Council - Regular Meeting

Could you please stand for the pledge?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Let us pray. Precious Father, we invite you to this regular meeting and budget meeting. And Lord, we just need your guidance, your knowledge, and what we need to do to keep this town a great little small town and to do what's right for all the citizens of Nashville. Amen. Public comment.

Public comment.

First hand, 727 Myer Street, Bill Wright Supply. I've probably shown and come up with some things that maybe we need to revisit to sign the ordinance and stuff like that. Some businesses being able to attract business. And I thought I'd just like for us to look at that and encourage people to do things that we're not getting a news office by the face because there's some things in there that's using attention that's deterring business. And we don't want to be known as your brother at the end of a job business minded community.

So anyway, let us please take a new visit back and see what we can do about that. Thank you.

Report special presentations. Thomas.

Thomas is here.

Yay. Hey, Thomas.

We're family.

And I think you all have this presentation behind the agenda.

We brought in for Glover Park in Nashville. So in the PowerPoint presentation, pretty much it's a The first slide is going to show you the number of participants that we've had in 2025. So this report is just for 2025 Nash County. We provided programming for 3332 athletes in 2025 of the 3,323. There were 1,296 participants that signed up to participate at locations offered in Nashville. So while reviewing the numbers, Youth soccer is the biggest program in the county with 1,223 participants. However, youth basketball is the most popular amongst Nashville sign-ups. We had 371 participants. The total participants is the total county. The total county. The total county. And so we had 371 participants sign up for summer and winter basketball in 2025. Coming in second was youth baseball, softball, and tee ball, which had the second most participants with 265. And flag football was right behind with 264 participants. So I tried to break it out on the chart. If you look to the right column, that's 3,323 participants for youth athletics for the county as a whole. And then, as I mentioned, 1,296 for Nashville. So we tried to break it down. So some of the sports, some of the data, if you look at volleyball, it says 55 participants. Our staff, we went back and saw all of those are Nashville residents. 55 participants in volleyball. So for like baseball, softball, and t-ball, they had Nashville addresses. They had Nashville addresses. So we tried to break it out and divide it out like that. Any other questions? All right, moving on to slide three. This just looks at the adult athletic participation, and these numbers kind of skewed a little bit because the adult sports we play, the majority of the adult sports are played at Nass Central Middle School, Nashville Elementary, in the gym or on the... baseball field, or at Glover Park for the adult flag football on the baseball field. So some of these, they may not be Nashville residents, but majority of the program is in Nashville locations, if that makes any sense. Our biggest adult program last year was adult basketball. It's always big, those guys. We had 294 participants playing adult basketball between High Central and National Elementary. And the next largest was last football, which we played at Global Park. Our adult sports, they continue to grow. This past, well, this upcoming summer we have 21 adult basketball teams. That's good. Yeah, so it's continuing to grow, and Nashville is our home hub for that. So we play at Mass Central Middle School, Nashville Elementary, and it's an all-day event. We play on Sundays, so it's all day on Sundays. Any other questions on the adult athletic participation? All right. Moving on to the next slide.

I'm sorry, I don't go back to the last slide. OK, so on this soccer for 1223 participants. Does that include like Red Oak Park and Middlesex?

OK, I'm trying to think. Yeah. So you look on the first slide, 1223, that's every part, Miracle Park, Glover Park, Bailey. And of those 1223, 228 sign up just to play at Glover Park. Although on Sunday, I mean on Saturday, excuse me, they may play at Miracle, they may play at Red Oak, but their practice is at Nashville. Okay, that's good. Alright, so revenue collected. This next slide covers the revenue collected. As for revenue generated for the youth sports, if you look at it, we collected a total of $52,900 for the various youth sports offered based off the number of participants that signed up for Nashville. Youth basketball was the top revenue generator with 14,840, followed by flag football with 10,710. And this don't show the expenses. We just show the revenue bought in. It don't show the expenses that we have for the jerseys, for the umpires, for the officials, for our staff. This just is the revenue generated from the program.

We just wanted to call a part number anyway, just to have an idea. That's what I wanted, just to have an idea of how much was coming in.

No, don't bother to tell me that. Any work for us, but for us, if you do, I would like to know how much. It's definitely going to wash itself out.

OK. My staff and I will get together, and we'll send that to you via email within the next week. So about the expenses on each program, whether it's you or Adobe. All right. Moving on to slide five, which is We're going to talk about the revenue collected for the adult sports. The total revenue collected for the adult sports was $30,790. And this was just for the predominantly Nashville-based locations. I didn't include indoor soccer because we play at Cooper's for indoor soccer. So that number, that $30,790, is just for the adult athletes that are predominantly in Nashville. As I mentioned, we have 21 basketball teams this upcoming summer. Of course, basketball will be the top revenue generator. Last year, as well, we had $15,170 generated just from adult basketball. So those guys, they really enjoy playing basketball on Saturday. They look forward to it. It'll be a crowd in Nashville in that century on Saturday. Excuse me, Sundays. All right. Moving on to slide six. This next slide, I'll try to break it down to how many games were at the different locations throughout Nashville. So we had a total of 1,663 games played at all the various locations throughout the county. That's Red Oak, that's Bailey, that's Coopers, and Nashville. Of that 1,663, 734 were played at the facilities within the town limits. And that's Nashville Elementary, Mass Central, JW Global Park. That's 44.14% of the games played at the locations here within the town. So I think that's a great number. So almost half of the games that we play are in town limits. Any questions on the location? Is that Nass Central Middle School? Yeah, Nass Central Middle School. So we do a lot at Nass Central Middle School for basketball and volleyball. And I tried to break it down on the chart by how many games were at Nashville Elementary Field, 9th Central Gym, Nashville Gym, then add it up to the total games in Nashville. We play a lot at Glover Park.

We had 372 games at Glover Park last year. We had a tournament. We had the World Series softball tournament this past weekend.

And so we had teams coming from different parts of North Carolina and Virginia, so it was Saturday and Sunday. We didn't play that Saturday because of the ribbon cutting. So we played at Miracle on Saturday, but they prefer to play at Glover Park. More than Red Oak, more than Miracle Park, they want to play at Glover. All the tournaments that we host, they want to get Glover. I think one of the things to hold Glover back, we need to get lights on those two additional baseballs, those two fields, three and four. We need lights back. If not, once time changes, they're going to go to riddle they're going to go to miracle park because we have lights at those locations we just got lights at miracle park so that's going to make that um that part you know they're paying for their lives at miracle and that's paid for the county the county pays for the lights yeah we didn't get no grant for the lights the county three and four Not to my knowledge, Corey, you can answer that question.

No, no, sir.

It was one of our budget requests was a number to add lights to those fields. One of the things that Thomas had drawn for a remaining time in this unit was replacing a lot of the lights on the existing field. And that had been completed just recently, correct?

Yes. Yeah, fields three and four. And not just for the tournaments, but for our residents and participants that are here in Nashville. Because as I mentioned, once time changes, it's kind of a challenge. for those teams to practice, especially during the fall. Definitely. Definitely. So we don't want to lose those participants to Red Oak or to the Miracle Park. We want to keep those participants playing at their home location for practice here in Nashville. So it'll benefit both the town residents and the tournament aspect as well. All right. Now that we have discussed the number of participants and revenue generated from the youth and adult athletic program, we'll move on to discuss the tournaments hosted, which we mentioned briefly, at Glover Park and its economic impact. So what is economic impact? Economic impact is the total amount of new money that flows into the local economy. because of an event, activity, tournament, et cetera. This can measure how much local businesses, restaurants, hotels, gas stations, and stores benefit when visitors and participants spend their money here in Nashville. All right, so next slide, slide eight. This covers the different factors that influence economic impact in a city or a town. The first factor is direct spending. Direct spending looks at money spent by visitors. We're going to scratch hotels on money spent on food, gas, shopping, etc. Then the next factor, another factor, is indirect spending. This is where local businesses then spend some of the money with other local suppliers and employers here in Nashville. And the final factor is induced spending. which is employees spending their money at other local businesses. Together, these create a multiplier effect, which $1 can generate more than $1 of total economic benefit for the town. So we'll move on to this next slide and we'll look at how many tournaments we hosted in 2025. And I've got some help from Barbara Green with Travel and Tourism with the numbers that I'm presenting here shortly. In 2025, We hosted eight youth baseball and softball tournaments just at Global Park alone. Those eight tournaments brought in 139 teams from different parts of North Carolina and Virginia. As I mentioned, Barbara helped us with estimated economic impact from the eight tournaments based on a formula that she has on the profile of the NC visitor. Economic impact is based on the following, which she looked at 25 people per youth sports team, That included 12 players, which is the going number for the number of players on the team, two coaches per team and staff, and 11 parents, siblings, and other spectators. That's how we got that 25 people per team number. So if you go to your next slide in your packet.

Can I just stop you for one second? So in the first bunch of slides, we were talking about the rec teams that you put forth. Now we're talking about the travel teams that you got full in. Correct. Okay. So for the first one, when it talked about Revenues generated. That was just from the REF?

That was just REF.

Okay.

And then... That was just fees, right? Yeah. Right. Okay.

And now we're switching gears to... Once we started talking about the Easter money.

Okay. The economic impact, we're switching to the out-of-town business.

So we're not even including in the economic impact the weekend games and practices that we're bringing in for the REF weeks? No.

This is just the tournaments that we had last year. Okay. Thank you. All right. So this next slide, Barbara provided me with a chart... with three different scenarios. Scenario one, which is she looked at 7% of those 139 teams staying overnight. So day trip teams was 129. Overnight teams was 10 teams in scenario one. Scenario two had 5% staying overnight, which is 132 teams just doing day trips and then seven overnight teams. Scenario 3 was 3% overnight with only four teams staying overnight and 135 doing day trip. If you look at scenario 1, the 7%, that generated the highest economic impact at $625,075 as economic impact. However, even the most conservative scenario at the 3% overnight still produced $1.54 million in total economic impact. So you can see the benefit of hosting these tournaments at Global Park with these teams coming in from different parts of North Carolina, different parts of Virginia. And if you look at it, the day trip teams provide the majority of the impact across all different scenarios while if the team did stay overnight you can see how it was you know it boosts the economic impact what this tells me is we need to build a hotel so i i know um some members of the council would like to see those numbers from the economic impact from the tournament so i felt i should provide y'all with those numbers as well and make y'all aware that if we do get lights at Glover Park on those two additional fields that it could assist with, you know, stimulating the economy here in Nashville. And it'll definitely benefit the town residents as well. Any other questions before we move on to the next slide?

Maybe someone's listening that would like to donate those lights.

That would be nice. Yeah. So the final slide, as I mentioned, just why this matters for Nashville. My team and I, we enjoy hosting tournaments and events for the community. By hosting events, we think that we're doing a great job assisting with loosening the economy here in Nashville. By hosting these tournaments... You're fine. By hosting these tournaments, the economic impact, it can show the broader value of hosting sports tournaments beyond just participation and revenue. and also every overnight visitor spends significantly more than a day trip so if we get those lights if we get a hotel it'll definitely assist with boosting the economy and that concludes my presentation i'd be willing to answer any questions that y'all may have

I just have one quick question. So we went over the revenue that the rec leagues bring in. Did you go over the revenue that the travel brings in? I don't know if it's a big revenue generator or you all just do it for the economic impact.

