City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay.

So.

Is she dialing? Is she dialing?

All right. Welcome, everybody. Welcome to the City Council meeting. It's still 6 p.m. Tuesday, September 1st, 2026. We have our quorum. And do we have our invocation? Aaron. All right. Thank you, Aaron.

I had to write one down. I'm not used to this. Sorry. Lord, we come together today with thankful hearts. Thank you for the time and this place and the people gathered here. We ask you to guide our words and our actions so that we can bring goodness to our community and ask for all your blessings.

Amen.

Amen. Thank you. Do the pledge.

One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

all right welcome again everybody we'll go ahead and move to public comments the city council welcome citizen participation and comments at all council meetings citizen comments are limited to three minutes out of respect for everyone's time the council is not permitted to respond to your comments the texas open meetings act requires the topic of discussion deliberation be posted on the agenda no more or sorry no less than three business days in advance of the council meetings if your comments relate to the topic On the agenda, the council will discuss the topic on the agenda at the time that the topic is discussed and deliberating. Any comments? All right, we'll go ahead and move on to the consent agenda. Items on the consent agenda are approved through a single council motion which applies to all items listed. Consent agenda's items are considered routine, not likely to require discussion or deliberation, and may be discussed prior to making a motion. There will be no separate discussions on these items unless a council member requests an item be removed and considered separately. Item number one, consider approval of August 18th, 2026 meeting minutes. item number two, pay request number 19 to Wicker Construction, West Loop Wastewater Collection. Item number three, pay request number 39 for Drake Construction Southside Wastewater Treatment Plant. Any discussion?

A very, very brief update on both of those projects. I mean, just a brief update because I was asking.

Okay, so we'll just go ahead and pull those off consent agenda and then we'll just come right behind it. So consent agenda for item number one, do we have a motion?

I make a motion to approve the minutes of the August 18th, 2026 meeting.

Second?

I second.

Madam Secretary, we get a vote please.

Yes. Aye.

Yes.

Aye.

Motion passed unanimously. And Aaron, can you go ahead and just give us a brief update on 2 and 3? I appreciate it. Hello again.

Long time no see. The Wicker one, which is the pay request number 19, the West Loop, we're on the very end of it. So it's plant and seed, make sure it takes, things like that. So everything's put back the way it was before we ever showed up. All the lift stations are online. The old ones have been destroyed. So it's just pretty much just making sure the grass takes, which right now might be a little hard, but that's about it on that one. There's not much left on that one. That's why their pay requests hardly come right now. So it's just what they can do. On the Drake, they... So... We're hoping that we might be done this month. We're hoping. So I'm not 100% on that one. Their time runs out in the middle of this month. They're on the very last building. It's probably 75% built. We should be turning the old plant back on. It's already been repaired and fixed. So we're right at the very end of this project, finally. The new part's been running for months. It's perfectly fine and running. And I think we're supposed to be, by the end of this week, have the old plant turned on. So it should be just what's left of the one building, pretty much, for our new chemical storage area. But other than that, almost the whole thing's gone.

You'll come back and let us know when it's all done.

Yes, ma'am. They poured the new concrete road today. I think they started putting more seed on the grass so we can have grass again. And hopefully whenever it's all said and done, we can have a little tour so y'all can see what it actually looks like finished.

All right, so can I get a motion on number two? I'll make a motion to approve pay request 19 to Wicker and pay request 39 to Drake. Consent agenda items two and three.

I second.

Okay, can we get a vote? I'm second.

Aye.

Aye. Yes.

Aye.

Passed unanimously. We're going to go ahead and move into the regular agenda. Item number four, discuss, consider amending ordinance 2026-20, a budget amendment for $365,000, and that's going to be our interim finance director, Elliot.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, Mr. Vines. So for this item, we talked to the external auditors about the materiality, and it is material, and they recommend that we amend this item before we actually enter in the process of being audited in FY26. It's in the general fund, non-departmental, and we've had some previous discussion and workshops. My recommendation is to balance that with BILTAC. and this is the FY25-26 budget. So this is what we had last month for our financials, and I've just kind of pointed out with the red and the yellow that you can see year-to-date variances of almost 200,000 negative, and the year-to-date percentage of being almost 137% over budget. So that's the area that we're targeting to get back in line. And this time last year, we were at about 91%. Straight line target is 91.7%. This is just a screenshot of our actual accounting software. And so if we look at the actual amount column, you'll see that every single month this year, we've had $400,000 to almost $600,000 in sales tax revenue for the general fund for the month. So I feel sure that we'll have that amount where the zero is in September coming in on that last month. And we only need $31,152 to meet our target budget for sales tax. That's why I think that would be the good area to make the amendments. And this is just a snip of our internal budget amendment form that has approvals on it. And when I really dug into this, I noticed that there's another line that's attached to it. It's called contingency, $35,000. And year to date, nothing has changed. gone to that line, it's a zero. So instead of taking all $365,000 out of sales tax revenue, I'm recommending that we zero out the $35,000 to zero, and then we take the $330,000 difference that we anticipate being above what we budgeted for sales tax revenue, and we balance the $365,000 expected vacancy that was budgeted to zero. Normally when you do budgets like we've done this year, you budget any kind of salary or fringe increase in the salary and fringe line item. Does anyone have any questions or comments?

I don't understand why we're having to put the money there. Did we just not have enough from last year? The sales tax didn't make what we needed, and now we have to add it?

No, I think it was more of a last minute. I wasn't here, so I don't know for certain, but I think that the budget process kind of went a little bit longer, came down to the wire, and then they were trying to budget for the possible mid-year salary adjustments for staff and directors. still in the budget but they do not total to the $365,000 and normally each year you have more in this department that's why when this budget amount of $365,000 became a negative which expenses are positive and this was a negative that lowers your overall budget amount and causes it to go over budget in my opinion okay

So do you see, since we've been doing the zero balance, that hybrid, is that number going to start to go down a little bit?

That is not in this current year budget at all. Again, when we budgeted any increases, we would budget that to salary and then the appropriate fringe benefits so that you have those dollars in those line items.

Okay. That's good to me.

So if there are no more questions, I recommend that we have a motion to approve the ordinance 2026-20 amending the fiscal budget for 25-26 fiscal year.

Is there a motion?

I make a motion to approve ordinance 2026-20 amending the fiscal year 2025-2026 budget.

I'll second that.

Madam Secretary, can you give a vote please?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Yes. Thank you.

No, ma'am. It is not in the budget that's proposed.

And I will say that no one here put that number.

Thank you for all your effort.

Thank you.

All right, we'll go ahead and move on to item number five. Hold a public hearing to discuss and consider the proposal tax rate for fiscal year 2026-2027 and schedule a date for a final vote on the tax rate for fiscal year 2026-2027.

So I brought a little bit of extra information tonight. It's not necessary, but I thought it just might be helpful. Some of these slides and information is redundant from our budget workshop that related to property taxes So in our current budget that's proposed for the general fund some Items to take note is we do have pay increases for police and fire as of our last August 18th council meeting We discussed taking the animal control officer from part-time to full-time, especially to help out with opening up on Saturdays. Citywide, not just the general fund, there's a 17% increase in health insurance that Holly presented, and we started out at 24 and got that down to 27, but that's still quite a hit. And then everyone knows who goes to the gas pump or the grocery store or anything anymore. The cost of everything is high right now. We also have added a one new base level firefighter a police officer and a code enforcement officer and So the source of revenues for these types of things are always mainly general fund sales tax revenue and property tax revenue This is our current rate at the top, the 0.366. I know you can read, so I'm not going to read the whole trail of numbers to you unless you want me to. This year with our certified tax rolls that came in, we had an option of a no new revenue rate of 0.37, a voter approval rate, which is proposed and recommended, of 0.43, and then the de minimis, excuse me, slightly, just really close, at just a variance of the six versus the five. I did a comparison and went out to cities that are comparable. These are ones that we utilize in our comp phase two and looked at their websites. This is all current fiscal year 25, 26 budgets. And as you can see, we are the lowest rate at the bottom at the 3.366. with those others. And this is the same exercise where we pulled out the Metro pledge cities. We didn't think that was really that comparable. If we go back for a second, we look at that .423648 voter approval rate. And we look at this slide again. These are all of the current rates. If nobody increases and they still do no new revenue, these will slightly increase, all of them. And just like we're going to, if we did that, we would do 0.36 to 0.37. So with that said, even if we do the 0.42, we would still be the lowest after the increase of the voter approval rate. And I thought this is just kind of informational. This is Titus County. We pulled this right off of the CAD website that we worked with early on. And this kind of gives you an idea of school districts in comparison to, obviously, city government rates. And then the different sizes, the lower ones that are lower than us are Calcum and Winfield. Those are very small communities. They don't have a lot of services. And I can provide this too. I know that's a lot to read, so if I go too fast, but I know we want to get through everything tonight too. We've seen this slide before, but this is just showing our historical rates of a 10-year history. And you can see from starting in 2020 until last year that the rates stayed the same or decreased. And I think from the presentations on basic police buyer comp survey, excuse me, and wages, I think those states sort of correlate hand in hand. I don't know that for sure, but that does look like it could be related. So I tried to show what we did last year and this year. There's no perfect way for me to calculate for everybody and say, your house would do this, your land would do this, because there's too many different scenarios. I'm not taking into consideration if someone's 65 or older, And I couldn't compute for every single person. But we got with Titus County. And at the bottom was the amounts for last year. And you can see that the total rate change was 7.53. So not as much as this year in that area. But the homestead value, which also affects not just our tax rate, but the assessed value on your property each year, that increase goes into effect of what you pay. So you can see last year you had a bigger jump on assessed value of 11.43. And then the average came out at 19.82. And this is assuming that the average person in Mount Pleasant city limits has a value at that time of 154,628 on their home. This year, We jumped up in assessed value some, but not as much. With the recommended rate, it's a higher, like I said, 15.74 in that category, but the overall assessed value is not nearly as much of an increase at 4.48, so the average comes out to estimated 20.92. So that 20.92 and 19.82 are not that far off of each other. Are there any questions or comments?

All right, let's go ahead and open up the public hearing. Is there anybody from the public that would like to speak? Discussion from the council? All right, let's go ahead and close the public hearing. I closed the hearing. Council, do you all have anything to say?

I'm the person that everybody thinks is the one that says we will never raise taxes, and I've said that up here before. And I still believe we shouldn't raise taxes. I hate to do it, but I also know that our first responders, we need those guys, and they can make better money elsewhere. They do a really good job, and we're losing good officers, and I don't want to see that. And the same with the fire department. We're losing good firemen. so i will support this tax raise this time reason i wouldn't before i didn't think we had a budget taken seriously people want to help the money until we can help the money accurately and we spend it wisely i was not going to raise taxes and i think this man went to zero budget zero base budget improved us that we need to raise taxes and thank you for that So I will absolutely vote for this tax raise this time, and that's how I see it.

Thank you. I will say this. I'm another one who said I wouldn't until we got to looking at true numbers, and believe me, we have to do this today.

Yeah, we have.

