City Council - Regular Meeting

Heat. Heat. money. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.

right in there. The Kindle is owned by Evening everyone. We proceed each council meeting with a word of prayer and pledge of allegiance. Tonight, we're going to lift up the Bill Keithley family. Those of you that don't know, Assistant Chief Bill Keithley passed away couple of days ago. He been a member of the Conway Fire Department for about I don't know how long's Bill been there, Mark. 32 33 years.

He was the first fireman I hired and he was Chief Lead Better's nephew. He was a tremendous fireman, a tremendous young man, and a tremendous loss to Conway. Bill Keithley was a good man. You would pray with me. of the United States of America.

Mr. Hawkins, here. Mr. Spurs, here. Miss Mill here. Mr. Led Better here. Mr. Hawks here. Mr. Jones here. Missby here. All right. You received should have received copies of the minutes from the November 25th, 2025 city council meeting. Any corrections, changes, or comments? Submitted. Second. Have a motion and a second to approve the minutes as submitted. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. I. I.

Any oppose? passes seven to zero. Next up on the agenda, we have the community development committee, Mr. Hawkins. Sir, we'll turn this over to you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First item on this portion of the agenda is consideration to approve waving the readings for ordinances on tonight's agenda. And there are three ordinances that we need to wave the readings on. Second. I have a motion and a second to approve with the waving of the three readings and first readings tonight of the city council agenda. Any further discussion is heard. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed?

That passes eight to zero. Mr. Hawkins. Next item, Mr. Mayor, is an ordinance to accept and appropriate grant funds from the forestry planning services for the implementation of an urban and community forestry plan for the city of Conway. And um I bet Ann Tucker is standing up. I am standing right here. There you are.

Yes, council. Uh the city was awarded $250,000 by the forestry commission to do some um arbor studies and things like that which are underway. And we have the first installment of 32655, but today we got the second installment. So, I'd like to add that to that if I could. The the second installment is 1947250, which would bring the total to 52,12750. And if you could pencil that in and go ahead and accept it, I'll get it paid for this year. And it's a full reimbursement there. The the city there's no matching funds.

Council, if y'all would like to add that second amount tonight, I'll take a motion to amend. So moved. Second. Have a motion and second to amend this uh ordinance for the grants from the Arkansas Department of Agriculture for the Conway Tree Board. What does the new amount reflect, Miss Williams? 52,12750.

Ma'am 110. Second. Have a motion and a second to approve this ordinance with the amended amount. Any further discussion? Murd. Mr. Hawkins. Yes. Mr. Lad Better. Yes. Mr. Jones. Yes. Mr. Grimes. Mr. Spurgers. Hi. Mr. Hawks. Yes. Mrs. Yes. Miss Mill. Hi. Thank you. Thank you. An Mr. Hawkins.

Final item. Mr. mayor's consideration to approve the annual boards and commissions for the city of Conway. And uh we have those listed in your packet. There are four on that page and three on another page. So, seven total uh boards and commissions that we have members on. Uh just to go ahead and read those off. The airport advisory committee, four-year terms. John Ed Webb pilot position with a term to expire December 31st of 2029. All of these expired December 31st, so I'll just call out the year. And Joanna Random, who's a member at large and hers is also through 2029. On the bicycle and pedestrian advisory board, three-year terms, uh Thomas Kaine to a three-year term expiring at the end of 2028. Kevin Lintz, the same date, 2028. and Ryan Webb the same date at the end of 2028. The Conway Tree board, Clayton Cooper with a term to expire December of 2028 and Jonathan Marshall also at the end of 2028. on the diversity advisory council, Jacobe Easter in 2029 at the end of that year, and Sonia Brazzle uh serving a partial term uh to expire December 31st, 2026. The other three commissions are the historic district commission, Alli Dyier, for the Conway commercial historic district with a term to expire at the end of 2028. Junior Dixon, an architect or design professional with a term to expire December of 2028. Oak Grove Cemetery, five-year terms are granted or asking to be granted to Andrea Andrews to expire at the end of

2030 and a term for Sheila Meyers. This is a partial term that will run through the end of 2026. The planning commission, a five-year term uh is proposed for Lori Quinn to expire December of 2030, Grace Reigns to expire that same time, and Kina Haggood, a partial term to expire December of 2028. And uh with those being read, I would move that we accept those uh appointments to those commissions.

Second. Let me explain Lori Quinn. Lori finished out someone else's term. So, historically, uh, we go back and usually give someone a full term on their own after that. So, that's why Lor's name on here again. Have a motion and a second to accept these names for our annual boards and commissions. Any further discussion? Yes, sir. Got a quick question. This is generic. Um, why are some five and some four-year terms? What's What's the reason for I'll let our projects manager answer that. [laughter] what you call on which particular board? Uh Oak Grove and Planning Commission is five years and the other ones three and four. I was just wondering why. So on um the planning commission I don't have a complaint. I'm just curious.