We just do it for the economic impact. So we had, I can do that math real quick in my head. So they pay $300 per field per day. So if they rent all four baseball fields, that's $1,200 brought in as revenue for field rental. For the one weekend. For the one weekend. Because most of the tournaments are softball tournaments. One day, if we take that $1,200 and we multiply that by eight, I ain't the best mathematician, but that's like $9,600 if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, so $9,600 revenue brought in for the field run. Okay. Yeah, just for field running. How many people do you have on staff at this point? We have a total of 10 full-time employees, including myself. that's maintenance and athletes. 10 full-time employees. And we have a host of part-time employees that I call them, you know, we can't do it without them. They're frontline communication at a lot of these events because we can't be in two places at one time. We have... Our full-time staff, we have one person in charge of just soccer for the county, one person that's in charge of baseball. But, you know, we play at different locations. We use baseball, for example. Josh is in charge of baseball, but on a given night, we may have Glover, Bailey, Miracle. springhold all these locations going so he can't be in five places at one time so we depend on our site supervisors and they're very very instrumental to our team so we have probably about 60 part-time staff all right any other questions how would you like

the possibility of using light towers temporarily on those fields?

We'll probably pay more, end up paying more in the long run. What was the quote for the lights on those people?

The last quote we received was right at $400,000 for the two ball fields and the soccer field, which is actually down from a couple years ago. The last time I got a quote, it was close to $525,000.

Any other questions? Management. Y'all have a good day.

Appreciate it.

I was kidding, Larry.

I missed it. What happened? Did he say that? Man, I am disappointed.

OK. Now we're moving to our work session, our budget review.

Well, I just wanted to give you a quick overview summary of the proposed budget that we've been talking about the last meeting, last Wednesday, and we're going to continue talking about today. So we're trying to put this together for us. What it shows in the first column is how we project. We're going to begin our fiscal year with fund balances. So for the general fund, we're projecting to begin with $6.1 million in fund balance. The MSD, which is our municipal service district, we're looking at beginning with $218,000. Water and sewer fund, $8.5 million. Stormwater, $269,000. Howellville, $490,000. And then the drugs teacher, $20,000. which we really can't spend, is $99,682. The next column then shows the income that we project for the FY27 budget. And these are a little different than what you'll see in the spreadsheet, because the spreadsheet have what we're transferring in from fund balance to do one-time projects, so it's just slightly different. So the income is $9.5 million for the general fund, $49,900 for the MSD. Water and sewer, $5.9 million. Stormwater, $155,000. Howell, $215,000. And then on the expense side, the general fund at $10 million and some change. MSD at $79,900. The water and sewer at $6.4 million. The vehicle capital, nothing there, I'm sorry. Stormwater, $246,000. And then the pile, $555,000. So the next column then shows the appropriated fund balance. This is how much money we have in the bank that we're going to pull out of the bank and spend in this proposed budget. So for the general fund, it's $416,500. And as we go through the detailed budget, anything highlighted in red is what we're considering a one-time purchase, which it makes sense to use fund balance for that because it's not a reoccurring ongoing expense out of here. And then for water and sewer, one-time purchases of $491,000. And stormwater, 91,580. And then on the Powell, 340,000. and storm water that's for our body street storm sewer intake project to put those intakes in and a few spots to help drainage and then on the powell that that would be overlaying the cross street from barns to 58 highway 58 or first street that's what we redid a couple years ago in front of gradswell and we did and drainage improvements, and then we overlaid the whole thing in front of . It also includes, hopefully, enough money to overlay Essex Road when we get finished putting the sewer system in the Essex subdivision, which is under construction, as we explained. So that is the overview.

The income for the water. stormwater, is that based on what percentage increase?

We really didn't increase stormwater revenues. We get that about...

So this is not increasing?

No, no. No increase in stormwater fee. We're at mercy in the state.

So the projected ending fund balance. How is that ending fund balance the same number as the beginning fund balance?

we're taking out 416 transferring in 192 we still have a deficit but it isn't the water and stormwater income based on fees right what charges so you're using the same numbers of last year or you increased to the percentage

So the sewer and water on 30, that number is based on?

An increase, a proposed increase of 15.

Okay, that's what I was asking. On water and sewer.

That's what I was trying to get to. Okay, thank you.

this person is

Yeah. It is a formula. We can put a formula in there.

I think I would believe that correctly, so. Okay. Okay. Okay. Sure.

Yeah, just to have the math accurate for the day one, I understand it's going to change. But I would assume it would be the whole 16 minus the 192.

Yes. Okay. So the last problem is going to be less the Y.

And then we have the same thing for... well water and sewer has got the same mistake on yeah water and sewer has the same thing where it's the same number now that's a large fund balance for water sewer what kind of projects can we be doing with that

Well, Jason's got proposed in the water and sewer that we're going to do some projects. Jason, do you want to summarize those? Some questions here? So within the rate study... Yeah, he's going to direct you to the UNC rate study.

So currently we have $8.5 million in the enterprise.

Because we have... Insurance for the vows.

Yeah, the fund balance is, we're going to start the year with $8.5 million in enterprise or water and sewer fund balance. And we're only proposing to use $491 of that. So if we had the formula right the very last column, it would tell you approximately what we project to end the fiscal year 27 with. If you're good at doing math in your head, the 8.5 million minus the 491 would give you the difference. Unless, of course, projects come along during the year that we talk about and the council approves to do. One of those such projects we don't have in the budget is the regencyed lift station available We have $953,000 of grant money from Congressman Don Davis for that project. I have RFQs out right now for the engineering on that. They're due on Friday. Then we'll select an engineer and get started with that project. Every month that goes by, I'm afraid that project We're going to have the directional door under the 64 and the Red Oak Road to get past the new medical clinic down to our fallout line. But it's a very doable project. Gravity flows nicely. And we'll be able to get rid of that lift station. But we're probably going to have to contribute some more than just that grant to complete that project. And we would take that out of fund balance. Jason, I guess, is going to talk about the capital improvements that were in the UNC grant study.

It's about halfway through. There's a place that will say capital improvements. And that will list a five-year outlook of some things we would like to do. That was like $8 million, wasn't it? It's right after 22.

It doesn't have a number on it.

23, yeah, I should say. So if you look at it, and I've got it broken down a little bit more granular on my end, but in year 27, emergency valve replacement, engineering, expansion to the water and sewer office, two-inch main replacement, pump station upgrades, well house maintenance. And then we can break down into FY28, $2.8 million, and again, that is land, the tank, telemetry, and engineering for the work hour. I think me and Bill talked about it, you know, kind of going towards the national middle school area of the town to do our triangle and then FY 20, 829. That's that again. Jet combo truck. So our jet combo back truck is going to be getting old and need to be replaced. That's going to be a big expense. A new dump truck. and again two inch line replacement for our two inch galvanized pipe and then we can project out from there we won't be able to do all of our two inch line replacement and all of our ac line replacement we'll have to break those out in multiple years to be able to get it done and and this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as projects go there's going to be other things that come up that we'll have to you know budget and there might be something that comes up that takes precedence over a two inch line replacement or a back truck but we're we're ever evolving when it comes to the water and soil infrastructure.

And this is just a five-year capital improvement plan. I don't know if you guys remember when Mike Olson did our asset inventory assessment, and he came up with a 10-year capital improvement plan, and it had 22 million dollars. Right. And I thought we had one council member who might have heard that number, but yeah, I mean, Infrastructure ages, and it's underground, out of sight, out of mind, and we really don't think about it until it breaks.

So are the 26-27 that you just went over on capital improvements, is that included in here?

So in my 2026 budget now, our backup sewer pumps, pump station upgrades, and bypass pump are all in the current budget as it sits right now. There's a little bit of money for GIS mapping. taught with Mike Tolson and his group, so we can spend a little bit of money for that. But all the other items are in the budget as it sits right now. So those are already planned, and then we'll look at FY27 in the next year. 28. But if we want to move it up, We can move up any of these projects and make them this much bigger.

We see that it's aging. We see that we need to be fixing things. I don't want to just keep squirreling away. We need to be fixing and spending.

And squirreling away.

And squirreling away, yes. Because we obviously have long-term plans for this.

And the situation is... Ever since I've been here, and probably most of you, we've had to react. I'd love to see us get to a point where we could be proactive and not just react every time something breaks.

So the valve replacement and all of that is not in the current?

Some of that is, some of it, but not all of it. So some of this is in the... We do have a little bit of money in our water fund for valve replacements this year, but that's, again, just kind of the tip of the iceberg. We'll have to do it again.

And to get back to the visit and Jason also, we abandoned the visitation out of cases road some years.

in the very back of cardinal woods down on the very bottom and all that gravity will flow to cardinal woods

So we're not adding... Does the gravity flow to the main system to Rocky Mountain, or does it pump somewhere?

It pumps. So the gravity, the new, what we're installing right now today, will flow to Cardinal Woods. That'll be forced main pump to a gravity line that will flow all the way to Rocky Mountain.

Yeah. Cardinal Woods pumps up to Virtua Drive, and then from Virtua Drive, it flows gravity-wise all the way to Rocky Mountain.

It's not touched twice by a pump.

That makes sense. Well, it's not our problem.

Yeah, it's not our problem. Any other questions about CIP?

Any other people have questions?

Thanks, Jason. The water and sewer in the Enterprise Fund does have a nice fund balance, but I think that Jason proposed to do with that, and things on our five-year CPI that we need to do with it, and even more things on the 10-year plan that we need to do with it. One of the things that Chief Joyner brought up I don't know if I mentioned this to you last Wednesday but in the Mark Sheeran is in the process of owning ownership of this particular lot right here. And Jason mentioned that has given us a proposal that we've signed and sent back, that they're going to go do geo review of that. And if it seems good, then we'll do a test trail. Well, I'm afraid it's good.

Yeah. We need a well on the south side now, on the National Trail. We need a well out that way somewhere. Yeah. We don't have any property.

Well, one of the thoughts I have is we have a fire station, too, and that's four and a half acres. If behind, maybe you could take a look at putting a well there. It's not too far away from a big main that goes down all the road and loops in and around.

Because I'll have the future. tower and the future fire department would be in similar locations maybe we need to look at a combination a lot for that too yeah and the chief is more willing to look at that um

Yesterday, we were notified of an award from Congressman Don Davis of $800,000 for a new ladder truck. So our fire department, having had the frustration they've had with our current ladder truck for the last few years, they're not wasting any time. Chief, do you want to give the council an update on what you were looking at as far as a replacement ladder truck? I'm just looking at what there is out there.

We went to Zelma and we went to Zeblin and looked at two different style ladder trucks. I do know one thing we're going to do. We're probably just going to go with a single axle ladder truck instead of a dual. That'll cut down on some of that maintenance issues there. But there's some other things we're torn very light now, but we're just looking so we can try to control the cost of these trucks.