And I don't think that we cannot... raise them simply for the reason that I thought we started last year was because we were getting so much consideration for police and fire trying to keep them to where they need to be get them to where that minimum anyway and there's not going to be any money there if we don't that's it I mean so you have to make a choice and it's not a good one it's not going to be a popular one but you know we either do it or we go back

And I think, can you put that slide back up for the historical? Because I know that I've made this point already, but I think it's really important for everybody to see. Well, what I'm talking about is the history of the sales tax. I mean, I'm sorry, the history of property taxes, right? I'll go ahead and tell you that I don't believe in property taxes at all. But unfortunately, that's how we run our city right now, right? So I just wanted to show this right here because you can see from previous years, it went down and down and down. And this year, it's proposed to go up. We've got a lot of things that have been shown to us that we all know about sales taxes and everything else. So I think that when we look at this next year, it's probably going to be a whole different ballgame, right? But I just, I really want people to understand that it doesn't mean that it's going to go up next year or the year after that or the year after that. There are going to be other things at play. I hope that helps with the frustration, if there is any frustration. And I do want to say thank you to Rob and all of the staff, because they've beat it to death, and we beat it to death. I mean, we've just, everybody's done such a great job. I mean, you all have no idea how many hours. that they all have put in on it. It's crazy. So I think you're going to find that with the whole council that we've seen what we've seen and what's going to have to happen. It's going to happen. All right, I'm going to go ahead and get a motion.

I make a motion to adopt a tax rate of .423648 per $100 evaluation for fiscal year 2027 and set the adoption date as of September 15, 2026.

I second the motion.

Madam Secretary, can we have a vote, please?

Aye. Yes.

Aye.

Yes. Let me add this, Mayor. Absolutely.

Just because we're going to have a few bucks left over, we better not see inflated budgets next year. We better see streamlined spending. Everybody better be as tight as they can be with this budget. This is a precious commodity.

we're going back to the zero balance budget and that's the only way to do it well and that's one thing I've been saying about that zero balance budget and and what they have been doing is this helps us like we've all talked about for the future that when we're not on the council It would be a lot harder to do anything other than the numbers that you're supposed to be doing. I think that really sold all of us on that this year. That was a great job.

And just for reference, this is the plan as long as I'm here to continue doing this.

It'll be way smoother next year. all right awesome that's great let's go ahead and move on to item number six hold a public hearing and discussion on proposed annual operating budget for fiscal year 2026 2027 and that's our city manager vine and our finance director um this is a much easier presentation hopefully i do want to point out in your packet and what got posted to the agenda um i made a clerical error myself

And so in the item summary, it says October 1, 2025 to 2026 of September. That is not, that's my error. I take full responsibility and apologize for that. But that needs to be October 1, 2026 through September 30, 2027. The subject matter at the top is still the same. So this will be, this is the cover of our proposed. You can find that on the website. And this is, just note that it's Tuesday, September 1st, 2026. And we're holding, I recommend, and by state statute, we hold a public hearing. And we're just doing our due diligence. And I commend you all as fiduciaries. I know that that's not easy, what you just did. Thank you. I don't believe I need a motion on this one. I believe it's just a public hearing.

Go ahead and open the public hearing. And since we've received this, are we asking for any questions from the public on this at this time?

That's why we're holding the public hearing. That's what I figured.

I just didn't know if there was any other information she was going to put out. Okay. Is there anybody out there that wants to speak? All right. That's great. That's awesome. All right. We'll go ahead and close the hearing. And any discussion from the council? Is this one? Yeah, that was my confusion. Is this one we're actually going to go through the things that we were talking about? Sure. Okay. And that's bigger. We're good, I think, with you. Thank you. I appreciate it.

You could be standing there for a while.

Yeah. So this is the stuff that there's a couple of things that I think we probably all agree on in here and a couple of things that are going to be split and a couple of things we're all going to disagree on. So there are – Debbie, do you have – we're going to start with you as far as – Well, no, I'm just saying because –

Sure, I'll take it, Wes.

Your mic went off. It went off.

I'll just start it. I'm not sure where everybody else is. I know... From my point of view, what we went through the last six, eight months was mainly dominated by police and fire about the necessity to get them where they needed to be. That's the only reason I would have ever voted for the tax increase. I think I'm good for all that. I'm good with the things that have been suggested, the new opportunity for a police officer, fire officer, code officer, and the animal control officer going full time. The only thing that I'm going to have a question with is where we're going with the director of salaries. Other than that, you know. And I want to point out to everybody, when we started this, we were looking at doing police and fire in a couple of phases. We had never considered taking all of that at one time, taking a hit like that at one time. Now, we've decided to make that hit, so we need to deal with consequences of that because what we would have done in two years spread out, now we're doing it all at once. I'm good with that. I voted for that. But the only... And the reason I say that about directors is because I've said this over and over, is the tenure, the experience, the education levels and all that, and the newness of the positions. And I've said it over and over, so I've said it again, and that's how I feel.

Okay. So we've talked about handling this in a couple of different ways. And is Lee on? Well, so it's been bounced around a couple of different ways of whether we're going to need a motion on each one, or are we just going to need a consensus? A consensus.

A consensus is fine.

All right. So I think this is one of the things that we all have our different opinions on. We have our directors, and I think that our directors have been doing an amazing job. I think that Aaron's about to get his certification, right?

So he's done everything. He's going to be taking his test.

And Holly, you're finished in November? Yes. nice right so you're gonna be done and then Candace our ACM you'll be finishing up as at March or May I forget all right so everybody's been doing what they're supposed to be doing everybody's doing excelling in their job and taking the time that they've needed to take to get certified and I know all of us appreciate that and that that's huge right I've talked to a couple of different councilmen on There's a couple of things that go into this job that I think personally haven't been fair with the directors because I think there's three things, right? There's what you know and what you have to do, and then there's your responsibilities is number two, which if you're an administrative assistant at a company here, it's nothing like being an administrative assistant over at the city. And it's the same thing with our water guy. I mean, he's responsible for what comes out of the tap and be very hurtful to our community if it doesn't get done right. And Garrett, I mean, you guys are amazing. So the only way we could do it and the only way that I felt we needed to do it is... is actually talk about each position and decide on each position. And there's still some disagreement there. So we're gonna be tossing around some ideas and hopefully we'll make it quick. And I don't know if Debbie wants to lead on it. I mean, I can, but I don't have the numbers that you do have. But we're good with it now. Well, so, I mean, I think we have a couple of different ideas, right? So, I mean, I want to hear what you're proposing. And I think that, like I've said, I don't believe in raises across the board, and I don't believe in no raises across the board. So I think we need to go with the position of, each position right the position not the name um which to me i apologize we have to do this in a public forum but it was the only way we could do it right um mayor if you don't mind while we're passing these out these uh what this is this is positions with their their current salary um the proposed and the difference

with all of the department heads that are involved, the proposed difference, bringing everyone to the new proposed levels, $42,346.87. So I would like you to keep, I'm going to read something here in just a minute. I'd like to preface. The budget message that we sent, the strategic plan, we had five primary objectives. financial resilience, infrastructure and managed growth, economic vitality and quality of life, workforce and organizational excellence, governance, trust, and engagement. So everything that we did in this budget, getting a new grade and step for fire and police department. Moving some individuals around in the compensation study that we found were under market. Also moving the civilian jobs. Everything that we did, even the tax rate, had to meet one of these strategic plans. At least one. The more the better. In my opinion, and this is just my professional opinion, moving the directors to $42,346. Spending that little amount compared to our budget meets some of our primary objectives. I'd like to read something prepared. It's called the value of stability. Paying our department directors what they are worth is about much more than salary. It's about stability, continuity, and the quality of life our citizens expect from their city government. For years, Mount Pleasant has experienced a level of organizational instability that has made it very difficult to maintain continuity and build for the future. That instability has also created a lack of trust with the public, and as a result, we are working together as an organization to repair the relationship with the community and rebuild that trust. That takes time, and it takes the right people. People that are known by the public, like our directors, can get it done a lot faster Our directors are the people that are responsible for turning the council's vision into daily service. They manage our streets, water, wastewater systems, our park, public safety, development, finance, public works, library and airport, many other services that define the quality of life in our community. Again, quality of life is one of our strategic objectives. How do you put a dollar amount on the quality of life? You can't. But you can put a dollar amount on the cost of losing the people who are responsible for providing. When we lose an experienced director, we don't simply lose an employee. We lose institutional knowledge. We lose leadership, relationships, experience, and years of investment in that individual. We then pay a cost of recruiting, hiring, onboarding, training, and bringing someone new up to speed. More importantly, we lose momentum. And I think right now we have positive momentum inside the city, inside the organization. That is why competitive compensation for a director should not be viewed as simply giving someone a raise. It is an investment in organizational stability. When our last finance director left the city, her salary was $95,000. This is a real-life example. To replace her, we used a recruiting firm, which cost over $14,000 to advertise to fill the new position to help find a suitable candidate. We're still looking for a suitable candidate. This firm also provides us with an interim employee who has been serving as interim finance director for three different items since March 9, 2026. In just six months, the city has spent over $152,000 on an interim employee. Great, great asset to the city. We're very glad that you're here. But in six months, we have spent $152,000 on an interim employee for advertising for that replacement. That's over 150% of the original self. This is not atypical for key director positions. We have a lot of good people leading this organization. We have a lot of people that care. They're here. They've been through a lot. They're still here. They're still making a difference, and they make a difference every day. If we expect them to continue to deliver the high level of service that our citizens deserve, and we do, It's imperative that we demonstrate that we value their contribution and service to the community. We cannot say that stability is important while simultaneously failing to compensate the people who provide that stability. For the past two years, no department has had any type of raise or cost of living adjustment. If a decision is made this year to not provide some sort of adjustment to our department heads, the message that is sent is they are not better. It may not be what we say. That's the message we're sending. The goal is not to pay more simply because we can. The goal is to pay appropriately because of the responsibility, the accountability, the experience, and value of those positions. At the end of the day, our greatest asset is not a building, a vehicle, or a piece of equipment. It's the people that make this organization. And sometimes the most fiscally responsible decision a city can make is to invest in keeping the right people in the right places.

I will say that I agree with everything that you said. I have no arguments about it. But the reference is made to a finance director. I know she told me she had 26 years of experience.

That's what I was going to ask. Rebecca, you've got 26 years of experience? Kind of weird. You're like 32, right? Yeah.

So I have 25 plus years in finance experience, not all in local government. I started out in nonprofit, went to local government, left, did different industries, came back. But I have at least 12, 13 years just in local government and permanent and consulting.

