Finance Committee - Special Meeting

2025. We're starting at 5:30. Thank you. We're starting at 5:30. Uh a little bit earlier than normal today. Uh and we're calling this meeting to order to discuss the uh the 2026 budget. Um so my name is um Jeff Sassy, chairman of the finance committee. And with me I have Mark Evans. Um, I'm the secretary of the finance committee from W six. Right. W Six. Uh, uh, Alderman Burgdorf is running a human slate and we have Tamara Ingresol. I'm the finance director. Great. Uh, so first order of business, uh, is the agenda. Any changes or I I need a motion first. I make a motion that we accept the agenda. Second. Any changes? All those in favor? I I and that passes. Uh next is the approval of the April 22nd meeting minutes. I make a motion that we accept the meeting minutes. Uh they were very good. I agree. Uh so I second that. All those in favor? I I that's passed. Public comments. We had no one signed up. And now we're on to ordinances and resolutions. Uh we have one item on the agenda. It's the reading of ordinance 202509, ordinance of the city of Hendersonville, Tennessee, adopting the annual budget and tax rate for the fiscal year beginning July 1st ending June 30th, 25 to 26. Uh who's did you want to go through it? Were you going to discuss it or you or just uh briefly? And then we're going to start going kind of line by line on these things. Any changes since we last discussed? Mayor Uh, no. I mean, I can't make changes once I propose. Uh, I did provide I will provide you the information y'all asked about the trash fee whenever you're ready for that. Okay. Uh, do you have

that handy right now? We'd love to see it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Um, as for the um for the revenues, do you have any anything you want to discuss on the revenues? I think it's fair fairly straightforward on No, I think I'm okay with that. Okay. So let's move on to although yes um I would like to within the revenues is the I think they call it intergovernmental and I think is that's where all the special projects and the capital which page are you on uh 12 in which which version is that the newest the newest version from today. Okay. Today, um this is what was sent to us over the weekend for it's for today's meeting on Yes. Yes. It's the budget that says fiscal year on page 12. We have intergovernmental of $19 million. So, we don't have to discuss that here, but I I do have some questions about what some of these uh projects are and how what the flow of of that is because we're going from roughly 10 million 11 million spending this year to $19 million. I want to talk about some of those things. It's probably mostly capital projects, right? Yeah. Well, it is. I'm not seeing that on page 12, though. Which says general fund revenue. Oh, are you looking in the Bulma packet? Yeah. As opposed to the finance. There we go. Is it different? Yeah. Oh.

I didn't bring my iPad with me. Oh, no. That's okay. Now I see what you're trying. So, the intergovernmental that includes all of the federal and state revenues. So, yes, a lot of that is the grant revenues for the projects, but that also includes the state share of taxes. Um, so the state share of the local taxes. It includes um the state share of our um like the the mixed drink tax, the sports betting revenue. So any of those revenues that come from the state um are included in that intergovernmental revenue. Do you have anything that shows a list of those that that's just one page or is it all kind of all over the place? It's No, I do not have one that's done because it's they're lumped together. All right. So maybe we talk about those when we get to the capital projects then. Yeah, because that's really where I have some questions. A good piece of that is related to the capital project. Jason, you're not going to see it in the packet for finance committee. He's he his page number was from the Bulma packet. He's got right here. He showed it there a while ago. It's all right. Go ahead. Okay. Uh so moving on to let's look at the executive budget. Uh for all of them I think the salaries and benefits was pretty straightforward. Uh the only question would be uh about the different salary scenarios that were presented to us is now let let's wait to discuss this until later. Okay. Uh and so in the meantime, let's skip all items of the salaries because we're going to discuss that uh at the end here. Okay. Um and just focus on the operations. All right. So, uh as for the executive budget, do you see anything on there that you had questions about?

Not really. Okay. Mayor, uh this is mainly this is your budget, right? Uh, so could you explain what what goes into other professional services? Uh, really anything. Ken, uh, Jess, you want to help us out here? That's that's our that's our consultant for the state. That is the lobbyist. Yeah, that's the big one is is the lobbyist. Um, I I can't think of what else other professional services. Yeah. So, like I you know, one of the items that we did this year is we um we assessed Durham Farm's property for the LPRF grant. So, we did an appraisal on that property. So, we had to hire a professional appraiser to go out. Um so, we would hit that other professional services for services like that where it requires some type of professional to do uh the type of work. So, that's an example. The lobbyist is an example, but it's those types of activities. Okay. and what would be included in subscriptions and dues? So, that's one of the questions I I have on some of these because and and while I don't want to get nitpicky or anything, but that's a lot. So, what kind of things would be in subscriptions and dues? What are what are some of the things that are there? Yeah, I think GNRC is a big one of that. Um, we moved the chamber over there a couple years ago, too. Yeah. So, those are GNRC. Yeah, those aren't personal subscriptions. Those are subscriptions that are citywide that fall under the executive. I think GNRC is the biggest one. Okay. Um and yeah, that's Yeah, that's good. Thanks. We're on the executive budget expenditures. So, we're bypassing right now the salaries and just working on the operations of each department. Thank you. Um, so I'm sorry I missed what what was the subscriptions and it's basically the

