Town Council - Regular Meeting

I'd like to welcome everybody to the May 21st, 2026 budget workshop. Be seeking for the council to go into closed session pursuant to 143.318.11.A.6 to consider the qualifications, competence, performance, character, fitness, conditions of appointment or conditions of initial employment of an individual public officer or employee or prospective public officer or employee or to hear or investigate a complaint, charge or grievance by or against an individual public officer or employee do i have a motion from council to go into closed session i make a motion that we enter into a closed session do i have a second second all right any discussion all in favor

Do I have a motion to come out of closed session?

I'll make a motion to come out of closed session.

Do I have a second? I'll second. Any discussion? All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. There was no action coming out of closed session. Welcome to the May 21st, 2026 Budget Workshop. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Again, thank you all for coming out today and joining us. Does any member of council have a conflict of interest or the appearance of a conflict of interest in regards to any item on the agenda? If so, please state at this time, Mr. Arnold. I do not.

No.

No. No. Thank you. Approval of the draft agenda. Anybody have anything that needs to change as far as our agenda here? I do not. All right. If not, do I have a motion to approve the draft agenda?

Make a motion to approve the draft agenda as presented.

Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor? Aye. All right. Moving on next, we have public comments on agenda items. Anybody that's seen the packet pretty much knows anything. So if anybody would like to come up, you're more than welcome to come to the stage or to the podium. Yes, sir.

Good afternoon. Tony Marino, 802 Riverside. Most of the current members sitting on this council ran a promise to the citizens of fiscal responsibility. At the last meeting, only two of you publicly voiced support for that pledge as it relates to this budget. Speaking as someone who has been both in the public and private sector, the compensation structure that the town has previously adopted has been overly generous. The payment of COLAs simultaneously with merit pay that is built into ongoing compensation structure rather than as a one-time performance compensation has led to year-over-year increases for many town employees of 10% or more. I urge this council to adopt reasonable metrics. This includes the benchmarking to similar size communities for compensation structure. Additionally, I see no reason why the taxpayers should be expected to support staffing levels that are not commensurate with our population and geographic statistics. For instance, when you look at open source information, The town of Chalot, per their town's website, has a geographic area of 28 square miles and 610 businesses. They report a similar population size to Sunset Beach of just over 4,000 inhabitants. Sunset Beach has a condensed seven square mile geographic area and many less businesses. Chalot, by comparison, has 16 full-time law enforcement officers compared to our 20 full-time and five part-time employees. Chalot appears to have 26 employees in the fire department, only 16 of which are career firefighters. The rest are paid on-call and civilian support staff. By comparison, Sunset Beach has 24 firefighters and what appears to be 15 part-time on-call firefighters. Staffing level should be justified through proper metrics. Public trust should be restored through independent and transparent benchmarking. The review should include how we are properly or improperly compensating our employees. It should be done by comparing similar sized communities to our own. The only way that this town will have future resources to address infrastructure needs with a population growth that is limited based on our geographic constraints is to address how quickly we manage the ratio that compensation consumes in proportions to the revenues that the town generates. The current trajectory is not sustainable without future tax revenues. The council should reject the tendency of blind support for the recommendations of town department heads and instead act through informed data. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Moreno.

Thank you.

Anyone else on agenda items?

Good afternoon. It's good to be with you this afternoon. I'm John Wells, 604 East Main Street, Sunset Beach, and I'm here on behalf of the board of the Sunset Beach Taxpayers Association. We've been greatly encouraged by the detailed budget analysis that was presented and approved at the May 14th budget meeting and feel that the recommendations were reasonable, sound, fair, and in the best interest of the taxpayers and residents of Sunset Beach. The 2025 election was a clear signal that the voters wanted a new direction, with cost control and transparency being among the most important factors. We feel validated by our endorsement of all of you during your campaigns. You've made a lot of progress in a short period of time, including making these challenging but necessary budget decisions. We urge you to move ahead with this budget revision, which we believe reflects effective and efficient town governments. It's been a busy year for all of you, and we appreciate your hard work and your service to the residents and citizens of Sunset Beach.

Thank you, Mr. Wells.

Next question.

Kevin Armstrong, 806 Riverside Drive. I agree with him. You guys are doing a bang-up job. Y'all are working hard. I know you're putting a lot of hours in, and it's hard, and I appreciate the effort y'all are doing. However, you are spending our money, and it's incumbent upon you guys to spend it appropriately, and I believe you guys believe that. And with respect to how much we should be paying employees, I don't know. How many we should have, I don't know. And unless you guys have ideas about this, we should have a study, an independent study that says we should have this many firemen, this many policemen, this many, all of them. How much should we pay them? Well, maybe should we just do another independent study to show? that it should be done based on what we have around us, the surrounding communities, that kind of stuff. So anyway, if y'all haven't done that, gosh, I don't know how you can decide this without those studies. So it seems like that's something we should do. Anyway, I appreciate all your efforts because y'all are working hard.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Armstrong. Thank you.

My name is Rick Gimbel. I live at 7083 Ascension Drive, Sunset Ridge, outside the district, but inside the fire department district. My major concern is the potential effect that could occur to our town employees. It has been reviewed and suggested in these workshops to reduce or completely remove benefits such as health care options for dependents, salary step programs, longevity pay, and numerous more items. I have 57 years in the fire service. I'm still active in the fire service here. What I don't want to see is a fireman doesn't run to have a job with salary. Sure, they want to get paid, but the benefits are so important to them and their families, okay, and retirement. And I really believe that what we're doing here, we have to retain these benefits for these men and women. We will lose them. Our fire department here is the best fire department around here. You can't judge us with Chalot, Calabash, Oceana Beach. You've got the best. And that's because they have longevity and because they train hard here. I've been around a long time. If I didn't believe this fire department was the way it is, the best around here, I wouldn't be here. I tell you that much. I got 57 years active service plus emergency management. And I love what you guys have done. I love the work you're putting into this, but you've got to think about the individual. They need their benefits. You go to other fire departments, they don't have the benefits that we have. And that's something to say about the council. That's good. You take care of your people. Don't tell me you love firemen when you go and hurt them in their pocket for benefits. So please, I ask you to re-look at this and see if we can change something to make it better for our men and women. Thank you.

Thank you. Did you get his last name? Gilmore.

Good afternoon, John Corbett, 1313 Canal Drive, Sunset Beach. Just pointing out, as we all know, Sunset Beach is a great place to live. Many of us moved here, not just for the quality of life, but also as a place to retire. And it's why much of our population is the same way. Well over 65 that have done that. We came because we care for our beautiful beaches, our great golf courses. at least five of them here in the community, as well as a safe and secure place to live. A key aspect to the quality of life is a highly qualified and dedicated town staff, a highly capable public works department, a highly trained and dedicated police department, and fire department. Appreciating them is fine, but we must pay them fair wages, competitive wages, and attractive benefits to keep them coming and to keep them working here. Please do not cut them. And with that, I notice we have increases in budgets on this this meeting here with the changes that you put out by my rough calculations of at least 1.1 million being added to different funding lines. I think it's great that we're taking care of public works, stormwater, politics. I'm not sure why we need $200,000 for the council. But in the course of doing this, again, it goes back to take care of our town staff with fair, competitive, attractive wages, and we've got to keep them. We have to retain them. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Corbett.

Good afternoon. My name is Juanita Adams. I live at 407 Stokes Drive in Sunset Beach. I've been a resident of Sunset Beach for 30 years. And this is my friend, Alan. I don't call him my cane because it's sort of diminishing. I'd like to say he's Alan because he's tall, he's dark, and he's really strong. And it sounds so much sexier when I said, where's Alan instead of where's my cane. But having said that, in the 30 years that I've been here, And when I moved here, you could bowl on Route 17 and no one knew about Our Lady Star of the Sea because it was behind the woods. But right now I question with the growing of and it's been well documented that Brunswick County is the fastest growing county in North Carolina, only followed by Horry County, that we would even consider decreasing benefits for our EMT and our first responders across the board. I didn't know of any of you who would say willingly, let me jump into a fire, me, me, me first. When Congress went out for 40 days, I didn't see Mr. Rausser coming and say, oh, wait, I'll take care of it. It didn't happen. I think if you are anticipating or proposing to replace people through attrition, our new people are not going to come to Sunset Beach. They'll go to Cary. They'll go to Cary where they pay more, the benefits are better. and they'll have a future for themselves and for their children. I spent 30 years in education. You don't teach because of the pay. You teach because there'll be benefits. Thank God for my benefits, because without my pension today, there'd be no way that either any of you would be able to live on Social Security. If there's money expended, $200,000 for the council, that money, I believe, would be better spent on our first responders. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Ms. Adams. Thank you.

I just want to echo the comments of the previous three people. I think we have a wonderful police department and fire department. I'm grateful every day that those people are on the job. And when I looked at the STEP program that you want to eliminate, You're cutting away something that was promised to people, and that's not right. It's just not right. You should finish it out through at least this year and then maybe reevaluate for future. But in cutting their other benefits, I heard what you guys said at the last meeting about equity among people. People with children, people without children, this job, that job. You could look at a different approach, something like a cafeteria approach to benefits where people have a chunk of money to spend on their benefits and they choose what they want. There's other ways to do this, but to cut benefits just is, it's not right. It's not fair. And this town is not that broke. We can afford to pay these people what they're worth and we can't afford to lose them. So I hope you'll reconsider.

Thank you. Thank you.

Anyone else?

Yes, ma'am. Hit the button.

Oh, I just lost him. Because I had a really short, sweet, bullet-pointed list.

Let me... Yeah, doesn't it figure...