All right. Well, and that's one thing I did leave off that I technically forgot about was one was the experience level, right? That's the last thing that I wanted to talk about was the amount of tenure that you have in your position. So I ask that you give the council grace whenever they're looking at some of that too, is that they've taken a chance on y'all and y'all are doing an amazing job. But I really, and I don't have the numbers. I think you may have some of the numbers. But the stuff that, what was his name? Yeah, Shane. The salary study, I was always wondering what the tender of those people that were getting those salaries were, right? But then on the other hand, I didn't finish talking about, there was a big difference with, like, there is what you know. And then there's your responsibility. If I was managing six people doing what I was doing, I was making X. But if I was managing 100 servers in a company, that if they went down, the whole company is going down. That's you guys, right? I mean, that's a huge responsibility to shoulder every single night. But I just ask that you do give some grace. And the one thing is the tenure that... that y'all are building up right and uh i mean that's that you're worth it okay this the city has been placed in a situation of what they've been placed in so we have to do what we have to do and again that's that's this year right that's not next year so and the reason i didn't want to come up with the numbers or anything like that is because i'm not going to be voting so i mean to

I went through, and when we met with Shane, Kelly and I met with Shane, we did the same thing. We asked the questions about the tenure. We asked about the qualifications. And when he sat with us and sat there and started pulling up this information and like, you know, this is required, this is required, and our people weren't there yet, but we believe they're going to be there. You know, and all of them, nearly there was, you know, five years, seven years, ten years' experiences. It was the basics that we didn't have when we started out. And that doesn't mean someone's not going to get them. My whole deal has been to, as they learn and earn, is to compensate them fairly. But with the tenure, and I know a lot of them just became directors in the last year, year and a half, whatever. I'm not sure, two years, two years. So, and when I look at all these others, you know, it's not a personality thing. It's not, because there's one gentleman sitting in here right now. I'd give a big, huge raise to him if I could do it, but I can't. But, you know, You've got to have some tenure. You've got to have some learning. And that's what my stance has been from the beginning. And when Shane, when we met with him, we found that over the weekend. I went back. I pulled up stuff from TML. I went to other sites and researched things. and I had a list of all the directors and responsibilities and it's not like we're not going to get there but it was like we weren't quite there yet and that's what I base everything on is I know where we're going to be and I know that everybody in here is valuable I mean You just can't say enough about what some of these guys do and what they've stepped up to do. But I just think you take it in steps as you learn and grow, as you have the tenure, as you have the experience and the knowledge.

So that being said, what steps are we taking to?

Let me add a little bit. I've been quiet on this. I guess I would say I agree with what you're saying, Debbie, in spirit. If we were a private company, it would be a lot more flexible because then the guy would get the certification, and you're like, boom, got the raise. So how are we planning this? And I'm just hearing what Rob said. If we have a couple folks that are getting certified, we're going to make them wait a year to get a raise? I'm just kind of at, or you know what I mean? Like, where's the mechanics to make the success on both sides?

I'd like to ask a question. I mentioned this to Rob last week. I haven't gotten my figure. But, for example... There are some directors here that we, the city of Mount Pleasant, have been sending to school. I mean, so we're sending them to school for their qualifications. And that's a benefit. That's a huge benefit. So I'd wanted to know how much we were sending. I mean, that's, you know, a lot of people, a lot of us have gone to jobs where you get a lot of on-the-job training. And for the city of Mount Pleasant to believe in our directors, so much that we're paying for them to get this qualification. And when they get the qualifications, are they going to be with us for 30 years? You know, I don't know. I mean, I don't know what the commitment is once they get to the highest degree. So these have been my considerations because of the fact that we, again, just finished our compensation plan in June. We're at the very end of the hour. What we do know, and I think we all agree on, is our, I call them the uniforms, you know, the ones that are placed in fire. And we still need to continue to study. We still need to be able to look at a lot of this. Where I'm different, and I will just admit, where I have the hardest time is because I have always been in business. If you're in business, you look at things completely different. I'm paying my sales taxes. I'm paying these things for this to happen, whether I can or I can't. That's my position. So it's the people that voted for us. They're our bosses. It's their money. And so to me, I think we have to be very responsible with that and the fact that I am a business person. I look at things in a business way. And when I've questioned, I've been, oh, well, it's different when you're in municipal. It's different with municipal. Well, I think that's what's gotten us in a lot of trouble all over the country is, to me, we need to think differently. We don't need to say, oh, well, that's just what this town is paying. Maybe that town is in the same boat we're in. You know, where are they all coming up with their money? We're all in the same boat. So my feeling on this is that we need to not make a rushed decision since it just came to us in June. I feel that there's a push. I'm starting to learn that when I'm feeling pushed, I don't like to be pushed into something. I want to make sure that I'm making the decision correctly. And so I would like us to come back and think about it in six months because in six months we should be able to see if we have any changes. We would be able to know because we rushed last year. I'll just tell you guys. Last year we rushed within a three-day period. Three days. Now, I am not an accountant. Y'all know that. But last year, we were going to be short $650,000. And I spent the whole week looking to see where we could come up with this money. I couldn't find it. So I was really surprised when Rob said, oh, he found $300,000 and something. I thought, I don't know. But I thought, okay. Well, guess what? We found that we didn't have it. And we rushed into something really quick. So that's just the way I feel about it. I thoroughly love every one of our directors. I love the fact that the city is sending you guys to school. I love that we are investing in you and in your future. But I think at this point in time, we need to hold up on the director until we feel confident we have the money, there might be some more changes coming.

We have the money in the budget.

Well, there also could be another situation where we might end up at a loss if we make some choices.

Well, I would say that I made this budget with staff. We do not have a negative 365 number in there. Last year's budget, I did not put together. I got here two weeks before the budget was... handed across the finish line, and that was my task. So I trusted that the budget was balanced.

I can assure you that this one is very different. I think I put a 50-pound vest on you and told you to swim, is what I'm thinking was last year.

So I will say this budget is different. There are no surprises. And I personally do not think that waiting six months is going to solve an issue. I think it's going to create new problems.

So I was looking at this, and maybe we can make some of this easier at least. The public works director. Yes, ma'am. Hello?

Hello?

We can hear you. but this is in the budget. I mean, we're trying to head this off with the past to make sure that we don't have any problems on the 15th. I mean, this is what I've been talking about the whole time is when were we supposed to bring it up? I don't think we can bring it up in exact. As far as I knew, this was the time to talk about it. Absolutely, absolutely. Right. Yeah, I think there needed to be some explanation about what's on people's minds, but I think we're done with it, and I actually figured out a way that maybe we can cut through at least most of these pretty quick. So the public works director, to get him to the minimum, is $1,656.07. Hold it. Yes. So the public works director, to get him to where he is at the minimum, is $1,656.57. What do you all propose? It was based off the salary study that we got that is placing, you know, that's where it's placing them. So we are trying to get everybody up to a minimum. They were talking to us that maybe it may be a three-year process for us to get everybody up there. That's kind of why I'm bringing up the figures that I'm bringing up right now. For the most part, lowest to highest, right? This is... So to bring him to the minimum is $1,656.

And I was going to say, I don't have an issue with that one. That's what we're trying to answer right now. Yeah, that is.

And it's okay.

I mean, we have to say what's on our mind so we can muddle through it. Mayor, I see what you're trying to do here. And thank you for that. This budget was to focus on our first responders. Rob mentioned something earlier, what they're worth. Well, they're worth way more than we're paying them right now. But we only have so much money at this point in time. And I look down here, they're making a good check too, by the way. Nobody's going hungry here, right? And you are very much appreciated. And we're talking $42,000. I would rather put $42,000 to our SWAT team. I want a city that is safe. I want a city that is safe We're going to get more business here, right? And the more business we get, the more action we get. Kevin, help us out. Bring some more. We make more money, and we can raise salaries. But at this point in time, I'm saying what we decided to work on is our first responders and our SWAT team.

All right, so all of this was worked into the budget. We just need to figure out if this is the proposal, right? So we just need to figure out. So the 1656 for the public works director. You're saying the neon, right? For that position. Okay, so for the public works director, right? Yeah, yeah, that's cool. Public works director. Well, I mean, we just have to come up, I mean, if that's what it is, if you're a no on it also, then that's two in one.

Well, I'd like to, I'm going to ask a question on this. In this budget that we're talking about right now, and we've gone through the workshops, the salaries were included, the raises were included. Absolutely. They were not pulled out.

Correct.

So that we were not sitting there saying, oh, okay, this is what the department can run on, and this is the raise.

And there was one thing that was pulled out.

development director was at the respect yeah the restructure of that this information was in the original but it was pointed out in a workshop actually that these numbers are just the numbers you're looking at 42,000 it was originally closer to 45 so these are a little lower than the original number generally what happens when a budget a proposed budget is passed is the budget is passed and then the city manager decides you trust the city manager to decide how to spend that money within the department let me ask you this is there a possibility of a stopping period is that an option

Or as far as just giving them like a certificate stipend, kind of like what I was asking about before, like if they get this thing in the middle of the year, they get a thing. Is that kind of what you're saying?

That's in the budget. which is why we put it in the budget. There are options. If you choose not to do this, you could do part of it now and part of it when they get the certificate.

So maybe that's something we could do since it's already in the budget, right? Since this is already in the budget, is there a way that we can actually go through the directors with you and figure out what the number is and leave that number? Will that hurt us if we leave 42 in there and we spend 10?

That's already in there. My recommendation is if you choose not to do this all at once, that let's say you have somebody that you give them half now or you give them a portion now and the other portion when they get their certificate.

I mean, I thought that was originally what we were thinking of, and I thought that was a good idea. I thought that was a good balance on it. But, I mean, I understand everybody's position on it. We all have our different opinions on, you know, what we're doing and why we're doing it. I just, I think the level of responsibility that these people have, and I'm not saying, I've already said, to give raises across the board is just as bad, or not giving them across the board is just as bad as giving them across the board. So there needs to be, that's... That's why I like what somebody proposed with the half now or a percentage now, and when they actually get their certificate, you know, their other half, that they get it. So, I mean, I thought that that was a good balance. I just know that the only thing y'all are lacking, and I hope that y'all don't take offense to it, the only thing y'all are lacking is tenure. That's it. You're all getting your certifications. You're all busting your butts. You're all doing everything and above everything that you're supposed to be doing. So the city is in the shape that it's in. So that's why we're even probably having this discussion right now, right? So it doesn't reflect on y'all. It reflects on the city.

One thing that I did, and I think it was Candace that sent it to us, we kind of got a resume on each one of the directors. with their experience, their education, what they're doing. But I also went to the TML website and wrote down or had it sent to me what the qualifications, like if we were going to go out and interview for these positions, these were the suggested qualifications. There are some that we have within our organization that's done it. Check. They're great. And then there are some that are working toward it. So, you know, I think that's part of what we, what I'm learning that the city has been doing is sending them to school where they are getting their qualifications, but also you look at the time, whether they have been five years, you know, saying they have experience of five years or 10 years. That I think we have, which are wonderful, have only been in these positions for two years. And, um, they're growing, they're maturing, and that's wonderful. But do we, in the comparables, you look at a person, you look at the job position, and you look, okay, if we were hiring somebody, that's what, what would we have to spend to get somebody? That's what I want to study, and that's what I've been looking at. And I haven't gotten the record of the information that I've been needing, so I've been trying to do a lot of this on my own. That's one reason why I'd like to continue to look at where each director is, where they are on the growth. I'm playing a growth chart to see where they are and how far they are from getting to that point. And then we can all talk to them.

And we can answer that question, those questions this evening.

So, Debbie, were you an ORES for the 1656 for the public works director?

Kelly? Kelly?

So, Lee, I don't know what it's called. Is there a way? Are you still there, Lee? Is there a way, and I know you can't call it a bonus, is there a certain term that you can give people for certain, I'm going to call it bonus, because that's what the private sector calls it. Debbie mentioned stipend. Whatever the word is that you could go across the board and give our directors.

Just looking at another figure.

We are looking I got a separate question, Rob. City Manager. I know we have two vacant positions right now. Fire Chief and Finance Director. fire chief is blank. Has that been accrued or an estimate put in there for however, because I know we haven't really even started that conversation.

We do have a grade and step range.

But that's baked in.

Same thing with finance.

