Common Council - workshop

as exhibits instead of in the main body of the public-facing budget. You won't have all the details. I started auditing the city banking whole time. I did that for 20 years or so, and then I moved out of auditing and into consulting. So I've been doing that here for a few years. and in other municipalities throughout the state.

Bill Meyer, the fourth councillor.

Laura Lockback, third ward.

Chance Kennedy, first ward councillor. Jonathan Asline, second ward.

Jonathan Skibbit, fourth ward councillor. Tim Plonken, sixth ward councillor.

Shane Thompson, seventh ward.

Paul Pizzone, fire chief. I did ask for clarity on two questions what were the estimated sales tax used within the formation of

as being one of other significant revenues. So what would be the number that was used? And the second, as it relates to AIM and PMA for the proposed budget, what are the amounts used for both of those?

Okay. Do you want to take this, Rob? You want me to do it? Oh, go ahead. No, you've got the numbers right there. All right. So the sales tax is in the general fund revenue section. We used 24 million. The 26th budget was $22 million. What was it? $24 million.

That was for 2024? For 26, the budget was $22,129,000.

So that's an increase of $1,870,000. And I'm going to round up as much as possible.

Are you comfortable with what you're feeling on trending for sales tax?

We used trends when we were talking about the revenues.

Because the most recent of the adjusted trends showed we closed 2025 at 23,140,000. But things are- We closed 2025 at 23,140, and year to date we're tracking 9% higher over last year. Just an observation. I just wanted to raise a question.

I've got to tell you, I didn't make any management decisions in this area.

I'm just asking. I wanted to know the source of the information that we used. The trend is stronger than what we are using.

I provided the trends of actual 24, actual 25. and budgeted 26. And conservative estimates were made based on those numbers.

I can chime in there and I'm the one that made that decision. And you've got the same chart that I have and I based it on the fact that through six months of this year, which is January through July, we were at essentially $13 million, $12.9 million. And I know from all my experience, 11 years, that the remainder of the year is actually, I used the numbers for the last couple years. the last half of the last couple of years. And I extrapolated that and I came up with a number, a realistic number of about $25 million. If you add in the average of what we did for previous six months, last six months of the year. So I felt that if We have a good shot at 25 million, putting 24 million in the budget was still a conservative number. Okay, I guess I'm not arguing that.

So that collectively we know what makes up revenue. I think it's clear that when we talk about levy, sales tax is a significant portion of how we keep the city running and projections and trending. Being conservative is not fiscally wrong. I don't argue that. I think it's better than being too aggressive and too overconfident. Second question is, is AMI and TMA, what do we use for those?

So that is in Revenue Code 3001. And the total of those is $2,736,393. So we basically use the same number as realized in 2025. Now the 2026 number is going to be about $500,000 higher. Yes, we got a notice about $500,000. That was a little bit of a surprise. But it's based on... the excess of sharing after the state does their allocation. It's actually in the title of it called temporary. So I don't know how the politics is gonna play into this particular revenue source. If there's a change in Albany, will that affect that? I don't know. So it seemed like it made more sense to have it reflect what happened in reality in 25 than what we're hoping will happen again in 27 based on 26.

But we do have, and certainly our local senator is chair of the city's committee, and delivering an additional $520,000 to our budget now. That's in 26. Well, we just got it. The checks were just issued in the last two weeks.

Yes.

So that wouldn't go to our current budget. That would go to our proposed budget, the budget we're trying to work on right now.

It will go to fund balance if there's anything left at the end of 26.

It's aid for budgeting process, I would think. Would we use it for aid?

I don't think I would count on it because we received it in August of 2026, right? Yeah. What we received in August of 2025 was only $240,000.

They tripled it.

Right, but we don't know it's going to be tripled for August 27th.

It is called temporary municipal aid. Again, that was a judgment that I made, that if it's called temporary municipal aid and it went from 50 million to 100 million in the state budget- It went to 150 million. You can't count on that being the same case in 2027. It went from 50 to 100 million. Again, I was conservative in my estimate, and you just said that it's not a bad thing to be conservative. Well, it's not a bad thing to be conservative.

It's also not a bad thing to be transparent. So what this city received is $500,000 more this year than we got last year. And we talk about a revenue that we're going to go to the taxpayers and ask for more. We ought to be transparent of what our state senator and our governor is delivering as to relief for our budget and the constraints that we have. And if we choose not to take it within a budgetary relief, that's a decision to make. But I don't think we can not talk about it. So that shows my question.

Would you like me to give you guys a brief of the fire department, operations, goals, vision, that kind of thing before we start? Or do you have specific questions? So in your packets that I gave you on Monday, we set three strategic goals when I became fire chief. So that's our when I do the budget Each year. I think I probably told the mayor this when I first became chief. I'll always ask for more people and more help That's where we get our work done We don't people on the fire trucks doing our work becomes a lot more dangerous and inhibits our ability to perform. So that's the driving force between everything we do. The second goal is developing our people. We have about 40% of our people retiring in the next five years-ish. So we're working hard to develop our people, train them up. Also that you know when we're long retired that the department is still running as it should so Then third third goal is just to get along with all of our stakeholder partnerships Including you guys so have a good work relationship with everybody so that we can You know work on you know capitalize on strengths and plug in holes where we're where we're able to you know some opportunities so um so that's those are the those are the three goals uh and they've been pretty uh i thought for a while they weren't you know i thought that i thought it might be kind of a dynamic thing where we would change maybe become more comprehensive but it turns out they drive the department really well So I don't expect them to change. So again, that's what drives my budget. So there's other things in our packet, like the staffing. One of the asks in the budget was to go up from, we had a minimum of eight people working. We have anywhere between eight and 12 people working every day. I'm asking to increase that by one to nine. I would have liked to add four more firefighters, i don't know um i don't know that we're in a position to do that um you know but that's a nice thing to try to strive for right so a new firefighter is about sixty thousand dollars plus you add fringe which is eighty i'm telling eighty five percent i would go at least seventy percent so like maybe double the salary so a hundred grand for a firefighter right so um would love to get there with the collective bargaining agreement as it is uh we have a buffer of three people can be off at any given time using vacation time and personal time so three people off then we have a buffer uh the ninth person could be off and sick wherever we still need overtime so we're gonna lose that buffer if we don't hire more people but again we're all bound by what we can do with our budget. So when I talked to Mayor Corradino in July I asked for four more people and you know we quickly realized we're looking at a tax increase in hiring four additional adding to the footprint of the fire department probably isn't going to happen this year so and I'm good with that. We will do what we have. In general, our equipment is in good shape. As you know, we have two brand new fire engines, and we have a new ladder truck that's ordered. I wouldn't anticipate any major heavy equipment purchases. We've got a couple of vehicles out. Part of the ask for the additional overtime is to backline one of the vehicles that we wanted to replace. That'll help lengthen the service life of that vehicle. So we'll put it in sort of a reserve status, but it'll be a marine support unit. We'll tow the boats with it. So that'll be a good benefit there. So I'm happy to entertain any questions we'll have about the department or the budget. like me to talk about the cuts i discussed yesterday would you mind yes please i was just going to say that the numbers you see here do not reflect those cuts okay because i wanted to do those after you all had a chance to talk about them so the cut so i came up with 307 000 of cuts now when i met with the mayor uh in defense of the of the mayor here We cut $742,000 out of the budget in our meeting. And we felt OK about it. I hadn't intended on going through and making another $300,000 on cuts. These are all things we're going to need at some point. I don't know that we're going to need them in 27, And some of them are based on assumptions. So when we look at the personal services line, $112,500, some of those, to get there, we're going to have to negotiate a contract soon. The contract runs out the end of the year. We're going to have to negotiate some language to get there. So that's... why it didn't come up before. So when you talk about should we assume we're going to get there, I don't know. But I'm comfortable with the cuts that they're not going to affect service. However, if we need a heat pump next year and we don't have the money, I'll have to come back and ask. So I do think the budget, the way it stands right now with these cuts, they're aggressive. I felt compelled to help yesterday when I talked to the counselors. And, you know, I may have to come back. There may be things that should be funded. But as a department head, it's hard for me to realize where we're at in current time with the budget. Because the budget process goes from, you know, I work on the budget all year. And we're ready for when the mayor sends a call. But it's very dynamic. It's hard. We have no reference of where we're at each day. So when I get a phone call yesterday, I don't know where I am. We were at 2.97. I knew that from when we all got the budget last Monday. While I'm confident that these cuts in these accounts won't affect the job we do on the streets, there might be equipment we need to buy that's not funded. There's no equipment, there's no expense in the budget that we don't need. But need, when you're talking about our department, probably Chief Cady's and it's need is subjective and up and objective at the same time it's it's we could go back and forth whether we need something so I'll just say that some of the some of this is like you know we'll have to absorb you know we'll have to make we'll have to figure it out because We will. I mean, we will do our best to figure out. I can't guarantee I won't be back next year if something breaks. We're asking the forecast long ahead. That's just the process. Everybody else is in the same boat. I'm happy to go through each line and explain how I got there if you want, or if you have specific questions, I'm happy to answer them.

Chief, first of all, I'd like to thank you very much for cutting the $307,000 after we spoke to you yesterday. I know it was a lot of work for you, and we really appreciate it. And if any of the councilmen have any questions about, you know, if you want to go through each line or whatever, you know, you can start and go around the table or whatever you want to do.

I looked at it. I'm okay with it.

I would like to thank you for our conversation yesterday. It was quite lengthy and we did take quite a bit of your time, but it was very informative.

and you came across professionally and we appreciate that thank you is there any materials or items if you could go back and re-add them to the budget is there any items you would want added just because of condition or safety reasons

Well, the firefighter turnout gear, I think we talked before about this. So that's in our strategic plan. And right now, turnout gear is about $4,500 a set. That's just the pants and the coat. It's not the boots, the helmets, anything like that. And you can't buy what I'll call legacy turnout gear now. So they have new turnout gear that has reduced PFAS, forever chemicals. So there's plastics in this thing. So there's a law where you can't get this. We all have to be compliant with this new gear. So we have to buy, we have to have two sets for everybody. I think right now the technology is such that I don't know that we want to buy all 100 sets, right? We probably wouldn't want to afford it.

