City Council - Regular Meeting

We're live. Good evening, everyone. I'd like to call the study session for the proposed annual operating budget and CIP to order at 530 p.m. There is no regular agenda, so we will move forward to the city manager's report on our budget. Ms. Sharpe.

Honorable Mayor Crowe, members of the City Council, thank you so much for joining me tonight. I also have Donna Gayden, our budget consultant here with me sitting to my left, as well as our department directors, which they made themselves available should there be any department specific questions that come up about the budget. So with that said, we will go ahead and get started. I do want to let you all know that there have been a few changes which we will walk through since the second draft you all received on May 15th. As I told you all at the outset, I would be working on this budget all the way up until adoption, and it went all the way up until Friday. So what we have now is the final proposed budget. with the exception of one item that I do want to discuss with you all and receive guidance from you all on as far as street repairs and sidewalk repairs. And we'll talk about that a little bit later. So here we have our priorities. These have been our priorities for as long as I have been here, so at least five years. Economic development, public safety, improved infrastructure, community quality of life and amenities, encourage high-quality growth, prudent fiscal management, and employees. So anytime we undertake a project or we are looking to spend money the city's funds, the taxpayer dollars, we are looking for projects that align with these priorities, which you will note on your council cover form. Anytime we bring a project forward, we try to list where that falls within these priorities. Next, we have our organization structure here, which was changed, I believe, in January of 2025. And we are still operating under that structure now. And I do want to take the time right now to extend thank yous to our team, to Donna Gayden. ebony pollard our budget analyst who is um who has accepted another position and her last day was june 5th but ebony really stepped up to assist with the preparation of the budget uh and i want to make sure to extend thanks to her for that all of the directors and their staff who have brought me suggestions ideas they put their They put in a lot of energy to this budget as well. And last but never least, Deputy City Manager Chris Crable, who so kindly and graciously stepped up to act as our finance director when Keith Cole departed. And he will tell you he's not a finance director, but he has been making it happen down there. And we should hopefully have a new finance director joining us soon. So let's get into it. So the resident property tax bill, which is where we receive a portion of our funding, where does it all go? So this is a list of all the taxing entities that our real estate and our personal property taxes come from. You'll see University City on here a couple of times, University School District, which is the highest tax rate on here, the City of University City, University City Library, Road and Bridge U City, And sewer, U-City storm. So when individuals pay their real estate and their personal property taxes, we receive a portion of that based on this tax bill. So I want to talk a little bit about some of the challenges that we face before we hop into the rest of the budget. So as you all know, the former city manager and the finance director both departed in early February, February 4th and February 6th to be exact, which is when we start budget preparation. So these were the two individuals that were the most intricately involved in the full budget, whereas the rest of us typically only had involvement in our own budget. So any departments that were under us. So Keith and Gregory had all of the institutional knowledge and information about the budget. We were able to engage Keith, his new employer, to keep him around and work with him and get some answers and have him help us out So he has been able to answer questions for us and assist in this process as well, and we're thankful to him for that. Another challenge that we encountered pretty quickly is that the finance staff that was in the department, including the assistant director, had not really been trained on essential functions, especially when it came to budget preparation and running reports. So it made it a little bit difficult for me to just – receive the information. I had to actually go and get it. I had to actually find it myself and do some research. And Donna had to actually do the same thing as well. So the first month, once we noticed things were not as clear or clean as we thought that they would be, we had to start diving in and actually finding information because we really just didn't have, the staff in the department just did not have the information. The next challenge, which is the biggest hurdle that we have is that the fiscal year 2025 is not complete. It is still incomplete as of this date. The primary reason being that our bank account, specifically our general fund bank account has not been reconciled since October of 2024. So that has created an issue for us in getting that audit complete. So this means I can't get accurate fund balance information. I do have a draft financial report that Keith Cole prepared before he left. And that is where you saw in your May 15 documents where you saw a projected fund balance. But I did indicate in those documents that I was not very comfortable with those numbers without having the fiscal year 25 audit. And because of the inconsistencies that I saw between the 24 audit, the budget book, it just, the numbers weren't lining up. I mentioned the reconciliations of the accounts not being current. And then, as I indicated to you all at the outset, I noticed a trend of utilizing our fund balance to balance our budget. Again, permissible, but it is not something I'm comfortable doing. Typically, reserves are, I like to rely on reserves for maybe one-time expenses. driving range reconstruction project, for example, would be something I would look to the reserves for. I do not think that it's not sustainable to continue to go into your fund balance to balance your day-to-day operations It's just not sustainable. Essentially, you're using your savings account to, you know, live outside of your means. So that is something that we will have to rein in and something that I will spend the upcoming year looking at to figure out how we reduce our expenditure so that we can balance our budget without having to go in our reserves or just not having to take millions of dollars out of our reserves every year. And as I mentioned briefly, there was inconsistent information across documents, inaccurate information in the prior budgets for the medical workers' comp pension contributions. There were just a lot of inaccuracies. And so it took a lot of time to kind of clean that up, which is why you all have received multiple drafts of the budget. Our charter requires that we hit certain milestone dates. And so I needed to get you guys something with the understanding that I was continuing to work. So what I have today, I am confident that the numbers are accurate. I have made some adjustments so that some of that confusion that we ran into with employees being billed across multiple codes in the general fund, I've cleaned all of that up and we'll talk a little bit about that. And after tonight, any suggestions or any cuts that you all decide to make or any additions that you all decide to make, once we're done tonight, we will then put together the final budget book. So you will get the final budget in the normal format because this has been an evolving situation day to day. It just didn't make sense to bind a document and have staff print that out until I knew I was confident with the numbers. Any questions so far at this point? Okay, so. I did, you will notice a slight difference on this slide from your packet. I actually corrected the over under amount. The initial amount I had on there was actually for just the general fund. This is for all funds. So our total revenues, which will include Interfund transfers and taking funds from our fund balance slash investments, our total revenue, $67,030,287. and the total expenditures $36,329,342. The amount left over from this is $700,945. So here you will see a list of funds. And I actually had to go into our system because one of the things I noted was that all of these funds were not listed in our budget. So when I started this process, the first budget I gave you all, I went through the prior budget book and made sure we accounted for everything in there. And then as I was working in New World, I realized that there were some funds that were not accounted for, and I wanted to make sure we accounted for everything. So this is a list of all the funds that we have. As you can see, it's a lot. With the general fund being our primary, our largest fund, all the way down to the Olive 170 TIF RPA1, which was not included in last year's budget book. That will be to pay the debt service on the TIF. And then you see everything else in between. So I have the revenues listed, expenditures, and then the amount is over under. So we'll go through those now. Oopsie daisy, what happened? Okay, so let's start with the general fund. The revenue for the general fund is projected at $35,023,785 with expenditures projected at $34,933,211 and the amount left over $90,574. So that's the number I had on your first page. So the general fund has a number of revenue sources, which I have listed here for you all. You'll see that number two, sales and use tax, is the largest source of our funding at 25.15%. And the second largest source is our gross receipts tax at 18.04%. You'll note that miscellaneous revenue is at 5.8 million, which you can see at the bottom that I've noted. That includes a transfer of 5.5 million from our general fund balance slash our investments to help balance the budget. By taking this amount, this will leave us with a 20% fund balance. Our policy requires 17%. The budget I presented to you all on the first had us a little bit below 17%. And at least one of your colleagues expressed being uncomfortable with that. So I did bring that and I was able to get that number back up and balance the budget. However, as we get into the conversation about public works projects, streets and sidewalks, I will ask you all for guidance on whether taking some additional funds for street repairs and sidewalks is feasible. for this next fiscal year. And this guy, I'm sorry, go ahead, Mayor.

My only question is, would you prefer we do questions as you go or wait till the end?

As we go.

Okay, do it.

I pause every now and again, but yes, if you have a question.

And then on the revenue side, we did adjust the interest income because of the fact that the principal, some principal in the proposed budget is departing. Correct. So the interest income will be adjusted.

Correct. We did adjust that in the final budget. We adjusted that down to account for taking money out of our investments, meaning we would not get the interest that we usually earn on that. Any other questions right now?

Council Member Brenner.

Thank you, Mayor. This is just an informational question, just so my knowledge is better. What exactly is gross receipts tax?

Sure. So gross receipts, that's usually what like Amerinspire, like the major utility companies that conduct business in our area, they pay us a percentage of their sales in the city.

Thank you.

Any other questions? All right, and this is just a chart to show you a breakdown. So again, as you can see, that sales and use tax, pretty large portion of our revenue. So for expenditures in the general fund, there are several departments that are listed in general fund. Legislation, city manager's office, communications, IT, finance, facilities, municipal court, police, fire, public works, planning and zoning, and then parks, recreation, and public areas maintenance. you will see that your largest expenditures are police at number one with 35.56% of your expenditures, fire at 21.95%, and then parks, rec, and public area maintenance comes in at 18.72%. So those are your largest expenditures in the general fund. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Explain the legislation cost here. Is this our past lobbying in D.C.? Or is it at the state level? What is this about? Thank you.

Yes. Council Member Fuller, legislation is your costs. So that is the cost for your city clerk, your stipend. That is the cost for your travels to and fro from conferences and whatnot. But those are your costs. Your city clerk prepares your budget. You all typically review it before it comes to the city manager.

Council Member Smotherson. Thank you, Mayor Crowe. But also to add to that, wouldn't the legislative costs, say, for instance, if we wanted to purchase new furniture, wouldn't that come out of the legislative costs?