Fair enough. It was blank, so I just wanted to make sure.

We're just not addressing that. That's fair. So to

Help the council and help the budget, Rob. If we kept that number in there, is there a way that we would still have, I don't want to use the word, well, I ain't voting, so I don't have any control. Is there a way that we can still have control over director salary? And we can bring it out, right? We can actually bring it to a meeting as an agenda item and basically do the same thing we're doing, but it will give them a chance to have the thought. So we keep the number in there. You already said it's not going to hurt if we do keep that number in there, right? It's not going to hurt us on the budget of whether we go over or under.

Correct. The number will... If we're including it in there, it will be in there. My suggestion or my recommendation would be, and I'm just going to be very frank and very honest, you hold hope out for the directors and you don't deliver... There will be a lot of disappointment. I don't know that there's a lot of trust that that will happen. And quite frankly, if it's not going to happen tonight, let's pull it off. Let's buy a truck with it. That's my personal opinion. And I'm not trying to be ugly or sarcastic, but if you can't dangle a carrot out in front of people and say, we'll give it to you later, we'll give it to you later, then let's just put it towards something that we can do and move forward.

that's the way the council feels i think it deserves to go to the people that lead the department and i i i will let you know that i'm i'm not across the board one way or the other i have my opinions on on different uh positions but i mean i'm just trying to figure out a way we can get this to the budget i mean and if y'all i mean if it's unanimous or three to one that y'all aren't wanting to give them raises I don't think it's a good thing to do it across the board or even say you're going to do it across the board.

Hey, Mayor, one thing that was kind of touched on, and I'm not trying to get off. So, Lee, keep me straight. But we talked about education, right? And we talked about a handful of folks that are about to get some certifications. I mean, I spent pretty much all my life in private sector. The only education that they want to pay, if I'm a project manager, if I wanted to go be an engineer, they're not going to pay for that. But if it impacts the job, right? So I'll just use an example. Utilities. Things change, certificates change, chemicals, you know. Yeah, you're never going to have all the certs, right? And so those people always have to do it. Even if they're out of step, say they're capped, they will still have to make that extra effort on the weekends and stuff. And so while I hear what you're saying on education, if there's a policy, right, tied around that, then I think that could help not have a long conversation at budget time about if we're doing, you know, Who did what? When are they doing it? And then we kind of just sit on that and enforce it and know that it's being followed and then it flows through. That's how I've seen it happen just as a director, right, at companies in my past. At the same time, I will say we have been saying it's coming for three years, right? And so while I hear all the concern and the tenure concerns and things like that, I do have to agree that the carrots have been out there for a little while, and the donkey's not getting it. No offense to anybody, but that's just the one I could think of. Anyway, I'm just going to say I am, you know, I do feel like I have said it enough. And I feel like with $343,261 in the surplus after all this has been baked in, then our utility fund, we're looking at 1.3 and some change. I mean, I don't feel like we're being irresponsible with this, and I would hate to have to replace somebody at some point, and then we have other fires to put out. That's my biggest concern in this, and I'm not just trying to give money away to people. I'm going to be paying a lot of taxes this next coming year, too, and I'm not looking forward to it, but I also want to make sure things are good, my toilet flushes, I get clean water. And I don't have to worry if my house catches on fire like it almost did the other day when I was cooking. The fire department shows up and puts it out. So anyway, that's kind of where I'm at with it too. But we can move forward however you want there.

So Kelly, I don't think we're going to get more time. So let's just, we'll try to muddle through it. The public works director, are you a yes or a no? Well, it's a consensus, and if I have to break it, then I'm fine with it.

Lee, are we good with this, each one of us having to vote on this?

Well, I'm going to go with the theme of what we had a three-year plan for or a four-year plan for. And I would suggest that at a minimum, the four people that are here that are not up to a minimum salary, that we follow what somebody suggested, and that is half of that right now and the other half of it when they actually get their certification. I mean, those, to me, those, at a minimum, at a minimum for all of those. I mean, that's been the theme, right? We're going to be doing it in three years. But we did it for our public safety officers, and I'm glad we did it. But, I mean, this is bringing them up to a minimum. So.

I think the biggest question is whether that minimum is.

Through tenure?

Yeah, tenure and experience. I think that is the biggest concern.

I'm sorry, minimum is referring to minimum salary. Right. There is no minimum tenure. There is minimum certification. And I will remind you that when you guys hired me, your concern was I had never sat in that chair for longer than interim. I said, you're absolutely right with the job. I would say the same thing. These directors, and they've been in these chairs, in these roles for almost two years. They are not new anymore. And they are all doing very, very well.

So is there a way that we could put, if y'all don't want to do the whole amount, $35,000 in there, and then we can make our recommendations or... What's our surplus going to be? What is it, 342? It's 343,261. That's our surplus on the general budget.

So do you all want to add the other $42,346.87 to that to our excess? Yes.

It's not a deficit. This is what we planned for. I mean, at a minimum.

Just for clarification purposes, I think that we need to figure out which budget are we talking about.

Yeah, that's a good point because directors cover both. So that $42,000 would go both. A lot would hit one depending on how it's affected.

And you have dollars built in both budgets, just different amounts. You have the original that was in your current budget, still there. Those are variances depending on the departments and funds. But in the proposed budget that we're discussing tonight, there are considered with the comp studies, both externally and internally, built-in amounts.

Okay. So it's even more than $342,000.

So that surplus is after the fact.

Right.

So unless you're changing...

giving more direction well that's what I'm saying right if we say no across the board then that 42,000 is going to go between those two budgets right it's gonna be added into it as a surplus on the current budget yeah the proposed sorry the proposed budget forgive me this is not what I'm used to yeah we're sorry I am used to the you know

The city manager does this. So if you amend the current budget, we only have one more meeting to do that. If you do nothing with that, you roll it into fund balance. Or if you give direction to go ahead and give a, forgive me, keep me on track, a stipend or something of that nature with a smaller amount, that's option one. There's the new proposed budget. that has the increases built in. And then, so those are two different things that could, one or the other, or both?

So I would think, and I'm just trying to get the budget passed, I would think if we could get everybody to agree to keep that 42-346 that is proposed in there with some assurance that that money's not going to move without a discussion. with the council and it's not going to be i mean this is something that can take place you know i mean i know they're wanting to look at the information and stuff like that so that is going to be at the sole discretion of the council if that's what you would like to do well i'm just i think it's a compromise right if y'all want more dialogue on it you want to look up tenure and stuff like that i think that that's Can we take a five-minute break? All right, let's go ahead and take a five-minute break. All right, we're back in session. It's 728. Now I forget the words. I advocate that we state a form that what we did with everybody else was bringing any of the directors that are not at minimum, bring them to minimum, and then we reevaluate next year on the other directors. That's what I advocate. I think it's fair to state a form with what we did for our other employees. So... Anybody else want to throw anything out there? You have, my brother.

You heard what I said earlier, but in the spirit of compromise, I would be okay following at least how the salary study is even though i know there's opinions about it um that's that's that's all we have right now and uh at least bringing folks to the minimum based on that understanding and data that's all i have that seems fair but we need to agree on this tonight one way or the other

So we got a no across the board. No, with Councilman Hinton. We're just looking at you, two wonderful people. Debbie over there dividing and multiplying and dropping the zero. So that number would change from what it is right now to making the four positions up to minimum.

I would compromise.

We have two and one no. On bringing the people up to a minimum, the four. So we have While we're still trying to figure out that last part, I really wanted a POI that I've been talking about since I got elected. I just really think we need a public information officer. And it would be about $25,000, but I talked to Rob, and Rob said that they're working out something to where we can maybe worry about that next year, but still get something going in-house on it this year. So he actually calmed me down on it because I was a little irritated that that hasn't happened yet. But anyway, thank you, Rob.

Well, you can be irritated at me.

No.

If we're having a hard enough time giving salaries, I don't. Oh, I know.

Okay. I know. I don't think anybody wants to be on PIO or whatever. I'll just stay on Facebook. So we have two nos and two yeses or two iterations or two yeses and a maybe. On the compromise, exactly. Getting people up to the minimum.

I could do a 1%.

For the people that that's not going to get them up to minimum, though? Is that the? Okay. All right.

We already have the airport manager and the police chief above.

Right. And we're not talking about giving them a raise. Above mid, above max. We're just talking about the salaries of the people that are not at a minimum salary level that are doing the job. A yay or a nay? Yes or no to that proposal? Yeah, to the minimum of the four. Okay. So two nos, two yays. And Lee, I don't know how this works in a proposal or whatever it is. I know we're not voting since it's a tie. Do I get to say my piece? Well, I know we're not voting, but... what's that I guess I can just give my what I propose right like you were talking about earlier so yeah Right. So I made the proposal of it, and Councilman Hageman said he would compromise. Councilman Faulconer, she'll compromise. So that's three.

Well, like I say, I offered to do the 1% and then let them, as they get their certifications, get it. But the elimination of those that are already out.

So with the three that agree, would they agree on bringing them up to minimum and then taking the numbers out, the 2,400, the 4,300? Yes. the 3,000, taking that out of the 42, 346, and correcting that number to getting people to their minimum. You okay with that, Councilman Higgins? Yeah, no, we just, well, I know, but we just need to make sure, because we're going to need to change the budget to reflect those numbers on the minimum max.

So to answer your question, yeah, the 3-3 percenters based on the compromise would be negated. So, yeah, that would be the 2,400, 4,342, and the 3,005.

Are you okay with that number being changed that way to reflect that?

Yeah, I think I agree. That was part of the proposal initially, right? Right, right. Yeah, so still agreeing.

So it's 3,2599. Councilman Faulkner, are you okay with that proposal? All right. The manager. We can move on. Item number seven. No, there's not. Yeah, there's no vote. Item number seven, discuss and consider the loan proposal for Guaranty Bank for funding of outstanding incentive obligations of the MPEDC Executive Director Carter. Sharp-guessed man. We're just so glad. Your life's too bright, isn't it? This is something you've already brought to us, right?

No? Oh, okay.

Oh, your quarterly report. I'm sorry.

