't have to be a big of a jerk and council saves the day. That's how that one buys us a little time if we need it. Like if we run into something that's a little more complex than we thought, it gives us a little more time, too.

One thing I've had to learn in my time and hope to learn it is we compare ourselves against other cities in our industry or the similar side of that sort of thing. I Initially I tried to compare cities to to private sector and even the private sector don't do that. I compare against other CPA firms not not against some some other CPA job and my clients. I have some sales people that make more than the CEO and CEO loves it because he wouldn't make much as he did. He didn't pay a saleseople. Some people don't pay sales people that well. So we're looking that for our industry in comparison that's our industry and that's what this compensation study does. A big part of that when we do the comm study is making sure we pick the right cities. I I feel like compensation study seven years ago I don't think the cities were really reflective of comparables for us and I think that that really matters

but also regionally right as we go forward to this people aren't moving as far anymore because they can't afford to move out of their really sweetheart interest rates. So uh you're not going to find people moving from St. George to take a job here or even Utah County to take a job here because it's such a commute. So you're really comparing even though Battlefield may not be comparable, it kind of is now. Leighton may not be comparable, but it kind of is now because it's now regionally, right? Well, if you drive a backhole, what does it matter if you drive at Bountiful or Centerville or Farmington? You're driving a backhole. So if Battlefield's going to pay me more to drive my back hole, I'm going to work. I get to play in the dirt for four minutes.

Was there anything else on the personnel? Did you go? No, I think that was great. Thank you so much for your help. Thank you for allowing me to go through that process. This is kind of what goes through my mind. Can I ask uh our finance director, our city manager and myself, is there do you want people to reach out separately or would you like to know quickly what's on some people's minds that they'd like you to research uh now if they have thoughts? Uh what would you like to do? Well, depends. Let me let me clarify the research side. If it's going to take us more than two hours, I'd like to all agree that that's an important thing for us to research. That's kind of our informal that that's what I'm saying as a group discussion.

Um I think it might be helpful for you to absorb the fire hose that you just dealt with and we have the work session if we're going to delay a little bit of the general plan. Let's schedule the work session the first meeting in April for half an hour to just kind of digest see where we are. Okay. And we can go from there. But if you want to call me just for clarifying questions don't or or Nate even we're we're happy. We we actually really love this part sadly. Um we we enjoy going through the budget and and trying to find areas where we can be efficient and effective. What we

I enjoy it too. I enjoy it tons. It's just and I love it. Go four, five, six nights at this time of year. It's awful two nights. So I'm glad it's just two nights. But I want you to enjoy as well. So does that sound uh okay if we use that approach? Yeah. Like what any other thoughts? What is the plan on the general fund? Are we still At one point we talked about the first meeting in April. Is that going to happen as well? I just want to make sure I'm staying up. But I just you all wouldn't mind just waiting a little bit. That's fine. Just to get through budget.

I just want to be prepared. And both of these items require more than like seeing the agenda on Friday and be ready. So I just want to make sure I'm studying and preparing what I need to. Yeah. Can I just ask that you review your schedule for August? Oh, yeah. Can we kind of August Truth and Taxation? I We're not still committed at this point. We still have an opportunity to to back out if we had to. Right. Absolutely. But if we can pick the date in August right now, that way we can get on the calendar.

I am I know I'm gone the first week in August. So, we want to get on the county's calendar, but when you set the tax rate in June is when we ultimately decide are we doing it or not. Um, if you could just even if you just come to that first meeting in April with your schedule so that we can coordinate it. Um, Tuesday, August 11th, that would be ideal. That's my number one date. That works for me. That's the off week of an off week of council. Tuesday night and then remember the truth and taxation hearing cannot have any other meetings or business going on. So that's the only meeting on that night. So it cannot be a regular city council idea.

I I may be out of attend but I will know which month was that? So August 11th would be my ideal but uh if that doesn't work for everybody that's fine. Just a couple dates that do work. There's a possibility I might be attending. Alask. Truth and dex going up there with you. All right.

All right. We're thanks. I can remote.