City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I'd like to call the order the city council meeting budget meeting for Monday, April 13, 2026 at 6 pm. First order of business will be the pledge of allegiance. Can everybody please stand?

United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. I was Brian. Could you take a role, please? Mayor Jacobs. Markham, absent and excused. Mayor Prom Dold here. Council member Hughes here. Council member Wit here. Council member King here. Council member Dol here. Council member Kerapotus here. You have a quorum of six.

Item four is a motion to approve the agenda for tonight's meeting. Mayor Prom like to make a motion to approve the Monday, April 13, 2026 council budget meeting agenda as presented. Support made by council member Wit and supported by Miss Hughes. Councilwoman Hughes. Sorry. All in favor? I seven and no

six. Any discussion from the table? Any discussion from the public? See no further comments in favor? All council. All in favor? I I what are we are we approving the uh just agenda. So yeah. So yeah, he he needed to open it up to comments from the table. Gotcha. Gotcha. from the public. So if we just want to do uh you know revote and then Gotcha. I then Yeah.

We have two two items for consideration tonight. The first item is a discussion on the fiscal year 2627 budget process in progress. City Manager Tim Gibbons if you'd like to begin with a overview of how budget process works and where we are in the process for this year.

Absolutely. Uh thank you mayor prom and council. Um yeah it is uh this time of year where we have presented uh council with the proposed budget. Um we've had our budget hearing our budget meetings on each department's um budgets for this upcoming fiscal year 2627. And um just wanted to provide one just I think it's healthy every so often just as uh council member Dole requested just to discuss how the budget process in Garden City works um how we deal with it throughout the year. Um I'll give a little overview of that but then uh just in sort of a a broad view of our proposed budget um prior to any council discussion. Um but I just put everything in context and then uh have a discussion uh if if such is needed. Um but first just a little bit discussing our process. Garden City's uh municipal fiscal year is from July 1st to June 30th. This is governed by our charter. Michigan budget law uh requires that we draft a budget council reviews it. We hold a public hearing and then we adopt it by ordinance and uh I'll just jump down real quick to a general fund part of our ordinance where each department is listed and how much will be spent in each department. Um so essentially council passes sort of a broad um amounts for each department. Um while your provided line item how each department intends to spend what your ordinance actually passes is what each department is permitted to spend um according to your budget according to the budget that you're approving. So uh it's a is an ordinance uh that is passed that lasts through the 2627 fiscal year and we're allowed to operate and spend money under under that ordinance. Without that ordinance we're not allowed to spend money. Um the state law requires that the council approve it before we can spend it. Um if we need changes throughout the year, there's administration uh can can seek amendments uh during the fiscal year. So as I said, I I provide a uh budget to council by April 1st. Um it includes revenue estimates, department expenditures, debt service, capital

expend capital needs, and five-year capital plan to guide the process. But how I how I actually formulate a budget is I begin each year with as as accurate as numbers as we can have early in January. I meet with the department heads. We discuss each of their department's unique needs and where they're at. Um how their costs and expenditures are going, how their revenues look for the upcoming year, trends and things we need to recognize. We meet, discuss their budget, they put one together, then they present their um essentially their part their parts of every budget at the council meeting during the budget meetings. Um we take that into consideration. Then I compare as we get closer to uh the beginning of our next budget year, we start to see um Blue Cross Blue Shield costs come in. We start to see revenue estimates for taxation. We know if we're going to have a headly roll back or not. So we start to get a better picture. So, I take into account everything the departments have requested and then I begin to formulate a budget that fits within our fiscal realities. Um, what where our costs are, how much each of those things they'd like are

and then what our needs are and then I propose that to council on by April 1st. State law requires though that we have a balanced budget. So you'll notice in our budget sometimes uh it is actually pretty historical given that we carry a heavier fund balance that quite often in order to balance the budget we we we earmark a certain part of our general fund balance to make sure it balances. Now we do everything we can as we did this year and we've done in previous years to use as little or none of that balance but a budget is a guess. It is our worst case scenario of what we'll need um on revenue or worst case scenario what we're getting on revenues best case scenario of what we can do expend and we work within those means. You'll notice with the ordinance that you're really just approving us a large amount for let's say approximately 10 million for the police department that is a number of categories salary and wages overtime utilities uh cost for information systems.in in those lines. Um, or there's an amendment. We only require that if the bottom line's being adjusted, we do an amendment. Throughout the year, we may clean it up a little bit, but here's what might happen. We may not be able to hire the full allotted amount of officers throughout the year. So, we'll require more overtime than we anticipated. What'll happen is you're not spending as much on salary. You're spending more on overtime. Um, so that you'll actually end up spending less money by doing overtime instead of all the other things that come with salary and wages. budgets kind of flex throughout the year, but ultimately what we're trying to do is come under that original budgeted amount every year by a certain percentage. You want to spend so much to make sure you're delivering excellent service, but also in a fiscally responsible way that leaves you a little bit of room because things do happen. And we've learned that, you know, uh you have um a number of officers out um with illness or injury and overtime may go up to a point where you have to do something, but you want to give yourself room for those things to happen. So that's how it's formulated. That's how we look at each year. The budget is passed each year. Council reviews the prop proposed budget. A

public notice must be published. It's published on our website, but also we publish in the paper um public notice of the hearing for a uh a bud for the budget passage. A public hearing then must be held. Residents can comment on the proposal. Council can make changes at any time and the budget must be adopted by the ordinance. As I discussed before, our charter requires adoption by May 20th. Once it's adopted, the budget becomes the city's official financial plan. Department spend within the approved appropriations. I oversee the budget administration throughout the year. Um, you know, on a pretty regular basis, I'm seeing how we're doing. You know, are we overspending in one area? Are we underspending? What adjustments do we need to make? It's just constantly steering the ship throughout the year. Spending cannot exceed the authorized funds unless if if we anticipate do, we have to come back to council and request an amendment. Budget amendments are made if needed. State law requires continued balance budget compliance. So, this isn't just our good practice, which it is. It's also required by state law. That's just kind of an overview. I know it's a big broad overview, but it's just understand where we're coming from and how this process works. Um, it's sort of the thousand foot view. There's a lot more nuance to it, but generally that's the process. Um this year as council has been presented uh our um fund ordinance the the part of our general fund ordinance that really has the most flexibility in where we can address the most stuff is within the general fund. This is where the line share the services we delivered are uh spent. So this year we're anticipating total revenues of 3164,970. That's a use of $468,953 of fund balance to balance because we have expenditures of $31,64 $64,970. That is in comparison to last year where we spent uh we had 29,33,340 of revenues using $378,000 33 $378,435

of fund balance to balance out expenditures of 29,33. So our budget has not gone up much and what I did was I broke out what have we done over the last three years. So I think to understand any budget trends you want to look at the last three years and we can take into account where we started um 2425 when I became city manager in September of 1st of 2024. Um we were projecting a $2.5 million uh use of fund balance just to balance the budget which means we are operating um well above our revenues. and that had to be corrected immediately and we took a lot of drastic actions in the 2526 budget and we reduced um our use of fund balance projected to $370,237. Now, as this year has progressed, we anticipate that we will um actually end up with a small surplus, if not a half million dollar surplus, somewhere in between depending how things go. Um so, we've done a really good job of cutting our expenditures and identifying revenues. We've had a $100,000 grant come in. We've done our best to operate as lean as we possibly can, but uh we greatly reduced expenditures. And now in this upcoming year, um we anticipate revenues of 30,596,000 using $471,000 of general fund balance to cover those $31 million of expenditures. And most of that is driven by uh increases in personnel costs that we have no control over. Cross Blue Shield dropped a 30% uh premium rate increase on us. And our 3% contractually obligated raises. These are part of contracts that have been in place for a number of years now. Um are going to cost about a $1.3 million increase in expenditures. But I think if you really look if you take um how our revenues have gone, our total assessed value of our community increased by 4.62%. Means the tax the total assessment the value of garden city homes have gone up 4.62%. 62%.

