City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, friends. I'm going to call this Selen City Council work meeting uh to order at 5:02 p.m. Uh members present uh presently are uh council members Dylan Gerba Halsh Harmount, Mayor Prom Rice, and Mayor Marl. Um as was indicated earlier today via email, council member Deloro will be present, but he will be running a few minutes late. Uh from city staff, we have city manager Swallow. Um the deputy clerk is filling in on behalf of Clerk Royal. We have city tre or city treasure Finch, our IT administrator Shank, wastewater treatment and water treatment superintendent, uh Mr. Briggs, um and police chief Radzik. Um at this time, the chair would entertain a motion to approve the agenda as submitted, unless there are amendments.

As submitted, moved by Dylan, seconded by Rice. All those in favor of approving the agenda as submitted, signify by saying I.

Oppos say nay. Eyes have. The motion carries unanimously. there are no absences or at least we don't expect uh council member Deloro to be absent for the duration of the meeting. So um if there are absences we'll deal with that at the tail end of of tonight's session. So we come now to public comments under the open meetings act. Any person may come forward at this time make comment or question to city council. This public comment period will be limited to three minutes per person. Anyone who wishes to speak as requested but of course not required to state their name and address for the record. Are there any citizen comments? The record will reflect there are none uh from individuals present in the audience this evening. I would defer to the deputy clerk. Were there any written comments provided in advance of tonight's meeting in which the individual wanted their remarks at this time?

Easy enough. Then we will transition to the one and only presentation of the evening and discussion which is a draft of the uh FY2627 budget. You do have some supplemental materials in front of you, including a PowerPoint um along with a packet um uh entitled city council uh budget meeting uh budget work meeting which denotes um that we will have a number of presentations between now and approximately 8:00. I think we'll probably exceed that that schedule. There are several people, council members and staff included, who want to um who need to get out of here around 8:00. So that's when we're going to try to wrap up tonight. I'm keenly aware that we will not develop consensus or be able to address everyone's questions this evening. So towards the tail end of our session this evening. If we need to follow up uh schedule a follow-up work meeting either in advance of our next regular council meeting which is on April the 6th or the following meeting uh we will we will do so. Excuse me. Sorry about that. Um are there any questions for me before we get get started? And I think what we'll probably do is um we'll probably take two or three of these sections at at a time and then defer to council members if they have any any any questions. And I would ask everyone to exercise some brevity this evening because we do have a lot of ground to cover. Of course, you are welcome to follow up with any and all staff members subsequent to today's meeting if you have questions or additional points of clarification. Uh with that, uh the first bullet point is um to begin at 5:00 and that is Swallow and Finch with a budget overview and format changes. Um city manager Swallow, would you like to begin?

Yes. Thank you, Mayor Council. Um, obviously the budget format has changed a little bit from what you've seen in the past, but the goal is to be more transparent and hopefully a little easier to understand as we go through that. Uh, so that u so that the public will have an opportunity to understand how the what goes into the budget as well as council hope will have the opportunity to take a look at this and provide feedback to us as we develop the final budget numbers. But we do also have obviously every detail uh in terms of the line item budget uh for each of the funds in each of the departments. Uh so with that, the other thing that's changed a little bit in this presentation is incorporating uh some of the department heads involvement in the budget development and the presentation process. Uh so they're the ones on the ground obviously on the front row. Uh they understand their needs uh probably more so on a day-to-day basis than I do. So wanted to involve them from the ground up and then also be able to feed back and to explain things maybe to council if you want a little bit more detail on any particular area. Uh so this evening we will focus a little bit more on the general fund. Of course this is the 101 fund that council has the most uh flexibility uh in terms of in terms of how the budget is put together in terms of expenditures and making changes to that. some of the other enterprise funds and some of the other specialty funds obviously were more specific in their function but we will call we will go through those tonight but we won't focus in as much detail as we do on the general fund. I want to talk again even though we did cover it under capital improvement plan a little bit more on engineering and infrastructure development focus on those because those are bigger dollar figures that may require multi-year planning as we as we work through that. Um also obviously from just uh ongoing discussion on planning going on with the parks and recreation department how that functions and how we can improve uh the sustainability of that department going forward and that fund going forward. We

want to highlight that this evening. We'd also want to talk about some of the other components and units that go into uh the into the fund and provide funding for various activities including obviously rubbish, trash, uh the birth the vehicle equipment replacement fund as well as our tipper fund. Uh so some of those unique funds and how those function uh big projects going on up water wastewater. So we will spend some time on that and some of the ongoing uh asset management work that's going on in those departments and those funds. Uh so we focus on that and then we'll try and leave as mayor alluded to time for questions and make sure that uh we can get some feedback from council and we will spend more time if we have to have another work session on this as well. So some of the bigger changes uh that uh occurred within the budget format. We are now showing the fund balance information separately uh for it's not counted as a revenue and expenditure. So you get a clear idea of what our actual revenues fund balance really isn't revenue for us. It's a it's a savings account in essence and so we can see really see what we're bringing in revenue, what our expenditures are and then what that difference or that net is as we go forward. So if you look on like page 13 and 14 in the more detailed line item packet uh you can see some details on how those fund balances broken out separate from the actual revenue expenditure accounts. As I mentioned uh they're hurt the vehicle replacement fund we are tracking that a separate fund now it used to be within the general fund uh but what happens there is we see obviously we really want to maintain some fund balance and understand when the equipment is going out of service when those costs are coming up and replacement in the future. So we really want to focus on that in a in from a planning perspective because those again are larger expenditures that occur sporadically. So we want to understand that and project that out what the what the expected life expectancy is for each of those pieces of when they be replaced and what the

budget impacts will be uh when those replacements happen. And then finally another thing you'll notice we have pulled out some of the IT expenses that were specific to departments. So for example, uh the Axon cameras for the police department, uh those are now tracked within the police department, not in the IT budget as a long. So again, gives you a clear picture in my mind of what it actually costs to operate that department and how those IT expenses are covered for those specific departments. However, the global things like BSNA, uh, payroll, those type of software are still covered within it and then allocated out as part of the, uh, indirect funds or indirect allocations to the some of the major budget format changes uh, that we'll be going through. And next, I'm turn it over to Treasur uh, to talk a little bit about property tax revenues. And this slide shows kind of how that's broken out amongst our various taxing jurisdictions and how uh property tax revenues and expenditures overall have taxed for the last few years.

Thank you. Um so starting with a little bit about property tax revenues um before we dive into expenditures here. They are our largest general fund revenue source. Um I like to highlight this graphic a lot. Um our total total is about $32 million. Um so I actually collect or levy on behalf of other authorities like the community colleges, the ISD, the school area schools, the library. Um so we actually bring in about $32 million from those tax bills that go out. Of that only about 8 million remains here with the city of Seline. So only about a quarter of the actual tax bill remains here for city operations. So we do like to highlight that. Um, it's good information for you to have and for our residents to understand as well where those tax dollars are actually going. Um, so the budget proposal before you shows about $ 8.5 million in general property tax revenues, uh, you can see versus about 8.3 million that are in the current year. I want to stress that the 8.5 million is an estimate at this point. March board of review is last week. So that's just wrapped up and I've just gotten our final values for the upcoming year. So I'll be redoing some math uh and figuring out what our heavy reduction fraction is and things like that. So the 8.5 million in general property tax revenue is actually going to to increase slightly. Just wanted you all to know that for now it's just a solid working estimate. So we'll have an updated budget packet in April and that's one number specifically that is going to change. Um just as a refresher um for for council and for the public, we have Michigan's Headley amendment and what that means is we actually roll back our millillage rates as taxable value increases. The concept being that taxable value can't grow faster than inflation. So that's a

a control that helps to protect our our taxpayers um from things escalating too quickly over time and it keeps that increase proportionate. Um so while that doesn't it means that even when property values are increasing doesn't necessarily translate directly into significant tax revenue growth that actually remains relative stagnant and proportionate. Um I bring that up as well because we often hear all of us here in the office and I know all of you you're raising our taxes. Our millage rate is remaining the same. It will actually reduce slightly. You can see that on the graph before you. The line represents the millage rate over time. You can see that's decreasing. While the bars represent the taxable value over time, you can see that's increasing. So when they say that the tax bills are increasing, that is a result of the taxable value increasing, not the rate. All of this to show um this is what translates into our actual revenue. So overall, we're currently showing about a 14% increase in general fund revenues. Um you can see that on page 13 of your budget packet as we're transitioning to this new format. Um we use the general fund balancing revenue and we are no longer it's challenging to show that without it looking drastically different. Um so on page 14 in the summary section I actually show you um just here where we look at the total revenues and total expenditures and the net in the prior year. I've taken out the fund balance information as well so that you can see more of a true comparison. Um so overall we're looking at about a 14% increase in revenue. Um obviously a portion of that is going to be related to our increasing taxable value and therefore tax revenue. Another portion um that's relatively significant

you can see from the graph in front of you is um we are planning to issue $3.1 million in bond proceeds due to the Davenport Curtis purchase uh to go ahead and reimburse ourselves and make make sure we're maintaining fund balance. So those bond proceeds will show as a fairly significant revenue in the upcoming year. Um, otherwise you can see some of our larger ones would be our state shared revenue. That's obviously a large revenue source. We're not expecting any significant increases. If anything, I'm budgeting quite conservatively based on state estimates um as things remain a little bit uncertain, you know, at levels above. Anything else you wanted to add on revenues? Um, from there, we're going to transition into expenditures and fund balance. Taking a look at the graph in front of you. Uh the blue bars are our assigned fund balance over time and the gray bars show our unassigned fund balance over time. The blue line is to represent that 15% minimum fund balance that we need to have. The 15% is calculated on our operational expenditures. So that number changes every year based on what we're actually expending. So that's why 15% is never quite the same. Um you can see if you take a look at fiscal year 26 which is our current year that line is right right there. We're right at the minimum. Um with our use of fund balance this year related to both the Davenport Curtis home and the DHU unit at the rec center. We have used a significant portion um of fund balance. So to restore us right to that 15% minimum, um, as council member Gerba had motioned recently, we'll be unassigning a portion of the legislative changes fund balance to keep us at that 15% minimum. Looking forward to 27, you can see that because of those bond proceeds, revenues will exceed expenditures and we'll be

committing back to fund balance. So we'll be exceeding% once again. Um, from here I'm gonna hand it over to Dan so we can start diving into some specifics.