chamber of the chamber national chamber and GNRC. Yeah, GNRC is the biggest chunk. Okay. So they charge us based uh based on our population. Yeah. Thanks. Got it. Okay. Um, next. What do you have any questions on the operations in the executive budget? Any other questions here? No, it sounds like you've already Which ones have you talked about? We're not doing We're not going to do anything in the salaries and benefits currently. We're just going to do operations for right now and then come back to salaries when we're discussing the options here. Yes, thank you. No, I'm okay so far. All right, then the next one is going to be what's the next page? Finance. Finance. Okay. other professional services there. Uh in the two budgets we have 90,000 but we spent 65,000 this year. What would be the difference there? Did we just have something that didn't come in? Yes. So we actually um are going to be spending all of that 90,000 um in the current year. We didn't think that we were going to the um that is the budgeted cost for the implementation of the full implementation of our finance ERP system. Okay. So that's for we've been phasing it in over the next few years. Next year will hopefully be the last year and we'll have that completely done. Okay. Thanks. So that expense goes away after next year. The majority of it will go away. You'll have some maintenance kind of stuff. Subscription, right? Is there a subscription and that that ends up in in the IT budget. Okay. So what what what's your speculation on next year's cost on that? I I don't have don't have an idea. I don't have a number yet, but it'll be it'll be substantially less than this. Okay. Substanti. That's what I'm looking It'll be substantially less than this. Okay. Thanks. Um, so I see we're

spending between 20 and $30,000 a year on computers. What's the reason for that? That is actually the um user fee for our local government software which is the software that we still have our um property tax and court on. We are finalizing the um property tax implementation this year. Um so that a portion of that's where you'll see it drop off from 24,000 in the current year to 21. That'll drop off a few thousand dollars and then we're implementing court next year. So after next year then that cost will go away for that um computer because it's a old software that's still paid out of finances budget not out of its. So as we implement those this will go away and it'll be shifted over to it under the new software. Is that part of ERP as well? It's all part of the same system. So right there it's going to be over $100,000 less. Yeah, it'll be right around 100,000 less. I like the sound of that. And is it possible maybe for the future just to help us to differentiate between computers versus software? Yeah, that is on our on our to-do for future years is to break out those two items into separate line items because it's really difficult for us to know exactly what we're actually looking at. And most of your computers are being um budgeted in it with the exception of police and fire. Yeah. Yeah. No, even fires are budgeted within it. It's just police is separate. Okay. So really when you say computers in these other departments, you're just for the most part you're talking about software. Okay. Yes sir. Okay. Should we move on to central services? Sure. Um so this might be a question for the mayor. I noticed that the budget for the city

attorney and the city judge are uh going up almost 7% each. What is that from? So the city judge definitely has been doing more work than we anticipated. Um and that's that's sort of a function of how how many people have to come see him. Uh city attorney, I'm not sure. Is that I thought that was relatively flat. Are these quantitative hours that have uh we can see that he's worked more hours? Oh, absolutely. Okay. These are quantitative that we could Yeah. With Lance, no. With uh with Judge Edwards? Yes. Okay. Is this a case here on the city judge and certainly fine, but estimated year end for this year's 51,000. Did something happen where we budgeted 75,000 and we're only going to spend 51,000 and then the budget's going to go up to 80. Comparison between Yeah. So 25 budget is 75,000. The estimated year end is 51,000. 26 budgets 80,000. So, did something happen there or did we There's nothing that I'm aware of that would cause an increase of that amount for next year for the city attorney. I don't know if there's something in there. He's talking about the city judge or for the city judge. Yeah. That would I just wonder if maybe if our year end estimates wrong. Well, I I think it's he's I think for the budget for next year, it's budgeted assuming the maximum number of hours that he could work, not necessarily how many he will work. Is that a fair statement? Yeah. So, I don't know. You put the hours together on the rates for those. So, I don't I don't know uh what that assumption was on that, but that's something that we can look at and see what year end as we get to the end of

the budget year, what year end is looking like and then make a closer assumption for next year's year end. You know, I mean, it's good to leave a little bit of room so we don't have to come back and do a budget adjustment. But if there's there's 40% then we can definitely make an adjustment. Okay. Thanks. And he's also not in the situation where he can decide I've got a month left. I need to spend all this. So, he has to justify all his time. Yeah. Yeah. I just wondered if there was something wrong that that maybe we just missed. Good question. Okay. I know that was going off the reservation a little bit because I took us to salaries. I apologize. Um, so let's go down. Yeah, I couldn't. Um, let's go down to operations there. Okay. Um, I didn't really see anything of issue. No, you're look like there's nothing there. Yeah, just the big increases in insurance and the 911, right, center, excuse me. All right, let's move on. Okay, to human resources and we have other professional services going from 65,000 to 238,000. Yeah, there's um 150,000 in there for um an updated pay study and then there's also some additional money for labor attorney. Can you tell me what Yeah, what the labor attorney is for. Sorry. Thank you. Yeah, I can speak to that. Thank you. Um this year we're we're redoing right now we're in the middle of redoing our rules and regs. Um and talking with Lance um you know we thought it would be a really good idea to have a labor

attorney who's not um you know maybe in the details of city hall work who we can send questions to who's very neutral on on things. Um, so we've engaged, uh, we went out and did an RFQ on a a labor attorney who specializes in that. So when these questions come up, uh, we can get, uh, we have like a basically a monthly retainer. So we have them have them on a monthly retainer and then as special projects come up, we can kick special projects to them. So right now, uh, he's working on our rules and regs. So going through the rules and regs and just getting another look at it um from a legal perspective to make sure that things in our in our rules and regs from a labor perspective are good. So uh I think it's a really good opportunity for us to have someone who specializes in that uh can resolve issues much quicker and you know Lance is part-time so depending on kind of what his workload is u you know at times we can have we can have a lot of work for Lance. So sometimes these things, you know, have to wait till he has the time to get to them. So this allows us to get to these employment matters a little more quickly. So our retainer is somewhere in the neighborhood of 23,000. Is that what it looks like? No, I think the retainers I think we put in there about 15 or 20,000. So I think we're about a thousand a month and then we added some extra because special one-time projects. So with the retainer, it gives us a certain amount of hours uh per month. But if we have like special projects that we want to assign to them, then um that will be just a fee basis. So there's some money built in. Okay. Just to avoid to come back and do a you know a small budget adjustment. Okay. Thank you Jesse. I'm sorry. Um with the pay study and I get that. How thinking ahead in the future? What are you thinking that we need to do and put in the budget as far as being having a

