Board of Aldermen - Regular Meeting

I call this meeting to order and ask everyone to please rise for Pledge of Allegiance and prayer.

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

Rick, if you would lead us in prayer, please.

Heavenly Father, we just thank you for this day. Lord, we just thank you for all the blessings. Lord, we thank you for that. We live in the greatest country on earth, and Father God, we just ask for your grace and your mercy, and Lord, that you will give us wisdom tonight to do your will. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen.

All right.

I am present. Alderman Dent. Present. Alderman Kinsey. Present. Alderman Whalen is absent. Present. Alderman Letchworth. Present. City Administrator Burbridge.

Present.

City Clerk Kohler.

Present.

City Attorney Weber. Present. Public Works Director Payne.

Present.

Chief of Police Chase. Present. Finance Director Houston. Present. Economic Development Director Sutterfield. Present. And I see that we've got Kyle Walker from the Orders Department. And then we've also got Melissa from Parks and Rec. Next item up is the approval of tonight's agenda.

I make a motion to approve the agenda.

Do I have a second?

I second the motion.

This time I will call for the vote. Alderman Kinsey? Yes. Alderman Dent? Yes. And Alderman Letchworth? Yes. Next item up is the consent agenda.

I make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Do I have a second?

I'll second that.

This time I will call for the vote. Alderman McKenzie. Yes. Alderman Letchworth. Yes. And Alderman Dent.

Yes.

We have nobody for public comment tonight. So we'll move right along to the street closure, annual street closure for the W. Robbins Trunk Retreat.

I think this is the third or fourth year that they've requested street closures for the Trunk or Treat. It's going to be the same from MacArthur to 4th, I believe. Then it'll be closed from 6 to 8, or 530 to 8. May. May, sorry.

Was it Halloween night? All right, correct, or Halloween evening? This time I'll open it up for any questions from the board. No. All right. Do I have a motion?

I'll make a motion to approve the closure for the Trunk or Treat on Halloween.

Do I have a second?

I'll second that motion.

If there's no further discussion, I'll call for the vote. Alderman Kinsey? Yes. Alderman Letchworth? Yes. And Alderman Dunn? Yes. Next item up, Randy League is looking for street pleasure for the Current River Car Club.

And Mr. League isn't here. And I apologize. He said he was going to be here. So I didn't bring any information on this. So we'll try to get it back on the next agenda. OK. That's fine.

All right, next item up will be a committee appointment for the utility committee. Derek Marfitt was wanting to be a part of the utility committee, so tonight I'll leave it in the hands of the board.

Do I have a motion? I'll make a motion to approve Derek Marfitt adding to the utility committee member.

Do I have a second?

I'll second that motion.

There's no further discussion. I'll call for the vote. Alderman McKenzie. Yes. Alderman Muchworth.

Yes. Alderman Dent. Yes.

Next item up we got for new and miscellaneous business, we've got resolution 17-2026.

Resolution 17 dash 2026, whereas the delta regional authority here after D. R. A. Was created by Congress by the Delta Regional Authority Act of 2000 as amended as a federal state partnership now comprised of 255 counties and parishes within the eight states of Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee in order to remedy severe and chronic economic distress by stimulating economic development and fostering partnerships that will have a positive impact on the Delta region's economy.

Thank you.

