Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

on now.

Good evening. This is the finance committee meeting for the city of Hendersonville for April 28th. It is 6 o'clock and my name is Jeff Sassy, chairman of the finance committee. Uh going to call this meeting to order and me. You want to introduce yourself? Mark Bdor, alderman, ward one, vice chair. And we're missing Mark Evans, our other finance committee member. If we want to go over in the room, who else would we have? Greg Story, Bill's director. Jay Rbec, economic development. Tamar Hall, finance director. Great. Thank you very much. Uh, first thing on the agenda is accepting the agenda. I'd like to make a motion that we uh Hello, there he is.

Uh, can you make a motion first? Uh right. We have to move we have to accept you have to do a motion and a second to accept and then you have to do a motion to amend motion to admit uh accept the agenda. I'll second that. Uh now go ahead.

I'd like to amend the agenda and add discussion for our guests that are here with us regarding adequate facilities tax with the county. Um there's been some discussion about that amongst uh the county and the finance committee here and all present. So, um I'd like to add that to the uh agenda right of other agenda. Right. With other agenda items, make it number one. We'll second that. You want to second? I'll second. Okay. All those in favor of that change? I That passes unanimously. Uh minutes and

you need to now vote on the main motion of accepting the agenda. Thank you. Um, and so all those in favor of accepting the agenda has been amended. I I And that passes unanimously. Thank you, Tammy. Unanimously. That's a tough word. Well, today it is. Yeah, apparently I'm sluring you. Uh, all right. Next is acceptance of the minutes. So, second. All right. Any changes to that? Okay. All those in favor? I I And that passes unanimously. Uh, no public comments, I don't think. Nope. No,

nothing on ordinances, resolutions. So, the first thing on the agenda is the AFT letter received recently by the by some of the county uh written by their um by the county law director in reference to the uh adequate facilities taxes um that would had been being discussed. Absolutely. And um so I don't think we need a motion for that, right? It's just other agenda items. So we need to begin conversation and I'll let you you two kick it off if you like. And we have Greg Story and Jay Ritterbeck here to answer any questions for us. And also Lance Ray.

Oh, there snuck in. Um well, I can I can start us off. Um, so Greg, I was hoping that uh I know that you received you received one of the first letters. So I wanted to get uh with you and find out exactly your um your version of the events that occurred and when when things occurred and how you perceived the uh information that was that was received.

Okay. uh around April about this time last year, I received a letter from the county uh stating that we have not been sending people to the county to pay the AFT for their commercial u designation of of the adequate facility tax. uh this was the first knowledge of this to me that we needed to uh direct people to the county for mainly the commercial side. We have been doing it for the residential u industrial part mainly residential but now they just kicked off the this commercial uh adequate facility tax. So that's that's really how this all came about more or less. Um, since that day that I spoke to Marshall Wright, the building uh official with the county, I told him the day that we spoke that that day going forward, we were going to send people to the county to

to pay the tax. And that's what we [clears throat] do that. We've been doing that ever since. And that was April 25. Uh, yes. Yes. Okay. So for the past year, we've been saying to the county and they and they've been collecting and verifying. Correct. And then we're and then when they come to us, we're verifying those commercial afts. Correct. Before we issue the permit, we uh verify that the aft is paid. So, okay. Any questions on that? Well, how do we verify with a receipt of some sort? Yes, they'll bring in a receipt from the county. Uh, it's just a copy of the county's receipt more.

And Greg, what's your understanding as far as prior to that? Do you guys agree that there was a misunderstanding or a misinterpretation of what we're supposed to be collecting the afts on? Um, more or less it was uh the letter that I received was a letter saying hey you know obviously I guess they sent a letter a year before and uh it it didn't reach me and uh I didn't know at the time to send those folks to the county and they had a I guess a time that you know that date they're using that date the first letter and that's how they're I guess getting all that information.

So it really is those it was their interpretation of what we're supposed to be collecting the aft for. Right. But that time through April we didn't receive the letter. Right. And we didn't know that we were supposed to be doing anything different. Right. They had a new interpretation of of there's adequate facility tax more or less a new interpretation by their law director I believe. Does that interpretation kind of go coincide with the international book of codes? Well, it has nothing to do with with our codes or whatnot.

