Council - Regular Meeting

work session.

A 2620 26 at seven o'clock on the month. As Miss Kathy not that she would give the invocation for sure will.

Father God, we just come to you tonight thanking you all for having this time together. And Lord, let us Just move forward with the plans that you have for our town. Let our minds and hearts come together so that we do everything in your will, Lord. And again, we just thank you and praise you for all the love and mercies that you show us in Jesus' precious name.

Amen. I stand and pledge allegiance to the flag. Under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Do we have one or two items on this agenda, Mr. Hendricks?

Technically two, but Councilman Cain is unable to be here tonight, so we can either pull that back or I can lead that discussion.

Well, we're going to turn it over to you and let you get started.

All right. Good evening. So the main event tonight is to go over the proposed budget. Those were sent out to you last week. And you've got a copy of that proposed budget and a copy of the PowerPoint on your table. So we'll just jump right into it. So looking at the fiscal year 27 budget, Well, before I even say that, just that budget summary on the front page. Just ignore the part where it says 25-26. It is 26-27 proposed budget. I fixed everything else with that cover page. But it is presented tonight as a balanced budget with a caveat that we'll discuss at the end. So fiscal year 27 budget, the general fund annual action items, 3% cost of living increase for employees, We have talked back and forth about cost of living increases and comp and class, separate issues. So this is a 3% cost of living increase that is built in on the general fund enterprise across the budgets. Also, for the general fund, completing the software upgrades and town hall, complete the comprehensive plan, and moving forward with bidding, awarding, and implementing the impact fee study for public safety and parks. Enterprise side of things, again, 3% cost of living. We want to get the AMI completed, decommission process for the water plant, complete the CDBG sewer lift station grant, which will be closed out in June of next year. Complete the climate pollution reduction grant. Hopefully we'll get that taken care of and complete the implementation of the utilities capital improvement plan and impact fee. So that's something that's already been approved and is underway. We should have for y'all in the very near future. On the H tax, cost of living increase, the addition of the janitor position that we discussed last month. Complete engineering and design of Woodard Unity Park and solicit funding. That's been on the list to try to get some federal funding for that. It's estimated about $20,000 for the rest of the engineering work. That does not include the pavilion that's in the drawings, but that is all of the park infrastructure. Then also we'd like to move forward with park improvements at Wilson Street and Leesville College Park. Again, that's where we've got a million dollar grant that we have applied for. I don't have any odds on that, but we do want to look at moving forward with park improvements, be it playgrounds, parking, splash pad at Wilson Street. And then also seeking state and federal funding for Haynes Auditorium and then Woodard as well. Again, I've had it in the weekly report that we are the moment still in the state budget for funding for Haynes through a state appropriation so that comes through then that would be a wonderful wonderful thing So again, a couple just across the board things. 3% cost of living increase. There was no health insurance increase this year from PEEBA, which was nice. We've had a lot of increases over the last few years. And then there is no reassessment this year. Last year we had Lexington County reassessment. Saluda had talked about it for this year, but they are expecting to do that for fiscal year 2028. And then just to give you the information on millage, again, our current millage rate is 93.4. Estimated value of a mill is about 23,500. And then according to Revenue and Fiscal Affairs, we are allowed a 2.69% increase based off of the CPI population increase for this year. The three-year total, 10.48% available. And the last increase was 2 mils for fiscal year 25, which it credited back towards the earlier year. So that whole 10.48% is available. We are not calling for that. Budget overview.

Why am I hearing an echo over there?

Okay. All right, budget overview. General fund, $6,945,950. That's about a 7% increase. Enterprise fund, $4,408,000. That's a significant decrease. Obviously, no skip funding for the water project. That is gone and done. There was also $1 million in that budget for this past year. That was another grant that we turned down for rural infrastructure for the wastewater plant. So that's why that enterprise has dropped so significantly. Hospitality tax fund, slightly increased from $830 to $840. And then the victim's assistance fund is still $9,500. All right, so diving into the general fund. And if y'all have questions, feel free to stop me along the way. So the council, so these are the different sections of the general fund council at 80,500. The administration, 1,158,267. Fire Department, $823,000. Municipal Court, $187,000. Police Department, $3,028,000. Street Department, $936,000. IT, $162,000. Fleet Services, $160,000. And then non-departmental, $406,000. So that's $6,945,950 total. Does that include platforming higher for the fire department? Is that increasing it? No, so the fire department does not have any new hires. We have approved the money for the grant writer. So that will be, they haven't actually submitted that grant yet. So the likelihood of that happening in fiscal year 27 is low. But that would have to come back to council to approve those positions. the street department essentially the janitor position which will be primarily funded through H tax will benefit them because that will free them up to not have to do those janitorial duties where they currently clean the rental facilities they do bathrooms that would free them up so it doesn't create a new street department position but it does eliminate some of their duties to help them yes ma'am and again the only Only new full-time job being created or completely created is that janitor position and then moving the administrative assistant in the police department from part-time to full-time, as we discussed in April. All right, so just some highlights on the revenue side of things. Property tax projecting about a $78,000 increase based on the trend. Current revenue has exceeded the budget by nearly $50,000, so that should hold steady. There's no reassessment, so you shouldn't see a big jump, but you should see an increase as new homes are being built.

Delinquent property tax, $20,500 increase.

That brings it to the three-year average, which has been around $80,000. You know, that's not a huge line item, but it is the three-year average. Business license, this is going to be one that we need to talk about. Projected a $250,000 increase. Again, looking at a three-year average, the proposed increase in the growth in the insurance tax program, which is collected through the Municipal Association, that has grown tremendously over the last three years, a $150,000 growth. And then I'm also proposing that we follow through with that plan to increase the business licenses. The proposal that I'm kind of working off of, and we'll talk about that a little bit more in a minute, is instead of $1 million increments, doing $2 million increments for the Diminishing or the reduction going in $2 million increments and eliminating the 60%. So it would just be 70% would be the smallest amount or the biggest savings.

Did you say 70?

70. Yeah, so you would go 0 to 2 million would be 100%. Then the 2 to 4 would be 90. 4 to 6 would be 80. And 6 to 8 would be 70% and not going to 60%. So that's kind of a moderate adjustment. That ordinance would have to be done, and we can do that later in the year. But that is something that I am factoring in, that we would do some improvement. And that is estimated about a $60,000 increase with that change, the decreasing. About a $23,000 increase in building zoning permits. Again, just the growth is going to help drive that, and then also I am projecting that we do increase those permitting fees. We talked about that again in April, and it has been several years, and this would bring us in line with Saluda and Lexington. Garbage fees. We've recently received notification of a CPI increase that we'll send out to y'all in the weekly report. So that's going to be about a $62,000 increase there. That will have to be an ordinance that is passed to increase the garbage rate. I know that we all kind of have some mixed emotions about our current state of garbage, but I am proposing that we have first reading on that in June, second reading in July. That is something we will have to address. The Dominion franchise fee, that's 5% franchise fee on the utility sales by Dominion Energy. They notified us of that recently, so it's a $38,000 increase there. Utility fund participation, $9,700 increase. That's 5% franchise fee on water sales, sewer treatment, and base rates. The accommodation tax, that comes from the state. That's projected to be about an $8,000 increase. And it's, again, based off of the current trend that has exceeded the budgeted amount.