If I jump to the quarterly report and then go back to the action items, is that okay? Because I think it leads into kind of giving you all an update on why we need the loan and where we're at. Okay. Okay. This quarter, we had six BRE visits. We did Sweet Shop, Illumin, Mobile Medic, Local Bounty, NXG, and Marmon Industrial Energy and Infrastructure. That was a great tour. I had not been to Marmon before. It's incredible. It's over on Industrial. They do... wires they twist wires it was unbelievable the day that we were there they were twisted 144 wires into one strand that's phenomenal it's a very automated company that they're part of Berkshire Hathaway which is Warren Buffett's parent company and so very impressed with them and their staff and they were very gracious to give us a tour and so I was excited to finally get to see that I've been looking at that for over a year and so I'm very excited to get in there and do that tour The cool thing out of one of these visits, when we went to talk to Sweet Shop, they did an expansion. And so we're very excited about it. That's one of the things that is the reason why we do these business retention and expansion visits is to go and visit with these companies to see if they're interested in expanding. we did an expansion with them council approved that incentive that was for 75 new up to 75 new position with that part of that expansion is to celebrate one of their new customers the pioneer woman chocolate collection and so those are going to be sold at Dillard's and other fine retailers around the nation and so Very excited to have that as one of their feathers in their cap along with some other customers that they have, a couple of other new customers Very proud of Ruby and Begonia. They won a very prestigious national award that gives them $50,000 in different various prizes, marketing, health, other types of coaching to help. And so another business in the past year that we've done an expansion with. And so I'm very proud of what Sabrina and her team is doing at Ruby and Begonia. Lumens, this is our big project that's coming and the reason why that we're going to do the loan or ask y'all to approve the loan here in a minute. When I got here, it's hard to believe I've been here almost 13 months. When I got here, that project was about a $60 million project and about 90 employees. That has grown to over 200 million and almost 200 employees. And so the reason why that project is expanded is because the customer demand has exceeded their expectations. And that's when they went to start selling the process. with these aluminum recyclers they couldn't get it all the way down they were throwing stuff in the landfill with this process it's going to extract that leftover and actually make that process where nothing goes into the landfill and so it has been very popular when they've gone out and sold that and so they've had to redo some engineering We've had to go through the Texas Bond Review Board. We were trying to get $145 million worth of tax-exempt bonds for them, and that was because that was the amount that was left to get, because there was a half a billion dollars worth of tax-exempt revenue bonds this year available at the state level. On August, I think it was, I don't know, it was a weird date in August, like August 8th or something, There's six pools of money that the Texas Bond Review Board goes through. On a certain day in August, all the money that has not been acclaimed can go into one big pot, and we were able to secure $80 million more for them in that tax-exempt financing, which makes it a better sale for their bonds for their investors. Some of the things that they have done, they've got their rail infrastructure approved, and I'm going to talk about the company that helped them with that, and that was T&W. And T&W is the new operator of the NETEX line. That's the seven-county short-line rail that goes from the rail yard here in Mount Pleasant that goes through Winfield all the way to Sulphur Springs Commerce and then Greenville. PNW has helped them out and is gonna save them a tremendous amount of money with the rail infrastructure and the way they're lining that out and laying that yard out. They got through their TCEQ air permit public comment. I did get an update on their TCEQ. We thought that was gonna be done by the end of August. There was one thing that they needed to fix. But they did get that fixed. We anticipate that that will be done in the next 10 to 15 business days. They were very smart with their TCEQ permit. The plant has the ability to be doubled in size with that air permit. uh their natural gas they're working with center point on exactly what that looks like their water agreement with winfield they're working through that we did apply through the city of winfield for some infrastructure that water is now going to come out of the lowes facility and go into right into the property It's about a little less than two million dollars if we brought that and upgraded their water line from Mount Pleasant It was going to be about eight to ten million dollars and so I certainly appreciate the city council in Winfield, their consultant, Tony. And it's been great to work with them. And I'm going to talk about some things that we did later on that we're doing with them. And then their power, there's plenty of power out there. And they've already started working on their interconnection with... WEPCO because they are going to have some solar on the Franklin County side and that has already they've already talked to WEPCO about putting that back on the grid Just a revolving loan fund update. We have three revolving loan funds outstanding. Oh, actually a new one, the fourth one, Mobile Medic Conversions, the economic development MPEDC board, which is the revolving loan fund board, did issue a revolving loan to Mobile Medic Conversions. All of those funds, just a little bit of history on the revolving loan. That started out, it's a USDA program, so United States Department of Agriculture. That program, the county originally was the sponsoring agent. Then the city took that, and then the city decided they did not want that, and I believe we took that over, I would say four to five years ago, we took over the revolving loan fund. The I-30 Business Park Road, council approved that a few months ago. That is finally complete. They completed that last week. They had the first truck go down on that. We did have to increase the size of the circle. Our engineering firm did not draw a big enough circle for a truck to turn around in that. So we did have to go back, but we're working through some ways to make that the same exact cost. We did have a little bit of... cost associated in that, but I think council gave approval for $350,000 and we're going to come underneath that. So no reason to come back and ask for more money. You can see the back side. It's a little bit where the shadow is on the right picture. That is the new part that LTS built. And now they're going to bring some more concrete out the back side of that and then they're gonna fence that completely in where they can start deliveries of those Toyota forklifts because they're gonna be a full-fledged dealer and that was part of the expansion that they made.

Are they covering all of that?

They're not going to cover all that so that where that dark shadow is they added I think it's 4,000 square feet of cover underneath there. It's just hard to see with the shadow. High demand job training, we got an update on that. That money should be, council approved that, and the EDC board approved that, the matching grant for the three high schools in Patties County and the college. It's been a little bit slower with TWC this time on getting that, but the funds are there. We're working on getting through that. The schools have submitted what they're gonna spend that on. Some of them are going to spend it on robotics. Some are spending on their welding program. Others are spending on maintenance technology. We'll get a full report when the funds get expended. This is the Neatex Railway that T&W took over. This company is owned by the Murchison family. They have great experience. They've operated short lines for over 40-something years. I worked with them before in the Panhandle. They ran a short line in the Panhandle and knew those folks. They do a great job, but they've already purchased. They've only had this for a little over a month. They've already purchased 14,000 new railroad ties. They've already installed 8,000 of these. They've already done 62 miles of vegetation cut. We did drive a little bit of the rail that we could see. There's a lot of vegetation from Winfield to Sulphur Springs. They have cleared all of that, and so it can actually, rail can actually run from Winfield to Sulphur. It would have to go at a very slow speed. But we get one of these updates exactly like this. It's a three-page update. We get that every single week. So I've been very impressed with TNW and the work. We've met with them three or four times. They are interested in helping us do economic development. And so that's the reason they met with the Lumens and us and got their layout of their rail yard a different way. It's going to save them something like $4 or $5 million on the way they laid out their rail yard. Some of the things that we've done, that we did, excuse me, my Arkansas grammar there. We participated in some Team Texas events. At the top left, Jeanette went on a road show. A road show is where we go with Team Texas, usually eight or 10 communities. They set appointments up with companies that are thinking about expanding Texas. And so we have the opportunity to show off Mount Pleasant. On the far right, that was the roadshow that I took to the Northwest, Pacific Northwest. At the bottom, we just got back last week from our Team Texas Summit. They brought in eight SAC consultants. We had the chance to interact with those eight SAC consultants. The great thing about that for me is I didn't know six of them. I know quite a few of them, and there were six new ones that gave us the chance to meet with those folks. We participate in the teacher externship program. We've done that in the past. We had six participants this year that came in, and that's the teachers that during the summer they do an externship program that they get paid for, and they go and see various industries and things in each community. I think we had two from Mount Pleasant. We had one from Como-Picton, a couple from... We participated in this yesterday. If you didn't know, Northeast Texas Community College opened this pavilion. They had a generous donor that their granddaughter went to school at NTCC and wanted to give back. The event yesterday, there was probably 400 or 500 people. Of course, they did offer a free lunch to the students, so that was very encouraging for them to come and get a free lunch. And so this just gives them an opportunity to have something to do. There's a football court in the middle of that, and then the basketball court. But we were very excited to get to go to that. It was a chamber ribbon cutting, so. Jeanette finished her Future Leaders training. It's a two-year program offered through Texas Economic Development Council. Very proud of her for doing that. Some other updates on the far right, just some of the things we did. You can read Team Texas Roadshow. We participated in the Texas Economic Development Conference mid-year conference. The girls participated in the Women in Business. I did not participate in that. I wasn't invited. We've done several Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting. Claire Bell and Jeanette are on the ambassadors. I do want to mention the city of Mount Pleasant employee appreciation lunch. I do appreciate that we were invited to that. I thought it was a great crowd. I got to meet city employees that I had not met and they were in a Christmas party or I didn't see them at the Christmas party. And so certainly appreciate that and it was well attended. Some of the bigger updates that we're working on, we're working through the tax abatement for alumens. We're cleaning that up and doing it properly. There's 10 steps, and so we're getting ready to do steps. eight, nine, and ten. So we're going to be finished with that at the next commissioners, I think at the end of the month. We're working through, I know there's a question during the budget workshop about the annexation. We've been working with Rob and Lynn on that. And so certainly appreciate their help. We're working through that. And so we should be ahead of schedule on that. I think it has to be done by December 31st. And then we are also working with the city of Winfield. They asked us to help them with annexation of the whole property that Illumens is going on, so we're working through that. And so it's great that Lynn has walked me through the steps of annexation, because we're going to use those steps and help Winfield with their annexation. They are going to annex that part of Winfield. It's going to be in... Franklin County, and that's going to be new for them. Anyway, we're working through that. I would certainly answer any questions on that update before I get into the action item. Hey, I appreciate y'all. Thank you very much. Okay. Get over here to my notes. I think it's the same presentation. I think it's at the back side of that.

So are we moving back to item seven?

Yes, sir, if that's okay.

Yeah, yeah, discuss and consider the – I just want to make sure I do it right for them. Item number seven, discuss and consider the loan proposal for a guaranteed bank for the funding of outstanding incentive obligations of the MPEGC.

So part of the agreement with the Lumens Corporation when they came was to provide a $7 million incentive for them. We have paid so far about $1.25 million of that incentive. And so there's $5,750,000 of that left. And then we owe the city of Winfield $300,000 up front. which we will get paid back by Lumens on that. So we actually paid on the City of Winfield's behalf some monies upfront for them on the grant that we applied for to help with that infrastructure, water infrastructure. uh... lumens corporation put up fifty thousand in the city of windfield put up fifty thousand dollars to pay for the engineering stuff work that had to be done for the uh... the grant through the texas water board city of mount pleasant applied for a texas water board development grant as well uh... so we're asking uh... we asked our board to approve a loan of six million dollars uh... so we went to uh... guarantee bank that's our bank we ask for them to allow the other local banks to participate in this loan and so One of the banks was not interested in the time, but we did go and visit with those three banks to make sure that they had the opportunity again to look at that. The one bank that was not interested did participate. And so we're very excited that these four banks are going to participate equally. Guarantee is going to be the lead bank, but each bank is putting in $1.5 million. We were able to get a five-year adjustable rate. Since we're tax-exempt, we're getting 1.25% off of prime, which prime currently is 6.75, so right now the loan is 5.5. If we close maybe before the feds raise the rate this month or if they hold that steady, we're going to monitor that. We're putting up future sales tax collections as collateral. When we presented this, I made a recommendation to the board to go the 15-year route on repayment. Just so you know, we did put a note over here that the EDC loan obligations are separate from city's bond debt. The loan that the EDC takes out is payable through future sales tax collection, and it does not impact the Mount Pleasant bond rating. But the board did approve at our last board meeting to go with a 15-year repayment that year. And I asked Trent Abbott, our banker at Guaranty, to figure that on a one-time payment instead of making monthly payments. Let's pay that. So the first payment will be due 90 days after we take the funds and then every year after that. So that yearly payment, $593,787, you will see that in just a minute when I present the budget. So with that, our payback is going to be about $8.9 million over the 15-year period. Certainly would answer any questions about the loan.

So just to clarify, the collateral sales tax up, that's out of the 2% you all get for EEP, right?

That's the half percent.

Oh, the half percent.

Half percent out of the 2% that the city receives. The city receives one and a half, and then we receive a half. So it's out of that half. It's out of that half. Yes, sir. All right.

I just wanted to clarify.

Yes, sir.

All right. Any discussion?

And we do need a motion, right?

Yes, sir. Yep.

I make a motion to approve loan proposal, 15 years option, for outstanding incentive obligations. Second.