Sorry. So this, uh, this grant In a nutshell, this is for the East Roosevelt project. So this is something we've talked about in Utility Committee, in Finance Committee, in CIP. This project would be to replace aging water lines, sewer lines, and then repaving. Those are the core parts of Roosevelt from Highway 19 to Mildred. That's a huge section. As we talked about it, probably our sidewalks need some updating as well. We had our engineers on site, and we kind of looked over the street that they recommended that as well. So when we start talking about all the things that this project might encompass, I listed out some bullet points, things that this project... will hit on targets for us. So we have in our codes, I think I sent to you all last week, our complete streets policy that was adopted in 2018. And we've really not had a complete rework of a street in that time. So this is the first real opportunity to maybe implement some of that. So this would hit some targets that would also potentially help us when we talk about Hold on, let me back up. We've also talked about putting in sidewalks on West Roosevelt, immediately to the west of the intersection with Highway 19 or Main Street, in the hopes that in the future that will help MoDOT draw down funds to put a crosswalk at that intersection and do some upgrades at that intersection. By adding the complete streets, that's going to add an additional layer of making that pedestrian friendly, potentially bicycle friendly, thinking about all the kids who are using that route to get to and from school. So the complete streets will really hit on that component of it and could potentially help us with that. Bringing those sidewalks up to ADA, again, this being one of our busier streets when we talk about during school hours, morning and afternoon pick up and drop off. by replacing a section of water line, like I said, that's beyond its expected life cycle and that's been identified by our water department previously as the number one street that we're having to dig up for water main breaks. So alleviate cost, expense and time when we have to do that. It'll replace then While we're replacing that, we'll automatically be there replacing service lines. So that hits at our lead service line project. So we'll be replacing those, be able to document what that material is on the city side of that. So it'll hit on that project as well and requirement by EPA. It will also then replace sections of sewer line that's beyond expected lifespan, those clay tile sewer lines. And when you start replacing that, we have a document. It's on file with Department of Natural Resources called the CMOM. That's Capacity Management, Operation, and Maintenance Program for our sewer lines. and so this will help us hit some targets on there for replacement of sewer lines as well so it really hits a lot of both required goals that we're supposed to be meeting as well as a lot of programs that we actively have going in the city this project we're applying for a million dollars in grant funding so it's a large grant that then requires a match of a million and a half So the intent is that were we awarded that, and the actual grant itself will be just under a million, like 900,000 and change. If we were awarded that full amount, That would be applied to the sewer first, because that is the one of our utility funds that probably the least healthy. We've talked about that over the years. And that way, it would not impact rate payers. Then any remaining after covering sewer costs would go towards the water costs, because again, rate payer driven. And then, I mean, there wouldn't be anything left ever after applying to those two utilities. But then the remainder of the funds would come from special streets, general fund, capital improvements, and then, like I said, if need be, we would match with some water funds. So, like I said, a large project, one that we've been working toward for the past two to three years and talking about. This application is due, I believe, the 28th of this month. And so we're working with Kelly Sink from MRPC. She's putting all of it together. Toth Engineering, in your packet, they put together an estimate of probable costs for that. I'm trying to think what else. Are there questions about this program or this application? no we've talked about this a few different times right yes yeah it shouldn't be anything new to anyone um one thing to note there are four motions required to approve this it's kind of complicated i did verify that the resolution had to be worded this way because it's a little wonky. So Tammy's going to have to kind of fill in some of the stuff as we move through the motions, and then the mayor will sign it after that's all completed. So yes, four separate motions that do have to be made, which I thought was quite interesting.

Yeah, I mean, I get several complaints about the people taking their children to school, especially down that portion of the road. Gotcha. There was always the joke made about somebody's going to need to take their children to school in a rock crawler so they could get them there on time.

This will be a nice improvement for the community. Now, there is one thing that I want to make you all aware of, and I believe I put it in the text. I'm not going to try to hunt for it here. If we're not awarded a minimum of $500,000 in grant funding, then that's kind of an internal go-no-go point. because that means then we have to add to sewer rates to make the project work. So that's kind of, you know, staff, that's what we've put to our engineering firm, is that if we're not awarded at least that amount, then it's a go-no-go. And that means the whole project goes on hold until we either find another grant to apply for, or we try to accumulate funds over a period of time. So, okay.

Was there any other conversation? Because there has been previous conversations with MRPC for the shaving. They were talking about the road conditions, about shaving that blind hill over on 19 toward that, if it would affect this project.

It wouldn't affect this directly because that would all be work that would be done to 19. And that would be in MoDOT's court, not even MRPC. And so MoDOT is not leaning towards shaving because that cost to shave down that hill would be very large. They're looking more at maybe adding a turn lane, maybe some signalized crosswalks, things of that nature. so because i wasn't for sure if they was going to do something to the highway and we do all this work at the other end of the road gotcha yeah and again they don't have those plans even developed yet everything at this point is speculation um even even our district engineer will tell you that right now okay was there any other questions from questions all right Apologies. I didn't know how to cut it down the way this resolution is put together.

So we have to make four separate and we go off those recommendations.

Yes.

There. Okay.