So, one of the things that always comes up is, you know, how is personnel changing? Are we adding any personnel? Where does that stand? So, we wanted to cover that uh with uh with this information for you. Kind of a basically a really thank you to Sarah Massie for the graphic. Kind of gives you an idea of the various departments um and where those where those personnel lie uh within within those departments. So with that uh there are some proposed changes in this budget that we have discussed uh a little bit thus far uh but want to highlight those under administration. One of the things that I have uh proposed is adding an economic development director. You see that in the personnel uh graphic here as well. Uh so you see that increase in the administrative personnel number. So the terms of economic development director want them to work more closely with our local businesses want them to work more closely with uh community development uh some of the initiatives that uh we talked about like uh redeveloping communities some of those involve economic development positions some of the um you know what how can we become a little bit more uh user friendly for our not only our businesses but our residents uh from a standpoint uh supporting more entrepreneurial growth uh working on some of the downtown vacancies those type of things uh are what I would like that individual to focus on and also working very closely with uh our public outreach. I mean there's been a lot of discussion about how do we better deliver the message to the public? How do we communicate um what are those channels? I think they could work very well with uh Miss Massie for example on kind of developing those and and really uh really improving uh how we communicate to the public. So that's some of the primary responsibilities. So, we'll be working on a job description for that. Uh whether that position will get filled right in the beginning of the fiscal year is still unknown. I think we've got some work to do uh to really fully understand how that how that position can best be utilized and to fully draft that uh job description which will come back to

council. The other administrative position you see increases, we do currently have a vacancy in the treasur's office. Uh so, we are working on backfilling that position, looking at that skill set. But uh uh director Finch and I or excuse me, Commissioner Finch and I uh are really trying to focus again on what is the skill set that we want. Uh there's I know uh contract management, some of those things have maybe stretched a little bit. Uh but we want to really focus in on what is the skill set that would best support uh the departments and her office as well as make sure we're covering all the day-to-day responsibilities over DPW. Uh we are we are looking at uh obviously with the new structure looking at uh some changes there. Uh but one of the key things is uh looking at facilities manager uh to focus on the buildings and take day-to-day responsibilities with those tracking projects contracts u uh so right now that's been kind of dispersed out amongst uh DPW staff. Mr. Linky has uh taken on a lot of that u but again it's inconsistent with the other job responsibilities. So having someone dedicated uh to that task uh over at wastewater treatment plant with the new plant operations we are looking at probably needing some additional personnel right now speaking with superintendent Briggs um he would like two positions that's what we budgeted for here again for water wastewater. So, uh, as the new plant comes online and as they're doing all of the, um, operations and maintenance and getting the new asset management and, um, and tracking, uh, software in place, we'll know probably a little bit better. Do we need those two additional personnel? Uh, but conservative, that's what we're budging for here. Other than that, we're pretty much unchanged uh, in terms of personnel throughout the throughout the other departments. So, that uh, that covers that. I don't know if you want me to talk a little bit about the administrative departments and then

we'll maybe share this one. So, talking about the administrative departments, those are all kind of the obviously the city council, uh, city manager's office, treasurer, clerk, uh, those those positions and what's covered there. The largest piece you see there is covered under administration or 11-172, department 172. Uh the big reason for that about twothirds of that is the retirey healthcare retirey benefits. So uh that's a little bit disproportionate when you look at it's not really um covering you know services per se um but it is covering obviously our obligation to our retirees. Other than that uh relatively unchanged as you look across uh no significant growth in a lot of departments other than the if you look back in time uh human resources of course is a new department uh and so uh still kind of fleshing out exactly uh that the functions for HR they cover even some our foyer requests things of that nature so uh still developing that department but other than that it's really if you look across the board relatively unchanged in terms of not not any significant uh increases in uh each of those departments. So, I don't know if you want to add anything to that.

I think that really really covers it. Um we have a few people who are going to speak to their specific departments. So, we'll get a little bit more into those. But before we do, um I wanted to talk a little bit about commissions and committees just so council is aware. There are several departments uh within the general fund. We have an environmental commission, parks commission, the historic commission, the DEI committee. Um, which we actually that's going to be absorbed by another committee. Uh, and then arts and culture. So, a couple of things I want to highlight for them. Um, for arts and culture, looking through the packet, they show a $16,000 revenue and then a $21,000 expenditure. I point that out to say that of that $21,000, 5,000 is just for their general needs to allow them to accomplish some things. And the other 16 is related to Jazz in the Park, which matches that offsetting revenue of $16,000. That's a fully donation and sponsor sponsorship, excuse me, funded event. Um, so that event itself net zero, but I do want to highlight that because you'll notice their expenditures are are looking a little higher um from last year to this year. I would point out as a just as a best practice that we're going to be transitioning to. Previously, there's been a lot of charging expenditures against revenue lines to actually just lower the revenue. as we're moving towards being more transparent in the way we account for things, we're going to really start showing the reimbursement revenue and the true cost of the events. Um, so some places you're going to see an expenditure in increase. That's because it now has an offset revenue. Um, next I would just comment that all of the commissions and committees are given just kind of a small budget when we initially build and as they need to make specific requests for larger scale needs uh we'll incorporate those as it becomes appropriate. um the historic district

for example um the commission is excuse me I talked to council member Gerbala they're going to work on putting together a list of you know projects that they'd like to tackle that way we can get the appropriate funding built in uh the last thing I'd like to highlight before we move on from commissions is department 803 is our historic commission department that's currently built in and in this packet before you it has lines added for the Davenport Curtis house Just last week, council approved a new separate department 8004. So we can see those expenditures separately. So when you get your first update in April, you're going to see those lines actually pulled out into a separate department so that we can see that on its own. So I just wanted to point out that that that's going to look a little bit different in your next

question. Why don't we want to pause maybe at this point um if there's any initial comments clarifications that we can make uh based on and just to be clear city manager swallow. So at the conclusion of this initial round of questions we will transition to clerk's office election and cemetery. Correct.

Okay. I just have one and then we'll I'll actually maybe ask for a brief comment from the members of our our finance subcommittee. Um going back to the page is it numbered but it's personnel uh where it talks about the uh additional FTEES that are recommended for FY27. Um certainly have no objection to adding some frontline folks at at Wastewater and DPW. The economic developer position is something that's been bantered about for quite some time. I think that council overall sees value in it if we can find a a sustainable revenue source. Um can you talk a little bit about the the um total cost of of of establishing that position and then I I know that if there is consensus a job description is forthcoming but to whom would that individual report to? Would you are you thinking of establishing that as a department head or um reporting to an existing department head?

Sure. Uh and it would be established as a department head um and looking at maybe you know in terms of support staff how that would function. obviously working closely uh with Miss Massie on kind of the public outreach um and then also uh working closely probably with Miss Lupton you know in terms of uh administrative support and outreach uh to that. So uh potentially rearranging who reports to uh that uh that particular position. So with that I have worked with uh director excuse me um sorry I worked with uh director detriment on kind of establishing the initial job description initial salary ranges uh and so with that we are probably looking at to be competitive uh in probably the 70 $80,000 range um uh for that position and with that if you add in the u certainly the overhead we're up to just $100,000 for for that additional budget.

Very good. Well, I look forward to having a more focused discussion about about that position and several others with my colleagues in the in the days and weeks ahead. Before I open up for questions and I'm going to ask people exercise some brevity here, um can I defer very quickly maybe one minute each if you'd like to take it to members of the finance committee if you'd like to provide any initial comments regarding the draft of the budget which you've had the opportunity to to review in advance. Mr. Gerbuzz, anything you'd like to add at this time? just say that basically what we did was we went through the information to see if anything was blatantly missing or if there were concerns or issues. Um again this is not as our review was just to address some of the things that were happening. It does not excuse the review by council. We were just finance to make sure that what we were looking at is the is fairly relevant and what we were trying to address is really kind of looking at the things that might be a concern or an issue.

Very good. Council member Harmout. Um, yes. I I really appreciate a lot of the improvements that were made or uh additions and I wanted to point out the percentage variance was a nice addition to that. Um, I think we did talk about in our meeting about separating out or as a memo item specific to Curtis Mansion to track the expenses specific to Curtis Mansion. Are did did we talk about that already? Yeah. So obviously the currently it's covered under 101 803 uh but uh we've talked about changing that out to uh create a separate department 804.

Yep. It actually was council just approved the amendment last week. So I just I didn't want to in haste updated draft. So it will be part of the next update. It will be a separate department. Okay. And just also to differentiate between the historic district commission and and the historic society items of of you know of buildings. Thank you. Council member Deloro, anything you'd like to add as the third member of the finance committee?

Uh just that, excuse me. We we spent the majority of our time at our finance committee meeting going through the general fund budget kind of in a with a fine tooth comb line by line. focused a lot of attention on there looking for discrepancies like Mr. Kaw pointed out. Um I I feel like tonight's discussion is more zoomed out broad an opportunity to hear from all the department heads and and look at all the different pots of money. So I'm looking forward to that discussion. Very good. Um all right, we'll start with questions. I want to begin. I guess everyone will get an initial chance here, but I'll limit it to five minutes. Um let me start with Council Member Rice tonight or Mayor PM Rice. Um, do you have any initial questions regarding uh the first uh phase of the presentation this evening?

Uh, no initial questions. I like this layout. Um, this is really helpful for those of us who aren't always all up in numbers to just kind of see it laid out. Um, one of the comments that I do have to make about the economic development director is that for probably the last six or seven years, I've stood up here and begged for someone who has additional grant writing skills. Um so if that could somehow weave its way into that I think the entire community would benefit from the city having um someone who has done that in their previous positions. We have a lot of folks who are writing really great grants. Um but that is a key skill I think um for developing uh projects and proposals to get us you know in in the mix with all of these opportunities that are available through both the state and um other NOS's. Uh that's all

very good. Uh Council Member Harmount, any uh questions at this time? No. Uh Council Member Halch? Uh yeah, I got two. Um my first question is um where where within the budget do I guess we see investment in sort of Selen's long-term growth specifically with community building? Um the economic development director is a part of that but also workforce development.