I second.

Madam Secretary, can we get a vote?

Yes.

Aye.

Yes.

Aye. Motion passed.

Thank you, Council. Item number eight, discuss considering MPEDC's FY26-27 budget.

So I'm going to apologize for the workshop. I could not hear anything the other night when I presented. And so I could hear every other word that Debbie, when Debbie was, when... was asking me questions uh... councilmember corbell i'm sorry to call you debbie but councilmember corbell was asking questions i could hear about every half or third word so uh... anyway uh... so i'm gonna run through this again and maybe a little bit better i had no notes so uh... anyway uh... revenue this year uh... sales tax collections last year we we budgeted two million dollars I know y'all know this, but just for the public, we're going to set a record sales tax this year that Mount Pleasant's never seen. I mean, unless we have a big audit adjustment, so I should knock on wood, but we're not going to have a big audit. And that's not our audit, but an audit adjustment from one of our retailers. We're going to set the record for sales tax. And so this is still a very conservative estimate on sales tax collection. interest income is going to be budgeted a little bit more than last year, even though interest rates are holding steady or down a little bit, but we did move some money from earning a half percent into something that's earning three percent. We moved $2 million, and so I appreciate Rebecca and the finance staff for helping us get that done. um leases and rentals this is something new um at least this stream of revenue that 22 500 during the construction phase of illumines they have to pay 10 of their lease payment that's due during that so this is the lease payment and in just a minute i'll show you there's an expense associated with that and then interest income on the revolving loan fund This is probably the last year that I'm going to include this here because those are restricted funds, so it's really not any money that we, the money keeps turning over in the revolving loan fund. So it's really not revenue for us, but we've always included it. I'm probably next year going to take that out just because those are restricted funds and we can show those in maybe a separate budget that we could just show y'all to look at. So total revenue of $2,379,000. expenses, I know that's hard to see. I do know that you have copies of, I think I've included three worksheets. One of them is a comparison, one shows 10 months. One of the major things that I did this year is look at the categories and rename some of the categories that you're going to see that are more, you know, more fitting to what they should be. And so some of those category changes are local BRE. I believe that was like other expenses. Recruitment travel, I think, was in advertising or something like that. Or prospect visits or something. I think we wanted to name those categories that were a little bit more worth they were in line with. Also, one of the things that we did in the name, oh, one thing I wanted to point out for the public and for council, in case you either don't know or don't remember, there's only one expense in the whole budget that's mandated by the legislature that you can't exceed, and that's our marketing budget. So it cannot exceed 10% of your revenue. And so we've marketed $125,000 for marketing, and that's about half of that legislatively mandated number. I think right now that's the right number to have. At some point we may want to increase that or we may want to decrease that. But just in case, that's the one number that we can't go over. So for us, we couldn't go over $240,000. We did have some decreases in some numbers that I'm asking for this year, contracts and retainers. I think certainly not to pat myself on the back, but when you hired me, you hired me for some different expertises. One of those is before we take an agreement to the attorney, it's going to be well written and not that it wasn't well written before, but we're going to, we're not going to go a lot back and forth with the attorney. We're going to direct the attorney to write it the way that we want it to be written as long as it fits within the law. And so we've saved quite a bit of money in legal fees this year. And so, and different experts, we've let some folks, we've not used as many outside consultants as we have in the past. because I think that's why you're paying me. So we also eliminated the contingency. I didn't understand that being in the budget. I kind of inherited that last year because I did the budget last year. I wasn't even employed last year when I presented the budget to y'all. And so I took out the contingency. If we need a contingency, we're going to come back and ask y'all for the money because that's what I think. If we're over, we need to come back and ask you. Some of the increases that we did use this year, I think the most important one on there that we increased is an audit expense. The EDC has never been independently audited. We should have been being independently audited. So Rebecca was able to work with the city's auditing firm. They gave us a great price on an independent audit. We've already had the pre-audit meeting already with the same auditor that's gonna do the city audit. They gave us a fair price at $6,500. That's more than fair on that price. We did increase the buildings and ground. I think last year it was 50,000. We're going to 75,000 this year. We've got the business park looking really ship shape. I do want to hats off to... Dennis Cameron for helping us a lot and also keep him in your thoughts and prayers he's going through some challenges and so but I certainly appreciate Dennis and and little Dennis for the work that they've done at the business part and then I also want to give kudos to Garrett in part they do a great job in helping us maintain some of that property, at least the external with the flower beds and all that. We have a contract company that comes in and does that. Liability insurance. The EDC board's a little bit different than, say, I'm not picking on planning zoning, but the EDC board is a board of an independent corporation. We're a 501 . We thought that we had, when I first came, we asked if we had directors and liability insurance. We were told we did. We found out that we did not. So liability insurance is going to go up. We were able to get a local company to write us a policy for the directors that covers them in case something were to happen. I've never seen it happen, but you never know. And so we want them to be protected. And so we did take out some liability insurance. Also, if somebody gets hurt on our property or also, it also protects the board on employee, basically HR functions. Yes, we pay the city for HR services for retirement and those things, but our staff is actually an employee of the corporation and not of the city, and so the board needed protection on employee. That was a small deal, and we did not have cyber insurance with the corporation, and so that does have some small issues. So I think that policy, both together, was about $6,000. And then I worked with the chief on some liability insurance, I think, through the PML risk pool or something that we worked. I think it was in the PML risk pool that you and I talked about. And so that number's figured in there. So it's about $10,000 this year. And then, of course, the loan expense over on... Principal and interest, that's going to change basically every year. Those numbers will be the same payment, but it's going to change as far as what goes to principal and what goes to interest. So that will be changed. So you'll see the expenses are $2,372,500. It is not balanced because of the $6,500 that are restricted funds. And like I said, next year we'll anticipate taking that off. but I'd certainly answer any questions. Also included in the full-time salaries, there is raises for staff, and then there is a flat, would be a flat increase for myself, and the board did vote unanimously to approve the budget with that caveat in there. Any discussion?

Oh yeah. And I'm going to say this, Kevin, thank you for everything you've done. Thank you for what you bring to us and the transparency and letting everybody know. I really just want to address one issue because I'm probably going to get burned on this later. But let me just tell everyone in here, I serve a dual purpose. I serve on the city council, and I serve on the board of directors for the Economic Development Corporation. I want to point out that the salary expenses on there are 3%, and I am going to vote on that to approve that when it comes up. and i will tell you and i've made some notes and i've clarified i went and checked on everything i know when we hired kevin what we all thought about that i know what janet has done when she was interim but i checked on the education the tenure the experiences that they have the years of combined experience and even individually and i've confirmed those years Their certifications and everything are beyond reproach. Where Kevin came from and what he has brought here is amazing. He is more or less being evaluated as we would evaluate our city manager, has done so much to bring these organizations back together to help fix things in the community that weren't always as good as they should have been. their experience, the level of knowledge, the tenure, the transparency, the attempt to build relationships. That is why I can vote on that 3% because I'm comfortable with it. I know what we have. I know what we've done. I've seen the tenure. It checks all the boxes for me. So just for those who are going to question that, I'm going to tell you up front, yes, I do serve on both boards.

We do. We appreciate it. I don't know about that shirt.

What's that? What? What? I'm messing with you.

All right.

Given the communication that you brought to us is what I respect a bunch. You bring things to us plenty of time and transparent, and we do appreciate what you're doing. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, you make it so much easier just because we are informed, right? I mean, we're informed normally twice before it even comes up here.

And that's the goal. No surprises. You guys rock. Thank you.

And just to let you all know, I'm on the EDC board too, but I don't have a vote there either. Somebody knows something. All right. And do we have a motion?

I'll make a motion to approve MPEDC's FY 2026-27 budget. Pass. Madam Secretary, can we get a vote?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Yes.

Awesome. Passing unanimously. Thank you all. Thank you, Kenneth, Herman. Thank you all. All right, is Lee on the phone? Okay, I may have messed up with the budget stuff. I didn't mention something or bring something to you on or to the public on item number six. So I was wondering how I should or could handle it. It's a budget item. All right, I think it hopefully should be short. So we're going to go ahead and go back into a public hearing because there's not really any discussion right now. And the thing that I wanted to bring up in our budget was the animal control spay and neuter program. So I've been looking at different numbers, and I just want to bring that to everybody. I know I've talked to a couple of y'all on it. And I've got Chief here, and I have Kim Haynes here that's over the snap. And basically just wanted to give really basic numbers. That's why I'm hoping it's quick. I've been asking for how many animals have been spayed and neutered. I said from January 1 to now, but I think you said because they lag it, we had to go back to October for you all. So hopefully we can just basically show everybody the numbers on – You had more data for like the last year. But basically, I was trying my best to do an apples to apples thing and services provided. So that's where I was going with that. And I'm sorry, y'all, for bringing this back up. So we'll open here. Or I guess, yeah, we already opened here.

We're just doing a public hearing?

Yeah. Okay. Yes. And what I wanted to discuss was the numbers, the different numbers between the city and the SNAP program. So that's when, I may be doing it wrong, but that's when I thought that I would ask them to come up and speak the difference between the two, what the cost was, that kind of stuff. Am I wrecking it? No, there is. There's somebody from SNAP. Yeah, I guess you're going first. Just a really, I mean, really quick numbers, if you can, on basically... Is that on? Yeah.

First off, I appreciate you listening to us, and we're going to continue to do what we do regardless of what the council or the city decides to do. It's our pleasure, it's our honor to serve the community and help our animals. This last year, in the last year, we've done 186 animals through Honey and through five other vets who come to the city, and next year we're planning two clinics, a spring clinic and then a fall clinic as well. Last year we did 186 animals and it was a little over $7,000. I finally got all of our numbers together from the clinic and everything. So a little over $7,000 we did 186 animals. 186 animals. It was right around $7,000. $3,300 of that was nothing but medication where we paid for antibiotics, anesthesia. So... Where I see we could help, if that's what y'all decide to do, is where we can do more animals and save money on that, if y'all decide to do that. That's our basic number of what we do. So if we have somebody that can't afford their medication, we pay for it. But we tell them up front that we'll give them a shot for 24 hours of pain medication and then their antibiotic shot, and then they have the option to pay for more. But when we do our big clinic, then we do pay for their medication if that's possible.

So when you're proposing this per animal, this is something that I was really wanting to know. When you're spaying and neutering a cat or a dog, then you're including the med sauce, right?

Yes.

And are you all going to be chipping them now?

Yes. In our last clinic, I dropped the ball on that because I didn't know that we were supposed to chip everyone. to chip all of them and to vaccinate them. But that was also included in the services that we did.

So vaccination, chipping, and meds.

Yeah.

And what's that cost? Do you know what that's costing you each animal?

It depends. It depends on their weight, cat or dog, male or female. Cats are substantially cheaper. When we do the big clinics at I-30, those clinics, it costs us Just the cost of anesthesia. So there's no cost for those except for the anesthesia and the medication. So they provide all of the services. If we use Piney, then we're at a discounted rate where that cost is $60 for a dog, $35 for a cat.

Almost like APL, right? It sounds like APL numbers.

The difference is that we don't have restrictions on age, weight, size. There's no restrictions on the animals. We find that with APL that there's quite a few restrictions on what they will and will not do. But we don't have any restrictions through punting.