Not many departments are doing that right now with the game, replacing all the gear.

I budgeted, or my capital plan was 25 sets per year the next four years. So... If we find out that we want to buy 25 sets next year as planned, I'd love to be able to do that. That helps keep the firefighters safe. To try to edit these 100 sets of gear over the next four years is going to be a challenge. So that's probably one thing I'd like, if I could pick one thing, I would probably fund that. But it's also worth saying that the priorities change. We're taking a snapshot in time of monetary needs for next year. And I put all the examples, the line items there. There's no guarantee we're going to spend $5,000 on hazmat supplies. We may reprioritize. We may have to reprioritize to buy something else that $5,000 might be better spent elsewhere. And we do that all the time, constantly. But with the turnout gear, that's something I would like to stick to if we get four. 25 sets over four years. Every firefighter has to have two sets. It's the responsible thing to do for our firefighters' health and safety. There's a little bit out of each account, the 40,000 and the 460 account. I did get an email today that was based on an assumption also. The mayor and I talked about this on July 22nd. So yesterday when I talked to you, Bill, I said I feel very good that the paramedic training is gonna be funded by the New York State Department of Labor. in the SUNY system so they combined they have this job apprenticeship funding and I got an email from the Department of Labor today saying I'll be your representative so it wasn't a congratulations your approved letter but it was so I feel good that the paramedic funding is going to be That may be political each year. That could change. It has to be funded. And I'm not quite sure what the cycle is there. But for right now, it sounds like our paramedic funding is going to be funded. So for next year, the $40,000. Vehicle maintenance, the $25,000 we cut in vehicle maintenance. You never know. A turbo on a fire engine is about $6,000 or $7,000. and you know and so uh but i would assume that even though we kept one of the engines uh that we're gonna have to maintain i would assume that that 25 000 i'm assuming we're going to be okay but when a fire truck breaks we have to fix it right so um and then um you know there's The EMS budget, the $15,000 and $7,000, we're just going to absorb that into our $410,000 and $440,000 account in the fire department. Again, it's just what we're going to have to do. It's been a long time. The good thing is I'm pretty frugal for the first two and three quarters of the year. And then we'll find what we need. So long-winded answer, the turnout gears, I would like to fund that.

So just to be transparent, to fully fund 25 sets, that's $112,500. Currently, based on the cuts that were proposed that you supplied, I calculated about $56,000. I couldn't find that exact number, but about $56,000.

I think I took $50,000 out of the $480,000.

Is there any way you can tell me what you took out of each one so that I can reflect it here? Yes. And then if you guys want to put stuff back in, just let me know.

So I got the 112. So there's two different. So it's the 3410 fire department budget and also the 3411. So 3410, account number 410, $31,600. 440, $15,900.

Oh, not 159,000. That would be incorrect. 450, 10,000. 460, 40,000. 470, 25,000. the 101 so i got that was one twelve five hundred right five hundred do you need a breakdown of that it's all under this one line item for me okay and then the 34 11 ems education uh 410 15 000. so we're making that go away and the seven and then four sixteen seven thousand And I could have just put zeros in there.

But I want to be able to go back and track my activity, just in case anybody's wondering.

So my opinion on the turnover could change over time.

Yeah, could I just throw something out there? Because safety, especially for the fire department, you guys are going into possibly burning buildings, trying to save lives. Turnout equipment is essential. I know we spoke, and you mentioned the current version is not as comfy. So I think you mentioned you could extend it out to seven or eight years, if I'm not mistaken. So if I did a calculation, or... On the original budget, it was 25 sets over four years. So that's 100 sets. So if I broke that out by six years, you would actually need 16 sets for this year instead of 12. which for 16 sets is $72,000, which is about $16,000 more. I know each firefighter gets two sets, correct? And some of them are about to expire or have expired. And that's actually a concern. And I think 16,000 would be reasonable to add.

Do you know offhand how many are expiring in the next year?

Not right now, but I could have that for you tomorrow. So we have a tracking system.

Do we need extras as well for future?

We keep the gear. When people retire, we keep the gear. But then it becomes, once it's no longer serviceable, we can't send the people to the academy in that gear. The academy will not have it. So we just actually had to send some to be destroyed. you know we can't just throw in the dumpster and then have the gear end up so we we have there's a there's a regulation we have to follow to make sure it's destroyed so um so yeah we do keep the gear if it's still serviceable and within the service life um when people retire what is the service life should this be on a plan where we're replacing it like kind of like

Trucks and buses in the school system.

Rotating.

Yeah.

Yeah, so just so everybody understands, the 100 sets is only a thing because they changed the spec on this. Yes. So the legacy here, we're going to have to get rid of. Every city, every fire department is in the same boat. And you need two sets. If someone goes to a fire... They have to launder, they have to put their beer in the washer, and they have to get something else to put on. They get another call. So that's why they need two cents. So I would highly recommend, we would love to be on a replacement plan. Not possible, but certainly happy to put together a long-term plan for that. $4,500 is a huge expense, so we haven't captured that yet. But being the quantity we had, we probably should have.

What's the lead time on it?

About six weeks.

Six weeks, so about a month and a half. So if one set got destroyed, it would probably have to go through council for adjustments, I'm assuming, budget adjustments to order a new set?

We buy gear every year. So we could buy gear out of the 480 account. We probably could also buy it out of the 410. so but we try to use the 480 so can we you know I don't know what I had budgeted how many sets we're talking about ordering here right now it just was 25 so yeah yeah that's really good but we have people right now I think I'm gonna probably order maybe five sets before the end of this year for for her and then I'll be the new spec here so And the hundred will, you know, as we hire people in order here, you know, they don't come off that tall.

And the only, or one of the good things about doing it in groups, sets of 25, is you could open yourself up for grant funding, right?

Yeah, we applied for grants. Somebody asked me that. We have applied for grants. It's a very popular grant item. you know equipment and gear so a lot of these so one of the strategies for all these reductions is find grant money for it so we've been fairly successful in doing so so but you never again you can't you can't count on it but um so yeah we've applied we applied for there's three grants every year we apply for assistance to firefighters grants uh and uh we apply for turnover and whatever

So you said you were planning on buying five sets this year, correct? I believe so, yeah. So to stay on schedule with your 25, you would need 20 sets for next year, is that correct? Correct. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, and it has to be, like, what we've been doing will, somebody will start and go to the academy in used gear. You know, because they're crawling around down the academy on concrete floors, and they're just junking up the gear. So that... in the perfect world becomes their backup gear when they get back. We have a brand new set of gear for them when they get out of Fire Academy. So we have two people in the Fire Academy right now. They'll come back to brand new sets of gear. And hopefully their gear will still be serviceable enough where it can be their backups.

But we could still stay on schedule at the 25 if we did it, if we brought in 20 sets for next year.

Is there any discount to buying in bulk?

Yeah, so do you expect? I mean, I don't know if you know, but like the equipment itself. So it's whatever it costs this year, like two years down the road. I mean, it could be more like it will be more. Yeah, so how do we? How do you like? How do we plan? I guess for like future like or we're just we're just doing it one time one year at a time. I don't.

I'm just it goes up 3 to 5% like most of our, you know, never goes down I haven't seen that yet yeah and you know right now the council Thompson's point that the gear It's like the first, I guess, version of this new PFAS-free gear. And it's very hot to wear and very bulky to wear. It doesn't have the protective chemicals. But it turns out that the chemicals that are in it were harming people. You're soaking those chemicals through your skin and exposing yourself to carcinogens. So I don't know if it's better or worse. So now the studies are that people are getting more heat stress because they're wearing this gear. But I do think as time goes on, the gear manufacturers will find efficiencies in the construction of the gear. But I would bet it won't become cheaper. But there may be a volume discount, which I can check into. Gotcha.

Thank you.

Anybody else?

Being an old fireman, I can tell you how

How important that gear is. Being in a house fire, you want good stuff. And you want the latest and the greatest if you can get it for as much protection as you can get. So that's a definite something we ought to look into adding back.

Agreed. At least up to 16 sets. Because you did mention that current ones do cause heat stroke.

So we want to keep that well if he's doing if he's doing fives if he's doing fives if he's doing five sets Then we could stay on schedule if we just picked in 20 and what's what's another four sets gonna? See how the you know another sets, you know You're talking you're talking over 18,000 for the other four sets and it's you know, I Think that's a reasonable amount

first of all i'd like to thank the chief for coming in the same exact budget 2026 with no budget increases thank you very much i'm sure that was a lot of work

Yeah, you know, the mayor charged all the department heads with ensuring that we have a tight budget. I took a look at the current budget, 2026, and I tried to map out as best I could for 2027. I actually think I'm about 1.6% lower than I was for this year. We were able to do some internal maneuvering some positions that we need to add or change and we're able to accomplish i think a fairly reasonable budget i appreciate the budget committee reaching out you know i like i said i did the best i could with this and tried to keep it under what the current budget is to uh to help you guys out in the mayor out as best as best that we could questions comments for the chief um i know you have a few people in the academy right now yeah well we actually have one we had uh two that uh did not pass the academy so we actually have interviews uh with some new hires on monday for the mayor to uh to decide when is the um current position coming out of the academy how much longer uh it should be done at the end of

October great coming up soon.

Yeah, so another spot. Yeah, but so since I took over in 2020 our Manning has gone from 47 officers. We're at now our authorized strength is 52 And that we've added over the years Didn't make all that change at one time. It's been a little difficult with the recruitment our Historically, we would have 300 or 400 people take the entry-level test, and now we're down to about 35 to 40 that will take the test, and then generally half of those show up for the PT test, and then about half of those fail the physical agility test, so it makes it difficult. Under the former administration, which you and Mayor Cordino were part of, under Mayor Barlow, the new contract, we were able to get the salaries up for the officers, so they're comparable, not as high, but comparable to Onondaga County departments, which has helped us stave off a lot of people laterally now transferring out. We've also pushed as hard as we can to hire people locally, people that are from the area, and that's kind of helped stabilize our manning. So I'm happy to say, compared to most departments, we're fully staffed. And I think that's just a sign that we're doing the right thing.