So we had someone who resigned and so we have a partial term to fill and then the diversity advisory was the same way. We had a someone who resigned from that board. So, someone is spilling the remainder of that of their term and like the mayor said, historically, they would then get their own term um if they so choose to reapply again. Mr. Jones, are you asking why the different boards and commissions are different lengths? Why are some of them Oh, in general. Oh, in general. Oh, want to get in?

They just are. Uh some boards are five years, some are four. Just depends on when that board was created. Um and when they came like the diversity advisory is a new board so it has a four-year term which is normally the norm is four-year uh planning commission is state statute is five years. Thank you. You're so welcome. Good question Mr. Jones. Um Felicia I would no no objection to any of these but remember the all the applications used to be posted in the agenda and they aren't anymore. I would love to it don't have to be public. I'd love to see those like I'd love to know who else is interested in being involved so we can fill them in on stuff. It's a big list. So, I have a list of all the applicants if you want that, but we also have all the applications and I can't send them to you, but I can send you a link to those. But, yes, that's

that would be great. Yeah, we can do it. Thank you. It's heard. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? It passes eight to zero. Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Yes, sir. Next on the agenda, we have the public service committee. We have ordinance to appropriate funding for lighting at Pompy Park for the parks and recreation departments. Mr. Fames, how's that little one doing? She's good. All right. I'm trying to keep up at this point. I don't know how to do. Yeah. Good luck.

Yeah. Um good evening. So, this is just an appropriation um of funds in the amount of $27,765 to round out um some of the construction over at Pompy. This is for the addition that Conway Corporation did um for lighting along Morning Side in that parking lot. Just wanted to note on here.

Correct. Yes, ma'am. I'll make a motion. Second. I have a motion and a second to approve this ordinance to appropriate funding for lighting at Pompy Park for parks wreck. Any further discussion? Miss Hurt. 02511. Miss Mill. I. Mr. Lead Better. Yes. Mr. Grimes. Hi. Mr. Hawks. Yes. Mr. Spurgers. Hi. Mr. Hawkins. Yes. Mr. Jones. Yes. Mrs. Yes. That passes eight to zero. Thank you, Andrew.

Yeah. I'd like to give you a quick update, if I may, on a couple of events that we've done recently. Uh this past weekend, we had our first annual Arctic pickle ball tournament that was going to be at the new pickle ball courts over at Fifth Avenue. With the weather, we moved them inside. Uh the entry fee was that was $10 or 10 non-p perishable food items per player. We raised over 400 um non-p perishable food items to go towards a local food bank. Um aside from that, PD and FD fired just had their share boy share a bear toy drive at McGee with a great turnout. And then we're excited to launch Santa Land tomorrow at Dawn Owen uh where it's a free event. We had 400 tickets that were given away within a matter of days where kids will be able to come meet Santa, make ornaments, there will be popcorn, cookies, hot chocolate, and then they'll be able to write letters to Santa as well. We're excited about that. So, yeah. Thank y'all.

Thank you.

Thanks, Andrew. All right, council. The last item on tonight's agenda. Let me look, make sure I got that right. All right, council. Our final item is the 2026 budget. And of course, I'd like to thank the department heads and their ans as well as Felicia from my staff and of course, Mr. Winningham for everyone's time and effort to present the 2026 budget. We had meetings daily for a couple of weeks. Uh some were shorter than others and some were really long. This year, uh 2025, we have given our employees a $1,000 Christmas bonus. We've given longevity pay across the board to all city employees. Uh we've given incentive raises to the fire department. Of course, police department already had it plugged in, but now fire department has it. And we gave a 2% across raised across the board raise to the fire department. Insurance employ for employees will not increase uh in 2026 so no cost will be passed our employees. Our color raises for 2026 is at 1%. We increased fire staffing by six on the recommendation of the fire chief as well as five additional staff among other departments in the city. Uh these staffing increases were recommended by those department heads due to the fact those requests have been made in years past and we held off on those. We projected a 3% growth in revenues in order to balance the budget. With that, I will ask Mr. Wingham to come up and if y'all have any questions for him or me, we will be glad to answer those.

Good evening. Good evening. I've got a few more high points I can hit if the council wants me to or we can just go straight to any discussion. Hit them if your wishes are or such. Hit them, please. Hit them. Yes.

So, this one was pretty challenging and I think I said that last year as well. Um it's getting more and more fun. Uh some of the challenges we had this year uh in putting together this 2026 budget. So earlier this year, we took out a loan for a fire truck and for an upgrade to our 911 radio system. So now we've got to pay that loan back and that's about $887,000 each year. So I have that uh divided up uh part of it is in the fire department budget, part of it is in the SEO budget according to how much of that loan was for each department. That's something we can't, you know, that's unavoidable. We've got to have that in there. Um, this is our first year for the 911 center to be the the own the lone PAP in Faulner County. And that is a it's a burden on our budget. Um, in 2026, it's a $760,000 budget deficit. In 2025, it's a little bit less than that because the uh 911 board gave they gave I don't know how much they gave other PAPs, but they gave ours an additional $400,000 to assist with startup costs. So, it won't be as bad this year, but 2026 and going forward, uh it's going to be it's going to be a burden on the general fund for us to to run that that single 911 PAP. The other kind of unknown is the community center. Um, right now it's a $600,000 budget deficit and that $600,000 we plugged in as a fund balance appropriation. You'll see that in the revenue section of the general fund. And [clears throat] the intent with doing that is since we still don't really know, you know, what a good year or what a year period looks like at that facility, we plugged in that fund