So another question that I had is for, like, weekly adoption, right? How do those people – how would those people contact you to get – Basically, I mean, I've thought about that, too, because I don't know.

Other than maybe the animal shelter contact us and we make the – what we do is we send our – we send over the name and the phone number, the information for the animal to – tiny, and then they call the owner and make an appointment with them. They deal directly with the owner, so that way that there's follow-up, and then if they don't respond within so many days, then they call us back, and then we reach out and say, you didn't make your appointment, you didn't keep your appointment, if you still want our services, you need to make that appointment within 10 days. or respond to them. And so we've been really successful. We've had about 20 animals total at both clinics, and some of them were where they were feral and they couldn't catch them. So we lost some of the appointments that day. But anyway, that's what we do. That's how our follow-up is. And then if you don't, then you lose the opportunity to have those services in the future.

So then the last thing. So they will be able to contact you whenever they do that.

Yes, we have a website, and there's an application on there, and that's how we deal with them now. And we don't really have any restrictions other than how many animals do you have, what are their ages. We want the information on the animal, and then we will make those appointments. We make them as we have donations, or we make them as Holly and I pay for animals cut off and out of our own pocket, if somebody's in desperate need for it. But as soon as they contact us, then we will make their appointment. or we'll contact the vet and make the appointment for them.

So that was my only concern is like, let's say through the month, they get 30 animals or whatever it is, and then those need to be spayed and neutered. Are you going to hit any kind of roadblock getting those knocked out?

No, they will. Honey's been really good about doing that. We also have clinics with Honey, and we've done week-long clinics with them as well. But they're really good about us calling and saying we have these people. We email them the information. I checked on one yesterday that had, it was my DoorDash delivery driver who needed an animal fix, but she, I made, set her up and she, um, followed up with her, and she said yes, they called the next day, set it up, she has an appointment Friday. So it's usually relatively quick, you know, which I would think with animal services, that's something you need to do is make sure that those appointments are made quickly. Right.

And the biggest thing was for the council, what kind of transparency would we be able to see on a monthly basis?

Whatever you want.

So could we set it up to where you could actually just send it in whether you do animals or not? Sure. You can schedule it.

We don't have any expense because it's all what we're – Holly and I just volunteer it. Right. It's also – Claudine Swofford is on the board. We're adding – we're actually going to have a board meeting this week and add – two more board members for that but we operate strictly off donations and so we don't have any overhead at all I use my Facebook page for donations for supplies like if we're doing a clinic then I will set up a wish list on Amazon and the last one I did it was a substantial list and by morning I everything had been but i mean i did it like six o'clock at night and by morning everything had been purchased and delivered so the community's really good to help when you ask them so um I don't know the breakdown on how many we did last year for the city, but I know we are still, like I have a few cats to do next week. That's something that we could do, and if you did do that, we could put a stipulation on the funds going direct only for Titus County or for Gilmer and whoever you have contracts with. Because we do service, somebody calls us from Dangerfield or Morris County, and if we have the funds, We'll help them. We'll take care of them. In an open clinic, if it's everybody, then absolutely we'll do it.

So not to be rude, but could we make sure that we keep this to Mount Pleasant and Titus County?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

And then we can count on monthly PDFs that can be turned in, I guess, to our ACM.

However you would want it to be done. I mean, we could absolutely do that. We actually set up a thing with Piney this week to where they will send us a monthly report as well of their services, of what their in-kind contributions are, as well as what we're paying out. Okay.

Just to clarify, 186 animals, 7K, but 3,300 of that was strictly for medication. Right. Yeah, and the reason I'm bringing this to us is because it is a budget item. For sure.

Another thing that I would like to do is, again, use social media. I'd like to do some drive-by clinics. I don't know how that will work, but at I-30 they've been very helpful about maybe doing some drive-bys to vaccinate and help with that.

And the biggest thing for us is going to be, like, It's got to be documented. It's got to be transparent. Right now, I think I'm going to have to talk to the – if it even happens, we would have to figure out a way to – We're happy to answer your questions.

We're happy to serve the community. And regardless, we will still continue to do what we're doing today and helping anybody that needs it. So I appreciate it.

Yeah. Chief, do we have an estimate on – I guess, would it be the same with you as far as would it be hard to estimate because of the weight and – Or I guess it wouldn't because there's like a total on it, right?

Sorry, it wasn't clear to me. What is tiny charging for the spay and neuter?

It's just different for each. That's why I was trying to figure it out. I didn't know if you'd be able to have, like, the total numbers of the dogs, cats split out.

Our same account also buys medication. And so the account we use since October, we've spent over $19,000. That does spay and neuter, but it also does all of our chemicals and all of our shots and stuff that we do. Right. We also do rabies and stuff like that. And so, I mean, there was... I think we had 167 animals, but also we had some food come out of that account. We had some... drug testing for an employee. It's a contracts account, and so it's not just spay and neuter. It covers other things as well. So I have to go month to month to each invoice and break them down for each invoice. And so just at a glance, I can tell you that I've already got a couple thousand that wasn't spay and neuter, and I can't without... Doing some magical spreadsheet things to figure out how much is vaccinations and other shots that we do as the animals come in, whether or not they get adopted out or not. Like the ones who come in, they immediately get shots. And a lot of that comes out of that budget as well.

Like rabies and stuff like that.

Rabies is one they adopt, but we do some shots as they come in just to keep our kennels clean and to prevent some disease. I guess what I would say though is that if somebody is providing a service, they can provide that service to people who adopt through the shelter, and we would continue to. It's kind of like Animal Protection League. They charge less, and our voucher covers the complete cost of the spay or neuter of dogs and cats. And so if somebody's offering a similar price, it would give another option for our people to go, and we would continue to pay that voucher so they could get the same pricing. We would just pay it straight to Piney. So you could put... I guess I'm confused of what we're...

Well, what I was trying to do is budgetarily, I thought there would be a spay and neuter number that we could transfer over to SNAP to see how they would do as far as cost savings. And the numbers that I was looking at, and they're kind of all over the place, it's like... But it partly makes sense now because of what you're saying. It seems like it's twice as much, the spay and neuter is twice as much as what they're able to do now.

No, that's not correct because we have so many other things coming out of that account unless we go month to month and invoice to invoice. So we may get an invoice from Breckner's, but it may have 10, 15, or 20 items on there. We may get an invoice from Piney Woods, but we have several animals on there with different shots and different treatments as well, spay or neuter, or could also have rabies as well in addition to the spay and neuter. And so some animals are already spayed and neutered, so we may only be paying for the rabies vaccine. And so it's really without going invoice to invoice, which will take my – I can't do that in a day. It'll take me – it'll take Steph several days to do that and several man hours to do that. I would say if private donations are funding a private organization and they have an event, we're happy to send people over there and we'll pay the reduced event amount because the people who are adopting are then getting a deal, right? So we wouldn't pay Piney Woods more than what they are charging. They would only bill us for what that portion is that they're charging. So if it's being privately funded through donations, then we could also send people to that event and we would just pay a less amount. So it would benefit our budget as well.

All right. Right. Oh yeah, they came from all over the place.

We don't only reimburse local vets.

You and just anybody? Not just anybody.

There are other veterinarian services outside of the county.

But we don't have a number of how much we're spending on spay and neutering without digging into it.

Just for spay and neuter? Well, I can tell you that So for a dog neuter, it's $55.

That's the voucher, right? That's what the voucher is. So the voucher is, okay.

A cat neuter is $35. Okay.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah, so that's what I'm saying. If they can go to Piney and get a discounted rate, so if they go to Animal Protection League, it's essentially free because the voucher covers it. But if they go to a veterinarian service, they have to cover what else is charged by the veterinarian service. But if they can go to a vet who's charging less... I mean, we refer our people to where they can get the best deal. And so we tell people if they go to APL, they can get this, the voucher will cover the full amount. But if they can go to, or if there are other services or other veterinarians offering the same amount, our adopters can benefit from that same price as well.

Okay.

Right. That would be fine. Piney could still bill us directly.

Right. So you could build a relationship with SNAP and work with SNAP.

Yeah, Piney already bills us directly. We receive bills from them.

All right. What I'm trying to do is build a relationship between our animal shelters or other, you know, our volunteers and stuff like that. And I was hoping that that would be some sort of bridge that we can do. I just really want to start working with SNAP if they can come up with something that we can do.

Yeah, we're happy to do anything that will benefit the adopters and the animals. And the taxpayer. Yeah, of course. And so, like I said, though, if those adopters can get a better rate somewhere, we'll send them that and tell them to go there, and our voucher will cover it.

Well, I think as an after action, too, like we were talking about, I would really start liking to see the numbers and the actual cost of the spay and neuter so we can revisit this next year and actually have the numbers, right? Because right now we don't know whether it's costing more or less, but, I mean, $7,000 for 186 animals seems really cheap. I mean, I don't do it, so I just would think that it would be pretty cheap. And then it would also help you since, you know, the amount of people that you have at the shelter, I figured that would take something off of y'all and help y'all. So...

Yeah, well, like I said, we're happy to refer people to it. If they can find a less expensive service, we're happy to partner with that and do that reimbursement for them. I mean, we're not opposed to people getting the best deal. We want them to get the best deal.

Well, I mean, I want them to get the best deal, but I also want the taxpayers to pay less money for what we do put out that stipend or whatever you would call it, that budgetary item. If we could drop that budgetary item.

Well, yeah, that's what I'm saying. If they get a better deal somewhere else and suddenly that account is not being spent to the max every year, then we save money.

And then you would change that, I guess, zero-balance budget. You would come back and say, well, we don't need that.

We need less money in that line item. We need less money.

So that helps the taxpayer. Yeah. Well, I mean, I would really like to see something like that, and we've got to figure out a way to – To set up that communication. Right. So we can. So we can direct them to them. And. Maybe people start talking to each other. Would be nice. Okay.

Okay. Yeah, I mean, no, we could do similar. Like, with APL, we put their name and number and their card brochure right on top of our counter, and we tell people, this is where you can get the voucher we'll cover 100%. If we have another option to put up there, we're happy to put that up and say, hey, call this organization, and they can help you with the spay or neuter, and whatever deal they can get you, hopefully the voucher covers it 100% for you. Okay.

Well, I mean, I think for next year, An adoption thing right there.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, we have people who they go to veterinarians because it takes a long time to get an appointment. Oh, yeah. So if they can get in somewhere faster during an event, they can get that animal. I mean, we can even do stuff like do a free adoption event in concert with it and say, hey, you got a free adoption. Now contact these guys, and next week you may have a spare neuter appointment. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and I think that for next year, I would like to know the amount of animals spay and neutered and how much it does cost, just so we can review it, right? So we'll have that number for the transparency for the council. So, Ms. Hayes, do you have?

I know you don't like the answer, I got it.

I just want to make sure that it's taken care of. All right, we can go ahead and close the, go ahead and close the, yeah. I was going to ask her if she wanted to say anything else, but we're good? Yeah, okay. We can close it. We'll move on. Item number 10, discuss and consider animal services agreement with the City of Pittsburgh.