All right, I'm going to go from the cuff here. Chris Baumann for 1740th Street. First of all, I want to thank everybody for all their hard work on this. I don't know what revision this is, but thank you to everybody for all your deep research. I appreciate most of you responding to my questions and for clarification. But I have a concern, and this still hasn't been completely answered. It seems like, you know... I'm a former federal employee, and I'm familiar with, you know, progression. You know, a classification, pay grade. You have to do certain things to get to the next level. And that's what this STEP program is. That's great. That's a great tool to use. But when I came from the federal government, you could get a bump up to the next level if you met all the requirements. But in the interim, you might get COLA and maybe a merit in there. Okay? We didn't have this unlimited program. pool of money where you can, it basically rewards, in my opinion, people with longevity, because maybe you're only eligible when starting something like for maintenance, you have to be here three years, and you have to do X, Y, Z to get to the next level. Obviously, experience it rewards. This, it wouldn't be a cut. It might be just a different way of using that program. Because from an email I received from administrator and chief, It's basically like a way to objectively evaluate people. That's okay. That's a good thing. But then on the other side, how, I mean, we are competitive with our benefits. In fact, as far as health care coverage, we're like only one of two or three that offer that. That should be part of our recruiting. Even with pensions, our amount of pensions, some don't do any. Some do 3%, some do 5%. That's another great recruiting tool. You've got to look at the whole package, not just salary. And if you look at historical data that was presented at the last meeting, there have been probably 7%, 10% raises. We're not underpaying our employees, especially since the April 28, 2025 meeting. where it was clearly stated that we raised our starting salaries, our mid, and our high points. We're doing what we need to be doing, but the point is down the line. We got to think about our pension, our OPEB costs. She knows all this stuff. It's on page nine of your audit for last year. This is a huge concern. If you guys don't understand this, you need to Talk to the finance person. She'll explain it to you. That's a huge, huge concern. And I have another concern. If STEP only seems to apply to people that are here a certain number of years, and then you maybe can qualify, what about human resources people? What about admin assistants? Are they eligible? What does their program look like? From some of the data that I saw, it looked like it was primarily police and fire and also maintenance area that benefit, or not maintenance, maybe public works. I might have said that wrong, that benefited. What about the rest of the folks? I got one other thing that's very important to say. How are you going to evaluate this? Is it working the way you intended? There's a big issue here, and I'm not sure I have all my facts straight, but I was just informed that an employee recently left the town of Sunset Beach. All in these programs, a step program supposedly in place that went over budget, way over budget, even though they told the last council it was within. Are we actually training our employees too much where they're stepping out the door? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bauman.

Thank you.

You don't want X. And the item's off. All right. If not, we'll move on. Council comments.

And remember, council, I have any comments.

Mayor?

Yes. I'd like to notify everybody that on Monday, May 27th, we commemorate Memorial Day. 25th, I'm sorry, you're right. I can't read. At 10 a.m., a ceremony will be held at the Sunset Beach Town Park where we will remember all those who served and all those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for our country. The ceremony will be hosted by the Committee to Honor American Veterans, and we are asking all residents to come and attend. Thank you.

Thank you for that.

Very good.

Any other member of council got anything?

I do not.

No good, all right. We'll move on now. Open our budget workshop, updates and adjustment. Administrator, finance lady.

Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, members of council. First of all, I want to thank Alicia for the amount of work that she's put on this revision number. I don't even know what number. It's been a lot of numbers. She joked that she's done more budgets in her short time here than she has in her previous 14 years at another municipality. She's doing a great job.

Yes, thank you. Yes, thank you for all your hard work, and thank you for recognizing her. We know it hadn't been easy.

When we last met on the 14th, you sent us away with direction to leave the COLA at 2.5%, look at up to a 4% merit, fund the roads at a million dollars, storm water at $730,000, dredging at $200,000, and to include a $500 per employee Christmas bonus for employees that have been here for at least one year. So what you have before you is a budget that has exactly that, it's removed step, excuse me step is not in this program is in this budget longevity is not in this budget the merit cost is changed to four percent which is which is twenty two thousand

They're looking at that, right?

222,000, there's a comma in this place, $222,612. I lost where you were in that figure. So the 4%, the change to the budget, the increase to the budget amount for up to a 4% for all full-time staff employed since October 1 of 2025 is an increase of $222,000, almost $223,000.

That's assuming that everybody's going to get a merit.

That's assuming everybody gets a 4%, which is not the reality of what merit's going to look like. Employees will be evaluated with a Form that we use annually to evaluate employees and then merit would be assigned based on. All their performance evaluation looks, but it would be funded up to 4%, which would be that figure of 222,000 dollars.

I'm confused because when I'm looking here at my spreadsheets that I was handed, that is not what I'm showing at the 4% column. I'm showing $142,378 at 4% merit.

Can you help me? What page are you on?

I'm on page 3 of that. Well, it's under 4% merit.

His total includes all the benefits with that merit.

All the benefits with that merit. You mean everything across? Right.

So if you just look at the cash dollar amount, yes, it's $137,638.

Well, yeah, but the total before you take out the accommodations tax thing was like $142,378, I think, on page three of that. I'm going to cut up the air. 142, 378. So you're showing, is it on our sheet somewhere, the total? I guess I'm looking.

It's not. The way the spreadsheet calculates it out, it's not. So you'd have to do the math. I'm just kind of giving you the Clips Notes version. 222, 612. So the total amount, 4% merit, plus the ancillary costs are just under $223,000.

You know what the cola would be for that?

The cola is $139,133. That's 2.5% for every employee that's been here. Well, I shouldn't say that's been here. That's a salary adjustment to the pay grades. That's going to move all the pay grades, 2.5%.

And the total of that was, can you say it one more time?

$139,133.

So $361,295 to do the COLA at $2.5 and the merit at $4. And the cost of taxpayers, $361,000. Some change?

Yes. Okay.

Plus the holiday, right?

The holiday bonus, $500 for full-time staff employed since July 1 of 25. I'm sorry, which number, Mr. Corbett? Which number were you talking about?

the holiday bonus.

We haven't got there yet. The holiday bonus is proposed at $500 per employee and employees would have had to been here for one year. So since July 1 of 2025, and that number is $44,620. What was that last number? 44-620. And that's with you adding the benefits and everything into it, correct? Ellen, we have a PowerPoint on this.

And that's with all the benefits in the holiday bonus? That's correct. The holiday bonus is like $27,000, roughly. Just the dollar amount. How many total employees do we have?

75. Okay.

So we just hit 75 times 500. Is that how you do the math on that? Right.

Well, we got to look at how long they've been here. So if they've been here for a year, um, otherwise they wouldn't be eligible for, for the Christmas.

Okay.

Yeah.

So it would be less than the number.

A little less.

This slide, which it's, it's kind of hard to see where we talk about the Powell bill increasing, um, The amounts of the fund balance brought forward for the Powell bill so that we can put a million dollars into a street, into a fund to do streets is shown there in the breakdown. But that increases Powell bill fund to 678,000. And there's the $200,000, is that right, the $200,000 revenue that's in there? We'll get $200,000 next year. Okay. So how do we reach that million? Where are we missing here?

Right here in increased public works line item to $322,000. That will make up the million dollars for streets.

So the 678 shows the Powell bill, and then underneath that is the fund for public works for streets, which gives you your million dollars. Shows the increase to the stormwater line. which by set to $730,000, which is an increase of 500, which is what we went away with on the 14th. And then an increase in the public works line or dredging to $200,000.

Is that the number that some members of the public spoke about that's for council? Actually, it was for this public works. Is that a correct statement?

That is a correct statement. Okay.

So the council's not 200,000 that a few people have been misinformed about. Okay. Thank you.

That goes to public works.

Correct. Correct. The next bullet there shows a decrease to the police funds. We talked about that in the last budget. This number is actually going to change as of about 1 o'clock today when I got a new quote from a vendor. That number is going to be 111,995. Our capital project for the cameras, they had to change vendors. due to the company that originally provided the cameras no longer being able to do that. It did decrease our total quote, but it just went up a little bit. We're still under what we originally brought to council, almost $10,000 less.

That's good. Thank you.

The next line shows the increased appropriation from the fund balance. So we'll bring it forward from fund balance. Last time we talked about $212,160, maybe that's an $80 that we were bringing forward from fund balance. This budget to cover what's shown there in front of you brings $853,205 from fund balance. There was conversation in the previous meeting about perhaps reducing our fund balance, not to drop below 95%. By bringing forward $853,205 from fund balance, we would be well above 95%. We anticipated we could bring about $1.2 million from fund balance and still be at 95%. So with anticipated carryovers, I'd feel pretty comfortable that we would be well above 95% with bringing this amount forward.

Can I ask a question? We had talked last time about, and I think I wrote down the number, what we're carrying over as an appropriation for the physical year that we're in right now. We talked about that we would have some money left over. Is that in here? I mean, have we subtracted that out to get this number?

No.

We're anticipating at least half a million dollars bringing forward this current year, but if you subtract out that, it'll be $353,205.

Would that happen to be on these sheets?

I don't think it is.

Is that carryover on them? No. The $853,205 is on page two of your revenue sheets for general fund revenue. Appropriation from fund balance. That's what we use to balance it.

$8.53 to something. $2.05. It's almost at the bottom.

So that half a million that we... When will that half a million show up in this budget? It will not show up.

When we close the year and get the audit, then whatever's left at the end of the fiscal year will go back into our fund balance. So it'll show up basically in the audit report.

So it goes immediate back in the fund balance. Right.

It'll go right back in fund balance.

But in theory, though, we're not taking that much out of fund balance because we're taking it out, but we're putting some back in there. So about $300,000 is what we'll be taking out of fund balance. Yes. Between $300,000 and $400,000.

Last year we had almost a million dollars that we used from fund balance, and it didn't – we had that in a carryover. So it's an in and an out.

That was for – we thought we were going to get the dredging assessments, so we took out of the fund balance, and then we satisfied that being replenished with the assessments when they came in. We thought it was going to be – or the previous council thought it was going to be 875, and in fact, More people paid more, so we were able to replenish that fund balance. Is that a fair statement, correct statement?