Questions or comments for Chief Katie? From anyone at all?

Thanks, Chief, for the phone conversation yesterday. I appreciate it.

Yeah, I went back and took a look. We were able to take another $10,000 out of the budget. I had money budgeted. We were partnering with SUNY Oswego for a Spanish for emergency first responders basic Spanish class. That has been delayed indefinitely. It was approved by SUNY, but the professor that was heading the program up is leaving to take another position. until that position's filled or we're kind of in a holding pattern. So it may be something that we as a department come back to you next year and say this is gonna kick off in the spring semester or fall of 2027 semester, but at this point it's on hold.

So you aren't looking at hiring any more mental health clinicians at this time, correct?

So Mayor and I discussed that. I think that's going to be up to the council. We have the one. I gave you the numbers. I can go over that quick if you want. For one mental health clinician, which includes the supervising and the different things they have to do to keep their license through HelioHealth, it's $153,000 and change for the year. To have two, it's $248,000, almost $249,000, so it's about a difference of $96,000. if that's something you want to add I'm not opposed to it but I think that you as a council are gonna have to figure out where you want to take that money from or find that money to add to the budget I think it's a worthwhile program it's a program that I've pushed hard to create and I'm fortunate enough to have grant funded until now but if we're gonna keep This program has been successful, and you guys heard when we funded it through the rest of this year. She does a lot. She has a lot of contacts, and she's put a lot of people in help with services. So if we had another person, that's just more hours in the day that we have coverage, and we can help people out and help people that are in crisis. But budgeting-wise, it's what you as a council are comfortable with, whether you're adding it to this budget, taking it out of reserve funds, how you want to do it. I got to kind of throw the ball back in your court.

Chief, with that particular line, it has revenue associated with it as well though, doesn't it?

I don't have specific numbers. Helio, we're getting better with their record keeping and their record keeping and they're finding that there is a revenue stream there they can bill for certain services. So I can't give a specific number and I wouldn't want to fall back on a specific number, but there are services they can charge for to help support the program. And if they do that, it will cover their hourly rate.

So the gross exposure for a second, clinician is $98,000.

Yeah, worst case scenario.

But it might be net of something less than that.

Correct.

So even for the amount that we have on our budget, which is showing as an expense,

are you does does it do you pick it up as revenue or how do you pick up the revenue to build i didn't i didn't have any numbers to give them they might not be matching up or netting out right in any way and i can find i can find uh and that's where we discussed that um counselor thompson brought that up when we asked for the the 60 that was going to make it through the rest of this year um That's something I can pull and send you guys an email on. So you have that just to give you a general idea of where we're at this year. But I don't have that specific.

And I appreciate that because I know this is a new program. I know it was originally funded by a grant initially that brought the service to the community. It did not reduce the professional public safety staff. It was an addition. So we didn't do it at the expense of public safety staff. And it... it's certainly the one clinician is on our budget not really at a true cost because it's something less than that because there's an allocated income that's coming as a result of that the second condition is proposed at a cost might be something left so the net of both of those is probably less than what we're looking at if we were to consider those and and and i do think that from a community point of view, outcomes are achieved emergency room wait times services provided by other providers in our community by the cold and the service of the MTS and the first responders in the fire department. I would encourage us to look at that and if it doesn't come by way of this process, I would be open to hear a conversation about a budget amendment, if that's how we deal with these things, if we don't have the information now. I don't want to force a question right now, but I do think it's an ongoing conversation if we don't have, it has other social costs in the community, and I think we can help to stem some of the tides and narratives that we can help control.

sure and i think too that uh we we have some time because even if this is decided it's still not for the 2027 budget and we would have to go through an interview process there's people that will apply for the job counselors that will apply for the job we have to go through that process helio has to go through their process so They're not necessarily going to start on January 1 if it's a program that if we decide to add the second person.

And there's multiple steps. This is a big picture economic or financial impact discussion. But there's so many operational things, and I understand that we're trying to maintain the most cost-effective outcome for taxpayers. But I think from a community point of view, I think it's a valuable program. Your support of it has been great. I think it's visible in the outcomes that we see in the community. It's visible in other aspects of the community, and I appreciate your embracing it, and I'd like to... So we can help you.

Yeah, and I think, you know, everything's a cycle, right? So last year, our, you know, homeless issue in the city was not as profound as it was the previous year. This year, our numbers are up, our contacts are up this year. So it's not a, you know, for lack of a better term, it's not a problem that's going to go away. You know, it might be okay for a year, but it might be worse the next year. So... As a city, we've been ahead of the curve with this, and we're one of the first, like I said, we're one of the first programs in Central New York, in the state for that matter, so we're in a good spot.

Yeah, and any time you're providing this kind of care 24-7, you know, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, where the population that you serve and the responses you have you know, one person integrating with your staff, you know, that's a pretty heavy load. And so, you know, I think that, you know, pragmatically to help you do what you do, I continue to support moving down the road with that conversation.

And Gina, our staff clinician, she tries to work off hours, you know, but she has a normal life as well as like everybody else, a family life, you know, so... having a second person, if that's the way you guys decide to go without cutting law enforcement services, I think that's a noble idea.

Oh, Chief Katie? Yes. Okay, and this might be for Colleen, too. So let's just say, for hypothetical sake, we decide that we want to go forward with having a second clinician. We find the money, whatever, whatever. And... then that we have to go through the process like you had stated like interviewing and Helio and all that and the person doesn't start till like second quarter of you know or yeah third quarter um now that would obviously change your budget so

would that like extra funding would that go somewhere else like i don't know how that would work no i mean it's uh that's the helio bills us on a monthly basis so they won't be billing us for that person if they're not working like the first like three months for example like the duration of them yeah okay i wasn't i wasn't sure how that how that part worked okay all right Our biggest issue with that is, and you guys know this, I'm preaching to the choir, but we're out of space in the station. It's desk space and all that. It's a critical need, but we'll figure it out until we figure out the bigger.

Does it have like bunk desks or something?

It's a good idea. Don't get any ideas.

Questions or comments for the chief?

Thank you very much. Thank you. Captain Thompson, thank you for coming. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Good time to pass. I don't see Craig here yet, so let me pass out the revised budget for salad course. No salad today. You're on your own.

Thank you.

Okay. And these are just the budget line items that actually changed.

Right. Colleen printed this. Well, she changed it, and I printed it out. We were a team.

So this is... Oh, these are, okay, I see, I see.

These are those salary mistakes and adjustments and people moving.

Could we have a tote board? I thought I was gonna ask.

I got a tote board right here. Our current tax levy is 13.7. 13.7.

Then we're 342 under the tax cap.

Okay. And an increase in the tax levy of 1.1. Okay. Great. That's with the fire department changes. Because what I had showed you when you first walked in was without those. And we haven't made any other changes since then.

Now, does that also include, I believe there was a mistake or something that was doubled. Does that include that correction?

Yeah, $2,000. We already made that change. We made that change on Tuesday. Sorry.

Okay, the reason it's in there twice is because it's supporting two different line items. One is the salary line. And one is the transfers to community development. So the first one in your packet supports number one of 14.

Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Okay.

So it supports the Department 1221, okay, and transfers community development at, way down here, at 9906. This is to support the city loan program. So that's why it's in there twice. It's confusing, but I was trying to put them in numerical order.

Absolutely. I may have changed the number.

But this is this is a 9, 9, 0, 6, 4, 16, 1, 2, 2, 1, and that's just the salary part.

Yep.

What time is Craig supposed to be here? Isn't he next?

Yes, he was staggered after fire police.

But you're ahead of schedule?

Yeah.

I just texted him, said we're ready for him now. He's usually right in the audience first, you know what I mean? Let's see what he says. He's on his way.

Perfect. Would you mind scrolling back up? I'd like to see the total for the DPW. There's another update. Thank you.

I don't know which part of the DPW you're talking about.

Is there an overall?

There is not an overall total for DPW. DPW, he's in charge of so many different departments. That's why there's a whole separate schedule of his line items.

The previous council found that confusing also. They commented two years ago when they started that it is confusing because you've got street lighting, you've got parks, you've got garage.

Yeah, there's stuff that overlaps.

Yeah, I mean, so it's complicated. And when he gets here, he can explain it to you. But it's not just one line item under DPW.

So yes, I wish I could do that for you. But no. okay I think in the future we might be able to include it with the title page but if we make changes it's not gonna be as dynamic yeah as this but I think that if that total is going to help in some way then we can add that to the title page or somewhere in the exhibit in the future.

On the revenue side, this particular budget, there's no spend out of fund balance for this budget? No. It's not fully funded by Well, my question is, it's funded by sales tax, right? So within this, we're not spending down unallocated fund balance to mitigate the tax burden.

Overall, for general fund, which includes DPW, police, fire, and everything else, there is a spend down of available fund balance of $1,050,000. Okay.

And that's a varying number year to year. It's discretionary on the basis of management.

It is.

A good example of that is that $500,000 that we got of TMA. That went into the general fund, so we have an extra $500,000 that we didn't know we were going to get. So that increased the general fund savings account.

But I guess my own point is that the more the council understands the source of revenues,

And the allocation of revenues, the clearer it can be.

So actually, with that explanation, the additional $500,000 that came from the TRA would be better described as a subsidy from the state this year, rather than a spend down of unallocated fund balance. It's a matter of semantics, but we're not spending savings, we receive the money. Correct?

You're not done with 26 yet, so I don't know if you spent it yet.

Pardon me?

You're not done with 2026 yet, so I don't know if it's been spent.

But it can't be spent if it's not budgeted.

Oh. Of course we can spend it. I'm sorry. Oh, sorry. I get a little sarcastic. Whenever you do a budget amendment and it isn't supported by a corresponding revenue, you're taking it out of fund balance. I understand.

We can only approve those.

