City Council - public_hearing

Is that good? Yeah. Okay, I'll go run it now.

All right.

than i do you can run it all you want up here yeah because that's made from oh yeah that's a i'm straight all right well i'll be honest Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

What about the city council meeting where we have to complain about taxes? Do you want to do it?

Sure. That noise is from the Zoom.

So long, we've been coming up. We're not why I'm not a co-host. So progress.

I grew up here until you could vows and I was sitting you left and then I voiced that for us.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. How are you? Good. yeah. Oh,

How do you know that's a solid?

Oh, thanks. That's good.

um so i write down my son my like and then i do my best to compare with the sign machine that's not how i would have spelled it yeah put her back to that sign and she comes in handy the channel is this um i think this is

I remember off the top of my head, but I don't know how it's going.

I know what you want to know. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sure.

Can I send it to you?

I've never been here. So I can't fight that. Thanks for emailing me every time. I've been actually trying to see. I have to be asked to leave. You know, my father makes more money. So I'm going to go get that done.

What is this you're going to share in the time? I don't know if it's strange, but I'll see everything. Thank you so much. When I talk to the baby, it's like the presentation.

City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers.

Speaker small. Trying to figure out. Right. You know what i'm like. Not yet.

You know.

I am was like. If I don't want to do this.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

We have to be really nice.

I'm going to leave.

Thank you. Yeah.

If I don't know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes, they should be all up on that. So when I open it up for you guys, just who's going to go first?

Just whoever jumps in first.

Okay.

Hey, Brittany, are we ready? Yes. Yeah, we are set.

Hey, I'd like to welcome you all out to our special council meeting. Tonight is August 11th. It is six o'clock. I'd like to welcome council member Spahr, council member Saxon, council member Jackson, council member Wilson, and council member Holbert. We will now have a moment of silence in the pledge of allegiance, and that will be council member Holbert who will lead us in that.

Please join me in a moment of silence. 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,

Okay, now I'd like to turn the time over to Amber, who is over our finance.

OK, thank you, Mayor and Council. Tonight's meeting is to adopt the final fiscal year 2027 budget and set the certified tax rate for 2026. The original budget previously presented included a tax increase of approximately 55% to generate $2,807,745 in additional tax revenue. The additional revenue would be used to balance the budget for a COLA given to employees in March 2026, a 2.8% COLA given to employees in the fiscal year 2027, and wage correction adjustments to bring all full-time employees to average market rate for their positions. Since the original budget was presented, we have had a few changes, including annexing the fire department to Weber Fire District, Roy Day's reductions, the police department renegotiated a contract with Weber School District for the school resource officers, and we've had some additional property taxes from new growth in the past year. These changes have reduced the original proposed tax increase of 55% to 34.29% to generate $1,751,100. This would be an increase to the average household of $133.15 per year or $11.10 per month. We would use this money to give all employees a 2% COLA, give wage correction adjustments to bring full-time employees to average market rate for their positions, and balance the budget for revenue shortfalls. Council may still make changes to this amount or make changes to the proposed budget. Any changes can be added by resolution to be made part of the final budget. A final budget must be adopted tonight. Just so the public is aware, we do have copies of the property tax impact schedule available on the table with a sign-in sheet that outlines how much of the new tax revenue will go to each department, as well as the Weber County combined notice of property tax increases in the county. These are also available on our website, and if we run out of the printed copies on the table and you would like one, we can print one for you before you leave today. Just ask any staff member. If you are participating on Zoom right now, instructions for verbal and written comments for the public hearing are available on the main page of our website at www.royutah.gov. At this time, we recommend you move into the public hearing to receive public input and then consider approval of Resolution 26-24, adopting the final annual budget for the fiscal year 2027 and setting the 2026 certified tax rate. Thank you.

OK, thank you, Amber. OK, do I have a motion to go into a public hearing?

So moved.

Second? So seconded. And so a roll call vote, Brittany.

Council Member Holbert? Aye. Council Member Saxton?

Aye.

Council Member Spahr?

Aye.

Council Member Wilson?

Aye.

And Council Member Jackson?

Aye. OK, now we are going to our public hearing. I want to remind everyone that we ask that all attendees treat one another, city staff, elected officials, with courtesy and respect. Outbursts, clapping, shouting, interruptive discussions, or any behavior that disrupts the orderly conduct of the meeting will not be permitted. Individuals who engage in disruptive behavior will be warned if the behavior continues, they will be asked to leave the meeting. So the City Council continue conducting the public's business. We appreciate everyone's cooperation and maintaining a respectful environment where all voices can be heard. And so you come up to the podium, just give us your name and you have three minutes.

Madam Mayor, council members.

Can you state your name, please?

I will. Council members, city employees, and my fellow residents. My name is Paul Pusey. I've lived and called Roy my home for close to 60 years. I love Roy. And after living here for nearly 60 years, I felt that I needed to stand up and say something positive about the city and the people who serve in it. I absolutely believe a city needs to be careful with our tax dollars. I also understand that you can only cut so much before you start to cutting into those things that make Roy a great place to live. Good people are hard to find. And when you have good employees, you need to keep them. From everything I have looked at, Roy isn't trying to make its employees the highest paid around. It is trying to keep wages competitive and somewhere around the surrounding cities what they're paying. I also been disappointed by some of the personal attacks and low blows I've seen. It's okay to disagree. And in fact, we should ask questions and expect accountability. But attacking people personally isn't going to fix Roy's financial problems. We can disagree and we can treat our neighbors and city employees and elected officials with respect. Additionally, I hope we don't make the mistake of thinking the answer to get rid of Roy's recreation complex, aquatic center, and our parks or recreation programs. Not everything a city provides is supposed to make money. To me, one of the purposes of a community is to provide things that make life better for the people who live there, our seniors, adults, young families, and especially our kids. Those programs give people affordable places to exercise, recreate, compete, make friends, and and belong the complex isn't just a swimming pool or a recreation building roy high swim team uses the pool our roy cone schools use the facility for adaptive pe classes it's all it also helps provide opportunities for programs like the special olympics Weber School District, unified basketball tournament and other fun and necessary community events. Those things matter. Roy isn't perfect. No city is. But after almost 60 years here, I am I still believe in Roy. We can't go backwards. We need to find a responsible way to move forward and keep good people working for our city and protect the things that make Roy such a special community. I appreciate those willing to serve. I appreciate our city employees and I appreciate the people who call Roy home. Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Busey, your time is up. Sorry. Thank you.

Sorry, this is my first time being here. My name is Alex Taft. I moved here in October of last year and, uh, kind of seeing everything that's been going on. I was going to come up here and kind of rip into you guys a little bit for the 55, but I liked where the 34.9 is. I feel like that's fair. I feel that's doable for a lot of people. I've been watching the YouTube and keeping in on every episode or every night that's been having. With the gentleman that just spoke, I like seeing that in Roy. um really kind of brings a lot of heart here and uh i did have a lot of issues with the roy complex but with all the people that i've seen that have been using it and feel strongly about it i feel it's probably a good thing that we just keep it um as as far as that is i mean like he's like the gentleman just said some things that the city does provide doesn't make money and i i agree with that and i just wanted to let you guys know how i felt and where i'm at with this thank you thank you thank you

My name is Natalie Benton. And I've only been annexed into Roy for six years. But I've always had a Roy address and live in Roy now. But Roy was my city. When I moved here, it was just unincorporated Weber County and then I got annexed into Hooper and then six. So but My problem is, is I feel we've taken the heart out of this Roy City. Our main street has more vacant buildings of mom and pop business, small and bigger businesses are gone. And our whole main street has a lot of empty buildings why are we losing all of the features that we've had for years and years and years and they're taking out houses to widen the roads to go west all the landmarks are gone we are now getting a second interstate off of the from the North Davis Interstate. The first one comes out in Hooper, and the second one is coming out towards still in Hooper. I don't know when Royce changes, but they're bringing a second one in to the east, right where the gas station is. And it goes to Plain City. And I don't know if any of you, and I don't know the roads at all. but the title is still roy city but like i said i feel we've taken the heart out of roy city and i came here with the list this long of everything that roy city has lost and i don't feel Like we should have a 55% tax increase, but I can't use that anymore because you've lowered it to what 35. And I think I can live with that, but the bottom line is. I feel. I should say I felt like I'm watching a train coming down a track. And it's picking up speed. And there is a sharp curve coming up in front of it. And I feel that it's going to derail.

OK, ma'am, your time is up. Thank you very much.

Hi, I'm Terri Kazare, and I've lived in Weber County all my life. I've lived in Roy now for 23 years, and I absolutely love the city. You guys are supposed to represent us. Well, I'll bet you a lot of the population of Roy are retired civil servants. And when you're retired, you can't afford these enormous hikes in your mortgage to cover the property taxes. And if you're a civil service, you don't get COLAs unless Congress decides, yeah, let's give them one this year. I have no faith in the House of Representatives or the Senate this year to get one. So why do you guys deserve one? I realize you guys need to be paid fairly, and I realize that the police and the fire departments pay them all they need to be paid. They risk their lives to save us. What I object to is I read on something a while back about that aquatic center down there in West Roy cost the city a million dollars to service for three months. Sell it. save the money that you would spend servicing the aquatic center and give you guys raises the complex yeah the complex is a good thing i realize the schools use it and everything that's great but get somebody to sponsor it there's dozens of car washes and fast food places here that would love to say quick quack complex or burger king complex um And also many years ago, I used to live in West Haven and was told by a friend who was negotiating property to build a store in Roy, that Roy needed to pull their heads out because they didn't want to invite any business into the city that would pay taxes. And he told me, this was 30 years ago, you're gonna end up paying 100% property tax, Roy. Yes, there are all these empty buildings, why why can't we get a sit-down restaurant that isn't chinese why can't we get a restaurant that's open past two o'clock in the afternoon we've got all these fast food restaurants roy's a model should be come for a car wash and stay for fast food i don't remember what the rest of my notes mean but that's all i've got to say thank you very much

Hi there, my name is Joe Fowler. We're unfortunately one of those fast food places you hate. We are the burger bar, so we've been involved with Roy for 70 years and we we love Roy. We've been around a long time. My grandpa started that place seven years ago. I don't normally come and speak out, but we. As business owners feel that you know 55% was excessive and now you're adjusting that down even a 35% seems like a pretty large increase if I was to take my business and increase my prices by 35% how many of you would stop going. Right that's that's kind of where we're at like when we are here as citizens, we don't just because they take more money from our as our property tax we don't necessarily make more money and. Like the young lady pointed out, they don't make more money as retirees and things like that. So one of the dangers I see is property taxes going up is there's no way to, if you're on a fixed income, there's no way to gain that back. There's no way for, just because a business is making money doesn't mean they can make more money just because their property taxes go up. Eventually it just gets onerous, okay? There's no way to avoid it. You just are always paying it or you have to move or you lose your house, right? um i think that's dangerous i think there should be other ways to generate income by inviting business to come to roy um maybe increase the sales tax i'm not sure exactly what to do that's maybe up for you guys but i do think a 35 increase is kind of excessive i think business and government needs to do more with less and um i mean that's all i have to say about that we love roy we love our firefighters we would love to see them and our police get paid more but um I guess that's all I got to say about that we would we would like to see more done with less if possible and get creative rather than. blanket statement we're just going to raise taxes, I mean i'd love to see some creativity and we would be all on board with that, so thank you, thank you.

I'm Jim Panagopoulos. I stood up here about a month and a half, one of the first meetings, and I actually brought the pay scales with me. And I was able to figure out if you would hold back about $1.5 million from doing pay raises in this, we could keep our fire department. Because you said at the time, $1.3 million is what you needed for your fire department. by annexing them with weber county yeah on here it looks like we have a lower property tax but when weber county and weber fire district starts to add it all in taxes go up we actually would have three percent more in taxes than the 55 that you originally proposed now when i was in the navy back in the 80s there was a time when congress had budget shortfalls and they mismanaged whatever And we didn't get cold increases for quite a while in the military. And we sucked it up because our calling to serve our country was more important. And we dealt with it. Families bound bond together and help each other out through the time until government was able to get straightened out. My suggestion is if you love our city enough, Do the same thing. Hold off a little bit on the coal increases, okay? It's not like we want you guys to not get paid, but the main ones like the fire department, the police, the streets, those need to do that because they need to take care of those things. But a lot of the other ones, when I looked at those pay raises, and they're well above the average salary means for Roy, I think it would be prudent if we can hold off a little bit till this is straightened out. And if you love Citi, if you love Roy that much, I think you'd be okay with that. Because there are a lot of high salaries out there, and I think you'll be able to make ends meet. So I think, you know, by putting this 34.9%, 29% in there, understanding by with the reduction of the fire department it's still going to increase in the county through the fire district so we're really not saving anything for the residents of roy we're still going to be increased so i think if we hold off on on the cola just for to get these things back in line we all chip in and do this together we can make it better one last thing i have to ask and what the the one lady said about the empty properties i'm not sure if there is a timeline i know you you don't answer back in these how long a business or a developer has when they because that that one up behind arby's were um you know, by Harmon's, they just tore down. That thing was vacant for so long. And we went to look at the inside and it was trashed. It got vandalized, it got flooded. How long does the developer have? I mean, is there a, you have one year to start developing on that property. And I think if that happens, the city won't have blight. The city won't have these eyesores around, so I think we get a get on top of those things bring in good businesses good restaurants and things like that that can bring in a revenue and then the residents don't have to to pay the brunt of all this thing Okay, thank you, thank you.

My name is Donald Harris, and I own a house here in Roy that doesn't bring me any revenue whatsoever. It doesn't bring any money. It's all outgoing money. I feel like I'm giving Roy a credit limit. They can adjust it however they feel. I am on a fixed income, just like the majority of workers here and people in this room. So every time property taxes go up, My house payment goes up. My house payment went up over $500 in the last three years because of property taxes and the tax assessment. I feel like I'm giving you guys a credit limit and you guys can adjust the rate and I have to pay it. That's not fair to me or any of these other people that live in Roy. I mean, it's a house. It doesn't make me any money until I sell it. And even then I lose because I paid all that interest on this property. So we got to sit down as a group and with councils and try to figure out where we can trim the fat and make this a profitable place in Roy and places where people want to move to and fill with like restaurants or restaurants to serve alcohol. It's everybody hears, Hey, you go, we have to go to Riverdale. We have to go to other cities and spend our money. you know, generate some businesses here that we're going to spend our money. And then not only being Roy, we pay for other counties, you know, that's more. And I feel, you know, that I like Roy, but it feels like I'm starting to spite it because I now take money away from my family to pay for other people's family. That's not fair to me. And that's what we elected you guys for, to find out reasons so we don't have to take from the Royce City families and still get stuff done. Too many new vehicles. There's always ways to adjust the budget. I have to do it in my house. I may not buy bud light. I might have to buy natural light, but I have to trim it. That's what I'm saying. We all got to get together and figure this out. But this even 30% tax is still too high for me. You know, sometimes I have to go use credit cards to buy groceries. And that's what I feel. My house is not a bank for Roy City because it generates me nothing. And I hope you guys see that. I make nothing off my house. Roy City does. in other cities and other counties. Until we can figure that out, it's just going to continue going. Airbnb bought a house up the street from my house for $750,000. You know what my tax is valuable to my house now? $750,000 because they said that's what it is. And they use it as rental. That hurts me. Okay, thank you. That's property tax.

Thank you so much.