I believe so. I think I'm tracking it.

Because we had a special thing going on last year. We don't typically take out a fund balance to balance a budget.

Correct.

I think when council did the appropriations from fund balance in 964, it was for the parking. It was maybe for catchment seven and a load load truck so that they took it after the budget was approved that they did the budget amendments. And that was where that was coming from. Thank you.

This budget still includes the 50% dependent care coverage. Nothing was changed there. And it shows a 25% for any employees that would be hired after June 30th of 2026. So start of the new fiscal year, employees that would come in would see a 25% dependent care coverage. COLA, of course, is included for the vacant and new employees because it moves the pay scales. And then COLA and MERIT, similar to the previous budget, were based on the original salary, not any sort of increases. So the total proposed budget with what you sent us away with is $13,088. 13 million, I wish it was 13,000, 13,088,025. And it is a balanced budget based off of that appropriation from fund balance of $853,000.

you feel confident that with the merit that you um proposed up to 200 222 000 some change that this employees that um participated in the step program that they will be able to get a reward for the work that they did for the training that they did

The way that this budget is laid out now is equitable for every employee in this building, or in the town, I should say. Every employee has the opportunity to earn 6.5%. I know one of the public comments mentioned that, I think it was Ms. Baumann, What about administration? What about the finance tax? What about assistance? Under this budget, they would be eligible for an increase. The people that have worked toward STEP or achieved STEP in the past year, they're eligible for the same. In some cases, this STEP was going to give them more, but there's still something in this budget for them.

I like that it's equitable because we did have, in the other budget, we had departments that didn't have an opportunity to get any type of step increase. And this merit-based allows building inspections, everybody, the administration, public works. I mean, it just makes it more equitable so that everybody, instead of select groups, Thank you for doing this.

Sure.

Alicia did all the hard work.

Thank you, Alicia. Thank you.

Any other questions on what was presented to you with this version? I don't know if you noticed on the corner of the table, there's a large stack of paper. There happens to be two other versions. If you want to entertain those today, If you want to give us direction and we can come back based on what's in front of you or if this is what you want to consider. But we've since last Thursday have had conversations with some members of council who have asked to see some other things. And we've prepared those for you if you'd like to see those today.

They'd let the public see them. That's the council. Council people took time to do it. Let them see them. Be transparent.

Now it's getting warm.

You have an extra jacket.

It goes back and forth. I cut it down. It goes back and forth.

Thank you very much. Do we have the employee one on there? Employee spreadsheet. I need to see the employee color. I'll change.

I need some help. I don't have that.

No, I mean, we just need to see that. Oh, wait a minute. Thank you. Christy, did you get version two? Yes, I did. That makes sense. Because we really need to see this sheet. It's this version. Katie, is this another version?

The comic version two. But I have, well, I'm confused.

This is for Sean.

I think this is just, okay.

I think I got the same thing again. Then I think everybody's got to get one of these.

You have three pieces to this version two. Okay.

Is this y'all's version, Sean?

No, ma'am.

Listen, on that one you said?

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure either. I think we got two copies of this.

Here's one. Because I really should just have these three sheets and I got a bunch from him. Yeah, it's got 1 of us just right here.

Okay.

I think I got it coming back with. Spreadsheets that break down the personnel costs for version. What we're looking at now is a call it version 2. So Alan, there's a, excuse me, there's a slide. You can bring this up, please. It's shown in version two. Minor changes that were requested for this iteration. The changes here is that there will be an addition of an assistant town administrator at $100,000 to increase the town administrator salary to $175,000, which is currently budgeted at 100. The assistant town administrator is not in the current budget that was just presented to you. In addition to salary grade adjustments for the police department by $11,772, this is for education. We had talked about employees who have received degrees or their certifications, the advanced certifications or intermediate certifications to the Justice Academy, which is approved by a previous council. That's that adjustment.

That was for an individual who got a bachelor's degree. Is that right? A bachelor's degree and then?

I don't have that list in front of me, but I know there were three individuals that would qualify. One has an intermediate, one has an advanced, that received an intermediate and an advanced. And I believe there was a... Maybe an associate's degree. I don't have it in front of me. Some kind of degree. Education, all education.

Are there actual degrees, not going to a class?

Well, the certification programs, when this was adopted by council, and I want to say this was maybe 2018. It was a while ago. It was not long after I took this job in Sunset. We had asked in a budget to reward people who had a bachelor's degree or an intermediate certification through the Justice Academy with a 5% increase to their pay. Persons who had an advanced degree or a master's degree would receive 6%. And that was an additional 1%. It wasn't a six on top of five. It was a total of six. So that's what these numbers represent for people that have obtained those in the last fiscal year.

And was that the only department, were there any from fire? Because I know we had some in fire that had received degrees.

There were some from fire. I don't know if there was, was there degrees?

You had a captain that got a bachelor's degree and then another individual.

Okay, well, I have to wait for Alicia to get back to see if that is in there.

We have two there that earned degrees.

Yeah, let me check this.

We'll have to wait for Alicia to get back to answer that question. I'm sorry.

But the major, it's major, but the main changes to this version is just for those two administrator lines. have Alicia explain public buildings and the other appropriations.

I think the public buildings was for the engineering. We felt like the engineering, we had a line item of $50,000 and we just felt like that was not adequate with the projects that we have going down, that we want to shortchange ourselves with that.

And we had talked about some things perhaps that we want to look at going forward. Mm-hmm.

I know they increased the accommodations tax fund, that $20,000. That was for the vendor.

It is.

To try to collect accommodations tax.

Yeah, I spoke with one of them, and I feel that that's a good number that we can get somebody on board to help us with those collections for that amount, not to exceed that amount.

Good. And we just hold tight so she gets back with those spreadsheets. We could save on some power bill by cutting down. Hold up here.

Let's just be up there.

We've got these cameras and these lights, too. Yes, sir.

And Mr. Claymore, can we, for the other one, the other version, are there the employee spreadsheet on that? If not, if we could request that too.

She's going to do two and three this way. You'll have everything in front of you. I thought about handing that out now while we're waiting, but I don't want to get it mixed up. So we'll wait. Unless we set it here in front of you.

Yeah, I understand.

I'll do that. Just set it on the dice. You've had practice being an instructor, haven't you? You've had practice being an instructor. You're preparing our materials.

Thank you. I got a motion. We take just resets. I have a 2nd 2nd. All in favor.

All right.

All right, call him back forward. Continue, Chief.

All right, so you have your spreadsheets now in front of you. And then what we talked about on the screen was the public building increase. That's just to increase that line for engineering for potential projects that we might have in the next fiscal year. The bottom bullet talks about the potential contract that we might have for somebody to collect accommodations tax for our Airbnbs, our VRBOs, anybody that's not paying us accommodations tax, we should build a contract with somebody for that amount. And then with this revision for what you see in front of you would have us bringing 1.79 million forward from fund balance to balance version two, today's version two.

Do we happen to know what the fund balance percentage would be with this amount?

I do not know. So you're asking what that would reduce us to. So we knew we were estimating if we brought $1.2 million that that would keep us at 95%.

So this would be more.

So we'd still be over the 95%. Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

I don't know the exact percentage. No, but it's more than 95%. Yes, that's right. It's more than 95% with this version. One of the questions was asked, too, about fire, because it's got the salary adjustments in there. Fire has one employee that received an associate's degree in the last fiscal year, one employee that received a bachelor's degree in the last fiscal year. I did ask the fire chief when we had this put in for the police department for educational incentives. The fire did not. His intention was that Steph was going to handle this. So in order to be consistent, if we're going to approve these, I think they should be for all town employees that receive these educational bumps. And we currently don't have an associate's degree defined, so now budget is the time to do it.

What's a bachelor's? What percentage is a bachelor's?

We're currently at five for a bachelor's and an additional one for a graduate degree. Um, we, for a total of six, like I said, step had it replaced at five, five, five. So it was five for an associate's five for a bachelor's and then five for a master's degree for a total combined up to 15%.

Um, so associate's degree doesn't take as long as a bachelor's degree. Was that fair to say that?

Very fair.

Okay. But we're going to give them the same percentage. Is that what you said?

Everybody's 555? That's how it was in the STEP program, yes, ma'am.

How is the associate defined? It's not defined at all in the current salary structure?

It's not.

Okay.

Yeah, it's not included.

So just basically a four-year degree is what's acknowledged.

Correct. And a master's. Right, and those mirror for the police department the intermediate certificate and the advanced certificate. So one or the other, an employee would receive a 5% increase for having either an intermediate certificate or a bachelor's degree.

Like what's involved in an intermediate certificate?

I knew you were going to ask that, and I'm not prepared to answer that. I can find it from the Justice Academy.

I don't know either.

It's a lot of work.

Is that going to affect this budget?

What part?

The associates. Do we have anybody that's getting an associate's degree that's eligible?

No, it's not defined right now.

Okay, so we can talk about this later.

But a question, the one person in FIRE, it sounds like we've got one associate and one bachelor's. What would the associate person do? that would be up for discussion okay that's not been defined was it in fire i mean is it in fire stuff what's this does that matter what the associates in okay it's it's in a fire so it's job related right so yeah i mean i personally feel like it would be good to reward when people do that because that's outside of anything the town pays for correct that is my right we're not sending people for those yeah so to me that should be rewarded

think that's an appropriate step that an employee went over and beyond did it not during the normal working hours they paid for it they had to do it nights and weekends but I do see a difference in associates and a bachelor and a match master's degree and you are saying we need to decide today about the associates I don't know that we need to decide today but we I

The clock is definitely ticking out of logic. So if we could decide it today, that would be great.

So let's say if a bachelor's is five in what it's been, do you do an associate at two and a half, two, two and a half? Just an idea. I mean, it's half the time typically you're putting in. Is that reasonable or not reasonable?