balance revenue to make the budget balance. And then after we have a full year or full season, if the council wants to go back and discuss rates, if they want to go back and discuss things on the operational side, that would be a good time to do that. But as far as the budget goes, and again, the numbers are are really just best guesses, but that's that's how that's going. And then the other big challenge is we've seen this year a slow in our sales tax growth. And then this is slow comparatively speaking. We came through a period after COVID when our numbers were great. Before that, we were averaging, you know, 3 to 4% and now we're back to that. So a slowdown in that growth comparative to what we were seeing, you know, four or five years prior. And now we've got these unavoidable expenses coming in as well presents a challenge for us. Some of the new things in this budget, the mayor already mentioned the 1% cola, um the positions, and other than that 1% cola and those positions, there's no other staffing additions. There's no other pay adjustments. And if you guys recall that Saturday meeting we had, we heard from several department heads pointing out that there's a pay gap between us and and other cities across the board. Um not just fire department, it's basically uh any department. You can compare a position in ours similar to, you know, a North Rock or whomever uh and and there's a pay gap there. So that's that's something we hope to be able to adjust in the future, but we were not able to right now. And then at the back of the budget in the special fund section, we've now got the new sales taxes that were passed at the late latest special election. We had the

public safety tax and the streets and drainage tax. That money, it'll start being collected April 1st, be it first. The end of June. Yes, sir. I'd be prudent to send one of the items that passed was for fire hard what I call hardware u take that portion of the money that you got a loan on take that out and pay that with that money law present prevents us from doing that

why is that the uh The law that allows cities to do five-year financing says it must be prepaid with a general revenue and a sales tax that is dedicated to a specific purpose is not considered a general revenue. Be my argument, Mr. Council, that uh would that this is exactly what this is for. Tell me why I'm wrong. Tyler just told you because it was the tax was for a specific purpose. So it can only be used for that. So it doesn't go into the general fund a specific purpose and that is for fire truck as I understand it and it can be used for all future fire trucks. Okay.

But we can't be used for this one. We can't use it to to pay these loan payments very much. Yes sir. So I think another way to say that if I understand is debt service on fiveyear financing has to be paid from the general fund regardless of what the purchases. Yes sir. Okay. I'm sorry. Well, go ahead, David. Can you enter into a 5-year finance financing agreement going forward pledging that new capital tax against it? No, sir. Because five-year financing has to come from the general purpose revenues. Yes. Thank you. All right. Tyler, how our collection's been going on the county? They're supposed to pay 48% uh on Seok on the 911.

Yeah. We've not yet crossed that bridge. Um, I've been I've emailed back and forth with uh representatives of the county and I told them that after the first year when we have actuals for the entire year, we would send them a request for payment for that 48%. So, okay,

that 760,000 I mentioned earlier, that's going to be uh 52% of what it costs to run the 911 center over what the 911 revenues bring in. So when it's all said and done, 911 revenues in 2026 budget, they're going to bring in about 1.7 million, which is about what they brought in in 2025. And then their budget's 3 million roughly, 3.2 two or four, I forget the number, but the difference between those two, the cost that it is in excess of the 911 revenue, the we have a an agreement, interlocal agreement with the county that they will pay 48% of that overage and then the 52% overage will be on us.

Yeah. And part of that we're going we're going to need to look at and ask the two chiefs from the city that are on the board is that if that gap is too large then we're going to have to ask the other cities that we dispatch for to pay their fair share. I think that was in the beginning wasn't it chief? Yeah. So that that's the countyy's not paying their share. They will we just when do we when do we collect that? At the end of this year. Well, after the first of the year, we'll we'll tally all the numbers and and we'll send them a request for 48% of what the actual overage was. Okay. For this year,

so you budgeted the additional 290,000. It says for county reimbursement under the CX. Yes. Is the total only going to be 900,000 that we expect from the county or do you think it will be more? That's okay. Getting down in the the details here, but and we can continue, but I was I was going to suggest if in the first quarter we have a committee meeting to talk more about this in depth because I remember us talking about this before and and some of this is how I remember it, but some of it is not. So I' I'd like to in first quarter, you know, get our memories refreshed and get some information together and talk about this.

Yeah. and we can get the gentleman from the state to come visit with too because we can ask like Bolognia, Greenbryer, everyone else that dispatch goes to us to pay their fair share.

Yeah. So in this 26 budget, the 911 revenue is uh a million7. The department's expense budget is 3.3 million. So that leaves 1.6 million. And then [clears throat] so the county would we would ask them to pay 48% of that which is 794,000. There's another 100,000 that the county receives directly from the 911 board for landline revenue. So those of us out there that still have a landline phone on that bill is a fee for 911. when you pay your phone bill, that landline fee revenue goes to Faulner County. And we've been in contact with with them about that and they've agreed to remit that money back to us since we're running the center. So that $100,000 factors in as well.