Correct. If you wanted to purchase, say, for the council chamber, some new chairs, new desks, then yes, we would build that into your budget. So that would be for any council requested for council use items and your city clerk. So a correction on this slide as well from your packet, the total amount of those expenditures are actually $34,933,211. Yes, $34,933,211. Looks like I got a slide switched out of place, but I'm going to go ahead and talk about it here. I do want to point out the transfers in to general fund, which also help with the revenue for general fund. So we have several funds that money comes in for fire sales tax, parking storm, police or public safety sales tax fund, and the sewer lateral fund. These accounts don't really have their own checks and whatnot, but they are used to help cover the cost for the departments in the general fund. So as I mentioned before, my predecessor, he would budget the personnel costs across these line items, and it started to get a little bit confusing. So I actually put every employee back to where they should be in their departments based on our personnel summary, and then we'll just transfer in money to assist with the costs and whatnot. That's just cleaner and easier to follow for me. So for this year's budget or for 27's budget, we are recommending a transfer of $133,000 from the fire sales tax fund to general fund to help cover the fire department's capital improvement items, which we'll talk a little bit about later. A transfer of $447,000 from that same fund for the fire department's salary and benefits. A transfer from park and storm to general fund of $861,000 to assist with the salaries for park, the park maintenance team and whatnot. $690,000 from the police or the public safety sales tax fund to assist with police salaries and benefits. And then administrative costs for the sewer lateral fund, which is, we took 25%, which is pretty standard when we're talking about an admin cost as an overhead. We do have two employees, the director and a project manager that facilitate that program, and this would go to assist with their salaries and benefits. Any questions about that? I want to talk a little bit about the loan payments to the general fund. There have been several Interfund loans over the course of the last few years. the current year's budget actually accounted for that repayment as revenue. The problem is that the principle on those loan payments is not revenue. That's not new money. That money came into the general fund, was recorded as revenue at that point, and then was loaned out. So just like any other loan, if you're paying it back, that's not new money. The interest, however, is new money. And that is what we added into the general fund, which totaled about $24,435. The rest go... The principal just gets... paid on the balance sheet. And Donna can kind of talk a little bit more about the financial, the special terms with that if you all need a little bit more information. But the principle itself would not be revenue. And we were including that as revenue in our prior budget. So that change has been made this year. The loans will be repaid, but that revenue or that principle, again, is not new revenue. So we have several loans. The golf course, which is $53,220. The parking garage, which is $53,220. The public safety sales tax fund has a loan payment of $538,700. The solid waste fund has a loan repayment. However, the solid waste fund is not doing well. They have received close to $3 million in loans. They have a negative fund balance. They are one that I am confident their fund balance is negative. I don't really need the audit for that. And we have been doing inter-fund loan transfers. We've had to do one during my tenure already. So it does not make sense to me, unless you all see it differently, to budget a loan payment that I know solid waste right now cannot make. That said, my hope would be once we get a bit more aggressive with our collections for solid waste and its own money starts coming in, that we can do a budget amendment and talk about repaying that loan at a later date.

Mayor, could you take a moment and just update us and the public a little bit on the status of the repayments from citizens and the services being changed?

Yes, absolutely. So as I started to dive into this issue, I realized the primary issue was collections. You all have already addressed the rate issue. You all agreed that we would do rate increases annually. Instead of doing just one big rate increase, you all agreed to do an incremental increase each year in March. And we've been doing that. The problem is collections. We weren't doing shutoffs, meaning we weren't taking the cans from people when they were not paying their bills. I have started that process. If a bill is unpaid and they cannot enter into a proper payment arrangement with us, then we are pulling those trash cans. Again, there has to be incentive for people to pay. Obviously, we don't want trash everywhere. But at the same time, without having some type of teeth to this, people have not been motivated to pay. An example would be I have someone that moved to University City in 2023. And when we pulled her cans because she had not paid a bill since she had been living here, she was shocked. She had been getting her trash picked up and she just didn't pay the bill. Three years from 2023 to 2026. So while it's not a pleasant action to take it, we have to have some way to make sure that we are motivating people to pay their bill. Secondly, we were doing payment arrangements that just didn't seem feasible to me. An example would be someone was delinquent $874 on their trash bill. That's a few years based on what our rates are. And they sent in a letter saying they would do a $40 a month payment. No, that's not acceptable. So I have implemented a policy that if someone is delinquent, they need to pay half of what they are delinquent upfront and then we'll divide the rest of the payments by three. So that way, We're not sitting here waiting for someone to pay $40 and whether they're paying it or not. I do plan to give a more in-depth report to you all probably in July on the solid waste, as I did tell you when we did the Interfund loan that I would come back. So I'll have more information for you at that time. But that's just some of what we've been dealing with now. I can tell you that since we've implemented that, we have seen some of that revenue starting to come in and we have seen those bills starting to get paid. I was actually able to do, when Fleet was in need of some additional funds, I was actually able to take some of that from sanitation because their trucks are some of the ones that are often needing repair. And that was because Solid Waste had started to realize some of its revenues. My hope is that over the next year, we'll see that get better. We also did learn that we do have a collection agency that we have an agreement with. I don't think we've been utilizing them. So we want to reestablish that relationship as well so that we can start sending some of those bills to collections.

Council Member Fuller.

Just a thank you, Mary. Just a quick follow-up. Did we also not institute, instead of people, some people found it a hardship to pay every six months, did we reduce that to allow them to be, is that program in effect or are we still considering that?

We're still considering that. I do most. The standard is typically quarterly billing. I have Republic services at home and I've had waste management before that. And they typically bill quarterly. We bill every six months. So twice a year. Our previous finance director indicated that our system was not set up for more frequent billing. I am not sure. I do want to look into that to determine if it's possible. And if it's not, then we may need to look into an appropriate billing software for solid waste. Because another concern I had was that no one could tell me they had to do research to tell me what the outstanding amount due was. And to me, if we had an appropriate software or something, I should be able to click a button and say, this is what's unpaid. I didn't think it should take two days to find that information. So that will be part of the process of evaluating whether we need a new system, one in how we're billing. And if we need to get a new system to be able to bill quarterly instead of every six months.

Councilmember Smotherson. Thank you, Mayor Crowe. Very quick question. How how far behind are we allowing them or are we cutting that off? And what I mean by that is this. We don't we know we shouldn't no longer allow a three thousand dollar bill. You know what I'm saying? So, again, how far are we allowing them to get behind before we cut that off?

Thank you for that question. That's a very good question. Before we, as I mentioned, there have been several people that have been years behind. At this point, no. The minute they fall delinquent, if they can't come up with a payment arrangement, we will be pulling those trash cans. And this is just a pie chart for you all to show the general fund expenditures of which, like most cities, police and fire... They take up most of it, but we love them. We love them. So a few highlights about the general fund before we start looking at the departments. So it does establish a 20% reserve fund balance. It has transfers of $5.5 million from the general fund fund balance to balance the budget. We have inter-fund transfers of $2,318,500, which we went through earlier. And as I mentioned, I took all the positions and put them under their appropriate departments to align with the personnel summary. So every year in your budget book, you receive a personnel summary that has our employees listed under various departments and divisions. However, they were not like that in the budget. An example would be our director of parks, who is listed under, I believe, either park maintenance or recreation, one of the other. His salary was being split across five different funds at 20%. Um, all in general fund again, not an issue. People do that to get an accurate accounting for how a program, um, like the total cost of a program. However, when the salary is all coming out of general fund, to me, it just, it's cleaner to do it this way and just have them align with the personnel summary, have them in their respective departments. And that way we can know what their salaries are, what their benefits, because a lot of the workers comp and all of those benefits, those numbers were all a bit off. And I just think maybe sometimes it's a lot of employees, 271. And if you're dealing with those numbers and you're splitting across lines, it can get a bit confusing. So for me, we needed to clean it up so that I could get a full picture of what we have.

If I can just for a moment on the fund reserve, and John may have to correct me since we're probably the closest thing to institutional knowledge. I think when I came on, the fund balance was probably closer to 13%, and then Bob Wagner wanted to move it up to, I believe, to 17%. I believe. And then thanks to an awful lot of cellular settlements that we had over several years ago, we blossomed up to about a 30, 32% fund balance. And then you've seen it ebb back down to what in this case would be 20. So just so you know, it's kind of been this up and down, mostly from the benefit truly to us that allowed us to have the fund balance where the cellular settlements that we had several years ago, that really helped us a great deal. That's just more for history.

Thank you. Mayor Crowe, we have a question.

Council Member Britter.

Thank you, Mayor. Oops. So when we say the establishes a 20% reserve fund balance, is that just the general fund or is that all the money? You know how like some funds have excess like the lateral sewer balance?

So that fund balance is of the general fund expenditures. So I actually had a conversation with the mayor because it's the way it's worded. It could be interpreted in both ways. The policy says that we must maintain a minimum of 17 percent of expenditures. I thought it was all expenditures, but I've noticed dating back at least to 2016, you all have done 17% of the general fund expenditures. I didn't talk with Mulligan. Maybe Mulligan knows if there was a... when the policy was set in place, if there was maybe a, if it was supposed to be all or general fund, but I went with what you all have done again, dating back to 2016, I actually took a look at your budget from 2016 and it's been a percentage of the general fund expenditures. Okay. So the not so fun part. It has been a difficult couple months and a difficult decision, but I am recommending no COLAs for fiscal year 27 and a freeze on merit-based step increases. I'm also recommending that we convert the assistant director of finance position to an accountant position and the purchasing specialist position to an account clerk two position. The reason for those two changes is quite simply that one, the department is small and I don't know that there really was ever a need for an assistant director, but there is clearly a need for more assistance with the reconciliations and the reporting and the things that we need to do on a day-to-day basis. And so establishing a second accountant position and a second account clerk position, I believe will help us with getting and staying caught up on those matters. And of course you have a purchasing manager position and then we would have the director So, but yes, and then for Public Works, I'm also recommending that we eliminate the assistant director position. Right now, Public Works has one director and two project managers. Again, I don't see the need for an assistant director for a department of that size. That said, as we are reevaluating our structure, and I intend to assess all departments over the next fiscal year, we may... want to consider restructuring by putting streets back under public works. And if we do that, then that would be a time to maybe reconsider the assistant director position. In planning and zoning, there was a planner position that was added, I believe, last year, and I am recommending that be converted to an advanced clerk typist position. The reason being is that one of the biggest complaints that we have had since I've been here has been the phones not being answered on the fourth floor and people needing more assistance on the fourth floor. So bringing on another advanced clerk typist will help with that burden. We have a senior planner and we have our new director and I have spoken with him and we're confident that we can get by with that, but we need another clerk to help with the phones in the window on that floor, which I think will help with some of our complaints about that floor. I was able to go back and add in tree trimming and tree removal, but they would be funded at lower levels for fiscal year 27. And lastly, two more things, one on here and one not. I am recommending we implement the pay structure as recommended by CBIS. My understanding is that a number of conversations were had toward the end of last year about this being implemented by my predecessor. I have had the opportunity to meet with the police union to discuss this. Now, by implementing this pay structure, everyone will get a bump up. Just about everyone gets somewhat of a bump up for us to... be at the 75th percentile is what I believe or close to it, which is another reason why I would recommend placing a freeze right now. Otherwise, we would be doing the bump up and then a 5% step increase and then a COLA, which initially was being recommended at 1.5%. Because of where we are, I think now is the time to just pause and take stock and assess. And it's not to say that we can't look back at this in December and decide maybe things are cleaned up and we can do a COLA, but for now I would recommend a freeze. Any questions on that?