Good evening. My name, can you hear me? My name is Donna Russell. I'm retired now, but spent my career as a parks and recreation professional. For some reason, when budgets need to be trimmed and everyone is pointing fingers at facilities and programs that they think should be the first to go, people tend to look at recreation as expendable. Tonight, I'd just like to urge you to think very carefully before looking at the wonderful facilities and programs you provide that have beneficially served not only Royce City, but many communities in northern Utah for a very long time. Programs that have been doing their job so successfully for so long that their benefits may be overlooked. Community recreation and aquatics programs are more than just pools and gym. They promote wellness, teach skills that save lives, strengthen neighborhoods, and improve the quality of life. Two of my daughters worked for the Roy Complex as lifeguards and water safety instructors. You have always had excellent aquatic programs in Roy. Many, many have learned essential skills of being safe in the water. Anyone who knows me at all has heard me say swimming lessons save lives, and I believe it. Swimming is a skill that can only be taught in water. Not many of us have a pool in our backyards or access to a swimming pool where we can learn to swim. Yet all of us living in Utah have occasion to be in, on, and around water. I believe a community that provides affordable life-saving aquatic programs is a community that cares about its residents. as an aquatic professional i have had the opportunity to have patrons tell me of many situations where skills they learned in aquatic programs have saved life one is of a family on vacation while boating during the brief moment when no one was watching a young child fell off a boat due to skills learned in a swimming class this young child put their head back rolled on their back and yelled for help they were able to learn an adult just in time where their life was saved I could go on and tell many more stories such as this. Many, many have been saved due to safety skills learned in community swimming classes. I have also heard many testimonials in my career about how water exercise is such a great benefit to many that have mobility concerns. Many senior adults have found not only huge physical benefits and from water exercise at the complex, but it also provides the needed social benefits of that group as well. It greatly enhances the lives of many seniors who depend on these programs that add quality to their lives and curtails medical costs. Your beautiful complex that has quietly and affordably served your community for many years also provides many other things, which we've already talked about tonight. Because this facility is subsidized by the city, these programs can be offered at affordable prices. Without the city's help, these programs wouldn't exist, and many of your citizens would suffer a worst-case scenario, experience tragedy. If you do the math, the value and benefits provided by your parks and recreation programs, and specifically your recreation complex, are but a very small fraction of your property taxes. If you say, but my family doesn't ever use the complex, I would just have to say, why not? Surely there is someone in your family that would benefit from these programs. It is one of the wonderful perks of living in Royce City. In closing, I would just like to urge you to look elsewhere to cut the budget.

Thank you. Your time is up.

Thank you. Don't cut these programs.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Ty Chasten, and I look at numbers and data and facts, and my wife will get up and present some of that in a minute. As you know, the complex and the aquatic center and Splash Blad, three places where we use water, electricity, gas, employees. We talk about trimming fat. There's a place where we can do that. I understand that there's benefits to having it, but then at the same time, at what cost? I grew up on a farm. I learned how to swim the hard way. You jump in and just go, we didn't have a complex, we have a swimming pool. There wasn't a swimming pool where I was at in Sandy, Utah. But then there was Cottonwood Heights that came along and it took care of a lot of cities and they got interlocal agreements, which we don't have and we don't seem to be able to get from the other cities. Let's look at it in a business perspective. If we're spending money on water, employees, electrical, mechanical, equipment, all these different areas, and we could combine that all into one. We should have taken the complex, let Roy High have parking lot, and put a roof over the aquatic center with slides, those slides that would compete with Riverdale's classic water slides. However, we have a swimming pool that's competing with how many other swimming pools in the city. I know that you're having to pay for it, but they have programs as well. I can understand that they are cheaper programs. But when we're looking at a 55% increase, now a 30% increase, we still don't even know what that is because the data hasn't been presented very well. We don't know where we should be. Last time I talked to Matt Andrews, he said 9% would be sufficient for this year. I don't know why we're not looking at that. Where did that come from? Why is he telling me one thing and you guys are telling me another? I wish we could have some real data on our transparent website that Alexis Jackson put up for me where people can go and ask the questions and we can start seeing the data. And when you see the data that Diane Wilson gave that we eventually acquired four days late from the police department, that the numbers that you presented, you should have gone deeper dive into them. My wife's going to present that. And there's a whole different story to that. And a lot of it's Roy High, and that crime is happening right behind the complex with all the drug deals that go down there and the blitz that happened from Brenda Hart, the principal there. That's why the numbers are higher from the youth that were from Roy. Not St. George, but there were more numbers that were pulled from youth from Ogden City, not Roy City, if you were to dig deeper into the numbers.

Hello, Deanne Chaston. We heard from somebody just a couple of times ago that Roy said he subsidizes the complex. That's what I'd like to talk about today. There's two ways to balance a budget, bring in more revenue or cut expenses or a combination of that. So I'm here to talk about cutting more, more than you guys have put out there, more than you guys have ever wanted to consider. Yeah, the low hanging fruit is the complex. So I'd like to talk about that. We heard from council member Diane Wilson last month that every $1 spent by you guys saves $4 somewhere else. So I wanted more details. I got her presenting juvenile arrest records for six years. And she said it increased the year the complex was closed for renovations. Indeed, it did. But when police chief Gwen presented these exact numbers, he said and cautioned the correlation is not causation and that more longitudinal data was needed. Indeed, it is. So I asked the city to provide me with more in-depth data behind those numbers. I paid $144 and waited 18 days to get that data. Please note that they have 10 business days to reply. They went over that.

Now, I'd like to present you with this data that I waited for and that I paid for.

First, juveniles are coming from other cities to commit crimes in Roy. At least 36% of the arrests and citations in the last six years have come from teens not living here. Another interesting point is that 30% of the arrests and citations in the last six years were made during school hours. This is when students should be in class, not in the complex. When the data from these out of town residents and during school hours is taken from the arrests and citations, what is left is a very different number than what was presented last month by Diane Wilson. It does not prove that the closure of the complex led to more juvenile arrests. In fact, it points to something very different. The same year the complex was closed for renovation, there were more juvenile arrests and citations made during school hours than there has been before or since. That correlates with a strict attendance blitz that the student and the, sorry, the... school resource officer was making regular sweeps around the high school parking lot looking for students skipping class by sitting in their cars you may remember the media reporting the presence of four different guns in the school parking lot within a three-week span this is a parent problem spilling into a school problem this is not a city problem the city is not obligated to provide teens access to the complex while they should be in school Royce City is not obligated to provide teens living in other cities access to the complex, especially when those residents in those cities do not pay property taxes like I do to keep that complex open. This city is obligated to serve a fiduciary duty to their residents. Please look at this data more in depth before you pass it off on why we're keeping the complex open.

Good evening. My name is Grant Cooper. I've been a resident of this city for 41 years. I'm a civil environmental engineer by training. I've looked at some data and information. I've talked to various people over the last year or so in reference to Roy's budget. I have a list here of all the employees by department in reference to the last 10 years. And the question I have for the city council in reference is, what is the ratio of managers to employees. You know, they have so many employees, 28 for general government police, 41 officers, seven civilian fire department, 40 officers and firefighters, civilian one public works, 23 parks and recreation, 13 employees, water and sewer, 12 employees. Now this may not include everybody, but we know that the park the complex aquatic center thing are running the deficit. And I'm not against public health and fitness. I'm not against giving youth an opportunity to be able to go to a place and exercise and be healthy and happy. But the question I ask you is, are you looking at your staffing? I was at a large corporation in Salt Lake City for 24 years. We went through three downsizing. The corporation decided they were just too top-heavy. We couldn't manage all of the people. So, they had a reduction of force, early retirements, and other things. They looked at the structuring of who was managing who and if the managers were working. And so, again, a question I ask you is staffing levels, management levels. And the last thing I ask, can you take this CACT increase and spread it over two years, 54 percent in one year? And my homeowners insurance, I have my house paid for. I'm in a good spot financially, but my homeowners insurance has gone up three times in the last six, seven years. Now the value of the home has gone up. But my homeowner's insurance has skyrocketed, and there's a lot of reasons for that. So what I'm trying to say is, talking to former Mayor Bob Dandoy, I know there's discussions within this council that you were looking at ways to minimize, reduce, and streamline the workings of the city. And I don't know if any of those recommendations have even looked at, but I ask you to please look at staffing levels. Please look at how people work. I'm not talking about laying people off. I got colas when I was at this company, but there's a way to streamline and downsize a little bit and still keep the same level of service. That's my request to you. Thank you.

My name is Nancy Inman. I'm a 21 year resident of Roy. For the third straight year, Roy is asking for a double digit tax increase. Increasing employee wage compensation and COLAs are driving this unprecedented tax increase. The wage survey done in the HR department by city employees using TechNet and enterprise technology solutions, the compensation survey system, offer custom built surveys and wage studies. TechNet is a closed loop system, only comparing public wages. All participants report to the network. This is artificially increasing the public employee wages. The wage gap between public and private companies is $20 an hour. Private industry has to remain competitive or they won't be in business anymore. Municipalities and cities aren't required to do wage studies. There are no guidelines, no code they must adhere to. Unlike the state, which is required to use 50% private and 50% public wage data per state code. With TechNet, they can set their own parameters, build their own criteria, and choose which cities to compare. The wage survey done in the HR department and given to the review committee, who was the city manager, HR director, the management services director, the mayor, and two city council members. This cannot be called an independent study in any way, shape, or form. Everyone involved has a vested interest in the outcome. TechNet has created this never ending upward increase of public wages. What we're seeing is public employees taking advantage of job hopping for higher pay because there's no consequence to them. It doesn't affect their retirement or health insurance that they all have the same retirement system. And city councils and governments thinking they can fix this employee retention problem by increasing wages, it's just pouring gasoline on the fire. It's just increasing the problem. So that's one thing that I wanted to talk to. Now, annexing the fire department, do you remember? When you put the graphic up that annexing the fire department would show a $50 annual decrease in our taxes annually for each household. Well, that wasn't true, was it? So the Weber Fire District is proposing a 24% increase in their tax revenue. That's already begged in. So you just shuffle that off. So add 35% for Roy and that's more than 55% by my math, so this is supposed to be a truth and taxation hearing so where's the truth and transparency, all we see is cherry picked data and misleading conclusions to support them.

John Ashby, I've resident for most of 57 years. Excuse my voice is a little hoarse today. don't think it could have been said better than than what mr pusey said when he at the very beginning you know it's a great place to live and you've got as a residence we got to look for the positive in the city and there really is a lot of positive about the city now one of my issues that i have is is the complaints we have about paying the the employees the city employees Now, I'm in the accounting field, and so I'm aware of what wages are out there. If I read my forms here correctly, the accounting manager's making $70,000, $75,000 a year. I just saw a post for Clinton City making, for an accounting manager, actually, I think it was a senior accountant, which is not as high as accounting manager, making $80,000 to $100,000 a year. Those are those are numbers that out there being in the field, I know that an accounting manager in the public sector can make upwards to 120 hundred and $30,000. So you can't tell me the public sector is making any less than the government sector. And I'm sure that, you know, the accounting manager or the, sorry, the city attorney, if you want to go into the public sector or the private sector, sorry, I'm getting my private and public backwards. He could make two, 300,000 easily in that, if you wanted to go that direction. So I really think that, I don't know why we are, We're progressing along in the world. Inflation is going up, which means wages have got to go up. And I don't know that we're necessarily as a city really keeping up with the inflation that's been out there. And what people don't realize is these people are not, the city employees are not making more money. It's inflation that's causing the price of the, the value of the dollar to go down so they are unable to buy as much that also goes for the city expenditures now going to over to the complex i completely support the complex and the city and parks i think that it's a good way to keep the the kids active i was on the ayso board as a when my kids were little And it gave them activities to do that they would not have had otherwise, otherwise they would have been out finding trouble. I'm sure. So I, once again, I love the city. I've been here most of my life. I have been here other than four years of my life. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is Brianna Heumann. We are coming to you this evening in peace in our status as we the people to give you notice and instruction so that you and your agents may provide due care. We thank you for agreeing to be servants of the people and for taking your oaths of office to uphold and defend both our federal and state constitutions. We're handing you eight envelopes containing notices from the mayor, all the city members and the chief of police and a copy for the city clerk. The Property Rights Notice has already been given to 50 state governors, to the President of the United States, to the Supreme Court, to the United States Senate, and to the United States Congress. We are now giving you a copy. Please take notice that people have studied the constitutions and are aware that the sole purpose of government is to protect individual rights and that our rights, including acquiring protecting using and enjoying our property in all forms. Legislator gets its authority from the written constitutions, which is superior law. And statutes cannot diminish, amend, or suspend, or excuse me, or supersede the original intent of the trust indenture, the constitution. Otherwise, they are void ab initio. Furthermore, There is no immunity for unofficial acts. Where in the constitutions does it say the people's money is not their own property? Where in the constitutions did the people grant our servants the authority to deprive us of our constitutional rights to property? Where does it say in the constitutions that you can use the people's money for programs or perks that violate the private property rights? where does it say in the constitutions that you can use the people's money for the complex or the aquatic center what that are not for the people's equal benefit and enjoyment thank you okay

My name is Shelly Polsten. Where in the Constitution does it say that the people cannot use their own property as they see fit? The United States Constitution guarantees all states a Republican form of government, not a democratic administrative state. You as trustees and servants have sworn oaths to protect all the people's individual rights. No government entity has the authority to interfere with the people using their property rights except through due process of law, which includes the right to require claims of harm supported by sworn testimony and the right to a trial by jury in a court of competent jurisdiction. Finally, it is my wish, order and demand that you as servants and trustees immediately cease and desist all violations of private property rights of the people. If you believe as a government servant, any of these claims are untrue and you have a constitutional grant of authority to interfere with the people's property rights to acquiring, possessing, enjoying, keeping, and protecting their property in all forms, please show constitutional authority where you get that power. Posting this granted authority conspicuously on the City of Roy website homepage within the next five days, notifying the public and all agents. If you cannot show where you got the authority and you take any further action blocking the people's rights to enjoy their property, then any future actions will be construed as being done with malice, intent, full knowledge, and understanding against your trust indenture, your contract with the people, that would be the Constitution. This notice is given in peace with the love of Almighty God that you and your agents might provide due care to those who have all political power, the people. Thank you.

wow what she said i'm brent sackton i told myself before i attended i wouldn't comment tonight i told my wife i wouldn't comment tonight but here i am compelled to say something in the past month or so i feel i've been slandered by a member of this council because I was in disagreement with proposed tax increases. The last proposed tax increase that we received as a public was 55 percent. It got a lot of people upset. Magically, tonight, it's been more than 30 days, it's been a foregone conclusion that we would annex our fire department into the Weber County Fire District. We've known for more than the past 30 days what the increased revenue from property taxes would be. In the last 30 days, the county gave us a quarter of a percent sales tax increase. Royce City will receive several hundred thousand dollars as a result of that gift. Why was all this information kept from the public? I speculate so that you could look like heroes coming in and reducing a 55% tax increase to 35. You're not heroes. I only, in all this dialogue, heard one council member come up with a proposed budget that would mitigate that tax increase. I'd like to hear from Janelle and Diane and Alexis and Jason your proposals that will help mitigate that increase. I'm assuming you have none. You're just going along with the increase, giving employees a COLA that they didn't receive last year, giving them another COLA for the upcoming year, giving them salary adjustments, make a proposal.

My name is Larry Neal. My kids were born here many years ago. Since that time they have became adults and now I have grandkids. And tonight I am not going to my grandson's baseball game because you all have motivated me enough to get off my butt and come in here and say I'm against these tax increases. One of the reasons why is as a young adult, I watched a neighbor lady of ours that was taxed out of her home. Because she was on a fixed income, she could no longer pay her taxes and had to sell and move into an assisted living. Not because she couldn't take care of herself, but because her taxes had gone up to the point that the place where she raised her kids, that she buried her husband, could no longer afford on her fixed income to pay the taxes. I congratulate you for motivating me to get up here tonight. The police and fire are the city's most important item that they can have here. And I love the fire. I love the police. I want them to be stronger. I want them to be here. But I don't think that you've looked at all of the different lines in the budget and you can justify some of the stuff that's going on. my wife and i go to the rec center we are yearly members we love to go there but as i'm sitting there up there exercising in the window looking out my wife and i many times have commented on the fact that almost every few days there's an individual with a can of spray wiping down the windows with roll the paper towel And to me, that's the most ineffective way because I was in the private sector and janitors would use sponges and they could do it within five minutes. All the windows that you see there, they could be done in minutes compared to cans. Have you really looked at your budgets line by line to see where the waste is? I also look because I'm most intimately involved with the rec center. I don't follow all the dog catchers and everybody else around, but I see so much waste in there. It's ridiculous. My daughter is a teacher that I'm very proud of. And I watch, she tells me all the waste that goes on in the school. like the principal buying herself a massage chair that was close to $20,000. Where is the money going to? They couldn't buy paper for the school, but they had enough to buy her a massage chair to put in her office. I think there is parts of this budget that you can reduce, and I'm not saying to reduce the police or fire. I love both of them. I like the rec center, but I think we can look at the budgets better.