That number that number actually goes down every year, too, because you have fewer and fewer land. Right. Yeah. So, uh, if if the budget shakes out exactly like we have it at the end of the year, they would remit 100,000 to us for those landline fees, we would ask them for a $795,000 reimbursement and then $760,000 would be a cost to the general fund for that center. Thank you, Mr. Winningham. And then I got a few more. Go ahead.

Yeah. Uh so generally speaking to to get the budget balance we basically had to cut all of our general fund departments back to their 2025 uh operational levels which is a stark contrast from where we started. Uh you know our first look at this budget was a $15 million deficit. A good bit of that we were able to move off with the new new public safety tax but then we had to cut quite a bit uh to get down to where we are. some operational increases were unavoidable and those that are unavoidable, we left those in. Things such as our software subscriptions, we got, you know, everybody operates on a lot of software now, as do the as does the city. Those subscriptions go up every year. That's an unavoidable cost. We've got that accounted for in here. Uh utilities for the parks, that's going up. That's unavoidable. That's in there. Uh, our building insurance went up quite a bit when we added the community center. That's unavoidable. It's in there.

We added the new building for street department. Yes, sir. Yeah. And that's in their budget. And then uh we got some pretty significant tornado siren replacement and and repairs that we need to do next year. So, that's included in this. We want to get those fixed before that season rolls around. Those qualify for the I was going to say same thing for the new tax. We could look into that. Yeah, because it falls under SEO. Yeah. Or is it No, we have it under it. It's under non-EP departmental. Okay. Because public safety it encompasses everything. Move to SEO. Public safety. [clears throat] Yeah. Let's uh let's check on that. Public safety. Yeah.

Yes, it is. It's not millions at all. It's 150,000. No, but but it is. Yeah. Every little bit. It's money. Yeah. And then can I ask one more question because you were kind of you kind of alluded to it. Um group insurance in here is that are medical medical and dental medical and dental. Okay. Because I noticed and I was trying to find a rhyme or a reason in the in the budget changes because it's it's different you know each kind of department was different. So, is it based on the number of people or some went up and some went down and so that's what I was trying to figure out. And the swings are all in whole dollar amounts. Yeah.

That number I plug in as more of an estimate than a prediction if that makes sense. It gets hard to to to budget that because employees will change coverages during open enrollment. So, generally what I do with the group insurance is I'll look at what they've actually spent during the prior year and then I'll just take that number and and round it off and plug that in as their budget for the next year unless I see, you know, we've got like for the fire department, we've got six new positions in there. So, presumably

that's going to increase and those were were pretty straightforward, you know. Okay. Well, and I know we had discussed as a council like mid year next year looking at our insurance because we're not we don't know what's going to happen with insurance. Maybe that could you give us just an update on how that's looking as part of that. We're going to start looking into that right after first year. Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah. I used to track that a little closer and then it just got to be pretty timeconuming to go through and look at each employee and see do they have if they've got family coverage for health but they've got employee only for dental and then if that changes there's a lot of variation right

Sheila's over there going

so going forward into the other funds uh the street fund we've got a $ 1.7 millionish number in account 5461 that that's basically their surplus any surplus budget that the street fund has. We plug that into paving and reconstruction to go towards our paving program. So that's how they always end up with a a zero bottom line. Sanitation funds pretty pretty vanilla. Nothing really there. The airport fund, our fuels and purchase of fuels, there's no change from 2025. Uh we've sold more fuel this year than we ever have according to Mr. Bryley. And I think when the year is all said and done, we're going to be just over budget for revenues on that. So I think no change is a good conservative estimate for us there. Tyler, I'm sorry.

Sure. While you're on the airport fund, [clears throat] when we met that Saturday morning, there was a mention of increased tea hanger rentals. Is that did that come about? It's in this budget. Okay. Do we know what those ended up being like on a per hanger or per month basis or? We don't know a detail. Uh Jake and his staff provided us their revenue budget and that's but there is one built in. All right.

But we have there is a new new tea hanger that's coming online January 1, 2026. So those revenues will be up in the uh back section. The special funds, those are the financials that I send out to you quarterly just forformational purposes. Um we're looking at using the uh spay and neuter fund for some projects at the animal shelter. Uh [clears throat] that fund helps the general fund in the same way that the new public safety tax does. Uh it's it's revenue that's collected for animal tags and fees and so forth. And there's about $140,000 sitting in that fund right now. So uh Spencer's got some projects he's looking at out there. We don't have it that plugged into this budget. We're just going to wait and bring that back as appropriation ordinances during the year as those projects develop. But just to give you an idea of what we're thinking there, uh the A&P revenue, we're going to be able to do a major project there. Uh renovating the concession bathrooms at the Dono and Fields. That's the $2 million figure you see plugged into account 5904. The pay as you go and use is now strictly for major street projects. After the resolution that council passed last meeting, that 500,000 is now in the general fund. So the pay and you get pay as you go street and use is now strictly major street projects. So that'll make that a little simpler to follow as far as what that fund does through the year. And then the new taxes, the numbers you see in the budget are are strictly estimates. And the reason for that is, you know, the election happened relatively late in the year compared to us putting the budget together. So those department heads are still working on their priority list to get that. Um, but generally we think this is how it's going to be spent the way we've got it plugged in here.