Okay. It it's uh more or less the county put it together back in 99 1989 and uh up until this time we've never heard anything about never uh about commercial is always focused on residential industrial. So, but their new interpretation uh of the commercial, they're requiring uh the the taxes to be paid on commercial as well. And as far as our our our staff and everyone else, we're just doing what they've asked us to do. Correct. And since we've been notified. Yes. Absolutely. Great.

Um Lance, Mr. Ray. Uh, so we recently received Call me Lance. Okay. [laughter]

Uh, so we received a letter recently from their county law director uh after I um attended a legislative committee meeting at the county. Um, can you summarize basically what that letter what that letter said? It just said that um and I wasn't at the meeting, but um and I haven't seen the meeting, but it says that um at the direction of the legislative committee, I'm running to inform you that the balance on the unpaid unpaid AFT has been reduced by $57,66120. The new total of unpaid AFT is now $267,746. The new total for the 157 Molly Walton Drive/ Lincoln Property Company project is $141,22.80. It is the committee's understanding that Lincoln Property Company will continue to pay down the $141,200 $2280 balance they owe direct to the county and the city will be responsible to the county for the remaining unpaid $126,54320 balance from other developers. That's what it says.

Okay. What's your opinion? your legal opinion on it and I I don't I read the the brief that that you wrote um and based on this new letter, has that changed? Has your opinion changed?

No, not at all. I mean, um it's there's there's several factors uh that my opinion was based on. Um, one being what we just talked about that um, a very general letter went out I think in February 2024 that Mr. Story referenced um, prior to his letter that he received in April 2025. Uh the February 2024 letter went to mayors and I think city attorneys and it was just uh a very general letter letter that said um it talked about the adequate facilities tax. it it uh attached the 1999 um statute or uh I think it was a private act that um authorized the AFT on industrial and residential. And then it vaguely mentioned to please see the um the standard industrial codes on what may fall under industrial and that's it. And you know it didn't say anything about star collecting on commercial development. Um there's several things that fall under uh industrial under the standardized industrial codes.

So um I think we all just kind of got it and said okay I don't understand you know this must be someformational thing. And it wasn't until April 2025 when uh the county codes director contacted uh our codes director, Mr. Story, and said, "Hey, you're supposed to be collecting a commercial." So, um I mean that's hard to notice of something we've been doing uh since 1999 which is ver in fact at one point we were collecting for the county and then um it was changed to where we were um just verifying for 25 years

and you would think that there would be more clear notice on what we're on what they were asking us to do. Uh, also this is the city, the citizens of Hendersonville cannot be responsible for paying taxes that are owed to the county. They just can't legally. Uh, there's indemnification um statutes that apply and and other law that applies. And um, so, you know, as a courtesy u uh, Mr. Um um reenback rback is what I said.

Sorry, I just drew a blank. Um Jay, yeah, much easier. Yeah,

just a J with a period. um you know, Jay's been working hard to contact these developers and um giving them notice or giving them information about the AFT and trying to coordinate their payment. But as far as the city being responsible and liable, I just don't believe that um based on the facts and the law that this that the city can be made. And do we ever sign an agreement or a um a contract or what's that

with the county or mutual uh aid? Anything like that? Yeah. No. Um interlocal agreement I guess what I was trying to say.

No. Um not that I'm aware of. We looked and I don't think we found anything. Um there was a controller report that I sent to um the county um law director and I've sent to this uh committee um referencing the fact that there were some issues on how it was done and it would be best if the city and county entered into interlocal agreement about it uh al among some other opinions that I also rely on um in my opinion that the city is not legally responsible. So, uh, no, there was a recommendations to have an interlocal agreement and not that I'm aware of that we've ever had one. [clears throat] Thank you. Yeah.

Uh, did you have something? Yeah, I did. Mr. Ritterbeck, would you be sec to tell us how well received or how we how received Lincoln was toward this um change this new development and how were you able to uh ask them to pay the pay the fee? Uh we have a very good working relationship in the PL department with Lincoln Properties crew. Um, when this when I was made aware of this being an issue, I simply asked, "Have we asked them to pay it yet?" Nobody had reached out. So, I asked them and they were apologetic. They didn't know that it was a thing either. So, they didn't even know they