Hello, I'm Garrett Chase and I've lived in Roy most of my life. So story, well, yeah, story time. So about five-ish years ago, I used to work at food banks. I volunteered at food banks. And I've helped out at like seven or more food banks. And I usually helped out single moms with children. So like a lot of single parents with children, mostly. Or just people that were experiencing homelessness, mostly. um and most of them were on food stamps but then some couldn't be because they didn't they couldn't apply for food stamps either way um i learned that the most popular food like that they would all get to survive was boxes of Kraft mac and cheese. Kids love that crap. And what I learned is that a lot of these single parent households would live off of a box of mac and cheese for the whole family every day. Like that was their one meal a day, a box of Kraft mac and cheese. That's what they lived off of for the whole family. Well, and when I worked at all these food banks, I said, oh, we love when people donate boxes of mac and cheese. That's what the kids love. That's what the single parent households love is the boxes of mac and cheese. Well, a while ago, it was told to us Roy citizens that if we increase the tax, increase the tax, it's just giving up a Dr. Pepper a day. well come to find out that a dr pepper a day that's roughly the same price of a mac and cheese box um so for some that might be a casual drink but for families that are struggling it's not One third of our city is single parent households that are struggling. So if we increase those taxes, that's not denying them Dr. Pepper, that's denying them their dinner and night of crab mac and cheese. If we increase the taxes, I'm going to upgrade this Dr. Pepper shirt to a mac and cheese shirt. A big smile. Thanks.

My name is Shannon Jackson. This is my second time coming before you to express my strong opposition to the proposed tax increase. I understand the argument that sometimes difficult decisions require us to pull the bandaid off. But I believe it is important to remember that the people being asked to absorb this increase are not numbers on a spreadsheet. They are your residents, your neighbors, and the people who make up this community. I watch elderly residents worry about whether they will be able to remain in their homes. I see young families wondering how they will afford their next meal. I see middle-aged working people asking themselves how much more they can possibly take. These are real people facing real life financial pressure. For many residents, this kind of increase is not money they simply can pull out of a vending machine. It means choosing between groceries, utilities, medical expenses, housing, and other necessities. The residents of Roy deserve better. I do not believe the people of this community are in favor of what is being proposed. And I believe the council needs to take that concern seriously. In my view, this is not simply a city problem. It is a council responsibility. The people elected to represent Roy have a responsibility to make difficult financial decisions while also recognizing the limits of what their residents can afford. And frankly, I believe this city is on life support. That should not be taken as an insult. It should be taken as a warning. If the council is willing to truly listen to the people who live here, perhaps you might begin to think outside the box. Perhaps you might hear what residents are actually saying and consider different ways to reduce spending, change how things are done, and find solutions that do not continually require more money from the taxpayers. What happens when taxes become so high that businesses no longer want to stay in Roy? What happens when residents can no longer afford to live here and begin leaving? What happens when the tax base you are relying on starts disappearing? Then what? We cannot simply continue raising taxes and assume the problem will solve itself. I would love to see Roy become something spectacular someday. I even find myself wishing that perhaps Riverdale could take us over and show us what is possible when a community is managed with pride and vision. I don't say that because I want to tear Roy down. I say it because I want Roy to do better. I encourage the council to look at communities such as Clinton and the example set by the mayor, particularly when it comes to communicating openly with residents and keeping the public informed. Transparency should not be something residents have to fight for. It should be expected. And I have to wonder what happens next year. If the city raises taxes this year, will we be sitting in this exact same room next year being told that they need another 25% increase? And at what point does the city address the underlying problems instead of repeatedly asking residents for more? A raise is earned. A tax increase should be earned through responsible planning, transparency, accountability, and results. Royce City needs responsibility. Thank you.

Melissa Conkling. Hello, Council, Mayor. This is from Open Payrolls Year 2025 off of Google. The average employee salary for the City of Roy as of 2025 was $99,000. This is a 27.9% higher than the national average for government employees and 7.1% higher than any other cities. Now, maybe this data is wrong. God, I hope it is. Because you all have a lot to answer for. We do not want a 55% increase. We do not want a 37% when you have to annex the fire department. We have to pay more for that. So it ends up being 57%, which is higher than 55%. I think my math is all right. Brian, thank you because I've heard from you and you're listening to our concerns and you're the only one who's responded back to emails and has communicated with the city. Thank you very much. We can make the city complex pay for itself. We can. We just have to make it profitable. How can we do that? Well, how does a gym make itself profitable? They have an annual or monthly Price. You want to use the complex? Great. $20 a month for a city resident. Use the complex. Go ahead. Use it all you want. If we did that and we advertised, maybe we could keep some of this stuff open and make it profitable. If a gym can make money, we can make money. It's simple economics. Awesome. I just found out, because of the Roy Days, which I appreciate, that the Roy Complex and the Roy Recreation, Parks and Recreation, they actually have some great ideas. You know what their problem is? They don't advertise. I didn't even know until Roy Days we had a dog park. I had no idea. Because I don't live next to it, I had no idea we had one. Now that's ridiculous. Y'all have... Social media. I want to know where the parks are, what they offer, where the dog park is, where the parks are that you can bring your dog, where everything is. I didn't even know until Roy days that there's a little water feature at the park that y'all had Roy days at. I had no idea. What did that cost? I don't remember seeing it. advertise. You can make Roy make money, but what we don't know about, we can't use. Advertise. It's easy. You'll have social media, lots of it. Use it. Then you can make Roy pay for itself and you won't have to fleece the taxpayer. Thank you. Thank you.

Clark Roberts in terms of the budget, I do support the police and fire, and I think we need to get the money that they need. The other aspect of the budget I wasn't really too pleased with is you come to us asking for our inputs, but you already prior to that it includes a COLA increase that was already implemented before. That's part of this proposed tax increase. If you're going to be asking for our input, I know at the federal level that's Anti-Deficiency Act, but at the state and local level there is. You did go through the proper procedures to get that approved, but it was without the input of the citizens as far as I know. I'd like to change the subject to beautification of Roy. i like living in roy i've been here for 30 years but um there's two things i think that this city could probably do to help this year with the water situation i know we have a lot of residents that look homes that look broken down and maybe we as community members can do something else. But in terms of utilities, a couple years ago I came with the concern with the pedestals that were being installed in people's yards. As I drove around today in probably a five-mile drive there was at least a half a dozen of those pedestals that have been broken by cars or people and they're sitting there obviously those pedestals are not functioning or they probably would have been repaired right away i would like to propose that the city i would love to see all those above ground pedestals put into the ground as many as possible and maybe these that are broken the telephone lines fiber whatever they are that when they're broken that when those companies somebody needs to monitor those when those companies come out to repair them force them to put them in the ground instead of the above ground pedestals in my neighborhood there's every second house has four or five above ground pedestals for utilities and some cities don't allow them at all. I asked to beautify our city by forcing these companies as they repair them to put them in the ground. Secondly is on 3500 where UDOT has purchased properties. They're not maintaining them at all. the grasses and weeds are growing high which we've seen the fire dangers that can happen and just ask that the city have a role in uh asking udot to maintain those properties that they have purchased to help keep roy beautiful thank you thank you jessica fowler burger bar

My name is Jessica Fowler. I am the sister of Joe who spoke earlier. So I run and manage the burger bar with him or own it. We own it together. I just want to say sometimes it feels fruitless to come to these kind of meetings because it seems like, you know, a lot of the people have said, well, you're here to represent us, but we've seen city council. people and our national representatives that don't go and do what the people want. All of our fiscal houses, as far as the government is involved, are in a complete disarray. I think as a people, we expect the government to operate within the constraints that they have, just like we do in our personal homes or in our personal business. So at the Burger Bar, we had to put in like tens of thousands of dollars of a new hood system. Last year, we had to put in a $60,000 walk-in cooler. Our wages are skyrocketing. We have to save and earmark personally so that we can make those purchases. It's not something that we don't wanna pass higher costs on to our customers because we will alienate and lose our customers and we want to keep our prices low and we try to take pride in that and we expect the city to do likewise you know um as some of these people have mentioned about property taxes i personally think it's the most unethical tax out there it's technically an unrealized taxation or gain that it's like people don't make money off of their homes unless they sell it we don't make more money off of our business because we have been asked to pay more money for taxes our property tax valuation i got the notice in the mail it is near ten thousand dollars with this new proposal after a hundred thousand dollars over the course of ten years It's outrageous. It is such a burden. It is, like my brother said, the word is onerous. This is a heavy burden. Now, I'm speaking for myself personally, but I've heard many people heard the pain in their voice that they also have said that they are on fixed incomes. They do not have the money. They have tight budgets. Groceries are outrageous. Food costs everywhere have gone up. People are feeling that pain. So we expect more to be done with what you have. I also think that the cops, the police and the firemen should be paid more, but I'm talking the low end. I don't know why every time that we consider both budget proposals and increases, it's like goes to the fire department and it goes to the office workers. or no offense to the chief or the police chief but i don't make as much money as the police chief and as the fire chief i work nights weekends holidays i work double shifts on fridays and saturdays i think it's unethical that we don't pay the fire department and the policemen that do the work what they deserve to be paid they should be paid more but once you get to a threshold i think that Sometimes you've made enough money. When I look at the public salaries and they're topping out at $200,000, $300,000 for that UTA case, that driver, that's just unacceptable. That's unacceptable.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Alex. I'm 26 years old and I lived here for about six years and I actually wouldn't have come up here if I didn't actually get struck a chord with everybody here. So like one thing that I've been noticing is that there's always this idea of just increasing the tax prices as if, like, sure, yes, at the short term, that will fix whatever immediate concerns you have. But in the end, even with the increase on the property tax, it's not going to help anybody in the end, not even the people that you give the pay raises for. So essentially what we have to do is to be a bit more practical about how we manage our finances, as many people before me have already mentioned. So one thing we can do is, as one person said, to do a small membership fee and even a family one to help make sure that those that do actively use the service can actually give a little bit of that funding towards the facilities that they are actively using. I'm not saying that it should be some huge fee like other private companies do, because in the end, it's not meant to be something as for profit, but as something that should be done like for the benefit of everybody and i do think that the facility is very important for that for the schools and for the like what it promotes and that i am fully for like what i am totally against is the idea of an arbitrary tax increase that can basically make everybody here lose nobody wins like the whole idea of like a tax increase like a 50 but 34 is now acceptable i guess but in the end it's not going to help anybody the best way we can really go through this and like especially for the people that are struggling financially because the reality is everything has gotten more expensive everything has been a lot harder to maintain for our current lifestyles so there are sacrifices in the end that we have to make in order to like kind of keep ourselves above water. So naturally, I hope that you all will be able to like take a look deeper into the taxes and to like the where everybody here can win, not just like getting some funds that ultimately is just kicking the kicking the problem down the road, which will just get even worse.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Victor Chasten, and something that you may or may not know about me is I like to study history. One important fact of history about the United States of America is the Declaration of Independence. In the Declaration of Independence, it states out multiple grievances that the king committed against the colonies. Now, I want to come up with my own Declaration of Independence, although I'm not declaring independence. I'm just coming up with a list of grievances from each of the council members that I want to state. first of all we have ann jackson who said publicly again we can get rid of how we buy dr pepper and that will just solve the tax issue and that we won't feel it that's obviously very misguided a very misguided response to what this tax increase would show we also have diane wilson who in the past showed that she wanted to increase taxes by 44 she said in previous council member uh meetings And this is another thing we can consider, is do we really want Diane Wilson, who's sitting here saying, I might support the 30-ish percent tax increase, when she obviously has an agenda to put it way up more. You have Janelle Herbert, who is almost an open Democrat, as she's a very, very liberal Republican, kind of a chameleon in spaces, I would think. I mean, I've seen how she thinks, especially with evidence that I have that she is a very open liberal and you know I thought that Utah was almost a solid red state so I don't know I don't think that politically matches our interests of Roy we have Alexis Jackson who she openly put signs out and not according to Roy ordinance codes when she was trying to run for this exact position, which doesn't show good transparency and good morals by an elected official. We also have her connection to Nelson Homings and Sharon Balos of the county commissioner. This is obviously another thing where there's nepotism, there's not following laws, and she's new and she already has that much grievances against Roy City. We have Jason Sfar who asks for feedback and consistent and clear feedback, yet she doesn't listen to us Roy citizens. The only one I can say that did good on this council was Brian Saxton. He's an amazing guy. Almost everything he does, I agree with. And almost all of the things that you guys do, I disagree with. Whether it be not wanting to hear comments, whether it put up signs wrong, whether it's saying that a tax issue is declared by Dr. Pepperbine, whether it be a higher percentage of taxes that you stand for, or just being a liberal in a very conservative city. All in all, this 55% increase of tax shows that you are willing to put it up and up each more year just to put your foot in the door and say, well, actually, it's 33% now that we've considered it or whatever. And this shows that you guys have the bias to put it up and up and up, even if you bring it down last second, so we might feel more at peace. You guys have the agendas to push to pass it through and make it more and more each year, all except for Brian Saxton. Thank you for your time.

I'm Laura Johnston. I don't have notes. I didn't do a lot of research. I've lived here trying to get to where Mr. Pusey is not 60 years, but I'm trying. I have a lot of feelings about Roy. I've lived here. Well, like I said, I've lived here a long time. And I truly feel that we all need to move together to make this a better place. It does not sound like there's a ton of togetherness here tonight. I feel like I have to trust someone to run my city because I can't do it. I have no skills. I have no experience. I was a special education teacher for 35 years. That does not qualify for any position like these people have. And I have all the respect in the world for all of you to sit up there and listen to all of us today. I am totally in support of the tax increase. And if someone would like to ask me to pay their $100 a year, I will do that up to a certain amount. I am totally in support of this tax increase. Thank you.

Good evening. I didn't really come here to speak, but as I have sat here, I have thought about maybe I might be able to enlighten somebody.

Can you please tell me your name, please, sir?

Rick Hadley.

Okay.

But I felt like I might be able to enlighten somebody. Maybe there's something that we can find where we could save some money. And some 30 years ago, I started up a landscape business. I built it from scratch. I built it up to where it was making a respectable wage. And I took care of 80 properties for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I also took care of all the Utah Power and Lights work. and i did all this in five days i bought my own equipment paid my taxes on it and and anyway i've had a son that has acquired a spot on a city council within weber county and uh they are in straits like we are financially and they've been going over things to find ways to save money well they found that there was three employees that's making over six digit figure incomes who takes care of five parks in their city limits in my business I took care of 65 LDS church properties plus 15 additional properties which were parks and some of them as large as 10 acres big and saved the church a lot of money and the other businesses because they put them up for bid and it went to the best bid that was cast. um i feel that uh you know you look at the cost of equipment my cheapest mower was and that was 30 years ago was ten thousand dollars i had four of them i could take care of all of those properties within five days a week and uh I know these mowers that they mow our lawns with in the city, those six gang mowers, they're not cheap. They're over 100 grand or more. And when you're paying for employees plus benefits, it adds up.

Thank you. Thank you.

Hello, my name's Trisha Hill. I didn't plan on speaking tonight. I walked in here full of rage, but didn't bring bail money. But after listening to everyone speak, and the young lady, or sorry, that proposed saying the lower tax at the 34% is a bit more reasonable. I definitely want my fire and cops paid. They deserve more than... Sorry, more than anybody up here, they take care of us. But there's gotta be, there's gotta give somewhere. I don't use the aquatic center, or excuse me, the complex. I have in the past, my kids were on the swim team for the high school. but there's got to be cuts. Bring kids in to find out what activities they want that could be like a paid activity once a week for kids to go get off the streets and do a fun pool night. I don't know if there's something like that already, but get some input from the kids that use it and the adults. Maybe an adult night only. That would be great. And Mr. Saxton, I do appreciate... all your positive feedback on people's emails. And I feel like you're the only one that I align with. And someone needs to give that history boy that was here, give him a job.