And that's it. I think that and you mentioned one about the community center getting a a fund transfer from AP. It does. Yes. And then there's Don't we also do one for the expo center? Yes, ma'am. Okay. So, that's what those I'm I thought I knew the answer. I just wanted to make sure if anybody Right. taking yourself for you. I was just making sure you knew the question was going on. On my side for me, Mr. Jones after the Buckeyes took that beat the other night. Miss M hadn't been the same. That's all I'm saying.

Oh, that's the only one that counts. [laughter] Tyler, will you talk about the uh a little bit on the the swing in district court? $75,000 less this year. Just what led what led to that? Sure. My understanding maybe a state ruling had something to do with the judges that's going to be where the states paying the judges now. So yeah,

that was 30 of it, but then there's another 30. There's there's an additional 30 uh lost in salaries and wages. Just not not arguing, just curious of what changed there because that was that stood out. I think we had more vacancies budgeted in 25 than 26. So they've not lost staffing, so to speak, but they've operated with a number smaller this year. So we don't anticipate them to grow that number. We anticipate them staying with that number, the headcount that they've had this year. So we were able to have a little bit of budgetary savings there. Tyler, uh, going back a little bit to the community center on the revenue projections for this next year,

how confident are you that we'll come close to those and not have a shortfall? Miss Bryce and her staff put together the the revenue projections, so I don't really have any knowledge on those. As far as confidence, it kind of goes back to what he was talking about earlier. We during the COVID years we were really booming and stepping up and now our numbers have gone back pretty much to pre-COVID but they're still bouncing up two to 3%. He's talking community center.

Oh, I'm sorry. I was I was I was writing myself a note here. My bad. Well, and I think weren't the I think the figures were based on what the the consultants thought and based on the like like you kind of alluded to the current pricing that we have for the different fees and things,

right? With the pricing that that that we're operating under and then I think the consultants were consulted on uh estimates of usage based on other facilities that they have knowledge of. But who would I mean again I know you said you didn't work the numbers I mean to get just some confidence in those I mean if we were off 15% I mean that could be pretty rough on the budget um you know and that's kind of what I'm I'm looking at right and I know that that's big numbers there I mean hopefully you're not off 15% % But

right, I think that there's a threshold where you could have some issues.

I mean, Miss Bryce is welcome to come up here and speak if she wants to. I do think we're probably uh probably optimistically hoping for a lot of usage at the beginning, you know, when the when the new is still on, so to speak. So that's why I was saying it would be a really good idea for us to revisit all this after the summer or in the fourth quarter next year after we see a full season of that facility being used and then analyze, you know, do we need to look at what our rates are? Do we need to look at, you know, do we need to look for efficiencies on the operational side of it? If we do end up missing our budget on that, what is where would we go if we're in the middle of the year and we're not hitting of course now the middle of the year ironically I think is going to be your peak

season there because that's going to be when you hit it. So you go in at six months and that you're just at the good time. Um what what does that look like for the city if we do start missing that budget? It's in the general fund. So the the general fund fund balance would be cover that. Yes sir. It would it would come out of that which general fund right now we're sitting at about 14 million I believe. So, we have it there to weather through something like that, but not multiple ones in a row. Yeah. Right.

I did see we are going to pay off one bond at the end of 2020. Airport T. Oh, the I always look at the Yeah. Right. Yeah. That last page coming up. debt service summary is there forformational purposes coming down or coming off. Yeah, the airport loan is due in 2026. It'll be due in and I I made a note here, but I failed to mention it. The date on the date that I have on there is incorrect. I have that it's due December. It's actually due in June. So, I will correct that for the final

I'll correct that. Yeah, I'll correct that for the final version of the budget that goes out. But sometime between January and June, we'll need to uh appropriate the money to do that because that is not currently in the budget with the new um street and sales tax street and drainage sales tax coming in. Again, it's a pay as you go, right? And um I know I see it's been divided up. Do we we don't have any idea which projects so that can that's fluid, right?

Yeah. I asked I reached out to to Jacob and Kurt and asked them if they had any idea of how they might foresee that and they're they're working on those a project list as well. It's this is the first time we'll have dedicated money for drainage projects which the city and you're really going to see them concentrate on a lot of overlay too.

Well, I would [clears throat] overlay is very important. Obviously, we have a we've been able to do a lot of that. I would personal preference. We can talk more about this later. I I would really like to see the bulk of that new tax go to drainage because that's the only source of funds for drainage that we have. So I would just like for our transportation department and this body to remember that when we're looking at drainage issues, that's where we'll get the money. So let's try to keep it for that purpose. My opinion on it. I I've talked to some people and that we passed that downtown streets and they can't wait till we get the other ones finished. And I just tell them it's a process and some way shape could you put your mic down that people can't hear you at home.