continuous pay study or salary study? Is it every couple of years or is it ongoing or So that's a really good question. U right now our municipal code states every five years. So uh you know it would be my preference that we pull that back and we shorten it to four years. But still, a four-year gap leaves you a pretty good amount of time between, you know, when you do it and then when you do your next one. So, um, you could shorten it up. Um, you know, every two years seems to be kind of a lot. Every three years maybe a lot. I think what's important is in between that salary study is is we stick to some type of you know objective figure like social security CPI and we make those adjustments annually and we kind of make that as part of it's not part of the necessarily the salary study but we make that as part of the strategy where every year in between we still stick to some type of objective increase that just is across the board. I I think four years is fair. Okay. We can kind of see how the first couple go, but I think the in between years is is important. And then how do you with that? How do you determine who you're going to use as far as I mean, I don't know who you used before. Are there a lot of those companies out there? How do you determine which one that's going to give you what what we need? Yeah. So, we went out and we did a competitive proposal last time and we received proposals. We ranked them. actually the the consultant who did ours the year previously or the the time previously was too busy to even oh engage with us. So I think the market's going to play uh you know a factor in that and is if you do it every four years you may not get the same consultant again and it that may not be a bad thing to get a new perspective you know. Okay. Thanks.

Any other questions on that? No, that's all. Okay. So far, yep. All right. Information technology. Uh, we have computers. Is that 523,000? Is that also all software or is there some built-in for new computers in there or There is there is some built in for some new computers in there. Um roughly 50,000 of it is for replacement computers. The remainder is for various software programs. And for do we have a policy or a procedure as far as replacing of computers on I mean like we do with our other assets. Do we do them like every five years or they they try to replace them every three years. Um to make sure we are up to date. Um they we're a little bit behind on that. That's pretty impressive. But you also have to remember we're on them all day every day. They they get used very much. And I was just comparing it like mine was every seven years. Well, I know at home we replace ours way less than what No, I'm talking about at work. Yeah. Well, you're a charity. [Laughter] We spending all that money. We start. Yeah. Uh and then what would be included in non- capital assets? What type things? Because that's going up quite significantly. Well, uh in budget was 23,000, but we're going to spend 67,000. I'd have I'd have to ask Jason what all is built into there. Jason Gallow. Not this. Not that Jason, but we can I can get an answer and and let you all know what that was. All right. Have we looked into alternative phone systems? $150,000 for

phone seems like a lot of money to me. That's our monthly phone bills. I mean, that's that's over $10,000 a month we're spending on phones. That's that's a good question. Does each employee have a company uh company phone, a city phone, or do they use theirs and are reimbursed? How does that work? What's the policy? So, we don't have a reimbursement policy. You can grab a city phone and if your director thinks you need one, then you can be issued a city phone. Um, and this is under is this under admin services, Tamara? Yeah, it's in information technology. It's in IT. So, is those telephone and other comms is that for internet subscription as well? Yes, sir. So, I don't think that would just be telephone. I would think that would be internet facilities as well. Jesse, would that include our codes guys with the iPads? Yes. Um, they're they're budgeted out of here, not out of codes. I do believe so. Okay. What What is that codes? So, it used to be that they'd go out and uh and basically handle all their inspections uh with paper and then come back in and type everything in. So, now when they're out, they can just type everything in once and it's immediately available uh for somebody to put on a tablet. Mhm. Okay. Coach has a little bit in their budget. I was going to say they have a budget there. It's minuscule in comparison. Okay. Interesting. Um yeah, I would That's a lot of money for telephones. I would I would love to do some comparison shopping on that. I may I may be completely off base here. I don't know anything about how much business phone call phones cost, but that seems uh seems like a lot to me that maybe we could Well, that's $700 a month for 12

employees. 12 phones. I don't know. That's not bad. Mine. Mine. It's It's not bad and I shop at Okay. But I don't know what your requirements are as a city. Much more extensive than a business. Yeah. What what we'll do is we can print out a list of all those expenses because I think we have some internet uh communications that are wrapped into that line item as well. Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll provide that to you. All right. Are we good to move on to admin? Sure. Yeah. Okay. Let's move on to admin. Uh anything in the operations side there? This one's pretty light. Yeah. Not much there. Yeah. Parks. So, I noticed that Mary's Magical Place is jumping uh from 15 to 20,000 a year to 70,000. Is there some significant changes that have to happen to Mary's Magical Place this year? So, I can actually give an answer on that. They get donations that are specifically for Mary's Magical Place. And there's a larger piece of inclusive um play equipment that costs um a lot. So, they have been saving those donations for the last couple of years to be able to do a larger purchase at Mary's Magical Place. So, it's actually using reserves that have been set aside specifically for that purpose. So, revenue offsets there. Okay. Yeah. Gotcha. Uh repairing maintenance motor vehicles. That's pretty good jump there. Did we get buy new equipment at parks department? They did not buy new equipment. However, a couple of other departments that were getting rid of old equipment um gave a couple of their pieces of equipment to parks so that parks did not have to buy new equipment. Okay, very good. And then uh machine that was that motor vehicle that you motor vehicle. Yeah.