But that's not a huge number.

The local government fund, again, that comes from RFA. They are saying $9,000 increase. And then projecting $60,000 increase in sale of equipment and vehicles. Again, we'll have multiple vehicles if we are moving forward with the lease purchase, which will also be presented in June. So that would free up numerous police cars to be sold, several pickup trucks through the fire department, and also skid steer from the street department and an older backhoe as well. So that would be projected about a $60,000 increase in the sale of equipment and vehicles.

Well, on the proposed budget, did you include as if we're going to do the lease?

Yes, and that is in the budget.

Sam?

And then special revenue, about a $15,000 increase. It's kind of a catch-all. The biggest one is $260,000 for the Safe Streets for All grant, which is reflected on the expense side as well. And again, that's based off of the trends that we've been seeing.

The 8.3 mil? Isn't that the overall grant for Safe Streets?

Yeah, about $8 million. Yes, sir.

Okay, about $8 million. Yes. $2 million match from us, but is this a separate $260,000 grant, or is it part of that?

No, this is part of that $8 million.

So it's part of the $8.3 million?

Well, it's just $8. It's not $8.3 million.

Okay.

So the way it will work, and I'll show that in the expense side, it is factoring in that this is the reimbursement coming back. The intent in the current budget, we have requested reimbursement for C fund money, which is covering the local match. So there is a 20% local match. But yeah, so that 260 is part of the $8 million. that number could change if council you know wants to put line street sidewalks in and and we move forward with that if we get if we were to get you know uh and some funds from dot uh we could we could do more but that's just a standard amount that we kept in from the past year does it have anything in it about fixing some sidewalks like main street we met So we did have a meeting with Rick McMacken with Land Plan Group South. They're the ones that engineered the streetscapes for the downtowns. So we had that meeting recently with Jamie from Wood Valley. So we're looking at options of how we can incorporate safe streets into that to do improvements on those downtown sidewalks. So Rick... The expectation is that the ends of the sidewalks where they're handicap accessible will absolutely be able to include some traffic calming measures that extend out into the roadway some to slow people down, that that can be included. And then we'll need to figure out funding on the other side. Andrew was also working on some utility grants to try to find some grant money that would allow us to do improvements to water and wastewater lines in those downtown districts that are nearly 100 years old, and that that would also help pay for putting sidewalks back in place. So we're trying to cobble together multiple grants to lessen that impact on the town.

The reason I ask that, there's certain sidewalks in and around the Main Street area of lethal they're in pretty bad shape i almost had a fall myself on friday night at a public festival walking around it was dark can't see the sidewalks crack and you just people have a hard time getting around so we really need to work on some of the stuff that yes we're going to end up getting sued big time

All right, so moving into the different budgets, council budget, I am proposing a $50 per meeting salary, if you will, for the Planning Commission. So it would be $50 per meeting that they attend. They are currently not compensated, but they have been working a tremendous amount the last few years. And just proposing a $50 per meeting for the Planning Commission. Slight increase in some travel and training costs based on costs from the previous years. Decreased legal services based on the new attorney. And then the municipal election expense line item, which we exceeded that with three elections this year. Zeroed out as there are no elections on the agenda or on the calendar for this year. On the administration side, again, the 3% and the fringe benefits. Increase in maintenance contract to upgrade the software. That's year two of that. It was a two-year plan. So that's payroll, finance, business licenses, utility services also there. So it's the second and final year of that implementation. Building inspection services, remember talking about raising the permits. That correlates to we also have to pay more. So that's reflected in the permitting side. We are maybe getting close to a point where we could support bringing that back in the house. That's something we can look at over the next year.

Why wait a year? Contract's up in June. Is it not? Why do we keep pushing things down the road a year at a time? I'm sorry, but I'm getting at an age where a year at a time is all right. But why not? Right now, as it stands, if we increase our, as my understanding, if we increase our permit, we actually, if we increase it a dollar, that means we get 10 cents. Yes, sir.

The 90-10, yes, sir.

Yeah, 90 cents out of every dollar for a permit, except for those permits which do not involve Safeville. They involve Safeville, the 90-10. Most all of them involve Safeville. 90 cents out of every dollar goes to Safeville. $136, and I'm bad at numbers, all right? But this year, $136. I'm saying... Not to extend the contract. Put it on a month-to-month basis with them.

What was our total revenue last year?

I don't know. In the permits? $90,000. At the moment, we've generated $92,844 through March 20th. That was what was presented.

question about if we take that back over yes sir and we do building permits and we do building the spaces ourselves what department are they going to work on because state statute says they can't issue tickets they don't work under the police department if i'm not correct so that's where they're going to have to be and not in the town hall

I hadn't done that research yet to bring that. That wasn't the plan tonight. The way it works now with code enforcement, he is in the town hall. He's under admin. If a ticket needs to be issued, he works with the police department to do that.

A fielding inspector doesn't necessarily have to write a ticket. I said he can, but he doesn't necessarily intend to.

historically when we had a building official they I believe just worked under town hall they worked under the town manager oh and it's also it was a lot less going on in that time frame well if something yeah you'd have to have some kind of a plan in place in order to have somebody to fill in for days off, sick days, things of that nature.

Did we not used to have Lexington County in our inspections at one time? Or am I wrong?

No, we had our own inspection. Yeah, I don't recall. We had G.W. Matthews and Willie Terlizzi. We're part of their MS.

I don't think we ever had Lexington County come in.

Lexington does stormwater review, and that's really the only thing that I'm... well they do that as well but but for us that's all we have used them for yes sir stormwater yes sir they they do all of our stormwater

but with a ninety ten match and the limited ways that town can actually make revenue and if they're pocketing eight hundred thousand dollars a year no they're not no no ninety two is what we brought in total so eighty it probably cost us that much to hire somebody plus benefits it might cost you more yeah we're we're getting close to that being a wash

again I was thinking that was something we might would look at moving forward looking at it for next year because I don't know that we're in a position to you know it's close I mean it would be they charge us flat rate or they charge us per permit when they come in here right so they charge us based off of the inspections and off the permit so they do the inspections And then in last month packet that was presented as well in the work session. So it is it is based off of the number of inspections they have to do. But yeah, basically, they're getting 90%. If you come and build a house and it costs $1,500, they're getting 90% of that.

Yeah, cuz I know from my experience, when the what I just did, I had paid for my permit, I had to submit the my plans to let them approve it. And yeah, it came out. wants to look at the hole that we had put posts in the ground, and he didn't come back until we got finished. He was there every other five minutes.

That is one of the things that I have a little heartburn with is it is the responsibility of that builder, the contractor, to call and say, I'm ready for my inspection on X, Y, and Z. And then we put in the inspection, and they come out, and they go and look at X, Y, and Z. now they've still got to get that CEO but there are times when they might miss a few calls and they got to get kind of made up and I don't know exactly what your yours was that you know kind of the I mean they tell us they came out there look that tell us to proceed call them when we were through yeah because yours wasn't any I think it should be at least three inspections Well, and if you're building a house, there's going to be a lot more than three. There are quite a few, your rough ends and your electricals. And so they're in plumbing and mechanical. So there are a lot of different inspections on a standard house. In your case, it wasn't as complicated as that. But one thing that I have raised a concern with is if if Paul's building a house or building a garage in the backyard and he never calls for that inspection they don't go by and check and so one advantage of having somebody under roof would be you know what's in progress you can ride by and go take a look even when they haven't called and they can pop in and look at something so there are a lot of advantages to having it in house it would be worth maybe checking to see what kind of rates And that might be something, you know, Joe mentioned the county. Maybe the county would be willing to serve as that backup that fills in on some holidays or days where the person is on vacation or sick.