Are you at home? I keep getting messed up. [laughter] Very You're very soft spoken, Mr. Jones. You're very I am. You're very soft. You've been married long without me and you learn to be soft spoken. [laughter] I've learned to be quiet. That's just me. I will if I live that long. So Tyler, [laughter] I'm count by prayer. This is a a minor minor question just for me. And I think I I know which ones it is, which ones, what categories they are, but I don't know which one is which. So, under the community center, you have three building use fees. So, I'm assuming one is outside pool, inside pool, and the other facility. You're in the revenue section.

Yes, I'm sorry. Yes, revenue. But they all have the same name. And so, I thought, oh, so three different things called the same. So, I thought it must be categorized by It's categorized by the it's by the department number the big facility like the niatorum the outside and then the the main community center. That's how I interpreted. I just didn't know which one was which. Any you you might want to so the the department number. So we've got in that section we've got departments 112 113 115 and 116. Uhu 112 is the community center.

Okay. And we've got 13 and 15. 113 is the swimming nitorium, the indoor facility. And 114 is not in here. We had that designated as the fitness center. And what were the others? We had 115 and 116. So 115 is volleyball and 116 is pickle ball.

Yeah. And for clarity, I can just add a little at the end of each of those to say what they're for. Well, and how I think a detail like this would be helpful maybe once a quarter or twice a year or something because when I was trying to compare the new budget to like our current usage or it it's hard for me to know what stuff goes where, right? Um and make a and but not not every month. Yeah. Yeah, but just I mean if I I assume this is [clears throat] just a report you can generate pretty easily.

Pretty easily. Uh it's I I take it and then I group it together to the format you see. But yeah, the software spits it out just like this and then I just reorganize it so that taxes are at the top. Yeah, I mean I don't want to create a lot of extra work but but I find this level of detail sometimes useful. So maybe a couple times a year. Yeah. The monthly financials or those these numbers condensed. Yeah. Right. Summarized.

And then for the budget, we give you and the public full detail of all of our line items. I have one kind of bigger question, but less in the details. So, I'm going to wait for anybody that wants to go to details and I have a kind of procedural question.

Any more questions? Mr. Wingham going through a exercise this past year looking at line item particularly that's near and dear to my heart that is the health insurance end of this um numbers that I'm seeing total numbers not even close to what I saw last summer.

What you were looking at was full cost. So you were looking at what was paid to the insurance company which included employee deductions and the city's cost. What's in the budget is strictly the city's cost. That make sense? You would have a good answer. [laughter] All right. So my Andy, were you done? I'm not trying to Sorry, I'm done.

So when we have a situation, this is more just a procedural question. I just want to understand how this works. When we have a situation like we did a month or two ago around that legal fee payment and we moved from where there was excess in one item to another. What's the process when that happens? The process? Yeah. So, can the police chief just say, "Take my money from pot A and put it in pot B." And you say, "Yes, sir." No, that was actually me. It was in their It was in their budget. It was for positions. It was for personnel. They were not going to fill them this year. So, they had that excess money in their budget. So, we just used that to pay that legal fee. But those positions did not go away.

They're they're in their their 2026 budget. He said he couldn't fill them anyway. So, that we did that so that we didn't have to appropriate a general fund because it was within the police department. Yeah. Understood. And and to be clear, I'm looking at more the process unless that specific instance. So when when we make a transfer from one line item account to another, what's the process? Do they just ask him and he says yes? Do you have some like what what happens?

The uh I fully understand your question now. So yeah, so the department will fill out a transfer form and submit it. And what our policy is, what my policy is, is uh the department head is in charge of their budget. If they decide they're not going to use it in this line item and want to use it in here, I'm okay with that. But we get mayor uh approval for anything that deals with salaries or capital because those are a little bit more sensitive areas, so to speak. So if they want to request to move unspent budget from salaries to a line item, we don't do that without the mayor's approval. If they want to move something in or out of a capital account, we don't do that without the mayor's approval. But anything else, we allow the department heads as long as it's there. So the form gets routed to finance and then we look at it and we make sure that the budget is available to be transferred. you know, if they've overspent in an account, we're not going to let them move. You know, it's it's impossible to move. Uh there is no unspent funds to be able to move. So, we just double check and make sure that that's accurate. And then if it needs further approval from the mayor's office, we then route it there. Is there any amount of is that process the same regardless of the dollar amount?

Yes, sir. Okay. And I think I have another question based on that. So, just because Ann is sitting right behind you and she's my friend and I can pick on her. So, so, so Ann has money from a position that wasn't filled or that was vacant for part of the year and she decides she wants to remodel her office. She didn't do this. This would never happen. I'm pulling stuff out of thin air here. If she has overspent elsewhere and she has a she can't say the salary example may have been a bad example. Basically, here's the question that I'm getting at. I got lost in my analogy. question that I'm getting at is if they are in the hole anywhere in that department's budget, we're not letting them move stuff around. We're saying you're overspent. That's it.