Right. Correct.

So if we haven't approved it for spending of unallocated fund balance, it hasn't happened.

I don't know that we've Well, you still got four more months to go, you don't know the future.

Hopefully not, hopefully it's- But that's again coming back to why we need month to date budgeting information so that we can be part of this planning that can see where we are percent of budgets. because we are on certain lines in excess of budgeted amounts. particularly health benefits, tracking two years excessive budget. So that's the transparency of the questions. And then that question.

No, I'm not fighting with you. I know. I'm just saying that I can't tell you. that this million dollars includes that 500,000. It could be 20,000 from here and 10,000 from there.

But the 500,000 was placed in that.

It will, if there's anything left of it, it will roll into fund balance. Right now it hasn't been earmarked for any particular purpose.

There's a check coming in to us in the next 30 days from the state.

It just goes into the general operating fund Okay So what the million is, is you're borrowing fund balance from the end of 2026. I could tell you about what the fund balance is at the end of July. I can tell you what it was at the end of 2025. I can't tell you what it's gonna be at 2026. So when you did the 26 budget, like they took 2 million of fund balance to support the budget and reduce the tax levy. This is only $1,050,000, so it's almost half of what the prior budget used of fund balance.

And we received additional temporary state support through Governor Hochul's budget of in excess of $500,000 in 2026.

Right, so that'll end up in fund balance at the end of the year.

Right, so the improvement, the delta between what we did last year and this year is significant because we had additional revenue and reduced, we've used half as much of the fund balance.

Okay, but there was a, okay.

Is that not correct?

Well, there was also salaries increased from what was budgeted.

Oh, why is that?

Because the salary, that contract wasn't settled yet, was it? When the 26th budget was adopted?

You're talking about the ASPE contract? Yeah. It wasn't settled until they reviewed insurance or something. So yeah, that wasn't budgeted for since we started negotiations in December of last year and it didn't get settled until you guys voted in what, April?

Yeah.

So that extra money for salaries had to come from somewhere since it wasn't budgeted in 2026. So that was... coming out of that fund balance.

So so that's why I'm so reluctant to say, yeah, this 500,000 has just found money.

And I'm not challenging your answer.

No, no, I know.

I don't know. But I think for a collective group that that are looking at this and knowing the nature of financial reporting is dynamic and basically it's cash flow. I understand the cash flow of what you're talking about. Take a snapshot. It's going to be different three days from now. I think from the point of view of some historical perspective, at some point at this stage, we talk about budgeting. If we had some benchmarks of fund balance three to five years, that would also help to understand the ebb and flow of what happens to fund balance because it's dynamic. And you can see trends from that, like you can see sales tax trends. You can see are we overestimating those extraordinary temporary incomes to the detriment of the quality of the fund balance over time. This is just as we work our way through a process and become better informed, these are the type of things that we should have better awareness of. I'll fill in time until Craig gets here.

Here he comes.

I want you to know that the person whose salary was saved as a date was just a format in the cell and it actually was included in the total. I'm doing the totals of each of the GPWs, so I can find the total total. I was in there for hours. I'm not going to add all this up tonight.

I was going to say, OK. Yeah, I'm doing it in my head. No, I just, I want the overall. Just to compare it with the other departments.

Yeah, you're looking at my brain, right? This is all the different line items for the DPW budget. Good evening.

Hi, Craig.

Hi, Craig.

So far.

your budget you actually do cool well they asked me and I couldn't And would that include the changes we made today? Okay. That's only 200 and some odd thousand. I have them. Good evening. Good evening.

sure you're aware the budgets you've seen those so far are a bit shorter than dbw 30 pages budget here we've been frugal the past few years we've skipped we've saved where we can we've shopped around The best, one of the best examples I have is buying a can of Lysol. If you buy a can of Lysol from an industrial supplier, it's like 15 bucks a can. You can buy it at Walmart for three. So we've made those changes. We've skimped, we've saved, we've shopped around, we've been frugal. Costs, especially this year, have now surpassed our ability to be frugal and stay within that budget. All of the beautiful things we've done, the parks, the Cahill Pier, the marina, they now come at a cost of maintenance. This budget, as proposed, allows us to maintain the current levels of service and we're already being asked to do more. Any additional cuts in this budget will result in reduced services to the community. So everyone's aware, we did find, as Ron and I went through this line by line, there were some errors in personal services. to the tune of an additional $154,747. $154,747. Those are salaries misprinted. 112 employees. That's going to happen. True clerical errors of knowing a particular fault. That's why we get to review well. That's why we get to review the budget ahead of time. This is my first time in 10 years being involved with the budget, of having the budget before tonight's meeting. So this has been very helpful. Usually walk into this blind, not knowing what is actually in here. So that's a positive change this year. With that change that I just mentioned, the DPW's proposed budget to the mayor was $10,742,345.

Is that just a general fund?

General fund, sorry. Just a general fund. That's not the water fund or the enterprise fund. That's just general fund, which your tax base is based on. Not rate users. These are taxpayers, right? Sitting down with the mayor, Ron and I were able to cut $1.3 million. $1,305,000. That's an 8.23% cut from our original proposed budget. So we've already cut $1.3 million from this. We do not feel there's any more room to cut without affecting services. And again, with the additional $154,747, I know that's an additional burden to what we're trying to accomplish here tonight. But that's the reality of it.

Questions? All through the option.

Yes, so under the marina and docks contracted services, cell phones is listed, but I believe that's covered under the IT budget, correct? I just want to make sure we're not double counting items. I'm making the assumption it's not a huge amount for that portion.

Yeah, that's so the These portions of the budget just haven't been cleaned up. Right, we don't pay for cell phones either. But that's just the words in the book.

Okay, so that $35,000 does not include that?

It does not affect the $35,000 at all. Okay, thank you. And it would be minimal. I mean, one cell phone, I think, is $35 a month.

Okay.

Councilor Fitzgibbons.

Just to ask a question. pools and animal control between those two we have 1.2 million of construction capital improvements I guess buying equipment for the animal control and we're doing a revitalization of the pool of some sort of a contract service Do those go to capital accounts or do they come out of these budgets this way?

they have to go to capital accounts if they are bonded if they're funded with with obligations of the city otherwise they're like the animal control is has it's been mandated changes from the state right and we got a half a million dollar grant you guys just voted on it the other day it's a seven hundred thousand dollar estimate but you got a five hundred thousand dollar grant And that part's in revenue, so the expenditures are in this budget.

I just found the trail of this. So the time it goes to capital accounts when it's bonded. Is that a good rule of thumb?

Other than CHIP's projects, yes.

Right. And so really what we saw was $1 million in the line item for the animal control thereabouts, but much of it was a grant. Is that fair to say? Fair to say?

Animal control is not mine, but it includes like 780,000 total project and 500 is granted.

Correct. I believe that's the dollar.

I can't speak to the pool. I can't speak to the pool because that is under my purview. and the pool project wasn't it wasn't a grant the pool project is a grant which has not come to council yet because we're not under contract yet we haven't completed uh we're waiting on uh final documentation from from uh uh you know remember that's dazzling or state parks um But then that's a swim program program $600,000 Project our share that is a hundred and twenty thousand the grant is four hundred four hundred eighty thousand So you're showing our course and I'm showing our portion in the budget.

Okay.

Yep Ask another question

So in the budget, there's a Ford Maverick for $35,000. I'd just like to understand what that is for, and I'd like to mention that I know the police department is replacing two cruisers, in my understanding, usually the older ones will go to CSOs or DPWs. Has that been factored in?

Yes. To answer your first question, The Ford Maverick in the, this is in the waterfront, in the 83-4200 equipment account, $35,000 is to replace truck 701, which is currently used daily. It's a 2009 Ford Ranger. They no longer make parts for Ford Rangers. Those older models, these trucks are obsolete. Those cars are usually pretty used up we don't use them as daily drivers they go towards Loan out car when you bring your service a lot of them go to the seasonal staff in the summer and to get around town cleaning the various bathrooms and parks and things like that. So the fleet of motor pool cars has been depleted. You're talking that currently we're driving around 2,015 Ford Explorers that PD put it down. We got them. They had 150,000 miles on them with transmission trouble. So usually by the time we get a car, that's not something we want, a daily driver. These Ford Rangers have been daily drivers. They're at the end of their life.

I'm just curious. The Ford Maverick's a fairly new light-duty four-door pickup truck. Yes. What's your opinion?

So far, we've seen a lot of them. A lot of other companies using them as fleet vehicles. They seem to be reliable. We haven't had any issues with the ones we've got so far. They're good on gas. It's a turbo four-cylinder motor. We haven't seen any issues with them yet. They're still fairly new to our fleet, but it is the best alternative out there at this point, at that price point. The next level up, you're jumping to a Ford Explorer, it's another $10,000 for a while.

Can you carry a crew of four with it? You can, yes. Yeah, okay.

it is small yeah yeah they're small yeah yeah you can get you can get four people in there you know a lawnmower leader in the back or a couple bags of garbage yep um you know you see our people take care of downtown if you see them out and about that's what they drive you know taking care of the garbage and they're it seems to be handy so far reliable vehicle yeah

I think we talked about it the other day in our lengthy conversation last Friday. The out-of-title work was, just to explain it maybe to everyone. Out of? Out-of-title. There's $3,000 for out-of-title work.

Out of which department?

Sanitary and sewers, I believe.

winter upgrades to me Oh heavy and out of title book so the winter upgrades that is a thing of the past However, there is still a need for out-of-title work. So out-of-title work is you are, let's say a light equipment operator or even a laborer. A laborer goes out, we have them go paint today. That's maintenance work. Maintenance is a higher rate of pay. We have to pay that higher rate of pay. That's where that budget line is accounting for that. Light equipment operator. We've asked the light equipment operator, which you're permitted, the light equipment operator, drive light equipment. That's a pickup truck. That's the smaller dump trucks. We now need you to go grab a snow plow today or grab one of the big dump trucks. Now it's heavy equipment operator pay. Again, that budget line is that difference in pay to cover that temporary upgrade for the day or for the week.