Being in that business as well in my off time, you can get an associate's degree in two. You can get your bachelor's in another two.

Right.

So the timing is about the same. Sure, one builds upon the other, but the time spent is about the same. But I think two and a half is fair. It's something. It's not defined now, so it's better than what we have now.

I can support two and a half. Are you all good with two and a half for associates? Yes. And then five for associates and five for masters?

Yes.

Okay.

So that was simple. So a total of 12 and a half? Yes, sir. Is what employees would be eligible for? 2.5% for an associate's, 5% for a bachelor's degree, another 5% for a graduate degree in a related field of study.

Yes.

Any other questions on version two, today's version two? I keep saying that. There's been another version two. I got to make sure we...

Obviously, we need to spend time reviewing these because it's not something you can just look at in two seconds.

The main changes in this one are on the screen there in front of you. The positions and then additional fundings for just a couple things in that budget.

I don't know if now is the appropriate time to discuss. We had discussed... the assistant town administrator salary we had discussed possibly maybe half it happened since it's half of the year is that what you're thinking well different things have been thrown out didn't know y'all's take on that currently that was still the case um i think it was a placeholder type of thing didn't know what else thoughts were so everybody knows

Version 2 is Ms. Batchelor and my request. And so we've kind of talked amongst ourselves, and I think we all agree that maybe if it were to hire an assistant town administrator, that it would be in half the year. So instead of the $100,000, maybe we could look at $100,000. $50,000. I mean, yes. Right now it's $100,000 and to do half of it to do $50,000. But we don't probably, we could say that you and I would like to reduce that to $50,000 for our version. But we don't even know if our version is going to even have any weight to it because it's just two people.

And we met with fire and police chief because we wanted to talk about the educational stuff to make sure some of that we captured and some of the other things that there were concerns it wasn't captured in what we discussed.

The bottom line version 2 for

Expense and bio is what?

I have so many papers in front of me. $13,314,310. Okay, bingo. Now, mind you, that's before if version two or if we're going to include two and a half associate, five bachelors, five masters, that might fluctuate a little bit.

plus 50K will come out. So it will be more of a negative than a positive.

If the board agrees or has a consensus, then to drop that, we'd reduce it by 50,000, which would more than offset that educational. But as written, as presented, it's 13, 314, 310. Any other questions on

Ellen, if you could flip the slide, please. Today's version three.

Version three has the most changes. It proposes a 3% COLA for all employees. No merit. Version 3 keeps longevity in the budget as a one-time payment. Keeps STEP as a one-time payment. The figures that follow are pretty much version one that we saw today, where the Powell bill increase, the dredging, the stormwater, the roads, the police. Again, that's 111.995. Public buildings, the increase to the town administrator salary is in this version three. Version three calls for no assistant town administrator. And then the remainders are the same. And this shows an increase fund balance appropriation for this version, just under a million at $914,050. So the advance from fund balance for version, today's version three is 914,050 total budget. for this version is $13,148,870. And this was proposed by two other members of council.

Do you want us to look for commonalities and scratch those off the list? I mean, what do you want us to do?

So we have three versions. I think if we had some commonalities between the three versions that we could agree upon, then we could look at... what, as a board, you all agree for us to take back and hopefully bring back just one more time and that you might adopt or at least send us out to public hearing after our next meeting.

Okay. Can I get clarity just for everybody listening and all of us? On version three for the COLA, that is something that will go to base salary moving forward?

No.

It will not.

It's proposed as a one-time payment.

Cola is?

Oh, no, I'm sorry. Okay. I'm sorry. Yeah, too many versions.

Cola changes the pay scale. Right, pay scale. Right, so back to base.

It goes to base.

It goes to base. That's in every version.

it's in every version the difference between this is a half percent okay one has two and a half percent correct and one has two okay and no merit so so if a person um didn't in their department have a step opportunity in advance to do something they're just eligible for the cola correct um but if the the longevity if somebody's been here a certain amount of time that can Vary by what you would get because there's been a one-time longevity payment November the 24th of last year.

Yes.

Only. So that would be another, but that does not, does that amount go to pay scale based salary or not?

It does not.

It does not.

No, the step and longevity are just payouts of that.

Okay, just clarifying because it's been discussed five different ways. So just making sure.

Probably more than five.

Yeah, so just clarifying. Okay, so no add to base for those. So really the COLA is going to our base because I'm looking at projecting future costs.

Right, every budget we see is COLA is to base because that moves the base. Right, just making sure. You are absolutely right.

Just clarifying. You're absolutely right. We've discussed lots of options. Okay. Okay, that's the only question I have with that. I think the other thing on this list is no assistant town administrator. And I know we just kind of discussed that, but do we need to discuss it again to see if anybody's up for adding that 50K possibility? We may not use it or not.

Can I just say, I don't know, get off course a little bit, but is it okay for us to talk about that? Because we had conversation.

Do you, I guess in theory, do you like the thought of having a town administrator? And if you do, great. If you don't, good too. And if you do like it, how much should we put in knowing that by the time it takes to hire that individual, we would not be doing a full salary?

You said town administrator. You mean the assistant town administrator? Yes. Yeah. I don't have a problem with the $50,000 as far as that. Laura Tossa.

Okay.

David, your point.

Okay. Because that was really kind of the different thing down below that I saw. I don't know if y'all saw anything else. I mean, obviously the fund balance is different in each one, each version a little bit.

And we both like to increase the town administrator's salary. That was another commonality that we had. I guess it just boils down to... the longevity one-time payment versus a Christmas bonus. If we do longevity as a one-time payment, I'm looking at numbers, I might be off $10 or $100, but it looks like if we do a one-time longevity check, it's $51,815 versus if we do a Christmas bonus, every employee get $500. it's $26,100. If we keep the step, it's $90,824. But that's just two departments. That excludes all the other employees will not receive any type of merit. If we do everything with the merit, it's $212,000. Excuse me.

There's one, we have the fire, and we know that fire department, police department have already executed or at least moved forward with step program. I believe Public Works has a step program in place, but nobody's taking the steps, if you wish. Okay, so it's hard, you know, if they don't want to move forward with that, it's their choice.

Do they truly have a STEP program, or is that something that we ask you all to do because we saw that there were departments that didn't have it? So what you all approved in theory back in October 2025 was just for those two departments. Mr. Batchelor and I mentioned to Mr. Klamer that it was not fair across the board. That's when you ask other folks to come up with different they they are no in no position to receive that because they didn't have the green light so i think you all were just sitting there on paper but nobody from october 2025 okay our public works director is nodding the building inspection okay so they hadn't had an opportunity and that's the whole for me Might get outvoted and that's okay too. But it's not fair across the board to all of our employees. And that's where we are with all of this.

My biggest program when eliminating the STEP is it was announced last year and some departments or people have taken advantage of it. And now we're going to date it. Not everybody's had the opportunity to and we're pulling the rug out from under it. And my question being, if we stay with STEP for one more year, see how it looks and then decide, well, maybe

you're right maybe you're right but we're not sure at this point i know that there's some people who tell you to step program doesn't work uh i mean wish we knew but we don't know that's right so you know the compromise was to take that four percent merit in our original budget and to look at where the employees were from when you all actually approved it to when we started having um concerns that it wasn't across the board. So if we can look at that October, I believe it was October 6, 2025, when it was approved to when we started saying that we may not be able to do this, which was April the 7th. Did we look to see what those classes were and to see how much money are they really lacking? It may be that in that amount of time, the percentage that they could get using that up to 4%, that that actually could help that employee. Because no, we don't want to hurt anybody. That's not what this is about. so um did y'all i mean i keep asking have y'all done any and i know we've had a lot of stuff going on but have we had an opportunity to make those calculations to see where and i know it's going to be each individual employee but where each individual employee would fall in that because we don't want to hurt somebody some of them through the four percent merit may be getting more And when you look at the $190,000 one-time step bonus check versus giving it to every employee an opportunity to have merit, it's $200,000. So it's more money. So people could potentially make more money.

And miss Armstrong on the on the longevity numbers that were discussed in step. I know in 1 of the other proposals we looked at the full cost, including benefits because we haven't necessarily received that ourselves. So, in this proposal for the longevity being the 1 time payment, it's under just the longevity column. It's like 51815. do you have what the total cost are for longevity on this version?

It's $70,780. And the holiday was $44,620. $44,620. Okay. And then the step total price on version 3? Like $124,915.

Okay. Can we go back to what I, I mean...

Hey, if y'all want me to be quiet, just vote me and tell me to stop it. But I do think we owe it to all of our employees to know the 4%. Where are we with that? I mean, I've asked this since March. Am I not going to get an answer to it?

There are some employees that would benefit more from the step than they would a potential 6.5%. There are some that would benefit more from the 6.5%. It's kind of a mix. There are some employees, as you know, that don't have step at all, which would certainly be thankful for an opportunity to get up to 6.5%.