No, we the the number the department head has to manage is the bottom line. So, the number they're allocated for their whole department is what they can't overspend. If they're over spent in a line item, but they're underspent in another one and for their department they're okay, we would still allow them to move budget within their department where it's uh but notrop but not to go into the whole but not to go negative. Okay. Yes.

Okay. Then I think my only other question here is it feels like if we're approving a budget that includes, you know, we're going to spend money on ABC, C, and D, there should be some threshold where that would need to come back to us to say yes to. And to be clear, I don't I'm not saying I disagree with anything that's been done. I'm saying that there might be different people sitting at the at these desks at some point and that there should probably be a number there should probably be another check or balance on that. So if we're moving 50,000 100,000 150,000 at some point seems like that process should come back to us to say yes to I may be alone in that feeling but I mean it doesn't feel dissimilar like you got to ask your board if you're going to spend money over a certain amount right you can go buy coffee that's no issue right but at some point you got to go to your board and say hey we said we were going to do this now we want to do this that's kind of the way I'm thinking

historically if if the amount is outside of their budget It's going to we usually it does come before the council, but if it falls within their budget for the year, like you said, it's just a matter of moving the money. It's just a there there may be uh statutes that back this up, but I've been doing this 20 years now, 14 of it here. Uh sort of the line there is it day-to-day operations. If it's day-to-day operations, it's handled by the mayor and his department heads. If it's policy, it comes to the council. Right. Thanks. Appreciate it. Does

I get a copy of the fiveyear fin? I mean, I know you don't have it right now. Not asking for it right now, but if I could get get a copy of that, I'd like to just look at it. Sure. Thank you very much. I still don't understand that. I mean, if we've got that tax to buy a new fire truck, but we can't finance the truck. You and I are thinking, right, but we got to save up a million dollars before we can buy a fire truck. Yes. Like,

that was actually the first question I asked the day after the sales tax. I said, now because we were back on budget, I was I was all flighty. I thought, oh boy, here we're fixing to move this money over to pay for that fire truck and the Seox stuff. And first thing he did, he shot that down saying state law wouldn't allow it. But I'd like we we will get that for you in the whole town. I'd like to see it. Well, and my my memory is not and beyond that perhaps we need to get with our state legislature to tweak that where it's allowable. I would agree. I think that's where we need to start. We will get an answer too to your question. I think your question, Mr. Grimes, uh on the uh siren system if that can that can be taken. That would Yeah, that's a good question.

Public safety I've never seen. And Tyler, the number you when you were answering Spencer's question about, you know, what our fund balance was, is that just the cash or does that include our reserve that we've set aside? Just the cash. So there's another 2 million reserve. So is there any advantage to taking money out of there and paying off this fire truck? Paying off this loan. Yes. Is the total loan, Tyler? Was it 5 million when we started? Does that sound right?

I mean, we set this reserve aside for emergencies and, you know, purposefully. Is this is this enough of an issue to save us on interest payments, take help with the general fund budget? So, it was just under $4 million in uh principal, right? Because we took a while to build it up. Build it up. Yeah.

And then it's if we if we just followed the schedule and made our annual installments for five years, we would pay about $467,000 in interest. That might be something to I mean, not necessarily to not approve the budget tonight, but for ways to look at other things that we could do there. Run that interest by me again. Four a little over 467,000 years. Pushing a half a million. That's like Mark just said, it's half a fire truck. Pushing half a million. How many years? I mean, that might be worth it to It's worth looking into see if we could do that. Okay. Yeah. What else can we find? But then we're back in that place where we don't have that reserve.

That's the only thing I was worried about their pros and cons. Yeah. But even if we said, "Okay, we'll if we pay off the truck, then we're going to add in adding another 100,000 back into the reserve in the budget, you know, so it kind of netted out a little bit. What if we had a bigger sum that we needed emergency and we'd already spent it on this?" I mean, I'm like him. It's pros and cons. I mean, it's good it's good to knock knock down the interest and everything, but then when you come up with something that is emergency that we put this money back for and we don't have it, then what is is a new fire truck? Because we haven't gotten the fire truck yet, have we? I don't know the answer to that.

I think this is one we paid up front. I think it's one we paid up front. One minor correction. It's not It's the fire truck and it was our 911 system upgrade. So, it's not just the fire truck. It's paying off both. Both because they were And there was one loan that was done for both of those. There's nothing in that law that says we couldn't pay something off in less than five years. Oh, sure. You can pay it off whenever. Thank you. That would be between you and the financial between you and the bank, but we don't have a early payoff penalty. Got one more question on the 911

breakdown. So we get all the 911 funds the city does. When it's paid off, what the money we spend that's left over is split between the county and so county is paying all the county little cities. County charges them if they charge them or Right. And that that uh allocation was based on the population. So in Faulner County, Conway's population is 52% of the total. The county which encompasses all the other cities is 48%. So that's what you said is correct.