No. So, um, they wanted to get their occupancy clearance on building number one, which is on coming online. Um, and I just indicated to them that we may be holding up their UNO until they get that paid. They said, you know, we'll we'll get it done. on it. It took them about a month because they're they have a um they can only pull um make a draw occasionally from the the back the financing firm that is um um backing that that project. So they were able to make the first building draw in April and that it took I think I made it was midFebruary late February that I became aware of and reached out to them. So, it took them a little again, you know, took about two months to do that and they got um I got uh information that they were going to be able to get the rest of them pulled in May. So, um with that, I think you presented to um to the legislative committee that information and they extended a 60-day grace period for that amount for Lincoln Properties. Um and then we in the planning department, we just kind of want to get in codes want to get our heads wrapped around it. So, we just did a spreadsheet like who do we still had pending UNO's? You know, what's the list that's owed? Is there any pending permit? Do we have any ability um to make a request and have any kind of teeth to that? And um with help of legal counsel, you we ended up drafting letters to all of those, sent them out, making the request that you know, informing them because probably most of them didn't even know.

Yeah. Um we and then also going through the list we we discovered some discrepancies where um one of the one of them had been paid. They marked it as not being paid but it was paid in what was that that was the list we received for the county. Yeah. There was a 6,800 that had already been paid that is listed on there and that's for um chival drive. I'm sorry. No, it hadn't been paid. Um it's not that it had been paid. We we revoked that permit so it will not be constructed. So that needs to be removed from the list. Not we didn't revoke it because of the aft. No no that totally separate matter reasons.

And then there's a duplicative one for 874 which is a tenant improvement for the the Starbucks building right across the street. [clears throat] Um they have that listed up at top um for $1,000 for their aft for the shelf. It's on there twice and the first one is a legitimate charge. The second one is the TI which shouldn't be on there. Um and then they have um residential they uh a pavilion and a mailbox kiosk on there and they charge the commercial rate of point is it point4 um 40 cents per square foot. Absolutely.

But the land use, the way the law is written, it's supposed to be for the land use and those are multif family residential. So when you look at the square footage and how 7 should actually be calculated instead of point4 on the square footage, but that square footage for residential is only for conditioned space, which a kiosk is not and a pavilion has no size, so it's not. So those should also be taken off. So, when we're going through, it's like we're looking at about $8,000 that just needs to be taken off regardless of

anything else just so that we're operating on a true and factual list. Um Jay, how do what do you what does the city what do y'all's department think about what do we need to do with the county in order to first reconcile the lists so that we know what we're and I'm trying to be careful on how to say this because I agree with Lance that um you know we we shouldn't put out there that we're responsible for it. We're trying to help bring a resolution to this with the county and I get the feeling that we're doing a lot of the work on this and the county is not doing very much at all. It's just that they're um they're beating it over the head with us and I appreciate the the team trying to uh resolve some of these issues. How do you think we go about trying to meet with somebody at the county to get that those little things taken care of but then um working to try and get these off the list? Well, with those with the 60 days that they gave us, we should be able to get some more of this in and then we can kind of reassess um you know what the balance is and how many of them are actually going to go and pay um get a new balance and um you know there is a high likelihood that if it gets down below a certain amount that the county is just going to

I I think so too, you know, um expunge that. We are facilitating it. So, it's not a heavy lift on our part to send out the email because it's all in our inner gut system, the contact. It's really it was just drafting the letter, verifying it, and then sending it out. Um, and then it's what, you know, how where the chips may fall. Um,

and if we do decide to on the bigger ticket items to um hold UNO final use and occupancy, we may go that route. But it again, it's it's it's not our tax. So, we're we're less inclined and we'd be looking to to Lance and legal. It's like um it's not our responsibility to collect it, but we can facilitate the business owner

to have a meeting with the county to decide if that is I know that Lincoln Properties paid their first one under protest and that was there's an appeal route in there. So, their next ones they will probably u pay those under protest and then request an appeal hearing. um for those because um you know they they also are not under the impression that these are actually correctly um being assessed. Okay.

Okay. The hospital is also you asked me if anybody the hospital is and I forwarded the email to to legal that they don't believe that they're subject to that. Um and but they were basing it off the comproller um rather than the the law itself. And see to me that seems the logical route. It's an issue between the county who is um saying that this is a fee or tax and the business owner is saying no, it's not. It's shouldn't be between the city and the county. Absolutely. We shouldn't be.