State inflation rate multiplier is 2.7% this year. What that means is when it comes to Headley and Prop A that we're only able to tax 2.7% of that increase. So taxable value must e is can be taxable value increases by inflation or 5% whichever is lower. In this case 2.7 is lower than 5%. And taxable value resets to market value when ownership changes uncapping. But even if we start going above 5% uh or above inflation in our uh ability to tax, we still get helied back down. They'll actually reduce our millage rate and they did this year our millage rate. So we cannot tax above the increase of inflation. Different caps on us that prevent us from truly enjoying um the the value and and I say enjoying it's great for residents. I know Mr. Muller will get up here later and tell us he loves the Hedley and Prop A and I don't blame him. He's a homeowner. But the reality is we're trying to manage a budget um where just like everyone's homes, uh electricity is going up, the cost of living is going up, um market competition for jobs, uh you know, prices are going up and we're trying to keep pace with that deliver excellent service with an evershrinking amount of money. Um which because the realistically the cost of homes are going up 4.62%. But really we can only capture 2.7. So, when I get a 30% increase in healthcare cost or I have to keep up with a 3% raise on personnel cost, which is the lion share of what we spent money on, um those have a negative impact on your ability to continue to maintain exactly the same amount of uh expenditures you had in previous years. The way I I I kind of want to phrase this is to understand what each Michigan municipality has to fight against is over the last two years uh the m the Michigan inflation rate for that we're allowed to tax at is 3.1% and 2.8 that's a 5.8 u increase in taxable in revenue for us on taxes right so now we can go up 5.8 pay. What we've tried to do is correct what I thought was some overspending in 2425. So, we've been reducing our expenditures. Our

expenditures are only go up 4.4%. So, our expenditures aren't even going up with inflation. So, we're doing our best to spend as little as possible and still deliver amazing service, but that's not easy. But, that is the real fiscal constraint that Prop A and Headley um create. Now, what was supposed to happen when Prop A and Hedley were passed is that your your state shared revenue comes from um from um ah commercial tax um that should be shared better with the city. The state is sharing a lot less, which puts us in this bucket of trying to get by with kind of an ever shrinking reduced by inflation problem. So, when you think about it, we went from 29 29,769,000 when I started and we're up to $31,67,000 in expenses this year. Um, like I said, that's a 4.4% increase. The the majority of it comes from personnel costs and things we are we don't actually have much control over. 3% contractual raise and brutal premiums, that's about $1.3 million. So if you compare 24 to uh 26 27, we're not even up 1.3 million I think on that figure barely. So really the the large share of our increases are things that are kind of outside of our control. So there's there's been a real push for efficient and thin operation of government. Um not because we want to um do more with less as I always say, but because we must do more with less in order to deliver the services resident expect and a great community to live in. I like the fact that we're spending really inflation rated less money than we have in the past, but we're still seeing property values go up by 4.62%. That's good. I want property values to go up. I want to tax as little as we possibly can. Um, but there is a certain setup in Michigan that makes it very hard for municipalities to keep pace. So, it's kudos to our employees who I say time and time again, do more with less.

Um again this is just show you the impact of um Headley taxable value increased by 46.8 million. This should have increased our uh taxable revenue by 838,000. But because we were forced to lower our millage rate based on Headley, we're going to we're only going to be able to have an increase of 562,000. Now think about that. This year's one cost onetime cost increases for not one time forever cost increase went up 1.3 million. But our taxable revenue only went up 562,000. So this budget reflects a very conservative approach to government. It reflects doing as much as we possibly can with as little as I possibly can and to continue to maintain. I I don't like I had the had we not had the grand increases in healthcare cost, I I think we would have been looking a little bit different, been able to to to work on some legacy costs and reduce some other expenses. But this year, I think we just have to focus on the status quo. And I think that's a pretty good accomplishment. Actually, one thing I do lament is, you know, we did a tremendous amount of capital spending over the last I do think it's important that we continue to inv uh in our buildings specifically specific as we all sit in a pretty warm city hall today. It'd be nice to to get our Hback fixed. And those are things we have planned in the future. And what's great about those kind of investments, um, not not this year coming up, but hopefully soon in the future, those are the kind of investments we're going to focus on because it reduces our utility costs. It reduces our our energy expenditure that actually ends up reducing our overhead by investing in our capital. So, those are the things we're going to continue to focus on. I've discussed it in my sort of my budget philosophy. Then, one of the last sides I'll focus on is our general fund balance. Our general fund balance, we adopted in July of 2025 a fund balance policy. That fund balance policy um requires we keep a unrestricted fund balance of 25% or higher with a goal of getting closer to

35% and then working on um legacy costs and other capital needs. And until we get really above that 25, we need to focus on really just building that balance. We have a unique situation. Our fund balance policy requires that when we drop below 25% of our unrestricted fund balance, which right now we're at 20% in 2025, as that as that fiscal year ended, um we need to work on a plan to get back to 25. Our unique circumstances, we had the water fund and we were loaning it millions of dollars. I included on there what our plan is. Our plan is that the water fund pays the general fund back. And if it does, the money owed to it is in the pink. So we'd be 28% 29% and then 25% if the next few years play out as we expect them. Um so we are on a plan to to get back. It was just that unexpected deficit we had in the water fund um that we had to correct and the general fund had to loan the water fund a significant amount of money. So that fund is paying us back and it's paying us back quickly. So I anticipate within the three years we should be above 25%. But as you'll note, um, you know, by the end of next year's budget, we're only at 25.3. So, we don't have a lot of room, um, for much else. But it, uh, I I'm confident that with continued efficient and disciplined government, we'll be able to maintain that fund balance as soon as the water fund pays us back. Really, that's the gist of my overview. Again, I I just want to repeat my philosophy. I think it's worth repeating until um, I'm no longer here. maintain a long-term financial plan to create service and financial stability by doing the following. We continue to build on financial decisions made during the Great Recession. All those things we did from 2010 to to 2017 inform my decision-m today. I I watched um previous city managers go through very very tough times, times that make our tough times today not seem so bad. Um they did so by dedicating and maintaining services, improving and lowering long-term cost. We're predicted

to see the benefit of lowering some of those long-term costs. In 2035, 2036, we'll see a significant drop off in our legacy costs. And that is really what I see my job as a city manager is to get us from point A to point B. That is a place where we will require a lot less tax dollars to pay for personnel costs and other legacy costs that we've we've achieved because of because of Headley at Prop A and and combined with a great recession made it tough to to meet up with. But we've have an aggressive payback plan that should put us in a place where our uh uh residents one should see an improvement in service and then hopefully um you know less requirement for things such as public safety millages and lighting assessments. But given the current circumstances we're in they become important. Um so that's why I'm trying to we we try and size garden city operations based on demand value and ability to fund. When I say demand, the we prioritize the services that citizens want and that request the most. And then we we we make sure they're their value. How how efficiently can we give them? If we're going to do parks and wreck, it has to be an efficient value providing service that does something great for us at a really good cost. Um and then um ability to fund. If we can't afford to do it right, I I I'm an advocate of not doing something we can't afford to do right. maintaining a high fund balance as I said that's why I I um I asked for and was passed a fund balance policy I think it's very important that with the eb and flow um you know in previous year we didn't have such a a high increase in lacrosse boo shield costs and in a one time we have to come up with the money having a high fund balance helps us get through those times and let it smooth out seek opportunities to provide value to garden city citizens as I just said we're constantly seeking grants technology and new efficiencies How can we do this at a cheaper rate is constantly the question we have to continue to ask ourselves? Um been successful at achieving grants even midyear. We have that tutoring grant which is providing tutoring services to our kids at no cost. Um through the

Radcliffe Center we've achieved uh through requesting state and federal representatives. We've received money fire department. We've gotten um money to rehabil to rehabilitate the Redcliff Center. But also now what my focus has been on is requesting money for uh water infrastructure. I believe that's a place where um Congress and our state government and our federal government are really inclined to give us money and uh Congresswoman Rashid Tibes got us about a million coming for a water man on Ford Road. We're going to seek another million next year. She's at she's uh committed to requesting another million for a Katherine water man. Um so we're having some success at those requests. We hope they'll continue. But that's the kind of value and things we're looking to do with an eye on maintaining responsible government for the next always responsible government but in particular the next five to 10 that is my process progress process and progress update.