Right. A lot of the retired contractors, general contractors.

And that's what we had done. That was what we had done previously with G.W. Matthews. They do have to be certified. They've got to test and have their LLR licensed.

It's not really just that easy.

It used to be.

and the challenge is you do get into plan reviews and you do get into commercial residential it's a lot for one person to know and be certified in so I don't know if it's as easy as just hiring one person to do the job we get to the point where we start building these 500 houses and that's going to be the time to look at it really hard before that happens

and get it in place, it's going to cost us a lot of money for that many inspections to be going on by somebody that's getting 90% of the revenue. Before the permits are gone.

I can certainly look at that and get information back to you sooner and I can reach out to Safefield about the possibility of going to a month-by-month agreement. I don't know how that would look, but we can certainly look have that conversation. Did I write myself a note?

They have hired a lot of good people, that is for sure.

And there's the

They've got a good deal because they're picking up all the small towns. All right, so moving back to the slideshow, the last item is generators for both Building A and Building B are shown in the town hall maintenance line item. Again, that would be a 50-50 split between the general fund and the enterprise fund. Looking at the fire department budget, again, salaries, fringe benefits. We did reduce the equipment repairs. We had a one-time upgrade in air packs that was completed I keep having 24, 25 in there, but they had air packs, so we had a reduction there. Telecommunications was reduced fiscal year 26 following radio purchase. They have requested three truck-mounted radios and two new MDT terminals. We cut the truck-mounted radios. That's more of a won't, something that will be beneficial for ISO long-term, but the portables are adequate. The two MDTs, which are the mobile data terminals, those are the laptops that are in their vehicles, that is to have two in the command vehicles for the chief and the assistant chief. Currently we have those in the engines and tanker. and then maintenance and repair increase related to some cost increases. We were over budget fiscal year 26 due to major repairs on some of the engines. Getting rid of the older engine, which actually was a very reliable one, and replacing it with a new engine, hopefully we'll see that stabilize, but we did increase that line.

Yes. Communications. In the budget, you have $1,500 for telephones. Use of cell phones for fire chief, assistant chief. Last year we budgeted $700,000 and have reflected no expenditures against that, yet we're almost doubling it this year.

Yeah, those have been getting, I think they were getting charged to the police department, so we're getting that straightened out. But that provides cell phone for the chief, assistant chief, fire inspector, and then the only person. That will be it, correct?

These FY25-26 actual numbers that you indicate are good through FY2026, are they actually... through April, I mean, through May 20th. We haven't had financial reports since December, and I thank the staff for being able to come up with these numbers.

You had the report sent to you a couple weeks ago, and then this one was from last week. I was able to pull some information from a couple different sources to pull that together.

You're talking about the massive raw data report?

Mm-hmm. well the ones a couple months ago were raw data but the one that was sent most recently was the four different budgets that were reflected fall in the old system and then the one report that was in the new system combined all four of those so it does require a little bit of math but it was not a raw data dump And they have gotten it closer to being fully integrated with all of it in the new Springbrook software. The information from a couple of days ago, there's a couple of things that still need to be, hey, corrected.

There's reasons for that. And, you know, I guess I'll address it when we get to the utility enterprise fund. It seems like we haven't paid joint mutual a single dollar last year.

We have, but we'll talk about that in a minute. And that was another coding issue. Municipal court salary and wages, the new clerk's salary was higher than previous, so that puts him on the scale with the comp and class, and then there was also an increase with the municipal judge contract and the magistrate judge, both of those increased. And then the maintenance contract decreased related to that one-time payment for the conversion to CMS software. So that was the software that brought the court system to the state level system. Police department salary wages from fringe benefits. Staffing shortages over the past month have led to excessive overtime use. That's obvious. So we're hoping that that line item will be better. There was an increase in that line item up to $250,000 a year. We've blown past that this year. But we're going to get the staffing under control. And we're going to get that better. E911 dispatch, that was reduced by $20,000 after the server was purchased last year. And again, that line item is reimbursed through the state at 80%. And that's reflected in the revenue. Maintenance contract increased by $58,208. That reflects the five-year agreement on tasers that Major Baltonite had presented a couple months ago as a request. That has not been signed or approved, but we're requesting that. And then the ARM software, which was approved last month by Council at $28,815. Those two increases are reflected in that maintenance contract. Building maintenance increase, $10,000 related. There's some jail improvements. Again, major improvements are needed. And that goes back to what we had talked about in that work session as well, that I think it's imperative that we get an architect that will work with us on what those improvements are at the police department, fire department station 26, and coming up with a plan on town hall. So at the moment, it's just a $10,000 increase in budget on the building maintenance. Public Works, which is also called the street department, salary and wages, The repair, equipment repair, we're hoping that the replacement of the older equipment will make that better. So we did not change it, but we did exceed it this year. But hopefully the new skid steer and the new compact wheel loader that replaces the backhoe will be much more efficient and better. Garbage collection, that again is a pass-through line item that is paid out to waste management. And then sidewalk line item was reduced since we did not receive a CFUN grant this year. So that was dropped down. We did leave $1,000 in there for some emergency stuff.

Was there a reason for not getting a CFUN grant?

The request was for it to be multi-year as part of the Safe Streets grant. And the county did not want to commit to a multi-year plan because other agencies are going to have the Safe Streets grant soon. So they did not want to set that precedence. And so we were denial of that. It wasn't a, hey.

We didn't have an opportunity to apply for a single year.

No, our request was for a multi-year to try to have a multi-year commitment, and that was it. Looking at fleet services, nothing significant changed there except salaries and benefits.

Non-departmental, we're adding a vehicle.

Yes, sir. But it's a replacement vehicle, so it shouldn't see any.

Do we have a net gain in vehicles?

No, sir. They will be replacement vehicles. We probably would reallocate one used vehicle for use for the janitor position. So we would have a net gain of one, but we did not budget for a new vehicle for that position. So we have talked about... repurposing the town hall vehicle. So the fire department will be giving up the pickup truck. Yes sir.

So we have a net gain of one.

So in the non-departmental line item our budgets are estimated $185,000 annually for that lease purchase payment. That would include seven police vehicles, a fire department pickup truck, two public work tractors, and then a 50 percent share of the IT van and a fleet truck. That is replacing the previous years as the current lease purchase has been paid off.

The IT van is a plus.

That is true. Yes, sir, you are correct. I stand corrected. So this is – This is an estimate based off of the conversations with the finance people. So 185, it has not been bid yet. We intend to bring an ordinance to you at the June council meeting with second reading basically timed along with budget. And that would involve the bids being received June 29th by the same company that worked with us before with Brent and Parker Pogue. Miscellaneous expense was lowered as it was used to pay off the comprehensive plan, which is paid off even if it hasn't been completed, the final check out. Central Midlands is in this budget. Is that a five-year lease purchase? Yes, sir. That's what's proposed. which has been our standard. It could be extended or shortened, but five years.