Yeah, and looking at my figures that I did, I only see three employees outside of fire police that have an opportunity to get more than 6.5% in there by using the step figure calculations. That was the way back when the cost that had the step in there and the longevity in there. It came that was the and I think that's where this kind of all came from and seeing that a lot of the different departments that the equity across the town, because when I look, for example, at finance. And administration, there just wasn't an opportunity for people there to to get it, or they didn't take it. But it seems like there wasn't an opportunity in time where and obviously with the 2 chiefs getting together and initially coming up with the plan. Obviously, y'all had a worked out plan for your departments, but. And looking at what we've seen, I don't know if we've seen at all, but what we've seen some of it appeared to be something was put down to try to give an opportunity to some other departments later on based on what I've received. But like administration, finance, inspections, and public works and planning, they just clearly, based on what the numbers we've been given, don't seem to have that opportunity. I'm not sure exactly all the details of why. Um, but that's where this whole equity think across the tail, you know, looking at giving all the employees an opportunity and why kind of the compromise I think was tried to be made at the last meeting to offer something to everyone across the board. Um. But, you know, I don't know what the other department heads thoughts are on that that are here, but, um, you know, just trying to. do something for everyone. We've got a lot of employees in the town and we want to give folks the opportunity as well. And I know from my perspective, I would like any employee across the town to be benchmarked has been discussed benchmark and know are you being paid what you should be being paid I know some things I've looked at some are getting paid a little more and some I think are getting paid a little too less for what they do so I'm also no expert in that category but there's a lot of of towns that have paid a lot of money around us. And I know I mentioned Ocean Isle Beach is doing one. They're going to have those results back this fall to actually look to make sure. Because to me, if we're not paying somebody, I know the whole pay scale thing is to work on that. as well and I understand that's what part of STEP was for as well. And I do feel like we've had a version of STEP because there has been ways to get bumps. Again, some seem to have gotten a lot more than others by looking at every bump. That's been given since 2020. But I'm just trying to, you know, look out for all the employees as well. We're in a hard situation here as a council because this step was just approved last year, you know, finally, I guess in October, but without funding. And from what we understand, there weren't true dollars put to it. Same thing with longevity. The first ever longevity checks went out the end of November. So we are in a unique situation here. and um it is hard to know what's right to do i mean i personally like the idea better of a one-time step in longevity versus something that's going to continue but we still got to figure out for next budget year what are we doing and what does that put us in you know situation wise um this version three And, you know, just seeing these numbers, so I think we all need to spend more time really analyzing these, but, you know, may be a decrease to the compounding effect that we're going to experience. But the issue with version three I see is the equity across the board with the employees. We're kind of back to where we were with that from when we started out with our first employee spreadsheets.

Do you all know what the highest percentage a person can get? Through the step, what it would be, 5%, 6%?

In a proposal that we brought to you already.

In the step proposal that's there, what's the highest in individual?

Are you talking about through the program?

Through the step. What's the highest an employee can receive?

I believe 5%.

Okay. Would it be fair to say we don't do COLA and do a 5% merit and you all work it out? I mean, because if the highest they're going to get in the step program is 5%,

I don't know how that would be by these numbers. As I sit here and think about it, it's... I mean, there's no way. How much? Some are 30% increases by this. And that was step and longevity. That was the existing salary with the others added into it.

You know, that would be a good way to handle this, though, is to see... We cannot do a 30% increase. But if it is... 5%. Oh, you know, we could figure it up on our sheets that we did on the 14th when we did our presentation.

Well, in this sheet right here, Chief Claymar, it's the one that shows the base salary and then the add-ons to the salary, and it shows the percent of increase this one year based on the original budget we received for employees.

Are you adding in the benefits as well on that 30%?

No, I'm not. That's not benefits at all. That was just from the base salary up to the total wages category only. So it had the pay, the COLA, the merit, the... the overtime, the on-call, the holiday. I think then we were, this was longevity. You know, there's been so many versions of the spreadsheet, but I took the one that Ms. Armstrong sent me last week in a spreadsheet format, because everything else was a PDF that I couldn't throw into a spreadsheet and pull numbers from without retyping everything in. So it's off of that spreadsheet, Ms. Armstrong from last week, the one you sent me with those figures in it. um because that's why it was you know i just wanted to look at the true numbers to see where we stood um and obviously some employees have been here longer than others for the longevity so some can get thousands of dollars for that all right when i look at the police department step who was eligible for step if i take the highest amount that an employee

Was eligible for under the existing, the then, I don't know, the STEP program. It's not even 10%. If you look at the dollar amounts. So what the existing annual was plus the projected STEP, it's under 10%. So we've got, oh, sorry. Okay.

When you all, you meaning the police chief and you the fire chief, when you all were calculating what numbers to give Alicia, do you know what percentage it was? Surely it wasn't up to 10%. I mean, the spreadsheet shows that with the numbers. All I'm trying to do is to figure out what is the maximum an employee in your two programs could receive, and for council to deliberate on is that an appropriate way to handle this through a merit, and then you all handle the step. Right. And then that gives other departments an opportunity for them to have some type of merit.

If the step program, and it's all a variable, and I responded to an inquiry from a resident about some of the steps features, if you will. It's all a variable. So if we have a promotion and at the same time have a vacancy, say a person who manages our evidence room, a promotion could be a 5% bump. Someone who manages the evidence room as proposed in the STEP program would be a 2.5% pay increase, which would be 7, 8% in one year. Well, no, 7.5%, 5 and 2.5. My math is not the best. So and it's a variable again. So if depending upon what we have happened in the department, if there's movement, if there's retirements, if there's whatever there might be, then those things kind of ebb and flow.

30 that's there's no way it would be but you you two gentlemen you did that you you calculated it so in your mind you would know employee a is getting a two percent employee b is getting a five percent i mean i must i'm presuming that you did these calculations and then you gave the calculations to alicia What's the most that one of your firefighters could require?

So currently there's two employees that could get up to a 10. Just how it fell with them being starting off at fire level one, firefighter one, they're going to be eligible for Firefighter 3 this year. That's an anomaly. You know, that probably typically will not happen again, but they're able to reach both those steps.

And they did a series of classes, training, and they bundled all that. I mean, it wasn't just one class. I mean, it's a series of classes.

It's a lot of work, a lot of work.

And they did that during their time that they were employed. They did that on the clock.

Correct.

And we paid for the training.

Correct.

Yeah, when I had, I had on the thing firefighter 1, that starting salary was 53,560. this was base and they were going to total wages at that proposal. That was the 1 from last week. We're going to be bumped to 69,872. so 16,312 dollar increase for a total increase of 30.5% for that 1.

What was that increase again?

It went from $53,560 to $69,872.05. So the increase in total wages was $16,312.05.

The highest increase that I'm looking at on a spreadsheet for the projected step in the fire department is $5,356.

There are a couple on here that are... Well, you're looking... This was the total wages, like I said. This is the COLA, the merit, all the pay. That was in the spreadsheet.

Okay, I thought we were just talking about STEP.

No, I was talking about it all. So you added all up, the percentage, sorry.

And I think one of the points she's trying to make is that individual, whoever they are, they got the STEP program. In addition to that, they're getting a merit. And it's like they're getting twice... And then we have other individuals, other employees that aren't getting anything.

Well, that was the version where it was 4.5% across the board to other employees. It was a 2%, 2.5% COLA and a 2% merit was the initial, you know, this was last week's versions.

Yeah, that was a couple versions ago. I'm tracking this. I'm tracking now. This is all over. So it's been, that's been, I mean, that's not even considered in any of these versions that you see today.

Right, but even like today's versions, as far as to analyze them, when we get them, you know what I mean, we do need some time to analyze them and look at them probably.

Them numbers won't get to that off what these versions here, because every one of these versions is different.

The one had the, what, two and a half and four?

Correct? Two and a half and four was one of the versions. The original version was take this out, take that out. And then this last version that we've just come up, the version three, it has actually, it has the no merit and has the three. So all those numbers wouldn't be added in. It's according to which version you go in, what the funds come up. It may not be that 30% that you're getting to. I see what you're saying because you added everything in, but everything's not in all these. Everything's not in. Every version does not have everything. So those numbers can't be true.

One thing that has not changed is whatever the two departments, whatever their percentages were for their increases, that has not changed regardless of what – and i think the council needs to know do not want to know names but i think we need to know what the percentages are and how much is that a fair question to ask i mean do you all not want to know that i mean if we've got somebody that's getting a 20 step and then we have somebody else that's not getting

In another department. Instead of getting rid of the STEP program, let's fix the STEP program. That's the real issue. And that's something we can talk about. But, you know, I have the STEP program for public works. Okay, that's great. If the employees didn't take advantage of it, all right, they didn't take advantage of it. It's nothing, you know. It is what it is, but the STEP program is a guide to move up the ladder in this town and to guide you, to guide the section heads on what the standards are you want for these employees if you want them to move up the ladder. We want people to come to work here and maybe stay for their whole career here. We have a plan through the STEP program that does that. You know, like for instance, Republic Works. You know, they've only got a handful of people that are, you know, like certified to do the pesticide spraying. But we have to educate the other employees to say, hey, listen. If you want to get more and you want to do more, this is what you have to do. If, for instance, the office staff doesn't have a STEP program, then let's fix that. We've got to come up with something because it's a guide. It's a guide that we can use when we're going away from here, the next group of people, the next section heads, all that kind of stuff. It's a basis for a program. you know, of a God, is the best way to put it, for people to go forward. And that's what we need to do. You know, given merit increases and stuff like that, it's nice. It's very nice. But a COLA bumps your retirement up. That's the other issue, other good thing about the COLA. All right? Yeah, I mean, I am – that's why I would like to see – The employees work with section heads and fix this step program and let's make it right. You know, if they don't take advantage of it, then they don't take advantage. There's some people that just want to come to work here and just want to collect a check. More power to them. If that's what they're happy doing, that's what they're happy doing. And maybe they don't want to do anything else. Okay, that's fine. We can't make them. But we can give, for instance, like say this cola, all right, and we can move it up. And they can get a bump in their retirement from there. You know, we can dance all we want to on the other things here, but really looking at, you know, As we talked about this version three, we also took into consideration what we've heard from the citizens about how things are overcompensated. This is trying to work up a balance between what the citizens are saying, what the town employees are saying, and this is kind of like a compromise between the two. That's the basis of this. It says on our town website that we are supposed to do away that the merit program is not a part of our operations anymore. Here we are talking about putting it back in again. Well, it's on our website from last year under the budget message. It says the STEP program is replacing the merit program. Okay, so be it. Let's fix the STEP program. I'm not, you know, I'm not... You know, what's broken is broken, but it can be fixed. And we have to move it. The STEP program is just so beneficial to the employees and the section heads. It makes their lives easy. As if we don't have a STEP program, then what are the guidelines for anybody to really move up the ladder? This gives a guideline. And that's the benefit of that. And I think it's something we ought to stick with. I mean, I hear what y'all are saying. I respect that. I respect that. Don't get me wrong. But I'm telling you, it is a good thing. We just have to get the bugs out of it is what we've got to do.