So are dump trucks listed at over 26,000 so they need a CDL or they're not listed for 26,000?

Depends on the dump truck.

Okay.

We have dump trucks. All sizes. Well, when you talk about moving into a bigger truck, that was... All of our equipment operators are CDL, licensed operators. Okay. So they're licensed to operate the vehicle. But correct, so your 19,500 is your lightweight, your MEO light trucks are the 19,500 trucks and lower. You go above 19,500, you get to the 26,000, which is your standard dump truck is 26,000. That's when the heavy equipment operator pay comes in. Snow plows are heavy equipment. The big snow plows. All of our vacuum excavator and our vacuum trucks, our sewer trucks, those are all heavy equipment. Running a payloader, running a backhoe, excavator, heavy equipment pay. And we do oftentimes have to upgrade people to do that work.

and the three-head mechanics and the, I guess there's a distinguish between the one automotive mechanic and the three-head mechanics at the garage. I think we talked about that the other day.

It was a... Yeah, so in the garage, By virtue of union titles and to get people paid appropriately, a good living wage to get good qualified people, the garage superintendent who oversees all of the garage activities, all the maintenance of vehicles, et cetera, with three head mechanics to get good qualified people. That just happens to be the title in the SEIU collective bargaining agreement to get that pay rate to retain those qualified employees. Then there's the one mechanic who has, the difference between the mechanic and the three head mechanics is the one mechanic, he does not have a New York State inspector's license. He can't do state inspections where the rest of them can.

And they're civil service, correct? They are not. They are not, okay.

No, I'm sorry, yes, head mechanics are civil service.

Okay, so there's supervisory in their job description also?

Yes, yes, yes. So if the garage superintendent isn't available or is off on vacation, one of the senior head mechanics is now in charge of the garage.

Okay.

Another question. So under, I don't see in this packet that the mayor sent out, but under the joint recreation projects, there's $2,500 for referee fees for adult volleyball. Yes. Could you tell me about that?

Adult volleyball has been in limbo since COVID. COVID. Since COVID. Yeah. We are bringing that into adult volleyball this fall.

And that's for the public?

That is for the public, yes. We'll be rolling out soon dates for getting teams signed up and getting that program off the ground and running again. I believe Igor in the clerk's office is going to head that up for us.

Okay. Going back to...

forget the verbiage but the pay differential I'll call it yes is that also happening on overtime a lot of times so it's a significant amount of money how often is that happening is it when people are on vacation like what is the scenario sick

There's different variables. Yeah, it can be the operators on vacation. It can be that. Often in the winter, it's all hands on deck. And we need the operator. Maybe we're short of a plow driver. We need to do that plow today, whether someone be out sick or on vacation. It's not. It's not a big difference in pay, and I'm sorry, I don't have those numbers. From experience, if we pulled the SAO contract, the difference between, say, a laborer and maintenance, or a laborer and a light equipment operator, or even a light equipment operator, it's generally less than, depending on how many years of service, it's $1, $2 an hour. It's not huge money, but it needs to be budgeted for.

significant amount of overtime would it be more efficient to have more employees and less overtime sure well there is a matrix there there is there comes a break-even point and so like it might be more beneficial to have another employee for 40 hours versus someone for 20 hours I agree with that 100%

That analysis hasn't been done. We're 112 and that includes, that's all of DPW, that's all your building maintenance, your custodial staff, that is all of water treatment, power and pumping. When we go to, the majority of the overtime comes in the winter when we go on winter shift. There's 12 people on shift. That's where we run into our overtime.

So what general out of all the departments that would be fall under which? Or everyone goes into that?

Everyone goes in. OK, there is. It's a hodgepodge of all the all the different budget lines. Into winter shift, there is no. Direct correlation to any one department.

So do you package all the overtime into one?

No, it's broken out. No, it's broken out.

Oh, I know it's broken up, but I mean in the wintertime you package all that because if you run out of overtime money in one account, you just take it from another account that hasn't used it yet. Is that correct?

No.

No. Okay.

The accounts run negative and then they get reconciled in the Chamberlain's office. Okay. Obviously, none of us have crystal balls.

And wisely, we've increased the garage materials and supplies, which I think is fuel. Given your crystal ball and where we are already in an increased environment, are you comfortable with that? It's about 200K higher.

Did he answer your question? No. Yeah. So everyone's aware, that budget line is, what did we leave it at? Sorry. 800. 800,000. You took 150 out. Yeah, we took 150 out already. So of that 800,000, 450 of that is earmarked for fuel for 2027. This year was 300. So 300,000 year mark this year for fuel, 450,000 year mark out of this 800,000 for fuel for next year. That's diesel fuel and unleaded for the entire city fleet. We supply fuel to every department.

So the question is, where are we year to date in this year's budget?

I'm sorry, I didn't get that number today. We are running out. We will be coming to council soon for a budget amendment.

That's a flag.

Yes. So, for everyone, unleaded, 87 octane, unleaded, 10% ethanol, the same stuff you buy at the gas pump. January of this year, $2.05 wholesale. That was our cost per gallon. In June and in May, June, when I was putting the budget together for the mayor, it was up 117%. That did come down a little bit. July, 71% at $3.51 a gallon. Our most recent delivery, I have the invoices right here. August, $3.30 a gallon. That's a 61% increase. We've reached the buzzer line 50%. Diesel fuel, similar. $2.04 in January. Today, $3.55 a gallon, which is 58% increase. We raised the budget line 50%. Do we have the crystal ball? Do we know what fuel is going to do six months from now? I have no idea. It may go down.

just taking this opportunity because obviously you don't turn these things around quickly you know is there any managerial stuff to take with that forecast coming down the pipe because you know it seems like fuel will be a struggle either equipment use, deployment, routing, positioning, anything that, I'm sure you're doing a lot. Just asking, what does that bring in terms of any modification, if any, that we can even manage?

We already have a no idling policy. The big trucks don't like to idle as it is with the emission systems on them. Any given any time we can shut a truck down, shut a truck down. Keep in mind when we are working on this, some of the, you know, you got the beacon line going, the hazard lights going on the side of the road. Sometimes the trucking just stay running to keep those lights running.

The Mavericks are running 35 miles a gallon probably.

Going to a better fuel mileage rather than running. The 2015 Ford Explorers, they get maybe 15, 19 miles a gallon to the Ford Maverick. That's getting 35. That's a savings. But the biggest thing we can do is shut vehicles off when they don't need to be running. carpool and we can, you know, we don't need to take, if we don't need to take, we have a crew cab truck and we don't need to take three trucks to the job, you take one truck and take the crew cab, things like that.

There's other intangibles with the price of oil other than fuel. Tires and the oil itself, they used to change oil in trucks. So those are intangibles that you have to project into the future because tires go up as the oil prices go up. Have you noticed that?

That's why the other half of that account, there's an additional $50,000 to help cover the cost of oil and tires. Tires is outrageous. Tires have gone up so much. Every police car needs new tires every year. Heavy plows. They may not need all six tires or all ten tires every year, but they're going to need two or four. Those big tires are expensive. Tires is a big chunk of that.

So I appreciate you taking whatever cuts you could make, so thank you very much. I'm just wondering if you are comfortable, I mean, you're probably not, but comfortable with the cuts you've made, or do you think that Obviously, there's a lot of unknowns, but I just worry about they're coming to us next year with an abundance of budget amendments. So that's my question.

With this current budget, unless there's cuts on this table that I don't know about, with what I proposed, what the mayor and Ron and I cut, The only budget line we just talked about, that would be my only concern would be that fuel line. Everything else, we can do what we need to do and stay within those budget lines. Outside of a major emergency or catastrophe. Road salt. Road salt is, well, so that's a good point. Road salt, we don't have next year's price yet. That doesn't come out until the middle of next month. Okay. So we don't know what that's going to do.

And your cuts wouldn't interrupt any services that you provide throughout the city, correct? Like the cuts that you've made, they're not going to interrupt? No. Okay. All right.

Thank you. We can maintain service with what we have on the table right now.

Okay.

I'm just looking at the...

It's about, I just did rough math, it's about a quarter of a million in overtime. So that being generous would be at least three people I would say with benefits and all that with three people fix even if you had floaters and stuff to cover over time that's 100 extra 20 hours a week no so how many hours are you using a week it probably is majority winter I'm assuming right I don't know but we we ran through 250 000 in January and February so majority of it is yeah So we'll just put a blanket over and we won't get snow and then I'll be fine.

Okay We were lucky for a few years The probably not you know the overtime accounts we went so to give the Full view, back in 2017, I think it was, 2017, 2018 winter, we went to a three-shift operation, which significantly reduced overtime. But it didn't snow. It didn't snow. So... Not this past winter. The previous year, we simply didn't have enough staff to run three shifts. We went back to two shifts, and we spent a lot of money. I forget the number, but it was a large number, $500,000 or $600,000 on overtime because it snowed, and we didn't have three shifts to cover it. We've gone back to what we've gone to now is a 4-10 schedule. We're covering seven days a week. Significantly cuts over time, but still not. When it snows, 12 people aren't enough. 12 people put six plows on the road. In a heavy snow, we like to have eight to 10 to really service the city and have everyone covered in a reasonable amount of time, get it ready to work, and get the emergency vehicles where they need to be. um 250 000 or you know three or four people not not really gonna help all right that's the unpredictable demand yeah of the work we do yes and if we have an easy winner great

i think i'm just going to throw this out there i'm thinking on thinking off the cuff right now i think with the price of gas maintenance tires and so forth we really need to look into this next year maybe vehicle sharing among where we can like maybe cso's and then codes and IT could possibly reduce the vehicle that way. There's equipment available to make that streamlined where they check out a key for a vehicle and then when they get back, they check it in. Because you drive by City Hall any time, Not all the vehicles are out. I've never seen all the vehicles out. So there's definitely opportunity there. I think going forward, we need to look at possibly take-home vehicles because that's mileage, wear and tear, gas. Every dollar counts. It's taxpayer money. I think it's something that we should definitely consider. Some might disagree with that, but I believe there's, you know, I think, you know, the police chief probably needs a fire chief. Animal control. Animal control. I think there are exceptions, but there might be still opportunities to cut that back.