Okay. What about machine and equipment is that's going up about 10,000 as well. I mean Andy's really the best one to answer this. He's uh not right now. Not right now. Um I'm going to assume that because they have a lot of equipment that is getting on the older side. They're they're probably just having more maintenance issues with the equipment and having to do additional repairs on them. Okay. All right. Anything else? Next page. Um, recreation athletics. I I know he's not here. Uh, but do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, I absolutely. That line there is um it is going up. That is because of additional leagues that have been added that this is where we pay for most of the um referees and the and such. So, as they've added additional basketball leagues, baseball leagues, they've got rugby now, um, flag football, flag football, they've got a lot of new things, more reps. So, this there also is a little bit of an increase in on the revenue side for parks and wreck because as there's more leagues, there's we're collecting more fees from folks, too. Okay. All right. Thank you. Do they offset entirely or not entire? Okay. No, they do not offset entirely. All right, let's move on to planning. I'm sorry, I have one question about parks. Sure. There's a line that says capital asset $67,000. Why would is that an item just looking that we could pull from the operating budget and put it over into capital projects? It's not a lot of money, but

we're going to be looking for um that's good steer lease. Why would we include why do we treat this different than other capital assets that we don't include that in the budget line for these departments for the capital projects? Um we don't a lot of these the replacement mowers. He's on a cycle where he replaces mowers um on an ongoing cycle. Okay. Um, I mean an HVAC replacement, that piece of it potentially could be a special project. Um, the skid steer, that's a ongoing lease. That's I think this is year three for that lease. Might be year two. I think it's year three. Okay. How much do mowers cost? I mean, I'm just park mowers. I'd have to. And I know they're different than cars, but I mean, as far but they're pricing. Yeah. You you treat them the same same way. Yeah. you replace them and and over time. So, I guess I'm just asking as a question. Can't just buy these at Home Depot. Yeah. They're really they're really for their ongoing operations. Without the mowers, they can't go out and maintain the fields that, you know, it's really an operational, but then so are cars. Mhm. Yeah. Well, we treat car we put cars in here. We don't put cars in our in a capital budget or in the nonoperating budget. Oh, you don't? Okay. No, cars um remain under the capital assets within the departmental budgets. Okay. but could be pulled out to be used against reserves or fund balance if we needed to, right? Because they're one-time expenses. Uh so when you build a building, you know, it's one time. When you come in and maintenance, you know, you'll do maintenance year-over-year. Okay. The vehicles, we have a replacement on them. We'll do them year over year. Um the mowers are year over year. We know it's not like a one time we're never going to

buy one again. You know, when we build a road, we build it one time, we never build it again. Now we'll maintain it again. Yeah. But I think that's kind of the distinguishing factor for us for capital. If we kind of see something come up that's planted. Okay. Did that answer your question? Maybe. And and I mean it was a fair answer and I can get you a listing of the um cost for each of those items. No, no, that's that's not it's okay. I have a point so I'll make it later. All right, let's move on to planning. I see other professional services is dropping significantly. What's been removed from there? So they had in the current year the sign grant program that they're doing out on for West Main beautifification was built in here. Um that really isn't an appropriate it's not part of ongoing operations for their department. It should be a special project. So it is actually included as a special project in the non-operating for budget year 26. Okay, great. That makes sense. Any other questions there? No. Okay. Public works. Is this the first time we've seen electric under public works under a line item? No. No. It should have been in there. There it is. I'm sorry. Just stood out at me. anything there? No. Um, repair, maintenance, guard rails. So, we had budgeted 60,000. We only did 20,000. Now, we're budgeting 50,000. Yeah, except we have a requisition today that came through for two more guardrails that have been ran into that

we're replacing. And how much does that cost? Uh, one of them was for about 20,000. Another one was I think 18,000. Well, we get reimbursements for that, correct? From insurance companies and sometimes our our insurance does not pay for guard rail. No, not our insurance. So, if we know who the offender if we know who the offender is. Yes. So, of these two, we will get insurance for one of them. The other one we're not getting insurance for. Okay. Because we don't know who it is that ran into it. Life in the big city. Yeah. So, that's I mean that one is one where we if you don't need it, you don't spend it, right? But if the guard rails are damaged, we need to be able to We have to have it. We need to be able to fix it. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, questions then here on the capital assets. So, you have a one ton with dump bed. Um I mean, we we had a budget of what was included in the budget for 25 for 450,000 that we don't have it this year. But yet again I I keep coming back to the question of aren't some of these one time type expenses like the message board is so so with these assets they're in every department. So when they buy a truck like if codes buy a truck or public works buy a truck we put that in their department um their department's asset line item which is it is here. Okay. Um, it was 450,000 I think last year. So, the description changed this year because last year it wasn't one one t one one ton. It was it was it was other pieces of equipment and those are the type of of equipment that we regularly and routinely purchase for department operations. Okay. So, the message