What do you suggest for the people that do not get a step? What is your advice? recommendation for that to make it fair for all employees? Because I know you want to represent all employees.

Exactly. Listen, it's up to them if they want to get in the STEP program. If they don't, that's fine. We're going to be generous and give them a 3% cost of living increase. I think that's pretty fair. You can get the longevity out of it also. I think that's being fair. It's also about the balance that I mentioned earlier, that the citizens are saying, hey, listen, we think it might be a little too much. Well, we've looked at it and said, you know, between, you know, what we looked at, what they said, what the employees have said. I think, you know, it's, it's a pretty good idea. Let's, let's go with this thing because we can make it work. We just gotta, we gotta put employees, gotta get by, you know, we gotta get with section heads and let's get this thing worked out. We can make this thing work. That's, that's the bottom line. It is a positive thing for the employees and for our citizens too.

Sure.

Yes, sir.

As far as the STEP program, or let's say implementation in all sections, department heads have a responsibility to develop one for their people. There's going to be different for an administrative assistant as well as a maintenance worker, and each of them can have goals to get a certain point. It's up to them to develop a STEP program. And I think we collectively, and I'm using the big we, probably have been negligent in requiring the department heads to develop these things. Some of them developed them right off the bat, some have come back a little bit later to do them, and some have had them way before we even did this. If I'm not mistaken, there's Kerry's group, there are certain things you have to do to get to a certain level, and that's required by both the state as well as the industry. So I think that telling the department heads, here's what you've got to do. And they need a step program themselves, which should be from the town administrator. Here's what I expect you to be able to do as a section head. So I think it comes all the way down. And yeah, I think it was a lack of pressure on that, but we've had a change of administration in many areas. And I think The ball may have been dropped on implementing a STEP program in every department. It may have been for some areas. But I don't know if I think we should, if we're going to do it, let's do it right. Yeah.

Can we look at, again, what the most the STEP is, what percentage that is, and then look at a merit across the board for everybody? And then maybe perhaps do away with the COLA. And that way, say if it's 7%, surely with the STEP program, if we've had somebody that has had that much training during the course of the work week, I question the validity of the STEP program. I don't know what the STEP program is about. I don't know if it has it been bundled. What are the classes? How is it going to improve your work performance? You know, you can take to move up the ladder, as you said, Mr. Arnold. But once you move up the ladder, where are you going? That's a true step program that you're stepping somewhere. As someone said in the audience earlier, we don't want them to get all the training and step out of here. We are making an investment in the town employee to learn these things. I really would like for us to look to see what is the most the employee, whatever, your two departments, what the maximum merit could be, and for us to look at offering it to everybody.

It's the highest dollar amount for STEP alone, not on this sheet that has existing annual total wages, wages increase, because that has STEP, COLA, MERIT. Just STEP. It's less than 10%.

Are there a large portion of the employees that are getting up to 10%?

No. It's the minority.

All right. So if we had an average... What would that average be? And then you all, if we could get that number, then we could have the department heads to work within their department for the two departments that actually did the step that you could look to see what that percentage is to ensure that they're getting that so that they're not taking anything away from them. And if we don't have an answer today, we can recess. But I really think we owe it to our public because I know that I have had more conversations, more calls, in the last three weeks than I ever did in the whole year, including campaigning. And it's all been about, are you fairly compensating or are you over the top with compensation? And these are my tax dollars. I mean, these are the conversations. I know this is uncomfortable. I know it's time consuming, but we sure do owe this to our taxpayers. Can we do that? Is that something you all would entertain?

Well, I mean, I hear what you're saying, but, for instance, like with the police department and fire department, he's saying they can get a 10% increase. It's the design of those step programs that allow that. So maybe something for the finance department – It might not be as much as 10%, but there is a program in place. It's not that it's like a discriminatory practice or anything like that. It's not about that. It's just that's the way the system is as far as the way it's designed. I mean, I hear what you're saying. I hear what you're saying. But the thing is... I have to keep going back to it. The STEP program is a program that is such a useful tool that we need to go with it. I mean, I know we stand. I respect that. I respect that. But I'm just saying it's something that we need to put in place. You know, if, well, I'm not going to go anymore. I've already said that.

I'm going to ask Alicia. Maybe I'm incorrect. But if we took the total, let's take one department. Let's take the fire department.

Which version are you looking at?

Three. And we took the fire department, we take the STEP program, which according to this shows a $50,483 paid STEP, correct? And you divide it by the total pay, which is $1,550,117. We come out to about 3.2%. The STEP program is in running 5%, 7%, running 3.2, which is about what we said merit would probably be, or that's what we're looking at. But in the STEP program, we ask people to do something, and it's not subjected by a department head to say, well, they're close, but this one here I have a cup of coffee in the morning, and this one here I don't. Therefore, that one's getting the 4%, and that one's getting the 3%. This is more objective. And I think you've got to be with the objectives, because in my 35 years of managing people, I've seen a lot of people have gone with who the person has lunch with gets the higher percentage. And that's not fair. OK, so that's why I'm anxious. But just thinking that as an example, and I'm sure if I looked at the others,

Please be behind.

Well, would you all support a 6.5 merit and the department heads work it out with what their individual department employees?

Merit doesn't, doesn't, help their retirement. Does it not?

It does. It does.

Okay. Thank you.

And the STEP program is a form of merit. And I respect what you're saying, Mr. Arnold, but we have no research to even factor in that it's going to increase performance. I wish we had some case studies. We just don't have them.

Just, if I may, real quick, just quick iPhone math. The lowest step dollar amount increase in the police department is 3%, the highest is 9. The lowest dollar amount increase in the fire department is 5, the highest is 8.

Just for step.

Just for step dollars, yes.

But now you're looking at a percentage, but not everybody is taking advantage.

Not every employee, so in the police forever.

Yep.

comes out there's 10 people there's 10 people in that are even going to get a step yeah it's 2.7 based on salary well ideally it's it's the council's decision at the end of the day and whatever you tell us whatever you send us away with i'm hoping like i said to come back one time and if we can all agree to a number that's great that's what we'll bring back to you Whatever that may be.

And I think the compounding issue is, let's say if we were to go with the step numbers that give it to some people, you've got some getting stepped, then they get the COLA, then they get the longevity on top of that. Some in your department are making $15,500 and some are getting a bump of $11,300. That's your top ones.

My apologies for interrupting, but none of these versions today have all those three things factored in. It's a version of, for example, version three has step and longevity as payouts, but it removes merit.

Right, but I'm just saying, Cole, on the version three spreadsheet, I took your top two for step and I added the COLA because three COLA's in there for everybody. These people are getting like $29.15 one is for COLA and one's getting $2,051. And then you add in, I'm not adding in the holiday and the overtime, but the steps in there and then the longevity is in there. That's where it kind of compounds, you know. That's where you get the numbers that get higher to claim talking about, but that 1 is just that this 1 doesn't have merit. Like, you like, you pointed out some of the other the ones I ran the initial numbers on last week was the spreadsheet. I was given that had everything in it. The recommendation was cola merit. Holiday, on-call, overtime, step, reclassification, and longevity. And that's what I read. Yeah, that's where I read this from because that's the spreadsheet I was given.

It's obvious that you all won't step. I can make it real simple. It's obvious that you three won't step. And we're going to get outvoted, so there's no need for us to keep posturing up here. Could we say we're going to give them the one-time step check and then the other folks have some kind of percentage of a merit and then do something with the COLA? Would that be fair to do? I mean, because you three are not going to – well, Mr. – Billy, you hadn't spoken, but I know that you're in sync with them. I know you are. And so you three want it. We two don't want it. Was that a fair to say, we'll pay the one-time step bonus out, we'll rework the step program, but we've got to do something for the other employees. So can we take some of that from the COLA? Could we say, if you get a step, you don't get merit, because you all are not given a merit in your proposal. There's no merit. So you do the one-time bonus for the step, and then the COLA can be used for the merit, for the other employees that don't have a STEP program. Is that fair to you all? Would you support that?

I'm just throwing out something. Great to throw out something because we've got to come to some sort of compromise together. Let's say we were to keep the STEP in as the numbers are on here and some employees are getting it. What if another option could be to think about, along with Ms. Bordeaux's, is Do away with COLA altogether and give other employees a step. So nothing is going to their base. It's keeping the stuff where it is. We do that. By the way, everybody's getting whatever. I guess the department heads decide maybe. I don't know because it's hard for us to say across the board. But do that and do the step in the longevity.

Can I ask you a question? Yes, sir. I've been dying to ask you this all night.

afternoon what what is your what how do you can you explain the longevity as you see it the longevity as I see it there's there's a formula that shows I work here three years I get 500 I'm using examples I don't have this chart charted well work there three years I get $500 I work here ten years I get $4,000 longevity check and longevity just started in Right before Thanksgiving, right before we came into council. It had never been done before. So it was basically, my understanding is to reward people for being here.

Well, let me tell you what I understood longevity was back when we approved it. Sure. The longevity step was one to be used when employees reach the maximum for the job they have. If they're going from $47,000 to $55,000 or $60,000, when they get to $60,000, which may be in one year or five years, it's usually not one year, it's usually five or ten years, then if they got to that point, they're not going to be able to get anything because... They're at the max. Right. You would give them one longevity for the number of years they've been with us. Okay.

So everybody didn't get longevity.

No.

But that's not how it was rolled out by the checks I have seen.

Well, and somebody has made up.