If I've got a ladder truck, so it's going to be fine.

But likely it's twice as much as 800,000, right? Yeah, it's probably going to be somewhere around 1.6. But me and Mr. Lansing have talked about some different things with that too. That's what we're looking at. Due to the fact of when you look at convenience of some time down the road at a hotel, You don't want to cut yourself short if they want to go four stories or whatever they want to go. You still want to have the right angle for a rescue angle. So that's one reason why we're looking at 100 foot.

It'll probably be 107, 110 footers.

How often does the ladder truck go out and what type of buildings do you use?

So now Rocky Mountain, City of Willitson, they deploy a ladder on every structure fire. That's why we deploy is that we have volunteers that can get there to get a truck. So that's something we're looking at. A safety grant just started yesterday, just came out, and I opened that up. That is where you can apply for personnel. They did change that this year when I read through it. You can apply for personnel, and normally it's 100% coverage for three years. This year they've changed it to 75%. They've crossed 25% to the town on the city, and that's for three years, the way that's set up. But you can get people... ladder truck i was just sitting back there working on numbers right then of looking at that would probably be our best bet because of our growth our school system our prison system our courthouse that's probably where we need to say is we're going to staff a ladder truck that way we would probably be more inclined to get funding than just saying we needed firefighters which would be an engineer and a lieutenant so i mean i was sitting by there working on numbers right there

Well, with the SABR grant then, we got the grant from the lead to hire a grant writer, which we used for our stormwater hazard mitigation grant application. And that particular project is to rebuild the sewer outfall from Red Oak Road to O'Kerrys Road. We're waiting to hear back on that. Hopefully by October we'll know if we get funding for that. It was a $10 million application. There's some local match for that. So again, that water sewer fund balance will come in handy if we get that grant and we can do that particular project. but we still have grant writing services available through us with that professional grant writer that the chief is going to reach out to for help on writing the safer grant yeah i think i because when we did the one for the generator and the upgrades to the plan event system i wrote that grant but i think i need a little bit more

F on the one for the person there because there's something we're missing in that grant for asking for a person there. So we'll look at that. AFG also opened up to where I told the boss this morning there's a lot of different things. We could either do our air packs on that, but we also asked that from Lisa and Lisa Barnes and Al Chesser. So I also told them what price of turnout gear and that probably would not be a bad idea to look at doing turnout gear in a extra set for all the volunteers, too, out of that, because turnout gear right now is about $4,000 a set. So it could be something we could look at doing as a turnout gear for the AFG grant. I opened both of them this morning. They're due June 22nd is when they close.

Thank you so much. Well, again, just to summarize, Tress has got them revised. So it looks like the general fund fund balance with what we have proposed in the budget will end the FY27 budget in the far right column of 5.5 million. Started out with 6.1, end with 5.5. And on the MSD, the second line there, spending some money there, we would end with a fund balance of $188,000. Again, not enough to do a streetscape project by any means, but I think Sean and I expressed some at the last meeting, the downtown strong advisory board members we have are very active in coming up with enhancement projects to improve the look of our MSD, our downtown. So then water and sewer, this budget, we would end the FY27, again in the far right column, at 7.5 million. Start out with 8.5, end with 7.5. And then the stormwater, that one dropped down to $86,000.

We're going to bring that up.

And then on Powell, we'll be spending that down to, we should end the year at that one with the $150,000. But again, the state really doesn't like us to sit on the cow money. They want you to spend what you get. And for us, it's easier said than done. We don't get a tremendous amount of cow money. So to do a big street project is always more than what we get. So in order to be able to do a fairly decent-sized street project, we've got to save it up for a couple of years or put general fund money with it. And then that last item, the drug seizure money, we don't have anything proposed for that. Chief Shockley may come up with something during the year to spend some of that money on, but ending with what we began at $99,000. As it's proposed, it does include a 2 cent tax increase to go from 59 cents to 61 cents per 100. And we looked at that a little bit at the last meeting with what that means. So here we are right now at 59 cents. And these are our average value homes or our range of value homes. from $163,000 all the way up to half a million. And that's what the $0.59 tax rate results in taxes. So on a $185,500 value house, which is about the average for Nashville, it's $1,094 currently in property taxes. If you take it to $0.60, it's $1,113. It's an $18.50. 61 cents on that average house, it'd be $1,132 a year, or an additional $37.10 more per year over what is currently being paid. And I put 62 in there so you can see that. A 62 cent tax increase would increase the taxes for that home at $185,000 in value to $55.60 more per year. Now, one thing to note, Each one set increase in tax generates approximately $60,241 at our projected taxable value rate. And again, we are projecting some decent growth in that. 8.4% increase or 51 million more taxable value than we have for the current year that we're in. um and you know of course all all that growth is coming from the new homes that we have in the new subdivisions that are being built so carla woods right now is at 72 homes they plan on being at 100 by october they want to open essex road to the carla wood subdivision sometime in october They said they would do that at 100, but I think that's what the chief said they needed to do. Hopefully our Essex Road sewer project will be finished by then and we'll have Essex Road resurfaced so it's all nice and new when those barricades come out.

You said that includes like a 2% increase? What you had before you had a 2% increase. Well, let me ask you this. Does that provide an adequate salary for it?

The wages that are proposed are covered with this increase in taxable value, so we will generate enough between, and again, our big revenues, I think if we reviewed last time, our property taxes, And, of course, our sales tax.

What page is that?

It's the very first page of the revenue.

And where was the page that you just did for the tax rate increases?

Well, what we had last time, I believe it was sticking to the back.

That 8.51 increase in new homes. Do we have any idea how many that is?

I don't, but we can come up with a... That doesn't include any businesses either, right? No, that's, well, that increase in taxable value, obviously, yeah, it does increase, you know, all of our major industries in town, all of our...

has been coming from rejection of what?

Well, mostly the additional houses, but also increases in commercial property that's taxed in Nashville, too. So I mean, you can't take that $51 million and divide it by 260. to get the number of homes because it includes other taxable property in there.

Does 8.4 include the new medical, USC medical?

That's not going to be taxed. They're fortunate for them.

I'm fortunate.

But Graswell's new distribution center here in town, it'll include that most likely. We get something back in a landing after the food spill. I can't really give any details on that yet. Keep our fingers crossed.

How about with the German company?

Once they come and actually build something? We're still on track. We're not on track, we're off track.

But they're still interested and can come. Oh yeah, very much so. They haven't backed out yet.

But remember, we were going to be reimbursing some of their property taxes. That was part of our economic development. They paid full commercial value for the lot they bought from us. And then we agreed, along with Nash County, to rebate some of the property taxes back to them for the new jobs and the taxable value they're trading. So it was very easy. But again, an overview of the budget. This includes that 2 cent tax increase. We also are looking at, as we talked about last time, 15% increase in water and sewer rates. And that has some impact on the general fund because we're allowed by statute to take 4% of our water and sewer revenues and transfer those to the general fund to help cover fund occurs with managing and operating an enterprise fund?

So, I mean, I'm not happy about the increase, but my biggest concern is going from $8.5 million to $7.5 million. That's a big move on the water, on our sewer fund. And I'm really concerned about that, especially when we've got to spend $8 to $20 million in the next few years, and we're decreasing it. Instead of keeping the same or increasing.

So what do you think, what would you do?

I'd like to put some more money into that or take less money out of it.

I understand.

Or adjusting the budget.

Yeah, what are your thoughts? You're talking enterprise fund, right? You'd like to put more into the fund balance.

We're taking out a million dollars in essence. $500,000 of it is just a check.

So it ended up a little bit of a very familiar situation. So like we've been talking about, we haven't gone up on rates. so you know we're proposing just to go up 15 so i mean if we were to go up 17 we could pull less money out of that um so you know it's kind of one of the things we're just matching rocky mount now we're not doing anything to better our infrastructure be proactive we're still kind of being reactive we're going to do what rocky mount did and go up and just cover the cost of paying them for the water and sewer but we're not adding anything to infrastructure so we would come to raising

bunch more on the water and a bunch under the tax rate i think we need to look at maybe coming off some of the budget items i don't think that's going to be possible in order to um to go ahead do our capital improvements that fund balance does have to decrease like we have we have to be taking money out in order to spend it in the areas that we need um if your concern is that we're not putting money back in then i think the only solution is

to raise the rate by a percentage but this this million dollar decrease doesn't include any projects right it's it does 491 projects yeah and those are your pump station upgrades your bypass pump um some electrical upgrades um all of that that um capital improvement project happens improvements and happens just because we don't have enough income

How much money are we going to need to put back in to come down?

We're taking some out.

Oh.

Based on

The $600,000 less fund balance.

Well, we did budget amendments, mostly for big projects. And those big projects need fund balance. So I don't remember what we projected to end FY26 with for fund balance. I have to look back. How did that compare to last year? Well, see, last year, once we went back into Plum Valley, so it was like 4.7, and it went up 5.2.

So, you know, although we pushed it forward, we expect to get more revenue since then. So, anyone that's in the department here, we expect to put it back into the Plum Valley.

Well, that's my question.

We've been anticipating putting the thing back in D.C.

We've been eating those rate increases for the last two years.

Absolutely.

And remember, Rocky Mountain's rate increase takes effect June 1st. We're not proposing to do our rate increases until July 1st.

Can I say something that wasn't actually trusted? For example, our budget for

vehicle maintenance was $66,000 last year. We're $14,000 in the negative due to the fact of these outrageous fees that we're being charged from the mechanics of being fixing these trucks. Our people at the fire department have cut out going to trainings and doing things of that nature just so we can stay within budget. So hopefully we'll be a dollar to the good when it comes to the end. Every department in here is tightening down the belt so tight it's not even funny. But that is one example of where We have stepped up and we have said, we just cut off our training. We're doing all these different things just to stay within budget. So every one of these department heads in here are doing everything we can to stay within range.

Yeah.

To answer your question, we're going from 6.1 fund balance to 5.5.

But for the current year, we're actually increasing with our balances. So maybe more than 6.1. You don't see that on the sheet, but the stress has got

So what was the fund balance July 1.5?

I would just like to say I've watched these people work on this budget, blood, sweat, and tears. I've watched the department head squeeze every penny they had at the same time trying to keep our citizens safe and providing what they need for this to be a great place for people to live. And the time that people have put in this budget, when I would go up there, it's just absolutely amazing. And I'm so grateful for all the squeezing you've done. And I wish we'd have a landfall and we could just pay each of you everything you deserve and not have to tax the citizens. But when you've got a variable that changes to us, then we just keep control of everything.

I want to ask, Neil, if you have a suggestion for this, like what exactly would you start with if you knew you wanted to go into the arts, the literature? In my opinion, it's probably a part of the individual work.

Still for me. No, I'm not. The staff's great. I'm just saying we...

And we're raising water and sewer, and we're raising property taxes, and it's a concern we have to think about.

And see, last year we lowered tax rates 1%. Well, two years ago. Two years ago.

We went up on the tax.

