City Council - Regular Meeting

She was at the last meeting.

I really something. [Music] I say that all the time.

I always say that too. We'll go ahead.

Hey guys. Amen. United States which stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty for all.

There you go. All right. We don't have anybody signed up for citizen participation in that. So we can jump right into budget discussion.

Yes, sir. Uh, council, you have before you um two uh copies of the uh budget. One is um without an adjustment. The other one comes with a water rate adjustment. I'd direct you to the one without adjustment first. And I'd like you to look at the general fund. We were able through um uh significant cuts and some revenue touching up some revenue slightly uh to end up with a balance surplus of $111,800 in the general fund. Um, and that that uh particular amount there does not include any cost of living allowances, but it would give us room uh in over the next few months to look at some possible merit raises. There are a few salary adjustments that are included in that, but no overall salary adjustments. It also includes a U $700 reduction in the city's contribution on the uh health savings account. Um if you look at O2 the utility under that one before any rate adjustments uh we are currently sitting at let me preface this the water uh collections if you look at the water revenue and the sewer revenue on that that has been adjusted based on a uh proration of the July collection it's a total combined total of about $94,000. And I since July is a high usage month, I uh broke that down and only took 80% of that and added that into the water and the sewer

accordingly. Um with that still we are at 443768 below um deficit on the utility without without an rate adjustment on that. If you look at your next one, which does have the rate adjustment, the rate adjustment is, as we've discussed in the past, and I think I've written to you about, includes a $5 sewer, $5 uh water uh base rate adjustment for residential and small commercial customers. and then larger meter sizes are uh increased accordingly. Um with that and then with a very small incremental uh water uh volumetric charge of 25 cents for the residential customers per 10,00 gallons and um and it goes up from there but it doesn't go over like a buck and a half for the very largest customers. Uh we've reached u a positive balance of almost $17,000 in the utility. Uh it it pays it we we're balanced. Uh we're at 17 16,986 if we do the rate adjustment. Um that's where we are guys and I can go through the volumetric increases if you'd like. that are proposed. It's 25 cents for zero to a,000 gallons. Uh it' be four and a quarter. Um it' be uh 475 or or four and a

quarter for the um uh one through 9,000 gallons. $5 for the 9 through 20,000 gallons. And this is per 1,000 gallons. Um five and a quarter for uh 21 through 40. And then 41 is 550. It's about it ranges from 25 to to 150. Uh sewer likewise ranges from um 25 all the way up to 160. Sewer is a little higher because it's costs more to treat sewer than does water. Ma'am, if you if you like these are based on grants. These are still significantly lower than um what our consultant a year ago recommended our volumetric charges to be. They're they're not even close to what he recommended them to be. So that's that's um how we've budget how we've balanced the budget up to this point.

The other we need to make Make sure everybody's aware of the two loans with Texas Water Development Board. It requires this increase. So, thank you. If they choose not to. So, we're going to pay that out of utility funds, not debt. We're going to pay We're going to pay We have to show them that we can pay it out of utility. It can be It won't be able to go on the debt schedule until next year. So, next year we can we can adjust this But this year we have to be able to show that we have to be able to pay. We have to pay. It's 1878.90.

It's on. Yeah, I saw. I just wondered if we had to pay it from utility or it has to be paid out. I have to prove it becomes longterm debt which won't be another year that we can cover it and it and it actually may be two years before it comes long-term debt Mary because there's a chance that we won't even that that we won't close on it until after the end of this coming fiscal year but I have to show them in the budget that we can cover it now

I just my question is what you sent us on Friday. I'm not following those numbers on the on the increases. It was it was the $5 for water and sewer and then we were going to go up to 375 for 0 to 1,000 gallons. Is that right? No, we're going up to $4 for zero to 1,000 gallons. And we weren't charging anything for for So what we got on Friday is you know No, we've changed it. We had to change it today because with what you had on Friday, we were still 56,000. Wasn't that right? Because this generates 417

and this right. How much

without doing the volumetric charges we were below still the last budget we got on Friday showed a deficit of 444626 and then this she was going to generate 417730. So that's only I'm going to say $30,000. Then you went to HSA. We had to put the

the whole 1700 was taken out. So we were putting in a thousand. Okay. We put in 25,000 more for the HSA. for 27,000 total with the HSA and the and reducing the utility investment.