So certainly workforce development is a key component of economic development. So they work hand in hand with Michigan Works uh Southeast which is kind of lead uh economic development agency in our area as well as with Ann Arbor Spark where we expect them to attend you know all of the uh all of the uh work well not all but you know majority of the workshops put on by um Ann Arbor Spark to kind of coordinate activities and kind of be that bridge somewhat you know between um some of those larger agencies that provide those services and helping our local businesses understand that. Um and when you say I guess further on workforce development, do you have more specific ideas?

Um just kind of thinking about workforce initiatives to upskill citizens or to you know develop our citizens competitiveness in our current job market.

What I see is there's a number of resources out there through mission works for example and or through um Ann Arbor Spark some of these other regional agencies even in Washington County. uh but uh often you know our especially small business owners don't understand you know how to tap into those and don't understand resources and so I think that's an opportunity uh there's some workforce grants that even our larger business can get for training opportunities to uh that they can apply for directly but again you know someone manager at a plant that you know doesn't have time to always understand the program and understand what's required to uh apply for those so I do see that as a key role for that economic position

okay Um, and that kind of segus into the next question I had. So, with uh just looking at department 173 in general, um, is that economic director position the beginning of just sort of a small model that sort of serves as a liaison as you mentioned or is that kind of the beginning of a larger department within our city management? Right now, I believe it's 173, right? So, we do have, you're correct. Department 173 is economic development, but the actual the actual wages that we've budgeted are in 172 at this point. So, what you're saying is absolutely correct. If we are to move forward with that position, we'll reallocate those wages and this department will begin to grow.

Okay. Awesome. Um, and then my final question, just kind of zooming out at sort of 30,000 ft. Um, what are the strategic outcomes you hope to achieve within these next 12 months with this budget? So I think obviously a few of the things that have come out strongly from council in terms of you know asset management uh going forward there's still significant investment in uh engineering as well as uh as well as you know some of the the projects moving forward getting ready to implement some more of those some more of those larger capital projects. So that's probably one of the key factors in here both resources not only in the general fund but also in uh local roads streets as well as in uh water and sewer uh to understand that. Um certainly looking at staffing and water sewer um making sure that they have the resources to properly manage a wastewater plant uh is key element is obviously buying proposing potentially two positions there. Uh also I guess the other uh key initiatives and here investing in uh development position I think is is important. Uh we've talked a lot about uh how do we uh better relate to our businesses? How do we better communicate with our residents? I think that's a key factor. Um I do appreciate uh Councilwoman Bryce's comment that uh leveraging many of those uh additional resources. we do have some very large capital projects laying out there. Uh and so trying to get a get better um handle on how we're going to address those larger capital projects and how we're going to fund those is another key initiative.

Awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Hal. Uh Council Member Deloro, any questions at this time? You have five minutes if you'd like it.

Uh not so much questions. I took the opportunity Friday morning to meet with Treasurer Finch for about an hour and a half and I got a lot of my um amateur naive questions out of the way just to wrap my mind around how this new budgeting process is working. Um so I felt I I got a lot of my questions answered at that time. I do want to echo what council member Rice said in that I I think the administr or the economic development director position should have someone with grant writing skills. One of the things that came out of our interviewing for the DPW director position was that there are some other municipalities that have uh professional grant writers on staff in a part-time capacity. And that really seems to create opportunities to to mobilize uh some of these resources for capital improvement projects. When we think about money we're spending on the on the rec center and um potential um capital improvements necessary for the dam, whether we remove or restore, we're going to need someone to focus on those opportunities. And it's easy to miss those opportunities when someone's not really keeping their finger on the pulse with what's going on there. Um, one of the things I'll be thinking about as I look for alignment with uh FY27 budget is how this tracks with our strategic plan, how this tracks with our master plan, I I trust that you all have taken time to look for alignment there. But as we move towards the final stages of approving the budget, I'm going to take a deep dive in that aspect. That's all I have.

Thank you, Council Member Deloro. Uh, Council Member Dylan, you have five minutes if you'd like it for questions.

Thank you. Um, just for clarification, so are we just doing high level? Are we actually going to go into the line items? I know that the finance committee kind of went that way. Is the rest of this body going that way or like are we just doing highlevel questions? I I'm just trying to clarify because there's definitely a different style of this budget from the previous style. And so just sort of understanding there's there's line items that are up 400%. And because obviously things have been combined or moved into things um and just sort of understanding I mean I I it's hard to understand looking at those pages where it came from

right and I think the time frame we have tonight we're staying more high level um however uh what I would encourage two things one uh if you have more specific questions please you know email us you may not be the only one

well I that's what I'm kind of concerned with is that we start getting into these one-on- ones, then the body doesn't really have a full discussion about the budget. And so I I want to make sure that everybody sort of has the same understanding. Yes, my questions may be different from somebody else. I'm not going to monopolize the conversation. It's just I want to make sure that these are discussions that we are having as a body. The budget is obviously one of the most important aspects of city council. So I just want to be clear about that. going through now where we're at, trying to understand. Um, I do want to say first and foremost, thank you very much for continuing to show this graphic. There was some chatter on social media and the city was getting kind of smacked down about our taxes and I thought it was very unfair in which it was in the way it was posed. So, I appreciate that we continue to push out to the community that we are not just keeping all of that money and that when people vote for millages, that's where those dollars are going, not just for the city. Um, so I guess I wanted to ask the fund balance slide that you had had for the FY27, the last number, the gray one, which is the 4.7. So is that sort of a fake number then? Because it includes bond proceeds which are spent money in a different way. Well, we we'll call it a projected number. Yes. But no, the bond proceeds we we don't have them yet. So, they truly will come in next year. That will be true revenue. Yes, we have spent them now. It is a new debt issuance. You're absolutely right.

But it's not fund balance in that it's savings money. That's spent dollars. It is in that, you know, obviously we spent it. So, you see the gray bar drop, you know, in the current fiscal year. Yes. Um, so we spent that money and the intent is to basically, you know, bring funding back into the general fund and and we can allocate that to fund balance to help restore that reimbursing us for the money we spent out of the the fund balance. But we do have debt service going forward. Well, that's what I'm trying to figure out where the debt service falls then. Yes. Or the bond proceed.

So, this is an illustration of the bond proceed revenue. The actual debt service payment would be uh on page I believe it's 14. It's department 905. That's our debt service uh department. So you'll see that in the current year we're budgeted at aboutund or excuse me $274,000 in total debt payments. In the upcoming year I would put us closer to $590,000. Um that's the estimated addition of a debt service payment for the the person. Which page are you on? 14. Forgive me. It's page 12. I apologize. Okay. Sorry. I was looking for it because I'm like, wait a second. Okay. 905. 905. 905. Okay. Fantastic. So, you see that jump up obviously,

right?

So, no, I appreciate that. Um, the slide that talked about commissions and committees. Um, at one point we had talked about we had sort of zeroed out and this is where I get a little confused because I feel like we made a decision and now we're changing our decision. um in that I thought we had zeroed out all allocations to committees and so that nobody was just getting a line item 500 5,000 whatever it was the city was going to allocate money based on projects or whatever it was. Um, and so just sort of understanding like like you had mentioned, arts and culture will have a $5,000 spend outside of jazz in the park. So what do they have? Is there something specific within the budget that's they're allocating those dollars for?

Here's my concern is, you know, obviously those commissions have projects they want to take on throughout the year. Uh, for example, I know environmental commission wanted to focus on recycling and like the holiday time, recycling Christmas lights, those types of things. So, it's nice for them to have at least a small pot of money uh to work from for some of those projects without having to come uh for a budget amendment, right? Um, so that's why they're I assumed again taking on this on a little bit, but I agreed with in the safe token keeping a smaller budget for those committees and commission so they don't necessarily have to come and ask. Obviously if they have a larger project then they'll have to come

because I remember this was a big part of the committee for committees like decision was that it needed to be a top down that the city needed to determine where its priorities were how the dollars were being spent then allocate them to the group and they were to execute it in whichever manner they chose. So, I just want to make sure because we've had past incidents where there's just been spending that didn't necessarily align with what the city would have spent their dollars on. And so, I guess I want to be very clear in understanding what that process looks like and who gets approval to spend and how it those dollars get spent. And that issue was brought up by the finance committee because with this was that discussion that we need to asssure that the committees or whoever are spending it accordingly to the staff review and so forth so we don't end up with unauthorized expenditures like we have in the past for for costs that were not authorized nor should have been reimbursed by the city because of that situation.

We have to stop it there because we got we're at the six minute mark. We'll have time for additional questions. Mr. Gerbal, you have five minutes if you'd like it for questions.

Appreciate just a couple things I'm looking at. Um when we look at the personnel and of course we always want to look at the number of FTEEs. Um we've gone up four positions or will be proposed four positions in 2027 since uh 2025. The two positions that were added in 2026. So, I would like to know if we achieved what we intended for those positions as they were defined and what the work was supposed to be for those because I know that some of them were are not were proposed as being support for certain operations and I'm not sure that was really achieved. Um, also I think this is the opportunity to look at when you look at administration that's always the cost that is a concern of not only the public but generally everyone is wondering are you hiring worker bees or just adding to the administrative pool. Now that we have an open position, I would believe that we would evaluate that position for potential repurposing or since you're adding a position absorption in that type of thing to cover the cost of that. Um the other thing I would like to understand is because of the amount of I mean adjustments and things that we have done in the last year related to salary and so forth. I would like to see the total increase of overall salary alone compared to last year to the current year and then what's projected. Um there were a number of adjustments and things that were made that again raises the issue of how we want to set a policy regarding how merit and other off cycle salary adjustments are made and at a level of which we would um have requirements to have approval by council. That would be a policy change but I would like to know how that has increased over the last three years. Um the other one understanding LDFA um since that money isn't being captured it's going to go back in the general fund. Have we made an adjustment or something in terms of capturing some money because of all those expenditures or whatever the idea was in the past? What were we covering with that capture that no longer is going to be paid out of that fund and will now be paid well maybe paid out of that fund but how we're going to actually fund those expenditures.