So when a lot of people didn't lower it, we did. We should have not done that, but we did.

We do have a comparison here if you want to quickly look at it. currently in Nash County. Yeah, Lucifer County and part of Rocky Mountain is in Nash County. There we are. Thank you. I threw Wilson in there, too, even though they're not.

And this is where we currently are, right?

Yes.

And if you look at it, I'll tell you, he did it at 62, too. Along those lines.

I didn't do it narrowly, but I could.

I reckon that Wilson kind of skewed a little bit.

So the average is...

And to answer your question, I don't want to micromanage anything. But I'd still like to take care of the citizens if I can, because I'm a citizen, too.

I think what she's asking is what's kind of subjective. Where in the budget do you think we need to make this?

I mean, I've marked a couple of places. I mean, do we need another person in place? They did two new vehicles for, you know, do we need two used ones or one new one and one new one next year? There's a couple places like that that we can look at. Well, I'd say it's both planning and ensuring something for men and men out.

I know that with the payrolls and they are, you know, they're accumulated comp time because there's not enough time for them to do what they need to do. So definitely they need a person. We need to provide them with a person. Really good. We've asked the people. I've been doing this for two years, and prior to me staying on the general day act position, it's always been put out. Ever since I've been working alongside former directors, every position has been put out. So I'm speaking up because I don't see where NAFSA can grow if we were never producing the additional records. You can't get another person. You can't buy stuff. You can't keep books. And they have things going on.

So I'm just a big complaint. This budget just has a part-time code enforcement officer in it. John felt fairly confident that he would be able to find somebody to do it part-time.

With that, I was just thinking of something the other day about the Mean Street program. And in order to be a part of that, you need someone who would be like the Main Street coordinator. And that would produce a ton of grant funds, and it would allow for businesses to be able to come in and utilize grant funding. If we were to do something like that in planning, would we be able to take advantage of Main Street? Having that person maybe, or would it free up some time to allow for someone to do a part-time Main Street coordinator?

We could probably use that person, too, for other things. But I would say, Sean, maybe run that person. Find somebody that's really interested in planning and run them. And then make sure maybe they can fall into a full-time position to do your thing.

And that's not going to work. The time we trust, that's the goal right there. Find somebody that we can bring in and just get them on the right track. See that the job can be done too late. From the part-time, full-time job, we need to get work started.

John, the MSD person can be part-time, right? If we join the downtown, we're going to call it.

Well, as you said, you can be part-time, but it has to be dedicated. I would definitely want to talk about that a couple of times to make sure, because last time we talked in the CDBG class over at the community college, he mentioned part-time, but he said it could have to be full-time. I could probably go to the city and do that a lot today just to make sure we're all in line. I don't want to quote him up and say it's not right.

It might have been, it could be part-time MSD, but it might be a full-time. I can't remember.

Right. He wrote the scenario down. How many times was there a system that was completed?

When we last talked about the Historic Preservation District, in order to have a formal one, it does require staff. Correct. We have to have staff persons for that program.

When do we vote on this, by the way?

We have our public hearing.

I want you to review all rise.

I did want to review quickly with the council just some things that didn't get put in the budget for park and rec. We wanted to have cameras at Stony Creek Park. We still have an annoying and nagging drain problem at the rec center. This is going to require the concrete floor to be broke up and the line to be laid.

We don't have a firm figure on where the issue is, but yes, it's somewhere near either inside the building or right outside. I feel like it's right outside, but it's more than likely.

Yeah. We're going to back it?

If that's something, we've got a warrant for it. I don't know how many times this year it's happened, but it's been a substantial amount of time.

Oh, okay. We wanted to do additional paving at Stony Creek and some more at the cemetery. That didn't make it in this budget. It's been talked about paving the parking lot at Clover Park. We'd really like to do that. That's a $125,000 project. And additional splash panels. anything in this budget for that. That town hall, we don't have anything in there for, everything we're getting architect-wise for looking at a new PD or an addition on the town hall, it's been tree grass. Oakley Collier hasn't charged us for any of that. But if we want to pursue the next step, we're gonna have to budget some money for our architect piece. And then we wanted to look at new flooring in town hall The carpet in the main hallway, once you get from the lobby back into the offices, is pretty worn now. Aaron does a wonderful job. Aaron Taylor, our custodian, he does a wonderful job of cleaning that carpet. First time he cleaned it, I never thought it would come back clean, but it sure did. And we wanted to get new chairs for the town hall conference room. I don't know if you guys... So playing John had requested a full-time code enforcement officer. We were able to work in a part-time at 20 hours. He wanted to, he and Thomas, he wanted to do additional training on floodplain to get more. Well, I think Sean, aren't you a certified floodplain manager? And then MS4 storm sewer training. Now, Walt currently takes care of that, but most times the planning this budget for that. On the police side, Chief Shockley had really wanted to propose a career ladder for employee advancement to help with retention, get long rifles for the patrol officers, and additional block safety cameras. On the fire department, Chief Joyner had requested two additional firefighters. We have one in this budget. Ladder truck replacement and air packs. And as he mentioned earlier, we've got some options for new air packs if we're successful with our request to Senator Barnes and Representative Chesser. On public works, we don't have anything in here for getting started for two-inch water line replacement. We have some electrical upgrades that we wanted to do at lift stations. We can get by around the year without those. Jason had wanted to replace two additional vehicles in addition to the ones that we have in the budget. But again, he was confident he could get by with that. On that cab tractor for the brush hog mower, they're currently using an open air tractor. real fast the other way. Three lift stations. With what we experienced with Regency and not having bypass pumping readily plumb into the lift stations, he wanted to set out to make sure every year we get one or two more of those lift stations physically plumbed. So they go down, and we don't have a spare pump that will fit into it. We can pull a portable diesel pump there, a couple quick couplers, run that way. And then the office addition on the public works building. Right now, our environmental compliance employee, which is Walter Manning, he's in an office in a different building at the town shop because we don't have room inside for him. We'd really like to put a small office addition onto the public works main building there, office building, for additional storage, an extra office, and . None of those things made this particular budget that we're talking about. Randy, is that page in our handout? No. Yeah.

How much grants did we actually get ?

We actually got the ones that promised, but we actually . Do we know? Quickly, and then if you don't know what's going on.

But we got the $85,000, which was the study grant for, which helped us really with the hazard mitigation grant to study the outfall line to see what the options were there. Let me put that up quick. So this is our list of grants received Almost all of these. I highlighted the one there. That was from the fire station. Obviously, we got all that. We got the Golden Leaf money here from the Grubbing and Clearing. That was a couple years back. Even though we got the fire station $1.3 million back in 2021, we didn't finish spending all that until this fiscal year. We got some discretionary spending. That was a couple years back. Got more Goldenleaf, the rock grading for the business park. That was a couple years back. Big money, bigger money. This is what we're into right now, the Regency Estates sewer. We haven't drawn down on any of that yet, but we're going to be doing that as that project is being constructed. And the same with Essex Road, that half a million dollars for Essex Road will be drawn down on those. To answer your question, Bill, I don't know right off hand. These are the awards that we've been given by whom in the amount and the approximate date that the award was given. This discretionary, all those $350,000 from the rec center has been spent. This is 959,000, we'll begin drawing down on that, most likely before the end of this calendar year. And some of these other ones, this lead service line inventory, It was in the form of a loan, and our guys already knew where our lead service lines were, and we just completed the inventory ourselves. That was one Mike Tolson wrote for us, and we were awarded, but we didn't take. We got this, I think we spent this $200,000 for the clearing of Stoney Creek. I may have to move up so you can see.

Well, just look at that. You and our staff have done an outstanding job of giving grants. If you would take those sheets away and look at it, look what a time it would be if we hadn't come out of poverty.

So you guys should be committed. So $7.5 million is what we've in the last six years?

That's a sell. since I've been here in 2019, have been able to find that. Thank you.

Hey, Randy, one quick question. You were talking about the Office of the Public Works. Any addition, any idea what that's going to cost would be?

$250,000 is a rough cost. Then we're going to have to do some water line readjustment. We're going to have water lines run through there. That's going to cost us about $50,000. So somewhere between $300,000 and $350,000 to get a little more office space over there.

Every year. Every year.

Yeah. We did really good on our equipment shelter that we built over there. We projected $300,000 from that. And look at that come in at $94,000. $94,000. And it's not.

I don't know if there's anything specifically you guys want to talk about.

Well, in everything I've looked at, I think you just bleached out the limits. You shouldn't get out the limits. and try to keep things with your recommendation, the 15 water. And I don't even know if that should be a little higher than the 2%.

Remember in the general fund, there are no new police cars in this budget. Shockley, if you want to have him speak to that, he sure can.

There is. handed out um oh let me find a minute i don't see i don't see where you put anybody inside for our room for our union stations for our investors where's that money coming from it's on there 24 000. do you have anything you'd like to say there all right if you have questions i'd be happy to answer do you have anything you want to say about the building because one of the

The bottom number might not have gone down, but the customer there, I don't want to speak for everybody, but the number went up. It doesn't get an office space or something like that. The car, we took an assessment. This is, I'm not saying, this is about to come in here. We pulled it off. We're going to have to sort of face the fact that we're going to start

the only way i can see We're going to knock out $100,000. We're going to knock out the state of the law. We're going to make money.

We're going to turn the law on. We're going to sell it to them. We're going to separate the law. We're going to do that. We're going to do money for them. We're going to build a farm. We're going to make some money. We're going to move that. We're going to move the salary law on it. We're going to travel right now. We're going to put in $7,000 right now. We're going to move that from the bank. We're going to move that money. We're going to move the salary law on it. We're going to make it work. We're going to move it. I think there's a lot of decent things in the budget, quite frankly, for the citizens as well. I'm trying not to ask for anything that doesn't actually meet it. In fact, I don't like taxes a lot either. They're the same time. These are services that have been found in the box. And I've lived through a whole mass exodus. I've been retired from people in France and I'm stuck. What's not fun is the burden on the people that are senior and that tend to want to leave, especially when they're paid all day. Couple questions.

So a lot more on maintenance you just anticipate because the vehicle's a little bit older? Because it's like almost double. Is there a reason for that? It's 100. That's all I wanted to talk about.

That's it. That's all I wanted to talk about. That's all I wanted to talk about. The other question I had was the leases.

Are any of those going to run out? That lease was a completely zeroed out line last year.

This year that lease is the... The only reason we came down a little lower this year was because of that fall that we got. I know you mentioned going back to buying.

I think it's in the future. So these leases, one we just got, it sounds like. So there's going to be a couple more years of leases.

we'll be stuck in . The lease program, the pro tool was, when we entered into a lease, we looked on paper . But when you stretch it out, and you get the whole . You're actually paying more than you buy a car outright. You may drive your car really hard. You may catalog your car. And your car will actually be around 1,000 miles. Your car may last you 9,000 miles. but you may have a patrol officer putting it out of the car 40 50 times a day Some of those cars are made in Ohio. The cars we have, they sound very authentic, but they're not used. They're sports. Those Durandos, Buckwheat, we had them here all year long. Part of them had 10,000 miles on them. We had to talk to another agency. That's a very common problem.