Do you feel like we have a good relationship? I I I was in the meeting too and I was watching the people that uh that were giving uh the the legislative committee information and and the people there. I just didn't get the feeling from them that they I didn't get the feeling that they were wanting to really work with I said it was I mean but I mean am I wrong with that? Do you think we have a good relationship where we can resolve some of these issues with them? I think once the facts I mean the facts are going to be the facts. Okay.

A lot much of the discussion because I watched that hearing or the uh that meeting as well and um they were unaware of that we weren't collecting them either. a couple of them were under the impression we were collecting them and keeping them and not remitting them to the county too, which was not the case. So, I think there's a lot of misunderstanding about just what the relationship and what the the structure is. And once we're all on the same page, it'll it'll help. And I think us making the attempt to get the the the the business owner and the county to meet and discuss if you know what they owe and um that's going to go a long way. We're just facilitating it. To me, it just seems like it's been very adversarial unnecessarily that it started out that way and

has been. Yeah. And I appreciate I appreciate what we're doing to try and resolve that, but I feel like it's it the city's trying to do everything. The county is not doing a whole lot to help resolve it. I I still want I still want us to be good partners, good neighbors to the county, but I'm I also don't want us footing I don't want our citizens footing the bill for this at all. And I think we're all in agreement there. Are we Well, just one second. Are we now Are we collecting receipts though on these latest ones as recording? Okay, great. Um go ahead, Lance.

Yeah. to add what uh Jay was saying and um Alman Evans, the first thing we knew about this, we received a a letter saying that um you haven't been doing this. You owe us $230 or $260,000. You have two weeks to pay. Okay. And they sent us a list of what they said that we owed. And immediately, Mr. Story found several errors in that that we pointed out to them. Um, they sent us another letter asking for the building copies of the building permits um, and copies of all the other documentation that related to all of those uh, properties. How many? I mean, there were what, hundreds or so.

Yeah, there was a lot. In addition to some other ones that that weren't included, uh, we found lots of errors in that one, too. that letter that came with that um gave us two more weeks to pay them the $300 and something thousand dollars that they said that we owed them at that point. Um and then we've got another one I believe a third one that had some errors in it. So,

um I mean that is not a tenable situation that every time that they that that that they believe they're owed something but doesn't they don't even they being the county doesn't even um coordinate with us to see if it's something that is owed that has been paid or not been paid or a project that did go through or didn't go through or a duplicate there were duplicates on there and just demand payment within two weeks or or else I mean that's not a terrible situation. to to go forward and and um if if it if it continues to like I said 25 years there's never not really ever been a problem with this that I'm aware of. Yeah.

And then all of a sudden interpretations change. We're now um assessing aft. We being the county they're assessing through their interpretation commercial is included in industrial which it's not up for us to decide that. It's not our our interpretation of that. But we can't expose the city to hold um developers and builders liable for things like that that um that that isn't in our purview. One, and then two, as I mentioned, if this is not a partnership right here,

right? So [clears throat] if if this if I think really the best way to to to figure this out ultimately if this isn't resolved uh in a very favorable way for the city is is litigation. Let a judge decide what what what the city should be doing and what the city is liable for and what they're not liable for and maybe even what the county should be collecting and what they're not collecting. I don't Well, it sounds like that's going to that's where it's going to go with Lincoln properties and with the hospitals possibly. So, you know, all those things. Yeah. All those things together would kind of set the precedent as far as what's supposed to be. Yeah.

So, since we reached out um with Lincoln and with Innovation Way has been has paid 47,000, we've knocked off,000 of the 320ome that that on that last letter that they had requested. So, we're moving in the right direction and and there's there's many of them that are they do know that it needs to be paid and in the end there is a uh let's see there's a high likelihood that we're going to be dropping down to at least 30,000 if the big ticket items end up going. Um so you know at that point yeah a if the county really wants to collect that they have a mechanism to do that and that's putting a lean on on the property right um so you know ultimately it's their tax really is an impact fee if you ask me that

and I have a question uh this Tamara just reminded me of it and we talked about it at the legislative committee was um they kept talking about a dollar amount but yet the dollar amount keeps changing but they said that this is the this is the dollar amount as of this date, but yet we've been, you know, everything's been in compliance since then. How does it keep changing? Do you guys know what's it?