My name's Kate Turner, and I've lived in Roy for a couple years. And I just wanted to say that initially when I heard about the tax increase, I was like, wow, that's a big percentage. And I'm kind of sometimes uneducated, so I didn't really know about it except for that I heard from a couple of friends. I don't like contention, so I just was like, well, I better find out some information about this. And I called a council member to ask what was happening. And they explained to me what the council had been discussing, why why it was taking place. I was grateful for the education that was provided to me. And I went back and forth and asked a couple of follow up questions. Why can't we do this? Why can't we do this instead? And I continue to understand a little bit more. And I guess one thing that I have been trying to put myself in the position of if I worked for Royce City, like how would I be feeling right now? And I don't know how many employees have felt like they could come up here and talk. But I feel like tonight I am in favor of the tax increase. And I'm also someone who doesn't make, I don't have a job right now. I'm a stay at home mom. And I recognize that nobody is probably ever going to be so excited about a tax increase. But I guess what I'm trying to say is that I have an understanding or I feel like I have a better understanding of why this is happening. And I just appreciate all the time and effort that's gone into this. And I do appreciate you hearing all that we have to say, too, because it's OK that we all have different opinions. And yeah, that's all. Thanks. Thank you.

good evening city council thank you for your attention i would like to say my name is marlene m-a-r-l-a-i-n-e scott i don't think you spelled it right the last time so i think i wasn't heard so perhaps if i wasn't heard i'm standing up here again from may i oppose this exorbitant tax increase 55 i just heard just an hour ago that it's 35 that's still high I voiced my opinion in May and then I heard Diane Wilson say we were not the majority of Roy residents, so I hope in the last few months, you have heard from Roy residents and I hope you all hear and listen to us. That was hard to take. Well, I emphasize I'm standing up here again that I oppose and I do not support this mega tax increase. Royce City Council, you need to budget better. Please live with less, live within your means, the planned budget. We are not your endless piggy banks. I don't hide behind anonymous name. It's interesting that the city meeting is called truth and taxation. Where is our real honest representation? Fact is my taxes are going up 300 to our total combined of 3000. I'm being taxed out of my home. I live in a modest home. I'm not in a mansion and a bazillion rooms and have everything under the sun. It's modest. I thought I could afford to live in it my life. So I'm taking my three minutes to voice that I oppose this tax hike. Me and my husband are having a financial and medical hardship. We have met our max out-of-pocket 12 grand on medical loan in just August. He's contemplating and trying how to figure out how to do a second job because I can't work and I'm trying. freaking stressed he works on hill he has two degrees we're not freaking derelicts of society he had neck surgery that wasn't planned and it was needed and he put it off for a while until it was desperate i'm blessed by god that he is here because 18 months ago he had a stemmy heart attack feel who are non-medical means a hundred percent occluded right coronary artery for a week. God has blessed me that he is here because I could not afford Roy if he was not here. I would really be kicked out of my house. Let me emphasize again, I could not afford to live here in Roy. I'm on a fixed income. You need to do better tax basis. We don't have malls and everything else like that. Well, thank you. But my, I hope that I want to let you know, I need to transport again. And thank you. Your team was wonderful.

I'm Darren Albright. I've been in Roy's city for 43 years. I don't know some of the 45 years, but anyway, about three different items. Um, What item I i've heard many times this repeated started as kicking the can down the road and then somebody change it to a barrel kicking a barrel down the road as what I can see we're still kicking that barrel down the road, because, as all i've seen is a very few. Planning or whatever you want to call it this transparent enough for us to understand us peons down here to understand. what's going on as far as your changes that you're trying to make to make things better, taxes less. As I see the fire department, that's great. But like they say, I think we're going to see a downside to the fire department, get an annex to Weber County by our taxes going up from Weaver County. Whether we pay taxes in Weber County, Salt Lake, wherever we pay taxes, it's going to be more money. It doesn't really matter. And so secondly, I hear a lot of this whole thing about we're losing our lower, people at the lower end of Royce City. And this really disturbs me a lot. And I know that Bob Dandoy, our previous mayor, I know you people, some of you don't really care for him, which is fine. That's your private business. I really don't care. I personally know the guy and he's very good and honest and a very good person. And so how I see that is at the top, Every time you get these raises, the people at the top still do the same thing. If you got all this money that's going to the people or raises, that's wonderful. I think they need more money. All of a sudden, this money goes to the top. 90% of that money that we're paying for all these benefits are still going to the top. And these poor people at the bottom still are not going to stay until you stop that whole deal at the top. Your people are about to leave, and I don't care. A lot of these people are leaving for other reasons, and we haven't seen those reasons why some leave. Some may leave because of bad job performance. Some may leave family issues. Some may leave health issues. There are several issues. You don't see those things transparent enough for us to know why they've left, which that's fine. If you don't want to be that transparent, that's your business. And thirdly, this is one thing that's really bothered me for a long time, and lately I've been hearing a lot about this. Our previous mayor, Bob Van Doys, I thought done a phenomenal job. The guy knew what he was talking about. He knew what he was doing. I've been reading and hearing articles of different posts of people saying that they've inherited a problem from the past, assuming it was Bob they're talking about. Let me tell you something. You got to remember, and most people don't know, a lot of people don't know, the mayor does not have a vote. End of story. So if you look at some of the people sitting in front of me right now, They had been in city council for six years. They had the power to change. They had the power to vote, to make changes, but guess what? They didn't make those changes. And so every time that someone suggested change, guess who, guess who inherited the problem? They inherited the problem they created. That's how I see it. And then last but not least, I, I very disgruntled about you guys have private meetings. You do not invite Ryan. I had, he's part of your team. I don't get it. It tells me what kind of teamwork you guys have. You don't include him and that is wrong. I'm sorry. Thank you.

I'm Dan Johnston and I have been a resident of Roy for 34 years and I'm stand up in favor of the tax increase that we are asking. I also, uh, think that. not only do the firemen and the policemen also need to tax a raise in their wages, but we also have other workers in this city who also need to be able to afford their families and be able to feed them. We have people who are out here mowing the grass. We have people who clean the gutters. We have people who fix our roads. Those people need money too, and they also need a raise. And if it takes extra money from us to get it, let's get it done. I'm also in favor of keeping the complex. I was a fourth grade school teacher at Valley View Elementary for 15 years, and I know how important it is for young children to get out and do some exercise to do be able to recreate and if they don't have open spaces to go and play do their soccer do football whatever they're playing baseball whatever they're doing they need that open space i'm a retired person i love to go walking through the parks and here in roy where we have them so well taken care of and it's fun to be able to walk spend my time working and walking through the parks here in Roy. And so please consider all that as we continue with this tax increase. Thank you.

my name is carl ecklund and i've lived in about 35 years and uh i don't don't know where i'm going to be buried so i asked my neighbor he's got a post hole digger he said he could dig a post hole and put me in it and uh but i think i'd get tired of standing up uh so i'm you know i don't know where i'm gonna be buried but i know it's not gonna be in roy uh but uh i know that all takes money so i'm not really requesting that i thought that was just funny but um i've been in management and uh you know i think that an important thing that we all need to learn and see what's going on here is first of all i'd just like to know by the raise of hand how many of you here are residents your primary residence in roy well we have to be bye Oh, there may be a problem there. Okay, another problem that we have is we all have to get along with one another. And we have employees that work around us and under us, so forth. And, you know, it's really hard to be friends with them. But let me teach you a word that might help the whole situation. One word, it's real easy. No. The top end, we're top heavy. Fire department, thanks for coming by and putting my fire out. Police department, love you. We've got a lot of employees that you give them that cola, raise the taxes, it's a wash. The top end, folks, is where the problem is. I'm no genius, but it seems pretty simple to me.

My name's Pat Panagopoulos. My husband spoke a little bit ago. When we were in the military and we didn't get raises, we looked at our household to see what we had to do. I washed my clothes in the bathtub and put them over the fence. Couldn't afford to go to the laundromat. I mean, we did what we had to do. When he got out of the service and he was working, I was unable to work. our finances weren't enough, he got a second job. He didn't go to the city and ask for a raise. I'm just asking you guys, look within. The other thing is, I've been watching you. I'm a people watcher. I'll go and sit and watch people forever. I've been watching you guys. When it's positive comments, you all perk up and watch. When it's not positive, two of you can't stay awake, one of you rolls your eyes, the other one gets a smirk on their face, and the other one, he pays attention. Just observation.

I apologize. You can't earlier. You just want it. I don't want just 30 seconds, please. If I can, I can't. The camels put the tent.

Yeah, you're not allowed.

I will write you a note and I'll send it to you personally in reference to what is happening and the precedent it's setting in the future. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Leon Wilson. I'm a Roy boy. I've lived my whole life here, 73 years. I'd like to state my position on two issues. The first is that I'm for paying a strong competitive wage for our city personnel. Anything less isn't fair to them. and we only cheat ourselves when we short them. It doesn't make sense in an attempt to save a dollar in wages if it costs us $2 in lost productivity, overtime, and turnover. Point two, I believe the Parks and Rec Department provides essential services to Roy. as essential as the police fire and water department in an attempt to reduce taxes some have suggested that we sell off our public parks for commercial development or for high density housing they said get rid of the complex and aquatic center get rid of youth league sports Do away with the Easter egg hunt, the Christmas lights, and Roy Days. Well, I'm here to say I disagree. These things are essential in creating civic cohesion, a sense of place, purpose, and a foundation for civic pride. The role of city government is open for debate. my view includes a city with parks and rec programs essential and especially for the youth and for the elderly this roy boy is willing to pay what it costs thank you mayor and council for your time and dedicated service each of you thank you

Good evening. My name is Lilian Menezes and I live in Roy since 2019. I got the house at Roy and I love my home. It's my heaven on earth. It's my life, my home. I work full time and overtime. I have a son that came earlier to talk here. I have no time for recreation. I have to work. I have to rest. I have to do a lot of things at home. I don't have the extra money that some people may have. I live on a budget. And I know that in a few years I'm going to be retired and I won't be able to pay increases. This must be one increase. Maybe next year is going to be money because everything is getting more expensive in the whole country. I understand that for everybody is a tight budget, but what do I do? I don't go and try to get money from somebody else to pay my debts of my things. What I do, I budget. And I think that's what all we have to budget. And like somebody gave ideas about cutting maybe the complex for people that use it. they can pay annual fee or something. Maybe we can get some businesses in Roy. Maybe we can make this place better, but we cannot put a gun on everybody's head. to pay more and more every year. I mean, I understand it's going to be very tight on me. I'm not leaving my house, but I cannot afford this if it's going to keep increasing. We have to find other solutions, and I will appreciate to keep communication open so that maybe we can all agree on something and help Roy to grow. That's it.

Thank you.

My name is Kevin Homer and I live here in Roy. In my precious 180 seconds, I'm not going to be able to share with you all of the personal political principles that I have, much less have a reasonable and rational discussion about maybe asking what yours are. I have my own opinion about what everybody's, those of you that are here, what your principles are. But I do want to share this and it's about consent. um james madison again yep more constitutional stuff he said that the republic would continue to exist up until the point where the citizens and the elected officials figured out that they could vote for themselves anything they wanted to from the public largesse it's my opinion that there are way too many citizens and officials who subscribe to an unlimited size of government I do not subscribe to that. I do not consent to a 50% or a 30% rate of taxation that would be increased. I will stand with council member Saxton for a reasonable lower amount of taxation. I will do that. Thank you.

Jeff Cox wasn't expecting to be up here today, but a few things to bring up. If I had my choice, I would have rented this hall and set up a mock session and really hear what the people have to say.

But I don't believe I can rent it.

I passed, oh, about a month ago, I passed a listing to you on a number of suggestions to look at. I heard nothing back. But I will mention one thing. The gentleman brought up that he didn't want to be buried like a pole. I would highly suggest that And I've spoke to a couple of people on this. Look at one of the parks or a part of the park, make it into a cemetery, put a mausoleum into it, make some money. It's not difficult at all. I know you got the cemetery going down on Midland, but you got all this space out there. I've been down to those parks time and time and time again. And I'm telling you, They don't get that much use. Okay. It's off and on. You can take half of a park and make it into a cemetery, throw a mausoleum or two in there. You can make some money folks. Um, another thing about the, uh, Weber districts, they, they presented their, uh, they have, uh, their, they have their. Their day their school day where they go down Lagoon. Well, they cancelled that at least for the 6th graders and they all went down to Clearfield. Swimming park down there. Why didn't they come to Roy? These are schools within. Our area. They all went down to Clearfield. I've talked to a couple people on that. I haven't heard anything. Okay. Down the road, I'm going to, uh, because people here don't know what I suggested in the two page letter that I presented to you, uh, had another Roy city council meeting. I will present that as such, but out of the listing that I saw of the four cuts, uh, Roy days, so on and so forth, we could have done that in about 15 minutes. Thank you.

Anybody else want to make a comment?

Yeah, go ahead, sir.

My name is Rob Simpson. I'm a right resident of eleven or sorry, sixteen years. There's just a a couple things that I think that need just some attention. So there's been a lot of talk about the complex, keeping it open, maybe closing it, whatever. And the followers were here earlier, right? They own burger bar. Well, let's compare a business to the complex, right? The complex, the revenue is, this is what it says. So it's $308,000 is what they bring in a year. Their expenses are $895,000. An overall shortfall of $587,000. That's a huge red flag. If the Fowlers were losing that much a year, their burger bar would be gone. And if they had to raise their prices 55% or 35%, their business would go out, right? I go to the Roy Eos Gym. The reason I can see why the complex is failing, they don't bring in the business. They don't advertise like people have mentioned. I won't go there because I pay the tax on it and I still would have to pay a $300 a year membership. My membership over there is 200 bucks. How in the world am I going? Why would I go to that complex, pay more money annually on top of paying my taxes? I should get a reduced price, which is not happening. People are talking about swimming over there. Well, there's a pullover at the Roy complex. And and I looked in there and if I go to the Roy complex or the Roy complex. So EOS has a pool and if the Roy complex I'm paying 300 bucks a year. Well, if I want swim lessons, I gotta pay more for that. So it's not even included in it. So I don't see the benefit of that being there and it's just burning money every year and the city should operate like a business because when it's failing like it is on the finances. we have to pay for it. And there's no other entity out there that's going to be like, oh, we don't have enough money. And it falls on the residents. It's ridiculous. So my thing is, I think it should go because it's not pulling it in, pulling in the memberships. It's not bringing in the revenue. I know for a fact, I talked to an employee over there at the Roy EOS gym. They have 50,000 to 60,000 check-ins a month. I guarantee they don't have that over at the complex. I guarantee it. so there's enough of you up here to come up with a better solution than just raising taxes that's the easy way out it doesn't really solve anything like everyone said it kicks it down the road we're just not correcting the problems by raising the taxes

Hello, my name is Greg LaBrew and police officers and fire department. I love you. You're great. I'm retired military. I worked on Hill Air Force Base for a very long time till I had to retire because my wife, she was got sick. So I had to retire early. Being a current employee, you have jobs you put in for. You have requirements. You have your training, education. You fight for those positions. You fight for that pay. You just don't elevate somebody's pay because somebody else from Ogden or Clinton is making more than you. Mr. Saxon, thank you. I appreciate you. You're the only one because you're truthful, and I appreciate you. Everybody else, no. You're liars. You don't talk to people. You don't listen. You don't care. That's the problem. You don't care. The bottom line. When it comes to pay, you earn it. I fought for every job I had. In the military, I fought. In my government employee, I was fighting for everything. Okay? When you deal with a veteran, as old as I have, who's been through some of the stuff, it's not easy. And I wasn't planning on getting up here at all until I started looking around the room and I read the room really well. And I've done a lot of public speaking in my government jobs, especially on training. And there's places you can cut money. Vehicles, you train them in every year. Why? You got a three-year warranty on those vehicles. That's a waste of money. Maintain your own vehicles. That's a lot of money for a $60,000 truck. And why does he need a vehicle? He makes $175,000 a year. Why does he need a gas card? I don't understand this. The top is too heavy, way too heavy. You cut the top. You feed the people below you. You feed the workers. You increase their pay so they can live. You take care of the people, you take care of the population. But you don't streamline taxes to kill the people. I got little old ladies in my street. I feel so sad for them because I know their taxes are gonna go up. They're gonna be paying. She's got a little freaking dog that I don't even know if she's gonna be able to feed it. There's gonna be people on the streets because they can't afford the tax hike. You need to start thinking clearly. You really do.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Quade Cole. I've been a resident of Roy for about six years now. As far as the spending that we do do within the city, I think we could cut a lot of that. I watched the city members come around and spray paint my sidewalks because there were sidewalks that needed to be fixed because of the fact that they were not level with the ground, making it un-ADA compliant. Then I watched city workers come around and then try and mow it down with a blade to make it softer. That does not change the fact that the whole sidewalk needs to be replaced. We look at raising the taxes on these people that have fixed incomes. I have several neighbors around me that I know will lose their homes because of this increase. And it's sad to see because I see a lot of older generation in this building and I don't see a lot of new generation. I want to raise a family here. I want to be able to bring Roy community and be able to make it better for new future families. And that's just not going to happen if you guys continue to raise our taxes the way you do. As far as when the city workers were coming through, I saw a Chevy Trail Boss, an $80,000 truck, Brand new, driving through my neighborhood, for what reason? To paint the sidewalk. To paint the sidewalk with arrows on it. You guys don't need to be making all these spending habits with expensive vehicles or not being able to actually fix the things that need to be fixed. You talk about getting rid of the complex. There, once again, you're looking at taking the future generation away from us. You're not going to make Roy any better by doing what you're doing. I watched this parade go through, which was my first time being able to actually go through and see the community come together, which is a great thing. It was absolutely amazing. But $90,000 for that parade? You've got to be kidding me. One of our fire department had to be called away. And in order to get through the parade, they had to literally open up roads, cause the parade to delay, which could have been further issues with the residents that needed actual help. It wasn't even actually a Roy resident. It was a Riverdale resident that our fire department got called to. Now, I understand you guys plan on annexing the fire department. over to Weber County, that would make it even worse for us because again, you're going to make the cost of that even more. I had to have the services of Roy come through for me to be taken to the hospital one time. I had six firefighters and ambulance people arrive, six to my home when it only needed two. They put me in that vehicle, they took me to McKady and yet it took six people to come into my home and assess if I needed additional help. When I had called 911 and told them the situation, there was no reason. I'm not an overweight person. I don't need any special assistance in that matter. But it took six people to come into my home and make sure that I was okay, which I appreciated. I do not discount that whatsoever. But thank you for your time. Thank you.