Well, I'm grateful for the Chief's budget in regard to the salary, because retention is important for most of the work. And it sounds like you were still unaware. So you were able to be creative with your budget so that the people could get something.

because we all know if you don't get that thing they've got to survive

Yeah. No.

And that's one thing we've got to provide for our citizens. And I think if the citizens knew what the police department prevented from happening in this town, they would be amazed. So, counsel, what are your thoughts? Any more questions?

You see the red But it did not make it to the top of the board. It's not the top of the board. We still need it. And we put it off this year. But that same list falls right back on that same list again tomorrow with a different price tag on it. So we need to keep in mind that we put it off this year. And after 16 years I've been on the council, We've been known for kicking the can down the street. We've only kicked the can for so long. We're going to have to pan it up somewhere. But we try to do it gradually. Like I said, you think you see a 15% increase? We can't get there. We got to increase our taxes per 100. So we're not digging into the citizens' pocket. We put a little money in their pocket for the last two years, and then we ask for more back. So I'm a taxpayer, just like everybody in here, just like everybody in the system. No, I don't want to see people vote, but we've got to deal with it. Every citizen does not realize or have no idea how much it takes to run a town this size, be it fire, police,

And they, I don't think our citizens realize what our adjacent room department does, picking up the cuttings, picking up the limbs. I stay in Greenville a couple nights a week. Honey, you pay by everything they come by and pick up, and you have to call and tell them, and they'll pay you the price. And so these citizens are blessed when they put trees out beside the street and everything else. We, as a small town, I am very proud of what we provide for our citizens after watching Greenville and Winterville and some of these others being in their area for a few days a week.

Mayor, once again, that pile of stuff I had in my yard was not a tree, it was a bush.

I wasn't talking about yours. I knew it was a bush, but I saw a tree in a yard.

At another location.

And I started to give a citation, but I didn't.

Randy wrote that we are experiencing with all the new houses and things of that nature. How soon can we expect some relief to our budget ?

Cardinal Boots alone is on track to do almost 33 houses a year. They've been averaging about five a month. Harvest Creek is completely full. That developer is looking around to do a similar development. No solid plans on that yet. Does he have property in the city limits? He's identified property that's right on the edge that he can acquire and go that route, similar to what he did with . I don't know, Xavier. five years has outstripped even the nice, modest increases we've had in taxable value. And as we said before on the public safety side, I just don't see that slowing down. I mean, the cost of turnout gear, I remember when you could buy brand new turnout gear for a firefighter for $1,200. And now it's $4,000. self-contained breathing apparatuses and cvas i remember when they were 2200 bucks they're almost eight thousand dollars down so i mean i don't mean to say that and sound whiny or complaining but it's true well yeah we need we need to have that in focus exactly um that's what we're planning and going forward because you know everything's going up and and i i was able to find out uh Even though that bill is still out there, that would reduce, eliminate the 2% tax on groceries. That would be a serious problem. I've heard from our league lobbyists that it's not likely to be voted on in a short session. And like I mentioned, our town attorney's been around for a long time. They've been talking about this in general assembly for 30 years. And still, I haven't been able to tell anybody. The league is in the process of calculating what that will mean. for towns and cities. And I have no idea if it's significant or not. And again, food is one of seven categories. And for Nash County, it's the largest category. How much of the sales tax in that food category is groceries? I'm thinking it's probably substantial.

Because of the name. And you know the sad thing, and this is Brent Brown's opinion, is that when these large municipalities do things, And our General Assembly, they don't think it's right. Sometimes they make decisions, and they punish the small and the tough. And that's unfortunate. But I have to say, the staff and I think the council, we've looked at it. And I think our citizens know that we have a heart for them. And we want the best for them. We just don't want to up something. But by God, I want to keep them safe. And their house is on file. And mine, too. And we can't just, we've got, we can't settle for mediocrity. We want this to be a tenor of excellence. And you just have to pay that cost.

I'm saying, you asked about relief. I don't know if you can call this relief or not, but I am quite certain that after this legislative session, there's already going to be a referendum, a constitutional in the November election that will ask the taxpayer, will ask the citizens of North Carolina if they want the state to impose limits on county and local governments' tax rates. And I can't imagine anybody not voting yes to that.

but it would be devastating for a townhouse.

It could be. Now, I don't know what the actual legislation, then the General Assembly will have to follow that up with actual legislation on limiting tax rates. But that has, the ones I've seen, have kind of a way out. And typically what I've seen is a referendum vote of your citizens. basically something on a ballot. Now, again, it'd be at the November election. We set our budget now, so we'd have to be a year in the front of it if we were going to propose a tax increase if that tax increase required a referendum vote of the people. But the question, shall the town of Nashville increase its tax rate from $0.59 to $0.61? Yes or no? If the voters say yes, then we can do it. If they say no, then we have to do other things.

That's when we have to do a good job. selling what it would do to our table if they did it very positively.

Yeah, I agree, because I was going to say that would require marketing, selling, or maybe it was even educating, you know, so that people are aware. You can move from Nashville, and you can move any local locale, but you're going to receive the same thing. are you saying that the town would vote on what the rate would go to or are you saying there would be a limit

There'd be a limit, and if you exceed the limit, you'd have to have it.

If you exceed the limit, it'd be a bill. Yeah, a referendum bill.

Yeah, yeah. Right from the two bills that I've looked at.

So like Strasburg, 23, which is pretty high, there would obviously maybe a limit for that. I don't think there would.

I don't know what the proposed limits are all over for, but what finally gets voted on and approved by the General Assembly has yet to be seen. I'm certain it's coming. There's certainly an appetite from the residents of North Carolina and Hull for that to happen.

I think we have two things. One is the growth and new development and it has been forwarded to make a change in how we pick up bulk items. You all already have things you should probably say as I go through what y'all think about it. Along with a few increases can be. So now we're talking about cutting services and increases in fees. Well, see, if we're not going to increase, we cannot continue to provide a level of service because the sound is blowing and all the services, they are one of the guys can't do any other projects if they are

They can't do anything. And so there's no competition. So, you know, it's just like .

I have a question.

actual proposal that Jason and you guys probably didn't think to print it off.

Was it e-mailed? I don't remember getting that. We've talked about fees, right? Yes. Everything in the highlight is proposed on these pieces, but as far as the operations,

Because as I said the other time, the boys come running this trophy every single week. And the bar show, like you said yesterday, we'd go out to one house and we'd go to one bureau and dance. You know, you've got to think about, think about the whole route. And just definitely think a little bit at one time about who's who. So I suggest that maybe we can do a spring, spring, fall thing. And in the spring, if you want something to pick up, you prepare small things.

Or wait until it's that free time where you can do it on the floor. It's like one, four times a year. So we all pray one time.

And every time, if you want something to pick up, you have to pay for it.

sanitation is trash and i we're offering an additional service before you go on to do something that won't get in your thing and what we've seen is it's it's very small things we're running a truck people cost a dollar we're running a truck every friday and we're picking up a lamp a mirror a bedside table a mattress you know so my proposal is to only run it once a month and then charge two teeters. So if you've only got one little small thing, then we'll pick that up for $45. If you've got a lot of things, then we'll pick that up for $50. And that can be said whatever y'all would like. I just made a proposal to start the conversation. We will have to do something with TVs, electronics. Our town citizens can't get to the Nash County dump sites. They don't have the tags. The tags are going up from what Nash County's proposing. What's it going up to? It's $75 million. I think it's going up to $125 million. $125 million for two years, huh? Yeah, and then they'll prorate it if you give it a year or two or something. But we'll have to start picking up TVs, electronic monitors, and so on and so forth. So we propose a $5 fee for that. All we're going to do is go and put them somewhere, and when we get a rider truck full, a company will come, bill us, and dispose of the property.

not making any profit it's not a profit it is just covered possible that's it but i would think the residents would appreciate being able to part with an old tv or computer monitor without it being big to do well we're all going to have it because they're all crap we're going to have everybody's going to have one in the next couple of years but we got to make sure that the citizens know that

We'll pick it up once a month and not stick it out, not stick it inside the street on the first of the month.

We're not going to pick it up. We'll have a set day. So if it's the first Friday of the month, that's the set day. Well, it's like you said a while ago.

We're going to have to market it and let people know what we're doing with the bags.

That is correct. And right now, we're doing it every Friday. I know. So the vet trucks go around the whole town every Friday picking them up. So in lieu of requesting more personnel, this is one way we can do that with the same personnel we have. and start doing other things as well to purify the town and make sure everything's kept up.

So we did it once a month. It would be the same day of fair playing? Yes. So we would, like the first Friday?

First Friday of the month, we would do whatever the council would like to set. We would do it, we would put two guys on the rear packer if we needed more, we would assign more personnel. But now they've freed up three Fridays for them to do other tasks. Repair garbage canyons, replace garbage canyons, and so on and so forth, that we're struggling to get done having to run that route every Friday. And then that truck has to get a rocket out and dump every Friday. So it's just a continuation of policy. For the items that I've seen that we're picking up lately, it's very minimal. If somebody moves out and the whole house gets burned down, that's a lot. You can fill up just about half the garbage truck, which is one half. And then we're paying for that, and they're done. And they don't pay anything. They're not paying anything. So we need to have a special fee for that. Yeah. Well, I just did a basic fee, and as soon as the proposal gets back, we can take a look at it. I just did something basic to get the conversation started $25,000. I would hate for a citizen to put out a nightstand because they need to get rid of it, and we charge them, and then open them up. But the citizen that puts out a whole house needs to compensate the panel for the time, the diesel, the goings-on, and so on and so forth.

If you charge the little things too much, then they're just going to hide in the trash can.

Phil, if somebody took some time to break it down, they would easily fit into the cart. Correct. But when you can put the mirror out and not have to worry about putting it in your cart, hitting it with a hammer, breaking it down, it's so much more easy for the resident.

I've seen it all. I've seen it all from plastic flower baskets that are on the bullpen on a Friday to being a whole house. So it's just that we're running around everybody and we're getting paid for them and all that.

One of the other times, I thought it would be good for us to be able to go on our website and take this ad. So this day, you can go on and pick up both of them. Every Friday, you can do it for yourself. And just stick it up there so that students can see it and, you know.

There's always going to be someone who's going to get that.

But it's going to be websites that can do the award bills. There's always going to be someone who says, I didn't know.

No matter every possible way that you do it. But you know something else? You may have to look out, too. You may have to fine people if they put it out. Just want it to sit on the side of the street before they pick up that. You may have to give them a little fine.