Yeah. So, so with Lincoln Properties, for example, when they go in, they there's a two possibilities. One, they're building it a little bit bigger than what the building code had or that the measurement where we get it and we're measuring to the inside extent of the exterior wall and then what they're asking for over there is the exterior of the exterior wall. So just you know gross and net and like the numbers sometimes do change depending on how you calculate the gross square footage of a building. One possibility or they're they're just counting out buildings and that we didn't we didn't you know if you've got a trash enclosure that has a roof on it they may be counting that as well. So when the applicant actually goes in and shows them their plans they may be recalculating and adding on additional. So, we just give them our building permit number with a raw number. When they go and talk, when the developer goes in and talks to them, that's how it changes. So, you'll look at the Lincoln properties, they all went up about 1500 square feet. So, it seemed pretty consistent.

Um, but it that's that's how they were going up. More detailed information was getting a different number than what we had on our books. It's another another inconsistency. Yeah. need.

Well, the other thing that's difficult for us and especially for Mr. Sto, we don't know what the use is that's going to be going in there. So, at the time of building permit, it if if it's a you it's based on use and the sick the standard nestro classification, we don't know what of those codes it's actually going to be that's going in there. So it makes it difficult to at that stage that it the law ought to have been a later stage when the use was actually confirmed with a use and occupancy permit not at original building because then we'll we would know what would the as built what was actually concerned what the actual square footage what the end use was going to be and it would have been more appropriate but again you know the law is 20ome years old it could be refined and made better to function more properly but again that would be one of those if we revisit it and make things clear. Do a twothirds vote. There's a partnership as you spoke of could be can we make this better or do we just kind of want to all wash our hands of it and let the county it

to me just when I hear about the the mechanics of how this works just seems so cumbersome and so it does ridiculous that that it has to be that way. I can't think of anything else that's like this where the city or some municipality is responsible for the payment of it, but yet the county gets the gets the funds. It just seems odd to me that we're the ones have to rein that have to enforce it, but we don't get any benefit from it from our Well, they're asking us to. We don't have to. Yeah. I mean, we're just collecting. Yeah. Right. Right. It just seems we're we're taking these steps out of the goodness of SH City, right? Goodwill.

Try and be a partner. At the meeting that was 60 days. That's not specific. Are we are we are we two weeks in? How how long ago was that? Um I those are arbitrary numbers that the county made up. Okay. I don't know what they mean. Um, like I said, without uh working through any of these uh tens and maybe hundreds of permits that they say weren't collected that some of which we found errors. We only had two weeks to make a payment and not try to figure it out. Um, I don't know that that 60 days means anything other than maybe they might sue us, you know.

Yeah. What can they do? But um well again maybe partnership here you want to see are we going to reach out at the end of 60 days and say this is where we are. Is that something we ought to do? I guess we can just maybe figure out where we're at and what uh the will of the city. You'd think that if after 60 days that we whittleled it down considerably that they would say let's extend some we'll keep working on it. Appreciate what you're doing. And to me that would go a long way in just kind of helping resolve it. But that in June I get the feeling that for some of those people they they don't want to do that. They just want to grant

Well, I mean it really just doesn't seem like that. I' I've never really seen anything like that to say that u hey you didn't do this even though we didn't clearly tell you to do this. [laughter] Therefore this amount although it's not correct you need to pay us in two weeks. I mean, you know, I'm not trying to be sarcastic, but that's in a nutshell what happened. It's true. Um, so I my my suggestion was continue doing what you're doing. Are we going to respond to this letter? What What are your thoughts, Mr.

Ray? I I don't think that there's they they do not seem to um consider any of the points that we bring out and I don't feel like they read any of it

and and we we we put together quite a few words uh and reasoning behind the letters that we have sent them before and um not much of it has ever been acknowledged. So, I I don't know what there is to respond to it. If the if this committee or the city wants something to be responded to, we can do that. But I would just recommend uh continue seeing what we can do as a courtesy to um direct people up to the county to pay their aft and uh just see where it falls at some point. I agree. At your recollection, you two were at the meeting. Did you did this letter sound um very similar to the conversation that was going on at the time or could you hear? Go ahead.