I'm worried about the other four years. What do we do about replacements during the other four years? We're back to the old game.

In the IT budget, again, salary, wages, you've got the IT services, computer materials was reduced following several projects this year. I didn't put it on there, but there are some vehicle expenses that are included in that budget as well that are new line items for that vehicle. Does anybody have any questions about the general fund so far? All right, so that's the big one. Enterprise is the next big one. So Enterprise is our utility side. So non-departmental budget, $988,309. Utility administration, $415,000. Water treatment, $709,000. Billing, $306,000. Wastewater, $1,221,000. And utility distribution, $766,000. So the total proposed budget for Enterprise is $4,408,553. just highlighting some of those revenues. Water sales projecting about $100,000 increase. That's just based off of the trends. We are estimating about 24 million gallons In my notes, it's a month. It's 24 million in a year. We do anticipate sales being 95% of that. There's 5% that's built in for leaks, hydrant use, et cetera. Base fee, $75,000 increase. That, again, is just based on the current sales rate. No rate increase is proposed. The Ridge Spring Water, $55,000 decrease. They're fully on Saluda County Water and Sewer at this time, so there is still a connection there. It stays closed. If it gets opened, there is a meter, but that's been closed and hasn't been used since last summer. Water taps. $27,000 decrease. Even though we've got all the new homes, their contractors are going to do the taps. We will install the meter installation, but whenever Creekside Ridge, their water Their plumbing company, I've drawn blanks on their names. If it was Derrick Plumbing, it would be Derrick will handle stubbing all of those lines to the meter boxes and setting the box. And then we will come in later and charge them for the meter install. And then that way, all the meters are compatible with the AMI system. Sewer treatment, $75,000 increase there on the revenue based on the current trend, not requesting a rate increase there. LGIP, $40,000 increase based on the trend, but that is market-based, so that could fluctuate as the market's been a little crazy recently. CDBG from Lexington County, it's a $254,769 decrease. That reflects us closing out two grants this year. There's only one CDBG grant that is in fiscal year 27, which is the sewer lift station improvements. The skip in SRF funds, $3,800,000 decrease. Again, that was Water Project. It's about $200,000 that remains in that line item. $200,000 roughly of grant funds available to do the decommissioning. We've requested the extension to the end of the year, and that was pretty standard. And then about a $40,000 increase in sale of equipment. Again, tied in with lease purchase with the big equipment would be a mini excavator getting sold. And then several pickup trucks. Looking at the non-departmental budget highlights. The lease purchase, again, that's two pickup trucks, the mini excavator, and then 50% cost on the IT van and the fleet truck. There is also the new line item for the lease purchase payment for the AMI. That's the payment on the new automated metering system, and that is $226,309. legal services were reduced based on the new contract rate and then the utility reserve line item again that's just kind of what is left over if you will in the budget so it was reduced mainly because of the increase in the AMI and the lease purchase but that one it's 165,000 And again, that reserve line item goes straight to LGIP. So it goes into the investment pool. Utility administration salary and wages, it did go down. We had a former utility director that was helping in some administrative services over the last year as we were closing out the plant. So those numbers have gone down. The reduction in the Gilbert Summit water purchase due to the water project completion. And then obviously the reduction in the water project expenses that ties to the skip funding. So that's that's your big dollar amount changing on the utilities admin side. And that one for that budget dropped significantly from 3,218,000 to the 415 in the water treatment budget. Salaries and wages again. Joint municipal water purchase is projected for the full year. Projected to 24 million gallons, again, like I mentioned before. This is where, Councilman Hall, your question you've raised, joint municipal water purchase, which is on the top of the water treatment page two, Department Code 41, that's a $605,000 budgeted item. It's not showing anything actual because it was incorrectly still being coded along with the Gilbert Summit purchase. And that was on the previous page in Section 40, Department Code 40. So that also is being corrected. So we have been paying joint municipal. They haven't turned us off yet. And the amount on that Gilbert Summit line item is $128.62. You were presented that in last month's meeting. I'll get it to you. I don't have that in this packet, but that was in the April work session.

I went through that, but we can get back to that.

And picking back up, water facilities reduce, obviously not producing water, but there is still use of the building, and then electricity has dropped for the same reason. I did in the joint municipal water purchase estimated $2.10, estimating an expected increase there. Utility billing, salaries, wages. Express Real Pay is the new auto bank draft system. So that's been doing a lot to save on postage, which was decreased. Build maintenance, again, that's half the cost of the town hall buildings A and B generators. Wastewater budget, salaries and wages, lab supplies increased. We're using just the wastewater plant's lab now. The water plant was closed. We're just using one lab, so all that equipment is being used to test wastewater and now the water samples. Sewer professional services was removed. That was discussed at the last meeting, and that's been shifted over to the utility maintenance line item. Wastewater Treatment Plan Improvement Project, that was zeroed out. That was the million dollar grant from Rural Infrastructure that we did not move forward with. For those of you that are new, with the agreement with Aiken County, this project would have probably been dug right back up, and so it was decided not to move forward with it, and the money was returned to, well, we never actually accepted, but we you know, cancel that agreement with rural infrastructure. And then sewer facilities utility was increased due to increasing Dominion energy cost. Utility distribution, salaries and wages, professional services costs were reduced. This is when we use a third party for assistance with major repairs and emergencies. And then the GIS and work order management that was the sewer professional services line item that was moved over and approved at the May council meeting And then just a quick overview their victims assistance is $9,500 hospitality budget is eight hundred and forty thousand Before I move past you enterprise is there anybody have any questions about the enterprise I

I've got one. Yes. Water treatment showed $709,000. Oh. I can run you into a person. That's what that poll looks like.

All the way over. All the way over.

and probably moving forward we might change that to something different

As we don't treat water anymore, you're correct.

In that line, do we own the pump station?

Yes, sir. We own the pump station.

We own the pump station. I was thinking that. So we have to maintain the pump station. And we have how many pumps in each station?

There's two pumps. I think it's two. One will operate the system. Yes, one is all that usually is operating, but there are times when they'll both be working, but usually it's just one pump that's pumping.

Is it an alternate system on there where one runs one time? I believe that is correct, yes.

And then we can monitor the hours through the SCADA system. And it was plumbed to be able to add a third pump in the future if the need arises. But, yeah, that pump station is ours.

That's something we need to be planning for replacing. Those pumps are very expensive. They are. Yes, sir.

I haven't planned to replace them just yet, but you're correct.

We need to be. That's going to be a big hit on the line item, and we have to do it at one time. We are planning ahead. Yes, sir. A hundred grand? I would say at least a hundred grand.

all right so any other questions within a process all right hospitality again the only change there we did project about ten thousand dollar increase in the revenue just from current trends Hospitality tax budget, again, there is some salary wages there with 3% increase. The creation of the new janitor position, majority of the expenses will come out of H-tax, 75%. And then there's the increased town event line item. We've been planning lots of events. That's been something the new event planner has been tasked with. in the signage proposing a replacement with an LED message board in the Leesville district to replace the 30-year-old sign that's manual lettering, an estimate of $20,000 there. We do intend to speak with the Poultry Festival about a partnership on that because it currently has their messaging on there as well. And then reductions in several line items related to the park restrooms being completed.