Council Member Brenner.

Thank you, Mayor. The tree trimming and tree removal funded at lower levels, like what kind of percentage decrease would that be?

So I believe in the past, Council Member Brenner, we funded them at about $200,000 per program. I've reduced them, I had reduced them to zero, and then I was able to put in $75,000 per program. I just want to confirm that that's something else. Yes, so 75,000 per program, 150 total. So just touching on personnel a little bit. Oh, I'm sorry.

Council Member Fuller.

Explain what the acronym for CBiz is, please.

That's just their name.

Consulting firm that does pay structures. Okay.

I am sorry. I have only ever heard CBiz. I thought they just named themselves that. Thank you, Mayor. Okay, so to touch on personnel for the general fund, as I mentioned, personnel expenses are no longer divided across the various accounts. We've aligned them with the personnel summary under their respective departments. In the next fiscal year, I will be assessing each department to determine needs and efficiency. I'd also recommend that we look at converting to a range pay structure instead of a step in grade. The reason why is for all employees below the director level, we have a step in grade scale. You get 5% increase or zero. 0 or 5%, those are the options. We have a practice of awarding an increase for anyone that receives a 3.0 or higher on their evaluation. If you get a 2.99, you're just out of luck, which has not always been something that's set well with me as I've worked here. that little one point of a difference being the difference between zero and 5% just seems harsh. And so with a pay range structure, we would have a little bit more discretion. We would be able to say, okay, the most you can get is 5% and the director and HR could say, okay, if it's between a 2.0 and a 3.0, you get 1%. But this is something that I suggest we consider as a way of trying to rein in our personnel costs. The reason why? When we sit down, if we take away the inter-fund transfers, if we take away the reserves, using the reserves, our general fund revenue has gone between $25 and $28 million. So for this year, I'm projecting $28 million. Your personnel costs are $25 for the general fund. personnel costs alone, $25 million, meaning that without fund balance, without interfund transfers, you have a couple million left to do what we need to do here. So we really need to actually take a look at our pay structure and how we are. We don't want those costs to keep ballooning. Any questions? All right, and so for general fund, there are a few transfers out. So the third ward revitalization fund gets a transfer out of $108,000 that goes to the third ward, which is what you all agreed to or the council at the time agreed to with the redevelopment plan for the marketed olive development fund. I am also recommending a transfer out of $305,000 to assist with the cost of operations for sanitation. Quite simply, they just cannot hold their own right now. And we will need to have some conversations about sanitation in the future. I know you all recommended or you selected the incremental increase, but we may need to talk about if we need to just... increase it to what the market rate is for sanitation services. But we'll need to have some conversations, which I anticipate we'll have in July or so when we do that study session. There's also a second transfer to solid waste of $300,000. And I want to explain this all to you a little bit. So last year, I learned, along with my predecessor, that sanitation lost two trucks in the fiscal year 22 flood. And that June 22 flood, they lost two trucks. And as you all know, we got FEMA money for that. And those trucks were supposed to be replaced. However, we learned that the director at the time chose to purchase two new trucks for parks. and then gave sanitation to old trucks. We can't do that. We cannot do that at all. We have yet to submit our reimbursement to FEMA, so I just want to clean that up. So I did speak with Chief Henson, who is overseas fleet, to confirm that we could get sanitation to new trucks for this amount. So we would purchase those replacement trucks and then submit our reimbursement to FEMA to make sure that we utilize those FEMA dollars the way we were supposed to. Any questions about that? Okay, so we're gonna take a few department highlights here for you guys. So city manager's office. The city manager's office budget funds the ROARs and the city calendar. Again, everybody loves our city calendar ROAR, so that is funded. It does remove funding for the government affairs for now. So we had a lobbyist that we had on board that was assisting with getting us funding for the detention basin project. However, that lobby has contacted us and indicated that there's really nothing, the earmarks that we were looking for this year, it wasn't submitted. We are not going to get it. And he was not comfortable continuing to charge us knowing that he's really not doing much for us right now. So we're removing that for now with the understanding that we may seek funding again if the opportunity comes up to lobby the federal government for funds for the detention basin project. Any questions on that? Okay. This budget also continues to fund our communications advisor, which is Robin Frankel, as most of you know, and she assists Jared with our communication needs and it maintains current staffing levels. The finance department provides funding for the annual audit, converts the assistant director position to an accountant position and the purchasing manager to account clerk position. I imagine I'll be spending a lot of time in finance in the next few months just trying to get some of that cleaned up. So as we are assessing, we may be coming back with more recommendations for finance. That will be the first department that I'll be spending time with assessing and cleaning up essentially. Our municipal court maintains current service levels as you all know they're operating out of the new facility. I don't know that they're holding court there just yet but I know that they are working out of that building. So the police department, it maintains current service levels. So even the positions that are vacant, we have budgeted base salary in that to make sure. We're always recruiting for officers. We actually just swore someone in today, so that's always exciting. So we maintain the current service levels with our police officers. Additionally, even though our capital improvement will be limited this year, the COP funds included purchases for vehicles and equipment for the police department, which we actually have to purchase because that is what will be used as collateral, if I'm not mistaken, for the police. the debt for the COP. So we will be using some of those funds in fiscal year 27. Once we finish the project, which should be August or September of this year, when the parking lot is done, we'll assess and then we'll be using some of those funds to purchase those capital items for the police department. We'll bring that back to you once we're at that point to do so. So the fire department maintains the current staffing levels. And as I mentioned, that fire sales tax, we were transferring in funds to help cover with their capital items. That is a kitchen repair, an HVAC replacement at one of the firehouses, radio replacements, and the purchase of ventilators. Now for public works. Highlights, again, eliminates the assistant director position. This fund, we do have funding to fund the upgrade for the rain gauge system as requested by the Stormwater Commission. We put in $20,000 that they requested, so that is in the fiscal year 27 budget. We also have funding for the grant project. So this is where most of our capital improvement revenue will go for the first fiscal year. We have committed to a number of grant projects, all of which require a match from us. So that is the Pershing Improvement Project, the Ferguson Improvement Project, the Kemplin Bridge Project, and the Canton Phase II Project. So this is where I'd like to pause and have a conversation with you all about the streets and sidewalks. As I mentioned, I had to cut a lot. As you can see from this budget in the general fund, we have about $90,000 left over. For all the other funds, we have about $700,000 left over. Because initially, I was going to request $6.5 million from the investment. But as I mentioned, at least one of your colleagues expressed concern about that number dropping too low. And so that's why I put that $1 million back with the understanding that I would come to the entire council and seek guidance. Now, it is an option if we want to take... another $500,000 or $1 million to fund street projects and curb, gutter, sidewalk projects. I don't know for sure with how high everything is, how many streets or how much that would get us, but that is on the table. What I can tell you for sure is that I do not have any additional funds in here. that really could go through streets. Because again, that $700,000 number is not just general fund. General funds leftover is 90,000 and that's it. So I welcome your feedback, your questions as we pause to talk about that.

Council Member Brenner.

Thank you, Mayor. I had a question about the grant projects. Have we paid out on any of them yet?

Let me ask our director of public works.

You keep the question. I'm back.

On these projects, Pershing, Ferguson, Kemplen Bridge, and Canton Phase II, you know, like, for instance, Pershing's paved right now. Have we paid out any of the funds yet on those projects? Have we paid any of the contractors?

Just for Pershing, and we are in construction phase for Canton Phase II.

Okay, can you say it again? Because I couldn't hear you very well.

So Pershing is almost completed. So we are in the striping phase, and Canton is in the construction phase.

Do you know how much we've paid? Have we paid anything?

We have paid just for the designing for Canton. What about Pershing? Pershing has been paid up to maybe $700,000 by now. I have two more paying invoices to spend. Thank you.

Thank you. And just to tell you a little bit about how that came to be, when we approve these projects, the funds are supposed to be encumbered. They're supposed to be set aside. They were being set aside on paper, but not in our bank account. And so that is part of the reason why I'm asking that we just pause for a bit, because again, we committed to a number of projects that you all have approved that we have to pay for. And I want to make sure we're able to meet those obligations before we start committing to any new projects that are really big.

Council Member Tiemann. Thank you, Honorable Mayor. I need to understand this one line and understand it completely. Are you saying that there will be zero funding whatsoever for streets and sidewalks next year?

I'm saying what I have before you, that is correct. Unless we walk out of here today and you all agree that we can take additional funding from our reserves, or if you want to make suggestions on where I can cut so that we can get that done. But where we are right now, I don't have any funding. I have $90,000 left in general fund.