I was going to say I think the letter maybe what's the word I'm looking for? I think it says what the committee said. I think I thought the letter was a little bit um too harsh and to me I was hoping that there was going to be more of a collaborative u bent on the on the letter and working together and it just didn't come across that way. It's based on you know it was it was also equally uh apparent that there were half of the committee was willing to work and figure out something and the other half were like no billum we'll you know they were kind of

yes you're right so it was okay thanks I appreciate that it just didn't have the spirit of the letter that I had hoped it would be yeah sure yeah I was honestly I was surprised when I read the letter just how aggressive. Yes, heavy-handed. Heavy heavy-handed aggressive. Yeah, both those great. Um when it came across, uh I did not get the feeling that they read anything that was provided to them. Uh or or maybe it just wasn't provided to them. We're saying these to we're not saying these directly to the committee. We're saying them to other parties. And so I question whether all that's getting to them.

Okay. Uh, in fact, when I was there, it seemed like some of the information that was being provided to them was brand new and this is stuff that had been discussed here for years. This was the legislative committee, correct? Correct. Yeah. Okay. And that as an attorney, I communicate with their at the county's attorney. That's that's I believe the proper mode of communication. I would never I would never um dream to just communicate directly with their legislative committee members. Sure.

Um but I believe that they but the county tends to try tends to communicate directly with this committee, you know. But I I I just I believe that I should just be communicating with with the law director or his office and um and then what is disseminated from there is their prerogative. So uh one last thing uh you've obviously done an analysis of each property you mentioned that earlier of where it stands, what's valid, what's not. Um can you provide that to us? Uh you can just email it to the committee. your updated list on the what what is it now? Sorry, spreadsheet.

The the spreadsheet of the properties that they say are owed and what our what our analysis shows. Um the intern um yes we will uh give that to you one way but we'll keep it confidential. Yes. Absolutely. Just with the convention I come through you. Yeah that's fine. That's fine. Yeah. And as part of our work product, we've got notes on some things. So, uh, we we can do that. It's just helpful for us to know kind of where we are and if we can help at all, but it's not to be shared. You know, we're going to let you guys handle. Uh, thank you. Yeah. Perfect. The external part of it. Absolutely.

All right. Any other thoughts or questions? No. Thank you guys for all you're doing. The conversation update. All right. move on to the next agenda item and that is our local sales tax analysis. Anyone got a copy of that?

Good job. [laughter] Sorry. It was in February. Do you want one PC? The committee has a meeting. Thank you, Lance. Thank you, dear. Thank you. Well, I will say the revenue reports tonight are all very well. Yes. Our um local option sales tax came in um over $100,000 higher than the prior year for the month of March. Um overall for the year we're just under a 4% increase from um the prior fiscal year anticipated in the year.

What might that be? I mean is that associated leftover from the ice storm or I think that part of it might be leftover from the ice storm. Um, it's where pizza refrigerators and freezers left by no tax. I think that there there may be a little bit of residual um left over from that, but yeah, it goes into State Street.

Yeah, but we'll we'll take it. It's looking, you know, it's looking good. were, you know, coming in above budget, which is, um, a pleasant surprise there. That was nice. Um, the next report is our state share sales tax. Um, and this, um, year-over-year is about 3.6% above the prior fiscal year. Um, the current month of March, um, about $30,000, um, increase. Um, also with this, we're anticipating to come in um, about a couple percent over budget. Great. That's that conservative budgeting.

Yeah. And the budgetary amounts on both this the local option and the state share include the um additional that were added in midyear budgetary amounts. Oh, okay. Yeah. Good. Hotel Motel. Um this and I think this one since the last time you saw it actually has two additional months on there. Um but look the month of February um and I mentioned this last night at the budget workshop is you know over 11,000 um more that is almost um exclusively that huge increase is because of the storms. So many people stayed in the hotels um and then you know continuing into March you know we've got especially parks has all of those tournaments and everything that they you know hoped

still healthy. So yeah this is this is very healthy. um were looking much um better very more similar to how we were prior to the tornado um damaging the one hotel that um ended up resulting in reduction in revenue here. So the revenues are definitely coming in strong here for our hotel motel and projecting about 60,000 over for the year. Yeah, right. Yes. Well, looking at this, you did budget last time. I can't recall. Can you just remind me are we going to be flat with your budgeting for that?

Yeah, I actually budgeted um uh 515. So, we're estimating to come in come in about 530. Um for this year, I budgeted 515. a little bit less um more budget than it's higher budget than what's budgeted for the current year, but a little bit less than what we're anticipating because we did have that huge bump in February that I don't we don't typically see. Sure. Great. Nice.