board is which one is this? The one at at uh the bypass? Well, it' be it would be a new one. No, it would be like a mobile the one that you would pull behind a truck. So you could put up a message board that says like caution road work ahead like a digital board. The electronic safety warning. So and a lot of times if there's a special event in the park, we'll get a request, hey, can you put a message board out? An event's coming or you know, Main Street's going to be shut down for X and X. We don't we do not currently have one. We do. We have several. Uh sometimes we need several and we uh need backups, too. Like if one breaks down, we'll need to have a spare. So, there was, I think, originally two included in this. I think there was originally two trucks, too. We pulled one truck out. We pulled the message board out. Just trying to get this budget to balance. Yep. Thank you. Is the traffic signal equipment ongoing cost as well? You can just nod your head if you want to. Yeah, it's it's uh items that we're going to have on the shelf. So, you know, if we if we have a traffic uh cabinet that gets hit and we don't have a controller to go out there and replace it, then we're going to have to have police officers out there until one arrives. So, this is to have some stock on hand, but it'll be Thank you. regular operations. All right, let's move on to police. Sure. All right. Anything there? uh other professional services going from 15,000 to 65,000 that um and Chief Jones would probably be able to explain it. So Jesse, you may be able to explain this better than I can too. So we currently have the a behavioral health mental health um agency that provides services and

they're not going to be able to fund the whole thing next year. Um Jesse may you may I you may know the ins and outs better than I do. Yeah. So there was a position that we did not have to fund previously. Um so it's like a behavioral health person. So when there's some type of domestic call or domestic dispute, this person will come out and assist and almost be like a member of HPD. In the past, we did not have to pay for this person. That funding has run out. So I think there's two or three agencies who use this person and it's almost like part of the police force who comes out uh on certain types of calls to help diffuse some of the situation. So that's what the adjustment is for this year. Yeah, it's a contracted position. How much does that cost us? Is that 45 or 50,000 a year? Yeah, it is. Yeah. And I think the cost is split between two or three organizations or two or three agencies. So, we just pay a portion of it because that person isn't here full-time. I think she's actually riding around today. Falcon just told me she's out riding around uh today, but that cost is split between multiple agencies. And I'll see if I can grab uh Chief Jones and have him come in here. He can explain it better than I can. Okay. Um I'm assuming computers is the uh cost of replacement and subscriptions again. Yes. Where we are soft? Yes, it is. All right, Mark. No, I'm good. Okay, fire. We're almost at the end here. you see anything there?

I will chime in too as Chief Jones is coming up to talk about behavioral health uh personnel. Uh Mr. Gallow or Mr. Hollers was kind enough to uh confirm that that uh telephone and and comm is for internet usage and it's for even some of the park connections out there too. So it's not just telephones that line item that we saw. Okay. Um, so it's data usage. Appreciate that. So to give you an example, th this person that's been working with police department for the last two and a half years, uh, completely and 100% on a grant. We've had the benefit of her services. Uh, she works with volunteer behavioral health. She's one of their employees and she responds with us on um calls that are involving citizens that are having mental health issues or a mental health crisis. Uh whether that's suicide or something else, sometimes it's drug issues. Um and their grant funding ran out. and what we've seen over the past two and a half years. Um, and I'm sure you've seen it nationally also, that's a huge issue for police departments that are dealing with that on on a um more frequent basis every day. Excuse me. So, what they had approached us, they they are very uh positive about this partnership that we've developed with them and that because their grant funding uh ran out, they were we're seeking solutions on how we could continue to keep her here in the city of Hendersonville. Um, and so we worked out something with them that we would match up to 40% of her salary

um up to $50,000. And that was very agreeable to them. They actually restructured some of their employees up there uh and eliminated some positions in order to make that happen and keep her here in Hendersonville. I can tell you that the value that I see in it for the Hendersonville Police Department and the city of Hendersonville, I had actually considered talking to her about applying for one of our open police officer positions. The problem with doing that is under state law, if she was to do that, it vastly limits what she's allowed to do within the city limits of Hendersonville because she then becomes an employee of the police department and state law no longer considers her an unbiased neutral third party. So it that would not be nearly as beneficial as her remaining an employee of volunteer behavioral health. She is already a licensed medical social worker. Is that what her certifications are? I can't tell you what all of her certifications are. She has several and has continued her training and education uh in the last two and a half years that she's been with us uh to improve what she can do and increase her skill set. Um she there's some type of additional certification. and she's like, I'm sure she's got to have right on the cusp of obtaining. Uh so one of the huge benefits to us is is when we deal with somebody uh on, you know, 10:00 at night, 11:00 at night, sometimes it's it's very difficult to get the correct people who can sign the proper paperwork to get them the help they need. She is certified to sign that paperwork. If she's not available, is there backup we call? Uh we just have to go through the system at that point. I mean she obviously she works five days a

week. She's off too. Um she but she and and we determined the greatest need was in the evening hours for her. So that's the hours she works with no complaint. The most I don't know what Well, a lot of stuff happens, right? It is. Yeah, it is. A lot of stuff happens. Okay. Thank you. Yes, sir. I'm sorry. Does anybody have anything? No, that's fine. Um, do you do you know what happened to the funding? Why did it run out to It was just federal funding or I'm sorry. Was it not renewed? It just was. They tried to get it renewed. In fact, it was supposed to go away last year and they were successful in getting another year's funding to carry through this year and or I would have been here last year with this request, but they they just the federal funding ran out. It was it comes from the state, but it's from it it originates with federal funding and just, you know, like grant cycles, they come and go and so this one just just ran out. Okay. Thank you, Chief. Yes, sir. Any other questions there? No, that's that's We're back on eight. Uh where are we now still? Fire on fire now. Yeah. Back on fire. Yeah. Okay. What would uh I do have a question about repair maintenance uh for motor vehicles that the budget was 195. We've we're going to spend 325, but the budget's going back down. So, what happened in this fiscal year? I'm assuming that there was an emergency repairs of something. See, Scotty might be able to um Chief Bush may be able to answer that. Um, but I mean there's just been a lot of breakdowns of the apparatus. A lot of those apparatus are uh on the older side. So hopefully as we get some new ones in, we'll see that improve a little