Speaking of signage, I would drop any signage for the secondary entrances to the town. And I would propose that we look at what other communities like Newberry and Chapin and so forth. I believe Mr. turner travels a lot those signs are typically wooden probably in the five six thousand dollar range and ten year replacement and not go for the two hundred thousand our friends at the land group south would like to put up but i we have a great little town and we have numerous entrances and i think that we ought to welcome them and i You know, come play, spend how much? Come shop, play. Come shop, play. And stay. All right? Come shop and stay. For some, welcome to be. For others, we need to be more friendly.

How many more do we need to?

There are six.

Six, that's what I was thinking.

Ridiculously six. College Course Road is nine.

Yeah, but you've got 178, 245, 391, 1, and 23. 245 on each end. And then probably Pine Branch, based off the traffic volume. So probably eight total to go.

So you moved the Pine Branch one over because it's going four lanes?

Probably not that 10-year replacement timeframe. But we can do that. We've got... So we were putting $227,000 into the reserve that was not budgeted. Do y'all want to... look at $50,000-ish going over to the town signage to address that. Again, we did have a brick signs that were designed by a land plan several years ago.

from just talking to people in my personal opinion that wasn't where I thought we needed to go so we had not moved forward with that but I mean if we want to I think the signs the decorative wooden signs of whatever composite material they used to make those signs they look nice I think so too they're very nice they're very welcoming and they're more movable

And if you hit it, it doesn't give. And DOT does not like the brick in the roadway because they want it to be well off.

They have a 10-foot strip, but you cannot put a brick on it. Yeah, so it was going to involve us. As clear as a requirement, you may have to purchase or get an easement from a property owner. Did we do any work on locations and

We had cited several locations. We talked to a couple of property owners, but there was never any easements or purchases made. That's right, but we have an idea. Yes, we mapped it out, and we can certainly bring that back out.

One thing about it, if we don't toot our own horn, nobody's going to toot it for us.

Correct. That might add on a good tooter. We'll see on June 2nd. What average did you use? Number one, the amount of money in those accounts. maybe on each tax will increase but on the other accounts you know big money is not there anymore but my concern is of course in not a whole lot but uh last fiscal year in 2025 july of 2025 they were paying 5.5 uh as of now they're paying 3.89 so

that's possible yes but I do project we will have more well the intent was to have more revenue with 200 plus thousand going into the LGIP through the reserves on the H tax but H tax isn't the problem that one's not if we if we get shortfall there a little bit that's not a make-or-break issue But to get y'all to survive, y'all want to see more money put into town signage, and then we'll move forward with something in the fall, late summer, early fall.

I think we need to do that. 75, just as a safe, if we don't spend it, it's fine.

It's going to be money well spent. Okay. All right, 75.

We can do that. And then this is just the same thing we talked about last month with the proposed capital lease purchase. Again, that's in the handout. Six police cars, Durangos, one police pickup truck, a fire pickup, a fleet work body truck, IT van, Bobcat compact wheel loader. There's also the Bobcat track loader that's going to be at the landfill that's at the bottom. And then wastewater F-150, a water F-150, and then a mini excavator for utility maintenance crew. And then resale values. We're going to look at selling street department backhoe, the skid steer, utility department mini excavator.

Who put those figures on that? Yeah, on the resale values? That mini X is going to have to be in dang good shape to get $30,000 out of it.

It came from our fleet. That was their estimate based off of what they'd seen.

It must be a really big one because you can buy a new one for not too much more than that. The one we are replacing it with is 72,000. So it must be bigger than the average. That's going to be pushing and getting out of the price of a Mini-X up to an X.

This is not supposed to be an X. It's supposed to just be a Mini-X that we can haul around on a trailer all right all right and then we talked about it earlier I've mentioned we'd come back to it business license fee this is the same information that was presented to you Was that the last work session before it all runs together? The current is on the left in the gray. My recommendation is in the pink on the right. Again, doubling the gaps from $1 million to $2 million gaps and eliminating the 60%. We had 21 businesses. This is fiscal year 2025. We didn't have all of the numbers. ready for 26 but 21 businesses reported 2 million or more in gross revenue and 13 businesses were over 4 million the recommendation again removes 60 adjusted the ranges and it should generate based off of those numbers about sixty thousand dollars in new revenue If y'all would like something different, we can certainly do that. But that was my recommendation to increase it, but not.

Well, the move from 0 to 1 to 0 to 2, I see it as a penalty of those people getting their business running and going great. I heard the schedule let it go 5-5-5, drop it from 10%

increments to five percent increments this year and look at eliminate ninety five percent ninety percent eighty five ninety eighty five eighty I think we need to work or at least not let me given going past eighty percent I think that we need to work on doing that is this a

It's a big chunk of money. I mean, it's a big chunk of change. You're essentially penalizing the same people. Yeah.

If you're going to give anybody a break, it ought to be the small guys, not the big guys. Agreed. That's the ones. Those are the ones. That's the bulk of the businesses in town. And you get the big boys coming in here trying to take business away from the small guys. And they're getting patted on the back saying, come on, let's do some more. So you get a lot of people, a lot of the small guys are very frustrated because of that.

You say twenty five. Twenty five is more than.

The twenty one were two million or more.

Eight of those were locally owned.

I did not add that up. That probably is about right. Yes.

So we're not. five five five five and stop it at eight or seven whatever but i think we need to go a little we're going to need money for implementation of the comprehensive plan these people make money off of doing business on the infrastructure that we provide

Yeah. That's something that we need to work on.

Yeah, I don't think that's a decision to be made tonight.

No, we have until January 1. We can't impact the business license collections for next year. But we have up until January 1, actually probably a little later than that, but we really seriously need to look at where we're going to get money to implement a decent comprehensive plan, not a comprehensive compensation, but maybe not the one that was proposed, but something that would benefit our employees. And, you know, that's a start. Here is one good place to look.

The more money we can get there, we've got a few people that are going to complain. Well, so they're gonna pass that all along to everybody. That's the cost of doing business. So it's gonna go on out. But we end we go up and we get a 10 mil increase in property tax. Everybody, we're gonna have a revolution.

I don't know of anybody who even consider moving out of town if we went zero on discount. i mean that's a big pill to swallow trying to move a business particularly if you're in the four six eight million dollar range relocating that is very significant i you know i believe we need to work with our business owners and promote local businesses as much as we can but at the same time we need to be realistic about where our revenue comes from.

I agree.

I don't mind paying it for my business. Are you saying lower the rate to $0.96 an hour? I mean, $0.96 per thousand for retail? I'm not sure. I'd have to look. You're looking at one. As I recall, my memory is bad. Five different classifications make up the top 25 or 30 business.

Or just having one set? Well, having it fixed.

I'm for maybe one discount rate over four million or something like that in the long run, but not do it in one single stroke in one year. Give these people an opportunity for credit for it. But let's face it. At $1.20, the difference between $1.20 per 1,000 and 60% revenue is $0.48 per 1,000. So this means that a furniture store would have to raise the price of $498 televisions at $0.24. a large drink from mcdonald's will have to go up less than a penny per se because let's face it it's a pass-through all right people are not going to eat it they're going to pass it through but the thing about the same token the restaurants and at the shops

The bulk of that income is coming from out of town people and that's going to let the out of town people who are using the facilities help pay for that.