Thank you Mr. Given we appreciate all thank you. That being said I'll now open up the table for discussion or questions. May um mayor prompts. Okay. I have some questions.

Okay. Maybe um one of them obviously we want to start because we know that we've asked questions at budget meetings before and then found out that we were millions of dollars in the hole. Are there any of our accounts besides the the general fund that we just talked about that's below the balance that we'd like it to be? Are there any other accounts any of them that are below recommended where we are actually in the hole?

So our our fund balance policy addresses this and one of them is the water fund. Um the water fund is below the 25% we would like to see. Um so but that but what our fund policy also says what's our plan and our plan was the rip the band-aid off plan. We have a 5-year plan to restore both the money it owes the general fund and it is and restore its own working capital balance. You know, we want a $3 million balance on about $12 million expenditures. But as that uh as the cost of things go up, we'll have to chase that a little bit to maintain that 25%. But yes, we're on a path there. Um how is the increase in the water rates, how is it building up that fund? Are we ahead of schedule? Right on schedule? I think we're right on schedule.

Yeah, I I feel as if we're we're moving in a pretty good direction. We did receive some grant funds back that allowed us to get some of the general fund back. We'll continue to make sure we're paid back on any grant or uh safe drinking water funds and we've been diligent about that. But generally, um it's it's a five-year plan and I believe uh it's safe to say we're we're having no problems moving forward.

And then after the five years, what happens? Um, we'll continue to The mistake of the past was and as I've said this numerous times, if in 2017 we had just raised water rates and commodity rates 5% each year through that whole time, we've never had we've just had to have another 5%. So, the thing is to make sure we're making steady at least inflationbased increases to our water and commodity rates so that we aren't in a position where we have to show up and our residents have a surprise increase. Um, so that that is that is a failure to recognize the need to to to increase cost when inflation is going. Certainly, you never want to go above what you need, but you do have to keep up with what you need or you end up a situation like we are now where we were supplementing the water fund. And there's some other problems that occur when you're having your general fund loan, your water fund to pay out money. You lose the ability to have that fund balance produce interest. You know, right now we get about 3.7% on every dollar we have invested with Michigan class, which is a large share of our monies. So, making sure we maintain um a healthy water fund, not too healthy, but not not healthy um through responsible rates over a consistent period of time um is the best way to proceed. And I think so after the 5 years is up, we need to make sure we ask for another water rate study that tells us, hey, now that we're here, what what what do we need going forward? And we try to adhere to that. And we anticipate more increases come July 1st. Correct.

Uh yeah, what is requested is just a 5% increase as the plan as our water rate study. Does that does that include the the increase that grey lakes water wants to give us? Yes, actually our model the rip the band off anticipated um these type of great lakes water increases. So while they're increasing much larger than the 5% we're only requesting the 5%. Our goal is to smooth water rates out so that even when they're increasing up to a certain point, if they have really high increases, those are ones we can't anticipate. But we did incre anticipate the type of increase that they did past this year. Okay. Did they come up with a final number for what they wanted their increase to be? I don't have off the top of my head, but they did. Um they started out with a higher one than they ended up at at a lower one,

which was good because it fit basically right under where our plan was. Okay. So other than our 5% increase, even though they're raising the rates, we're not going to see another increase. Correct. This year it's 5%. Next year we anticipate it being 5%. Barring I could, you know, barring something catastrophic or extreme raise your rate by GLW. Okay. And there's no other accounts that that are not where they're supposed to be. No, I feel like everything else is is is in a very good place. I'm asking this so it never happens again.

No, 100%. And that is why we passed the fund balance policy. That's why I sit before you today showing you a chart where we anticipate our general fund balance to be. and I talk about where I where I want to take us is uh is that it's it's sound fiscal responsible management and there's no account that I believe is out of whack or at least not on the way to being fixed. Okay. Is there do you want to talk a little bit more about the increase that we got for Blue Cross Blue Shield? Like what's the average? Can you give us an example of how much it went up?

So, uh 30% um really we're in the million nearly near the million of dollars in in providing healthcare costs for our employees based on contractually obligated services. Now, we are not unique. Um, across Michigan, Bluec Cross Blue Shield lost I think it was I I I don't I don't want to quote numbers off top of my head. It was a significant amount of money and systemwide Bluec Cross Blue Shield was increasing cost. Pretty good clip for everybody. We have a unique fund that um we're actually grandfathered in on an older policy that allows us to partially self-fund but also enjoy um most of the the funding coming from Blue Cross Blue Shield. We are grandfathered in that plan. It has its goods and its bad. Some years it's bad, but when we have low usage, it's very good and it has been good for many, many, many years. So, I actually met with Gallagher, who are as our healthcare representative this morning to discuss that. They're exploring all kinds of different options to see if we can lower these costs.

But you really have to take more than just looking at one year's giant increase. You have to look across the system, across the many years we've used this, and make sure because if we leave it, we don't get to go back. We want to make sure that if we do leave it for a really good reason and we're investigating that right now. Okay. It isn't just Garden City though. Everybody's having a significant rate increase. I know I've asked in the past like why do we keep going with Blue Cross and and that's the answer I get is we have this really good plan but are we still exploring yes other avenues? Yes. My conversation with our healthcare uh essentially our rep

are aggressively seeking a better way to do this if there's there's one out there then what we can do is we could take that information and kind of make a decision as to how you want to proceed. But um what I'm seeing right now is based on the last if I take the last two years our increases are 19% not even um so not as horrible as this one year. Last year's wasn't bad in fact really good compared what we should have had. So if I balance the two years okay not too bad but the problem was this year was particularly harsh. So, um, this year we're examining it very hard and then if we walk into next year with this kind of increase, the pressure to find a different way will be a lot greater. So, we'll kind of have to see. A lot of it has to do with your claims history and how your uh population is utilizing. Um, we've had many years where we haven't used much and they've actually cut us a check for rebates

for numerous years. I remember that. So it's hard to, you know, to just are we just riding a wave that we're going to go through because what'll happen is a lot of our uh retirees on the healthcare who end up transferring to Medicare Advantage become very very inexpensive and there's a lot of them are not far away. So if we hold on to this plan and then a lot of our population goes into Medicare advantage now we're really in a good spot that in 2028. Um no it's over the next um this this is one of the great lowers of cost between now and 2035 35 okay

and just to give you an example we in other pension benefit other pension related benefits OPED non-pension related but they're retired we had a um a unfunded balance of 121 million is now 63 million which is indication that our population is transferring to Medicare advance antage. Sadly, some of them who've been on our system for a very long time are passing away, but that is what the system contemplates. So, we're seeing great reductions in those costs kind of in an accelerated actuarials always give you the worst case scenario and they should they should prepare us for the worst. And what we do is prepare for the worst, hope for the best. And that's kind of what we're doing here. And with that particular grandfather plan we're in, I just want to make sure I don't get out and then we lose the benefit of what we uh the representative from Gallagher today said, "You're in one of the weird the more harder difficult decisions because there's risk on either side,

right? Because don't we pay upfront and then they give us the rebate?" They give us the rebate back when we don't use it. But when we do use it, we might owe or if we use more than we were supposed to, we have to pay a little more. It's it's a I always joke, well, there's a reason they grant that it's not around anymore. and and think that is generally good. We're just might be in a bad blip. So, um we're evaluating that and like I've said before, these aren't easy decisions, but we'll make the best we can given the history we have and trust our professionals. Okay. Um we talked we talked about um contracts that we are required to give certain amounts of raises and other things. When are we um negotiating most of those contracts again? It's coming up soon. Next year is next year.