And we need to vote on each one before we move on to the next one.

So we could say move to approve resolution 17-2026 recommendation number one. Would that? No. No, not really.

I mean, technically, you need to read out specifically or state specifically what your motion is. My apologies. Do you need me to enlarge that font for you?

I think I can wing it.

I'm not trying to be facetious. I think I can wing it.

OK. Make a motion to approve resolution 17-2026. Recommend a motion is moved to approve. of designating and appointing Mayor Greg Parker to perform on behalf of the city of Salem and giving him the authority to make those acts and assume any and all duties in dealing with the application and award with DRA for the fiscal year 2026 federal award program cycle. Do I have a second?

I'll second.

There's no further discussion. I'll call for the vote. Alderman Letchworth.

Yes.

Alderman McKenzie. Yes. Alderman Depp.

Yes.

All right. Number two.

All right. I'll make a motion for approval of designating additional funds in the amount of $1,500,000 to an award of funds by the DRA.

And do I have a second? I'll second that motion. There's no further discussion. I'll call for the vote. Alderman Kinsey? Yes. Alderman Letchburt? Yes. Alderman Dent? Yes. All right. On to number three recommendation.

I move approval that in the event of an administrative change, the new mayor shall continue to have such authority as that granted Mayor Greg Parker as related to the application and award with DRA for the fiscal year 2026 federal award program cycle.

Do I have a second?

I'll second.

There's no further discussion. I'll call for the vote. Alderman Dent. Yes. Alderman Kinsey. Yes. And Alderman Letchworth. Yes. On to the fourth and final recommendation.

Move to approve Resolution 1726, granting Mayor Greg Parker authority to perform on behalf of the City of Salem and the authority to make those acts and assume any and all duties in dealing with the award with DRA for the fiscal year 2026 federal award program cycle. and authorizing Mayor Greg Parker to execute and submit any and all documents, including but not limited to applications, award closing documents, requests for funds, status reports to DRA for the physical year, 2026 federal award program cycle, and the awardee agrees to provide additional funds in the amount of $1.5 million to said award, and in the event of administration change, the new mayor shall continue to have such authority under this resolution. Do I have a second?

I'll second.

There is no further discussion. I will call for the vote. Alderman Letchworth? Yes. Alderman Kinsey? Yes. And Alderman Nutt? Yes. Need a break after that one? All right, next item up, we've got bids for the RAS pump, bid approval.

Good evening, Mayor, Alderman.

Good evening.

We're here to talk about, so we had spoke about the approval of the emergency funding for a temporary RAS pump out at the wastewater treatment plant. The staff's summary is to notify the board of an additional $31.50 in costs to repair the wastewater treatment plant and RAS pump that failed prior to our last board meeting. So the pump, we had the temporary pump put in after we pulled ours out, and Van Deventer took it to assess it. They take that pump, they break it down, they put it on – basically on their lathe and check it and make sure everything's balanced in the shaft and all that stuff. Make sure it's still going to function properly. It had a piece of metal in it that basically had picked up and sucked up into it. And that's what locked it up. And fortunately for us, I know 3150 doesn't seem fortunate, but it's better than $30,000 for a pump. It had not damaged anything to the point where it could not be put back into service. So they dumped fluids out of it, checked that for metal, nothing. So we lucked out. Now, trying to track down where that piece of metal came from would be near impossible. We find a lot of things in the sewer plant. really unfortunate but also not so bad so basically what we're asking is that we fund this from the wastewater treatment plant special services account to pay for that final amount there uh for troubleshooting and putting it they'll reinstall it so did you have any questions this time the board doesn't have any questions do i have a motion

I make a motion to recommend the approval of the additional cost of $3,150 to put the RAS pump back into operation.

Do I have a second?

I'll second that motion.

There's no further discussion. I'll call for the vote. Alderman Kinsey? Yes. Alderman Letchworth? Yes. Alderman Wendlandt?

Yes.

Bottom up, we got reading of bills for first and second reading. Start with bill number 3731.

Bill number 3731, an ordinance authorizing the mayor to execute addendum number one to task order number 15 between the City of Salem, Missouri and C.M. Archer Group, P.C., doing business as Archer Elgin for professional engineering services related to the wastewater treatment facility improvements phase two. Permission to read second reading by caption only?