It seems to me, And while I'm extremely sympathetic to the argument, and you're the one that has to balance this in a sort of nightmarish kind of way, there are people who have waited like a long time uh for some street repairs i'm thinking in my word of people on drexel uh various places i could talk about um that on that that uh kind of gradations i forget what that is you know they're a b and c or whatever those those c the pace yeah however that works i have waited for considerable length of time and now we're talking about people waiting yet another year uh and it seems that there is both a financial problem and a fairness problem um and i um don't have the wisdom to figure that out but i i i guess i am in the position of speaking for um those folks on those various streets we've named you know really all throughout that neighborhood uh there around christ the king and on over toward midland and right in there have had a lot of problems you know with streets and things and it seems only in fairness that somehow this should be attended Well, I'm repeating myself now, but thank you. Thank you, Honorable Mayor.

I do think to all of us as we sit up here in what is a challenging environment, that if we are wanting to add funds someplace, it's incumbent upon us to assist with where the funds come from someplace else. I think our city manager is telling us that we're needing to take a pause and And a pause is a prudent thing to do. I think we are usually getting a budget adjustment, if you will, a settling about on a quarterly basis where we need to make some adjustments. And I think the idea and by the way, I'm I'm happy, not really happy, but I would understand if everyone took it a different approach. That may be good for us to take this pause and then see where we are in 90 days. Or 120 days to see how we are doing, because I think that the city manager clearly has done more in the last three months to uncover to peel the onion, if you will. So for us to add projects back in. probably doesn't quite make sense, at least from my perspective, but you all may have a different perspective. I think Mr. McMahon was next.

If I may, just really quick before Councilmember McMahon, I do want to make sure that you know, Mr. Councilmember Tiemann, we're not looking at a year. As I always indicated, we would get a budget adopted and the plan was to be assessing and if we can do a budget amendment, we can. I think by the time December hits, we'll have a six-month insight into how Dearburg's and Target is performing. Again, we have not accounted for that revenue in this budget because we just simply don't know the formula to calculate what that revenue would be for the general fund. because it is a pool tax. Now, I have accounted for that in EDRST, which we know what that number looks like, how much that will increase. But I just want you to know, it won't be a full year. Like, we... This is a working document for me. I'm constantly looking. So because I agree with you, sidewalks, I get a lot of calls about them. So I would love to be able to do something. But what I am saying is that I would if there's more money to come from the reserves or more cuts to be made, then we need to do that together.

Very quickly, since I saw a look, EDRST is Economic Development Retail Sales Tax Fund. It is a separate tax. It comes off the top, but it's something UCity passed decades ago, Economic Development Retail Sales Tax Fund. Mr. McMahon.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, City Manager Sharpe. And I appreciate that you've taken the time to analyze this since February and that you've decided to stick around with this, even though- It sounds like it's been so challenging. So I'm so happy that you've picked up that challenge and you're working with us to get there. If we stretch out into December, January, February, I can just see by my neighbors on my street who brought up concerns of deterioration before this last winter and said, can't we get some potholes fixed? Not a repaving, not a whole, but just some potholes. And now those potholes are substantially larger after some freezing and thawing. And I can see that over on Paulson and other places where it's just, they're not huge. They're not huge projects. They're not Pershing. They're not Kent. They're not Kemplin. But have we looked into what a pause of no repairs for 6, 8, 10, 12 months, does that make us on our street repair in a worse position when we come back so it's costing us more? And I kind of dovetail that also with our trash pickup. We can start to put down the hammer, but if we've got folks that decide, well, I don't have to pay my trash, and I'm not going to pick it up either, and I'm not going to do it, or I'm going to find a place to dump it like our – alleyway dumpsters we're not taking those away just because one house doesn't pay on the block so they're going to start dumping there do we have ancillary costs for inspections enforcement police courts so there's tumble down effects from some of these decisions that we need to think about um and so i that those are kind of my worries if there's none the the young woman that came in and talked about her sidewalk uh out west that had the tree stump and it was wet. I don't know if that's fixed yet, but that's a safety concern. I think we've got to save some money for some of those things. I think we've all seen in the news the sinkhole. So we worry about that in our community. And I've had folks at a party on the weekend that mentioned that. So I think we've got to analyze this in a little bit of a way to think beyond the general scope of street repair as a, you know, five blocks, three blocks, something a little bit smaller. And I know there was a study session we had a little while ago, and I don't know how far it would go, but we certainly had $150,000 of calip laying around. I haven't heard that discussed in this budget. Maybe it's time to use that instead of some projects that were tossed out. But maybe we use it to fix something that at least hold it in reserve for an emergency street repair or an emergency sidewalk. Because that helps to really direct it to the general community as opposed to something that might be a little bit less. But those are just my thoughts on street and sidewalk repair.

Council Member Dancy.

Thank you, Mayor Crowell. The community development block grant for street repairs, is that for priority repairs or is that something that we'll need to look at as well?

So we do get that funding every year. And I think that they actually change the rules that you can let that add up over a couple of years. And we do traditionally do a street project, usually in the third ward, a low to moderate income area, which is required by CDBG. So that funding would still be available. And we have a, I shared that list with all of you, the most recent PACER rated list, which I think the last time that someone went out and raided all those streets was 2021. And obviously we have not gotten to all those streets that need to be repaired, but we shared that. So what public works will usually do is find one of the streets on that list and make sure it's in that area and then submit the application for it. So those funds will still be available. Did that answer your question? It does.

And then in addition to that, the list is, How are we prioritizing within this pause? What gets done first whenever we find money or whatever we decide to do as we move forward?

So with the streets, it's the pace of rating. It's typically those that are in the worst condition that go first based on how they're rated. So those typically go first. And Director Reginald Burton is actually working on a rating system for our sidewalks as well. So he actually started that out the gate and he's been going out with staff to rate some of the sidewalks that we've been getting complaints about. They don't have like a racer or a pacer rating scale for the sidewalks that I'm aware of, but the directors kind of come up with something similar to rate those sidewalks. And then when their time comes for repairs, we prioritize them based on those that are in the worst condition.

OK. Lastly, does this include alleys as well, the streets or sidewalks? Or is that separate conversation?

I think it could be part of the same conversation. That's a good question. I would consider it part of the same conversation. I don't know that I've ever seen different streets for alleys or different funds for alleys.

So I think I would consider it part of the streets. So we may need another list for the alleys as well.

Maybe, yes. Anything else?

OK, thank you.

If I may circle back to the Calip question. So that actually was another I intended to do the study session for Calip and the solid waste first meeting in July. I was actually waiting for Council Member Brenner because I know she initiated the conversation about Calip. I believe she did. So I wanted to make sure she was in town for that. But you are correct that we have one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in the Calip fund. And actually, I just recall that we have six hundred thousand dollars that is sitting in our an ARPA fund. So American Rescue Plan. So we actually.

You told me we have.

Oh, OK. Never mind. I thought that, I'm like, never mind. I was going to say we had that. We found that we were trying to figure out what that was, why that was sitting, because every report that we saw said that those funds were obligated. And then I learned from the former director that the intent was to use some of that, use that $600,000 toward the FEMA flood buyout. And then Donna indicated that, no, we have to, that money should have been used. So I think that she's going to, come on, you just come on up here.

Donna, that was a very powerful nod of the head. I just want to go on record.

So there is approximately about $600,000 that's in ARPA. Per the ARPA guidelines, all monies had to be committed or obligated by December of 2025. They have to be spent by December of 2026. And so what we're doing is we're looking at the projects that were done in 2025 to see if in fact they were obligated if they were obligated then that money will be released in 2025 and then it can move forward and it would move forward in the fund balance yeah but we have to show that we did obligate it that's our intent

As you all can see, I've been looking for every penny, every dollar.

Council Member Brenner.

Thank you. Is there a way to, kind of piggybacking off of what Steve was saying, Mr. McMahon was saying, is there a way to kind of get maybe like... An amount of projected amount of like what it would be to like fill potholes, you know, like that kind of emergency thing. So things don't get worse, even if we were pausing, because maybe that's the amount we look at during the pause.

That type of thing. I'm sure we could provide you all with an estimate of, you know, if we take a certain dollar amount, how many potholes could we patch or how many sidewalks could we fix? So I'm sure we can. I don't know that we can pull that information together by the 22nd, which is when the budget is set to be adopted, but we can certainly get that information and then come back to the table and make some decisions.

Councilmember Fuller.

This is just a little retrospective. When I looked at this statement, no funding for street and sidewalks, I stopped there. I kind of want to emphasize because John and I met with you last week. I think we want to emphasize the last three words in that line at this time. Let's come back and look at this in December. I think that's a great suggestion. And I'm really saying this mostly for the people tuning in out here. I, again, compliment you on a – I would have been overwhelmed, and I'm delighted you stayed on after we offered you the position with this in place. But I think this is a very, like, out front public – campaign for us here that we are not saying no streets and sidewalks. We're just saying at this time. And I think I'd like this idea of possibly an emergency fund for things that come up. That's just not a question. I'm just stating that.

And if I can give you all some perspective, when we started this process before this even came to you all May 1st, and we had a budget, Donna and Ebony alerted me, okay, we have a budget for the general fund. We had revenue projections. I was at 28. Donna was at 25. And our expenditures with everything that we've been doing, everything, all the streets that we've been funding, all of the monies that we've been doing year after year was $40 million. We had a $15 million deficit. $15 million. So what you've seen is I have done my best to trim this down where we can still provide some services and retain staff for the most part as much as we can. But yes, that's where we started. With everything that we've been doing, all the requests, $40 million expenditures, 28 in revenue, Very, very large deficit. 25, Donna was very conservative. I was a little bit more liberal, one, because of developments. And in our 2024 audit, we did pull in $28 million in revenue. So I'm confident we will pull in $28, especially with the Target and the Dearburgs open. But that's where we started. That's why there have been so many drafts. That's why, because everything we've been doing, $40 million, right? So that's the part where I've been saying we have to have some really, really hard conversations about what we can actually afford and living within our means so that we're not depleting our savings. So that said, is the consensus then that we will, do we want to get those numbers, come back at a later date, likely after June 22nd, and then we can talk about allocating some type of funding for some pothole patching or some minor sidewalk repairs? Is that fair?