Your opinion, Craig.

I don't know who else is taking vehicles home.

Well, we also have, well, Do you have that answer in my ear?

Well, we have, like, Dave Hilton, the water supervisor. He takes his vehicle home, but he's on call 24-7. There's a water main break. He's leaving home and going to take care of that. But all the codes peoples, they keep their cars here. Yeah, I'm not sure who else you think are taking their vehicles home. Fire chief takes his vehicle home. Deputy fire chief, we took that away from him a couple years ago. He used to take it home. So I'm not sure who else. To my knowledge, Chief Gaty, Chief Gonzales.

Yeah.

Myself as needed, which in the wintertime, if we're expecting heavy snow, I'll bring the truck home. Actually, Ron doesn't. He doesn't have a place to park it, so he doesn't bring his truck home. In the wintertime, well, DPW supervisors by contract bring, if they're on call, are allowed to bring their vehicle home. And in the wintertime, most bring their vehicle home because they're either working or they're on call. Outside of that, there's no other.

I think the IT department takes their home, right? Which one? IT.

IT? Yes, IT. He's another one that's basically on call. He also does the drones, and he has other jobs, like he'll be working... probably 24 hours this past Thursday and Friday, we're doing a reboot of the PLCs at the waste treatment plant. So yes, his job is such that I feel that it's necessary. He's like the supervisor, Dave Hilton.

Yeah, or John Lacey.

Or John Lacey, yeah.

He was also on call 24-7 for the plant. Yeah. And Scribo Water, municipal water services out in Scribo. So I guess the point, I don't see where it's being abused. It's certainly not being abused.

As we talked Friday, there was also an option, correct, with the vehicle allowance. How did that work? I remember we talked about it.

So in the management contract, DPW supervisors can choose to take the vehicle home when they're on call, or if they're not going to take the vehicle home, they get a $50 per month stipend. $600, an additional $600 a year.

Is that part of these stipends?

Yes. So as you get, it needs to be budgeted for because right now they all choose, most of them choose to take the vehicle home when they're on call. So they don't take the stipend, but at any point in time, no, I'm not going to drive the truck home anymore than when he needs to be there.

I know Ron's met me out on job sites when we had to check things out. He's had his own personal vehicle many times.

Don't kill me. Okay. With the cost of gas and everything going up, have we looked into the replacement of a truck with an electric? I mean, I know. Don't kill me, but.

Look at that face.

What is that? We have not looked at that. I'm not confident the electric trucks are going to plow snow.

No, but the truck that we're talking about is a Maverick, right?

Oh.

Like that. Have we looked into something comparable?

Have not.

Do we think it would be? I don't know.

I think we're on the cusp of EVs, plug-in hybrids that could be considered as we go down the road. We don't have the infrastructure to charge them?

Yeah. Charge for free or air?

If the space is available and if the charger is working.

I'm just saying. With the cost of gas going up for something like that, not for trucks, not for plows, but for something like that.

Service vehicles.

Yes, is that something that we should maybe look into?

Sure. I don't think they'd make a small-size EV truck yet. There's probably one out there.

You would just have to check the initial cost of the vehicle as opposed to driving the gas because the initial cost is normally higher for electric than it is gas.

And the cost of having the infrastructure to charge. Exactly. Because we would need chargers at DPW or at the other facilities, so we'd have to install chargers to do this. But the grants are so significant on the insulation bills. You can net out zero for the installation of chargers. being at a public, you know, where the public can't access it might affect that. I don't know, but it's certainly worth exploring, yes.

It's a fair observation going down the road. Yes. You know, and I think that that's a reality of where this is going to go. Yeah. And for some element of transportation, it's going to be a reality.

There's a big push for the heavy equipment to go electric as well. The technology just isn't there. Sure. Like the school bus. Successfully lobbied.

Like the school buses. The school buses, but eventually with time, hopefully. Right. There's something.

Oh, no. When the technology is there and we can support it, absolutely. We're definitely not there yet. Personally, I think hybrid is the way to go.

For that truck that you're placing, what is the difference of the price cost for the hybrid? It might be worth it.

The Maverick comes in a fairly, you know, the duty cycle and the talk of the Maverick. The hybrid is pretty good. I don't know if it's on your bid scheme or eligible. It's pretty good.

Yeah, Maverick does have a hybrid option.

And that's on state contract? No. It's not on state contract?

It's on Onondaga County contract.

Okay. Difference being between state and Onondaga contract?

Again, it's an area, if I could just say, an area that is constituent interaction. Your department serves probably the greatest volume of constituent issues. We recognize that. We recognize the work that you do. We recognize the good work that you do. And we want to thank you for that. And obviously the budget, as it reflects to Act Fair Levy, this is a significant piece of it. Your efforts on that part, I appreciate it.

To answer the question, Sorry, I was listening to John, and I forgot what you said. I didn't mean to interrupt. I thought we would hit a wall.

The difference between the Onondaga contract and a state contract. I used to work off state contracts.

Okay, so for purchasing vehicles, New York State OGS has gotten away from listing individual vehicles, and you have to go through a mini-bid system. So you tell them what you're looking for, it goes out to bid. you wait, you come back, and then go with the lowest bidder or to disqualify the lowest bidder, et cetera, and how the bidding process works. Onondaga County Purchasing has gone ahead and done their own vehicle contracts with different vendors. And we use Onondaga contracts. for all of our light duty trucks uh now the heavy equipment yes new york state ogs contract pricing okay they're still doing it for heavy stuff okay i don't know if you have this what is the percentage increase from last year's this year probably not you don't have the whole dpw do for

The whole DPW? Yeah. I don't know. I can get you that information. Okay.

And then one other question. There's a whole list of things here. Like mini golf, marina merch, marina concessions. Does that, tiki boats, that all falls under you, right?

That's all revenue.

So that's all revenue, right. I understand that. But is there's, we had no revenue from that this year, but we're thinking about adding.

We put it in one total. It's covered in the general total. I also questioned that as well and found out because we talked about it with Carrie and I. It's in, let me see.

Sorry, I was just trying to figure it out.

It's in there, it's just that they grouped it and put it in one total. Other revenues.

For this year.

Well, that's the way we've been doing it for several years. Okay. Yeah, so I broke it out. If you look at it, I decided to break it out and be a true budget. You can see that in 2026, mini golf, tiki boat, and there was three things here, marina concessions. There was no line item, so I did talk to Carrie, and I got the true numbers, so it reflects accurate- Okay, thank you.

Where the money came from. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, but that was a good question. Why isn't it in 2026? Well, they put it all in one line item.

I don't know who this falls under to. There's a marina, trans, no electric. What is that?

Transient. Slips. Transient slips. So I'm coming in for the night. I need a dock for the night, and it's a slip with no electric or no water.

So we're expecting significantly less?

The number wasn't realistic.

OK, thank you.

We reduced it because it wasn't close to what the revenue reflected in previous years.

In total for that, let's say, section, OK, for parks and rec and whatever, went up about $85,000 in revenue.

So that's like eight, I don't know, eight million.

So on the revenue side, if there was a time to which the fees charged for slips at Wright's Landing were considered, what's the window as municipality would be best timed to do that so that you are in a cycle for renewal of contracts?

We send contracts out in January.

In January? Yes. So if that was to come back to the purview of the council to consider, probably October would be the time to have it on the table. That would be perfect, yes. Okay, yeah. Because some have said that the demand is greater than the supply. It has been that way for too long. And that possibly that might be something to be revisited as we might be below the market as to what's appropriate. I believe that's accurate, yes. So that might be an opportunity to have some discussion.

We actually talked about that, didn't we, Craig?

We did, yes.

Yeah, we already have a plan to revise the prices for 2027. Because you're right, if you go over to the east side, you'll see that their prices are much higher. So we've already got that started. But we have to pass it.

So I just want to note, so we have some conversation of how legislatively we should be considering this so that we can be respectful of how the contracts are being made. That's all.

Not questioning your plan, I'm just questioning our execution. We get through the budget process here. I don't know, Mayor, we consider having a subcommittee of this council to look at that.

Sure. Yeah, we love subcommittees.

Ultimately, they're the ones that are going to approve it, so that's something we should be looking at.

Well, you did a lot of the research already. I remember when we looked at this a couple years ago, kind of surveying what other marinas on Lake Ontario were charging.

Yeah, some of that information needs to be updated, but we looked at different marinas nearby. Good start. What the rates are and what we offer. We're definitely low. There is a six-page wait list that tells you right there your rates are too low.

I'll just mention outside of Oswego, for a 30-foot boat, I believe the cheapest you'll find is about $2,000, and they don't offer all the extras that our marina does. So we have a really nice marina. BPW does a great job taking care of it. So I think not saying we would charge $2,000 for a 30-foot boat. I think we definitely want to be... lower and competitive um but i think right now correct me if i'm wrong it's 9 50 for residential for a boat slip and then um what's non-residential is it 12 50. that sounds right yeah for that's a 12 20 foot i think yeah i'm trying to go off of that so there's definitely room for us to increase revenue and close that gap that the taxpayers are covering one more question yes

Okay, so we have, where did I see it? Marina fuel sales. We're talking about fuel going up, right? Is it realistic that we could be making, it says 160. Is it realistic that we could be making even more than that? It's $10,000 more, but... Is that a realistic thing?

You know, that was my call. Okay. You know, I think we're all keeping track of, you know, the world politics and what's going on in the world. You know, you've got the Strait of Hormuz that's, you know, there's a blockade. And as Craig said, that we were paying less than $3 a gallon in January and then went up to $4 something. My call on this was the war is not going to be In the straighter road moves, it's not going to be closed to traffic for the oil barges there. So I felt that, yeah, we should increase it, but I don't think that it, gas, I think gas is going to come down at a relatively reasonable rate. So I didn't think we should raise the profit on that or the revenue too much.