Next year. Okay. You said the lion shares next year, right? Yes. There's one um contract this year and then there's um four next year. Okay. And previously when those contracts were negotiated, they were negotiated with one person in the room. We're going forward with having like the treasurer in there or finance people or maybe a council person. Correct. I'm I'm a big believer in bringing as many uh knowledgeable people as I can into the room.

Okay. having a um having it my treasurer, my HR director um with me. I've negotiated contracts on all sides of the table. So, I'm very familiar with the negotiation process and what we can. You always want to do as much as you can for your employees that you can continue to provide. So, you don't promise anything. You can actually deliver. So, that's the approach I always take. Okay. And then I previously asked about um doing less roads per year and adding uh more more things like when we do the road we fix the water manes on that road. Is any of that in the plans? Uh it it it's it's in it's in the plan so much as where we can make it happen. Can we make it happen anywhere this year?

Not this year. No. Uh I don't believe we can do water manes underneath any of the roads we have or I don't not sure you know Brad's here if there's if there's even a need right now. Ideally, there's work we can do and you know, we've discussed it, but ultimately it comes down we do have a water fund that was depleted and we don't have a we want to make sure that balance gets built back so we don't get in a position where we have to loan. So, we have to kind of uh right, but we can we we have the the bond to do the roads. I'm talking about using that money and if we have 10 roads on there, we only do six roads and three of them get a new water man. Well, uh really

I mean I know this year we can't because it's Maplewood. I get that. But and then so this this money we're spending this summer is the last of the road bond that was happening. So we would have to go out and seek another work to get more roads. Didn't we just do the redo the road bud? We just did it. This dish 7.2 million is the last of the But we already have another one in place. We we just did it. We did it a year early. We just did it. I think that was public safety. Yeah. No, we just redid the road bun. That was the road bun. It was the road bun. We just did it.

We have to seek another robot. It was a public safety that was on the ballot. No, I'm not talking about that. I We just talked about a road bond a year early before the other one ran out. Correct. Yep. And now that money has been put into the roads. Okay. What was written? Well, this summer is it. That is this is the last of that. We're going to be at the next council meeting. We'll be having a bond sale for the 7.2 million. We spend it. We We did it in half. So, we did

No, it's in No, it's included. That was included. I would have to look, but I would say just based on what we have this year for to be able to get Maplewood done to be able to get John Hawk and be able to get part um that really takes up the line share of the road bond money. I'm sorry. Can you guys not hear? You know what?

Okay. They just have a hard time hearing you. Gotcha. Okay, I'll keep going. Um question about the budget for um community development. It says $42,000 for sick leave payoff and vacation payoff. Why is that so much for one person? Uh they're retiring, but we're paying them half their salary in sick leave and pay and vacation. We cash out banks based on a contractual obligation.

We have a contract that says we pay half their salary in sick leave and vacation pay when they leave. when they leave, you accumulate over the course of your time um banks that you're paid out at the end of your career. So, you don't use them, you save them, paid out the end. Maybe we need to talk about that for contracts because that seems like if you leave, you get half your pay in sick leave. That's a lot. Okay. Um then just question, I see uh Zach is out here. Our contractual services, I know last year it was up and then it went back down. So, what's the difference? Like last year we projected Well, this year it's projecting about 69,000 and now it's back down to 43. Where are we saving that money at?

Um, you know, I can get an answer for you. I don't have that. Okay, that's fine. I'm sorry. I thought he was sitting right there. Um, I It's good that we're saving money. Um, and then the uh treasurer department salaries went up about uh $50,000. Did we add uh staff to that? Went from 338 to 382. We just add staff. It's page uh 10 of 40. So this year projected is 338 and for next year it's well actually we budgeted the previous year 428 right but it says projected for this year 338

338. Yeah we had a part of the year where um you know don't believe our staffing was at the full level in the treasurer department. Well, no, but if you go back to 2526, it was 156 then. Yeah, some of these questions I'll have to, you know, if you're asking for specific details on each department, I'll Okay. But it is a reduction from the 2526 amended budget. Oh, I would guess that we had an overlap of Well, but that's what I was asking. Yes, actually that's what it was. I can tell you right now because now I not the 428 going down to the 382 is mostly related to um we were in we had treasurers overlapping one leaving. Okay. One.

Okay. And then um does our budget include getting two more employees for DPS? Yes. Um and then I know you talked about this already, but when I do the math it just doesn't work out. Our police have over a half a million dollars in overtime. How does that not equate to hiring another police officer? Even one. It it doesn't cost $575,000 to hire one more police officer. No, but you won't see the reduction in overtime you think you'd see.

Okay. What if it's two people? I mean, they're average they're making about 90,000 when they're coming in new or if we get someone with a little bit experience. So, I know it's like 90, but then it's really 220 with you know with benefits and everything like that. So, we talk about how many guys are uh you know on a shift and we're it seems like that's low. When we talk about how many people are actually out there when we talk to the policemen they say they feel like they need more guys. So, I just don't understand how paying almost 600,000 in overtime that doesn't equate to hiring someone else and that overtime goes down. Uh

having looked at it over almost forever. Um, overtime in law enforcement is unpredictable and occurs at a pace that even when you have the most staffing, you'll still spend a lot. Some of it is where you're filling the schedules, but the the risk of hiring more and still paying out the overtime is real and likely. Um, I've I've done this exercise. You just said it was unlikely of hiring more. Real and likely that we would spend almost the same amount of overtime. Maybe you would see a 50 $60,000 reduction, but it was not anywhere close to dollar for dollar. Probably not even 50%. Okay. But we might save $60,000. Is that what you We would No, we would know we would actually pay more and still have to pay

half in overtime. Okay. I This is one area I I I could say I I I've explored this. Trust me, these are the these are the things I examined when I first became chief and attempted to to do, but the reality is you end up um spending a ton in overtime anyways. Um, and you you do have some more personnel, but the reality of a one for one or and even close is is just Well, I will say that my opinion and I would say most residents opinion is that the police department is probably our most important department. No offense, Brad. I think you guys are great, too. But, uh, and Randy, he's not even listening. So, um, I'm just saying if we're spending all that money in overtime, I would like to see just the numbers that you're talking about. Sure. Compared to not hiring somebody else. Yeah. And I

and when we look at the shifts and stuff like that, I'm just I'm just really worried that we need more police out there. So, and I you are also looking at um salaries and stuff, but it's the benefits. It's the benefit cost. That's why I said I understand it's more there's a lot that comes with the hiring that one officer versus I just need to pay you an hourly rate to be here. Um it just is. And I don't know. I mean, I'm sure people will accuse the city manager of not wanting this, but there's not many people who want more police officers than I do. I know the effect of a more police officer.

I do. It reduces crime. For every officer you every 3% you increase an officer in in a in a city, you're going to reduce crime by about 3%. It is just one of those things that works out great. But this is where we hit the wall on fiscal reality. Like we have to uh make sure that we don't get ourselves in a position where we hire the officers, but then we have to reduce another service or we we can't pay. So I do know that the amount of overtime we budgeted is it seems high. But the cost of adding the more officers would would reduce would not would not make our budget any better. And I oh trust me I wish I

get it. I ask this question every year. I just feel that when it comes to police and fire and DPS if we have to make cuts somewhere else and we have to make cuts somewhere else because those are the main things that we need as a city. What I can say is as a city and over the last uh number of years we have trended down and I'm encouraging the police chief and he does and I did so when I was police chief is to find creative ways to bring officers on in a cost effective manner and we'll continue to do that put an officer in traffic enforcement because we felt like there was a connection between crime and traffic safety and we found out that there was and we reduced and that officer because he was enforcing traffic safety greatly reduced the cost of his position there. So we'll find those opportunities. We'll get officers back out at the DEA which is paying for our cars, right? Cuz I know we don't have anybody there right now.