That's just more justification for the far-fetched person. Another thing that I'd like to propose is currently we do yard waste every week. We take the chipper truck and the flathead, and we go and we haul stuff as well as the lease machine every week. So hearing your comments from last meeting, my proposal would be on the first and the third week of every month, we go and do a yard waste line. We will drop the second and the fourth week. So without a lot of that to do with our street department, when we have these potholes and cuts, I don't have a guy running around on Monday preparing a potluck on Tuesday, running around on Wednesday, preparing a potluck on Thursday. Our asphalt machine will store asphalt overnight, but the way it is now, it's hard to do two days in a row. If we do this, we're still getting the yard waste, we're just getting every other week now instead of every week, and that will free up our street department guys. Not going to ask for any new help this year, probably if this goes through, we won't ask for any help next year, but we'll be able to do street repairs, signs, sidewalk crossings all those things that kind of get pushed to the back burner which will make those more of a priority and keep the natural yeah but if i want a different schedule for cutting is sean come on give me a ticket because my grass is out there in the street for the next week that is that is something you would have to coordinate you know i mean we would we would say we're going to do yard pick up the first and the third So if you would coordinate knowing that on the third week we're going to come by there and mow the grass accordingly, then it shouldn't be an issue.

That's what I'm saying.

Because they work different schedules, and they work different schedules, and they can't cut the grass from the third week maybe.

I would not propose that.

charging anybody a fee for having yardage up, you know, on the side of the road.

Keep in mind it's going to be there a week longer.

It's like lawn cutting or leave, but trees, bushes. If somebody cuts something on Wednesday and they're out on Monday, it's going to sit there almost a week anyway. This time it's going to sit there a little bit longer. Yeah, we can't find the folks for their score schedules.

We haven't decided that we were stuck on the curb for lawn cutting. It's a matter of like Mary just said, I don't think both the trees is what we'd sign for lawn cutting. Right.

or not.

Well, I think it's a great proposal considering it's saving up salary for another employee.

It is. It's springing up in profitability in lieu of asking for more help and more help. We need more personnel. Right. But this is the way that we can do it with the personnel that we have now saving the budget that we have now and not adding in additional costs. We're going to drop the services just a little bit. But we're going to keep houses open today.

Well, and then ours is on the leak truck, too. And that thing runs every week.

Every week.

It did break every other week. Right. And that's just going to keep the longevity of that truck longer. And then flip side, the same operator runs the leak truck, which in fact also does the street sweeping. And I hear complaints from time to time that we don't have an aggressive enough street sweeping schedule. it would allow a friend to sweep streets one week and then drop the next one.

Thank you. Is there a proposal? And the rates are, again, just for the TV is about the only thing that really needs to move forward. We're going to have to have a disposal for that. So can't even take them at all? We and Lorraine had a conversation with county leadership, and they will not take them at all. Unless you buy the $75 package.

Oh, they won't take them. They won't take them from a citizen unless they pay the rate.

Unless you have a friend.

Thank you. There have been some suggestions. Thank you. The top spot is the director shall establish collection routes and schedules. So in my opinion, it's the second page. The current ordinance.

Yeah, the current ordinance. The small print.

All of them. The language. That's what the ordinance says. So right now, it seems like it's kind of already, the language is already written in the ordinance that we can change. And then on the very last page, the solid waste and two bulkies, the second sentence in there, a fee, will be determined by the public works director based on the nature and the amount of material to be collected. So it's already in the ordinance. We're just not implementing it and applying that. My suggestion would be so there's no way that the director is showing favoritism to anybody, is to set a fee instead of it saying the language being that the director I think we need to have some set fees. I agree.

And then we're treating all citizens the same.

One concern, though, is there's a difference between leaving out one couch versus one lamp. And there's a difference between leaving out a couch and five smaller things. So if we say one versus two, I feel like people are going to figure out a way to abuse that, or we're just not going to be imposing the proper fees. If it takes up so much square footage, in a pile, you know, this by this by that. Maybe that's a better way to do it so we know how much of an effort, how much we're actually disposing of to impose a proper fee.

Very good. our ladies at the office. Right. I don't have to go out there. Chad doesn't have to go out there and say, well, how many cubic yards can we have on this? It's just a simple thing to say, hey, if you've got this many items, then it's this. If you've got that many items, then it's that. Just a simplified way. If that's the recommendation, we can definitely implement that.

I'm just thinking of the average. Like, by the side of my house right now, my husband had put out some wood, a couple of just, like, gutter items that were garbage. It's well over one or even two items But as far as, like, being cumbersome, heavy, or, you know, requiring a ton of work, it does not. But if someone were to leave out a couch, that requires a bunch of guys to come out and dispose of it.

Right. So... Right. if it could fit in the trash thing there's one thing that doesn't fit even they don't put in it right it would be done yeah that's a good point that is a good point i'm open to whatever right now this was just a conversation started we would prefer that right because then it gets into well because all your stuff will fit the trash thing Right. And, you know, I would recommend that if it would fit in your garbage trash can and it's not, I mean, you're not going to take something anyway, just put it in the trash can. That's going to keep us from having to go around. And I think that's kind of the vision that I have is...

Except if you've got a lot of trash. Right.

But then again, we have a small fee for a second trash can. So that's $6.90 a month versus a $50 fee. Who is the individual that would be going out for the bulk pickup?

And I guess my question is would they be able to make that determination you know as far as like if we did like a weight category or a volume category or something like that?

You need to make it as simple as possible.

The people we do have influence.

this physical year and we can report back to you the first quarter and say hey it's working out great or it's not um people are taking advantage or it's really working out seamlessly and we can report back to you each quarter and then we can always reevaluate it next year or reevaluate it six months in and say do we want to change this do we want to revamp this it's already in the ordinance that we should be charging So all we're doing is just...

So what if we did this, which you're proposing, and then had like a little star with a caveat saying additional fee could be imposed by our public work director, you know, if something were excessive. So like if we did have the person who puts out their entire home, that exceeds the two items, but we don't have a big enough fee to cover what it would cost us to dispose of all of that.

So I would recommend doing a tier three and just doing essentially... I don't want to say unlimited, but essentially a cleanup. You know what I'm saying? And that fee may be $100 or $102.

I would say whatever it is that our cost would be at least. So whatever it's going to cost to get rid of it, whatever it's going to cost our guys the time to load it all.

And that's going to vary a little bit based on tonnage.

Right. And so I guess that's my point, that if it were to come back where the tonnage was so high, we could send a bill to the homeowner and say,

We don't know until we get there. Yeah. Right. Whose is what? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

If you're doing a spring clean and a haul clean now, then they're only going to take the truck out in the next couple of times in that time frame. But the less time you have to go rockin' out, I really feel like they're just going to arrive, they're going to sit back here, they're going to break it down, they're going to put it in a trash can, they're going to put a little bit in there this week, next week.

so that way our citizens can still reap the benefit but we are reaping the benefit of not having to go out there to drive but you know in the meantime in lieu of that screening we can implement a small thing

so make sure i understand so what was what you're suggesting is two to four times a year it's free on set days and other times they have to call they would call and just like they do right now and instead of saying

know yes sir we'll get it it's uh 50 or 45 as soon as you pay for that or whatever, we'll do a work order and we'll get it.

Two to four times a year, either fall, spring, or quarterly.

It's going to be free.

But I think we're going to need a tier three.

Does spring fall cleanup have any traction here? I think you can give them a day.

But it's going to be spread out, you know. I come from a community that did spring and fall. People tell their friends, tell their relatives. But at the same time, the scrappers and the recyclers, you know, I'm not talking JFL recyclers. old stuff and repurpose it. They take a lot of the tonnage right off the curb before the crews even get there. Unless they know what's coming.

And they just tell them when we're going to do that. Correct. And we can set it way in advance. So let's just say it's the first Friday of April and the first Friday of October.

We set that now way in advance. And they can prepare. Everybody in the town can prepare. And that first Friday is snow calls we go and pick up everything in the family we have a big suite we pick up everything if it takes two trucks we get it we love it so we're proposing to have the spring and fall clean out and then you call in the in-between times and then we'll be picking up the first trial of everyone but part of this education needs to be you can get a can for six dollars correct yeah because

Obviously, if it's a small bulk and you throw it in the can and you throw it in the trash.

I mean, like, I could fit a toilet bowl in my hand.

Is that really what we want to do? I mean, it could fit. And some people wouldn't do that. Ideally not. But, you know, there again, we've got to do something a little bit different. You know, if you took a toilet bowl and you broke it down into small pieces and put it in a garbage can, we're going to grab it. Talent accepted. But how would you not know that? I mean, you could essentially do it now. Right, we're not going through the trash. The arm's grabbing it, and we're grabbing it, and setting it right back up.

OK.

I think Sean needs to start checking his trash. And this is also something we can think about and implement it. My recommendation would be to implement it July 1st. If we're going to make any changes, we're going to change the schedule. But the ideal time would be a more Labor Day, but those times you're off that week, so you can't do that week.

Right.

Right. Just another side note to this. because we picked the first and the third for yard waste and we definitely freed up personnel around thanksgiving and christmas so those were really busy times for us it would do also with us doing mondays i mean first and third it would free up essential personnel for the holidays to make sure everything was good but that's why those would be the first and third not the second

And the bulk pickup is only going to be, is it going to be per time or is it going to be per time and per day? So is it going to be a set day that you have to call or is it going to be any time you call?

We're only going to pick up bulk based on the first Friday of the month. Okay. So we'll have to call and we'll set up bulk and we'll tell them when it's just the first Friday of the month.

Then in addition to that, we've got a spring and a fall cleanup kit.

That's the biggest thing that I get on Facebook and web.

The only thing with PV is we're going to incur a cost to .

I think then no matter when spring fall, any time, we're going to have to charge a fee for the PV.

It's because NASSCAN was paying a good amount of money to dispose of a 32-inch . And isn't it more than just PVs and dollars? It's monitors. computers and then tvs and then they dispose of

I think it's a good proposal, Jason, considering how we're trying to eliminate costs by another personnel and still service the needs of the community.

Well, we can get this refined and bring it back for the June council meeting. That would be great.

And I think definitely add that to your three for the larger cleanup.

Do you propose a remodel?

What amount do you think would be fair? $150?

I would do that. We still have GFL. We still have Top Dog. If you're doing a house cleanup, they can set a dumpster in your driveway for your relatives to clean up your house. Well, we don't pay for that, do we? No, we don't. But I think we'd want to set a fee that's maybe higher than that. So people's first choice would be, if I have that much, I'm just simply going to call TFL or Top Dog, and that dumpster's set.

So are you saying you think tier 3 needs to be higher?

You know, it allows at least $150,000 to $700,000.

Two times a year, there's been a spring and fall cleanup. Yeah, free. A free spring and fall cleanup at no charge, except for DD.

And we probably will have to put a limit on that free cleanup because somebody will certainly clean out an entire house and will fill one truck three times in one place. But we can come up with a limit on that.

And again, if you just include some of the language from the statute you provided where you still have a backup, like if it's unreasonable or if it's determined by our public works directive, whatever.

Is this accessible?

and from the ordinance you know they they knew we needed to charge to do this anyway correct well bulk items should not include a whole house cleaning so we got to find a way to say that right i mean because the whole house clean out obviously shouldn't be part of it we are in the mood of business all the time yeah Yeah. Yeah.