Everybody got a check last year.

Because longevity was supposed to be for that person who... quote, has been in with us to a certain point, hit the program as far as the maximum, and then we said, okay, we want to keep them on, so let's give them a longevity. Right. And that's what I understood.

Well, that's good to know. I hadn't heard that. Chief Claymore, do you have anything on that?

I was trying to see if I have a SEP program in my folder. That's not how it's pitched. Okay.

My understanding is by, you know, everybody got it.

From one full year of service with the town of Sunset Beach to, I guess, 11 months, under three years, you get a $500 check. Three to five, 1% per annual. Five to 10 is 1.5. 10 to 15 is 2%. 15 to 20 is 2.5. 20 plus is 3.

And that's everybody, regardless if they were at the max. As long as they've been here for at least a year.

No, it was supposed to be the program for nobody who could get a COLA anymore or a merit or anything because they're at their maximum pay. And that's what it was supposed to be, that one thing that keeps them on for a few more years.

Yeah, well, in that 24th and 25th, based on the salary query Ms. Armstrong ran for me, it showed that everybody got a check that they'd been here more than one year for the amount based on this scale that was just presented.

Somebody who decided to cut those checks misunderstood.

Well, that's why we wanted to just give everybody a $500 check.

And the longevity were bonus checks. They're not added to the base.

Right.

They're one-time.

Because, like I said, that was the original assumption or permanent position that was put up at the council was that this is somebody who's not going to get any more because they're at the max until we decide to raise the max someday.

Could we go with a one-time step payment? The departments that don't have a STEP program, for them to get up to a 3% merit and do away with the COLA.

Does the merit go to base? It does. The problem is with the merit going to base for only certain people, that causes a salary scale issue, right?

Well, it can press it.

It could.

Well, yeah. But if we're doing it this one year, I mean, I don't think it's going to move the needle too much with the pay scale. We've got to have a resolve on this, and I'm willing to do that. I mean, because I get what you're saying. We do not want to promise something and it not do. But I do want to make sure that all of us are comfortable we know everything about a STEP program.

And Ms. Bardot, would it be, in your opinion, an option to give them that 3% in STEP so that then it keeps everybody's base where it was so we're not dealing with an issue with the salary scale issue and all that? Knowing it's a one-year thing, we do it that way. So we throw those dollars in STEP due to the issue with STEP in a way. And that would give everybody an increase.

It won't change the final number that the employees are getting. And if they don't have, I mean, I don't know that they really have a step. Some of the things that I've seen with some of the departments, it's redundancy. There's no need for, we have somebody that has a certification for, let's say, pesticides. That individual covers everybody. That individual will train everybody. But I see what you're saying. It doesn't matter. It all is going to come out in the wash. The employee is the one that's going to benefit. And that's what we're trying to do with this. We'll give everybody more money. Right. And that's what it is.

With step. And then with longevity, do we keep longevity or do we go back to the holiday bonus? Because if longevity is not even being done how it was supposed to be done and it's only been done one time and it was kind of right before, it was after the election and right before, I don't know when it was decided to do it, but it was.

Well, the decision was done before the election. Okay. But the thing is, is that, like I said, we had an administration that flipped over and was there a, I'm not sure, I don't know. I don't know either. I have no idea. I'm not going to lie.

The longevity check was distributed out to the employees long before we had administration change. It was the last four is when the checks went out the week before the change.

I don't know how it came about.

Would you all support the step, one-time check? Everybody else that's not involved in a STEP program, that they get up to a 3% merit. Because you all don't have merit. And all you're doing is moving the colon, the merit. Would you all support that so that Mr. Kramer and Ms. Armstrong can run some numbers? And then the longevity, since we've not had that before, and since obviously we've got a sitting council member here who thought it went one way, we go to a Christmas bonus and give everybody a $500 bonus. Thoughts? Concerns? Where are we on this?

I'm up for that. In theory, the numbers. My only concern is adding merit to some because it'll change the base if we could put it in another category so that it doesn't.

It's not going to move the scale. It just moves them. It's going to move the employees who receive the 3% or you said 3%? Yes, sir. Employees who receive a 3% will move within the salary grade. Okay.

So you don't see it as an issue at all? Is it at their base, though, for the next year?

It will.

Yeah, and that's what I'm saying.

And the employees who receive the one time, it's not going to move their base.

Right, and that's where it would almost be better to maybe give everybody a one-time thing.

in that three percent okay i'm fine with the dollar amount do you all want to do a three percent bonus there are a lot of um entities around us i know leland's doing that they're not doing the um and i don't want to call out any towns but they're doing that so that the cost doesn't keep going up they're doing a one time so um i think what you're saying i don't want to put words in your mouth is to go with it the step one time check everybody else can get up to three percent bonus check

Can we change the name bonus to something else?

Okay. Well, we'll call it mayor. Up to three.

I really hate that term because the other people are going to say, how come I didn't get that?

What about a step adjustment or a step leveling or a step?

And then they would have a Christmas adjustment in December for $500. Y'all like that?

Well, I'm trying to write all this down just barely.

So the same proposal that you all had to keep, your proposal for version three is keep STEP as a one-time payment. We're agreeing to that, the two. And then that COLA becomes a merit adjustment check.

Not merit, but something else. A step adjustment.

A step adjustment. 3% step adjustment for the departments that don't have a set step plan. The longevity will become a Christmas bonus for $500. Do you like that? Is that more pleasing to you all? Because I really would like for us to leave today with you knowing exactly what you're doing and not two going and then three and the mayor.

I got questions.

Well, we know you don't have any votes.

We've got a good idea going forward because we are running out of time.

Yeah, I've got some questions. Longevity, you said there were Christmas. Longevity has a Christmas bonus. So only employees who are eligible to receive longevity would receive the Christmas bonus?

No, everybody gets the holiday bonus. Everybody gets the holiday bonus. Every employee. There's a criteria. What's that? The one year.

One year. What's that number?

The $500.

It's $500? Yeah.

Mr. Paulson, what were you saying?

I want to say I would eliminate the longevity if it's going to be applied the way it was supposed to be done because I don't think we have that many people at the maximum of their job. Okay, at any way, I think we've got a lot of people sort of in the middle. And as the ranges for these jobs move up because of the industry or the rest of it, so will their maximum, and they'll be able to be eligible for a raise.

So you're saying do away with longevity?

At this stage, I believe that's the best way to go because – You throw in the longevity, and then you're going to throw in a merit. You're now starting to get a little crazy because we've misapplied that longevity last year.

But you still want to keep the Christmas adjustment? That's fine. Okay. I'm good with that. Yes. Okay.

And I know employees are used to that, except for this past year, some got longevity. Those that qualified got longevity before it was the Christmas holiday bonus.

I'm good with that. Which one of you would like to summarize what all of us have been saying?

Let me see if I got the summary right.

You're all basically agreeing for the $500 Christmas bonus, correct?

Yes, sir.

And you all are in agreement on paying the step to the people that have the step to whatever it was supposed to be. As a one-time payment. All right. And then the people that were not involved in the step having an up to 3% adjustment step to get them into this program. At the same time, are you also looking to going forward with the STEP program and working it out because y'all came in at an unbalance, just like Mike basically come in at an unbalance because when this STEP program went through, they came in and gave all the information out. This is gonna be the STEP, but there was zero funds.

Nobody knew what kind of funds it was gonna be.

So now that's where it's got us. It's got us here because you had some that was here and some that was here. So, you know, if the step is something that we want to go forward with or you all decide to go forward with, balance it out across the budget and let's get all these departments on hand and get a good plan going forward. You came into something that we did not have all that information we needed. Like projects in the past. Yes, sure, sure. We need to get solid plans going forward.

Your summary, I can support your summary. As far as a step program, I think we need to do more research. Need to see other towns, other counties that have a true step program. We need to look at some case studies. We need to know exactly what we're training our employees are. We need to know exactly what their career path is. We need to know exactly what it's costing the taxpayers. So I cannot answer that question for me, Mayor. Maybe others can. But I do like your summary.

I would be fine to research the STEP more, learn more about it, and make sure it's equitable across our town and that department heads are on board, all department heads are on board, and it's something that could work. And so that employees get the option because if STEP was to do away with merit anyway, we've got to make sure we have a mechanism for every employee to move.

We've agreed, I imagine, that... Dave Kuntz, version three is very much like the other version one version two and everything else, because we agreed to change to it assistant town administrator up to and budget 50,000. Dave Kuntz, yeah okay so that's the case and everything's fine and based on your summary. Dave Kuntz, Can we go forward and saying that we are. We are going to go ahead with the budget as we've just discussed so they can get the final one done so we can present it to the people in 10 days. $50,000. This is version 4. Version 4. Version 5.

Today's version.

Really, version about 20. And that $50,000 that you all agreed with. That is a placeholder for a potential. Whether we use it or not, it's there for the future because it's not something that we're going to look to hire tomorrow or, you know, September or whatever. That's just something that's there. And then if it goes down into the future when we get an administrator or something full-time or whatever, we decide if it's something we need, we've got money built up there. If it's not, we'll put it back into the general fund and get it worked back in.

Finance Director Armstrong, are you good with what you've got? You're clear on what we're doing? today. We need to probably make a pack up here that we're not going to change this. That's not fair to do.

I want to summarize, if I may, make sure my notes are matched Alicia's and then I want some additional clarification on the educational before we part ways. And then we'll set, well, let's get through the summary and then we'll talk about our next meeting. We're gonna fund an assistant town administrator at $50,000. As the mayor said, that's a placeholder in case that position's needed. The town administrator position is gonna be funded at $175,000. Step will be a one-time payout for employees that have achieved that step that was in long ago version one. This is where I have a question. 3% payment for others who are not eligible for step. This is a one-time 3% payout, correct? Not in addition to the base? Or is it 3% to the base?