So this and the next agenda item are the two contracts for animal services. They're at the shelter that we have with Pittsburgh and Gilmer. The contract each year changes with the CPI and so that's increased this year to $41.66 a month for Pittsburgh and they make an additional payment in October of six thousand six hundred and fifteen thousand dollars so the total amount for Pittsburgh this year is fifty six thousand six hundred and seven dollars nothing else in the agreement has changed and so it's for up to 200 animals for the city of Pittsburgh discussion motion

i make a motion hold on i do got a question we ever go over that number and what happened i didn't read the whole contract

Well, I think it's pretty low, isn't it?

Is it? It's under 200? Do I what? It's usually under 200, typically.

There's only been one year when I had to call one of the cities and say, you're at your cap. But the other city was well underneath. I don't know.

But, yeah, right now, they're typically under it.

Yeah, I figured. No problem. For the ethos.

Yeah, I keep an eye on it and look at it. All good. Thank you. Got a motion?

make a motion that we accept the animal service agreement with the city.

Second.

I second.

Madam Secretary, can you take a vote, please?

Yes. Aye.

Yes. Aye.

All right, patching in with the item number 11, discuss and consider animal services agreement with the city of Gilmer.

And so just so you know, I neglected to mention with the city of Pittsburgh, I send these first to the cities to make sure they still want to continue before I bring them to you. They've both gone to their council and they've both been approved and signed and sent back to us. The city of Gilmer is $3,464 a month for services and $6,615 in October for a total of $48,183 for the next fiscal year beginning October 1. And so it's the same number with Gilmer, up to 200 animals, and they track them, but I would encourage these agreements to continue with our shelter.

All right, discussion? Motion?

I'll make a motion to approve Animal Service Agreement with the City of Gilmer.

Second. Second. Madam Secretary, can you take a vote, please?

Aye. Aye.

Yes.

Aye. Yes.

Motion passed unanimously. Thanks, Chief. Item number 12, Discuss and Consider Ordinance 2026-19, amending Chapter 96, Section 13, Food Trucks, amending the city's licensing and inspection requirements to reflect current state-mandated statewide mobile vendor permitting, which replaces the city oversight and health inspections for food trucks, continuing current local... Vocational citing requirements in certain zone districts and events and providing for penalties for the violation Good evening mayor and council

This is another kind of record-keeping cleanup. This one was due to the state. In 2025, the legislature passed House Bill 2844 that gave food truck regulation for inspections and health. to the state and took it away from the local jurisdiction. And we do have, of course, our health inspectors and part of their job was food truck inspections and permitting. And so this particular portion of the ordinance of our health regulations is regarding how the city's responsibilities for the inspection and licensing of food trucks is to be handled. But the state has said that is not in effect any longer. So because it's been abolished, but our ordinance says that we're still responsible, this is just a kind of a cleanup item. And in your packet, you had a red-lined ordinance that showed the changes. you'll see that there is an existing change or an existing ordinance and the changes were specifically only related to trying to bring this in in alignment with the state law so we can still regulate where they can go but not how they actually operate from a licensing and inspection perspective. The state has, in many cities, big cities, it will work quite well because the food truck operators will get one state license to be able to go statewide and not have to get a separate license and potentially inspection in every single city that they serve. Of course, the issue in smaller communities is that there's a pretty hefty increase in the cost of how much that costs for one food truck in one city, but we didn't have any control over that. So our ordinance does provide for us to do those things, and we've taken it out. The new ordinance takes kind of, we want to make sure that we're specific about the things that we can regulate in ways that we used to control with the actual permit. So that would include the zoning that they can go in, ownership, physical requirements as far as restroom adjacency and those sorts of things, and that's what you'll see. If you'd like me to go through it, I do have an old and a new comparison, but I wasn't sure how comfortable you were with looking at that order.

This is just housekeeping, correct?

Yes, sir.

Okay, then we don't have to go through it.

The only difference would be that the old ordinance says commercial area location, but we did permits.

But are we moving just to the state regulations? I'm sorry? Are we moving to, like, how it's regulated by the state, how the state is doing it?

Well, we don't have any choice to do that. Right, exactly. Right, we aren't doing it, and we certainly don't want people to think that we are doing it with an ordinance. All right. Something should happen. The only real big change would be that it just generally says commercial area location, and we were doing the whole inspection permit thing. We can't do that anymore, so we basically specified that they can only be in commercial, general retail, and light industrial and heavy industrial areas. and only downtown if it's a special event. So those things were kind of codified in the ordinance before it was done permit by permit.

Awesome. Thanks. Any discussion? Yeah, I got two questions. So it says we have enforcement. So I'm assuming the state license is just like on your car, you have to get a registration. So if food truck doesn't have it permitted, like they don't like it is not valid, right? For whatever reason that in updated or whatever. Do we have authority to control that? Like,

My understanding would be that the physical location would allow us to say you need to leave because you do not have your state license, which is a requirement by the state. However, the state has not, unlike traffic law, said you have to enforce traffic law. We don't need to patrol.

But just tell them to leave. Pardon? But you're saying we can just say, hey, you're expired, you've got to go. Correct.

If we saw people...

I'm asking because I don't want rogue food trucks everywhere and then knowing he's getting licensed, people start getting sick or something.

Well, we would certainly have oversight over that, yes, sir.

Okay. Just making sure because how it was explained wasn't clear to me.

But if they all come in because they... that they now don't need to I mean we'll have to take steps to run them out for sure and I don't know how many state inspectors are going to be statewide because the food trucks have to go to one of the bigger cities to get their inspection and everything that was done here yeah yeah that that's good because I see potential bird nest here that's why I'm kind of asking down that path all right thanks Lynn got a motion

You're also going to have an issue with those that are staying several days at a time at locations. I'm sorry? Those that are staying several days in a row?

So that is still physical. So our old ordinance says they have to move, and the new ordinance can say they have to move. The specifics of the unit itself, its safety, its health, and those sorts of amenities that are on it, those are the things the city no longer has any jurisdiction over.

Yeah, but I've noticed a couple of them that are staying for several days in a row.

call us, we can do something about that, even under the current rules.

Yeah, like the truck is parked there almost permanently. Yeah, that's true. All right, thankfully. Any more discussion? Put a motion?

A motion to approve ordinance 2026-19, amending the food truck ordinance to reflect the state law changing as presented by staff.

Second. Second.

I second.

Madam Secretary, can I get a vote, please?

Yes. Aye.

Yes.

Aye.

MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY ITEM NUMBER 13 DISCUSS CONSIDER RESOLUTION 2026 THAT'S 20 FOR RESELL OF BLK237A LOT 18 AND 19.4966 ACRES JONES AVENUE IN CITY OF MOUNT PLEASANT TO TORRES INVESTMENT LLC SLASH ERIC TORRES PURSUANT TO TEXAS TAX CODE THAT'S GOING TO BE OUR ACM

Excuse my seat. So this is a resolution that we received from our law firm that is doing tax resale property. And so we have our first one. All three of them, actually, if it's okay with you, they're all separate. It's the same individual who is purchasing them. And he is purchasing this one for the amount of $1,000 is what he has offered on this. And they have accepted it and sent it to us to be approved.

So did that go out for bid or something?

So it's on the resale list that a property that the city has. It's on the website. And he went out and bid it on the tax property that had been out there on the list.

So do we have to take those motions separately?

Yes, sir. And they're all three. He purchased all three of them.

Okay. So for item number 13, discussion, motion?

I mean, pretty low ball, if you ask my opinion. We're owed roughly $4,000 and some change on all of them. We offer $1,000 on each.

$1,000 on each or $1,000 for all?

So on this particular one, it was $1,000 is what he offered. On the next one, he offered $2,000. And then on the last one, he offered $1,000.

And let me correct it. He offered $2,000. That second one was $6,200. So it feels pretty low to me. I mean, I'm getting a quarter of it.

Yeah. Yes.

Oh.

Oh. Awesome, that sounds good. I'll go ahead and get a motion to table 13, 14, 15.

Yeah, I'll make a motion to table this till we can get some representation to discuss this.

I second the motion to table. Did you have a comment?

No, I know the property, and it needs to go.

We'll table it this time, and then we'll just pick it up on the night. Okay, did we get the motion? Madam Secretary, could you vote, please?

Councilmember Corbill? No. Councilmember Faulkner? Aye. Councilmember Hinton? Aye. Councilmember Hageman?

Aye.

All right, it was 3-1, and we'll move on to item number 16, City Manager's Report.

Mayor and Council, the I-30 Water Treatment Plant Filtration Rehab Project and the I-30 East Border Water Line have both gone out for RFP on August 21st. Public Works Director Houston is meeting this week with the designer of Dalewood Park, the update project, the review project cost estimates. A letter, as most of you know, was delivered to Titus County Judge Cooper last week requesting a joint meeting with commissioners and the city council to discuss the fire service contract. The next steps will be to schedule a joint meeting for that purpose, and ACM Webster can assist with that. The academy walls are up if you've been out there. The roof is being installed, and they are currently posting their top management position for the Mount Pleasant store. And at the last council meeting, I shared information about the Main Street program and how we've been placed on probation since we have been without a manager since February. I'm happy to announce that we have found someone to fill this role, and she should be in her place on October 1 this year, Courtney Higginbottom. We're very excited about that. That's it. End of report.

All right. Council comments. Council comments. Let me do announcements of upcoming events, recent council member activities, or requests to add agenda items for the upcoming meetings.

Anyone? Any response from the county wanting to meet over the fire contract?

So, yes, we can get with Lee and we can get with Candace.

More of a procedural thing. I know we kind of glossed over talking about 13. Do we need to make sure we say the same for 14 and 15?

Since we tabled it, I didn't think that was necessary. Do we need to read through all of it?

that's what I said table 13 oh whenever you make the motion yeah I don't think I said all three so I just that then would jump so I just want to make sure we're we're all doing it the right way so that was on me I can do one more just to cover the last two yeah motion for item 13 14 Well, we already voted on 13, so I just make a motion to table 14 and 15 until we have proper representation to discuss the matter further.

Second. I second it.

Madam Secretary, can we get a vote, please?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

No. No.

It's 3-1 passing. And we got our council comments. Moving into executive session pursuant to Open Meetings Act, Chapter 551, Texas.

You bet.

Sorry. I'm exhausted.

I would like this to put on the agenda for the next time. I know a couple months ago we talked about the – questions about uh some of the offices closing at noon on friday so i would just like to let us get the information out there and study that and see if that's viable if it's something that is going to happen or could happen or is even beneficial in any way some city offices Yeah, we had mentioned that a couple of months ago. And I just wondered if we could get some information on it, have somebody present that and talk about it. It may not be anything that we want to do, but I would just like to have us talk about it.

Okay. Madam Secretary, can you get that on? All right. Awesome. Sorry, Debbie. All right, we're going to move into executive session.

One more thing. It's real quick. Okay. Don't forget to get on the city website to check out everything going on at the library. I get this every time, and I feel like we don't give it the right amount of attention it deserves. So please check it out if you're looking for something for your kids to do or for yourself. That's it, I promise.

Oh, no, I was going to. I was just worried that I'd be jumped.

Thank you.

All right, come back into regular session. It's 943. And we just have one item to act on, and I believe Lee's going to speak to it.

Hold on.

Oh, I think I'm on the thing, so hang up here.

All right.

thanks Lee do we have a motion I'll make a motion to approve the city managers increase in salary about $5,000 based on his contract according to his outstanding review of things accomplished in this last 12 months all right madam secretary please yes all right

I'll make a motion we adjourn 945