Okay. That's what I thought. But just thank you. Mhm. I don't want to keep belaboring this thing about the $4 million paying off early and whatnot. It's just it's interesting worth looking at Tyler in all your free time. If you want to throw something [laughter] together in your free time, but here here's

here's the thing. I mean, and we don't have to obviously we don't have to the payment's not the first payment is not due till July, I believe. But at any rate, what essentially, if nothing else, if we spent $4 million to pay it off and then simply paid ourselves back over five years without the interest, you'd save the interest payments if nothing else. And but we we would have to force ourselves to pay ourselves back and not spend on something else, but we would save close to interest, which we have done,

which we Yeah, we've done that. So there there are there are ways to again I I want to get some clarification. I asked the same question you did Mr. Hawkins about this and I don't like the answer but we need to get with our state legislature to see what tweaks we can do on this on this capital money. I agree. And maybe we don't spend the whole four million in change. Maybe we spend half of it which cuts Yeah. part of that out. We still retain uh some operating money in case we need that and then and as David said pay ourselves back and pay what's left of the note.

I I think that would be a a better idea and more acceptable instead of using all of been have and still have some emergency funds in case something happens. That's just Yeah. And we will get an answer on the uh siren system and get the law, the ordinance or state law, I'm sorry, just on that and get it to all y'all. And I think everybody might want to take a look at that. Yeah.

Felicia, would you mind sending that out when Tyler gets that? Would you mind sending that out when Tyler gets that statute about the five-year financing coming from the general fund? I think everybody would like to see that. I'll say Tyler had one other really small I think happy thing that I noticed. The the traffic light maintenance was down like 25 grand or something like that from previous years. Was that just because there was money budgeted this year that we didn't spend or is it what I'm hoping in that all of those LED conversions we've done lessened the need for it? Roundabout roundabout. Roundabout. How did I leave that out? Roundabout.

Maintenance on traffic lights at one time was running about a million dollars a year. I don't know what it runs now, but it it it's high. We're getting rid of them though. That's that's why we know known as city of roundabouts. Yeah. Right. That would be my best guess. But I don't really know the answer to that question. That would be more of a Jacob and Kirk question. Uh but that when I saw that decrease, I just hope man this hopefully this is the result of using some of that grant money for LED replacements and it's saving us more money in the future. So

council, any other questions for Mr. Winningham? Just a final note, thank you very much. I know budgeting a hundred million dollar budget is not easy. Thank you and your staff and the department heads and everyone else who helped out with this. Thanks, sir. Thank you for having all the answers to all the questions. And council, as you're aware that I announced earlier, we'll start having department we'll start having committee meetings uh prior to council meetings starting in January with department heads. That's Felicia's idea. So, she our projects manager, Felicia, that's her idea. [laughter] Did she pick up a new title over here? She didn't want it, but she got it. Uhhuh. [laughter]

That email signature is getting real long. A lot of titles. Get a new office, too. Where? [laughter]

It's true. What can I say? Council, back to you. I'll make a motion for the adoption of the ordinance 025112 along with the emergency clause. Second. Have a motion and a second to adopt the ordinance for the 2026 budget with the emergency clause. Any further discussion? Third. Mr. Spurs. I. Mr. Hawkins. Yes. M Better. Yes. Mr. Jones. Yes. Mr. SM. Hi. Mr. Hawks. Yes. Mr. Grimes. Hi. And the emergency clause. Mrs. Mr. Spurs. Hi. Mr. Hawkins. Yes. Mrs. Yes. Mr. Le Better. Yes. Mr. Jones. Yes. Miss.

I. Mr. Hawks. Yes. Mr. Grimes. Hi. Those both pass eight to zero. Thank you, Tyler. And again, thank you to you and your staff. Council, that's all we have. I'm sorry, Mr. I was just going to mention I wasn't trying to get on to anybody about the microphones. It's just me. Me and you. Yeah. Well, it's just I'm in a I'm in a good spot to hear I can hear the feedback. I can tell when the mic is picking the the speaker up. Please tell us. Mr. Mayor, we'll meet again, I guess, on the It'll be in January. Mr. Mayor, do we did we ever [clears throat] make a final decision on meetings for the rest of the year? I'm fine with whatever. I just This will be our final one for for 2026. Okay. Don't need to I think we were just putting aside

next Tuesday in case we need it. We needed it. So, good. uh council Chief Keithley's funeral visitation is from uh 12 to 1 tomorrow at Antioch and the funeral's at 1 at Antioch. And then other than that, I hope you all have a very merry Christmas and I've I've enjoyed sharing this year with you, Sheila. Alicia, what day is our employee? 19th December 19th. What's What's the dress code? Uh bell bottoms. Blue jean bell bottoms hat. Need a hat. Billy Crystal, I'm sorry. Billy Preston going Billy Preston look this year. Why is everybody tell them I need a hat? A glare bed or something? Just wear your cowboy hat be. Yeah,

I did see I did see a little E. Heyo. I said what on the standings National Football League I saw E next to the Dallas Cowboys name which means they're out. No, they're eliminated from playoffs. Sir, can you leave behind the part? Let me explain to you about the east.