My name is Eric Westergaard. I wasn't going to say anything tonight because I feel like it's a little bit useless. It feels like it doesn't matter what we say as residents, this is going to happen anyway. On the little diagram that I picked up from the city earlier this week, it says at the top, Royce City Residence. And under that it has the mayor and then it goes on down the line and it feels like Roy residents aren't actually in charge of anything. The money is going to be taken no matter what we say, no matter what we do. Um, I just did a little bit of quick math. I pay over $2,000 a month in taxes, $2,000 a month in taxes. That's property tax, sales tax, registration on my car, sales, all the things that I have to take care of. $2,000 a month. Where is it going to stop? There has to be an end somewhere. I know this only seems like a drink or $13 a month per household or whatever. It could be $0.13 per household. Some other cities in the state, $0.13, $0.15 per household this year. there's no reason for this much of an increase and it has to stop somewhere I don't have the answers but there's got to be a way to find some answers this is by force if I don't pay my property taxes the city the county the state I don't know who comes and takes my house I don't own my house I rent my house from the government that doesn't sound like a free country to me thanks

Okay, Brittany, do you have some from zoom or is there anybody on zoom that will like to make a public comment? And so raise your hand.

yeah it's for the zoom sorry if there's any participants on the zoom meeting if they would like to make public comment they'll need to raise their hand in the zoom meeting so that they can give public comment

is 8 p.m and at this time there is no hands raised and no questions or public comments in the comment section on zoom so so you don't need to read any public comments or oh you do okay okay

Okay, can everybody hear me is that good okay. This first comment is from Christine Lewis. First and foremost, I would like my comment to be read at the meeting tonight. Thank you. Since I am not able to attend the Truth in Taxation meeting tonight, I am sending this email and would greatly appreciate it if it would be read during the meeting. I am a retired small business owner of 38 years, and I fully understand how important it is to balance a budget. The claim has been made that the council and mayor inherited the problem that you are addressing tonight. Let me be very clear. Many of you on the council, including the mayor, have served on previous city councils over the last 10 years. You have not inherited the problems. You have created them and kicking the can down the road for many years. There seems to only be one person on the city council, Brian Saxton, who is actually using some common sense and listening to residents of Royce City. Many of us who are paying attention notice that. Thank you, Brian. Things have been suggested over the years on ways to save money and trim the budget. There's a lot of overspending and there's a lot of fat in the budget. One such example is the IT person, whoever that is, is a city employee and drives an $80,000 SUV. I have worked for two neighboring cities. Neither of those have an IT person as an employee. It is a contracted position. Another thing that has been brought to my attention about the $80,000 vehicle is that it was needed because he couldn't put a ladder in his Ford Pinto. A much less expensive way to go about this would be to buy a ladder for each building he has to go to. Again, just another example of how government does it the expensive way and the private sector does it the logical and cost-effective way. Another way the city could save money is doing it like most of all our neighboring cities, do it as far as their fleet. Whoever came up with the idea of leasing vehicles obviously wasn't too bright. I could go on and on, but it always seems to fall on deaf ears. Please trim your budget, cut out all the fat and unnecessary things, and learn how to live within your means. Thank you. This next one is from Dennis and Robin Barney. We would like this read at the meeting. We appreciate Roy City Council for their efforts to manage the budget and keep the city functioning properly. We support them in what they need to do to continue to manage the city budget. Thank you. This next one is from Emily and Phil Atkinson. Hello, my husband and I are longtime residents of Roy, 20 plus years, and we see the stretched resources in our city. We see the need for a significant investment into our community. We see the city council working hard to show that need and the data to back it up. We see loud opponents crying foul with no realistic alternatives offered, seemingly only intending to cause drama in our community. In Copenhagen, Denmark, the tax rates are nearly double what the average city in the U.S. has. Keeping this in mind, it's hard to imagine a happy society with such high tax rates. However, reality isn't so simple. Denmark consistently ranks amongst the top, number three currently, for happiest citizens while the U.S. is currently 23rd. Why would a society be so happy to pay up to 55% tax rate? Looking into it, they rank so happy because they invest in themselves and their communities. Please see this article for more. It's from worldhappiness.report slash news, why Finland and Denmark are happier than the U.S. My husband and I are for the large increase and investment in our taxes for our city that has been recommended by those who've done and seen the research. Thank you for working so hard to explain and explain and explain again to residents who are determined to ignorantly misunderstand and misrepresent what's happening and what's needed until we all understand that it's important that we work towards a better, healthier community. Thank you. This next one is from Mavany Espinoza. I am unable to attend the meeting tonight and I am voting against raising housing taxes. And then they included some personal information that will not be read into the record. This last one is from Lisa Hatch. Good morning. I'm not able to attend the meeting tonight, but I want this message read into record at the meeting. My name is Lisa Hatch and I have lived in Weber County for 25 years during my life and most recently five in Roy. I have served eight years as a town council member in Colorado and can tell you by experience that a large tax increase can be devastating to the property owners and the businesses, especially small businesses. Property owners may lose their homes, small and large businesses may be forced to leave, and new businesses may choose to go elsewhere with the 54% tax increase. That is simply too much. We're all struggling with the high inflation as of late. I do understand the need to pay competitive wages. I believe in taking care of employees because they are your greatest asset. However, I feel it is irresponsible in the city of Roy to impose this level of tax increase because of poor prior planning. I am against any large increase at one time. Large in my definition is 10% or more. I suggest you first get creative as you reevaluate more closely the following areas. Number one, all revenue sources to see if some adjustments can be done here. Number two, evaluate other employee benefits that are unique or better than the companies or cities that your employees choose over Royce City that you can add either without increasing taxes or not increasing more than 10%. Number three, research all possible state and federal programs to save you money in other areas to leave more money for employees. Number four, if possible, to more work in-house and less contracted work. Find a good balance. Number five, evaluate the work environment. Are you a fair, friendly, and fun employer? How can you stand out from others? Again, please, for the sake of Royce City and for all residents and business owners, do not increase taxes more than 5% to 7% every two years. Still, this would be two times more than average wage or cola for your residents, we cannot afford a 55% increase, thank you for considering the ideas i've given you, you must find a way. And then, as of 809 we have not received any more email comments that have been submitted to be read into the record, so I am complete with that portion.

okay then council can i have a motion to go out of the public hearing here i'll just don't that there's no other comments or hands raised on zoom and at this time at 8 0 9 p.m okay so do i have a motion to go out of public hearing so moved do i have a second second do i have a roll call vote brittany one second

Council Member Wilson?

Aye.

Council Member Saxton?

Aye.

Council Member Spahr?

Aye.

Council Member Hulbert? Aye. Council Member Jackson?

Aye. Okay, I just want to take a moment tonight to speak about something that I believe is very important to the future of our city. Royce City is fortunate to have a team of very dedicated, competent, and loyal employees. Many of them have served this community for years. They are the people who maintain our streets, our parks, respond when we need help, provide essential city services, keep our records and finances in order to ensure that our city continues to operate smoothly day by day after day. These employees have given a great deal to Royce City and I believe they deserve to be compensated fairly for the work they do. Our goal is to not become the highest paying city. Our goal is to bring our employees closer to a fair competitive wage compared to the communities around us. If we do not remain competitive, we risk losing experienced employees who have years of knowledge and institutional history and replacing them often costs more in the long run. I understand that no one wants to see higher taxes. I do not want to ask our residents to pay more than is necessary, and I recognize that every dollar matters to our families. That is why this decision has not been taken lightly. However, I also believe that maintaining a strong experience and dedicated workforce is an investment in Royce City. These are individuals who live and work in our community and who are committed to providing the best possible service to our residents. As Mayor, I want our residents to know that the Council and I have worked diligently to be responsible with your tax dollars. We have reviewed the numbers, considered alternatives, and worked to find the right balance between keeping taxes as reasonable as possible, ensuring that Royce City can retain the good people to serve this community. We may not all agree on every aspect of this proposal, and I respect that, but I hope we can all agree on one thing. Royce City is a better place because of the dedicated individuals who show up every day to serve our residents. Our responsibility is not only to take care of Royce City today, but to ensure that we have the people and resources necessary to take care of it tomorrow. I believe that providing our employees with a fair and competitive wage is an important part of fulfilling that responsibility. So now I'll turn the time over to our council members. And Alexis Jackson, you're going to speak first.

Yeah, they've handed me the laptop first. No particular order, but I have some information to present for consideration of the council and also to help clarify anything with the public that I can help here. I'm going to go. While I'm pulling this up, I just want to... Let everyone know that I did present a longer version of what I want to present, just really a summary of what I presented on June 16th, and that information can be reviewed on YouTube. My presentation starts at 15 minutes. This has been cut down for brevity, and some of the information has been adjusted as more information has come in about the budget as it's been worked on. So let's see now, how do I share this?

Please. Oh, hold on. Oh, no, now I've broken it. Hold on. Just do this. Now I'll open it this way. Okay.

So just this is just a summary of what was and this is more in depth on YouTube. Again, the June 16th meeting 2026. Before I begin, I do want to make sure that I am very clear about the... I apologize. This was not my intention. I want to be very clear that I... have not taken this trip down budget lane lightly. It's been three months of grueling research and a lot of information that I've come to understand about the budget. And I do see every single person in this city, those who are here and those who aren't as people with varying needs and varying opinions. And this is a tax. I don't wanna have to tell my family I have to pay And I don't need to wax personal and explain every single thing about my situation, but please let it be known that things are tight for me and I struggle. And so that's the place that I come from when I've looked at this budget. Please know that none of you have gone unheard. If some things happen tonight that you don't like, it's not because you haven't been heard. It's because this is a big, big picture and I have done everything I can to understand every piece of it. And so with that in mind, I want to share that this slide shows a QR code and a website for tax relief programs which are available through the county. There are several. Thank you. There are just a few that are listed here. Well, actually, they're all listed here, but these are who might qualify. Included in this list are any widows. When people say widows, the widows I think of in this city are those who are my age, which is more of a number, higher of a number than I should ever have to know. I just really want to impress on people that I am. I just took it seriously. Anyway, here's a list of some of them, but they're all in greater detail available at that website. The QR code will be displayed on my consecutive slides as it fits. Just a really quick explanation that people may misunderstand that as your property value increases over time or decreases that your property tax will automatically go up or down accordingly, and that's actually not the case. In fact, the amount of property tax that the city receives will remain constant whether or not property values fluctuate. And so if property values go up, that rate will actually come down so that the amount that the city receives is actually a constant so just wanted to clarify that if anyone was wondering this is an example from weber county but is based on a 2025 example and this is just to explain people who who tried to calculate how that much that this might impact them and we should do that and thank you for being so informed on that but this is just to show what happens when a city or an entity proposes a tax increase and so this is to show how the city's portion would be the only portion affected by a tax increase that Royce City proposes. Other entities, your special districts, including mosquito abatement, your water, that kind of thing, they're on their own, as well as the schools and also the county. There is the original, which ended up being about 54, almost 55%, as you saw, would be that tax rate of .002492 at the top. And this is just to help anyone wondering where your property value falls and how that might impact you per month. However, also on the table tonight is an alternative tax impact schedule, which considers a .002159 rate. tax rate and there are some averages accordingly on various home property values and these are primary residences. Um, these are, these are the, um, summarized results of the salary survey that was conducted, um, which was from tech net database. Um, and just to show what the entire purpose of this tax increase is to actually go to full-time wages. Um, no part-time, no city council, no mayor are included in this. I wanted to just come up with a, well, just to show a few things, fat trimming, tighten your belt, bloating, cut the pork. There's just a different ways that people will talk about other options that we should consider and have indeed considered. I won't read through all of these. I did so at a previous session. in my previous presentation. But here is a not comprehensive, but a few of the things that were cut from discretionary spending in each department back in 2025. And here are some examples that they gave. Among them are their commercial driver's license testing, furnace filters cut into their Christmas light replacement, some certifications, training, that kind of thing, tools, cleaners, chemicals, et cetera. Um, the parks and rec department also had an $82,000 cut at that time. And there's just a few of them listed here. Again, for a more comprehensive look, you can check out my original presentation. I don't want to take too much time on that here. HR also had to do with these cuts. They did cut their employee wellness program and mental health services for public safety is what they found that they needed to do. Fire was cutting overtime, PPE, fire prevention, training, and our police cutting ammo, Glock rotation, as well as traffic, school and youth court supplies, etc. So that's just to show, because I do agree that in budgets, any budgets, any personal or government or whatever budget you have, ought to probably look at cuts before you look at increasing taxes. And so I just wanted to be able to show that that has been considered and continues to be considerations. These are continued department frugality by department. Various things that they have utilized, park impact fees, grant matches. Police currently is... City Council Chambers, Conducting feasibility study for contracts, rather than working on that in power, so there are things that continue to be to be done, and this is not just brand new this year, this has been done over many years of consideration on the budget and. This is a representation of the general fund. The working general fund is in blue, the dark blue piece of the pie. The other things can't be transferred in and out. Some of them are utility enterprise funds, which means that the fees that come in actually totally support the work that is done in that for operation costs. others are classy roads or transportation um that's the uh i think that's per uh yes no that is um oh i have a little thing at the bottom telling me i'm sharing my screen so i can't see what color transportation is oh i can hide it um the teal the teal color is transportation that is money that comes from the state and that is kind gas tax. And so that can't just be used to pay people because there is a stipulation on that. You have to use it accordingly. So in any case, this is to represent that the workable piece of the pie here for talking about cuts is the blue portion. Here we show what we spend in personnel versus operations. I put public safety in that darker red and I put other in blue because many people that I hear will want to protect public safety and they define that as police and fire and are willing to dip into other areas and so I just wanted to show where that piece of the pie has come to now we're looking at blue. Personnel is by far our biggest cost and that's the dark blue piece of the pie showing other personnel that's not public safety and that's going to include your public works and your administration, your legal, your court, all that kind of thing. Parks and Rec as well is included in that. Your operations cuts, we hear sometimes people will suggest cuts such as, I heard one today, Christmas lights. That's not a new thing. Of course, that's a common one as well. Rec complex, any rec programs, that kind of thing. Those are going to come from operations. 5% of our general fund budget is that. And so we're really running out of places to get that from. We could look into it, however. And I had a... data scientist build me an app pro bono um just to help me to visualize and so if i could share with you what i found because i did want to know what it actually would save if we wanted to cut little things out of the budget and and i didn't know how much they were going to save in the in the grand scheme of things and so um we have a deficit of with a 34 consider we have a deficit of um 1.7 million to recover that's going to put our proposed tax rate at this So if we are going to cut, let's say we want to cut most of the, um, rec programs, I actually found pay for themselves in most part. And so just for simplicity, I think I'll just scroll past them because I don't need to, I think, prove that, but, um, One of them was like girls basketball that one doesn't make anything so it's $402 is what it costs um it wouldn't change the dollar amount it's not going to change our percentage because it's not that big of a cut. But we could add oh.

There we go.

We could add our economic development director one thing that's interesting about that, and I asked he was okay if I if I show this. he's only his salary is only 20% of that a general fund most of it's out of a different fund and so that's sorry.

or.