Does that make sense? Yeah. I mean, it was just capital projects and um I mean, I'm still relatively new. It's only being a year, but based on what I can find in files from prior finance um staff members, it looks like each court was the final capital improvement that was truly planned in proceeding,

right? And then the issue would be for me is we have two LDFA, so I believe both of those expired. So going f forward, what do we do in intending to cover those co costs that could occur in either one of those LDFA parks that no longer were capturing the funds because all those monies are coming back into the general fund which I think are being used now to pay for these new positions because that money is not necessarily being held separately for that specific need. Admittedly, the general fund portion of LDA, LDFA is I don't want to say minimal, but it's not loss, if you will, are these other tax jurisdictions,

right? That part I know is loss, but we also are not holding the general fund dollars in there any longer. So, they're coming back in to be used. So, so any projection that we could have for LDFA in terms of potential capital costs or needs in the next five years that we should be maybe holding money back for um or whatever because the intent was that we were using that to help not only with capital needs but also redevelopment and some other types of things that could occur within those parks. So that about $150,000 a year was in revenue that was captured for that. Obviously some of that will come to the general fund, right? But now it's going to go to general fund. It doesn't mean that we're spending it for LDFA. We're spending it for other operational needs. So, we're not necessarily restricting that fund. Yeah. We just have to treat those districts now as as any

as like anything else. And that's that's the concern where we've lost out of that money. So, now we're going to have to match that money. So, I want to make sure that we don't have any plans or projects that need to be repaired or done within that period because we used to recapture that money to fix some of the storm drains. I mean, uh sewer and sanitary and those type of things. Um and then I think the only other one is again just understanding as we add new positions the impact of that. I hope that when we did the projections for our fee increases related to the DPW or not DPW but water and wastewater that we accounted for some of those positions. I don't know. So if we're going to add two new positions to the wastewater and water position department, how much of an impact will that be on the rate increases going forward? It's all overall budget obviously. Um the bigger concerns is we want to make sure we reserve enough for capital um and improvements and repairs etc. So we are taking a closer look at you know how that will impact you know the budget for um for for ongoing you know capital investment in the wastewater plan.

Will we be doing our fee review for that? Do we have that plan for fee review annually? Um and there are scheduled in the current rate study there are scheduled increases uh that uh were incorporated. So I'm sorry, but I don't know probably. Yeah, my recollection looking at that uh rate study did not include two additional positions. So that's the balance that I'm going to look at. I mean, you're asking for it, which we may need them, but again, how we're going to pay for them, and it's going to be through rate increases. So in a little while when we get to water and sewer, too, we we plan to do an updated rate study in the in the coming six to nine months. I think it's important to do at this point. We've had a lot of change in the next few years. So that would be incorporated then to see what the overall impact is.

Okay. And then I think I want to say that's not sole driver of obviously rate increases. It's part of the bigger picture, but obviously the bigger impact we want to take a close look at is make sure we have enough reserves for capital budget.

Oh, I understand that. It's just that those are all those are recurring costs that will continue to be part of it. But we haven't projected those forward as part of what we've been doing so forth. So that could mean that we need to have even higher rate increases. And so putting in two new positions may not be the thing that we need to do. We may have to put them in as um not necessarily in one fiscal year. Um and then I think the only other um aspect is could you provide and this is not for right now whatever the summary that makes up your eight the accounts that make up the 9.3 million or whatever you were using when you showed in the one document. I just never know which lines that all adds up to become the um the total revenue number. Oh, the total tax revenue.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you could just identify those counts, I appreciate it. Mr. Gbo, real quick to your your initial comment, I'm asking this uh for the public's benefit who may be watching, but also for our new council members, when you made a comment or question to the city manager about relatively new staff positions that have been created in recent years and making sure that they align with our goals and objectives, which positions were you referring to? I would say that would be um Maggie. Maggie's position, which I'm not sure what that administrative town, but I wasn't sure. And I can't remember what the other one was. Was there another front desk position? I believe um there was something I'm trying I don't know which two were added last year.

There was another front desk position, but that's what Dan had referenced earlier when we're talking about backfilling that position. We're looking more at what skill set do we actually need and and how are we actually going to utilize that?

Right. And then that's why I look at our opportunity now is do we need that position and what how we're playing that out because there were some assumptions that were made I know last year where positions were absorbed and now we're adding back and trying to understand all of that. But if we're going to add another economic development decision and that position needs support. I'm I really am looking at this from the perspective of administration always has considered um adding on a little more red tape a little more u red tape than people like to see. So just to be considered to make sure that what we've added and added as positions are clearly achieving the goals in which we wanted and at this point if we have an open position that should be considered as a potential because we have seen significantly in other areas in which we have to invest in the next years or two and I would rather see that reconsidered as this time.

So to be clear it's it's one existing position than a deeper evaluation on the vacant position that you're attempting to craft a job description for and potentially post in the ensuing weeks. Okay. Very good. Just so we're clear on that. Um here's what we're going to do. Uh we're on to um clerk's office. So this is my recommen recommendation, Mr. Swallow. Let's try to get through clerk's office, IT, police, and building inspector or building inspection and community development. Um and then that way uh we'll do a round of questions after that. Subsequent to that, those staff members can be dismissed. Um so that Mr. Atkins, Chief Frazzik, and Mr. Shank do not need to stay till the duration of uh of the uh the meeting tonight. Please proceed. Um before I let the deputy clerk speak for a few minutes, I was just going to point out um the clerk's department is really between two different departments. It's the 101215 and the 101262. So they're on pages 4 and 5 215 kind of crosses the two and then page six uh for 262. If you want to follow along with some of the specifics, I would comment that overall financially there's nothing um too shocking. You'll notice that like we had talked about earlier, they now carry their IT expenses that are department specific. So, you're going to see a little bit of an increase no matter what because we've added a new account. Um, but otherwise, I wanted to let let Deputy Clerk Alexa speak to one of the significant changes they're looking at.

Yeah. Um, so the biggest change um for the clerk's office would be a new um agenda management system, Diligent. Um this system would be just a user friendly for our staff and residents. Um the YouTube videos will be linked to minutes to easily search and we would be transferring all our old records from documents on demand um to diligent. Um the system also would be formatted to be a mobile friendly system and the nice part of it also would um it would track board appointments and their terms which we don't really currently have a system besides an exile system doing that. So it would be um a nice addition to us and the rest is pretty much status quo besides the changes there.

Please proceed. All right. Um, so for the IT department, there are accounts throughout the entire budget, every fund, every department that carry a 933 account. And that's going to be those department specific accounts. But for the sake of this conversation, we're looking at the 101228, uh, which is on page five of your detailed budget packet. Um again the significant change with with how we're reporting here is the IT allocation you'll notice uh is lowering from what we had budgeted in the current year. That's because we took a hard look at what are truly global expenses. So those will still be recorded in department 228 and then they are allocated out based on a percentage calculation. Um otherwise the IT specific expenditures are in each of the different departments in that 933 account. So from there though, I'm happy to

shock. Anything you'd like to add? Uh, no. I think the budget's pretty straightforward. Uh, pretty typical things. Hardware res refreshes are in there. Um, our licensing costs, uh, we're trying to kind of wrangle as much as we can. The cloud licensing prices, some of those are, you know, trying to get ahead of them. Uh, I've let Treasurer Finch know. I mean, our Microsoft license renewal, for instance, is probably 8 to 12% increase from previous years. there's a certain cost of trying to tread lower but um unfortunately kind of the nature of the piece hardware too is also becoming increasingly expensive and hard to source so we're having to get a little creative with finding that sort

one of the advantages of kind of going through each software piece that we're utilizing each department we have a very good list and how much it costs u and so I think that's helped us maybe look at you know are are we fully utilizing this piece of software could it be uh discontinued or you know what uh you know how much are the costs um going up and it also I think helps that you know a little bit that for those that are within the departments now they're going to monitor that a little bit more closely in terms of how they're using it because it's now directly affecting their budget. So I think that that's the other advantage of potentially moving it to uh to moving it you know out of the it just a lump sum that somebody else is paying for it if you will um into uh the department specific. So I think

overall I believe it's a positive change. Anything else on the IT front? You want to transition to uh uh police and public safety?

Um I suppose the last thing I wanted to point out for the IT department just while we're on the conversation um and we're talking about those percentage changes, if you look at 101228810001, that's a professional services IT maintenance agreement. I just want to point that out because that's a contract that council recently approved. Um that's a new IT services management agreement. Um, so that is obviously a significant increase moving forward as it's a new line item. Right. Next, we're gonna take a look at police. Um, just so you are all aware, there's going to be many graphs like this for our different departments. Um, this shows the expenditure activity back to 2020 and then forward proposed. Um for police there are two different departments because our police expenditures are department 301, department 325 is what would previously have been dispatched. Um that was inhouse. We now record our dispatch contract there. Um and then of course our 800 radio contract as well. So just wanted to point out the two different bars that you're going to see for police. Um looking at the police budget, it is on page starts on page seven. It carries on to page eight. Um I would note that there is just a salary increase assumption built in here um as we are just opening negotiations for the uh police union uh negotiations for contract. Um so this number could potentially change based on the results of those negotiations, but for now we're holding a a conservative placeholder there for an assumption. Um I'll let I'll let

Okay. Uh, I mean, I think mine is pretty straightforward as well. Um, as Sarah stated, those first uh, three or four um, in my budget are I guess because we're in contract negotiations or will be um, pretty soon because ours expires this year in 2026. There's a clear quering. I would comment their IT expenses again,

right? It is now back in our budget as well as um our the BURF is now not excluded from our budget. Um and I think we anticipate um we're catching up with vehicles right now. So I believe this coming year we're budgeted for two which we kept going back and forth two or one but like I said during the co we're still catching up so we're a little behind

on the on the ver conversation. We can talk a bit more about that later, but all departments who typically contribute to the BERP are seeing a 4% um four to 5% increase to their contribution um which we can dive into more later. But I do appreciate Chief and the Deputy Chief um and Alex and Prisilla. We all sat down and really through the work together, really looked at at the inventory of the fleet and and what needs to be addressed. Sarah, real quick question. um asterisks they're just to indicate not final numbers. I don't I haven't seen a footnote. I see asterisks on all the years. Just want to try to understand what that means.