The fee schedule, we didn't update this for water

These are some proposals. John is looking at a third violation for a trash can. We have an ordinance that says after so many hours that your trash can and your recycling can is empty, you need to bring that in from the street. And most people, some people, it is a home scene.

notice for 25 dollars thank you for coming to pay it but then next week it's right back out of the issue it's the same phone call we think just like we did last year we're opening the encoder if we move it up you'll see it's so bad because we see as far as us having to go out to our vendors

the repeat offenders so when you have a same offender for the third time then every time that they do it after that because the warden states Now, what is our current ordinance as far as when you can put your trash can out and then when you have to bring it back in?

You have to bring it back in by the end of the day. So if your trash is dumped on Tuesday, Tuesday morning, guys can dump it by 7 p.m. the other night. When you get off work, you should be going back to the house. The majority of people we're starting to see just leave it out on the roof line.

I'll take it in a little day later.

So the week long we have a problem with, yes. But like I'm just thinking about like a busy family who maybe has somebody out of town or whatever it is. Yeah, within 24 hours of pickup, I would say.

And majority of the ones like that, if they're out of town, the neighbor, if they don't miss, the neighbor calls, hey, I'm going to the trash can for my neighbor next door. I'll get this afternoon. So we get those kind of calls to the town hall, but we have a lot of people that we know are there every day. They just don't come back.

So now, when can you put the trash can out?

We always set up our orders the evening of that night. The evening before. So if you know your trash can, you know, two in the morning, one at night, five o'clock when you get off work, most likely everybody goes to the game house.

Okay. So what if we were to, while we're doing this tax amendment, do 24 hours before pickup you can put it out, 24 hours after pickup bring it in? So that's a very reasonable bring out, bring back time, and then we can also do this...

I think it would be good if at least we would have a child frame. So after those 24 hours, we get the call, you know, trash is picked up on Monday. Now it's Wednesday. We can't still let it carry. We need to send a citation.

Because that is a very short time period. And that's what most of the people were like. It's a very short time period, especially in New York, like a long shift. And the other thing, she was on vacation.

And you leave it out before you go.

Yeah. What's that? Can we say daybreak?

We try to, but we know, and she's pretty good with no other ones, who are the repeaters. You got those friends, like you said, because when they go out of town, we never see them in the letter. And we see you came out here on Friday, and we never And it's not just unsightly.

When my kids and I go for walks, we now have to walk into the street with the stroller, with the bikes, everything, because they're blocking the sidewalk. So it really is a safety thing, too.

Well, it's $25, and you don't catch me. And that's a pretty good deal, you know, to leave that for them. That's right. That's what you achieve.

And I mean, that's the only purpose it's in. and they said it's easy for y'all to still cut the grass and we just back in town. There's no person told us in Greece that I'm just gonna make $25 and I don't wanna take class. So send me a letter, I'll come here and pay $25 and I'll do it next week, I'll come back, then another $25 and you start the new year.

Okay. Yeah, like 100.

Okay, any more questions? Thank you, Sean.

Next one we got is the brothers permit. You know, last year we did the 150-25. Those are taking up to three or four days for me and Thomas to get things done by the time I order fuel and the time that we get the furnace ready. She does this by two, three days. Thomas says they're bringing in eight, two, 22 people at a time. We just had 15 of them yesterday. We're thinking about moving that up to $200 flat fee, $75. That's awesome.

And the citizens don't like them anyways.

We may have 18 more come today.

It's just going more sinister than it is.

Well, a lot of the college students get summer jobs doing . Do we have books there? It's that time of year.

It's that time of year. I think if we moved the fee up 200 flat feet, 75,000 for a person, it would not be secured. It would just make them make it another time for them.

Yes, because I would say sales, most people don't even answer the door when those people come. Or I answer the door. I say, where's your . Right.

That's what we always tell everybody. We ask them . And the last thing is in the planning department, so we think that would be a good effective cost for it it's just the time consuming time attorney have to do these things tipper is only for me We charge food trucks $40 so that feed and smells stay the same. The only new thing you will see is the new thing that I've added, the public safety ride and on-road commitment permit. Right now, at the Blue Lee Festival, we have four public festivals that bring in these merchants to set up these car rides. The town is not making nothing off those rides. I checked with Chattanooga County, the City of Hickory, Morris County, and City of Charlotte. They charge a fee for those rides for four bucks. natural electrical bring in a little apartment for kids that have a bull ring thing and ring toss we won't charge for that but people are going to make a profit we're charging 150 dollars per foot for the day and i think that would be a good thing for the town of charlotte so that we can at least make something off those lines

someone else is going to be paying that fee though so now instead of it being 25 for the wristbands it's going to be 35 instead of being 20 dollars for 20 tickets it's going to be 35 dollars for 20 tickets so it might in the long run hurt the blooming festival

or just do a flat rate to say yeah we're getting nothing right now so that's setting up Wednesday through Saturday and 17 in the town about making any revenue

But we are making revenue off of it. That's a huge event for town.

It's a huge economic impact.

I would say, can we talk with some of the Chamber of Commerce to see what their opinion is? And maybe there's a reasonable fee that we can put in here that we can make something off of, but it won't increase.

Are we paying anything to the movement? Exactly, exactly. Are we paying anything to the movement? No, I'm saying the festival give us anything. Oh, are we paying? No. No, we are not. We get a float.

We get a float, right? We get a float.

And I'm just on this text, we kind of, you know, on six. Well, it might be smaller. And I'll reach out to the chamber and just see if we can get something. Right.

Maybe we get some input where, yes, as Xavier said, where we can maybe get a little bit something out of it, but not so much that it's going to be passed down to.

And the last one that's going to be going up is the zone defense. That'll be $500, right? We have so much time and so much work we have to do to be a town attorney, and we want to raise that money.

What is it currently at?

The zone defense is at $375,000. That'll go for a cost of $500,000. Okay. One, two, three. It's on the old one. It was on the old one. It was probably 375 last year, so we was going to move it up to $200.

Okay, so it's $275.

Right, so we'll move it up to $500. We're just going to be able to factor in costs for myself.

Oh, and we have an increase of $400 here, so an increase to $500?

Yes, more than $500. Okay. And I think I got my hard copy right.

So I'll make sure I get this right, because all I've done is throw it out of the way. The Board of Adjustment appeal and interpretation is now how much?

$275.

Okay, and we're going to.

400, excuse me, I said that. Oh, okay, okay. I'm looking at the wrong, I'm looking at the wrong paper. Okay. That's it, that's it, I don't get to cover myself in town.

Thank you. Thanks, y'all. One final thing on the fees. The Freedom of Information Requests, Louis has proposed some fee for that.

We passed it like two years ago, where we would charge over four and a half hours. We didn't put it in here, but we were allowed to.

We have had some excessive ones, and it's just putting it in the . Because it's on the website. It's on the PED public records request page. So just so that it's . Yeah, we voted on that. Y'all voted on that a couple of years ago and passed it off.

But it is on the website. It's on the local record request page.

The fees that we currently have are OK? Yes.

So council, any other questions about anything? Or we've got to come up with a vote on tax increase and water increase. That's in June. After the public hearing. After the public hearing. These fees will be in there. But we've got to decide what you want in there. And I don't think we're going to have a choice with 2%, and I think we're being very fair to our citizens and lenient with them in order to provide them the services that they want and expect from us. We have got to keep our town safe.

So we're going to put all this, you know how you usually get the binder instead of the budget, and so we're going to put that together, and I'll get it to you. Whatever they give it off. When we give it off, we get it off. You've got to put it in the binder. Yes.

well i hate to call recesses and we have to come back just so i could get my dog boys treatment well i could use the bathroom is that is that okay with everybody we're not done it's up to us if we've done or not oh i could be done i could be done but we've got to let them know where we stand so what right so do you want to take this budget as you reviewed it to public hearing

on June 2nd. I think we missed everything that educated, really.

And I like what you've come up with, personally, as the mayor. And I like the suggestions. And I think it'll still provide the services for our citizens.

um

Yeah, I mean, we've got some adjustments.

It's always going to be hard, but that's where we are. So it's specifically related to the water and the tax.

Bill? Well, I'm still hung up on we're taking a million dollars out of our water and sewer.

So, Gavin, you weren't here for when Bill had brought up a point earlier. So we're starting out with a fund balance in our water and sewer for $8.5 million. And then with our income and expenditures and projects that we're going to be doing, we're ending with $7.5 million. So it's a million dollars out. not putting anything in. So Jason had come up and discussed with us the fact that we're matching what Rocky Mountain is doing, but we're not going beyond what Rocky Mountain is doing. And so we are going to continue to fall behind if we do projects and don't go a little bit above what Rocky Mountain is doing.

That's always good. In summary, you should have one of those.

Am I gay, though, now? Not really.

So I would like to study that part and put a pin in water and sewer to see if that's responsible going forward at the 15th.

So what I hear you saying in summary is instead of 15, we may have to look at that because overall the lake may not be suffice for the town.

Right. Do I have additional years to discuss this? Right.

Of course, 2% is more as long as it turns out more.

I think she's talking about her sewer rates.

No, I'm saying we go up 2%. 15 to 17, it's only $100,000.

For what we would be able to generate from that balance? I can't remember.

Well, $0.02 on the tax rate.

I'm talking about the water.

I don't think it was that much, which is unfortunate.

And what it would bring in.

And my concern was for those who were already struggling to make that and having to deal with child care, prescription food, potions. But I do hear on both sides. So I do understand the dilemma.

I thought we talked about that last week. going from $15,000 to $17,000 and I want to say it was $97,000. I think it was $97,000.

I'm pretty sure it was $97,000.

Which isn't that much increase either, to be honest with you. I mean, $97,000 isn't that much money, but it makes it less than a million.

Is it that number, Bill?

OK, it's 99. I'll stick with 97.

So if the 15 went to 17?

It'd be 99,000 left in there. So instead of me taking away the 99,000-ish. I'm not sure it would. We'd probably get down to campus early.

If you see something in there that can't get out, take it out. What is the suggestion? But right now what you have proposed is a 15% increase in water and silver ounce.

And what that shows is if you go to 17,

for me about another 99 000 i mean in the coming years you know it's serious talks with all of them you know it's serious millions of dollars that we have to take care of infrastructure

Oh yeah, if Rocky Mountain goes up again, too, then we're going to have to go two-fold.

It's going to be large. It's going to be a large amount. Right.

It's going to be the average set of seven. Right. All right. sometimes once they get their rates where they want them um then then they put a cip to it every year And 50% of our system has outlived us. 50,000 dollar picture.

I mean, that would be a rental on the average household for less than $11.

Well, I'd like to go to $16,000, make it $50,000, and then go back and pinch $50,000 out of the budget and give it $100,000. I don't think $50,000 out of the budget is going to be good.

If you could give me the link and see if you kind of, I know you mentioned trucks. We have some trucks that are really bad. If that's your recommendation, I could probably find that.

What about, I mean, I don't want to micromanage y'all, because we hear it every day, but I think we can find $5,000 somewhere. And we could go up to $16,000, $15,000. I think it's $100,000 to leave under the water system.

So your proposal is essentially to leave $50,000 out of the appropriate fund balance in water and sewer.