bit. And yeah, so I don't have it in front of me, but we've had three or four apparatus that's gone down with turbos. Uh, and they're excess 20 grand, 25 grand to replace those. Uh, and I think that's happened to both of our truck companies and maybe one engine uh, this year. Thank you. Uhhuh. Any chance you can go up there and strongarm those builders of our new engines? Get them get them here faster. The car industry is unique. Y as as is building fire engines. They're unique as well. But it might cost us money in travel, so we don't do that. That's true. Oh, good point there. Don't want to spend that travel dollars, too. Um, I don't have anything else on fire. I don't either. Yep. Okay. Building codes moving right along. Nothing. Yep. Okay. And the funds or debt services you had questions on? You skipped over trash dis. I mean, I think trash speaks for itself. Okay. Pretty straightforward. It kind of is what it is. Tamara, I'd like to on the the PIP one, I just want to make sure that I understand this. So, from the beginning, from the inception of PIP through 26, when you look at it in total, it's zero at the end of fiscal year 26. Um, the way it's currently proposed, at the end of 26, it it will have a $13,000 fund balance. If you look up at the very top of it, that shows what what it's estimated to be. Oh, yeah. Yeah. 13,000. Got it. But for the most part, it's it's it's assuming because you have some carryover, whatever. Okay. Got it. Yeah. There's

some carryover and then it's assuming of using anything that was remaining. Okay. Any questions? Anything else? Pip? No. Okay. And PIP expires in eight years. Mhm. Yes, sir. 20. What's eight years? What's math? 20 20 30 34 last fiscal year. Okay. So, nine years, right? After this, after the current year, eight. Yeah. After this budget year, eight more budgets. Yep. Hotel Motel. I think that's pretty self-explanatory, too. Rock Castle is in there. We've seen that multiple times. Yeah. I do have a question, Tamara. When um in the hotel motel, you talk about the transfer to other funds that that's the inline hockey. Yeah. Debt. When does that go away so that we won't have that in included in this budget? It is It's under what? 2033. It's the oldest debt. That's the longest running debt that we have on here. Then we're okay. I was just thinking in terms of okay, that expense could go away and then we have a lot more funds to Okay. It'll it'll drop a couple thousand dollar each year, but it's not going away for a handful of years. Thanks. Okay. I think that does it for Oh, anything for the state street aid drug fund? No storm water. Just the fact that starting next year after 26, we're going to have to be including state street fund underruns in our budget because we're or either take some things out. Uh yeah.

Okay, let's go back to the top and let's talk salaries. So, um this budget that's before us includes a 2% cola. Mhm. um the standard 2 and a half% merit increase and a $2,000 uh bonus for um all non-executive. Is that right? Remind me. So, the executive, meaning Mayor Claire and I weren't included in anything except the cola, the $2,000 and then the two two and a half% was for all employees except the employees who got the big mid-year bump, which are the police employees. Got it. Okay. And then before you, we also have the salary scenarios that was provided uh to us in our email um I believe Monday. Yes, the mayor's proposal, the uh budget that we have in our packet is the first line there. And then we have five scenarios included. We have fire only with the 10, 7.5, and 2.5 that same as what the police received. Then you have all employees with that same tiered system in scenario two. Scenario three, well, let's let's back up. scenario one with the fire only, it actually when you're take when you take out the 2,000 for each employee and the um and the additional 2 and a.5% raise and only add these in for the fire, it actually is $15,000 to the good. Mhm. For uh for the city scenario two is for all employees getting that 10 7.5 and 2.5 is $625,000

uh negative. Mhm. So that would mean we would need to find the that money to balance the budget. Mhm. Uh scenario three is all employees with a 10% increase. Um I'm I'll just I'll just say it right now. I'm not in favor of this one because that is not putting the staff on par uh with with what was given at the midyear. uh this this puts uh the employees at a step above the police, which isn't what we're wanting to do in my opinion. I don't think that's what anyone wants to do, right? We we were in we were at a critical stage with the police, which is why we needed to do something at midyear. Now, we're trying to play catch-up with the rest of our staff, right? Doing this puts us in in I think in the same scenario we were before, right? Um, so I would I would myself I'm not even considering scenario three. Um, for scenario four, it's all employees market parody. So Jesse, can you help me with number four? Um, it's saying fire 2.41, general 7.75. Is this based on the previous salary study? Yes, it is. Okay. So this would put the staff on the same level at at that 75% tier that we've discussed or where does that put them? So what we did for this was the 2023 study is the latest the most recent comprehensive study that we did for pay. So what we did is we took police is the benchmark. So police was and I'm going to go off the top of my head. I think they were 10.7% below market. Right? So we said we had a 5% plus 10% 15%. So it would take them from and I'm going to round from -1% to 4% positive. So then we said based on what the general grade was ranked as and the

fire grade, what would have to be added to those to make them 4% above market at that static point in time. So the general grade was about 3 and a half% below market. So what would they have what would we have to add to get them 4% above? And then fire was 1.89% above. So what would we have to add to that to them to get them 4% above as well? And so that's what those numbers represent. So we just took what police was we added what they've got and we set that as a bench and then we added to the two other groups to get them at the same percent above market from that point in time. So that okay. Okay. So that make that would make each department is it each position or each department would then so it's an it's an average right? So it's not position by position. When the salary study was done there was three groups that were ranked police, fire and general. So there's a mix of how it happens within the general grade. There's a mix. So that it's average. And so that's just that is a ballpark average for the entire group. Okay. Thank you for that. That helps. So, with that one, as um specified, it actually puts us 50,000 to the green. If we gave all employees a 6% increase except for PD, which gets what's and 2.5 for the top two grades. Can you explain that one? That scenario five. Yeah. So um what we did on that one is scenario I think uh number one was 2 and a half% cola and then for scenario five um and this was something that uh Mr. Robertson had asked me to look at is if we dropped it to 2% could we raise the um increase