Oh, sure. So, for 26 and 27, the asterisk imply that those are projected figures. Um they obviously can't be absolutely exact, but they're projected. Thank you, Chief Brad. Is there anything else you'd like to add? Moving on to what we are collectively calling community services. Um, this would be director Ashton. Yep. Mr. Atkins, would you like to come forward? Maybe take Mr. Shank's spot. You may begin when ready, sir.

Well, we're not asking for a lot. Uh, there are some changes in our budget over the past year just due to the um restructuring of the department. Um, I'm leaving a couple full-time employees and going consulting firm most well for all of our inspections. U right now we're as far as this year moving into the next fiscal year. So you see that our number, excuse me, it's dropped by uh almost $50,000 um overall and it's pretty straightforward. We are looking currently working on fee adjustments for permitting, building permits, electrical, mechanical plumbing. Um we're probably going to present that here uh in May. The city council has been updated since 2020. Um all our uh our fees for inspections through car board did increase um based on what we were charging. We are still ahead the a on that but development is going to be slowing down here in the next couple years anticipate. So increasing those will help offset um increase per Mr. Swallow. Treasure Finch, anything else you'd like to add regarding um community development or building inspecting?

Uh yeah, one thing I would like to do and we've talked about for next year is potentially show the revenue in this department or even pull out building uh and community development as a separate fund. Um, I think it can be tracked in the department as well, but you have to jump back to uh the um earlier 101 000 revenue accounts to see where the uh where the fees come in there. So, it's not always easy to go back and forth, but you do see those that you look back at 10100, you see, for example, building projected budget of $500,000, which is up a little bit. um uh and uh potentially looking at making sure we're covering our costs for all of our services. This should be relatively cost neutral and the only thing the general fund really should be supporting is the uh the work that Chris from community development standpoint some of the ordinance work obviously is not covered under inspection or under the other uh permitting. So um get a clear picture making sure we're covering our costs. That's part of the permit review as well. Just just for baseline right now, our revenue just from building electrical trades, we're at uh 156,69. I see an uptick in the spring here. See an uptick? Yeah. You know, uh just this month alone, we're just over $30,000, which we're average between 30 $35,000 a month.

Anything else on uh building inspecting or community development? Okay, then we'll transition to questions. And of course, uh my colleagues, uh you're welcome to ask questions about any of the four areas we just covered, which includes the clerk's office, information technology, police, uh building inspecting, and community development. I have one before I defer to uh Mayor Prom Rice. And this is for either the city manager can take it if he has some insight or the the deputy clerk. Um this is your vocation and your expertise, so I will always defer to our our frontline staff and not try to micromanage or second guess. Can you talk a little bit more about this technology or platform diligent? Um, here's a pet peeve and it's a concern, but on the grand scheme of things, it ranks maybe a three or two out of 10. Um, but we've just begun to get folks acclimated to minutes and documents on demand and then we we we change uh uh platforms or or services and sometimes that's warranted, sometimes it's appropriate. Can you talk just a little bit more about why it's more advantageous to go in that direction than to use the the current system? Yeah. Yeah. So really uh diligent is uh everything in one location. You don't have to now granted you can go on doc man and find the agenda packet but then uh you don't know you necessarily you know what uh the other issue is that uh it it seems like you have to hunt for information uh relative to minutes relative to agendas uh to have everything you know clearly clearly in one spot. The links to for example streaming meetings. So you go in there uh you've got immediate links to that uh to have all the boards and commissions listed uh in one location so that you can see you know what openings there are who's on which board you know have they what is the they actually have voting records even uh for the various uh the various boards and commissions. Uh it is uh from a visual standpoint uh from the from the public much easier to navigate

to to go from uh minutes to agendas to um awards it's all in one location uh which I think is is valuable. And then the other the other key in in my mind is just to for the staff side right now or peak is the software that we're using. We're only using that for council. It's not being used for any of the other committees and commissions uh because to be quite honest it's difficult to navigate. It's not easy user from from a user standpoint uh for everything from you know where you enter the the information uh with the diligent you can easily import Microsoft word documents into the actual uh it's easier to cop copy and paste out of existing documents into agenda items. Uh also the attachment process very easy to see what attachments are uh located uh there all on the same page. So I it's a user friendly standpoint. Um

so more accessible from a public perspective, more information readily available when you're looking for it. Not just minutes, but uh agendas, uh links to to meetings. Uh okay. Membership of committees. Okay. Very good. Um, just wanted to check because again a little bit of a pet peeve once once you get people integrated or or acclimated to a system and then then change it does cause a little bit of bewilderment or discontent but sounds like it's a a positive change and it would be advantageous for us to make the transition. Um, council member or mayor prom you have five minutes for any questions if you would like them and that would include uh Mr. Shank who's seated in the back but we can bring him forward if you have a question that's uh related to information technology. I think my community services and IT are pretty straightforward. Um I think my only question would be for the police chief and ensuring that um we have every need everything we need for future planning. just, you know, looking ahead, you're you're well staffed, you've got, you know, it looks like you've got the proper vehicles, the proper equipment, but um as far as future planning, um scenarios, is there anything that you can foresee in the future that your department might need?

You need new technology or something? No, I think we're set. We planned for the new nines which will be coming actually um our Axon. So thank you for that for the next 10 years. So um I also saw that um the cost of dispatch is actually going down a little bit from the prior year. Are they just kind of balancing things out? Um I well I did check with the sheriff this last because we were when we were working on the budget there will be no increase correct this future this next contract. The reason it's looking like a decrease is we actually budgeted a little high. Okay.

Current year and it it came in a little bit lower. So got when when it comes to expenditures we obviously want to plan conservatively. Um but we fortunately we're we're going to be a little bit under budget this year. That's why the difference seems like it's declining. Yep. And we've been doing that for like two and a half full years now. Two full years. Made the transition on April 2nd, 2024. So, it'll be two four two full years next month and we're feeling good still. Oh, awesome. I am. I hope the community is. I don't know.

Yeah. I you know I I heard one tangental thing on Facebook the other day that someone tried to call the you know community number but it was over the weekend it sounded like or at an off time and then they called 911 and got right through. So um I have not heard any negatives from the community as far as impacts on police work going. So I appreciate that. Um I think that's all I have. This is all pretty straightforward. Appreciate it. Very good. Um, Council Member Harmon, you have five minutes for questions if you'd like it.

My question is also for Chief. Um, I know there's been some uh increases as far as staffing and um I just would like to know because I think um Council Member Halsh brought up a really good point. It's like the budget is our our compass to the strategy, our compass to the our you know what what's important to the city. And um what w with these changes like what um measurable service outcomes are we looking to address with these budgets like um response times, case clearance rates, toe coverages, what what is the budget? What are you looking to um measure whether or not our budget has been improving?

That's a tough question. Um, well, yeah, sure.

I just say one measurable thing that we should notice is hopefully we see a reduction in overtime as we can hopefully maintain full staffing levels. Financially, we should see a true measurable difference in the amount of overtime that we're paying. I'd also like to see um a reduction in the officer in charge as well with the two sergeants. Um, we had one off for a little bit of time. So, um I don't know how much that affected our our budget, but it we should have a command officer pretty much covering most of the shifts. So, that should be a reduction in officer insurance.

Have you seen like a shift in or increase in the type of call that we're getting? And does the budget address any of those changes? That's just something I think we need to keep up with with training, which we do. I think we're really good at at that. But yes, the mental health calls are are increasing um significantly. H have we addressed that change in our budget requests for the department?

Well, as far as um planning for the future and training, yes. And um there's some other things that I would like to if the budget allows for um in the foreseeable future that is also in in alignment with some other strategic goals that we have here at the city to um work maybe with a social worker hopefully in the near future here the PD with an officer as well. So again that will be part of training with the mental health and you know some budget tasks as well. Thank you. Very clear. And then the question I have from um the community development uh with regards to the service that we have for um permits and um you know and making sure that that um people are adhering to rental rules and everything. Are we tracking along with you know I know you said it was a net neutral um from a finance standpoint. Have are we tracking to see what the improvement from a service standpoint is for um from our standpoint

as far as our turnaround? Yeah. I gave something to city council four months ago and off the top of my head building permit the turnaround on that went from two weeks to a day I believe. Um a lot of the things we can do in house now uh we the easier permits we can get turned around or if the customer wants to wait few minutes staff is available. So things there's hardly any lead time on for for the

other thing you're working on too, correct me if I'm wrong, but uh in kind of the the input in terms of reducing the number of types of permits. So it's a little more straightforward for a homeowner or a contractor that comes in and what types of permits they need. Uh it's a little less of a, you know, a guessing game, if you will, and so they understand more clearly what permits they need and then taking a close look at what inspections we make. were we're being effective and not, you know, slowing down projects, you know, due to a exorbitant number of inspections or something.

We've reduced the number of permit types from, I believe it was nearing 100 down to 12 inspection types. Uh, we probably reduce that by I'd say 40%. 50 uh consolidated a few CWA's been great with allowing us to you know if they're out there we just make this one inspection multiple sensor there and there are certain inspections that were being um handed out to inspectors that don't require any sort of specialty trade specialty uh final site fence signs. Uh we send our uh Kevin our zoning compliance officer out to do final inspections on those since they're typically nonstructural or don't require any other permits or if it's a big monument sign and there's foundation that's been put in building inspector out there. We just final.

Thank you for explaining the budget impacts as well as the efficiencies that we've gained in the department. Thanks. Thank you, Council Member Harmmont. That was five minutes. Council member House, you have five minutes. You have questions regarding the clerk's office, information technology, police, or community development.

Uh, yes. So, my question is is I want to look at a specific line item um that kind of is across almost all the departments. Um, what expenditures are captured by the fringe benefit line item? that is mostly uh health insurance uh as well as other types of uh benefit insurance uh for the most part uh is what's in that capture contribution as well.