That is in my mind the best way to look at how can we go forward is we find this outside source of revenue that helps offset the cost of that officer versus looking internally because we've had a long history of overtime in this town and I've been here that's what I'm saying. So maybe it's time to try something new if it's a long history of half a million.

Well, no. I I they've tried the reduction in overtime thing. that doesn't necessarily happen, but we have tried successfully as we've added bodies by identifying outside revenue sources and we'll continue to do that. But there is a certain risk that goes with that and you have to be able to hire the bodies to do it and you've got to maintain a salary and benefits that's competitive enough to bring those officers in. So it's always a a pull on both sides. We've got to keep them well paid and well benefits enough, but because we have to, they're cheaper all the time. So, it's it's a little bit of a trick of a game you've got to play to to get the right balance. I think right now we have the best balance we can this going forward this year, but trust me, um adding more police officers in the city of Garden City is something

Okay. Yeah. I'm just worried about the theory of getting more with less when it comes to the police department. I don't want to get more for less. I want enough guys to be out there. You know what I mean? Yes. I No, I I know. And I've Something to put in the back of your mind. I've lived at a time where there was 48 police officers when I first started down to when there was 28 of us working and my goal is to never go back down to the to the

I mean because our overtime has has gone down um for uh well not gone down for the fire department but actually gone up at a slower rate the last five years because we did get more guys. So, um, something else that you just mentioned that you that I wanted you to talk about a little bit more. Sorry, there's 200 pages of this. Um, Zach's not back in here. No. Um, can you uh comment about how Ragcliffe is doing financially like uh if we're taking in more money so things are are getting better because our residents still think that you know we're paying for every ounce of Radcliffe when we're not and you know it started out with the same theory of oh we don't have to pay anything for Radcliffe. We know we have to pay for Ragcliffe but where are we when it comes to how much we're putting out for that? So the best example is looking back a couple years, two years to where we were paying we anticipated um expenditures above revenues of around 600,000. Um this year our budget and I think conservatively anticipates using 350,000 above revenues. Um cut that in about half. But if you looked at March of this year, we were actually we had brought in more than we'd paid out. Um that is because we got some funding a little more closer up front. But we've done a tremendous job at changing the course of the financial impact of Radcliffe on Garden City. I am a believer that and sad and you know for for good for good reason but also sad is that tends to be if you don't have a parks and wreck that has a high cost recovery which means I'm recovering a lot more of money I'm spending that when bad times come that's the first thing to go. So you have to build a parks and recck department or community center that um really focuses on cost recovery but you still have to make all of those programs available to our residents in a very discounted price. So I think that's

what's occurring there. Um we're we're we're doing a good job. The the uh the hours are full. Every hour that we are open, we are using we have programming there. We have people there. We're doing tutoring. We're doing a lot of amazing things, but it's at a very very reasonable cost compared to where we were. Our expenditures were through the roof when I took over. Um it was a very hard push um to get to where we are today, but we've made made a kind of I think a turn the corner. I can't say that we won't have to pay something for Radcliffe always, but the value the value um will be commensurate with the service. So, we have greatly reduced the expense there and I could say it's heading in nothing but the right trend and um kudos to Zach who takes an sort of an entrepreneurial approach to it as I'm looking for which is hey, how can I provide a very highly discounted service at an appropriate cost for the taxpayer at the Redcliff Center? And um we're working on the concession stand uh in the ball fields at City Park. We're trying to think of all the ways we can offer a service that helps pay for more of a better service.

I say a few of those services are taking in a lot more and helping pay for other services we don't make a lot of money on. Yes, that's it. Um and then uh did we find out if we're getting the um any rebate for the lighting and stuff over there? They are working on the lighting. I can't give you the numbers, but I know they're pretty confident they're going to get um benefits back from DTE for all the energy improvements we've done over there. And um Oh, for the HVAC, right? Yeah. For the HVAC and that they're they're looking pretty hard at recouping those costs. Okay. And then uh a lot of residents ask this when you look at a revenues, it says miscellaneous revenue for 312,000. I ask this every year. Can you tell everybody what that is?

Um from the miscellaneous revenue parts, I I'm going to have to flip over to I think it's 660 is the account. um interest uh well not interest no interest is separated but the rest of it so if you pull away um from account 660 I believe are miss Mike is on uh the 660 is um pulls pull away the interest and you'll see um a numerous revenues but I'll have to if the treasur are you uh familiar with miscellaneous

exactly comprises. Yeah. I don't want to misquote anything. I believe I have a good idea, but I don't want to um misquote. Okay. And then I ask this every year and I'll ask it again. Um how the garbage and how we pay per person and it goes by the value of our property. So I pay more for garbage than my neighbor. That still bugs the crap out of me. So, can we not do that a different way or does it have to be that way? Um, I'd have to look into it. Okay. Because it goes by the value of your property. So, if your house is worth more, you pay more for garbage. But it doesn't make any sense to me. Um, let's see. I just have one more thing.

A lot of people are asking about uh Maplewood going forward. So, um, you know, the revenue that we're bringing in from it is still good. Yes. Um but then you know what we're spending on it. So it's really it's really not that you know $50,000 or something like that. Yeah. And even that's a little deceptive I'd say when not deceptive in the sense that um it's not true. It's true that we bring in more money than we're paying for Maplewood right now. But there is an aging old school building that will need uh a lot of work

and a lot of work. So, um, you know, when you put in how much it costs for roofs and HVAC system and any, uh, type of remediation that may have to occur there, uh, it doesn't start to balance out. So, one, my goal on putting Vaplewood separate from other parts of the budget is to start really looking at that pretty hard and to see like right now we have renters. Um, they are, um, they are, we at least have one until 2027 or 2030. We have another in there. Uh, the library we're negotiating a lease for with right now. Um, so we're we're looking at short-term and long-term. And part of my consideration is I believe what will come up soon is the ability to get lowinterest loans to do things like HVAC repairs and things like that. So, do we make the choice to invest in the building or are we just waiting for our renters to stop using the facility and move on and then do something different with the building? And I don't think that's it's like one of the Blue Cross Blue Shield. not a super easy because right now we do if we found a lowcost grant or uh loan to bring the building up to a good place where our maintenance cost and our long-term capital costs aren't bad. Well, then maybe that's worth it because we can rent it out to who renting it now or maybe someone else. But at the same time, that's contingent upon some other things like renters and getting those loans and getting those grants. Meanwhile, the building still needs those repairs. So,

we could use it for something else. We could use it for something else. And I and I think that's a it's it's a discussion with an objective look that requires some investigation and and to understand our opportunities. That is something we are examining and we will as those come up. I know um Eagle uh I was reading has some um energy enhancement lowcost loans that they're looking at and things like that. So there's some things I'll be bringing to council at least just to discuss as a way we way way forward. But for right now in our budget, we pulled Maplewood out. I want you to see how much it costs us, how much we're bringing in. But always when you see that number, think about but yeah, roof like at your house your roof, Hback, um, anything else that might go wrong, electrical, because this is the first year it's been separate because it's been under parks and recommend.

It's been tucked into a couple different budgets and I didn't like that the true costs weren't outfront. Um, we make good decisions when we can see the problem or see the good thing. Um, without being able to visualize it, it's hard to understand when we talk about it. So, okay, it's out. And then the last thing, um, our budget for mayor and council, of course, some people just glance at that and think that the mayor and council, you know, $233,000. Can you just explain that to everybody so they understand? I thought we talked about last year about moving that to a separate thing, too. So, it's just because what's included in our budget is not really has anything to do with us,

right? Yeah. There's things um such as the city attorney costs are included under you guys because you are the employer of the city attorney, right? I am not the city attorney does not work for me. It works for city council. So city council pays out of your budget for the city attorney. Um so the city attorney costs um any any type of training or other things not just for but for boards and well not for boards and commission because they have their own account but um it's it's not simply um 233,000 for council. In fact really when you look at it divided by the seven it's 58,000 salary wages. arrest is well social security and all the things those are mandated pays um but legal services court cases meeting conferences workshops what are the court cases

um court cases it's all related to prosecution um and general counsel so we can't put that in the court account um you know I think just explaining it helps it's it's it's in the mayor and council um area it it's it's sat there forever um I think it's an appropriate place for It just it's important. Yeah. As you're doing right now is explained. This isn't council making 233,000. It is all of the services for council that are necessary. Uh our city attorney is very important. Our prosecution at local court very important and some things that we're going to be years that we do more stuff with our city attorney like make all new ordinances, all that kind of stuff, that fee is going to go up because we're going to be using the attorney market.