Are we keeping it in line with how much we're buying it and all that? Yes.

we we make a profit we do profit on the marina fuel sales it's uh 90 octane 90 non-ethanol marine grade fuel we do profit on that which which is your in your revenue line there it's not a specific percentage we do have a method of setting price and it's to be fair with our competitor across the river

It's currently about six bucks a gallon.

Yes. Yes. There is a profit margin. We could consider increasing that. I mean, that's to increase revenue, but again, we do have a competitor across the river that if they don't increase theirs, we're just going to lose the sales.

The other factor you have to take into consideration, it's a discretionary purchase. To some degree, higher fuel prices decrease usage to some degree.

When these boats come in, they take 200 gallons.

Yeah.

It's gallons per hour they measure.

That's what they measure how much they use. Wow.

Is the cruise ship going to be using our gas? No. Oh, man.

Come on.

They're using our water. And you saw that I did put a line item in there for the cruise lines, destinations that will be here. So we are making something, but not on gas.

So to get back to vehicles, we talked about the case loader. The reason for it is the bigger bucket. If I remember our conversation correctly, is that...

So now you're in the enterprise front of the sewer, G8120-200 account, case 821 loader with the snow blower. That is a four yard bucket. It's bigger than any loader we currently have. I guess right now it's a 720 volt, which is a three and a half yard bucket. This would be replacing that loader. The past couple of winners have shown the need for this we borrowed ended up borrowing a machine from the county Sean Sean's been in the county's been gracious enough to let the lonest one at no charge But once it gets here Sean caused me every other day wants to know what's coming back because he needs it So for us to have our own machine this is this is a loaders inherently are longer service this isn't a 10-year that we get 15 18 maybe sometimes 20 years this this machine is going to be around for close to 20 years is it going to run every day no and that's why it's going to last that long but when we need it it's going to be there

But as we talk, this is a dual purpose machine. It can snowblow for where you dump the snow and pile up, but also can, if we need it, could be used for streets.

It could be used for streets. We can cut back streets with it and use it at our snow pile. We have the two dump sites. we get the one the rotary blower at one this one would be at the other when we get to that point of hauling snow but yes also could be used to cut cut back probably not in the neighborhoods but definitely on on you know 104 for you know 481 utica street where the streets are open because it's it's a good size machine grants available for that not that i'm aware of equipment grants are tough to come by

Are there questions, comments for the commissioner?

There's also a second loader. It's a mini loader, case 121. Yep.

What's the purpose of that? Some information. So the case 121, we have a case 121 and we have a CAT 305 mini loader. So that case 121 is on the road nearly every day. It needs to be replaced. That piece of appointment is something we, I forget what year it is. I'm sure I have it. 2019. No, I'm sorry. That's the cap. It's a 903D. And we had the case the year before that. So it's, I think, 2018. And again, that machine is out nearly every day. It's versatile. We use it for so many different things. Top soil, sidewalks, gravel. We use it to move snow in the winter. It's just time to replace it. And you only have one of those? The Case 120, yes. And then we have a Cat 903D, which is a little bit smaller machine, but still, that machine is out. Those machines are out nearly every day. Any other questions?

The skid steer for the water department, or the water whatever, it's a... for snow removal, is that under your budget?

John Lacy put that in the budget? Yeah. You can only push so much snow with a pickup truck, and when it's snowing out, we can't always get there to help push the pylons out, which is fine. Which is fine.

So that'll be used at the wastewater or fresh water only? Fresh water treatment.

Don't hate me, hypothetical.

No, we're not, there's no hate here.

Okay, if you had to cut one thing from your budget, what would it be?

Don't say Ron's paid. I was going to say that. Don't say Ron's paid.

Not Ron's paid. No one's paid. That would be the absolute last thing I would do. We're not looking to reduce any services for any people. But one thing, that's a tough question. I don't know.

If the F-350 is replacing, I'm going to assume it's something that's got a toolbox, tool body with a plow. So I'm assuming that's going to replace.

Those are direct replacements for trucks that are coming off the road that are not going to pass state inspection or haven't passed state inspection.

Will they go to auction?

Yes.

So we'll get $5.

We'll get $5. You'd be surprised. $10.

Sometimes they surprise us with this surplus equipment. You get a couple thousand dollars for these trucks. They're worth that in scrap steel alone. I don't know. I don't have an answer to that.

I mean, if I absolutely had to cut something considering, you know,

Probably the most difficult thing would be paving. That's the only spot that there's margin. And that's...

Yes, it is. 51-10-440. 51-10-440. I'm sorry. I'll stay out of it. Where's that?

Did you think of something? Did you think of something?

That's the only place where, again, you're affecting. Now, we use Chip's money to do the bulk of our payment. Last year, we came up with the idea of, being that it takes three years to wait for a snowplow, let's buy the snowplow with Chip's money and take the money we would have put towards the snowplow into the budget.

Right.

Rather than under an equipment line, we put it in our paper route so we can realize that dollar this year, not three years from now when the truck shows up. So in the 5110, if there were anywhere, if there were anywhere to trim money that would be the least amount of impact But that would just mean that's a street or two that's not going to get paid.

No.

Right? Yeah. Now, the $51,410, $250,000, that's your sidewalks, your curbing, your patching, your potholes, your tar ceilings. And we run that out every year. Actually, that's an increase because we have run it out every year. It's the...

Wait, you're talking about like page 6? Yeah.

It's not in here.

How much is it normally?

The 5110. I don't know how I missed that. The 5110 440. No. That 250,000 should not have been.

It makes me wonder if it was just a typo and this would have been 200,000 instead of 2000.

Yeah, but 252,000. Well, that's a problem.

You want me to put that back in there and see what it does to our life?

Yeah, please.

So let's talk about what we're putting back in, though.

So contracted services for paving. This year, $250,000 towards paving. That's on top of our checks allotment. Because we have committed $250,000 to a snowplow that we expect in 2029 That's where the trade-off is right And that was So material supply and equipment wouldn't that be it's 250,000 it says I

The material, concrete tampers, cement saws, other miscellaneous, sidewalk and curb forms.

That is TPW crews replacing sidewalks. That's concrete. Sorry, I can't see from back here. Patching roads, fixing roads, fixing water main breaks. I can't see back here. I'm just looking at it.

But it's not the 252 you're looking for.

Nope, it's the 0.440 rental of outside equipment.

So the tax levy is 13 point, almost 14 million.

But you're still almost $100,000 under the tax levy limit.

And that doesn't- What's the percent of increase over the levy?

2.94. But it's never going to be, I mean, 2% is not what the tax levy limit is.

Well, I understand that. I understand just the impact of what the taxpayer will see in the next 2.9, over last year.

They will see their taxes go up less than $100. If they own a $200,000 house, their difference in their tax bill would be $73.

But for some people, that's a big difference. Yeah. Can be. Yeah.

And I apologize. I did not look at that line in the budget because it didn't, my proposal didn't change from last year. So I don't know why that changed.

You want to put an extra zero in that house value of a home, not $10,000. Sorry.

There you go. No, you're good. You're good. You're good.

Okay.

It varies each year, is my understanding. And this is the $36 is for the year, right? It went off. Okay. Obviously.

Okay. Sorry. $10,000.

It didn't go much. It went up like $9.00. We're getting some people to use the mic, guys. So, yeah, the one spot I was... We took it out already for us. It's already missing, which is... Which is worse than what, well, almost as bad as what happened last year. Last year the parks budget was zero when I sent it. I had to add all that back in, which was more than this. Significantly more than this.

Certainly it's an important item to have in the budget. I remember when I was campaigning in 2015 to be on the council in 2016, one of the things that people were telling me was that sidewalks and roads weren't being taken care of. And as I found out, the city of Oswego didn't have the money to do sidewalks because it was coming out of their budget. and they didn't have enough money to front the money for chips because chips is reimbursable so uh fixing the roads regardless of chips money but above and beyond chips money i think is a issue that the taxpayers want to see they want to see sidewalks taken care of we have a couple hundred miles of sidewalks they also want to see potholes filled and we have that new 40 inch wide milling machine that's doing a great job but before we had an 18 inch wide and now we can mill and repair those potholes much more effectively. So if I had a vote here, I'd say you don't want to remove that. You'd like to put it back in because it does affect people and their cars. You'd be surprised in the wintertime how many notice of claims I receive for cars that hit potholes and damage their wheels and their rims and their tires. And I'd hate to see us not maintain our roads just because it's 252,000. I think that would be a disservice to the public, to be honest with you.

I do agree. If anything, we might be able to reduce it by a little bit, but we definitely have a lot of roads in rough shape. DPW has done a great job doing a lot of patches, but they only hold up for so long, although I've seen quite a few patches last five plus years. Is there any equipment in this budget that we could live without or get by for one more year that we could push off a little bit? I do understand that's a tough ask.

think thinking thinking through this and uh full disclosure because the next conversation was in lieu of this money that we're talking about right now being in the 51 10 440 of committing an additional cost of plows gone up we order another plow fleet of 10 we order one every year all this truck is 10 years the newest truck is new with the next one expected next spring and then the one after that any 20 skip a year We expect one in 27. We skipped a year for 28. The next truck after that is expected in 2029. We ordered a truck with this budget. We would expect that truck in 2030. They're three years out. They may get a little faster, but that's the timeline right now. So committing $275,000 of essentially the 2030 chips funds towards purchasing a plot. That still needs to happen. That's a different conversation. That's not in the budget. That's an ask that comes to council. We'll discuss that at committee. The next ask was going to be in 2027, we use a little bit of chip splitting because we don't have a call coming up next year to buy a street sweeper. Again, different conversation. I'm just sharing my thought process here with everyone. Anything in this budget that we could do without for a year? Anyone got the crystal ball? We're all guessers. Here's my thought for you to consider and we could do. The one piece of equipment that could wait, again, crystal ball, what kind of winner are we going to have, is that $630,000 loaner. Keep in mind, we wait a year, that price is going to go up, not going down. That price is going up. In lieu of the loader, we move the one pickup truck that's left in the budget under the 3310 account into the sewer account. That's $72,000. That's all I got to offer. I need the pickup truck. Maybe we can wait a year on the loader. Yes.