Yes, please.

Bill number 3731, an ordinance authorizing the mayor to execute addendum number one to task order number 15 between the City of Salem, Missouri and CM Archer Group, PC doing business as Archer Elgin for professional engineering services related to the wastewater treatment facility improvements phase two.

Thank you. And Mayor, on this, these changes to the original scope of services were recommended by DNR.

It's time I open it up for the board. Any discussion?

Do I have a motion? I make a motion to approve addendum number one to task order 15 with Archer Elgin for the wastewater treatment facility improvements, phase two. Do I have a second?

I'll second.

There's no further discussion. I'll call for the vote. Alderman Letchworth?

Yes.

Alderman Kinsey?

Yes. Alderman Nitz? Yes.

Next up, we have first and second reading for bill number 3732.

Bill number 3732, an ordinance authorizing the mayor to execute addendum number two to task order number 15 between the City of Salem, Missouri and C.M. Archer Group, P.C., doing business as Archer Elgin for professional engineering services related to the wastewater treatment facility improvements phase two. Permission to read second reading by caption only?

Yes, please.

Bill number 3732, an ordinance authorizing the mayor to execute addendum number two to task order number 15 between the City of Salem, Missouri and CM Archer Group PC doing business as Archer Elgin for professional engineering services related to the wastewater treatment facility improvements phase two.

So this one, again, recommendations by DNR. This is specifically related to the the grant that we received for removal of the sludge from the wastewater treatment facility.

All right. Opening it up for discussion. Do I have a motion?

I move to approve the amendment number two to task order number 15 for the disposal of the existing biosolids.

Do I have a second? I'll second that.

It's time. If there's no further discussion, I will call for the vote. Alderman Kinsey? Yes. Alderman Lutchworth? Yes. Alderman Dent?

Yes.

All right. Next up, we have four reports tonight. I'll start mine off. as i do a presentation tonight is it's my honor as the mayor of the city of salem to recognize someone who has dedicated 30 years of their life to serve in our community mr chris mcgirt 30 years is more than just a number it represents three decades of hard work dedication early mornings long days challenges accomplishments and countless contributions to the city of salem during those 30 years chris has been a dependable part of our team He has worked behind the scenes and on the front lines doing the work that helps keep our community running and our community moving forward. Public services isn't always an easy job, and much of our work of our city employees do may not always receive the recognition it deserves. But the people of the Salem benefit every day from employees like Chris who show up, do their job, and take pride in serving their community. 30 years of service means Chris has seen a lot of changes in Salem. He has worked with different mayors, aldermen, administrators, department heads, and fellow employees. Though all those changes, one thing has remained consistent, his commitment to the city of Salem. On behalf of the city of Salem, myself, the board of aldermen, our city employees, and the citizens of Salem, I want to personally thank Chris for everything that he's done for our community. Chris, as you begin your retirement, I hope you take great pride in knowing that your 30 years of work have made a difference. The city is better because of the time, effort, and dedication you have given to it. So tonight it is my privilege to present this proclamation for Chris McGirt of his service of 30 years dedicated to the city of Salem. Congratulations on your retirement, Chris.

there's always been a popular toast that's always been made and stuff and that toast is may your latter days be better than your first and with this administration with this team at the water department and all the city personnel in this board my latter days have definitely been better than my first And I'm kind of reminded that when you listen to interviews with a former Super Bowl winning coach that's retired from coaching, he uses two words. He'll use the word my, and he's talking about my team, and he's talking about them players on the field that usually get all the recognition. And to me, my team, that's Kyle over here and them guys at the water department. And then he uses the term our team, which he's talking about the organization in a whole. And I got to thinking about that. Those are the unsung heroes. They played just as big a part in the Water System of the Year Award. And you got those that's in the box office. And I thought, that's our gals in the utility office. Those are the ones that's, no matter what kind of character comes up to that window, they're always courteous and they do their job professionally. And then you got that person that that looks after those individual players and stuff and keeps all the legal stuff and everything all completely straight with that, and that's Tammy, our city clerk. Then you got the person that's always looking for promotional stuff to promote that team, look for new opportunities and everything, and that's Carrie. She's always on the lookout for that. And then there's that person that always keeps those finances straight and everything and keeps that team functioning. And right over there is our person for that. And then you've got that go-between, between that part of the organization and the team that brings the direction and navigates that to the team. And that's Mr. Steve Payne that's done just a great job of bringing everything together. And then you've got that person that navigates the whole thing, that oversees the whole thing, puts those people in strategic places to do their jobs and perform them even better and make this a winning team, and that's been Sally. I tell you, I could not have worked for a better organization at this time. I feel fortunate. I feel blessed. And when you combine my team and our team together, every team has a demographic, and ours is the city of Salem. And this is your team. And I'm here to tell you, after 30 years, I can tell you, this is a winning team. You will never, ever have a better team than this with the city of Salem. So I'd like to thank you all for letting me be even a small part of this. I feel fortunate, and I'm very blessed to have been a part of the city of Salem for these years. We're thankful for you, Chris. Thank you, Chris.