We brought the sales tax collection up $25,000. We're where do I think 740 or so? So 740. It's reflecting 676, but that was for that was before July's collection and they were around 70,000. So So when we looked at this, the the rates residential and commercial, we're still charging the same amount for residential we do commercial. Commercial rates with larger meters are proportionately higher than residential rates. Where am I missing that? The small meters aren't right.

The small meters are the mom and pop me the the below one inch is is um still the same as residential. Where where it increases are the larger meter sizes and the commercial. If you just adjust the commercial, even if you just If you adjust smaller meter sizes for the commercial, you're not going to make up that deficit because

No, I I wouldn't anticipate that. But commercial meters one and a half One and a half goes up to um 114 117.

Yeah. See, I just I was looking at the TWWL information that we had resches. But it still has to do with volume. I see what you're doing. They just there is no difference between residential and commercial rates at the 58 or 3/4. There's not. There's a slight difference at the one inch. Well, no, not at the one inch either. It's all the way down. It's the same,

but you're not going to have I think all of our residential is 58 or isn't that right, Chad? 58 or 3/4. I have a copy of the proposed volumetric charges if anybody wants look at them. The grant proposed here. John,

thanks for what you did the other day. Clean up all the leaves around the plasma. I saw you out there sweating away, but thanks for doing that. So it's so commercial water bill at minimum is going to be going up about 14 bucks. about that. Wonder who that is.

Would you all like to page through each of these maybe and just check them off to say, "Hey, any questions by page?" Would y'all like to just start page one and say, "Hey, no questions. Look what's good." Just to make sure we can maybe everybody's looking at the same thing at the same time. Would that help? Yeah. Maybe just on the It may go pretty quickly too, but we can say, "Hey, any line item you want to talk about or general?"

You want to start with the general, mayor? It doesn't matter. Revenues on general. Anybody have any questions on that?

Doesn't have to take long, but just in case we check these off and get to the good where we're at. Everybody good with the revenue side on the general fund. Okay, jump on admin. [Music] I'm good with Okay. General fun maintenance.

Any questions on this one? I'm good. Fire. Please remember there's 50% 450,000 coming in from the county. And Craig did work with Blake. Y'all pushed off other than maybe two, you pushed those hires off to January. Is that right? So that

Yeah,

that we phase those out a quarter and insurance is adjusted accordingly and all that based on that. PD corrected the overtime number right today. record. Okay. sanitation.

Not much talk about that. There's not much there. Trash keeps coming.

Main Street. animal control. And remember, we pay a third of this. Good. Parks and recreation. One thing I point out here is that it's very doubtful the capital outlay will be paid out this year, but it's in there just in case it is. And the reason I say that is just talking to Hunter Rush with MHS. Just the timing on the grant. I think that we'll get the engineering done this year, but I don't think um that um we'll see any actual construction until 2027. sometime after October of next year. Uh code is a big one. I've tried to cut it as much as we can, but we're still stuck with 800. Any questions on that?

Or a code enforcement officer. You're sitting right next to one of them.

Angie, what did Stan say? So um total expenditures um 3.8 and change we're um under or over uh by 1118 which gives us a little cushion for um anything that comes up possibly can add some salary adjustments um after after the budget year begins and after we see what the revenue trend is going to be. Okay. Utility fund. Revenues are we all comfortable with credit calculation? I think it's conservative enough. Any comments on the revenues on utility? [Music]

All good.