Investment income um is continuing to um you know come in. It is a little bit like if you look at March from um the prior fiscal year to this fiscal year, it is um less month over month. There's a little bit less that's invested because we've been spending um a little bit on a little bit more of our fund balance on projects. And then the um interest rate has also continued to come down. So, and we and we we anticipate that continuing that same trend um through next year as well. But we're we are projected to come in over budget for our investment earnings by 40%.

Yeah. By by a by a pretty Yeah, it's a pretty significant amount. That is what? Yeah, we were anticipating that the um interest rates would drop faster than they had when we did the budget last year. everything everything the pistol hasn't changed so much they're they're very good to us they're a good partner with us well and I have a connection with them so if they ever drop it let me know

yeah no they take they take good care of us um the next one is our storm water fund um and I know I mentioned this last month um as well so when we're looking at the month of February

for fiscal year 26. It looks significantly lower than what it looked like in the prior years. And because we changed our software in the prior years, we would do a a journal transaction into the system and and basically force it back into the prior month for February. Um you can see March is quite a bit higher than the prior. Now it's actually recording on based on when it's actually hits the bank. We're recording it in a different it's just um new software. We're actually it's actually a little bit more um appropriate showing what actually happened in current and we're already 35,000 [clears throat] over.

Yep. We we have collected more this year um than last year. A little a little bit of that is due to in I say a slight increase in collection of delinquent storm water fees. Last year, fiscal year 25 overall for our property tax and for our storm water was the first year in just about forever that we collected less than 97% of our um property taxes in the year that they were due.

But we have seen an increase in fiscal year 26 people coming in and paying those plus the new ones. And we're on target to hit those by like 97 98% for the current fiscal year. So I think I don't know what it was la if in for the 25 fiscal year but there was some something because it impacted a few. So we've seen a little bit of a shift there with that but overall that fund is looking good. Is this one where Bulma allowed um partial payments? Is that um affect this?

Um it could it was for the property tax for property taxes. Um I mean this gets build on the on the property tax bill but for next year um taxes absol absolutely get to so that really hasn't been enacted. No, because it was effect it was in effect for the 26 taxes which will be the ones that go out at the end in October of this year. But yeah, they did approve for the partial payments for property taxes which this is on the property tax bill. So it would include thought

yeah looking strong. And then our um PIP fund also is coming in um very strong. it's coming in um over what we had um budgeted in there which is a bit why we had um some fund balance that we were able to utilize um you know towards re recommend utilization for next fiscal year some of the um excit from this year um expenditures um you know summarized here um that fund balance I I want to make some if if you all are okay with it I want to adjust how I represent that fund balance on this report um to show

the fund balance um broken out with what is encumbered and what's actually available because a huge portion of this fund balance are are encumbered. Yeah. And so this this is a little bit misleading as to what's actually available because most of that's not available this year. That would be it was helpful last night in that workshop to see what was involved in. Yeah. When I was You're still going to break it up by category though, right? The ending structure. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, it'll be broken. What I was thinking is where we have the ending fund balance here is just two lines above that. One that says in um you know assigned or encumbered fund balance, one that's available fund balance and then the total. Um so that way we can see what's really an available amount. Yeah, sounds nice. And the last page are just I'm showing the pro what's in progress, what's been spent, what purchase orders are outstanding. And as you can see, you know, public safety has a little over three million in in purchase orders. There's almost a million [clears throat] for infrastructure projects, almost 2 million for paving. So three, four, five, so 6 million of that 7.3 are purchase orders.

So the 7.4 4 is estimated this year. The 4.7 was what was left over last year or what's the 4.7 for budgeted other revenue on the second page to the second line budgeted other revenue fiscal year right here what's you know second oh the other the that budgeted other revenue that is the grant revenue the LPRF grant revenue got it and um interest earnings So, anything that's not the sales tax. Okay.

Once again, thank you Hendersonville for any extra sales tax. Those suits for getting to the fire. Oh, you can do the math, right? I can tell you they're they're very expensive. Um I can do the math. Give me a second. That's like complete worth it. Yeah. So, it's about about $6,300 each and that's for the um the suit and the boots. Wow. Doesn't include a hat. But those last how long? 10 years. 10 years. Good. Okay, that's safe. Thank you.

Any other business? Ajourned.