Thank you, Chris.

So on the rest of my notes tonight, we've got a back-to-school fair August the 14th from 3 to 7 happening at the community center at the armory. They're giving out free backpacks, school supplies. They have some games and prizes and some free food. Also, Four Rivers, located at 703 South Grand, is having a back-to-school bash themselves next week on August the 18th. from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Let's kick off a healthy school year, join them for fun, family-friendly event with healthy services, giveaways, drinks, snacks, and more. And before I finish my notes, as I said in my speech with Chris, our employees here at the city are our unsung heroes. They're the ones that get out there and truly do the hard work. It's the easiest thing, even as mayor, to sit up here and guide meetings every night and you know, get to give a sense of direction, or always find those water leaks that sometimes it helps the employees keep, you know, more security in case that they ever feel that they're unwanted or bored. But tonight, just as a recognition to all of our city employees, you will always be the unsung hero, and you will always be the backbone of our community. Other than that, we'll be moving right along to Sally's report.

So I want to just reiterate a couple of things in tonight's agenda and stress the importance when we talk about strategically what are things that the city's doing. We talked about the approval of the grant application for the Delta Regional Authority for the Roosevelt Project. That is the first of five projects that we as staff have identified as key areas where those are the top five streets that get dug up because of water main breaks. And so in those areas, we also have the clay tile sewer line. And so those are areas that we know we need to be replacing. And so I just want to stress that this is part of the larger plan. We talk about the capital improvement plan being the five-year plan for the city. Those five streets that Chris actually helped identify for us, and I'm not saying we may not make changes as we move forward because realities change, situations change, but those five streets extend beyond just the five-year plan. And even Roosevelt, the way we have it planned, needs to span two budget years. in order to, again, reduce impact on rates for customers to make it affordable for our community. So this is, like I said, part of a much larger vision for where we head in our community, working to replace infrastructure, trying our best to get grants and outside funding to make sure that we're protecting rates and keeping them as low as we possibly can. So I think that's important to stress that about this project. It's not going to happen this year. It's even in the capital improvement plan for the next two budget years, not this budget year that we just started. The next two budget years is what it'll span. And that seems like that's a really long time out, and it's easy for folks to say, City, what are you doing? It takes a long time to put together projects of this size, to put together the funding and the financing for it and figure out how all the pieces fit together. And so I just wanted to stress that, that we are trying very hard to put together that plan to our future. And this is a big step, applying for this grant for that project. one of the other things I wanted to note that was on this evening's agenda to addendum number two right sounds pretty not exciting about removing sewer sludge again not a real exciting topic this is huge for our community without this grant this grant is just under eight hundred thousand dollars to haul off and dispose of tons, literally tons of sewer sludge, that because of PFAS contamination, we can't just dispose of anywhere. We have been stuck at this point. It's causing us other issues when we talk about regulatory aspects from DNR. And so to get this grant and to be able to remove decades worth of this sludge that has been sitting on our facility is another huge move for our utility. And again, to be able to get a 100% grant that we don't have to provide matching funds for, again, phenomenal. That keeps our rates lower. I know we hear a lot, and I understand about being frustrated. Anytime we have to do any utility rate increase, it impacts our residents. I understand that. But we're doing everything we can to find that other funding and to be able to move our community forward with a plan and with a way to address the issues that we have without adding more than we absolutely have to to those rates. So I wanted to stress those. For the rest of my report, you have in your packet, and it's a little out of order, so my apologies. It's on page 33 in your packet. There is the MPUA. Their most recent, it's our agenda, and of course now I can't get the, okay, my apologies. That's why. User error here. So in that packet, it's a very