And so does is that why there's kind of such variability across departments and like the amount allocated but also the amount that that line item is changing kind of year-over-year. that depends uh on the number of staff or personnel outside department. That's the biggest contributing factor, but also uh based on what what benefits they certain union contracts that I've seen as well. Uh so there's a massive spreadsheet that that the treasur's office maintains to try and track, you know, what health insurance programs are on, what retirement program they're on, uh so it accurately reflects for that department what those costs are.

Awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Halsh. Um, Council Member Deloro, you have five minutes for questions if you'd like it. Uh, thank you. Uh, just just to piggyback on that, that French benefit line in includes the retirey portion, not just active employees, right? Or is that factored in separately? Active employees, but when I say the contribution to the retirement, so we have to make a contribution to MERS for active employees going forward. So, that's included, but the retirey portion is actually in 101 172. All that's captured under one line item. Page number, please. Page number four.

Okay. Okay. Now that makes more sense. All right. And then from the community or sorry the building department perspective um when we talk about adding the position of the community development director will that still be housed in the building department as it was previously or is is that a separate role now your economic development director because he's the community development director. Okay. Yeah. So I I just used the wrong word economic development director. Is that a a building department or a treasury? Where does that fit into the organization?

It's in the administrative uh department 172 again page four um on that. So community development uh uh Mr. Aken uh covers pretty much building planning zoning administration also obviously historic district commission and some of the other committees and commissions that he covers. So um that that would not be the focus of the economic development. they would have to work very closely from like for example if there's a prospective development coming in or perspective new business coming in I would hope they would work very closely together on okay do they are they building a new building they need a site plan review what do they need to get through uh are they renovating the building or they need to get through that so they'd have to work very closely on that

right so I I'm I'm thinking back to when that role was held by Mickey Joe and that was a a treasurer's u department role Right. The well it was added both Mickey Joe Bennett and El Cole had the role of business ambassador and the business ambassador role which is essentially like economic development goes back to an analysis that Ann Arbor spark did at our behest I think when I was running for mayor on council in 2012 and they suggested that if you can't establish a standalone economic development position you should have a point person on staff who can be the liaison on the bridge to both large and small businesses. So it was given to Mickey Joe Bennett because she had an an interest. Um and then uh when she departed, Elco also had an interest and an acumen for that that type of work. So it was given to her.

Okay. So this will be a separate position entirely funded separately from um the building department. It won't be connected to the building department. Correct. Correct. Okay. All right. That was my main point of clarification. That's all I wanted to know. Thank you. Um okay. Uh Council Member Dylan, you have five minutes if you'd like it.

Thank you. Um, I I think that we need to put a pin in the economic development position because there seems to be a lot of questions I think and I I don't think that this five minutes is the right time to talk about it. Um, so I I'd like to make sure that we do circle back to that at some point. Um, one of the things I wanted to ask before and we ran out of time is that um, there are, as Mr. Mr. Hall should mention, you know, there's obviously categories that go across all sections and one of them is printing and publishing and like for council in the council category, it's gone up 25%. So, what has changed to warrant a 25% increase?

That's uh primarily based just on previous uh fiscal years. Uh I don't don't know that if it's tracked through the uh I mean the copy of those or looks No, those are separate. Um to be frank, yeah, most of them I take a look at um previous trends and then those I have to actually open the footnotes and see if someone specific requested additional money. It has to do with the FYI though. Um often some of the printing and publishing will carry some of the postage charges associated with those publications. um in the clerk's department, you know, it has to do with literal publications, ordinance codification and things. So, I can piece together.

No, just understanding like because it seems like more things get allocated into the council category and I'm like, well, we're not really on the the staff side of things and um just like there's a line item for community promotion and trying to understand what that is within the council category. Um and we don't have to get into it now. Um, one of the big things though I will say going across the board for for several of the categories and this is sort of my passion is, you know, conferences and trainings and ensuring that we've put enough money into those categories. When I look for council, um, we have 13,000 across seven people. That's not a lot of money when you talk about just even going to the major conferences. Um, let alone specific training for other committees that we are on and such. Because for myself, I'm on ZVA. ZBA I think only has $500 in its budget for training for the entire board. So, if we're supposed to be, you know, if we're being encouraged to take something like the MSU extension program, that's $200 per person. So, is that supposed to come out of a council budget or a committee budget? And whichever one it is, those numbers need to reflect that. So, I want to be very mindful of that um as we kind of go through things. And then um the other thing that I do think that we need to have conversations about outside of tonight is software because this is an issue. Exactly what you said, somebody said to us 18 months ago, two years ago about getting Granicus. Oh, it's the best thing. It's going to make everything better. Um and then we switch or we buy things, we

don't implement them correctly. we don't fully train people how to use them. So I really want to make sure that we have a thoughtful conversation about software moving forward because the amount of time it's not just the cost of software it's the training for it um also that we need to factor in. And then as far as um I want to make sure it I mean there were some things that I was trying to figure out. Um and I think you answered one of my questions. So the it because that one that line item was 414% increase. And I was like okay what is that for? Trying to figure out one thing on this is that I appreciate I had asked for the the percentage change column. So, we're using the FY26 amended compared to the 27 proposed. What about the 26 projected? Like, where does that cuz we've got different numbers and I'm like, are we projecting wrong because we're not using the projected number?

It's just kind of best practice to use the amended for the comparison because that's what's truly adopted at this time. So until we until we truly come forward with the amendments to move into that projected column, it's just best practice to compare amended where we truly stand now to what's being proposed.

Okay? Cuz like I said, you know, there's I line items and I won't say which one it specifically is, but it's got an a 26 amended at like 159, then has a projected at 19, and then it jumps to a 25,000 for for year 27. And so it we're saying it's a 58% increase. Well, it's actually going to be a higher increase if we were to utilize different numbers. That number would be different. That percentage number. And so I just want to make sure that we're kind of looking at that from um that standpoint. There's stop you there because we're at five minutes, but we'll have another round for questions. Um Council Member Gearball, you have five minutes if you'd like it.

Thank you. Um just my same observation as the mayor and other members of council. If we're going to move into diligent, we need to make sure we have a change management process in place. However, we're going to do it. We've done numerous software transfers and none of them have been successful. They always come back as either we haven't committed to it, we didn't understand it, we didn't have sufficient training. So, whatever we're doing in this make sure that we have the people and we're paying and in this budget has the money to make sure that this is a successful. Um my biggest concern is that if we move to diligence, you're going to have to have all of council adopted. Um part of the thing is when we went to Granicus, we still were going half paper, half electronic. There's a lot of commitment that's got to be done before we move into something where we're expecting everyone to use it and making sure that whatever we do change management has made sure and evaluated that. Um as into it, the only concerns I have there is um Mr. Shank has a lot of projects and things such as security cameras, a lot of items that we're trying to put in place and whether or not we have sufficient funds in there to either hire it out or to do it. A lot of these projects have been years in the making and they haven't been completed. So, um I'd like to see that if we what have we using and what are we expecting to accomplish in terms of major projects related to it in installations or completion? We've talked about cameras at the rec center. We talked about cameras in the park. We've talked about um security elsewhere, other software. What is that plan and how does that work for the strategic and have and what are our achievements? I'd like to know what those goals are and are they in this budget to achieve what we were what we've attempted to try and do in the last two or three years. Um as for community development, my concern with that one is does Mr. Akens have a sufficient um budget to address our ordinance review. We need to address things related to signage. Um I know there's a number of other um ordinances

and things that we be are either outdated or incorrect or whatever and we just don't have the span to do it. So I want to make sure that we have sufficient funds in there to hire outside sources if we need that or consultants. Also um what do we have in it for long-term development and visioning for the city? What are we doing in terms of redeveloping this community? We haven't looked at that effectively for years and we started to with the last um community development manager and it kind of taken a backseat at this point. So I want to make sure we have funding and support for that. These are things that we need to make sure as part of our strategic plan that are in this budget and that the resources of the consultants that we need to bring in are set effectively in that budget. Um, and as for the police, the only question I have actually for this may be for um, the treasurer or for the police chief when we looked at we moved everything from contributions for vehicle equipment, but I see that we've taken $42,000 out of the budget related to equipment greater than $5,000 for the police. Isn't there other equipment that the police purchase periodically that they would need a budget for that might be greater than that? or I'm I'm just trying to understand why one line zeroed out, but yet we still have the contribution going into the BURF.

Well, contribution to the BUFF will remain that's the expenditure. Exactly. And it will show it as a revenue in the BURF fund. Um any I'm not understanding there again if you look at page eight is obviously purchasing vehicles two vehicles and other larger you know capital equipment. But I'm looking at the I see now you that's actually where we were recording um the Axon expense which just isn't appropriate in that line. So it's been moved into that IT line. Got it. So that was software not a that's that's the change now.

Perfect. Thank you. I just want to make sure because I know you acquire guns and other things that we that may be purchased in a mass quantity. So I wasn't sure they were in there. Didn't want to cut your budget out for that. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Gearb. Uh before we transition uh to a point that my colleague just made, this would be for the city manager and for the community development director. Um it was some time ago now, I think it was under the the tenure of city manager Swalla or city manager Oul, excuse me, and community development director um Harrington. We talked about engaging an an external third party to do a evaluation of existing site plans to make sure that property owners and businesses were in compliance with what had been previously approved by either council or by the planning commission or both. Um I still see that as very advantageous. It touches on some of the concerns that were just articulated by Mr. Gearbot. We don't need to dive deep in that tonight, but I would like to revisit that issue. Um, and if possible, we'll make sure that funds are available to initiate that process sometime in the upcoming fiscal year.