Yeah, RDA. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, the RDA. And so we could, if we cut that out, it's going to save 29 cents per month out of that adjustment. So now we could get by with a .002163 tax rate. And that's going to go down 29 cents a month. So we could, the rec complex is actually on here. That's going to save us $2.78 per month out of that increase. And so that's just based on the net cost of the complex. um so just it was just interesting to me because because i didn't know for sure when i started out is okay let's cut the christmas lights let's cut this let's cut that and i didn't know how much was going to impact let's cut the fireworks i mean thirty thousand dollars to me is a lot on my budget but to a city budget i didn't know and i needed to make sure that i had that in in context and so this really helped me what was interesting to me is um considering if we did actually cut all rec programs and sell every park we would actually save $9.93 a month out of that. So out of the $11 per month that the 34% is actually proposing for an increase, selling every park and cutting all the rec programs would save almost $10 of that. So you'd be down to about a dollar a month. and that's not something that i see as valuable to the community we could differ on opinions on that but i do see that as actually something that would bring it closer so if we're talking about cuts i'm just trying to make the point that that's those are the monumental type of cuts that we're talking about the little ones are not just not going to move the needle very much you could still do them and the council has entertained and has implemented some of those but i haven't seen that that's impacted the budget as much as impacted value in the life of of residents in roy um i'm not really going to go through this other than just to mention that public works gets gets left out a lot and until working through this budget this year i didn't realize how much that they did do including maintenance of police and fire service trucks lawnmowers etc maintain our drinking water And 40% of their wages are for the general fund. That means that 60% of their wages actually don't even come from the general fund. They come from enterprise funds. And so in order to cut even the amount that it would cost to pay one employee in that department, you're actually going to have to cut three in order just to recoup that cost. From the dark blue piece of pie, we see other personnel, which will include a few of these. This isn't a comprehensive list. You've got one city planner, a single community and economic development director, a single code enforcement officer, one building inspector, two court clerks, and public works, of course. You've got two full part-time receptionists, and part-time, again, not included in the survey. Parks and Rec has 14 full-timers. So many of these positions have one. Many of them are also overloaded because as far as staffing, we actually do run very lean for a city of our size, which is something else I've come to find. The last thing I want to show is is something new is something I haven't shown before, but is something that i've been looking into, and that is to see just kind of what other cities have done, and so we have this in worry, if you look over on the right side that's going to show history of of our way on. It actually doesn't look quite right. I may not have completed that. This is actually going to show the history of our increases since 1997. You can see that Roy has increased their taxes five times since 1997 to answer for inflation. The largest one was done in 2016, 37.7%, and then a couple small ones, but nothing between 2005 and 2010, nothing between 2010 and 2016, and nothing since 1997 all the way up until 2005. And so these are just two of the cities that I looked at, but I looked at several and I thought that these kind of presented two different strategies among cities, and Roy is included in, of course, having a strategy. But I see South Ogden, which in 2004 had a 39.87% increase, then nothing until 2009, 2010, and then in 2017 they have one last big increase. And I would just... kind of adopted this, but another resident also said that they would consider maybe anything over 10%. So I just highlighted anything that was going to be that bigger increase. And so in 2017, they come with a 21% increase. And from then on, they have 10% or less. And to me, this is a better strategy than I think that would work better for Roy. But we do see another strategy that's similar to Roy, and that's in Clinton City. And this is, it looks like what they've been doing. um and from in 2010 they actually had nothing up from 1997 all the way to 2010 and then they had a three percent they had a bigger one in 2014 25 percent than 36 percent in 2021 and uh three years later a 32 percent and so it seems to be like what we've been doing which is every um maybe a couple times you know since 1997 i suppose that's where the record um begins but um we have this big increase. And what I would like to see is us correct wages and move forward with inflationary increases instead of big catch-up increases. I don't feel like that's a good strategy for Roy. And that's what I would, I guess, propose to the council. That concludes my information.

So who wants to go next? So Diane.

I wanted to welcome all who have taken the time to attend this meeting and be engaged in this process. The Roy City budget has been a very intense journey. And for the last 22 months, for me, there's been very little else discussed with family, friends, staff, professionals, consultants, colleagues, and at the dining table. I put in well over a thousand hours researching our city's budget. There isn't an employee position, expense, revenue source, or program that hasn't been examined. And I just want to repeat that because this was done extensively in the past, but even more so now. There hasn't been an employee position, expense, revenue source or program that hasn't been examined. Cuts from every angle have been evaluated. Positions have been cut. 7.5% from operational budgets have been continued. And I just want to reassure that I am very fiscally frugal individual. Our family is very fiscally frugal, very tight. And being extremely tight led me to search high and low for solutions that would provide and maintain quality services for our residents and still be fair, equitable, and respectful to our staff providing those services. The budget was reviewed with a fine-tooth comb. And if anyone wants to know what fine-tooth comb metaphor is, let me know after. Creative arrangements for COLA divisions, partial wage adjustments, percentages, careful use of one-time funds have been explored. A two-year plan, and this was brought up earlier, a two-year plan was initiated last year, but it was thwarted and is now leaving us with both years to catch up at this meeting. And with that being said, here is some of my journey to be certain every detail was evaluated and my sacred responsibility to serve Royce citizens was fulfilled to the best of my ability. Neighbors and friends with individual stories of struggle inspired me to keep looking closer. I care deeply about every dollar spent, and during this journey, some of those residents helped me discover that sometimes saving money by avoiding appropriate tax increases can be very expensive. Delays in service are one of those inevitable consequences when proper funding is neglected. I came to realize that the entire picture needed to be evaluated. Caring for residents included looking at the multiple sides of finances and how they affect services in the city. Sometimes the kindness of not raising taxes actually caused major harm. The term killing with kindness took on new meaning. First, let me say in 2016, I was in the audience of this very room listening to the presentation of the need for a 38% tax increase. Times had been and were rough. The invisible mini recession of 1516 was lingering. I stood up and said, if citizens have to tighten their belts, then the city should also. People talked of fixed incomes. Well, what a difference in-depth research, education, and understanding can have. I have always been passionately against property taxes. It has been brought up. That's like renting your place. However, I now understand fully that property taxes are a city's only reliable source of revenue and income. Changing that system right now is much more than can be undertaken at this heading. I also understand that there is such a thing as being too tight and that being too tight can be very costly. I am now in the City Council and I have now looked at the data and research from both sides of the aisle, city staff and citizen. I now understand that our staff are also on fixed incomes, that when times are tough for citizens, they are also tough for staff, that when costs go up for residents, they also go up for supplies and services in the city. I'm not sure how I felt there were two different realities, but after hundreds and hundreds of hours, I now understand the realities are the same. When costs go up, they go up for all, including the city. When times are tough, they are tough for all. The big difference is that the city is tasked and in some instances mandated to provide important services to the citizens, yet it is very limited in its ability to increase revenue. We come full circle to property taxes are the only reliable source of revenue. And other sources are a blessing, but temporary and unpredictable. They can be utilized cautiously, but not depended upon. And so I wanted just to go over this very long journey that I have been engaged in. And why do we need a tax increase? Because I too believed you should just tighten your belt. And when I have come to see that the belt has been tightened, and there is nothing significantly beneficial to tightening. I just wanted to go over that. Staff wages are much lower in Roy than surrounding communities. Low wages are causing high turnover, and high turnover is very, very expensive. Equipment, training, overtime. So on one hand, we think we might be saving money, but unfortunately that saying, stepping over dollars to pick up dimes, is very true in this situation. Staff turnover due to low wages has continued to increase and has not slowed. There is an annual expected turnover for cities at around 8 to 10%, and that's considered healthy. However, I wanted to let you know what our last year turnover rates were. They've been over double that in fire at 22% in one year, public works at 17%, and administration at 25%. So, one of the big concerns of increase in turnover is the increase in expenses that we have talked about, this equipment training and that sort of thing. Because of low compensation, these expenses often equate to $70,000 to $150,000 per staff member when we lose them. And as I mentioned, that same stepping over dollars to pick up dimes or penny wise and pound foolish, they're all sayings that are saying the same thing. Unfortunately, when the cost... those costs are more than we actually realize at times. And so Alexis mentioned this as well. When costs go up and budget doesn't, one must ask, how do you make up the difference? Cut services or increase revenue? At our home, cuts always come first. So I just wanted to briefly outline what about those cuts. The cuts have been performed at the last several years, and they are exhausted. We are now very lean. And in fact, the now cuts that we've made, even the small cuts, they are very small in actual monetary basis, but they have lost a high value. So the value is high, but the amount of money is very small. We have continued the 7.5% operational cuts for the last three years. Two positions have been cut. And one of the next questions is brought up. Why not cut more staff? Some have recommended cutting more positions. Some have recommended that Roy be like a near neighbor of ours of similar size and services. And I just wanted to say that those recommendations were evaluated. And this is some of that information. This goes over the most recent new positions we have. In the fire department, we have had five positions from 21 to 22. However, that staffing is still short, and that sometimes causes occasional station 32 brownouts, which is a concern in service. We've talked about sometimes you can be too tight, and that can be a problem. The police department has had two positions in 21. Unfortunately, they are still short-staffed, but the demand for their services does not go down. Their demand also increases. and there has been talk about the economic development director that position was placed in 22 and the request even today the request for increased economic development has only heightened and the big benefit is that depending on the year in the balance only sixteen percent to twenty percent of that wage is supplied by property taxes so the benefit would be greatly lost but again the savings through property taxes would be very small. I wanted to go through the next recommendation we had had, Roy Staffing and compare it to a neighbor of similar size and services. That staffing is very lean. And when we look at even nationwide, 4 per 1,000 residents is very lean staffing. Our near neighbor, is seven per 1,000. The median wages here are 14% plus below the average. Their wages are at median or slightly above. So that comparison did not help us in coming up with ways to actually save money, but it was certainly something that we checked into. This further clarifies why we're needing to adjust and increase our budget. And so with that being said, what is our budget goal? And for me, and I believe most of the staff, our goal for this is just to pay staff a median wage, just to pay them a fair compensation. And by doing that, hopefully we will decrease that high staff turnover because that turnover is becoming extremely expensive. When we can achieve this goal, then we will create a more efficient budget and provide a higher quality service. The amount we need currently to accomplish this goal is $1,751,000. This equates to about 34.29%. So for a city, the only certain way, as I mentioned, is to increase property taxes to have certain revenue. The other sources we certainly want to increase, we want to build on that, but they aren't as predictable. And this current proposed tax increase is for wage adjustment. It's to compensate our staff fairly. It isn't to buy unusual or decorative things. What it does is if this can be accomplished, we will definitely save the city money in expensive turnover and provide the citizens with quality and essential services at a more efficient level. What does 34.29% look like? The average home in Roy equals $439,000. That estimated property tax increase would be $11 a month or $133 per year. That did come down from the 1776 and so that effort that has been put in place to try to decrease this percent has been extensive and that is where we're at now. I just wanted to summarize why this proposal is now lower than the original amount. If you take a look to the left top, that's the initial analysis, and that showed us that we needed $2.8 million to be able to get that staffing wage up to a median level. However, if you look to the right now, the changes that have been made, the reduction of fire department expenses, Roy Day cuts, 50,000. We now have negotiated additional school resource officer revenue, and we have realized some new property tax growth. So that shows how we did get to that number. And that summary then is that amount mentioned before with that 34.29% tax increase. Property taxes are disliked by all, and they may be life altering for some. And for those, this next slide, connects you to the property tax relief in Weber County. So Alexis had put up a slide with a QR code. For some people, that may not work. If this slide is more helpful for you, it's got numbers. You could take a picture of it. It kind of shows you what the different categories are. And it gives you just a different way to look at that. And just remember that that deadline is for submission is september 1st i just want to thank you again there are just a few of you that have made it through the entire thing and just to be willing to stay here to understand the process that we have gone through i appreciate it thank you very much for going on this intense budget journey with the city council okay council we need to go back into a public hearing we had some um emails that came through there was a delay in the internet feed so we need to make a motion to go back into a public hearing

for the for the limited purpose to read those right for limited purpose to read a few emails that came through that we need to read mayor I motion to re-enter public hearing um so that the email comments that were delayed can be read into public record hey do I have second a second okay it's a roll call vote Brittany member Wilson aye council member Saxton aye

council member jackson aye council member holbert aye council member smarr aye okay sorry i'm just writing okay can everybody hear me again sorry good this first comment here is from seth jensen and this was actually sent at 6 00 p.m um it says please read these comments in the public record or the public comment period this evening thank you i support the tax increase and the proposed budget My taxes will go up about $164 or $14 a month, and that is probably about average for Roy households. That is not nothing, but it is manageable. If we are not willing to pay for quality city employees, especially law enforcement, we should expect to move in the direction of lawlessness and anarchy. Furthermore, if we pay employees a competitive salary, we will be relieved of the burden and cost of so much turnover. Other comments. We should expect a county tax increase to pay for the fire department. We should definitely keep our city parks and manage them with city employees. I hope those who express public comments this evening do so in a respectful and civil manner. Thanks to the mayor and the city council for serving Roy city. This next one is from Brian Nay. Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Brian Nay, and I am a Roy resident here in Roy. I appreciate the hard work of our city employees. That said, I strongly oppose the proposed approximate 55% property tax increase that would raise nearly $2.8 million primarily for wage corrections, a new COLA, and backfilling last year's COLA. A 55% jump is extreme, far larger than Roy's recent increases, and places a permanent new burden on homeowners and businesses. For a typical home, it means over $200 more a year. Many residents simply cannot absorb that on top of everything else rising, including myself. The packet itself shows a clearer path, the alternative that accounts for the fire annexation, other revenue changes, and new growth drops to ask to roughly 34%. Even that should be scrutinized. Temporary use of fund balance while those structural changes take effect is better than locking in higher tax rates forever. Wage adjustments of this size also need clear public data on market competitiveness and retention, data that isn't clearly laid out for residents here. Please reject the full increase, prioritize efficiency, use the lower alternative or less, and protect residents from an outsized permanent tax hike. Thank you. And this last one is from Kiefer Mogenson. Hello, my name is Kiefer Modginson, and I am submitting a written comment for the Roy City Truth in Taxation public hearing statement. I refuse to believe that the reduction from a 55% to a 34.5% hasn't been the plan all along. After last year's 28% debacle, I'm sure that the council decided if they just propose a high enough number to begin with, they can swoop in at the last minute with a reduction to a paltry 34.5% and feel like they've really saved the day. I watched the Truth in Taxation meeting last year, and the vast majority of public statements oppose the tax increase. When the 55% increase was proposed earlier this year, the vast majority of public statements opposed the tax increase. But I have no doubt that when this meeting concludes, the council will vote for the proposed increase because you really don't care about what we have to say. All this meeting does is fulfill a requirement to levy whatever tax rate you deem fit. Shame on all of you. And then I am going to log out and back in to make sure that there has not been another further delay. So that we can resume the discussion. Okay, now as of 849pm no other comments have been officially received.

Okay, so can I have a motion to go back out of the public hearing.

So moved.

I have a second. I'll second it. Okay, council. Janelle, did you? Oh yeah, roll call vote, Brittany.

Councilmember Jackson.

Aye.

Councilmember Spahr.

Aye.

Councilmember Wilson.

Aye.

Councilmember Holbert. Aye. And Councilmember Saxton.