Correct.

Okay. All right. So we'll go on to planning and development, which I mentioned the major highlight for that converts the planner position to advanced clerk typist. And of course, you all know the unwritten one is the FEMA flood buyout that we are working. We actually believe that we'll have some sales agreements for you all to review and approve here soon. So very excited to see progress with the FEMA flood buyout program. All right, the Parks, Recreation, and Public Area Maintenance highlights, funds the tree trimming program and the tree replacement program, again, which I had initially zeroed out and we were able to put some funding back in there for that. And it also continues to fund U City and Bloom. at the previous year's rate. So as you all know, U City in Broome does a lot of the ground maintenance for us, the flowers and whatnot. So we do fund that out of the park and rec budget.

Guster Murray-McMahon.

Thank you, Mayor Crowe. With just a question on tree removal. Years past, we had the emerald ash borer tree removal. Has that been completed or was there still more on the list? those were safety issues those trees were going to just die and then fall on somebody and so if that's been completed because i know we were really targeting and it was a program just over and over to get them out so we should just check on that okay and then with the just the tree trimming again kind of shifting like back to sidewalks would the priority be safety issues for trimming not just Let's make it look as pretty as possible. But if it's a tree that's dangerous, is that where that fund would be directed? How are we prioritizing the funding that we're going to use for it?

Yes, we would prioritize those trees that are the most dangerous, that create a safety hazard, those that are dead. You know, we do not remove otherwise healthy trees, even for the gumballs that trip us all up. Unfortunately, if it's a healthy tree, we will leave it in place. So we will prioritize those. We actually have a priority list. I haven't seen it recently, but I saw it when I first started. Not when I first started, but a couple years after that. But similar to the street, the pacer rated street, we have something for tree trimming as well. We have a schedule. And we have trees that are rated that need to be removed. So we would turn to that list and prioritize them by those in the worst condition.

Council Member Fuller. This is to address, I was liaison to urban forestry that question about the green Emerald bore I think was addressed in that study session from that committee. We may want to, I think that is addressed in there.

Okay. And the forestry update.

Yeah. And it wasn't removal of dead trees. It was a getting rid of the green ash trees because we, even in our subdivision did a preventative program and took out healthy, healthy trees. But I think that was addressed in that study session.

And we'll look into that. I did kind of look back at, as you guys know, Director Burden's only been with us a couple of months. So we will look into that and get back to you to confirm whether all those trees were removed if we were done with that project. Okay, so we are going to move on to some of the other funds that I mentioned, where again, they don't necessarily have a list of expenditures, but more so transfers. So the Public Safety Sales Tax Fund. The total revenues projected for this fund are $2.3 million. Total expenditures, $2.257275. And that would leave us with $42,725. So the transfers out for this fund, $603,583 for the Annex Trinity debt service. So I'm going to pause right here because I did get a question about the structure for the Annex Trinity. And John, I'll certainly ask you to chime in with anything I may miss. So... We receive certificates of participation. That's how we funded that $28 million. And the source of repayment is the public safety sales tax, capital improvement, and general fund. One third from each one of those funds gets transferred into debt service that we pay. Usually in April, I think it's like $1.8 million that we have to pay for the debt service on that. And as I mentioned, we do have to use some of those COP funds to purchase vehicles and equipment for the police department that will then be considered collateral for this initiative. That's correct, right, for the COPs. So are there any additional questions about that funding process? Okay, so this will be the payment for the Annex Trinity Debt Service, $603,583. I'm also recommending a transfer of $700,000 out to Fleet Maintenance. So Fleet Maintenance is a fund that has no source of income whatsoever. It is funded by transfers from other departments. It is meant to ideally you would build back whatever work needed to be done for, say, a police vehicle needed a new engine and the fleet maintenance department did that. Well, we have a setup where the departments transfer in money. Quite honestly, how was the decision made on the amounts to be transferred into fleet maintenance? It was what was available. This fund, Public Safety, as you know, has a very large fleet and they actually are, their vehicles are probably repaired the most. So $700,000 is being transferred to fleet maintenance. This fund also has to repay a loan. I'm not sure what year it was done, but it was a $6 million loan to do the study, space needs study, I believe, for the police and the new police station and whatnot. And so that payment is $538,692. I also have about $415,000 allocated for the uniform pension. Where did that number come from? It was the amount left over after we did some of these transfers. And then the general fund would get $861,000 to help with UCPD salaries and benefits. So I do want to pause here to talk about the pension for a second. I didn't practice how to say this. Okay. So about a week or two ago, I learned that we have not been contributing to our pension the way that we were supposed to. Okay. So I actually asked for the valuation statement from last year. Those usually come out in July. So I wanted to see what the 2025 number. So we've been including payments in the budget, but the payments that were being included were our payments. So our 3% contribution as an employee, we have to pay 3%. That comes out of our salary. It was in our salary and on the pension line item in the budget. That money, however, we were not paying extra money into the pensions the way that we were supposed to. So for... I'm a number, so for 2025, we were supposed to pay 801,000 for the city employees, the non-uniform pension, and we should have paid about 2.2 million for the uniform pension, and we did not. I believe that we budgeted maybe 300,000 for the uniform pension, and nothing was paid to the non-uniform pension. And we can't do that. You have to pay, even if we can't pay the full amount, we have to pay something. So I have allocated 415,000 and I've also budgeted for, I can't budget for the 2.2 million for the police. It's just, we don't have the funds. But I was able to budget for the $800,000, and again, using last year's numbers, budget for the $800,000 for the non-uniform pension. And so the question I'd like to pose to the council is, would it be a better idea to take that $1.2 million and just put it towards the uniform pension? Why? Because the non-uniform pension is 96% funded. The uniform pension is 77% funded. And that number, that $2.2 million, if we keep not paying it, it just gets bigger and bigger. So I have at least $1.2 million in funding allocated. And the question, you know, that I'd ask you all is, do you think it would be a better idea to just put that full $1.2 million to the uniform pension?

Council Member Breyer.

Thank you, Mayor. I think it's so much more complicated than this right now. I mean, I'm not sure where, I think I need a little explanation on where

the numbers came from on what we're supposed to be putting in.

Is that to get it to a certain fund balance? No, that's just annually what we're supposed to contribute to keep it healthy. According to what though? There's a valuation report that the pension board gets each year. It comes out in July. So I have not gotten the one for this year. So I looked for last year's report. Happy to share that with you all. If you've not seen it, it was the first time I'd seen it.

Because the structure of the uniform pension is, I think, just unsustainable. And I think that's still, I mean, I think we had that study session on it. I think that's something that's still out there that we need to work on talking to the union and work on how do we fix it so that it is sustainable. But I mean, we could pour money into it forever, but I think it's still going to have a problem over time is what I'm trying to say.

So I would agree with you. This is not the fix. So we did ask, they're working on the current valuation report. And Deputy City Manager Chris Crable did request that they tell us what would be needed to get to 80%. I'm pretty sure that's not $2.2 million. We are still in union negotiations. So we are still having those conversations as well with the union. We're still in discussions with them. This is what we're supposed to pay. Like some years we don't have to pay anything. If the investments are doing well, if everything's performing well, there may be a year. I remember in Delwood once we were 104% funded. So we didn't have to pay anything into the pension. It was so well funded. But if the pension is not, typically if it's not 100% funded, you have to pay something. You should be contributing something annually. And if you don't make those contributions each year, that number just starts to get bigger and bigger. So this is not to fix the problem. This is trying to bring that number down because, again, it said about 2.2 million now, or it was, I'm sorry, it was 2.2 million last year. I'm anticipating in July that it's going to be higher than that. But that's separate from the 80%, which we are trying to get that information to what that number will be.

A couple of things on this one. Years ago, again, we'll go back, there were contributions made to the pension plan for a number of years because the stock market performance had done so well to keep it going. That was probably right about when I got on, when pension paying started. Pension payments should have been made and were not made. And then there was a catch up period. I think what, what the city managers talk about here in particular is we've got one plan that is 96% funded where we can make changes to it anyway, shape or form, but we've got one that 77 where we can't. And we, if we were even choosing to go into loggers, which is a local area government plan, Employee retirement system, you can't go into it and reduce your administrative costs unless you're at 80% funded. So if there's a way to get us closer to 80% funded, then that may be a step in the right direction, and it may be an appropriate decision to if you're at 96% in the non-uniform and you're at 77 in the uniform and you need to get to 80, the contribution may need to go into the uniform because it gets you, it gets you closer to your number. And I agree with council member Brenner that at some point in time that that's got to change. But one of the steps along the way probably is for us to reduce our administrative costs and be in a larger system. And we can't do that unless we get up to 80%. Now, By the way, that was a long-winded paragraph. I told that story correctly, right?

Yes, apart from that, I wasn't here about the non-payment. But apart from that, yes. When you all, when you joined, obviously, I wasn't here at that time. But apart from that, yes, that's accurate. My concern is that this isn't an optional payment, which is what was stated to me. We're supposed to pay this. There's interest added on. You have an option to pay either at the beginning of the year or the end of the year. If you pay it at the end of the year, it's an additional 6.8%. And then we get another valuation. I am 100% certain that number is going to be bigger. And if we don't come up, if we don't immediately pay that number down, it's going to continue to balloon. That said, I can also just leave the $800,000 in there and pay once again into the non-uniform pension, which is pretty healthy. But there are no, right now, there are no additional funds to pay into the uniform pension. So we would be looking at that $415,000 payment against a number from 2025 that was $2,250,169. So that's, and that I didn't necessarily include. That was something that kind of, once I got everything done, it was in, you know, having conversations, it was an idea. We don't have to do it. The plan was initially to just pay the 800,000 into the non-uniform pension, but this could be a way to, again, that number will continue to balloon. And this is one thing that I know where this leads if we don't get ahead of it. Because my last city, the pension was 9% funded for the fire and 32% for police. And it started like this. They just started skipping payments. Oh, it's just 800,000. We'll miss it this year. And then the next year it's 1 million and it just balloons up. So it's just the thought. And again, it doesn't solve our ultimate problem. You're right. It's much more complicated than that. This just solves this problem, which is to make sure that number doesn't keep ballooning.