for all other positions. So, we dropped the cola to 2% as opposed to scenario A. And then we were able to go up to 6%. Um, well, we did 6% for all other positions less the top two positions which are grade 25 into grade 26. It says those are 2 and a.5%. And that put us at what's the deficit on that? About 125 about 125,000. So, that was another scenario we looked at to get um the folks who are nonPD basically a higher percentage without a flat because the the mayor's proposal has a percentage and a flat amount built in and this uh just took an entire uh percentage with no flat amount. Um and it reduced the cola to 2% compared to the proposal I think uh scenario number one where we did 2 and a.5% plus 4.25. 25 not on these scenarios when at the workshop the ones one the scenario at the workshop okay gotcha I'm not I don't I'm not following sorry you're say but cola has always been presented at 2% not two and a half% yeah just not in all the scenario so this scenario um had oh sorry oh you're taking option A from Okay yes sir okay okay so it got the spread a little bit bigger for folks who weren't in PD D basically. So it allowed u a 6% with a a very small deficit and I don't understand the grades 25 through 26 receive 2 and a.5%. That's my question too. Thank you. Yeah, that was just that was something that was asked for for the the very top two positions since they're the top page is to that would match to what was already what already occurred at the two top levels for PD. So when we did the midyear adjustments for PD, we did 10, seven and a half and two and a half. So then that

was the 25 and 26 grade. So uh that proposal says, hey, everyone gets a 6% but then you don't have to touch the two top positions in PD. And the other grades 25 and 26 get a 2 and a half% increase instead of a 6% increase. I don't get Does that make sense? Not really. I'm not going to vote for that one anyway because I don't understand it. It's too And and and I I think I'm pretty smart. I I think that's just too confusing. [Laughter] Okay. It boggles the mind. Well, I just I mean I don't understand the the math with that. Yeah. Jesse, do you know off the top of your head? Probably not, but on that scenario five, just for giggles looking at it, what what rate would that 6% need to be in order to be budget neutral? Explain the question again. Yeah, probably. So instead of being 25 125 in a whole if it was probably 5.6 5.6 something like that. 5.6. We have to factor in TCRS and all those things, but probably around mid fives. Okay. Okay. Thank you. That's what I was looking for. So, does that make sense? So, all positions except for the top two tier and except for PD would get a 5 something. Um, and then the top two tier would get the 2.5 two and a half as opposed to and it would be budget neutral. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Um, can I go back to um, you had mentioned that, you know, with scenario three, I I wasn't I get what you were

saying in the fact that you you want you like scenario two over scenario three because that more aligns with what we did at mid year. Yes. Is that correct? That's right. and Jesse both of or all of these when it says except PD that just means PD that was included in the midyear that doesn't because there were some people who didn't Yes sir. And so some of these numbers you know we didn't put them together necessarily in haste but we try to turn them quick so these numbers would have to be adjusted in like if you guys kind of zone in. We're going to go clean up the numbers. There's some notes down below, but yes, when it says except PD, that is referring to the PD who got the midyear jump. Got it. Thanks. So, yes, I read the scenarios down here. Two and three require reduction in expenses in State Street Aid fund of 35,000. Scenario four requires a reduction in expense in state street aid to the fund of 15,000. Okay. So, that's where we're looking at. That's where you get the balance. Well, scenario four is already balanced, right? It's 50,000 to the goods. So, why would we need to cut state street aid by 15,00 this is general fund up here at the top um that we're talking about as far as the operating budget. State street aid is its own fund and so whatever increases apply to the general fund to our employees also apply to that fund. But this is just starting this we started with the mayor's proposal for the operating budget. be the staff that's paid out of state street fund. So there is staff that gets paid out of state street aid. Okay. So what what would you like to do? You want to discuss the scenarios? Um any questions on the remaining the other salaries or do you want to discuss the trash fee uh

alternative? Let's look at the trash fee alternative what they say. Do you mind? Okay. All right. Do you have a copy of it? I do not. There you go. All right. Appreciate it. All right. This is first time looking at this. We just got this right before right at the beginning of the meeting. So, what this would do is currently in the property tax bill, we have your property tax and your storm water fee. the trash fee or the trash expense that we carry is included in your property tax fee. So, what this would do is pull that out and set it as a separate line item. So, it's so everyone would pay the same amount for their trash uh on their property tax bill. So, now you'd have your property tax, your trash fee, and your storm water fee. Um, now I have opposed this before. I'm I'll be going to be completely honest and the reason for that is because it negatively impacts the homeowners with a lower home value. So, they could potentially be lower income or retired. So, it it it will nearly double or I mean I haven't looked at this yet, but um my understanding is at the time it would double their property tax bill, while someone with a higher value home, it actually reduced their property tax bill. Um I we're in a situation where other this impacts other things now. So I'm still keeping my mind open on this. Uh and so I just wanted to preface that as we uh review this. So um there's 21,300 addresses in the city. So it would be the fee amount would be $297 according to this. Mhm. And it would reduce the property tax rate from