Those costs will increase. And as we right now currently are just collecting our requests for uh our current city attorney is contemplating retiring this summer. We're seeking another. So we will probably see an increased cost in the hourly rate of our city attorney just because the nature of everything. We had a you know we have a very good price on our attorney. I don't expect it to be too much but I do understand that costs do go up. So there'll be some costs in the future that we have to attribute to that. Okay. And this is my very last question. So the family resource center, you know, it says expenditures is a million, but isn't all of that covered under their grants and everything?

Yes. Yeah. Family resource center um is at worst a break even at uh at best um a what they do is they can reimburse us for certain services we provide that relate to them such as law enforcement services and stuff and actually so they contribute to some of the presence of the law enforcement officers in our community dealing with our youth. So they uh they reimburse us for what we're doing to provide um services as well. So it's it's it's an overall benefit. There's no uh general fund money going towards that that isn't paid for reimbured by a grant. Okay, that's all I got right now. Sorry it was so long. That's okay. Anyone else got any questions or discussion on the budget overview from council?

Mayor Prom Dold. member do um inel Stacy covered 150% so she hit almost all of my questions and just through talking it just a couple popped up more and this doesn't really concern this year's budget but our blight court the uh our expenditure for hiring that attorney and also the revenue that will come in from that where is that going to be in the budget

it it it we haven't been able to predict out those numbers. I do believe going into we'll we'll couch it under the police department budget in the beginning. Likely come back with an amendment mid year once we not even mid year but once we understand those true costs. Um I don't anticipate they'll be such that we can't weather it early and then amend the budget to identify them. I don't I I have a believer that most of those costs will be covered by the activity of the court. So we'll be able to put a revenue line in that's similar to the um cost. Um but at this point in time we're just so we just passed that ordinance and the pro process of building it. I'd hate to provide a number um that is inaccurate. Yeah. And I'm not looking for a number. I was just curious when we were when we were speaking about it was going to sit.

U myself um and the police department are actively investigating the costs surrounding it, the needs and the things we haven't thought of cover all our bases before we submit. But that'll happen, you know, probably early next year on a budget. Can you explain that one more time for because everyone's asking about the blade court? Oh,

of course. Um, so right now we are seeking to hire an administrative hearing officer. You know, it is the administrative hearing bureau blight court. Um, and it requires a licensed attorney in Michigan with a certain amount of bite court training which attorneys can get. It exists out there. um and then act as our blight court sort of judge, hearing officer and we will um bring cases in front of them where we find blight through the community and the person denies responsibility or seeks a hearing. That hearing officer will be able to order fines, costs, and abatement. Instead of going to our court, we handle it.

21st District Court, they'll go straight to the when they're blight related offenses. It's a expediated process to dealing with blood as everyone recognizes and we do in the enforcement side is that um the courts have a certain series of processes that are required that sometimes can mean um you'll have a issue of blight go for a whole year before it's finally adjudicated. Blight courts are are permitted by Michigan law with the idea of speeding up that but still offering due process and a proper court procedure to expediate the uh the resolution of blight in community because state law recognizes that when you mix all of those procedures together, blight gets mixed in with a lot of other court proceedings that uh doesn't offer much uh resolution.

Thank you. Sorry, Kim. Okay, good to let everybody know that again. Absolutely. And and again, not necessarily right to the budget, but when you're speaking about looking at Gallagher's looking at um other health insurance for us, is that something that will have to be negotiated with those contracts? Yeah, depending on change,

depending on, you know, some things as long as we're providing the service that's described in the contract, we we can do a lot. Um so, it just depends on what they come back with and then we take what they come back with and we line it up with contracts. Um but uh you know I I confident that we can do something over the next two years. Um some of it might just be our claims history goes low. We've got another great number next year and we realize the benefit of that. So anything the other thing you were speaking earlier about the wider rate study? Yes. There there's been some chatter among the residents. Is that something that's on our website now or can it be added to our website so people can go on and look at when we made this last change?

Yes. So, um, one, I would recommend just looking back to our meetings, um, when we did pass those rates if you want to tonight. You can go find that and all of those hearings we had in relation to the water rates, um, over numerous night numerous days last year and during that budget process. Um, but I have no problem placing the plant moran um, that presentation with the water rates on our website if that helps inform anyone. Absolutely, no problem. I think it's a good idea. Thank you. That's all right now. Anyone else? Mayor Pro. Wait.

So, uh, two questions that I have. The first one is on your three-year budget history page on your slideshow. Um, I just want to make sure that it might have just been a typo, but between the proposed budget on your slideshow versus the numbers on the actual general fund 101 are different numbers. I just wanted to make sure that it wasn't Are you in position of a black and white or is there green on that sheet you're holding? Mine is black and white. Black and white. Okay. I'd have to look. I I I can I can get you a good answer for that. I I looked at them. I believe they're if they're off, they're very consistent with it's like $2,900. Okay.

Between the total expenditures and then the the fund balance amount equals out to that same I believe $2,916. So I think it was just a typo that it might be. Yeah. If if it's $2,900 off on a Yeah. on the 30 million. Yeah. I I'll take the typo. I'm a numbers guy, so that's why. Um the other thing um so recently we allowed Ripple fiber. Now previous years we've obviously gotten peg fees through Comcast WOW to allow them to have exclusive internet access in the city.

Have we seen a decrease and this doesn't need to be an answer tonight but have we seen a decrease in the PEG fees coming in from those web service providers? and is Ripple getting away from doing the peg fees and how we put them in place to allow them to have use. Um, I know it's a big question. Yeah, I can I can get back to you, but I can give you off the top of my head answer, which is I believe that those are going down and I don't I believe there's a mechanism that some of these companies are avoiding. I can't speak to any particular one, but I do believe there's some technology or telecommunications companies that are avoiding the requirement to pay the PEG fees based on the nature of their service. So, but I can get you a better answer for sure.

That's one of the main things I was concerned with cuz I know it was I want to say closer to 300,000 within the last half decade or so. And then I I see the number as it keeps going down in the communications revenues. So, yep. That's why I just wanted to see what was uh what was happening with it and what kind of explanation comes with it as well. Yeah, as we've switched to new technologies, they found creative ways to not have to pay those fees to the That's all I have. Council member King,

thanks. Um, this is not really a question, more of a statement, I guess. Um, I think back at the goal setting meeting, I was, you know, optimistic we could return some staff, um, accomplish, uh, some CIP projects, but now that, you know, see the budget and, as you already mentioned, the healthcare, um, I kind of look at this budget, I find this budget, you know, not strong, um, not structurally strong. And what I mean by that is we have to use a fund balance of almost a half a million really just to cover our operational costs. You know, if we had it's one thing I guess to use a fund balance if we actually have some CIP projects in there to me that that's a little more of a structurally strong budget. But you know looking at this budget it's a half a million that's just covering operational costs. I understand it sounds like where the health care costs as they kind of level out we will will be there eventually but um yeah just not there yet.

Mayor Broen, Council Member Hughes, thank you. Um we discussed um we were we met the other day um combining municipalities possibly for lowering our health core health health costs something we're still going to be looking into.