long agenda packet. I do think it's worthwhile for you to read through and understand a few of the pieces. This is also going to be on the utility committee agenda for tomorrow night, so the utility committee has it. There are some specific references that I highlighted out in the first page as kind of my notes to go with specific slides about efforts that MPUA staff are taking and decisions that the MPEP committee has made, which is our MPEP is our power pool. Trying to reduce long-term costs. We've spent the last year and a half, two years talking a lot in the MPEP committee and at MPUA as a whole about our integrated resource plan. So that's the long-term, where's our power coming from? Is it, you know, what's the future of the coal-fired power plants as those are shutting down? You know, natural gas-fired plants that MPUA is actively in the process of building and some of those on behalf of our power purchase pool, the 14 cities who make that up. So we will have partial ownership in that through our power pool. So we talk about some property, some options on some property purchases in here. We talk about some policies that MPUA staff have come up with specifically related to large load customers. So what does that mean? That's data centers. okay and so the impact you think about we just spent the last year and a half two years talking about our future integrated resource plan and how are we going to provide the power for our cities that we need so they put a policy together because if all of a sudden a large load customer like that pops up that we have not planned for that's a problem so there is a policy in there about how that's to be dealt with okay So another piece, and I don't remember where exactly it is in here, MPEP, our power purchase pool, decided some time back to issue a request for proposals for a battery pilot project. It's called BESS. Forgive me, I don't recall exactly what that acronym stands for. So MPUA staff put together a request for proposals. I believe they had seven or eight different, they weren't all different companies, we'll say battery types due to the makeup and the technology behind the batteries that responded. MPUA staff assessed those. Their recommendation was to award that to Tesla. They were the lead in, You know, they had the most advanced battery packs. They had the best warranty. They had the most reliability. What they were looking at was a pilot project for our power pool to put together an eight megawatt pack of batteries to be located at one of our communities. That hasn't been decided yet where. But one of our 14 communities to benefit the entire pool. Now, the community that gets selected as this pilot project will have the first benefit before even the rest of the pool. The concept behind this is to shave off peak loads. So when we have a peak alert and we're looking at hitting a new peak demand for the entire pool, they could deploy this battery to deploy two megawatts for up to four hours. That's why it's an eight megawatt battery pack, two megawatts up to four hours to shave off the top of that peak, which then as we've talked before through utilities, anytime you set a new peak demand, you're gonna have higher costs of your electricity for the next 12 months until you set a new peak or that high peak rolls off, then you fall back to the next highest peak. So anytime we can avoid setting a new peak, That's better for us and our customers financially. So at this point, like I said, MPOA staff were awarding that bid to Tesla Battery Packs. And then they're in the process of trying to select a site for that. They're looking for a community that has a substation within their community. Obviously, we have one that would have property adjacent to the substation in case there's not room or an agreement would show me to have additional equipment within the substation grounds. They'd be looking for a specific feeder line to attach that to. And then again, like I said, once deployed, whatever community that's located in would actually receive that first benefit because it's going to be directly on your distribution lines where you're shaving off a peak. So again, the selection of that community hasn't happened yet. They're looking at all 14 communities, because all of us are former Show Me Power customers. So we all have those substations in our communities. So that's where we're at. They're assessing the communities. all of the math to look and see what was the best option among those seven or eight proposals that they received and like i said tesla came out in the lead for that so i'll leave it at that unless anyone has questions if you have very technical questions i may have to go back to mpua for that so anyway that concludes my report all right any questions

OK, moving right along, Stacy, would you like to come up and talk about some finances?

Good evening, everyone.

Good evening.