I still say 85% of the retail revenue that comes through this town does not live inside the city limits and they are not our constituents.

And those are the people that are causing the most wear and tear on the roads and all of that. Yes. It's a I see it as a win-win for the town to be able to get more money that way. I mean, after all, you got Irma who survives on, they don't charge property tax at all. It's zero. And they get it off a business license, but they got a lot more businesses than we have. But nobody revolts over there and they don't refuse to build in town because of how those stores in town because of it.

Columbia has a top-end discount rate of $110 million before you get their top-end discounts. There are probably, and this is swag scientific quality, but I would probably say 25% of the communities that have business licenses have zero discounts. Dillon, Darlington, Marion. Just off the top of my head, those are the ones I've researched.

And I think some of them are, in the local areas, most discount they give would be 10%, 90%. It's as low as it goes.

Casey was still a fourth step. Yeah. So we'll have a work session on business license. So if y'all have got some proposals and ideas, we can plug some numbers in and see what that looks like.

Then the next thing, The budget as presented is balanced. It's with a 3% cost of living increase. What we had talked about previously was a comp and class trying to do an increase for salaries outside of just a cost of living increase. So what we have right in front of you is a proposal of a four-mill increase and what that would look like. Four-mill increase at $23,500 per mill would generate $94,000 in revenue. In the grid, you've got a sample of some houses, $82,800 house would be about a $13.24 increase. That increase per mil for them is $3.31. Going up to $189, that's a $30 increase. Then on the high end there was a $312,000 house, which would see about a $50 increase. This doesn't get into, you know, I didn't do property taxes on vehicles. I didn't get into that. But this is showing homes, the vehicle property taxes, it's included in that $94,000. So that would be one idea. Again, talking about the compensation and classification study. This is the information that was presented several times. So they had proposed an estimated $285,634 to get everybody on the scale. And roughly $259,300 is general fund side. That number might be a little off, but that's roughly what I've come up with. We have done some changes on the enterprise side. They're in good shape as we presented last month or the month before. So if we did a $94,000 or a formula increase that generates $94,000 of revenue, That would be a total price, which would allow for about $74,000 in salaries. Obviously, there's retirement that would be included, Social Security, workers' comp. So in the general fund positions, again, this is only talking general fund, because that's all that's influenced by the millage increase. Street department, an average increase of about $2,000 per employee. well below the minimum. And then the department had about a $1,500 increase. Does this include benefits? This is just the salary, and it will total $74,000 and then at least $20,000 for the benefits, like the retirements of security workers come.

And our retirement is at what?

18%? Not our portion. I think our portion is 11%. I think it's 11%. The employee pays nine. I was using the calculator that we have or the spreadsheet that is provided by our HR director. And so for $74,000 in salaries, the correlation was about $20,000. For a little bit for workers' comp, a little bit on Social Security, the vast majority was retirement. So it might be closer to 18%, which would be, what's that, about $13,000 or $14,000 off of 74%. I don't have . It's about 25%. So based off of the information I had from HR, that was the number to work with. So what we're talking about here are $74,000 in salary increases. There are correlating fringe benefits as well. Fire department was on average increase of about $1,500. One position is at the minimum, but the four positions are below. The chief and assistant chief are well below. And they're not going to get close anytime soon. Dispatch jailer was an average increase of $1,200 for the dispatchers and $2,000 for the supervisor, who is also well below. The dispatchers are below, but the supervisor is well below the minimum. Clerk at court, it would actually just be moving them up one spot to step two at $900. When we hired him, we tried to bring him in on step one. Fleet, $1,500 on the mechanic who's below the minimum, $1,500 for the lead mechanic who's well below. Administration, the finance town clerk and the permit clerk, $1,500 to bring them up to the minimum or to improve their status. Finance clerk, HR, business license, code enforcement, IT, and assistant town manager looking at a $1,000 increase.

Do you believe in AI?

I do believe in AI.

Does it? The employer contribution rate for the South Carolina Employment System, SCRS, is 18.41% of an employee's gross pay. Employers are also subject to additional incidental death contributions of 0.15% and state-mandated retirement insurance surcharge of 6.35%.

So what's 18%?

Bringing a total employer cost of 24.91%. And that is referenced in PEBA. All right, so we are talking now for over $125,000.

No, sir. I think you're mistaken. So $74,000 is the salaries, and so 25% of $74,000 is right around $20,000, which brings up to the $94,000 that we're talking about.

But that doesn't include FICA. That does not include our contribution to FICA. Yes, it does. That's...

Based off of what I was given from the sheet that we used, the salary benefit.

I'm bad at math, but when I started at 24.91, I find it difficult to get back down to 24. So 25% of $74,000. We might be $4,000 or $5,000 off there.

7.51. The 25% of 74,000 is 18,500. That's not for our law enforcement and fire department.

They are in a totally different system and our contribution is greater for them. Which I believe is accounted for in that whereas 18,500 is the 25%. Well, 20,000 was the number that... My views are often bad.

i wasn't saying that so i value your opinion but i do think twenty thousand you know is the the number that and i think ninety four thousand dollars uh coming directly out of our constituents pockets uh is not the way to go um and then so just to finish that um you know the town manager is not included in that Just for clarity's sake. Police department, all but one employee would be $15,000 and up. Community service was $1,000. The major and the chief are well below the minimum. So that is one option that is not a major tax increase, but it is an increase. If y'all would like to tackle it through business license, that is certainly an option. That is my recommendation is that 4% increase.

What was that?

I would love to see us go that route. Okay. If it's a possibility.

So. What was that again? Millions.

Yeah, the smaller the millage, if it has to creep up. I mean, we can do it. We can figure out a way to do it.

Yes, but if not, I mean...

right now we're limited on where the money's going to come from because we can't make any difference in the budget current budget year because we can't start charging more business licenses until next year no no no pardon me sir business license would be effective in april which would mean april may and june of next year's uh this budget would be impacted by any change we make in business licenses that revenue falls in here we change it we change it by january one it impacts us uh the extra money that we would need before then out of the reserve fund make that yeah We owe it to our employees to take care of our employees. I just don't think it's

welfare when they work hard every day and that's that's the same on us and the people in town the citizens of this town ought to be ashamed of that themselves and be willing to help some I would not want to put it all on that but I do think that we should have maybe a two percent bill or two mil increase And that would offset, you know, just, is that what, didn't we do that last year? It was two years ago. Yeah, it was two years ago.

And then we rolled back. Then you rolled back five, six, eight, seven.

It was 101.5, went down to 93.4.

Yeah. So we did roll back. Yeah. All right. So a two mil increase would not be that bad. Right. Yeah.

i think that would help to do a two million increase would help us i guess that's the cost of a hamburger to drink at mcdonald's yeah right and then if we small hammer small hands no matter what we do the revenue will not start coming in until january that's right

unencumbered balances should cover. I don't like the word reserve unless we establish a formal reserve line per se. But two percent, two mil increase As I'm sitting, I believe that if we go to a zero discount rate on business licenses, which I would propose for two years from now, our largest business license would bring in an Any $500,000?