Absolutely. One of the things uh I'm attending a uh a sort of a get together conference on you know spitballing ways to uh lower your health care costs by creating greater pools of individuals that you know what is possible takes a lot but it's definitely what we're exploring um how we can deliver this and if there's different ways to do something we used to do a certain way we'll be exploring it over the next few months reducing risk that's what gets you better insurance rates. Yep. That's the truth.

And then the other thing is if you can touch base um about the the police department hiring and things like that and the uh emphasis on I believe we're hiring two new DEA or we have a couple people lined up possibly for is that no officers within the budget. Um I know there's at least one um position that we'd like to get back there. You know, I'd let the I'll let the chief of police actually and then obviously the benefits for Well, we're not hiring. someone. It's one of our guys that are here now that are going to the DEA. Okay. That that was the question. We're not hiring someone new to go in the DA. It's one of our guys right now. Yeah. It would come from people that are already currently employed with us.

Okay. All right. Within the budgeted amount that we have, right? Yeah. Yeah. We would be adding an officer for the position. Okay. I was thinking just moving into that area. Okay. And then if you can, you know, um, maybe touch on where we're at with hiring and people are in, you know, still in training and what, you know, where we're going to be throughout the year. Sure. We have, I know we've touched, we talked about it before, but

we have budgeted for 33 police officers. Three of those police officers are currently in the police academy. So, we have 30 police officers from the chief down actively sworn. Nobody currently is on field training. So, everybody is out there on patrol solo. So, we're at 30. I don't think anybody's off on medical right now with three that are soon to graduate from the academy. So, they spent the last four months at the academy going through all the training. They'll come out, get sworn in. They'll then spend four months on the field training program within Garden City. And after cleaning those four months, they'll be certified to be solo patrol officers. They'll still have to complete a year's probation with us before they'll actually be considered a senior patrol officer.

The long process

extremely. And then currently we just had interviews to hire we were hoping to hire three because of some attrition that we're having, but we're able to hire two who are going to need the academy. So, as long as they pass our in-house background inspection, we hope to get them into an academy, which again will take them four months to get through. They'll come out, be able to be sworn as officers, do four months of field training. And these are really just to hire people that we understand are probably going to be leaving us in the next year or so. So, they're just replacement bodies. So, even though we might bounce up to 34, 35 on the books for that short time, we're still going to balance out at 33 patrol officers or police officers from top to bottom. So, it's just trying to get ahead of the curve so that planning ahead of time that we know somebody's going to leave, we can have somebody ready to jump into that spot versus currently somebody leaves and then we go out and hire and it's a lot longer process. We're trying to make it a little bit faster and quicker and more efficient. That's really something we're kind of permitting to occur during the course of a budget year in order to avoid some of that overtime and to keep those bodies high higher numbers because if you wait till they leave like the chief said you're a year away from them actually replacing the body. So then you're always constantly chasing. So some attrition we're going to address that by trying to get ahead of the curve.

Thank you. I just wanted, you know, people have understanding of the process that goes into this and it's not just a matter of just, oh, snap, we can hire somebody. We all wish that it was. Yeah. Thank you, Mayor Mayor Promp. I'm sorry. I have a question about what um Councilwoman Hughes just said and when she started talking, she talked about combining municipalities and I think a lot of people listening or maybe not, they heard just that part of it. She just means for our uh insurance plans. Yes. So um I know what you meant, but people listening that can't hear well may not think that's what you were talking about.

Allow me to to clarify that specifically. Um so we are uh you know just exploring the lower costs come from a larger pool of people. That way your healthier people are paying for those that um you know it's sort of like across the board. So if a municipality, some municipalities come together and form one pool in order to go out and buy health insurance. They're not mixing, you know, a school district might be with Oak Park or I'm making off the top of my head, but you you might put them together so that you have more people across the board to lower the cost. And where that works, you you know definitely help. Not always, but it's definitely worth exploring. So no combination of municipalities on any type of actual governmental level. Just we share the risk of the

share the risk. I just wanted that to be clear so everybody heard on the microphone. Hey, any other questions in the budget review?

Seeing none, we'll move on to our second item for consideration, which is the discussion on the street lighting special assessment. City Manager Gibbons, could you give us a brief overview? um largely just uh you know this discussion I think should occur yearly until um 2028 because it requires a vote in order to um do anything with the city lighting assessment. We did so in 2024 um and then it was kept last year. Um so council must vote annually if you do not wish to collect the uh lighting assessment ordinance. That's a council driven decision. Um my only uh goal tonight is you know most of it's a rehash. Um last year there was a lot of questions as to could we um can you are you allowed to pay for the electricity cost of the lights and things like that. We we dived a attorney opinion and we looked back at the documentation and the ordinances used to to allow the assessment. They stated that the attorney's opinion and it seems to be common practice that yes, electricity is fine to pay for with the lighting assessment. Um it is through the the home rule improvement in a home rule of city act. Uh MCL 11174D allows for special assessments for public improvement. U providing electricity is essential for maintaining the function and value of the street lights. Improvement includes activities that sustain infrastructure and use benefits. So um it's allowable um and it's allowable in our charter garden city charter and article 8 allows for special assessments. Um improvement is not limited to adding a new infrastructure. Use of assessment for electricity cost aligns fully with the ordinance authority. This is part of uh attorney Kevin Bett's opinion comparison to other communities. Our 5-year assessment is $39.98 per year per uh residents. Uh Wayne, Westland, Leavonia, and others levy similar or

higher assessments. Example, City of Wayne charges $7563 per residential parcel. Some cities assess only homes with lights. Others spread cost citywide. We spread it citywide. Um this year's budget, the impact uh the electricity for street lighting costs increased from 479,000 to 650 over two years. Without the assessment, the general fund burden rose from 120,000 to over 650 in the 2425 budget. Cost of street lighting in 2627 is still around 650,000. Um but there is some good news. We've been approved for two grants to change our system to nearly all LED lights. One of them took place this year. The next will take place in 2028. Uh the grant has been partially completed. 518,000 or five, sorry, 518, yeah, 518 street lights have been converted from LED. It says in the northern section of town, but it's so sporadic, it's really all over. Um not the this is a map provided by DTE. Not the most clear, but here this is a little simpler. In the areas with the X, they've upgraded certain lights. 518 70W um lights were converted to 58 watt LED lights. The 2028 grant will cover the remaining conversions on all wattage types and um you know just council must vote annually if choosing not to collect until 2028. Budget will be adjusted based on council's decision during this budget adoption with the street light assessment. The proposed budget you with with it included the collection of the street light we spend $468,950 $950 of the general fund balance. without it, we will utilize $818,953 of the general fund to balance and I just open up the rest of council to discuss.

Uh, Mayor Potam, Councilman King, um, just a clarification, I know you had mentioned um, we have a grant to flip out the lights and it will bring that cost down. Just I think some people get the interpretation it brings the cost down significantly. Uh, last year it was great because it's paid by a grant. It's worth it. However, I think we replaced a couple hundred lights uh last year and it brought it down by eight grand. Yeah. Um it's a savings. Yes. Um and it's good because the grant's paying for it. If we were to pay for that, it would be a horrible return on our money. Yeah. No return on investment on replacing it for the cost for the $100,000, it would take us, you know, over 10 years. Exactly.

But it's it's been a nice bonus um for DTE to pay it and then Eagle will get the second one. Right. Yep. Thanks, Mayor Promp. Okay, you knew I was going to talk about this. So, the statement that you read about it's allowable, we know that it's allowable,

but when you define a a special assessment, it's something, you know, it's fees or taxes that are, you know, levied against property owners um that will directly benefit from it. That's one of the statements in our charter that they benefit from it. So them, so you're saying it's allowable and you're saying that it's paying the bill, but then we turn around and talk about, oh well, we're replacing the lights. It's either one or the other. It's either it's for the bill or it's for the lights. And you can't say we're saving money by doing it because we're not doing it for that. We're just paying the bill for it. So to to use both those things in the same sentence doesn't make any sense to me. Either we're using it for the bill or we're using it for the they get the the lights change. We they've been paying it for 14 years now. It's about 52% of the bill that the residents pay because they're paying about $350,000, right? And then the general fund pays about 655. So So that's where you came up with your number of over 800,000 if we don't do it. But right now we have our residents have a millage for police, they have a millage for fire, we increase their water and their pee in the light bill. I just feel like that's a lot. Well, the school doesn't have anything to do with the city, but um I just I just feel like that's a lot. I think that all that time that we didn't vote on it, and that's not when you were here. I understand that. But it went for 10 years and it never got voted on every year. So now we're back to it again. We need to vote on it every year. So when we're voting on that, is that at the general meeting?