So that doesn't affect the tax level.

Or just move the truck to the sewer or water fund. Doesn't affect the tax level. There's $72,000.

Is the loader in the sewer? It is. It is now, so it's not affecting the general fund.

It's not affecting the tax level. It's affecting the fact that the sewer fund is upside down. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. Is it possible to find, I don't, what is it called, the $600,000 approximately used, like for one of the, can we buy it used?

I don't know if that's a good idea.

Could we buy them, make a phone call to Sean and see if we can buy his? Maybe they can get one, the county can get one.

I don't know if that's a good idea. We want something that's going to last a while.

It's going to last 20 plus years.

We're losing the snow blower functionality of it because it's not going to come with a snow blower. I'm not so sure buying 600,000 odd pieces of equipment used that we're going to rely on is a great idea. To the point of, you don't have to drop the loader. We're talking about just the general fund, which affects the tax levy. The $72,000 pickup truck in the 3310 account, you could move that to water or sewer, takes it off your tax levy, there's $72,000. I mean, for that matter, you could move the $16,000 lawnmower and the $14,000 trailer to water and sewer as well.

Are they clearly used for those purposes? Is that just budgetary or is it operational, making that decision?

Well, we cut grass. We cut grass at the water treatment plant. We cut grass at the sewer pump station. The dump trailers are used for everything, everywhere. The front loader, that would be used to move snow.

Well I guess my, and of course we started the extensive conversation of trying to bring an understanding of funding the enterprise accounts for sewer and water appropriately. Yes. And they're paid by rate payers, not tax payers. Yes. So if they're clearly being used by the services that should be paid by rate payers, that's probably fairly where they belong.

Agreed.

So I guess if that's, and it has impact obviously balances and things like that, but we can only adjust it if we properly allocate it. Colleen, would you think that that's an appropriate recategorization? Just ask you from an accounting point of view.

If you were going to move this to water, that would increase the amount of appropriated fund balance in the water fund that you would have to use to balance that budget. So it would go from using $866,000 of the fund balance in WaterFund to $940,000. I can't do math in my head.

I don't account for any of the firmies.

Now, the impact that that does is that the bleed rate is faster of that fund balance because of that.

Yes. Right.

That's a third of your available fund balance.

Yeah.

is used in that.

To support one year's budget. Right. So accounting-wise, sure, it makes sense. Basically, responsible-wise, I'm not sure it does.

The underlying assumption is, though, that you have not remediated the fund balance in other ways.

That's what rate increases are for.

Right. That's what rate studies will help us discover who should be paying more. I think, right?

Right, yeah. And I mean, again, I think relevant to the discussion, the enterprise fund, the 8120 account, 200 equipment is normally about 325,000. This year we added an additional $600,000 to that because we need this load. And it's a one-time thing. Two years ago we needed a new vacuum truck, which is $550,000. We ended up bonding for that. I think we bonded for it, or it came out of the reserve. I don't know which. But that's... These are one-off things. Every couple of years you need to buy this big piece of equipment. So it's not every year. As you're talking about sewer rates and getting into that, that's where the differentiation is. So I agree. Moving that truck to sewer is not the right thing to do. But I still need the truck. That's the crew out there painting crosswalks and yellow lines and your five lines and your skip lines and putting on stop signs and the truck they have is not going to pass state inspection. So now what do I do with that crew?

Can we take a five minute recess?

Sure.

Why don't you come on over here and use this one? Well, surprise, we have one over here.

Oh, I'm sorry. I had you trapped. Yeah, it's nice of you.

They don't. They don't want them.

Looks like you were looking for something. I am.

You're trying to figure out how that happened? I'm trying to figure out how that happened.

We were looking at our worksheet. We were looking at the budget.

I would have to go back to the original one.

If you remember, Colleen, there was a couple other ones that I found that, you know, it was listed at like 2,000 and it was supposed to be 200,000. So I just think that's, there was an error as far as input, human error.

That's the number you should have been starting.

I just used what you sent over. Did we send it over to you? i don't know if it i don't think it matters we fixed it now i i needed to get up anyways uh you know don't you know the history behind this chair oh

Where did he put it? This was stolen from Mexico.

Not that it matters.

There it is. Here, take that to your desk and read that. There's history. It's actually war creations. Yeah, let's use that word.

Mayor, we talked about that.

What's that?

We talked about that at our meeting, that budget line.

It had to be something that I may disappear, and I don't see where I did that.

It is what it is at this point, and we're going to hopefully work through it here.

I apologize for that. I don't know what happened. Yeah, next year, 250 million bank account. Definitely. Could I ask you a quick question?

No, just the chair.

So this, well, it's under a sort of fund, but is this no blower attachment, could that be purchased separate? Or does it have to be purchased all together?

It's one time purchased from OGS to get the discount. Lamps that came up. Okay. They changed it. That makes sense.

It could come from different accounts, but you can't, in order to get the discount, you have to buy it at the same time.

Okay. All right, I guess we'll nickel and dime this a little bit. Could I ask under street maintenance, there's 10,000 for safety training, seminars, and freight. I don't know how that's broken out between the three. Could the safety training be done in-house, save some money, maybe cut out the seminars for the year?

We don't do any seminars.

Okay.

To be honest, that 10,000 safety training costs, Ron, do you have any? We're doing all in-house now. So that 10,000 is all being used up in freight.

And you expect to use all that for freight? Any room in that at all? Not likely.

We might order something. What's that?

Garage 5132.

It's a lawnmower.

$28,000.

That's a mall. That's a commercial mall. There's zero turn, usually. What's it?

How long?

Yeah, they probably got to do it in a cycle. You wear them out. All the landscapers. 460, council. Councilor Ashland, missing. We need a 250, please.

460 accounts are very versatile because they are miscellaneous expenses. There's no rules per se as to how we spend them except where you can't buy equipment in excess of $5,000. So they become very useful towards the end of the year to cover. That's why we don't come for Additional money for concrete or asphalt in October November because we start using those 468 gallons That's open That's how we operate

Okay. So this mower, are we buying that because we're replacing something that is actually out of commission right now, or are we trying to stay ahead of the game and replace something that you're maintaining a lot?

The latter. We're staying ahead of the game. We do significant maintenance on these mowers, as you well, and I'm sure you all well know, I'm going to do the math one of these days on how many acres of grass we cut. It's a lot. They're out every day. They fix them, repair them. They just get to the point where they need to be replaced, and that's where we're going to stay ahead of the game, keep a new one every year, every other year. Sometimes we buy two at a time. It depends on how they were purchased. If there were years that we bought two or three, well, guess what? Those machines come due at the same time.

So there's no crystal ball, right? So we might be able to limp along with without buying one, for sure.

Potentially.

I'm looking at anything. I can't answer that.

You're not going to like this. How many people are retiring? Anyone?

And what's his role? Yeah, their role. Could that position remain, going along airlines, could that position remain empty for one year?

No. We intend to fill that position.

Are you able to move someone else into that position and leave a different one potentially empty?

So the assistant warehouse coordinator currently is intended to fill that position.

Could you go without an assistant? Could you go without an assistant then? Bump them up and leave that spot open for a year? Well, I'd rather give you the $10 million budget you came in with, but that's not realistic.

We were running deficient in the garage warehouse up until this year when Mike, the warehouse coordinator, declared to us to let us know that come thanksgiving mike's not coming to work anymore and he's been with us for 30 years now he's moving on good for him which he quickly filled the assistant position and is getting this person trained actually it was our intent to begin with was to have two people um i either i either need the assistant stock in in the warehouse or i need another mechanic and this isn't the way the warehouse made made more sense could we do without it for a year maybe do i think next year when i sit at this table that i'm going to get that position back no maybe nope

Is the purchasing assistant able to do any of those jobs that would be part of the warehouse coordinators to help out? Okay.

She's fully involved with the warehouse. So essentially there's three people. The purchasing assistant is essentially the clerical end of the warehouse.

Is there anywhere where we could get creative here to save the taxpayers some money?

I have an idea. Well, John brought it up earlier. If you wanted to be very aggressive on that AIM slash TMA, as I pointed out, the TMA is temporary, and we got about, I think it was $509,000 this year. You could go out on a limb and say, well, maybe we'll get that $509,000 or maybe we should go $252,000 and add that in on the revenue side, which would offset what you're trying to pay for, which is that $252,000 that we missed. But that's an option that you could do if you feel comfortable in increasing and saying the TMA, the temporary admissible aid, would be increased. I clearly support that.

And I'll say why I do. Our aid in 2026 was $2,736,000 between AMI and and our TMA. The governor's budget, I talked to NICOM today, I talked to Chris Ryan's office today, that has been, that tripled that TMA. Clearly not, it's not speculative. It's gone from 50 million to 150 million. And if you read the governor's report when she issued that, it's clearly intended for the fiscal constraints of communities trying to do what we're doing, given the face of fuel costs and operating costs. I appreciate that it gets into the abyss of our unallocated fund balance, but this is clearly the legislative intent for these pressures that we have. I understand that we should deliver reasonable budgets and have expectations to our taxpayers that 80, 90% of much of our budgets are salary and benefits and payroll for people that deliver services. But we also live in a community that is under great pressure. So that when we have a state senator and a governor that's delivered relief and we should share that temporary relief as best we can. And I know that we're using fund balance, and I appreciate the fiscal constraints, because also if you look at our sales tax, you've taken a very good and conservative view of that, and I appreciate that. And that's not financial gymnastics to try to get to an outcome. But I do think that the fact that we have gone from 2.73 million on the combination of those two to 3.305, That's hard money. That's not kind of, not sort of. It's past. It's in the budget and it's coming. NICOM says it. Go to the NICOM website. There's a spreadsheet. I have the spreadsheet. As soon as I'm getting it and it's coming, it's going to be posted. So it's not kind of. So I would encourage us to make some modest appropriate adjustment to reflect the anticipated revenue.

We need to take advantage of that.