I think for the most part, I believe we could do that in house uh with the uh review. Now, that being said, I think uh to council Gerb's point and I've been working with director on getting some proposals for some actually uh community planning, zoning changes, uh those types of things. and most likely we'll utilize Carolina work. We already have a relationship with them, but obviously we're not not fully satisfied with them. We could go to another term, but I don't believe, you know, I believe adding a consultant would be the appropriate way to do some of that more long-term planning because it it does cycle down cycle down and do we have funds in there identified for that? Probably not enough at this point. Okay. So, we can consider that if we could

and I'm I'm open to I want the work done. I don't really care who does it. Just want to make sure that it's done well. But I'm also mindful and cognizant that I don't want to burden uh Mr. Atkin and his existing staff. Um they're as been touched on by by many of my colleagues including council member Harmmont, they're on a really good trajectory in terms of of customer service and community engagement and I want that to continue. So if we need to bring in outside experts to assist with issue specific tasks um I would support that. Um we will transition now to let's do the next three and then break for questions and then do the final three and break for questions. So, we're going to transition to uh public works, engineering, and CIP, and then local and major streets. So, unless there's anything imminent for Director Aken, uh Director Shank or Police Chief Rzik, you are dismissed. And I would ask uh Mr. Anderson if you'd like to come forward and engineer Humphress.

I'm actually going to start. Yes, please do. for for DPW, I want to point out um that it is a a complicated department. It lives across five different funds. It's actually in general, major and local roads, water, and sewer. Um so for the graph here in front of you, this is just the general fund activity. It's kind of in blank because they have many departments within the general fund. So I apologize that the graph itself is rather condensed, but um I would comment that they are obviously in a in a state of transition right now. And we're looking at the budget. We're kind of operational looking at status quo until uh director McNeel joins us uh in the coming in the coming week, I suppose, week from today. Yeah. We

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as he gets his feet under him. Um you know, we'll we'll start taking a harder look at that. But, uh, I would point out that all of the wage lines for DPW, no matter what department it's in, no matter what fund it's in, have some pretty significant variances. Their contract that went into effect at July 1st um, of 2025, included market adjustments. So, we were playing some catch-up on positions that were behind. So, if you're seeing those are fairly significant, that's one reason why. Another reason why is when my team and I look to budget DPW wages, because they work in so many different places, we look at last year's actual activity. You know, how much time did they spend in the cemetery? How much time did they spend on roads? How much time did they spend on water? And we allocate how we're going to budget for those accordingly. So, those tend to shift year-over-year depending on where they spend more more of their time. Um, finally, the big highlight I wanted to point out in department 268, which is our motorpool department, and that's on page seven, um, you'll notice that that department as a whole is is reduced by 53%. That's strictly related to the FUR because we're taking that that large capital expenditure related to vehicles and equipment and recording that in a separate fund. Now, you're going to see a pretty significant change there in that department. Um I realized

No, I think I think the the key I mean obviously we're seeing a a trend of increase but a lot of that does have to do not only the the market adjustments but uh we have uh we have that personnel up and down in terms of other personnel but uh for the most part other than uh then also I guess I would add to the facilities manager has been added to this as well for salary so you see an increase a little bit deep for Still, anything you'd like to add? No, I think it's pretty straightforward.

Very good. Um, city manager Swallow, um, Treasure Finch, anything else on Department of Public Works or would you like to transition to engineer and engineering and CIP to engineering? Um before I hand it over to Tesa, I just want to comment that very similar to BGW engineering is spread across five different funds and she obviously works in all of these different places. Um this particular chart illustrates again engineering specifically in the general fund. Uh I do want to point out that you can see the decrease between the current year and the proposed year. We were previously budgeting for a second in-house engineer, which we are no longer planning for. Um, as we're about engineering with OM, we're carrying that professional service cost versus the internal wages. Um, otherwise I think Tesa, I can let you. Um, this is just a brief overview of all the things that engineering does. Um the first two bullets are just have to do with kind of standards and our data management. You've seen a lot of that in our GIS maps and such. Um the second two bullets is just um really where a lot of our money is spent. We'll come back to those. The last two bullets just have to do with um limited permitting and things that engineering touches when it comes to development. So back to those middle two bullets, it's the capital improvement planning and the capital project implementation is where we're spending the multi. you know, our capital improvement plan over the six years um was is up well, we tend to do unfunded or funded projects between 150 and $170 million. That's where we spend the big dollars. Um I talk a lot about in the last couple years that capital investment should not be reactionary. So we spent a lot of time um implementing basic asset management princip principles which the first thing is to collect data inventory of your assets and condition assessment.

Um so I I point that out in just that those two bullets if we spend the proper amount of time um in the data side of it will ultimately save millions of dollars on the other side of the um so I guess next slide kind of ties into that um a big thing is um what assets do we own and where are they located and what condition are they in that's um roads are a good example because everyone drives to roads but those are actually the easiest thing about because you really can take two people drive 40 mi of road and be done with it in 4 hours. Um it's a whole different story when you're looking at all of our utilities that are on the ground. So we are just starting to collect the data um of inventory condition assessment and what we'll see is an increased investment over the last couple years in just those things. Data collection, data analysis, hydraulic modeling um and documentation of processes. Um when it comes to before we invest in a road, we want to make sure um one are the condition of the utilities on the road suitable for road investment and two um do we have a working hydraulic water model to account for growth? Do we need any upsizing of the utilities? Um and those are all things that we have increased our investment over the last couple of years so that we are making databased capital reinvestment decisions. Um and I think that's about it. I think I have one more slide just on I always like to remind council that we own a lot of stuff for how small we are. Um and so we're in the process of collecting data for all these points and like I say we some of the points we've just started some we continue but that's again increase investment in that I am convinced we already have actually seen it pay off um and decreased um capital spending. So that's a good example of where we saved a few million bucks by um spending a little bit more money on modeling and ultimately cut a third of that sier sewer off. So Then we'll be covering obviously the uh adoption of the capital improvement plan. We already had a study session on that already, but uh significant investments uh just kind of down the list for that that uh uh that we're currently planning for. Of course, the

uh downtown green space, the uh Woodland Drive culbert, that would be the and then ultimately that will be followed by Woodland Drive paving the following uh fiscal year. Uh looking at some additional work uh in the water fund. We'll talk more about that with Bill, but on investigating the service lines and uh improvements at the water treatment plant as well as improvements to the wells of course obviously engineer hoppers is directly involved in many of those. Uh the big one obviously the wastewater plant in terms of cattle improvement. Um but also uh working very closely on sanitary sewer rehabilitation. So, a lot of work going into evaluating our sanitary sewers, CCTV them, and then ultimately prioritizing lining for those projects. As you recall, that was the project for uh the for the federal and state earmark was working on our sanitary sewer specifically lining those as well as the test races for those. So, um a lot of non motor work coming up this coming fiscal year. Uh so obviously uh director Humpress has been excuse me interior house a lot of involved in the US 12 sidewalk as well as uh some of our our local roads which we'll and local streets and and major streets we'll talk about next. So when I flip into streets

uh so with streets uh we have a oh there another Oh yeah major streets yeah excuse me start

so major streets uh obviously uh what we see the trend here is when you do a number of projects your your expenditures go up significantly uh and then obviously as you rebuild that fund balance to be able to do additional projects that that expenditures go down. One of the things you see here uh we did over in FY 2425 we did transfer some money into local streets. Uh so you do see kind of a jump there uh but a lot of that funding and you'll see it flip side and on the local streets because what we find is obviously the funding formula from the state uh we get more money for major streets uh relative to the mileage that we have versus local streets. often end up short changed a little bit on the local streets and so we are allowed to transfer some of the funding uh based on uh guidance from MDOT transfer some of that funding over to local streets but uh in terms of major streets I don't think we have any projects planned for next fiscal year right

correct um and in fact the the in this we had two large um investments from both Clark and Maple were in this also in addition to the transfers to local streets our next major road is Ann Arbor Street and Woodland which are kind of 27 and 29. Um but I concur with what um city manager Swallow said in the fact that um when you look at just our local streets we do not have we barely have enough money to operate that have much less capital investment in that and what I mean by operate is to solve the snow plowing when you actually look at how much you're just at the local street revenue um it is not enough to that's why we have the additional road. Um, this is the local streets. You can see we had a large Oh,

can I can I interrupt you for just one moment? I I apologize. I want to just let council know we're transitioning away from general fund now. Just for anybody not following along. We're on page 15 in the budget packet. So, we're moving into separate funds now. When we talk about major and local streets, those are housed on their own. Local streets.

Yes. the local streets. We had a large investment in our um you can see there in the fiscal year 25 that was our 2425 local streets project um and we're planning to do the same thing again and basically um 28 with North view another large investment in local streets. Um, our transport, our approved transportation asset management plan allows us to move funding between local and major, which is a big advantage for um, I think as far as revenue goes, our majors have other revenue sources and that we get the federal aid. We have 10 miles of our 13 miles of major roads that are eligible for federal funds. So, we we assume that we get about half a million dollars every couple years in the tax in our revenue formula.

Very good. Anything else on local streets? Yep. I think we're going to stop.

Yep. Yep. And then we'll take the last three. Um so I have two really one one question, one comment. Um uh question is for engineer Humphress. Um, I think we've made tremendous progress on transitioning from a very um, sort of p approach, I guess, for lack of a better way to articulate it with asset management into a much more proactive or CIP, excuse me, into a much more proactive asset management approach to to to infrastructure. Um, as you look out into the next two, three, maybe even five years, um, are there additional resources, line items, expenditures that you think you will need to maintain the momentum that we're making on evaluating our assets and putting them on a proactive schedule for for maintenance and repair?