Council Member Britter.

Sorry about that. Thank you, Mayor, for putting up with me. So you're suggesting taking some of the – so right now we're able to allocate the full amount to the non-uniform that we were supposed to do?

The full amount that was given to us in 25. I don't know what the full amount would be today. Gotcha.

So you're suggesting to kind of split that a little bit, right? Like you wouldn't stop paying –

full amount to or stop paying all of it no what i'm suggesting that we could consider is to not pay the 800 000 to the non-uniform and pay a full 1.2 million to the uniform which is the one that's 77 percent funded and again that would solely be a decision because The non-uniform is 96% funded. And that, again, that would be for now with the understanding, if we come back and we identify additional resources, then we can allocate that towards that. But that $2.2 million number is... scary and it's only going to get bigger. And if I don't have $2.2 million in this budget, I'm not going to have $3 million likely in next year's budget. So just wanting to attack that before that number continues to balloon out of control, which creates yet another issue for us with that pension.

Council Member Tiemann. Thank you, Honorable Mayor. I would favor that because I think there's two things that kind of run parallel here. One is the simple budgetary problem that you're enumerating and all that. And the other is the promise we made to those who wore the uniform. And I think sometimes we get lost in money and numbers and forget that there is an obligation we have to those who put on the badge, those who put on the uniform, to when they finish their service, their time in the force to take care of them and theirs. So, yes, I would very much favor this.

Council Member McMahon.

Thank you, Mayor Crowe. Just from my time on the pension board, the pension board as a liaison, they really wanted to make sure that we had the best numbers that they could give us. and accurate. So there's lots of different moving numbers that can go into that number of what they basically send us a bill. It's their pension. They're a separate legal entity. They can own property and do things on their own. Um, but they send us a bill and say, this is what you need to do. And that's the number you're talking about. And one of the things that they did, which, so it's kind of puts us at bumping heads with the pension board. They shifted from an open ended amortization to a closed. which the open-ended is basically taking your mortgage and refinancing every year. The closed is we're not going to do that anymore. It's just going to keep growing. And that's why when they did that, their number, and they did that because if you don't, that number will always grow. It won't look as big because you're refinancing it, but they decided no. We'd rather have, try to pay this down. And so that's why that number is getting probably bigger than it used to get. And that's why when they hand us that bill, which is the calculation of what you need to pay your payment for this year, that's why if we're not paying it,

it's it's not chipping away at principal on that re we're not refinancing anymore and so you're it's all so that's why it's getting so big if that make and i don't know if you're aware of those kind of things no i wasn't i have not even like i said i just got that report um that that those numbers maybe a week and a half ago after a conversation with uh someone that didn't realize we were supposed to be paying that every year.

And the other thing that's different, their, their fiscal year runs calendar and ours starts in July. So make sure when we compare things, we want to make sure we're comparing the right things just historically.

Can I suggest that? I think originally we talked about having a, a smaller meeting about the pension. Can we go back to that maybe? Because there's things I want to talk about, but I think it's more than this meeting.

Oh, yes. We talked about, I think, the three of us, the three of you and me getting together. I just kind of got sidetracked with this. Well, yeah, I understand. Yeah.

I do think that the city manager is asking for a level of comfort with moving funds from the non-uniform to the uniform. And judging on the comments, I think I'm seeing a consensus to move it. I don't mean to make a judgment. I'm watching heads nod and comments being made. So I think, Ms. Sharp, I think that should give you some idea of movement there.

Okay. Thank you. Okay, let's talk about the Fire Protection Sales Tax Fund, which is total revenues projected at $951,000 with expenditures projected at $950,000. The transfers out for this fund includes the $133,000 to general fund for the fire department's capital improvement items, which we talked about the kitchen repair, HVAC replacement, etc., $447,000 to the general fund to help with fire department salaries and benefits, and then $370,000 to fleet maintenance to assist with the repairs of vehicles and whatnot. Now, the capital improvement fund. So our revenues for the Capital Improvement Fund are projected at $2.9 million. And right now our expenditures, and this is accounting for those... programs that I mentioned apart from whatever we have already paid for Pershing. Total expenditures, I do have the full amount for Pershing in here just so you guys know so this number can come down. Total expenditures $3,759,926. Without having the fund balance information, I do have the projected fund balance that I mentioned, which was a little over $2 million. I don't have the most confidence in the accuracy of that, so I would certainly want to wait until the audit is complete. If there is not a fund balance for capital improvement to cover that $859,000 projected deficit, then it will need to come from the general fund fund balance. So, projects. This one-third comes out for the Annex Trinity renovation, $603,854. Our share for the Canton Phase II is projected at $926,314. As you all know, we were awarded an EV charging stations grant, which is still kind of up in the air, but we've been told to proceed as we have not received any, neither has the Federal Highway Administration. Nobody's received anything saying we're not getting it. So we have to, we need to carry that. So our match on that was $130,000. Then we have the FEMA flood buyout program, which our match on that is projected at $1,020,710. We have the Ferguson Improvement Project at $201,482. The Kemplin Bridge Project was just projected at $329,000. And the Pershing Improvement Project, which our cost share was projected or listed at $548,565. As you heard our director say, we have made some payments toward that, so that number may come down. But these are the projects that have been approved that are bid that are with the exception of the kemplin bridge project which uh we received an extension for but these are all grant projects that we have a cost share for uh so it was important to me to make sure because we've committed to these some of which are already underway that we make sure we cover the funds for that so that is part of the reason for the pause We've committed to a lot. And without having the fund balance information or accurate accounting information, I want to make sure we can cover this almost $4 million in projects before we start going after new grants and with new cost shares and starting new projects. Any questions about that?

Man. Thank you. So the number on Pershing might be lower because there may have been payments, because on these projects, we pay by phase. And Canton, could that include, I think we were through design phase. We are. So that number might be a little bit lower. So then do we have the projection on all of these? And I get what you're saying, that if we've committed to it, we should We should be out front with it saying we owe this and we're going to pay it some. But do we have the timeline breakdown that all of those will all those full, full numbers will come due between July 1st and June 30th of next year?

So our director, I'm sure, has that information. But for these, but this is our cost share for construction. With the exception, no, I think Kemplin Bridge, which is an estimate, but Pershing bid out. Canton, I believe, is bid out. Ferguson, I believe, is bid out. So these are our cost share for these buildings. projects for the construction uh doesn't include the design phase so we've already paid money for the design um pershing is canton hasn't i don't think canton has started um pershing's probably the only project on here that i need to verify what we've paid but the other ones i'm pretty confident is still outstanding but i will double check that to be sure Definitely want to make sure that we cover all of these and not overcommit ourselves. That's even why I didn't want to go into the five-year capital improvement project. We need to see where we are so that we can start moving forward. Okay, next up we have the Park and Stormwater Fund. So for this fund, the total revenues are projected at $2,100,000. Total expenditures, $1,995,750 with a surplus leftover of $4,350. For this fund, again, once again, this is a tax that's levied, a point-of-sale tax. There are no expenditures or transfers out. So $400,000 to fleet maintenance, $861,000 to general fund for parks salaries and benefits, that $300,000 that I mentioned to replace those two trucks for solid waste, $104,000 to transfer to the Third Ward Revitalization Fund, $2,000 for a master plan grant, which is the city's, my understanding is that's the city's share of a grant that we will get to do this master plan. The game time grant match, which you all have previously approved, $300,000 is our match for that. And then the municipal park grant match, $28,750. So again, accounting for our share of some of these grants that we... Grants are great, but you have to account for... Most of them require a match, and we have to make sure we're accounting for that. And it was a similar situation. You all approved these items. They were... I think in some cases, purchase orders were issued, but the funds were not actually held in where they should have been held. So making sure we're accounting for all of that. Any questions? We're almost there.

Council Member Tiemann.

Thank you, Honorable Mayor. By the way, if I forget to say it, the work you have done on this is extraordinary. Thank you. It's parks and stormwater, and I don't see where stormwater is here. And what percentage of this goes to stormwater and so on. So I wonder if you could break that out for me.

So that's a good question. I actually read in our prior budget books that at some point the council made the decision that all these funds will go to parks. I don't know when that occurred. I would certainly defer to some of the tenured members on the council but I actually read that in last year's budget book as well as the previous years that at some point this council a council made the decision that these funds would be allocated to parks I don't I have not seen that anywhere in legislation so if you all wish to see that divided up differently then we can talk about it and I'd look at looking at John he's always my

Yeah, I think, John, I think we may have to scratch our heads on this one and ask Lorette to look back through previous... I don't remember a conversation held where we said everything went to parks. I simply don't remember that, so we... We may not be able to give you much guidance in this particular time. The only thing I would say to my colleagues is no matter how you slice that pie, there's not much pie left to slice between parts of stormwater this year. But I think you got to add stormwater on after all of after all. everything our residents have been through, it's kind of be on the list of things that we fund if we come up with some more money this year, because along with streets and along with a number of other things, we need to bear that in mind as we go through the next 90 to 120 days and then out to 180 days. Mr. Tiemann?

Honorable Mayor, even if we pulled out a little bit of money for stormwaters, I mean, some of the things that Stormwater commissioned, to which I am the consul liaison, and as you know, I've worked with them since they were a task force, are nickel and dime items. I mean, they're scraping and constantly complaining about this, that, and the other thing. So even if we could pull out a small amount for them, I think that would be wise and even prudential.

If I may, Councilmember Tiemann, we have allocated $20,000 to them in the public works budget. So they'd requested, I believe, to implement the I neighborhood, like the phase two or whatnot. I have those on my desk and it was about 20,000. So we have allocated that $20,000 to the stormwater commission in public works. Were you thinking more? Then that, well, how much more?