I think I had the total estimated at like $400,000 if you'd completely eliminate it.

But the top one alone would be over 25% of that. Well, it's currently at 73.

We're affecting a smaller percentage by doing that than we are the whole. I mean, it's...

You don't want to suck it to the businesses, but... No, I'm saying to ease it in over... We're not sucking it to them. I think we're making reasonable...

It's really not that much of a difference in the whole scheme of things with business. You know, it affects... We're doing it over time.

That gives businesses time to adjust and do what they need to do.

I think that's and we need to find a way to and we need to find a way to what are some of our larger people paying in a business license tax?

I can make a difference. 73,000. 20 people who pay more than four mil. So their license would be 75,000?

It drops very quickly. 13 over.

But I mean, I don't want to get past more than that.

Here's my thing about sanitation. As many emails and as many calls as I get about trash, I'm all for standing here and telling waste management to take a hike if they don't get better. They are not doing what they're supposed to do. All you got to do is go down to the alley in Leasel. Some trash gets picked up. Others don't. Same dang gum alley, truck drives through there. Some places get picked up, some places don't. Every week.

Every week. But we're not explaining it to them correctly.

Oh yeah, the thing is, get it fixed.

Well, the thing is to hit them in the pocketbook. Start charging back. for those customers and make it known You complain, you had it out there at 7 o'clock in the morning on the day of the pickup, it wasn't picked up, it's not picked up 24 hours after you notified the town hall, then basically you're entitled to a refund. We get the refund for waste management. It begins to hurt, all right?

They actually told me they weren't going to pick it up.

But the thing of it is, they need to actually complain to the town hall and not complain on Facebook.

that if we make it public what the process is and what the procedure is and give it at least give it 90 days to see whether or not it's going to take hold all right and then and then try to hit them in the pocketbook we've got two years left on the contract but i will say the cost of those are going up and in west columbia i'm sure we just have to keep it it was 140 dollars just a couple years ago it just went to 777 two cubits it's you know it's astronomical what and that's the capital ways they're just you know their diesel fuel costs and this and that i mean that's their reasoning when you start talking about pardon me but when you start talking about waste management advanced ways republic republic europe you're talking about the same company all right they're just talking about subsidiaries they've been golfed

My thing is, if they're supposed to pick it up, you need to pick it up. If you're being paid to pick it up, pick it up the day you're supposed to get it.

If you don't pick it up, you don't get paid. Not only that, the CPI in our contract is a urban CPI. There is a rural CPI, and we are as rural as you get and still be a reasonable-sized town. based on the size of our community. Also, we have real leverage coming down the road because we're looking at 500 new customers. So the key is, yes, we need to do something immediately, but long term, we've got to use every single leverage item we have in order to get a better contract, regardless of who we negotiate with. Or do it ourselves. yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah

how do they feel about us withholding funds for not pickups and are there enough there for them to we're going to have to be very clear on what that process looks like and we need to have something clearly defined so that we are documenting that because you know bob laid out the the agreement in our contract but we we need to make sure i was just wondering if we need to propose the contract

but being able to prove that these are not being picked up, things like that is probably.

The challenge is, was it out there, just like you mentioned? A lot of times we get a he said, she said. There's times we will reach out, and they will send back a picture that says, here's their driveway, and there's no trash can there when we came by at this time. They've got timestamps. So it's not always 100% the fault of waste management. We sometimes get information that's not accurate. and that that opens up a whole nother Pandora's box on on managing it because that is a duty of utility billing and so I mean we will have to come up with a plan there I I don't know the best way to do that we'd have to come up with a plan I know when they pick up mine they take a picture and send it to you that's where your dumpster dumpster they take a picture every time they come in there Yeah, I think all of their trucks are equipped with cameras.

Waste management bills us. builds us according to the number of containers they picked up. Is that correct? Not the number of stops, but the number of containers.

So we communicate with them how many. So if you've got two trash cans, they're made aware that there are two cans at that address. And so yes, it is based off the number of cans that they're dumping, not addresses.

But coming from us? we we communicate that to them now they would do an audit they do an audit annually to to verify and they'll they'll ask for a list so they know because i see an awful lot of two cans three cans out there and then on recycle day three cans and four cans out per se and we have three thousand well twenty four hundred more customers which is

But now that you can come up, a business can come up and pay for more cans. Anybody can. Yeah, anybody can. And some of them do that. One of them buys big things. I go get coffee every morning at our crate. He's been complaining about his trash, so he bought five more cans. He's not complaining so much now because I don't see how he made it with two cans. A hundred bucks? Yes, sir. He spent a hundred bucks for He got five cans.

He bought five more cans. He spent five times our $20 and some change. And we really need, it's a separate issue that needs to be addressed in both downtown areas. uh we are operating in a uh we're trying to operate in a modern environment and a town that was in towns that were designed back when you had horses and then you you had things didn't come in cardboard boxes uh and so forth but we need to do something about dumpsters in both downtown areas and about corrals and forcing the corrals i asked him

If he'd tried a dumpster and he first started out, he did. He put a dumpster about there and it was on Brent Sealy's concrete. And that's the only place about there he could put it because the power line's over here and he put it there. Brent called and told him he had to go, that he couldn't have it there, which was his property. But really in that alley, it's not any place to put a dumpster.

Well, and the two alleys in Leesville and the one in Batesburg, they're all facing that same challenge. And ownership of the actual alleys, the alley behind Western Auto in the Leesville district, it's individual property. Yeah, it's individual property.

Individual properties go all the way back to the alley line. So they're putting it on individual properties. is solution in batesburg and that would be to buy one of the dilapidated buildings after we put in a vacant building ordinance would be to buy one of the buildings on the east side of maine oak tear it down and build a plaza and put corrals there as well as make it available for food trucks to pay for the cost but that's just a wild idea i had after pizza and watermelon well that was the end of the

that was the end of the presentation I have one thing going back to the salary I don't want to be the devil's advocate because I do understand our people are underpaid and they need that compensation I'm all for that but I've checked with several towns here in the last couple weeks or whatever and Their employees are paid 30%, on average 30% more than ours, but every one of their employees is certified in their field. We've hired a lot of people that's not certified in their field. Do we need to reward those people or offer them some kind of training to get to those levels and maintain, or will we look at certified employees once we get to that level of caliber of employees?

well certifications in different fields most of our people are certified like with the police we will hire non-certified and then they go to the academy and get certified so our staff gets they go through municipal association certifications I know one that just recently finished her business license certification so yes we we do send people to classes for certifications We don't typically... We're not usually in a position to hire somebody that's already certified in those fields because of salaries. When we've had positions open, we don't typically get other people from local government to apply. That's rare. We might get somebody in police or fire. But in town hall, we are always starting at ground zero and training them up. But there are several positions in town hall that do have certification programs. I went through the local government Oh, gosh. Local government. It's been a few years. But an economic development institute as well.

just one of our normal employees, HR. I mean, say, making $70,000 at Chapin, and we're paying them $66,000 or $65,000, whatever. We wish it was that, yeah. But, I mean, is there any way we can give them incentive to...