Yes. I I would vote it uh during the course of the passage of the budget if you want to decide. Well, that wouldn't make sense because if we don't pass it, then you need to refigure the budget, right?

Well, no. The budget's already figured. If you take $350,000 worth of revenue away, I add that to that 468,000 and then we did 800 and some thousand use of fund balance will be projected for the following year. Um, but what I'll say is, um, you know, certainly residents have to pay more in unique things. And the reason communities have to seek out lighting assessments, public safety mill, road bonds is this slide right here. our general fund tax revenue increased by 562,000 without Headedley. It's about 300 and some thousand that the tax taxable value went up that we can't rec recuperate. So we the cities have to go out and find unique ways to balance the books. I it's not a fun way. It's not fun to have to have a lighting assessment but and it's ultimately up to council and the residents. I I don't want to take anything from that. But as I always try and do um there's an action that's reasonable, but there's also a consequence of that action. And that consequence is we're a little less fiscally sound. Um there's they allow assessments for us to keep the lights on in the community.

It is an improvement on the property. It is something you can do. Um I wasn't here for the I was here as a police officer for the passage of the lighting assessment. I did look back at all the language uh used and I was able to look back at messages uh and memos from um Chief Bob Murray from um McClary. There was reference to paying for electricity in those. I can't speak to what was said publicly and I can't speak to what was said in uh conversations, but I I don't mean with Bob. I mean the administrator after him. Yeah. Yep. I understand.

It was said that it was supposed to pay for lighting. We we asked about it at numerous meetings, me personally, and said, "How many lights do we do?" Nobody even knew how many lights we had. Nobody kept track of how many lights they changed before you got here. Nobody had those answers. But all our residents thought that was for lighting. It was four to get the lights change out. Nobody in the city thought that they were just paying their light bill. Mayor Tim,

thank you. Um I too it was I when I was voting for it, I thought I was voting for improvement, getting new lights on the streets. And honestly, I wouldn't have voted for it any other way if if I knew it was just going to pay the light bill. It's just my me personally. And um and like you said, it should have been voted on every year, you know, whether we were going to continue or not. So, I'm glad we're bringing it up again. Any other questions on the street lighting special assessment? Seeing none, we'll move on to public comments. Anyone wishing to speak, we'll have three minutes to comment. Please remember, this is not a time to go back and forth with questions and answers for council. If you have any questions, please leave your name and contact information on the public comment sheet and give it to the city clerk. He will provide them to city manager and follow up.

Nobody's going to speak. Well, he's got to call up. He's got one sheet right here. So, if you want to call up Mike Jones.

Alliance. Mike Jones. talk without the sheathing. Uh Mike Jones, Garden City Lions. Garden City Lions Club was founded in 1954 and they're proud of 70 years of service to the community. However, our membership numbers have been dwindling and the club is on the precipice of closing. We are in need of new members to continue our long-standing legacy of service to the Garden City community. This is your chance to get involved. Lions clubs are men and women who join together in fellowship to serve mankind in a way they could never do as individuals. The Garden City Lions Club is focused on helping the blind and visually impaired, the deaf and heart of he hearing special needs children in the community at large. We serve where there's a need, there's a lion. Make a difference. If you have interest in serving your community as a Garden City Lion, please contact Lion Stan at Stanley. That's s t a n l e y z zakata s z c z z o t ka atgmail.com before April 21st 20 2026 for information on how to get involved. I also have a couple of uh community events to to mention. We have uh the Garden City Theater program is coming up with their

presentation of Frozen on April 24th, 25th, and 26. They have reserve seating. It's $16 for adults, $14 for students, military, and seniors at the door. Uh it's $18 per person. Also, there's a Mother's Day lunch at Radcliffe on May 7th Thursday at 12:00 p.m. Time to celebrate motherhood with an amazing lunch with tea and coffee served by Garden City Police and Fire. 50/50 raffles, entertainment, prizes, and more. So, you're all invited to uh come out for that. I believe the uh the cost is $20 for that for Garden City residents. That's all.

Come up.

Thanks. I have some notes on my phone, too. Just trying to since we just left lighting, I'll start there. Um, per your section 8.06 special assessment accounts, monies raised by special assessments to pay the cost of any local improvement shall be held in a special fund to pay such cost or to repay any money borrowed thereof. Each special assessment account must be used only for the improvement project for which the assessment was levied. So I think that we have a different understanding of what that money is for because this is from our charter.

I have a question.

Okay. All right. That's comment then. Um the other thing is the current financial info for the water balance, the DTE balance and lighting. Uh I was not able to find it online. So I'd like to know where to find it. Uh it should be publicly available. Um, and I believe that a finance director would uh help for oversight since we seem to need it need it very much in this city. Um, and then I have another question if anybody's taking notes for me here. Uh, do employees pay into their health insurance and how many retirees are receiving health insurance? And the last one is um we had 15 million for each of two road bonds that is supposed to go through 2028. And I know that you said that it was all done and over with. So that sounds like we're still paying, but where's that money going? And lastly, back to my phone. Um well last I guess you couldn't have voted on it because um it wasn't up for vote. It was up to the city council to either pass it or not pass it the lighting assessment.

She meant her vote last year as a council member. Oh, thank you. And that's it. I I hope I get answers to my question. Anyone else would like to make comments?

You know, I hear what you say and I understand what you're talking about everything going up, but come out here where I'm at. I'm retired. I got a little raise on social security. The first thing they did was take another $17 for Medicare plus everything else I got going up, too. So, I understand where you're coming from. This is what I don't like, the property tax, and politicians love it. You're going to get a raise from me every year no matter what happens because you're going to raise my property value no matter whether it goes up that much or not and you got the biggest majority of people in Garden City retired there don't want to go nowhere but time is coming when that going to change so that's one reason and the lighting thing I don't care where you spent the money if it's a more fair way to assess it then you do everybody wants to do millillage and that's why everybody politicians state county local. That's why they all want to do the millillage. It's a guaranteed raise every year. Remember when everything crashed, I got a $3 decrease one year and it went right back up the next year because thankfully for Headley and I'll fight you every day over that one. Thankful for them. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be in Garden City because my property tax would be more than double right now. I don't know. It's just you you got to understand the people biggest majority of people in Garden City are retired and they're not going to take no deductions for no $35 lighting because you can't you get 11 13,500 now standard deduction if you don't go above that. You're not getting no more. That's it. I'm just uh and the hospital over there. Somebody got to do something with them people. I don't know what the problem is with them and the police department, not ours right off the bat. But when I get six and seven police cars coming in with an ambulance two and three times a week, uh, I like to sleep a little bit every now and then.

It's kind of hard and we can't hear y'all back there. I moved to up here. I figured I'm going to take 50/50. The B says my year is 50%. But 50%'s got to be with this system you got because I'm sitting there and I still can't hear you. Thank you, sir. Anybody else have public comments?

I just don't get it. I mean, you guys always say, "Oh, it's just $30 a year or whatever." But it's never taking away the $30. It's always adding, adding, adding. Now you're talking about another road bond. people can't afford all this and like Stacy said, we were paying for it for 14 years believing it was something it wasn't. So that should take be taken into consideration when the decision is made to pass this yet again.

Thank you. Anyone else have any public comments time? Anybody else have public comments? Seeing none with no other items on the agenda, I declare this meeting adjourned.