So instead of 3%, it's 3% minus $6,000. Take it out, and then register the rate.

So if you want to take $50 out of the general fund, then would that transfer it? I want to take out the general fund. Well, I'm saying we got to take the expenses out of the general fund. I don't want my new fund. i think we can find the thousand dollars in the button somewhere but listen hold on what are you saying what i'm saying is that we should be building every facility We have a leader up there, we have an interim coach. So we're going to treat everybody like a dude. So we're just every dude that's in the town, hey, that transfer is justified. As long as we can justify our transfer, we're not doing anything wrong. I get what you're saying, that you don't want us to, you want us to minimize the amount that we're spending out of it for. What is it?

If it doesn't go into the general fund, then that's... Right. So it's not going to come out of sanitation. It's going to come out of police. It's going to come out of fire. It's going to come out somewhere.

And I want to remind you that fire was, at the beginning of the budget, we brought it down to two. And then when we said, hey, what about our internal employees already here? We want to fill these positions. What about those that are already here, that have been here? And then she pointed and was like, fine, I'll probably just have to deal with it one more time. And now, from five to one, every single department has already cut what they can.

We had a conversation with the cleaning director.

We were like, hey, we really know you need this position. The town is rolling in, but we just can't do a full-time position. He agreed and said, all right, let's do a part-time position. So everyone, every department is already making time.

Bill, you were talking about put the water and sewer rates to a 16% increase, and then see if we can reduce $50,000 from our fund balance expenses in the water and sewer budget.

Well, instead of going 17, we cut half of that and half of it as an increase. And split the difference.

OK.

Well, if we went to 16%, that 3% is going to increase what goes over to general fund.

Yeah.

So yes, because right now that's 3% based on a 15% increase. So if we go to 16%, then obviously that number would increase.

It would 3% of the larger number now would go into...

The general fund. So is it, is that a wash then? Would we find that, like what does the increase look like? Would the $50,000 be right there?

So you're saying taking $50,000 out of the fund balance?

No.

I don't want to do that.

No, no, no. If we were to increase rates from a 15% increase to a 16% increase, that would generate an extra $50,000. We are allowed to transfer over.

Up to four.

Up to four, but we're doing three. A 3% transfer from the enterprise fund over to the general fund. But if we... say, let's not do percentage, let's just keep it at the 92, which was 3% of the 15% increase, then there's going to be leftover money that we would have been able to transfer over that we're not, which might be what you're talking about, which is allowing another $50,000 to go into the fund balance for Enterprise. Am I saying that correctly?

You're saying it right. Can we transfer out the investment to the fund balance?

We did adjust some of the cost allocation for a few of the employees. Now more of their salary and their benefits are being booked to enterprise or large tour. It wouldn't be 50,000, it would be 48.

So what would happen with that $48,000? We would put it in the contingency, which is like a little savings fund. We don't spend it. It goes in the fund. Or we can transfer it to a capital project fund, which is another savings fund.

So I saw a capital project on the other, on the general fund, but there's not one on.

There's a line for it, but you want to use it when you're actually going to transfer money from one fund to another fund. But when you move it, it has to be fixed with your partner. So you can't move it over there and decide, oh, I want to purchase the car, because it's for that person.

Yeah, I agree with that point. The 16 instead of 17 effectively comes back. Yeah, 48,117 from the useful exceedance.

So a total of 48.

We need more than that . We've got millions of dollars.

Again, we've got a fairly decent fund balance in the enterprise that we can get started on these capital improvement replacement projects. We've moved through a lot of stuff. We're paying many dollars. What's up?

But you can never justify it. You can't wait for it to be just sitting on a little note.

It's just my opinion.

Oh, we have to spend it all. Yeah, you don't have to spend it all. But I think if I was speaking with Melanie yesterday, just coming up with a percentage that we want to keep, in our general fund, and then figuring out a way to start budgeting to transfer that into a project fund, or future project fund. We have to be serious about exactly what it is we want to do, because once we put it over there, it has to be spent for that. Building improvement. Building improvement is kind of a big umbrella. You don't have to have so much money in the general fund or enterprise fund. You can have a certain amount of money and you want to keep on hanging or any fund and then move the money to the private fund. Yeah, and then we'll be in Long Island.

We haven't even marked it. Right. For anything specific. Right. Right. Right.

But now that we're over, we are over. We're over. We can start moving something from now. So you want to be able to say, hey, we're saving up for a fire truck or whatever we're going to purchase so that we can justify having to take that entrance.

The proposed budget has a $0.02 tax increase and a 15% water and sewer increase. That's my . What we've been talking about the last few minutes is maybe 16% increase in water. That would be a little more money in the enterprise fund balance for big

If we need more, we get some down there that we can reappropriate as we need it. So that's my take on it. Yeah, I'm inclined to agree because these are tough financial times. And everybody knows that Rocky Mountain has charged us 50%. So we're kind of right there. Yeah, yeah. So that's an easier sale when you talk about the education market.

I THINK IF WE WERE TO TELL THE CITIZENS THAT WE'VE BEEN EATING THOSE INCREASES FOR THE LAST TWO YEARS AND THAT'S WHY WE HAVE TO GO NOT JUST MATCH ROCKING UP BUT A LITTLE BIT HIGHER, BUT AGAIN, THAT MIGHT BE AN EDUCATIONAL ASPECT THAT'S NOT GOING TO HIT BEFORE JUNE. SO IF WE GO INTO THIS KNOWING WE ARE LIKELY AND more than likely we're going to have to raise this again next year. Because I'm looking at $9.6 million in capital improvements that need to happen. And we are reducing our fund balance to $7 million something. We're going to need to start increasing that. Otherwise we are going to have a failing infrastructure that is never going to be fixed.

in the next two or three years what's what's our percentage going to look like of our failing infrastructure is it going to be 60 70 percent so it's going to be every year i would say you know probably the next five to ten years you're looking at 60 So we've got to think of how things come alive when they get to their life expectancy, when they're going to start falling off and you can start predicting failures. So we had a big boom in the 80s, I think, late 70s, 80s. So that infrastructure is almost 50 years old now.

Not including the honeydew structures that we always don't have too. And to Xavier's point earlier,

You know, you can move outside of Nashville, but you're going to be hit everywhere else no matter what. Just looking at this list, even with taxes, even with raising our taxes, we are still lower overall than more than half of these.

You know, the biggest thing on us this year that we came out of it, you know what I'm talking about? It was all of these people from the property that did it. It wasn't the workers that I was with. It was their time, man. But we can't get out of it. But retirement was a huge increase with the insolvency.

Insurance was not hard to get. Again, one of those changes, the state made, that had no impact on Ellen.

Mm-hmm.

But fit out still.

And they also tried to put it on the community. Retroactively. They never wanted to put it on. Yeah.

I sure like 16. I sure like this stuff.

That's a couple. figures on the budget and get it down some more if not salary but i think you're talking about in water and sewer somewhere nothing about one percent on the water sewer and and we try to find some more funds on spending for the budget to get to keep more in water and sewer but that way too but are you talking about spending in water and sewer or are you talking about sending overall

I've been through what I can be through. But this is a lot of paperwork. And I wouldn't mind working at it one more time. But I just don't see where we can cut. So I think the only alternative is an increase in fees. And if that's just something that's not feasible and we have to spread it out over years, I'm OK with that. But I think we obviously at least have to do the 15% increase to match Rocky Mountain. We should have. And of course, hindsight is 20-20. We should have increased last year. We should have increased the year before. So you're not feeling it. We could have been maybe funding a little bit more. Right.

Well, and if Rocky Mountain raises it a percent next year. Well, that's my fear.

That's my fear that Rocky Mountain is going to raise it another percentage next year. So we need to agree as a council that if they do, we have to match it and go up again above it. Because that's my fear that Rocky Mountain is going to keep increasing, and so we're never going to catch up. So where do you stand then?

We're all pretty close.

What do you suggest then?

I'm just asking for another look to find $45,000 and we potentially go to 16% giving us $80,000 to $100,000 more in the water and sewer contingent.

And, Jason, there was one other item that didn't make the one-time purchase, but the fence that is supposed to fill around the Polar Horseville, that's not coming out of the fund-out. That's just coming out of Revenue. Where do you see that point could come from? I mean, it could come out of the fund-out. The 491 that's coming out, that's coming out of Enterprise. Right.

So, Bill, is your suggestion to keep $40,000 more in there?

Instead of taking 3%, take 3% minus.

So you don't want to take the full 192? You want to reduce the 192 number?

We don't need to use a million dollars less on the water.

Right. But what I'm saying is there's fund balance coming out of the water and sewer fund.

Correct.

for water and sewer fund items. So if we can cut from that budget, are you okay with $40,000 staying in from water and sewer? Where Jason's saying he could cut the pickup truck.

Again, I don't want to micro, so I don't want to say Jason has to take it from the truck. I think that we can go back and buy a few dollars here and there in the budget and potentially go to 16%, leaving us $80,000, $100,000 more in the long run. Okay, so I'm suggesting we bring it in before the contingency meeting.

If something happens in this, we have to come before you guys. We're going to put something in there. It's going to be out of our hands. You can do it. Go down to 130 and take your contingency out. Is that wise, though?

That's not looking at the budget. That's thinking about something that might work.

If something happens, we'll be a heap, big, stinking truck. Right.

What we're trying to do is reduce it so that . Right. Hold on.

Are we even, is this even necessary? Because I'm fine with going with 15 or 16 with the understanding that if we go with 15, we're going to have to increase it next year. Where do you stand? Because it looks like even if we were both on the same page for 16% for water and sewer, she might not support that. So it's a two to two tiebreaker here. So where do you stand?

This is where I stand. I think these people have worked their tails off and cut everywhere they can to treat the citizens right and get a budget. Hours after hours after hours. And we're going to come in here to remove that little amount? I mean, I know it makes a difference, but that's saying you have to work hard enough. We don't have trust in you. Go find me one more dollar, son, and go to the Walmart. fair budget I think so I'm for what you said you know let's keep it like two and fifteen or sixteen and that's it and then next year we'll have to look at it more seriously

And I think that's where we stand, because I would be fine with going to 16, but I just don't think that we can find the cut, so I think this is going to be an exercise in utility.

Absolutely.

I just want to make sure that the citizens understand that we're doing the best we can. Well, we are. I think they do. That's what I'm saying. I think they do. I'm not saying that our staff isn't doing a good job. I'm not saying the staff is terrible. I'm saying maybe we can go back and find a few dollars. That's what I'm saying.

And we're not adopting this today. So if we can all comb through this and we can see where we see things. I'm not picking on anybody in this room.

I'm not saying Jason can't get a truck. I'm saying I think we can find a few more dollars because we have a million dollar difference in our water. So can we find a few more dollars for that? It would be best for our citizens is what I'm saying.

Well, I think the citizens know that we've chewed on this. They've chewed on this budget and they've cut everywhere they can to keep it down safe and to do what we have to do. And a lot of this budget, I mean, we don't have a choice. I don't want to take anything from salaries. We can't take anything from salaries.