I'm all for that. And typically, going back to the police as the analogy or the example, they are compensated with an increase. So there's a non-certified, and then once they become certified, they do. We typically do a 5% increase when somebody does get a certification level. So we do try to incentivize that. not gonna say we can't get better on training and education that's always something we're striving for but you know I think there there is some to that but unfortunately there's not a lot of just classes on local government you know Yeah, for Cricket with assistant town manager, she's a year in. She's taking certain classes, but it's not a true certification for managers. But we can certainly look at having more of those education incentives and can present that to council as well for... cause I don't think yeah I don't think people would have a problem they they have we send people to class regularly and so we have there's a incentive tied to it there I'm curious with the new software program that we are using in the town hall and in the administrative area especially the budgeting

and so forth and so on, does the software itself have a certification process? A lot of them do. You know, you certify, you can teach, and so forth and so on.

Yeah, we've had a lot of training, but I'm not aware of the certification through them.

Yeah, you know, like if we had that, like had at least the one person, you know, start to say, it would get the certification, so that would help the others.

if you get the uptown update there's always every month they have some kind of certification training going on all the time but paper on the wall does not performance

You know, professional, I once had someone sitting in your chair tell me that professionalism, being a professional was also the same thing as being competent. There is more to it than, you know, I've seen. But it's all for more.

More incentive than a merit system. You've been here three years. Right.

Yeah, where it's available, I think.

So therefore, reliance on paper on the wall is one thing, but the other thing, of course, obviously, is do you give him, do you motivate him, and do you disincentivize him? Sometimes, you know, the carrot's great, but sometimes you have to have other options. Of course, obviously, if you can't hire a replacement, you can't let someone go, but... but we do have issues like that. I have one last question on my part. There's a note in here somewhere about the auditor and under the new contract.

I think that was just a carrier from last year, and I had not updated that. There's no new contract with the auditor. It's the same agreement that we've been under.

We do have to look at... an auditor contract needs to be in place by the first day of August.

That's usually the time frame, yes.

To prepare for that, you know,

Yes, yeah, so the three percent is already built into what we discussed tonight and then the the other compensation would be additional It does not Step toward the steps All right, so So for my marching orders looking ahead, I'm going to reach out to SafeBuild about month by month, add $75,000 in town signage to H-TACs, business license, work session with a 5% change with a two-year plan to implement, looking at a two-mill increase instead of a four-mill increase, and then auditor and then trash collection as well was there anything specific we want to we've got the trash contract or trash ordinance that will be bringing in June yes I have reached out to have a meeting but we need to make sure that we express our displeasure we're on our third manager that we're dealing with all in six months This will be the start of year four out of five. We've got two more years under the agreement.

Yeah, three years. But if they don't pick the trash up, they've voided the contract.

Was that the guillotine?

Yes.

If they don't start doing a better job, it's time to cut the axe out. Cut the axe and chop the corn.

I mean, you know, I think about it this way. If I were in a parking lot, they'd get the job and burn down by now. Just saying.

what they understand Richland County did it to them for the same reason they don't do their job and that's why they were going to be better because they have all those Richland County guys that were going to be coming over here instead of getting better it got worse when they refused to come back out I got frustrated and we deducted from their bill again

Well, I will counter by saying that on Friday they did have a small truck because there are no Friday routes. They had a small truck that came out to address issues that were raised on Thursday. So they did come out Friday with a special truck to service it.

On recycle they didn't pick up and they said, no, we're not going to come back. The recycle truck is not coming back until next week. So ours didn't get picked up on Thursday. The next Thursday it came back on a Monday. So we got picked up on Monday and Thursday.

they picked up monday it's a holiday and they were there picking up trash it doesn't always happen it's just a thing sometimes

Is it isolated to any particular part of town? Because I can't say at my house.

We don't have any issue at my house. They pick it up every day. There must be good drivers coming on Monday. We have. That's what usually is. Number one. It goes up back up as usual.

What they do on our street.

Maybe a case of beer sitting out at Christmas time helps a little bit.

Well, I'm going to tell you something. I wanted to go thank that fellow Monday morning because he's out there putting traction in that truck, and I'm sitting at home off work.

Yeah. I have the same thing. I'm sitting at home. They're out there getting the truck. I didn't expect it. I put it out anyway.

What happens on our street is they come like one quick carry, and they go out and they go out to someone. They come back, and then they take my street and go out, and then they go back out to Saluda Highway, so they forget to get from Park Street. back to 23.

Well, how do you how do you get an assigned route? It doesn't work. It's not supposed to go by memory, they supposed to have it.

Well, they just, I mean, and it just misses that, you know, and I've watched him do it. So I know that that's what they're doing. But in his four houses there. And sometimes they just miss that whole both sides. But usually it's because they go out and by the time they get off so that their supervisor obviously got something because they can send the dadgum text to you trash bin but I think in some of the people that hurt that have complaints where they're missed often it's something like that going on

Well, and I will say this, with the alley in Leesville, oftentimes it's blocked, there's cars parked in the way, and they don't make an effort, they're not going to get out of the truck to go say, hey, can you move your car?

Well, that's something that we need to rely on. If it's a town's alley, then we put up no parking signs and we enforce them. Because if people have plenty in Leesville, there's plenty of places to park on the street, you don't have to park in the alley. so if that's a problem that that has been the correct our end of the deal that has been a problem when we've we've spoken you know economy is one of them and then yeah fox's beer and wine today when i was out there and one of them was complaining about the trash so i picked up i go back there and i see why there's a handicapped truck parked right in the middle of the dadgum alley and nobody in it so you know what you what you do I can understand why they can't get through it.

And we've had complaints on Linwood Street. I think it's similar there. Linwood's narrow and people park on the side of the road. If it's blocked, they're not going to walk 100 yards to get your cans. I'll take a picture and send it to you.

I'm sorry, two other points. One is your note about the... charge for additional charge for uh parks and uh yeah i've lost the term for must be gauged uh lost the term but why were roads not included

That's just, I was only identifying those two. I have full intention for it to be bid out as every impact fee that we can possibly pursue.

Railroad Avenue is ours, and it is not in great shape and deteriorating fast because we have some 18-wheelers cutting over the street and so forth. And why, why not there? It would.

We're working on that RFP. So it would include everything.

And the other one is subdivisions. We're not getting impact. We're not getting tax fees for subdivisions. That's that's standard. I mean, yes, supposedly we'll be getting that fees off of the subdivision here behind McDonald's.

So the way we always do it is if our people do the tap, the tap fee is supplied. If the contractor is in the case of, you know, Creekside Ridge, the number I've heard.

Do they legally have the option? They have to. The way it works from bidding this stuff, when you go and you bid this job, the developer has to pay for putting the sewer line in. The town's not paying for the sewer line, so the tap fees are put in on that sewer line when they go in there. That's part of it. You have to bid it that way to get that tap fee. That's part of the contractor. He's got to put them there. So the town shouldn't be charging for the tap fee and charge for a meter or hookup, but you can't charge for the tap fee because the line's already tapped. there will be impact fees yeah if you tap in that yeah there'll be one tap fee there but once that once that sewer line is turned over to the town and they go back and add somebody else in there then the town's going to get that tap if we agree to take the shoreline yeah that's always an option just about getting people to do that we don't have to put in our specs yeah anything else turn it back over to you all right since steve is not here to do his presentation there's nothing else on our agenda so without objection we're adjourned