Okay. Public works. Everybody okay? Utilities. Utilities

Texas Water Development Board. There we have some we have some partial loan grants. Okay. And actually that part is actually coming out of a loan a very low interest loan. But that's a good question, John. Yeah. Yeah. Public finance stuff. Some things are way hard to make sense of service.

Okay. Uh storm water and the utility fund. And that's just um that's for storm water maintenance. We just remember it was like 40,000 and we reduced it to 2100 just to have some money in there. And then um utility fund water the uh raw water line loan is in there. Um 5160 you will never be at that position in a city.

That's um that engineer expense as well as the one that will come out of the sewer comes out of the Texas Water Development Board loan. with water expend. And then we have the sewer. And that brings us to revenue over 986.

You want to discuss the water and sewer rates any further? Are you comfortable with nobody likes comfortable with them? But

I mean, nobody's looking forward to having water increase, but not a way to run a way to I think at some point too we have to address the issue of um employee benefits and that too because they're outpacing. We can't just keep raising rates and and not look at other things because we're asking the citizens of the city to pay for benefits that I'm going to say probably the majority of the people in this city don't get. So, we have to look at an offset there. I think we're kind of behind the eightball this year, but and I'm not I'm not saying I want I don't want to eliminate benefits, but I I think we spend more in benefits than most small businesses. with the TML. Our water rates are falling within where most of them are. The issue is that most of them don't have that $15 we keep bringing up and we've got years left to pay for that shouldn't have been put on there. But it's just what it is. But I I think if we also look at that those results that we had keeping the commercial rates at the same level that the resial rates were at. I don't know. We're We're coming up with

an extra $102,000 on residents and I think we're hitting looking at these rates, the ones with four, six, and eight inch lines are going to be like, "Holy crap."

I think on the At Logan's point, they're passing that on to their citizens. So, they have rent increases to cover what was the water bill from the city is being charged pass through their rent. So, you don't take that 8 inch meter up. It's a profit center for whoever owns point to the res. It looks bad, but it's it's actually it's a wash from what we were charging much. It's only like $71 versus 65. What was that? I said it it when you when you take the 8 in Yeah.

by the 104 apartments, it comes out to like $71 versus the 65 for residential. So, you're only talking a month. We know what we have. But even I don't know. Like I said, I I just have to based off what I'm what I see and I just like I told shore.

Well, and I, you know, I'd also advise the council that nothing's getting cheaper and infrastructure. Chad and I were just talking earlier. What were the increases in meter costs? Well, we're talking about new meters. We're talking about larger meters.

That's us replacing meters, but we shouldn't have to replace. No, I'm not talking new construction. Don't they pay for that process? But the point is is that everything has increased exponentially. The water lock, everything from PVC pipe, everything that that is infrastructure

the cheapest thing to build anything today, but you have to have the money to build I'm not just trying to understand it.

Some commercial would be like just pick any of the little buildings on the square. It's just a body flush. you put a big commercial rate on, you'll close people down. It's not a burden on the system. But then you go to the larger meters where somebody actually is water intensive user as a commercial site and then and also you might have your fluent side that we're dealing with like a truck stop or something bigger meters going to it. It's kind of two different types of commercial. That's kind of logic on a smaller just rates are identical. So even if you're resin, you're going to pay 457. It's all based off. That would be my only question. what we looked at with TML. These were different rates.

That's that's what that's what I was looking at was like how do

the volume Voltric charges and TML different cities do it different ways. Certain cities just have this is how much we're charging for commercial. This is how much we're charging for for residential. What we have been recommended to do is to base it on the amount of water that potentially could flow through that meter. So on a small mom and pop I mean we can raise that but on a small mom and pop business and that there's 152 of them. Okay, their rates that their rates are the same as a residential rate because it is a 3/4 58 inch meter. It's coming through there that and they're not going to use that much water. If you look at the if you look at the amount of revenue that's generated off of that, it isn't significant. And I mean, we can raise it, but it's, you know, I I'm just thinking small businesses are, you know, they're not heavy water users. It would be like anything over there or the feed store or any place else.