OK, so we are now into one month into the fiscal year 27. Sales tax revenues came in strong. For July, we brought in approximately 30% more over prior year July. General fund sales tax generated $299,000. Parks and Rec sales tax brought in $56,000. And capital improvement sales tax brought in $75,000. I did say that we brought in approximately 30% more over prior year July. I just got the tax statements for August, and they're like 20% below. So it kind of averaged out. So it looked really high this month. It's going to look lower next month. For those of you who like SCRAF, the graph illustrates a year-to-year sales tax performance over the past three years. Any questions on sales tax? No? Okay, moving on. Okay, this slide is an overall look at utility usages and revenues. For July, utility revenues have come in close to budget expectations. For electric, we build around 4.6 million kilowatt hours. That is down slightly compared to prior year. generating 621 000 in sales revenues on purchase of power that is what the city pays to mpua to provide power to us for july we paid 388 000 that is two percent less than prior year on water consumption we have built around 11 million gallons that's up slightly compared to prior year Water revenues generated around 123,000. Then moving on to sewer consumption, we billed around 10 million gallons. Sewer revenues billed are at 139,000. Any questions on utilities? Okay. So this slide provides a summary of all city funds. It shows the beginning balance of this fiscal year 27, followed by revenues, expenditures, and any transfers between funds. The first column shows the, sorry, the final column shows the ending balance for each fund as of July 31st. So overall expenditures exceed revenues. This is primarily due to significant grant-related expenses being paid before the reimbursements were posted to our financials. The combined fund balance for all city funds is approximately $16.9 million. Questions on that slide? Okay, moving on. Okay, my last slide compares the city's total fund revenues and expenditures to the fiscal 27 budget. As of July, the city has collected approximately 6% of budgeted revenues, while expenditures are approximately 9% of budgeted expenditures. So as I mentioned on the previous slide, expenditures are currently outpacing revenues, and that is because of significant grant expenses that were paid prior to posting the revenues. Questions? OK, that's all I have on financials.

Thank you, Stacey. Thank you. Thank you. Carrie, do you have anything? Not tonight, sir. Okay. Moving right along. Melissa, you want to come on up? We haven't seen you for been busy, busy, busy with all these games and flag football and all that other good stuff going on.

I'll stumble up here. Yes, good evening. Summer ball is over, so we had a good summer ball season. It was good. We are currently in flag football cheerleading season right now, so registration is open. Getting the word out with schools not being in session is very hard, so I've been trying to share it on Facebook and the different media outlets that we have. So if you know anybody that wants to play flag football or cheerleading, spread the word, please. Share on Facebook. That helps me tremendously. We always need coaches, so my call for coaches again. And we're already working on the Salem Most Spectacular. We have several vendors that have shown interest. We've reached back out to them for final information. Still looking for food truck vendors, but it is planned for October 24th, and we're happy to have Catherine Nguyen join our team with the chamber. So it'll be a bigger, better event, and more help is always great.

Better weather this year.

Better weather, yes. Go ahead and start praying for that now. And, I don't know, has anybody been to the park lately?

I'll be there in the morning.

Look, Hannah Heiholt started a mural for us. I know that's a hot topic, but we don't have a lot of beautification in our park. We don't have anybody that does shrubs and flowers anymore. We had an organization that did that, but they dispersed. This new mural is absolutely beautiful. And it's right behind the splash pad that our splash pad is used continuously. Anytime it is down, I find myself tagged on Facebook numerous times that the button is out. But it is highly used, and it's a great location for a really, really beautiful design, and she's doing a magnificent job. So I encourage you to go check it out. It's really pretty. Any questions for me?

No questions.

Anybody want to coach football?

Well, I might have three hours on Saturday, huh?

Okay. We have cheer. You want to post cheer? No? Okay.

I don't think I'd look good as a cheerleader out there. All right. Mr. Steve Bain, come on up. Anything for Public Works?

All the Public Works departments are asking permission to help with special reports.

Nothing special. All right. Well, we'll move it right along to the board reports. Alderman Dent.

I have no report.

Alderman Ledgeworth.

No report.

Alderman Kinsey.

Nothing to report.

Wow. I feel like an overachiever here tonight. All right. Last item up. We have closed session for real estate and attorney client privileges. So I will need a motion to go into closed session.

I move that we go into closed session.

Do I have a second?

I'll second.

This time I will call for the vote. Alderman Dent.

Yes. Alderman McKenzie.

Yes. And Alderman Ledgeworth. Yes. And thank you all for attending tonight.