I was going to say, the only thing I would say, commissions don't normally make the request to the city manager. So normally it is through the commission and the employee, the staff liaison, to get that funding through. So to the stormwater commission, who, by the way, has done incredible work, If there's more that is wanted, that needs to come through, not through from the commission to the council. It needs to go through staff as well so that we know what we need to have. We are more than willing to, after everything that our residents have been through, it is important for us. to support the stormwater issues, but it's also important to know what it is that they're wanting and what they're bringing to staff and staff is bringing forward. Because unless I'm missing it in this budget, staff hasn't brought anything else forward that has been asked for.

That is correct. What's budget is what was requested that I received from Director Morales a lot. Was the neighborhoods, I think it was about 14,000, and then there was something, so 20,000.

So if there was more, you got between now and next week. To ask for a budget amendment, to ask for something else to go in here because the Stormwater Commission through the staff has not asked for more funds. And by the way, that does not mean that that is an appropriate distribution of those funds because it looks like it's all going one direction and not two directions. So I'm not arguing that. I'm just trying to figure out how we get to the end of the line on it.

Honorable Mayor, that was my only point. I mean, there's nothing in here about stormwater. That's really basically my only point.

Council Member Britter.

I do think there's a, from the work session we had, there's a follow-up that we need to think about on what the action items were from the work session with stormwater. And if there are any monetary action items in there too, because they talked about a lot of different things. I know there's some policy things that maybe we could do regardless of budget. So, but that is something that we should probably follow up on.

Okay. Okay. So let's talk about the Economic Development Retail Sales Tax Fund, EDRST. So this fund is very healthy. I was the staff liaison, so I don't quite need the fund balance for that one. This one's sitting on about a $4 million fund balance. And I am very excited that our economic development manager, Becky Alvin, is intending to present some program options to the board in July So we can start getting some of these funds out on the street for our small businesses. That said, none of those programs are budgeted in here now. That is something we would come to you once EDRST has made its recommendation. We will bring that to you and request that funding be allocated at that time. So for now in EDRST, the highlights maintains the staffing levels, which is one economic development manager, one specialist. funds the Del Mar Loop master plan. So as we all have been talking about the Del Mar Loop, it's definitely time to reimagine what the Del Mar Loop looks like. And so that's part of what this master plan would do. It also funds an Olive Boulevard master plan, which Becky could provide a little bit more information on what that would entail if you all are interested. And then this EDRC fund will fund a curb and sidewalk program for business districts. So again, different fund, healthy fund. So we are looking at allocating some money to fix the curbs and sidewalks in some of our commercial districts where people walk, you know, hopefully inviting people to walk. Do you guys have any questions? Okay. Third Ward Revitalization Fund summary. So total revenues, which are the transfers in that you all committed to when you did the redevelopment agreement, is $394,000. Expenditures total $222,082. And the surplus left is $171,918. Okay. So the highlight for this fund, it continues to fund the third ward coordinator position. I did include $50,000 in this budget to fund the agreement with shed to have them assist us with any home repair program. We have not reached an agreement yet, The last that I checked in with Becky, we had not reached an agreement with Shed. However, I plugged in some money because I wanted to make sure we have that for Shed or if it ends up being another entity that comes in to assist us with administering that program if we cannot reach a deal. It also funds a dedicated office space for Shed, which we talked about. It's about $10,000 just to make sure that there's a desk and computer. Because at the time we talked about this program, and I don't know if anything has changed, Shed did not have an office space. And they were working out of a church. And so we thought it best to provide a space here at City Hall because... you know, not everybody attends church. And, you know, just wanted to make sure we kept that separate. And then any funding there for the home repair and down payment assistance programs will be requested upon approval. So when you all approve the programming, we will then ask you for the funding at that time. So that's not included in here. And it will come out of the reserves, which this is another one that has a very healthy reserve balance because we have not spent the money. Any questions? Okay, our sewer lateral fund, revenues projected at $550,100, expenditures $449,500, and that leaves us with $100,600. It does include funding in here for any sewer lateral repairs that are needed, and as I mentioned previously, We, instead of putting partial salaries in that line item, I did a 25% admin cost to cover the salary and benefits for the two employees that help administer that program. Any questions? Okay, so let's talk about our enterprise funds. We're almost there. We're almost there. These are the last three. So our enterprise funds, which I am separating out. In our previous budget, the golf course, for example, continued to be included in Parks and Rec. It should not be. It is an enterprise fund. It is meant to stand alone. An enterprise fund, for those of you who are unfamiliar, means that we're saying that this is a business and it can support itself. It can bring in its own revenue. And it can pay its own bills and it can break even. Not really meant to profit, obviously, we're a government, but it's supposed to be able to stand on its own. Solid waste is one of those. And as you all know, solid waste is having some issues. But I don't, I really believe that we've done what we need to do for the most part with the rate increases. So apart from just doing, not doing the increments and just doing a full loan, we're going to increase it to this amount tomorrow. We have to focus on our collection activities. We have to focus on enforcing that. And we'll talk a little bit more about that during the study session. Right now with the new rates that went into effect in March, the total revenues are projected at 3.7%. I'm sorry, $3,717,600. Expenditures, $3,714,632. So while going through this budget, I learned, one, that there was a laborer position that was funded and it was not filled, and there was 1.4 part-time employee positions that were not filled. Sanitation is desperately in need of two drivers, so I am taking those and converting them into two heavy equipment operator positions. Right now, we are not necessarily short-staffed, but if one person calls off, it throws off the entire route. people's trashes. When we've had these issues recently, that's what's happened. Usually one or two people will call off and they do the best that they can. So I am recommending that we change those positions, which were funded last year, to heavy equipment operator positions so we can get two additional drivers. This also continues to fund the leaf collection that we do annually. And then as I mentioned previously, it has the two transfers in of $300,000 for the truck and 305 to assist with operational costs. Any questions? And I did mention that the loan payment for solid waste is not budgeted this year. It doesn't make sense to make a loan payment to me when we're putting money, we're having to put money into the account. The golf course fund. So revenues total $1,050,000, expenditures $1,025,430 with 24,570 left over. The major project on the horizon for this is the driving range reconstruction project. I initially included $1 million for that project. I have since learned that the cost estimate on that project is $2.3 million. I have taken the $1 million out. We are going to have to have some conversations. So that will be a project that we'll have to... make a plan for how we're going to proceed. So we'll have some conversations. I am considering a forum for some of the people that have been frequent callers just to speak with them, hear their thoughts, and we probably need to have conversations about increasing prices. My understanding is that we're pretty low. I mean, like 20 bucks, I think. I don't play golf, but I've been told that By comparison, other golf courses are maybe at 180 for an 18-hole round of golf. I'm not sure. Before we make any changes, of course, we would survey and see what prices are looking like around us. But funding this driving range reconstruction project, we will have to, one, probably be creative in how we fund it, and two, we're going to need to recoup those costs some way. I did get a question, which I believe I answered and I sent out to all of you about the revenue. And so my understanding is that this has never been distinguished between driving range versus golf course versus the retail sales. It's just all golf course and it all just gets deposited. So I don't know how much the driving range alone brings in. These are the numbers we have. It's not been divided in our system. I do think it would be wise to do that moving forward because this is supposed to be a business. So you want to see, for example, if we're including $20,000 for food, I would like to know how much we're making out of that food that we sell. Right now, I can't tell you that. So those are changes that I would like to see implemented in the next fiscal year. But for now, this is what I have. Do you guys have any questions?

I do think it's important to hear from the folks. I'm looking around at my colleagues. I'm not sure any of us are the users of the driving range or the golf course too much. And I think it's important for us to make outreach to those people who have been more impacted and hear from them. I also think if the price tag for the best version is 2.3, I think we may have to ask for some folks to make some trade-offs. as to what we actually get for the dollars we put in. And again, when I say that, I want to make sure that I don't say that in a vacuum. We need to find out from the folks what's important to them so that we hear from them. I mean, I think for those of us who were on the ballot the last time around, I think we heard from plenty of people. We need to make outreach to them and say, we hear you, give you the opportunity to tell us what your thoughts and your questions are. Council Member Brenner.

Mayor. I think the other part of it is that it's not just replacing the driving range. We unfortunately have a problem with runoff that we have to fix. I think we've been fined over it. So, you know, kind of thinking about that part of it also, because some people might say, oh, we just don't do the driving range, but I don't think that's really a possibility because of the runoff.

We will have to deal with the runoff issue. You are correct. If the decision were made to only deal with that, it probably could be cheaper, but it would also mean your driving range is probably not going to reopen because there's just more needed. My understanding is that the costs ballooned a bit once they realized the issue with the irrigation system. Yeah. And it's basically useless now is my understanding. So it's really not just moving the dirt around, but it's replacing the entire irrigation system underground. So we will have some conversations moving forward about that. For now, as I mentioned, I initially put $1 million in there. I have pulled that out, and this will be something we'll need to talk about funding when the time comes up. But we will continue on with Navigate, probably hosting that forum. making sure we have a design that if and when the time comes, it can bid out. And then other options, if there are any other options. I did ask David Lowell from Navigate that initially when he told me the budget too. And I'm like, that can't be the cheapest. And that's when he let me know about the irrigation. And that's really what what I believe has driven the number up. But we'll continue having conversations, and then if and when that's ready to go, we'll bring that to you. But for now, there is no funding. I want to be very transparent about it. No funding in the budget for that, for the reasons that I've listed.

Council Member Tiemann.

Thank you, Honorable Mayor. Concerning that outreach you're talking about, how do I say this? I know my athletic build is deceptive, but I don't golf. However, having said that, I have a lot of in-laws that do, and they come all the way from Chesterfield, from South County. And I'm not sure what the draw of our golf course is. As I say, I'm not particularly athletic, but I think if we reach out, and it's relatively cheap, as my honorable colleague points out. So I think we ought to reach out is what I'm trying to say more broadly than simply our own citizens.