I'm just saying like with somebody that has a larger dimension Why would they still be maintaining the same price as a resial? But it would be larger that would require more water than what a residential but but all your residentials are are 3/4 or 58. We don't have anything larger than that in residential. We only have a one inch. Now, if we have a somebody that wants to put a 3 inch in the house, they're going to use more water. They're going to use a lot more water and therefore they should pay for that.

But right now and right now and I'm going to guess that most cities don't have anything more than residentials for

and that's big. I don't know who who lives there. Multiple sprinkler systems. Good customer. Excellent customer.

You had a conversation with the cat.

What's your cat do when you're not there? tonight. We're proposing the budget next week next week. looked at this curious yard, but there is no sewer on.

That's right. But why would we pay any less for irrigation water than we do res?

I'll be happy to increase irrigation. Well, I'm just I'm just I'm just asking the question because the only reason it's $16 uh was that was what the consultant recommended. Is it half of the And is that to replace the meter? Yeah, basically. But we we can we sure can add another 16 to that.

Well, I'm just I'm not talking about adding more money. I'm just asking the question is that it's not enough money. I'm just Got a lot of work to do. We got a lot of work to do. Nobody likes to go up any irrigation connection that don't have don't have a residential connection with it. I mean, that's somebody that's got paid for a second meter. want to consider any changes to the larger commercial sizes.

I mean, if I was making any kind of proposal, it's just not enough money to mess with. I mean, I'd add 25% more to the irrigation connection just because that's if we're hurting for revenue. If I'm watering my yard, that means I I got more I got sense versus some of these residentials that I just I don't like going 14 bucks on. But whatever we did, I'd suggest come down off that one. But it's just not enough revenue to me.

Compared to you know 338,000 just it's less than a percent. So it really doesn't matter. They are paying double the rate on the water cost itself. Instead of four and a quart significantly higher rate per thousand. Here's where we're at.

Well, I'll just ask the council. Maybe we'll we need a a motion to propose the budget for next week so we can post in the paper unless there's any additional changes or I'll go ahead and propose. Motion for Rebecca with the water increase from the budget. So all in favor of proposing the budget as presented with the water and sewer rate increases. I think we ought to look at the commercial dumpsters again later. Yes.

I make a proposal and I'll I'll take credit you know that I'll take credit for having done that back then. the roll off rates are real high compared to what independent could come to town and bring a roll off to somebody. I'm like, you know, why not let it be let them compete. I still think we need to be careful and make sure that they're competitive. If we're using sanitation solutions for a rolloff dumpster, it does need to be three times the rate that a local business person might not bring rolloffs to your site could do it for. It needs to be competitive. But the fee we're not getting, we're going to take multiple bids as well and do it right. And we weren't doing all those things. do that.

We can't do that. That's why that's why I had encouraged us to make the change back then is because we were under a contract and couldn't Well, we have when the contract expired, we can in two and a half years. But if we increase the if we increase the roll off if you all agree to increase franchise fee or put a franchise fee on the rolloff rates the contractor or sanitations is going to want an extension on the contract just somewhat

key is we're not getting the franchisee they won't get anybody for two and a half Yeah, they do. I second that. They do do a good job. Thank you for that feedback. They're going to want an extension for the contract. Want an extension to build today. change when they change the contract. That's typical of companies. They'll just want it.

That's and it doesn't mean that you have to go with it. I'm just saying they're going to want it. So, and the franchise may be contingent on that. So, well, we are done for tonight. I know we are meeting out from week after week after week after week, but I appreciate everybody's hard work on it, too. Easier. Yeah, hopefully. So, we need a motion to approve to to adjurnn. Sorry. Motion from Mark. Second, Marty. All in favor.

Go enjoy your families. And a shout out to Tech Stop for fixing our stop sign so rapidly. So they had so much