Aye. Okay, Councilmember Holbert, you wanted to say something?

yeah so first i wanted to say um that a lot of people had comments and suggestions and things and some of those suggestions i wanted to say the city is already doing some of them we can look at even further uh but we don't have your contact information because all you have to do is give us your name so if there is something you're wondering about it would be really good to email us so that we can answer those questions and tell you if it's something that we're already doing or not or if we aren't doing it maybe there's a reason um but unless you're fine just wondering for the rest of your life but if you'd like to ask them we're happy to answer those questions uh also i just uh alexis kind of touched on this already but i just thought this is kind of the raw data of our cola history here in roy and i also included the merit increases frozen like when they were frozen so there was our employees were receiving no merit and no cola and just as alexa showed on hers like this type of um strategy has kind of left us with a large increase and then none for a long time and then an increase and none and so i think most of us have talked about you know we don't like that strategy necessarily and so that's something that we'd like to change moving forward and this is one of the first steps to help change that uh and I also wanted to say in the merits something so I went and visited every department and all the and learned how they do things and something that I thought was interesting is. How they do their merits, you know, just like any other job you go and you get. a review every year. And if a employee is not doing a good job, then they will not receive the merit. So I just, you know, that's how it works everywhere else. And it works that way here as well. Okay. this is my i only have two slides so don't worry bear with me just a little bit longer i just thought that this was really helpful information because i've been asked several times how we compare to other cities and what some people don't know is we are considered a mid-sized city in utah and uh in weber county we are actually the second largest city in weber county And so I have tried to, at the top, I have tried to compare our city to other cities of similar size. Now, just remember that every city is pretty different, actually. The more I've got to know other people from other cities, especially their elected leaders, I've realized that we all offer a variety of services so roy might offer you know might have the complex for example but another city might have something else like they might own their own power station things like that so it's very diverse so just realize that when you look at these things as well But when we're compared to peer cities in, and I only did this in Weber County and Davis County, we are pretty close to the middle, but a little bit towards the bottom. If you can't see the tiny writing, just know that the Roy one is the yellow. And then if you... go down to the bottom you'll see davis county and this information actually came from the kaysville city civic clerk portal and that was posted in the standard examiner actually so uh and so i compared where roy would sit within that information just so you guys could kind of see how we compare since we do we are right on the border of davis county so i think it is applicable And then in Weber County, we sit towards the middle as well. Our current tax rate sits at 0.001618. And when you place that alongside other cities across both Davis and County, we are towards the bottom of the charts, but we stay middle lower end of property taxes in our immediate region. Something to think about for next year as we move through this annexation process with fire is that the rate actually is required by state law to drop. So when fire annexes in the state law requires that that money goes with them I guess is maybe a simple way to say it and so it would so the following year our rate would actually go down further and I think that that's important for people to know and a lot of people have asked about that as well so I just wanted to share those bits of information so people would know and that is all I have okay

so brian do you okay you want to talk then okay first of all to use a saying from judge judy you don't have to have a good memory if you don't lie. And that's where I'm at most of the time. Caught in the truth, I've opposed the 55 from the beginning. I mean, even before As soon as it hit resolution form, I was against it. And I'm still against it. Hasn't made me overly popular with some of my colleagues. But there are some people out there that really do love me. And I appreciate it, because this has been grinding. So you know, before I arrived here tonight, I did not know this council had taken a fallback position of 34. And that's sad because I'm on the council and I'm telling you the truth. And it's because I guess nobody cared to share it. But that being said, I'm going to share with you what I did do yesterday. I sat in a three-hour meeting with some colleagues And I came up with a plan that will beat the 34 mark. And I'm going to get a lot of guff after this meeting, but I want you to know that my plan works. It isn't the greatest, but it works. My plan was to provide a compromise between the 50 and what I felt was fair. What I came up with was a 27% tax increase on these conditions. And I want you to hear them. because I don't want people walking out of here saying, oh, that Saxton cave. I didn't cave. I didn't cave. You were there. So I want people to know that if we go 27%, which is what seven seven clicks below the fallback position that i didn't know about anyway if we do that it would generate roughly 1.3 million dollars in new revenues if we took an additional $375,000 out of the reserve fund, I could make this budget work by cutting that 55 original number in half at 27%. In addition, I would cut in half your monthly payment that had been figured, and I would cut in half again the yearly annual payment you would have had to make. The reason I'm sharing this is because sometimes being on this council can be damn isolating. And it can be frustrating because I don't know which way we're going. And all I want is honesty. The very thing you ask of me. And I'm giving it to all of you at once. So again, I don't have to have a good memory. I'm proud of what we came up with yesterday in that meeting. yeah uses reserve funds but it puts it puts police where they need to be on on an average and it put fire where it needed to be on an average so when you walk away from this meeting tonight i want you to know that i wasn't asleep at the switch it was just Not all was being shared when it could have been. And that's all. And that can be frustrating for anybody that has to make such weighty decisions.

Anyway. I'm confused. What wasn't shared with you? Because I talked to you today.

No, today. Yeah. You did, but you did not share that number. You did not have somebody that heard the phone call, and you did not. This has been, you know how hard it is? You know it's difficult because we can't meet as a trio. So we have to do one on one on one on one. That's the truth. I'm telling you, more than I'm going to get in trouble for. But that's it. And that's why it's frustrating. So what do I have to say? If we're going to fall back to the 34, then I'll just continue to oppose it. we don't know that we are we haven't talked about it yet and i'm not saying you have but i'm not backing down out of this fight i've put too much into it and all i want is honesty and i'll give you my honesty anyway sorry sorry it was saved for last But if I didn't say that, I'd make myself crazy tomorrow. I'm done.

OK. Can I share that when I picked up my packet yesterday is the first time I saw 34.29% in writing? Who was in the meeting with you, Brian? Who was present yesterday? OK. the chief was there who else was there you thank you and me thank you and who called you to the meeting who invited you to this meeting to speak with fiscal staff and the city manager and the police

Who invited you to the meeting?

Who invited you to the meeting so that we could discuss what the chief had to say. Thank you.

And I understand what you're getting at.

I'm feeling attacked by this insinuation that we have somehow gone behind your backs. um and and like the council did not form a quorum or even one-on-one propose any 34 that's from our dedicated and talented fiscal staff who worked hard to share this with us and we are coming before as a council for the first time to discuss this now but we've spoken one-on-one and that includes you and i is that fair to say

We never discussed a fallback position. I'm telling you.

Can you explain what you mean by fallback position?

We went from 55 to 34. I would call that a fallback position.

What do you mean we haven't discussed it? You just mean it hasn't been presented yet?

We discussed it yesterday.

We did discuss it yesterday. We did discuss it yesterday.

Why did I grind in that entire meeting for the 27th?

Well, actually, I was going to ask you if you could clarify where the 27 number came from and where it started in that meeting. So when you came and we were going to discuss because you had this separate proposal, right, that started a different figure. Can you explain the journey there?

One was because I was initially... told that the 27 was the tax high i believe we all believe that in the meeting yes yes that's true but it started somewhere else it started at 21 is that accurate for me and i moved it because of the importance of police I have moved my position. Yes, I was there. Yeah, I remember. Because we were concerned about the police. I knew that it wouldn't work. I'm telling you. And it's going to be hard for some to believe because I have my critics. But I want you to know that this has been a grind. and i do agree with diane this has been a hard push and i have been i have been corrected several times but the thing i did not want to go on anymore with is that we all were

privy to the same information at the same time which we were we absolutely were if i i asked for information from amber autonomously because i chose to ask for information she didn't have it all at once we all had this packet at the same time then let's vote let's vote am i am i wrong is that wrong did did anyone get this packet before me Did we get information from Amber on a secret basis?

I didn't say that.

I mean, no one was privy to it any earlier than anyone else unless you ask for it. But I just want it to be very clear that I have not left you out of any conversations. I've had conversations one-on-one with every single person on this council. Is that accurate? Yeah. That has happened. Yes. Thank you. We should keep talking, though, about your plan because it involves details you needed to talk about. It involves 27.

Okay. Which is roughly at the halfway mark. Okay. Because the original number was 50. Well, the original number was $55. for fun it's about halfway yes it is yes so I figured if I could take that halfway number and slash both the bottom lines of monthly and annual that I can make it work I did that in front of Matt and Amber And they told me that it was possible. They didn't say do it, but they did say it was possible. It would work.

So let's, I mean, it's possible. Yeah. So, and then you mentioned also a use of one-time funds, which we should talk about because there is also a use of one-time funds in this, um, alternative property tax impact schedule, but they are different uses. So can you explain your, um, how much would be used from one-time funds and what the purpose would be? I don't know if I don't, we may have heard a dollar amount. Yeah. A dollar. And then the purpose, if you could please.

One-time funds were, 3-7-5-0-0-0.

Yes, that's what I have as well written down from yesterday's meeting. Just wanted to make sure that... I had that right. That's still the same from you. Okay. So 375.

I didn't change anything.

Oh, yeah. No. Yeah. I'm just making sure that what I have is what you had and that we're all on the same page. So 375,000 of one-time funds, which will be a 27% tax increase. And that 375 is exactly for what?

well that would give us the that gave us the push to close the rage gap for all police and fire right so we found in that meeting that that when we were with the original 21 that who was going to be left out was our sworn officers

almost entirely like that was that was the population it was 31 out of 34 employees i believe that's what yes so and that was how many sworn officers would be left out and would actually receive no increase because they have they'd received um an increase recently that brought them closer to average but now they have fallen behind again so so there was concern mike just a little bit more brian so i can hear you better oh thanks thanks that's okay

I'm sorry, was it 30 or something? Because when Brian called me last week and told me a number, it was 21 or 22% for what you were looking at. And then today when we talked, we were talking about 27. And so about how many officers again? You said 30? There were 31.

31, okay.

Yeah, that's my notes from yesterday's meeting.

34 employees would be unaffected by the tax increase, meaning not getting no raises. And 31 of those 34 would be sworn police officers.

Because I had asked about that after I talked to Brian the first time to see how many that would be.

Oh, and I didn't know at that point. Yeah, and this was information we asked yesterday and we got yesterday. So, yeah, this is not on you at all.

Again, I just... yeah so that was just the change from 21 and we went to 26 and why was the change from 21 to 26 initially well it was twofold 27 is halfway to 54. and that's why the other reason was I was told that the highest tax increase that royce had was 27. that was in an error but we didn't i didn't know that at the time i was putting these numbers together right we we were there yeah together we we were misinformed everybody so it's okay and we just we all were talking about it like that was it yeah it was just a mistake but that's where the numbers come from okay

So consider, because I recall from our meeting that, and you've said this too, and in public too, is that you have this concern about being the historical tax increase. And that that was like this historical, like you didn't want to be the one that had to say, this is where we're at now. This is what we have to do. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and that's a core factor for you in this. From the beginning. So what I, now if we take, what is the historical tax increase and we realize it for what it is and that's 37 we realize that 27 is not historic or 34 is not historical right but i'm trying to tell the council and and who's here uh is that if if we're gonna go

to the fallback number of 34, then I've often said, I'll just take the exit door out

and remain opposed to the increase yeah for you today conversation today i said i feel like everybody on the council has done a really like worked really really hard on this including yourself and i told you yes and i said that and i really appreciate that because i think that I thought that we're working really well as a council. That was my feeling. And I expressed that feeling to you today. But anyway, moving on from that, my main concern with your plan, which I did appreciate that you went to 27%, I think that was awesome. is where you want to take the extra funding from, which is the fund balance. And I said on the phone, you know, that that was something I needed to look into and I was worried about because I'm always concerned when we take the money from the fund balance. So I kind of wanted you to explain that just so everyone kind of knows how that would work exactly.

Well... i'm either going to be really popular or really unpopular um i i refer to it as the reserve fund okay versus the general fund but but based on what i've been told we don't have to pay that money back necessarily. And I also said this, it's much easier to dip into the city's savings than to dip into the widow of the streets' savings. And I did say that. And I do maintain that. And if that makes me wrong, then I'm wrong. But I'm telling you, I'm, you know, here goes. I've lived in Roy for 42 years. So I don't get the claim of a Roy boy. But I've been here 42 years. As a living, I worked as a reporter, an investigative reporter. I was everybody's pain in the butt until it affected you. And then I was a hero. I did that for 30 years. 30. You can look me up. I don't talk about it because everybody thinks he's just trying to sell a novel. Yeah, four of them. Vampire Westerns. Four novels. And they sell well. Really well. And they're pretty good. But I'm an old writer. But the thing I want people to know is that I care. I mean that. And when I say I'm going to get back with you, I get back with you. And when I say something don't smell right, I'll say it. And it gets me in a load of trouble. I've been on the... Well, I've been a councilman for over six years. And, you know... Right, Shawna? It's always been us, man. And so, you know, my term's coming to an end soon, and you probably won't hear another vampire western for a joke your whole life. But I want you to know that I care and that I take this job really serious.

So of your $375,000 out of, do you say reserve funds? Just can you explain to me how that works in consecutive years? So if you use $375,000 from the reserve fund to pay for wage increases in 2027 budget, where do those wage increases come from in 2028, which do continue on? with another you mean another poll from the reserve i'm asking you like in your plan right because this isn't a this isn't a one-time bonus no right this is like wage correction so you're talking about wages that are ongoing in the case of the fire department um i believe there's there's room for one-time funds um for wages for fire but they will be off the books so that is one-time wages yes i just can you but Yes, but can you for the council explain what happens after 2027? In 2028, where do the funds for that continued wage increase come from?

Based on it being a bottom line situation, I explained that we'd probably have to readjust on the next year. And I was told that the likelihood is another tax increase wouldn't be needed, but it could not be guaranteed. And I didn't think the council would want to make such a guarantee. I mean, we're all supposed to be back here together during the same period of time next year. That's why I didn't want to bring this up. But man, I'm tired of getting...

i don't know which way the ping pong ball's flying and so i'm just i'm dealing with the bottom line i'm just asking when the 375 comes out of the fund balance or the reserve funds for 2027's budget we will have a shortfall in 2028 of 375 and how is that made up in your plan that's all i'm asking man

Does the 375 need to be made up the following year, or does it need to be made up at all since it's a reserve fund?

So if you expend the money on wages... those wages after they increase you're going to have to do that again next year so if i'm making ten dollars an hour and i go up to eleven dollars an hour you don't necessarily need to replace that dollar an hour this year your fund balance could go lower like your bank account could go lower The issue is that next year, you're going to be obligated at that $11 an hour. So you can then choose to take that out of fund balance again or replace that revenue with another line item. With sales tax or... With something, property tax, sales tax, or another expense.

So maybe there's a confusion between if we take 375 out of the reserve funds, we don't have to put it back. But we put it into the budget, and that's a shortfall that does need to be answered in 2028. So my question to you is, how is that accomplished? We talked about a couple of options yesterday. We did. One was a tax increase for next year. Right. Do you recall the percentage that it would be next year? No. 40%.

Okay. But the bottom line, and the percentage might be 40%. But that wouldn't be the bottom line, just so you know. I'm only going by the percentage because the state says we have to. But it...

Well, I appreciate you bringing up the, I mean, your proposal, because I'm not privy to any of your meetings. So I didn't know what your proposal was, and I did not know what you were going to be saying tonight. And for me, a lot of this was the whole reason why we're talking. So I work full time at the base, so trying to get away for John Potter, From meetings of the city it's really difficult to do that, I got to take vacation time to come to meetings so and the fact that we cannot meet more than. John Potter, Two Council members at any time with a with a with administrator it's a pain and we weren't able to do it, we have to do it in the open forum like this, so this is where i'm getting my information so i'm sorry if you felt that. something's going behind but I didn't understand it either I didn't know what we had going on well that makes me feel a little better because that means they're not picking on me I mean I hear we hear things like generalities on percents discussed when one-on-one conversations but we couldn't get into details about it because we didn't have these numbers about how the fire department was going to affect that 55% until just recently. And so that's where I only knew this percent on this as well.

I knew there'd be some reluctance with using reserve funds. I knew that. But I wanted to put yesterday that three-hour meeting was That was anguishable for me, man. That was tough because I wondered, this is sliding away. But we got a lot done. We really did. And I appreciated Matt and Amber, the chief, you. I did. But I'm telling you, until I sat in this chair tonight, when I came in early, I was not aware that the number had been moved from 54. I think it was 5-7 or something to this 30 number. And again, I held it in reserve because I knew that I could always say, no, I'm just not going to approve it. And the 30 would take care of it. But I wanted to at least let the public know that I did have a number in mind. I did have a plan in mind. And it did shift on me some. And that did hurt a little bit.

I think that shows a lot of willingness for you to negotiate. I think that's very fair. I mean, I think all of us have done some negotiating. And thanks so much to our staff who has calculated now what the change is with the annexation and has given that to us today. Because I think that I'm relieved. Honestly, I'm... I'm relieved. I do wish it was. Wouldn't it be wonderful if that was just under 10? I mean, just a little bit less all the time. So I guess the point that I was trying to make, though, with just about this plan is if it is to be a two-year plan and if it uses reserve funds, it must be a two-year plan because you will have to pay that forward. then that means that this year you will have a 27% increase, and next year you could have a 40% increase. And if we don't want to use percentages, that's okay. In 2016, when we had the historical high as far as percentage increase, when it was 37.7%, it generated just under $1 million. The 27% will generate 1.3%, which is in itself historical. We're already historical. unless we're gonna talk about percentages, in which case 34% is not. And so I just, I wanted to, maybe that helps, I don't know, ease your mind about being historical, because if that's the motivation, it doesn't need to be a burden anymore on you because it is not historical this way. However, next year will be. And I admit that. And next year is a promise of a tax increase. If you use the reserve funds now, to lower it three more dollars from $11 a month to $8. $8.72. $8.72. Is that what it was? $8.72. $8.72. Yes, you're right. $8.72. From $11.10 to $8.72, then you do promise a tax increase next year. Well, you... You do promise because... you will have to perpetuate that revenue. You perpetuate the expense. You have to perpetuate the revenue. But with 34%, this time, wages are corrected. By our numbers, 100% corrected. Everyone affected. Everyone is paid average income. And next year, it's possible. It's not a promise. It's a possibility that next year we wouldn't need to see an increase. But with a 27% plan, it is a promise it will be an increase and it is a promise it will be historical then.