58.83 to 42.77 or per per $100 or per thou. Yeah, that's per okay. Per what? It's it's 58 cents 58 or 42.77 cents per $100 of property value. Right. So, it does include a property tax reduction, but then you add in the fee, the uh trash fee, and it for those lower cost homes, it will overcome that amount that you just saved in the property tax decrease, if that makes sense. Um, so changing the fee, it says here it would reduce the general fund expense and revenue by 6.3 million. Um, and that's how he how we come up with the 16.06 reduction the property tax fee. So then but the $297 times the $21,300 homes would equal that same amount. Is that how I'm reading this? The 6.3 million. And this is not a stagnant number. Meaning this um these estimates I'm sure will have to go out for bid will not mayor again. We're only in year we're at the beginning of of a How long are we in this? So it's five years and we have a inflator every year. So we we know what that cost will be. Oh, we do. Okay. Yes, sir. So for five years we're good until Are we just in the year one, year two? It will we're in year two. It will go up slightly based on the based on the inflator as well as the uh um the number of new addresses. So, we have to consider that as well as the fact that we have some that don't pay and so we have to budget a little bit extra for that because we have to pay the bills regardless of how many people actually pay us and it's a small percentage. Yeah, I did some quick math on this just so we can kind of know what what we're

looking at. So right now based on what I the math I've done is that at the current so I I calculated at the 0.5883 and just considering the average home price of $500,000 just using that. Mhm. So if you do $500,000 uh take 25% of that times the current rate right now a property tax uh property tax is $746 for the city residential revenue. If you do this here that would lower it from 746 to 535. So it's a difference of $211. But based on this the trash cost would be $297. So actually your homeowners are going to be paying roughly $85 more a year. Yeah. For a $500,000 home. Yeah. And as the value of the home goes down, that incre that increases. The variance increases, right? Correct. So you're you're and I call it fee tax, whatever you want to call it. So therefore, you're taxing those who don't have disposable income. They're getting more of this, right? Yep. Lower valued home. That was my problem with it before. I still have a problem with it. I'd mean I like And how would this I'm sorry. Go ahead. I like the idea of this and and and like the having options and things that we can look at, but um I I I just I I I can't do that. When you look at the numbers like that, if it was like, you know, 1720 bucks, but you're talking about 80 something dollars for someone who can afford a $500,000 home, but for somebody who might live in a $200, $250,000 home, that's going to be a big difference. How would that look broken out on the

tax bill if we pulled this out of the tax bill? Would it be a line item? Yeah. in the past. Um, um I'm just going to go back prior to um 2019, it was a separate line on the tax bill and it just showed it would showed a line item um here's the property tax owed. Here's your storm water amount that's owed and then your trash that's owed. So it would be a separate line. So in 2019, when was storm water added again? I can't recall. 200 fiscal year 2018. Yeah. and it's never gone up. It's always been $72, right? Yeah. Okay. Well, that's good discussion. Um I'm like you, Mark. I'm kind of torn over here, but I I do like the idea that letting people know what they're paying for. Um because it is a cost that affects the city and it is a cost that affects the everyone in the city, every household. And I don't want to bore you with the numbers, but just real quick on $250,000 if a homeowner uh their taxes currently are 368. Just using that on this it would be$ 267. So it's a $100 savings difference, but then you're going to be charging them $297. So out of pocket for a family that lives in a $250,000 home, it's an extra $200 a year. Yeah. Yeah. That's a tough one. All right. That's it. It is. Um, is there a way to tar the trash fee? Yeah. Is that even possible? You'd have to just could be based You mean to like I mean if you if you charged it based on the size of the property, it's just a property tax at that point. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It doesn't really make sense to do.

Okay. Well, still an option to consider for sure. Um, as I mentioned to you before, mayor, I am more open to this because it impacts more uh more than just at, you know, changing a line item on the property tax bill. This is impacting salaries at our city and and other things in our city. So, I am definitely open to considering that and we'll look at it more during the um the finance committee workshop which is Thursday at 7:15. Um so, we've reviewed the whole thing. Is there any other questions on salaries currently or the salary scenarios that we reviewed? Well, what were presented? Um the question is no. No. Okay. Um, does anyone want to make a motion? I'll make a motion. I'm not. Uh, I'll make a motion to um I I won't make a motion. I don't know the words to describe. Now, let me go ahead and ask the question. We make a motion. You want us to make a motion of which scenario we prefer or we do not prefer? Not necessarily. Not necessarily. You you could make a motion to not recommend. So in the finance committee, we can't change the budget. We can't uh all all we can do is recommend on the budget. So what what the motion will do is you we can recommend for um to not pass it. We can recommend to pass it with specific changes or we can recommend to just pass it the way it is and it goes to Bulma and then it goes to Bulma. Okay. regardless of what our our recommendation is or as as each with each of these scenarios are. Now, one is the only one that does not increase

taxes, but it does not provide the in my mind, it does not provide what we need to for the um uh employees as far as raises go for for fire and the rest of the employees uh to get them up to uh what was what they need to be, what we what we promised they would be. Uh so I'm not going I'm going to make a motion to not recommend uh any any budget. And I'll second that with just the fact that there's too many questions. I feel like I'm being rushed. We just got a lot of these different scenarios in a day and I'd like for us to not uh and and wait and have the workshop and we we do have the workshop coming up on Thursday and then we can very prudent for us to take a look at that and then we can pick this apart and really look at what the best scenario is. Yeah. During the workshop. Okay. Uh I would agree with that. So we have a we have a proper motion and proper second. All those in favor? I I All right. And that passes that uh passes with a uh negative recommendation and um to review further at the workshop. All right. Uh other agenda items. I don't think we have any. Right. I'll make a motion to adjourn. Second. All those in favor? I I have a good night. Thank you. Thanks all.