But I'm just second thought. I am a casual golfer. We are the best deal in the county. And I'm going to tell you, and a lot of my golfing friends out here are going to hate me for what I'm about to say. The majority of the criticism that we got for the shutdown of the driving range were not from citizens of University City. They were from folks that frequent our golf course. So I, I really think looking at the fees, we are significantly lower than many public golf courses, period. And everybody can send me hate mail, but it's a fact. And I think that really will take a look at funding the revenues that we heard from folks. And there were figures out there that were said in council meetings that we are losing somewhere in the neighborhood of $250 million. thou a year and that fee may be higher just from the driving range alone

Okay, so the parking garage fund, total revenues projected at $163,295. Expenditures at $162,799, leaving $496. The highlights for this fund includes a loan payment to the general fund, $53,220. It seems we've done a lot of loans. And then funds and elevator upgrade, which I can attest that that is needed. I... The parking garage used to be under me a couple years ago, and the elevator was always down. So that's definitely needed. I did get a question if we were still moving forward with the parking meter project, and we are. I think we're just having some... We're just some contract negotiations that are going on, but we are still moving forward. I do not have estimates as to what that would bring in. We have not been... we don't even have a baseline. I don't know that we, when I started here five years ago, we had, we were doing free parking in the loop and we did that for a couple of years. And then we re-implemented, but we have not, the meters have been broken. No, people were jamming the meters. They were not paying. So we don't even have a baseline. So, Right now, I can tell you, I don't know that we bring anything in from meters. So any improvement, anything that we bring in once these new ones are deployed will be an improvement for us. And so, oh, sorry.

Good questions. Do we have any ownership in the parking garage behind the Castle Reach Apartments? We negotiated part of that at one point. All right, so there's no end. And in fact, the parking meters, if we're talking about this parking meter replacement, will go into that parking garage?

Yes. So anywhere there's a parking meter is where we intend to deploy the new pay station and whatnot. So yes, in that parking garage. I probably will also look at the fees for that as well and whether it should be manned. I mean, as you all, if you've been there, you see there's a booth and you just drive on in and you don't pay. We do offer parking permits. So I don't know that we've increased the rates when I was over it, it was $40 per space per month for any open space. And then $150 per space per month for the secured space that has a gate and a remote control, which we offer to some of the businesses like, you know, employees at Iron Age, for example, may come and get a parking permit so they have somewhere to park. So looking at those fees as well, my understanding, I'll be looking at all of our fees. I'll be honest. My understanding is that a lot of them don't. are 20 years old. I'm a lot of them. Our new director of planning and zoning, I think been with us maybe 60 days and he's like, a lot of these fees are low. So we'll be looking at all of those. Cause my understanding is you all haven't really touched rates for about 20 years or so. But yeah, any other questions about the parking garage? Okay. Last one. Other funds, and we'll go through these real quick. So we have the debt service fund, which is, again, what we transfer in to fund the Annex Trinity renovation. We have our special business district. So as you know, they have their own boards and they adopt their budget. LSBD. It's having issues. That is part of the reason for the Loop Master Plan to help envision it. They are supplemented. They do have a projected deficit for their budget, but it is supplemented by EDRST funds. They are awarded funding from the Economic Development Retail Sales Tax Fund every year. So that will cover any deficit they have. And Parkview Gardens is... They're fine every year. They're in healthy shape. The library fund, as you know, the library board passes their budget. They're a component unit, meaning they have their own board, their own director. So I don't make any changes with their budget. They had a projected deficit of one hundred and forty nine thousand. I did confirm with Patrick Wall that they they have the fund balance to cover that deficit. Um, one fund, as I mentioned, I noticed was not in the budget last year was the olive one 72 for RPA one. So I did put that in the budget this year as that is how we will pay the debt service on the 10th. So, um, that is, uh, and part of, part of the reason why you probably saw the, uh, the number, the full budget number balloon up a little bit. I think last year was about $57 million, and this year it's $60 something. And this is about $3 million or so that was added in that wasn't there last year. And then just the pensions, we touched on those. Uniform pension fund is 77% funded. Non-uniform, 96% funded. And we know we have some work to do with those. So with that said... Any other questions?

Council Member McMahon.

Hopefully just briefly. If memory serves me, we had hired a consultant to make sure we were collecting the appropriate tax through the pool, and we had caught some errors early on. Have we gotten reports? Are there any subsequent reports that we're getting paid correctly? Are we still following up on that?

So, John and I talked about it, and the trustee, if I'm not mistaken, is verifying that, but I'll defer to John. Like, didn't you, I think you told me the trustee is managing that for us to make sure we're getting our full allocation for the market and all of development.

Yes, there's a monitor. yes paid paid by uh the trustee the and uh we get quarterly reports on on those and it basically states the the various revenues coming in the sources uh and then if there are any problems those are noted and those reports are reviewed by whom

I have not gotten them, but we'll get them.

Those reports have gone to myself, the city manager, and the finance director in the past.

And by the way, the question has always been, just so many folks may know, that the 170 and Ollie part of that project, the zip code is for Olivet and not for U-City. And so one of the questions has always been making sure that we get our rightful share of the money, particularly the Costco location is so huge. So I think it is incumbent upon all of us to ask this question regularly, which is, do we get those reports? Who sees them and are the numbers right? And again, to everybody else, if you'd like to help us more, please shop at Costco, Target, and Dearburg's because those funds do help us out. But in all sincerity, it is important for us to know that we are getting the appropriate share. And then also the people who are watching, we're a pooled city, so it's even more complicated because there's – Monies that come off the top. There's money that goes into the pool. There's money that comes back to you. For years, University City was definitely a pool recipient where we took more money out of the pool than we put in. And now we're probably going to be more the other way where we're putting a lot more money in than we're taking out. And historically, Chesterfield was the one that was putting a lot of money in, and they complained that they weren't getting enough out. So just giving you a little context on that. I do want to say on the city manager's behalf, she has put forth a lot of painful decisions, a lot of painful decisions, and has, I think, laid our numbers bare, which I think is good for us to have that information. To the folks who are watching, I think most all of the members of council have had a number of separate meetings with the city manager to go through the different iterations of the budget. So the questions tonight, I think we're good, but I think there's just one more level of the number of questions we've had since we entered this process this year. The budget will be coming up for a vote, I believe, next Monday. So if there are changes that people would like to make, I hope that you will, unless you want to do a last minute budget amendment, that you will have contact with the city manager so that we have some idea of where things are coming. Council Member Dancy.

Quick question about the Third World Revitalization Fund. Is that 108 a percentage of what came in or is that divided beyond the 22 years that we know the fund is going to be available?

That is what the fund is allocated to get every year. So at the outset, when Costco closed on the parcel that it owned, we received $3 million in cash up front. And then the redevelopment called for us to receive that. a total of 394, I believe, from three funds across 23 years. So that is, it's not a percentage, they're defined amounts that are in the redevelopment agreement that go into this fund every year from three sources.

So if all goes well, we'll continue to receive 108? Yes, yes.

I think John has a footnote.

Thank you, Mayor, members of the council, Ms. Sharp. In response to your question, so the $108,000 was part of a $200,000 amount annually that would go from the TIF into the Third Ward revitalization, actually, the RPA2 slash 3 fund. And The good news is now that we have Dearburg's and Target open, that number, we were getting 92,000 guaranteed. That goes to 200,000 as of this month. It should go. So this coming fiscal year, instead of getting 92, you should receive 200,000 that will go into the RPA fund. So when you look at the other funds here and you see Olive 170, TIF, RPA1, I'm assuming Ms. Sharp kind of put the three RPA funds together. They are separate redevelopment projects. So RPA1 is the 50 acres or so east of Woodson and McKnight to 170 roughly. RPA2 is the Olive Boulevard corridor. I'm sorry, west of McKnight and Woodson. RPA2 is east all the way down to the city limit or just west of Skinker. So that's a separate fund. And in that one, you get all the incremental sales taxes since the 2018 base, and you get half of the incremental real estate taxes. taxes that go into that fund. And that's to, uh, revitalize, uh, that area. Um, and, and it is a separate fund and then RPA three, which is largely residential, uh, that, uh, that doesn't really have much of a, a funding source other than the transfer from the RPA one fund, the 200,000 I mentioned, plus the other sources that, uh, The city manager may recommend that the council appropriate that fund, including what we call the bottom half or part of the city sales taxes, the special sales taxes. It's kind of complex, but there are these funds, and we do have to keep track of those balances, and the council can appropriate those funds as it deems appropriate.

Thank you.

I don't know that that really clarified a lot for you over there, Christine. John has a working knowledge of this TIF like nobody else.

No, I think it's important that we continue to hear this because I know the questions about it, so that's why I brought it up.

Thank you. It's almost that each of us should put it on our counters once a quarter to ask the question. Seriously, to ask the question for an update. Councilmember Tiemann.

Thank you, Honorable Mayor. I'd just like to... pick up on something that a conversation we were having before the meeting, as well as what the, our honorable city council, our councilman, our city attorney pointed out, and that is that these are really complex and that such things as being a part of a pool city puts one level of complexity into it. And I think there is a kind of sense in the community that suddenly now Deerburg's has opened up, now Target has opened up, and Deerburg's is basically every week loading up a van full of money coming to our way. And it has a kind of simplicity, whereas these things, this kind of money that's coming from these things is coming gradually. It's coming through various complex mechanisms. And I think this needs to be made clear in general because I don't know that everybody always understands it. Before I got on council, I'll be absolutely honest with my own ignorance. I didn't understand what a pool city was, that tax. And so I hope these things are somehow made clear to folks that it isn't a simple one-to-one correspondence when it comes to collecting money.

If there are no other questions, to the city manager, thank you very much for the hard work you've done, for the detail you've put in. And we will see everyone next Monday night. Do we have a study session ahead of time, too, or no? No? At 6.30 next week is when the budget will be voted on with any changes. So to everyone, thank you very much for joining us this evening.