It's a 3%.

We're not going to call it bonus. We'll call it a step payout. For people who are now eligible for STEP, they can receive up to a 3% payout.

One time. Yep.

Christmas bonus, $500 per employee as long as you were here since 7-1 of 2025. I've got a council consensus that we will fund an associate's degree at 2.5% for eligible employees in a related field, bachelor's at 5%, a graduate degree at an additional 5% for a total of 12.5. My question is, I talked about how the previous council, this is years back, prior to this proposal, Had had bachelor's, intermediate, graduate, advance. Luckily, my partners that are watching this live sent me a text message. Intermediate law enforcement, you have to have at least four years in law enforcement and an additional 600 hours of training to be eligible for your intermediate certificate. And to receive an advanced law enforcement certificate through the Justice Academy, you have to have a minimum of at least nine years in law enforcement and an additional 1,200 hours of training. Regular in-service that we do every year does not count toward those numbers.

Okay, I had a question since we're going with step now. When we discussed it before in the previous version today, it was 1 that didn't have step in it. So we were willing to make sure. I know our meeting with the 2 chiefs on Monday was to make sure the people that went got the extra, you know, you know, degrees. were somehow compensated if we ended up not doing STEP. But if we're doing STEP, they're already covered in what the STEP was for that, correct? That was my understanding.

Yeah, they'll be included in the STEP.

So to me, since we're doing STEP this one time, for sure, we don't need to worry about it today. Would that be a true statement?

Could we define it so that we have it going forward or do you want to see that as part of the step rework that will bring you in the next fiscal year?

I must think rework because that way we can relook at it all at one time. Is that a way it doesn't change all numbers?

Chief, is that going to cover your people? Were they included in that step? The two that you said you had, you had an associate's and a bachelor's, are they going to be covered?

I don't think so. I wouldn't say that because that's just a bonus versus a, you know, increase in their salary.

Correct. Correct. They're covered in the staff.

That was already there.

Let's go.

Okay, so Ms. Armstrong just brought up in these versions, it says that we were looking at merit as eligible. You had to have been here since October 1 of 2025. So this 30% one-time step payout, we'll call it, they've had to have been here since October 1 of 2025?

Yeah.

To be eligible? Yes.

Okay. No cola, no longevity.

The longevity is being replaced by the Christmas bonus.

Okay. Did I miss anything? Yeah. Next Thursday? Next Thursday. One o'clock.

Is that doable? What time? Sorry, Mike. What time?

I cannot be here Thursday. Make it a three.

If Ms. Bordeaux cannot be here, do we want to...

I can be here the 29th.

27th.

It's a Friday. Friday.

Everybody good with Friday?

How does that work with the...

I can't be here until three. Three o'clock.

How does that... Friday.

Three.

I can't be here until... On the 29th, well, let me think.

We have a meeting with the C-Trail Masters Association at 1 o'clock on the 29th.

I think we were talking at 3. Yeah, I can't believe it. Is there enough time to have a balanced budget? The 10-day Wednesday? I don't know.

If we, and Kimberly might have to help me with this, if we advertise prior, if we send the notice to the paper prior to the meeting.

We have to have the public, regardless of when we advertise, you have to have 10 days from the time we all agree, here it is. We've got to give, that date does not count. We have to have 10 days.

Because I was going to have to be earlier today.

But what we can do is, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, but what we can do, we don't have to meet on June the 1st. We can delay our town council meeting. We can have our town council meeting. We can have a budget meeting. You follow what I'm saying? But we have to have 10 days. We can't change the council meeting.

She's saying we can't move the council meeting.

Yeah.

Council meetings are regular meetings and they're set at the beginning of the year. So if you change a regular council meeting, you have to repost it in the paper. Sure. We do it. That changes the entire calendar and then it's got to sit. So I would go ahead and have your council meeting, but set a separate meeting for the public hearing for the budget.

Do it toward like maybe the second or third week of June. Yeah. Yeah. But we could always call a special call meeting, too.

So going away today, though, we need to set our next budget meeting. Are we saying Friday the 29th at 3 p.m.?

Yes, sir.

Friday the 29th at 3 p.m. Mike, are you all right with that?

I can't be here then.

I was going to come for the, oh. Yeah, I'm not available then.

What's your Wednesday look like, the 27th?

That's our public comments. I could do it after public comments.

Or before.

A couple of comments are 3.30.

Could we do it? We've got to be here on June the 1st. We have to already be here. Could we do it that afternoon? I mean, we're going to have to have a separate. This is a workshop.

Do it at 3 before closed session. We have a closed session. Well, we seem to always have one. Let's try not to. Let's set it for three just in case. I have it on my calendar block just in case.

We'll figure it out right here.

We'll figure something out. What are we looking at?

Monday, June the 1st at 2 o'clock.

Can Billy do it for me?

Yeah, I can make it.

Okay. Well, you're diverse.

That's the day we have a regular meeting. Just set us there, please, sir. That gives you time to get that done. Once they review it, if everything hopefully works together, we can get this passed, and we'll set up a meeting to come back and do the public hearing, and we'll still follow within our deadline of June 30th or July 1st.

Kimberly, if we get that passed on the 1st, what are we looking at for public hearings?

What day do you need to notify the newspaper?

Okay.

You first. Notify the paper that day. It will not go out to the public until the 10th. This is up to the 20th.

Last one.

It won't, the problem is when we send it to the paper, there's a week delay before it runs, so it wouldn't advertise until June 10th. So we'd need 10 days after that. The earliest we could have the public hearing would be June 22nd.

Can we do it on, we have the public forum at 3.30.

Right? Correct.

What day?

The 27th.

I cannot be here.

Oh, okay. What about the 26th, Tuesday?

No, I can't.

What about the afternoon of the 28th?

I guess we could meet tomorrow. Could we recess and meet tomorrow? I don't know your time frame.

meet tomorrow morning. Are you okay in the afternoon?

Tomorrow afternoon. Alicia, can you do a turnaround that quick?

I should get it done that quick. Are you working, mom?

Yeah, I could be here at 3. No, 4. 3, 4.

I could be done at 3 tomorrow.

It's 4.20 right now. Yeah.

I'm just trying to talk her out of not doing it tonight.

Right. She said we can do it tonight. I'm trying to talk her out of it. Can you do it tomorrow during your regular day? Would it help you to do it, like, tomorrow at 4 o'clock? I mean, I know it's Friday. I know it's Memorial Day weekend.

I feel like we're, fingers crossed, I feel like that would be a short meeting. I do, too. If we could recess and come back. Hold on, let me look at my calendar.

I don't have it.

At 3 o'clock tomorrow.

You have what?

Come back at 3. It's 3 p.m. Give you enough time. She's a trooper.

She is a trooper. We have a gym.

Okay. Budget 4 o'clock.

3 o'clock or 4? 3.

Oh, okay. No problem. with all these updates, correct?

We're doing this on the calendar. Always.

So we're removing the budget meeting off of June the 1st at 2 o'clock, correct? Correct.

We're going to change it tomorrow at 3. There is one other thing that we need to discuss. Thank you, Alicia, for reminding me. We've got Mr. Cary White in the back. And this just has to do with the inspections for the Hampton Inn. Carrie, if you want to talk about, you want to fill them in on what that's going to look like.

This is a budget...

Yeah, this is going to have to be due to the timing of the progress of the project.

So this was actually had mentioned in the last meeting we had potentially on the contract inspector. And so now that being said, they have begun construction earlier than what I anticipated, which would be after the budget. so therefore we've got a couple of things that we can do two things I spoke with the finance director about and that would be for this contract inspector is to either adjust our line item for contract services being we've received that monies for the for the hotel or take the actual position that I have that's available that obviously I need to keep, and then actually pay it from that position that will not be filled next year. So I've got one of those two options, whichever I think Alicia said we could do it either way that we needed to. But that came, I spoke with her yesterday, and that came sooner than what I thought it would.

Do you have a recommendation?

His revenue is restricted, so I can bring forward that permit revenue that he got, or I can just take it from a salary line item and just do a transfer within a department. So either way is fine.

There's enough money in what she just mentioned? Oh, yes, sir. Okay, just want to make sure. Yes, sir. Okay. Yeah, we're okay on that. Okay.

You need a motion for that?

Not sure.

No, that's just one additional thing we're going to add into this budget that you'll see tomorrow at 4 o'clock. It's just one thing we didn't talk about.

Yeah, we didn't realize we were coming back tomorrow.

We're just going to add that in.

We didn't either.

We'll add that to the summary that we're going to add those funds in Carrie's department, which Alicia just wanted you to be aware of it. So if we're able to move this forward tomorrow, Kimberly, what's that do for our Timeline post June 3rd would be when would that hit the paper?

After tomorrow. So the deadline for the paper is May 28th and it would run on the June 3rd.

So that would give us the option to do the public hearing the week of the 15th.

Should we go ahead and set a date and time for that?

Should we pick a date now or wait until we get through tomorrow?

Let's get through. We've got to get through tomorrow. Before we recess, I just want to tell the council, thank you. Y'all went through a budget. Everybody has different ideas, and I think that's what the people elected y'all for, to have different ideas to come together. Even though it might feel like we had to pull each other's hair out, y'all worked together to come up with something to go forward, and that's important to look forward to. I appreciate each one of you, the hard work that you put into this. I hope it works out tomorrow.

We'll see. We'll go from there.

But having different ideas and agreeing to disagree, but working together is what a council is supposed to do. I appreciate each one of you. Thanks so much. Other than that, do I have a motion to recess this until tomorrow at 3 o'clock?

Until tomorrow at 4 o'clock.

3 o'clock. 3 o'clock.

Do I have a second?

Second. Second.

We was going to do it tomorrow when we recessed to make sure everybody gets to speak. Because it's basically just recessing at this point.

Anyone else?

All right.

All in favor? Aye.