One of the issues with that one is just because with the annexation of the fire department, it changes our tax rate. So the way, the way the percents look are going to be a lot different next year. Say if we only needed $5 and or 5%, but with like this year, but with the fire department leaving that same 5% revenue, it would have to be a lot more like 15% to equal the same amount of money. So even if we were thinking this year, maybe only a 5% next year, That's not the reality of what the actual percent would be. That would be the dollar amount, but the percent would be really high.

Right.

And talk about public outcry. If then next year we come out with another 40%, even though it's a different dollar amount based on a different rate, completely different rate. It would be a different dollar amount.

And that's why I wanted to point out that the rate does go down. Difficult to swallow.

$5 a month next year, by the way. That 40%, it's about $5.

And I do want to get us to the point where we're doing just inflationary increases instead of reactionary increases like these every five to six years. And because I that was one of the my goals of being on the Council was hopefully we could get this corrected and then go to. bare minimum inflationary increases, just so we don't get back back behind again we're not solving this issue. I don't want to ever disparage some of the other Council members of prior to me, and if I have before, and if they took it that way, then I apologize publicly about that. But they don't have a crystal ball. I don't have a crystal ball. They didn't see COVID coming up. And I mean, we had one, two, three, four, five years of no COLA increases. And that was only a few years ago. They didn't see COVID happening. They didn't see the current wars we have happening and increasing the gas prices. The cost of everything is up. I mean, they didn't see that. So they did the best they had with the information that they had, which I know you were on that council as well. But you guys had to make the decisions based on what you didn't know. And I have a hard time with that same crystal ball, wondering if I'm looking at the wrong crystal ball too for the future. But I don't like having to worry about, okay, yeah, maybe our property tax revenues are starting to look a little bit better. Maybe the sales tax a little bit better. And I'm hoping that that trend continues. I really hope it does. But my personal view on my own finances is I don't spend a paycheck that I haven't got yet. I wait until I've got it or a planned bonus. I don't want to be Clark Gladwell and buy a swimming pool and then not get my bonus check. And so I have a hard time expending or talking about spending money that I haven't received quite yet. So I try to want to be as minimally John Potter, impacted as we can on our taxes, and I know that this this big annexation is it's scary it's scary for all of us, we don't know what this is going to actually look like after a full year. John Potter, We can estimate we run simulations we can we do our best to try to figure that out to make those decisions, this has been the most difficult thing I swear i've ever had to do and. I mean, I'm in the military empire veteran too. I've been through basic training and I've got, I'm a combat vet. I've been to combat and I've got three combat medals. And this is by far the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life is try to figure out how not to raise the taxes or how to fix this. This has been difficult.

So this is the hardest. All these council members have worked endless hours, endless hours.

I've talked to all of them on the phone and

and i think you know you're out of the picture for a little bit with some medical issues and i think that some of the council members didn't know if they could reach out to you at a time but i know that we never came up with this 34 i mean it was something that they were like hoping they could do but until we got this packet and and saw it um nobody was doing anything behind your back and i was excited when i heard that you said 27 too i knew that you'd done some homework for that i always just hate to borrow from peter to pay paul and we don't know what i mean it's kind of like our reserve fund but our emergency fund also and um i just we don't know what the future holds next year i mean we do have some housing that's come in and hopefully some sales tax will be good we'll be getting some more property tax but if not then we will have to have a big tax increase in order to you know pay that back but any council members ready for a motion for

Well, I just wanted to kind of mention part of this was I believe that we had, as a council, kind of decided what the budget goal was, which was to reach median wage correction. And so with that in mind, I believe that's where the staff said, well, if this is their goal, this is the new information we have. That's why they were able to calculate it, because they had an idea of where we were headed. and so i guess i'm i'm a little surprised well actually very surprised because at our conversation last night at 6 35 you actually brought up that number so i'm surprised that i don't know where you got that number last night and and then you didn't see it today but i want you to know i appreciate the time you spent explaining your plan to me because we discussed what the changes would be and how the this new alternative plan would be around a possibility of so much out of the general fund. And I appreciate your work on that, but it does surprise me that that conversation, you didn't understand the number you gave me. You told me that number, 34.29%, and how you discussed that with Alexis. And so I'm sorry that you felt that way because my conversation, I would have brought it up differently the way our conversation went. Boy, you were saying that to me. And so I just want you to know I appreciate the time you took to explain that with me. But I do have concerns about one-time funds because of the future. That is a difficult thing. And then to have this big possible increase now and to have a big possible increase next year is very difficult because then we... We've now chewed up our emergency fund and we don't know what is in the future. So those are some of my concerns, although I appreciate you going over the fact of which employees would or wouldn't have gotten a raise. That was very important to actually dig into that detail. I appreciate that very much, Brian. And hopefully, you know, I think our budget goals were kind of coming around to the same. It's just how we're getting there. And yours is using that one-time fund, which is a really difficult thing for me. We already did that once with that first COLA. We used that one-time fund for a while. So for me, I think that's my biggest concern with that plan, although I appreciate your efforts towards that.

I appreciate everybody's efforts into what they've been doing, because I know a lot of these conversations have been happening, especially the patients that Amber has had with us. and i'm sure she's been pulling her hair out when she's got to have multiple meetings of the same meeting over and over again with different council members because we can't meet together um so i i'm i'm glad to hear this new information from your proposal and and thank you for bringing it up because i know you put a lot of work into it as well as everybody's been putting your work into her

Also, Diane brings up a good point that we actually, I don't think I've realized it until you said it, but I think we have arrived at a common goal. And that's even though we differ on the plan and the way to approach it, Brian's plan, the 34% plan, even the 55% plan, all accomplish a full wage correction to average. And that's not something I think that we reunited in at some point.

That was definitely my main goal.

That's the common goal now. And I think that that's a total win, first of all. Yeah.

I did want to bring up the fact that this particular 34.29% plan does include a COLA for the city council members. And that does equal $2,050. And I would prefer that the council does not receive any COLA at this point in time. And so if we were to proceed, I would want to take that away from a plan. And I don't know if others have that.

Mm hmm. Council hasn't taken a call it in six years. So I, yeah, I'm fine with that as well.

While I would normally disagree on some points of this, because I mean, please don't quote me on exact numbers, but West Haven City Council gets paid a lot more than we do. We haven't had any increases forever.

It's been a long time.

It's been a long time. Normally, I'd be like, you know what, this $8,000 a year-ish is not worth it. But we don't do it for the money. So, yes, I'll agree to not getting another increase, even though I think it'll be begrudging.

Right. And I don't want to increase neither.

Do we have any information on how that would impact the current tax impact schedule?

Yes, that would bring the total amount to $1,749,050, and that would bring the tax increase to approximately 34.25%. That would be...

Which would be averaging roughly $11 a month.

Right. Does that bring it down? It brings it down just a few cents. Just a penny or something like that. $11.08. Two pennies. Two pennies. Yeah. So that's where that would bring that.

That sounds accurate with what I have investigated as far as other cuts. I mean, that falls right in line. I'm not surprised to hear that, that that saves. But I mean, I'm not against it.

Yeah. Yeah.

Sorry, did you say that's $2,000 or $3,000? I can't remember. $2,050.

Okay, I thought you said $2,000 something. That's the other change I would kind of like to bring up. Are there any other changes that...

um are we are we with the understanding that like this is not the end of this like we still consider contracts we still consider all this kind of stuff is always ongoing you know this does Mark the end of a budget year but this is not a new conversation and it's not going to be the last time this is discussed so um I wouldn't propose any further changes beyond what Councilmember Wilson has proposed

I think what we've got right now, I'm in agreement with this one we have right now as well. We're still going to be talking about other stuff to try to cut costs further. This is the first step for us. This has been the big one for us to get past first before we can even make any other improvements. It's been really difficult to try to concentrate on anything else. Anything else we've wanted to try to fix. We're not perfect. We're always not perfect.

You just said that you were supportive of a certain thing. I just wasn't sure which one because we've talked about to the one that Brian presented and the one.

Oh, the one where that's in the packet in the packet packet.

Okay, I just was I just wanted to make sure I understood what you're saying since

Can I just make a comment? And this is regarding the use of one-time funds. And that's 375, this is an opinion, right? The numbers are accurate, but this is an opinion. 375, I don't feel is that outlandish to draw from.

Sure.

I have two hesitations with it in this case. The one hesitation is that it does commit us to an expense that we don't have a revenue source for in the future, and that could last just the one year, and then it could not. And we might do it again. And now you've got 375 times two.

Like there's other things that we've got to add back to the budget. If we ever do the fireworks and we have to pay for it ourselves again, that has to be added back to the budget. It's not in the budget for going forward. So any of the things or any council in the future would have to add back anything if the funds were to level out better.

So that's one hesitation. My other hesitation is the percentage that the tax increase would be. We actually talked about this too. We said, let's take this dollar by dollar, right? We said $8.72 this year and $5 a month next year. If you don't run into a problem answering that expense with a revenue source past 2027, that's something I could get on board with. But my hangup is that's a tax increase of 40%. It's only $5 a month. But this is only 11. 55% is this. I mean, people latch onto that. The media, the public, they latch onto it because it's required. But sometimes the whole story isn't told and people don't quite understand it all the way. So I think it's going to be a harder sell of a 40% next year than just to say $5. We're trying to present this as an $11 per month now. and and it's it's not fully it's not fully supported and it's not fully understood now so just those are two my my two hesitations but i did want to make sure that i was clear that i don't think that 375 is that crazy of a number if it was for a one-time draw but i do still have to hang up with them and those are them

I had the same thoughts after I talked to you today, Brian. That's why I was like, I'm going to call Matt and ask about this number and have similar feelings to what Alexis is saying, that it isn't an outlandish number, but it does, I worry about the next year.

I just, just so everyone understands, because I'm likely going to be voting no, but I just want to remind everyone that taxes are forever, meaning the tax that we assess on these people, it will last forever. And forever can be a long time.

Well, and actually in Utah, the rate goes down. So we're actually lucky that it lasts forever to some extent, but it doesn't because our rate will go down. So I mean, and yeah, it moves around. Yeah, the rate. Yeah. That's what I'm saying.

So I'll be paying it forever as well. Yeah.

And, you know, that was actually one of my budget goals for the future was that maybe we could reverse it at some point in time. And I think with some of the growth coming, wouldn't that be an exciting budget goal to have? Yep. So take that forever out of the equation. That would be an exciting goal. Is there, do we have any more discussion? Or I'm happy to make a motion. Or if someone else is interested in that.

I guess I just, Because one of the biggest factors in our discussion yesterday was, and it's so unfortunate that we had the information wrong in the meeting, that we were working with a 27% threshold when the threshold historically really was 37%. and that we were talking about it as though like that's an unfortunate oversight that I wish had never happened. But I do just want to know your thoughts because that was such a concern for you yesterday that 40%, as far as percentages go, will be a historical high. And so what are your thoughts about that just with 34% being not historical and accomplishing the goals versus a 40% next year? Like where, just, I don't know, just talk me through that is all.

Again, I opposed this tax increase from the beginning. So did the widow that lives two doors up from me. So did the widower who lives three doors up from me. And my point is, is that I couldn't get my brain to cancel their pictures. And so I promised I'd do all I could. And that's what I'm doing. Yeah, I've got my own challenges. And some of them are catching up to me quicker than you know. But that's the truth. You want the truth? I'll give you the truth. Because I'm used to people saying, oh, I read you put in your paper X about me. Yes, I did. I mean, the bottom line is, is that I did. There was a couple of people that spoke about it tonight and said, still, the 35 is too high. And you heard them. I counted them. There was five that spoke in favor of the tax increase, and there was 26 that spoke against it. I'm a councilman. My job is to listen to the people who elected me. And that's what I do. And I do not and will not apologize for that. Wrong? Yes, sometimes I am wrong. But I'm not giving up.

Well, Brian, I'm a widow of 20 years, and I work two jobs and get survivor's benefits from my husband. And I have two older brothers and two children, and I did not want a 55% tax increase because I have to pay it too. I will retire one day and it affects me also. There was no way I was going to ever support a 55% tax increase. They all knew that and that's why they all worked so hard to bring that down because it is something that is going to be added. I still owe on my house and I still have to pay a mortgage. Like I said, I have an 82-year-old, 78-year-old brother that lives in Roy, but I have talked to a lot of people that don't want a tax increase, but they said if it's willing to keep our city running effectively with competent workers that show up to my house when I need them and take care of my streets and do everything they need to do, They're like, I'm willing to pay $12, $13, $14, $15 a month. Most of those people don't come to the council meetings to say in favor, but they've called me and they have told me, I'm supporting it. But 55% would have been really bad. From the day they said that, I was thinking, oh my gosh, I'm never going to be able to retire. i feel that the council's worked so hard i've been with meetings with them and like amber she's worked with everybody and i think that this has been you know but like alexa said if you know we take care of it this year and with the fire department leaving um it could be 0%, 2%, 3%. I mean, I don't know what the future holds. So I can't say a number. But hopefully we'll get lots of tax revenue in and we have some housing coming in. And we just can't foresee the future. But that's why I think the council wanted to just get the wages up to a medium wage this year and take care of it this year. And then hopefully next year would be better for us.

That's the hope. yeah i think we all hope next year's much better and i think that this moves us to a much much better position i think and we didn't say 55 so we could go 34 and and make us look good i mean no from our first session we had talked about that in the very first work session if fire annexed it would be i think 38 was the number something around there oh 37 or 38 yeah and um we so we knew that that was a possibility but we didn't know what other type of cuts and different things we do i think it was really smart with the sro contract that was a really great thing for our city and i Great job on that. So and i'm hoping that we can continue to do more and more stuff like that. I think that you know I know people are all our heads of departments are always working on things, and I think everyone's mentioned different ideas. I know Jason, Brian, Alexis. And and Diane have all mentioned ideas to me about how to improve things. Like some people mentioned ideas about the complex. I know that Brian's mentioned some to me. Right. And I know. Yeah, I mean, I'm just saying, I guess that we're all we all have ideas that we're trying to work on and they do take time. But yeah.

Every head of every department minus one has lived in Roy their whole life. I've lived here 67 years. I've known them all since junior high, these heads of these departments. They're all really great guys. They're definitely earning their wage. They come to work every day. I don't know, I just, I feel that that's what this tax increase is for, is to keep our employees here, and they love Roy, and they want to stay in Roy, and, but I, you know, all the ideas that people said tonight, like, my kids have said this to me, try to get some new things to come to the complex, and, you know, get creative, and and try to get more, you know, revenue in for that. So I think we've been talking amongst ourselves. I mean, it's our 90 year celebration next year. And we, you know, want to think about things for that too. And so in the burger bar, I've known that girl since she was 12. And I, you know, it's hard for all the businesses. It's just a hard decision. But you guys have done such a great job. And many meetings, many phone calls, endless phone calls from all of you. And I appreciate all the work that you have done. And you've covered all your bases. And I appreciate everything you've done.

Seeing as the 27% plan versus a 34% plan is a difference of less than two and a half dollars per month, I see wisdom in going for the full wage correction this year, and I just wanted to say that before the vote. Thank you.

I move to adopt resolution 26-24.

a resolution of the Roy City Council adopting the final annual budget for the fiscal year commencing July 1st, 2026 and ending June 30th, 2027 and setting the 2026 certified tax rate with the following changes. Adopt the alternative property tax impact schedule as presented with the following adjustments. Subtract the COLA adjustment for the six-member council, which equates $2,050, $2,050. Thereby adopt a tax increase of $1,749,050, which is approximately a 34.25% tax increase to fund a 2.8% COLA with remainder going to salary survey. And does that sound like that covers what we need to say and would get us where we need to get it?

Yeah. OK. That works.

All right. Thank you.

Do I have a second?

I'll second.

OK. Do I have a roll call vote? Brittany?

Council Member Jackson?

Aye.

Council Member Spahr?

Aye.

Council Member Saxton?

Nay.

Aye.

Council Member Hulbert?

Aye. OK. So now can I have a motion to adjourn?

I motion to adjourn.

Do I have a second? Second. And all in favor say aye. Aye. Thank you, everybody.

Appreciate your comments.

i'm trying i swear or there you go my old guy that i used to sit next to yeah oh absolutely absolutely

Okay.