Um, that's a great question. I think we've made um speaking of roads um the utilities underneath roads I think we've made excellent we're we're making great progress on our models for both water and sanitary sewer which we're going to talk about later um but what always tends to lag behind is storm sewer because it's a general fund competing for all the other general fund dollars. Um so we did take some saw grant money back in 2017 2018 19 to develop very skeleton um model of the storm sewer that definitely needs reinvestment. Um, our sport permit is something we're just getting our arms around how many outlets we have. Those are items that um I we are we do need additional investment in before we can have a firm idea on capital reinvestment decisions. Um, in some areas the storm is a is kind of a key factor. The storm capacity analysis and um because with storm sewer um we are getting increasing rain events, the regulations are changing and so on and so forth. So that would be my answer is that storm sewer is the most behind and it does impact some of our capital planning. It's interesting. Um, that's been a topic, as you may well expect, um, that's been bantered about quite a bit at SAMCOG at both general assemblies, at executive committee meetings, and at subcommittee levels. Um, I don't expect it will take place this year because it's an election year and we have the the the governor vacating office along with a number of of me key members of both the the state house and state senate. But I do think they're going to make a big push on a legislative initiative probably beginning in 2027 about establishing a reliable consistent funding stream for municipalities to meet some of their uh storm sewer needs. Um, and then the other comment I had um uh was for city manager Swallow. I attended um Senator Irwin's coffee hour this this past weekend and wanted to remind you that the application for his office is different than Representative Foreman. So, she just required a simple email. I believe I forwarded on to you a couple weeks ago the portal that Representative or Senator Irwin would like all projects submitted through um I think it was forwarded via his uh his chief of staff

Annie Somerville. Um and we got to try to get that in by the end of this week. But it's interesting that um this particular project would fall under a a subcommittee that he has um authority over. So um the the the financial picture for the state is not particularly um rosy for the ensuing 12 months, but um we'll see what we can do. Um never hurts to try. Um Mayor Prom Rice, can I start with you for five minutes of of questions regarding DPW major local streets or engineering CIP? Um, I don't think I have any questions uh for either of those funds. Okay. Uh, Council Member Harmat, you have five minutes if you'd like it. I'm gonna concede my five minutes.

Easy enough. Uh, let me go to Mr. Halsh. You have five minutes if you'd like it. Uh, I yield my time. Good boy. Um, how about Council Member Delarco? Uh, yeah. Quick, just real quickly, you said you we don't have any major road improvement scheduled to FY29. Um, 27 is Woodland between um Ann Arbor and Maple. So, that's our next one. Woodland is in 27 and then Ann Arbor is scheduled for 29. Okay. Major roads. Okay. So I don't have have the uh well I'm sorry fiscal year 28 but construction season 27. Yes. For Woodland. For Woodland. Woodland. Yes. So Woodland. Um the intent is to start the Culver in 27 which would be like a year from right now. Um and then do the road um when the schools close in the summer of

And that's the big major capital investment. The the culbert the woodland. Over a million dollars. Yes. Yeah. They're both about Yeah, it's about a million for the A little more than a million for the clover. A little less than a million for the Okay. All right. And aside from that, we have what? What? Big Well seven. Is that the other big one? Well, seven is up and running. I guess it's well eight then. We're looking at another one already, aren't we?

We are uh we are investigating another site for a new well. Uh but that is really just a you know a test well uh to uh not although that is expensive. I don't know what the test is exactly, but just about the site and drilling test well to have that place. U again, that's more I think we're sufficient with the wells we have currently. Uh but as a reserve, you know, capacity as well as any type of growth, we would need another. Okay. Yeah, I thought I remembered that coming up in asset management. Um and then as far as local streets, I don't have the CIP in my head. What what what are we looking at for for FY27 for um Milanville or resurfacing other than Beach Court?

So, North View is the um next big sub Northview and the remaining county states. So, everything at the northwest intersection northwest of Waterworks in Ann Arbor, but that's all tap grant money, right? Just the um the ADA ramps. Yes. And 27 is TAP grant money to do the concrete. So basically that's given us just a couple hundred thousand back into our road funds because we're doing all the ADA with tap grant money. So that's scheduled for 27. The road is actually scheduled for fiscal year 28 for the mill and fills and such or that which is a full depth. A lot of that's full depth. Um the engine will take place and the concrete work will take place in preparation. Yes for that.

Okay. All right. Thank you. That's all I have. Very good. Uh Council Member Dylan, you have actually I'll give you more than five minutes if you'd like it since a couple people passed on the opportunity. So, take seven or eight minutes if you'd like it. I'm not being rude. I'm just gonna excuse myself and go to the restroom. Thank you. Um, thank you very much for um trying to understand it. I I'm just like kind of on graph fatigue right now seeing these for the first time and I'm like a little overwhelmed. Um, and so trying to understand in your engineering graph um that why has your engineering dropped and What about that? I I I'm just trying to understand the graph a little better.

Specifically for this one, this is just the engineering in the general fund. Um engineering is hard to pull out specifically in all the other funds because it's often tied to a project line. But on this one in particular, in the current year, we had budgeted for two in-house engineers. Um and then the decision was made to to kind of stick with with OM services and not fill that position. So in 27 I just haven't budgeted for that position. So that's the decline. Okay. Um there is like we talked about obviously our engineering services have have ramped up with our projects and asset management but on that particular one that's the wages.

So then where does the consultant show up on a graph? So they there are some consulties in 101 445 that's page nine uh in your document. Uh so we do see obviously services in hearing um that are affected by the general fund. So if there's anything general fund uh related uh but also you'll see engineering and professional services in local major street you'll see it in water and sewer fund as well. So those are projects that are specific to those those funds. Okay. I'm going to sneeze. So I'm I'm going to like pause for a lot of sneezing up here. Nope. It's it's gone. Sorry. content.

It's fairly like a a street project, you associate with 202 or 203, you know, okay, if it's specifically to a water and sewer project, you will see that show up in a 590 591 fund for water and sewer. Okay, these are those, but we also have some general engineering services general support um that is captured in this fund in the general.

Okay. Um, so I'm just trying to trying to a little overwhelmed here by this. So one of the things like as we start talking about this is kind of understanding for budgeting purposes where we are with GIS processes like you know I know there's sort of you're never going to be done. There's always going to be information to get, but understanding what we've committed to, what we've expended in funds, and what percentage of the project is complete so we can sort of because trying to understand like should we be putting more money toward the GIS aspect if that's what we need? If we need the data to make better decisions, should we be front-loading the data and trying to understand how are we allocating the dollars into making sure so trying to understand what that looks like for modeling

the system overall is built out in terms of you know we have you know a module for water we have a module for uh sanitary sewer we have a module for storm although there's still some work to do there and now it's really now you have to collect the data to Right. And that's what I guess I'm trying to understand how far along in terms of existing data, how far we are.

Well, and that's something that I think we are overdue to get back at the asset management sub that spreadsheet where we have the percent complete of each. I mean, that's where the intent one of the intent of the asset management subcommittee. But I do um right now our process I guess for the GIS specifically is on annual basis when we bring you that proposal as a summary of what was completed in the last fiscal year and what we're planning to complete in the next fiscal year. Um, we reviewed that with our um, GIS team. We just reviewed it um, a month ago. Um, last year when we reviewed it at this time, we found we were, you know, had a little bit of money sitting out there, so we sent them out and picked up some more structures, right? We might as well use the funds to get GPS. And this year, um, we spent a lot of time revamping our CIP, so we're the exact opposite. We had a little bit more office work this school year. We're also having um, a GIS technician in the office um, every other once every other week, so twice a month. Um, proud to say that when they were here a week ago, we had four DPW guys standing around their computer fixing things on our computer, also getting them in space for, you know, getting the stuff out of their heads and into our database, which is a great thing. Um, so I'm as far as the GIS, I think that this system of showing council what we're planning to do on an annual basis is working as well. Um, and if you don't if you um want to pursue that maybe more as a man at some point or if there's something more you want to see, I guess we can talk about that.

It's more of just understanding are we allocating the right amount of dollars towards data collection. If if we want to make datadriven decisions, where are we like where are we in process of getting the data so that we can actually make those decisions?

So when it comes to and and that's a that in itself is a very loaded question. I mean, if we take for instance our storm tour, right? We're talking about storm and um CCTV and rehabilitation of that. We have allocated $250,000 a year for that. Um we have spent um roughly, let's say we spent a couple hundred,000 CCTV about 1% of our system. Um we're going to spend another couple hundred,000 lining about 1%. I mean, my point is that we get this money doesn't go very far when we run. That's another the point of um so I agree with you completely and I think I would recommend you do some additional um preliminary engineering because I think that's one of the other big discussion points that comes up as far as putting together a capital project. It takes time to scope a project and figure out what the appropriate engineering to or what the appropriate scope for the project is. You're looking at different areas of the city. So, um I appreciate that support and I think we can absolutely come up with some um I don't want to say not measurables but

right it's just sort of understanding where we are um in that and I I don't know what that looks like where we say you know at what point do we have enough data that we feel that we're making the right decisions since that's what we've said we are doing. Um I have a very random question and I can't find the line item but I know what it is. We still have mosquito control listed. Do we do anything or is that a dead account that we just allocate to? We do. We actually do that every year. The brick ads they put in storm drains. So, okay. We'll be doing that here next month actually.

Fantastic. Um, and then I think I had one other question on here on the street funds. Um, so as Mr. Deloro had said, "So, are we doing any local streets in this construction season?" So, we are in Northview. We're doing the uh concrete work as well as uh doing the engineering for it. No, you're saying like this coming 26. In 26, we are not doing any street. No, no, we're building that street for no, we're not. We're building valley and detour is the big capital. Okay. Fantastic. It's a road for no cars. Sorry. No cars can go out of it. break the city of Leo.

Thank you, Council Member Dylan. Uh, Council Member Gearball, you have five minutes if you'd like it.

Thank you. Um, I guess where I'm looking at a couple things. I mean, you've already identified even looking at just the local streets that we have insufficient funding to complete the streets, but um, when we look at our CIP plan, the number of streets and everything on there, which raises the question, where do we find funding? And this is where I'd like to basically make the consideration of when we look at where we're allocating general fund dollars, subsidizing other activities and things. This is where we could be directing more of our general fund dollars, even though it may not specifically be identified for it, but a $400,000 contribution to streets would significantly support a bonding a bond issue to do more work in our city. So, um, as we look at where we're trading off our funds, we have to look at what are our essentials and our our primary things that we need to do as a government. And this is where I see one of the things where we're falling back behind. Um my question is a couple things for DPW. One, um I see professional services for trees, 25,000. Are we now um outsourcing that or um what would be that change for this year?

There are certain trees that our guys won't be able to handle because um it takes certain licensing and stuff like that to to remove these trees. And I mean, yeah. So, I mean, we'll have to service or get some That's fine. I And that and um Yeah. I mean, there there's certain trees that you we just can't we don't have the

equipment. Exactly. And when I saw that, I didn't know if we were allocating um and I know I was one of the ones that supported the DPW salary increases because we needed to get to Mark and everything. So, that's understandable what's in there and um appreciate what we've done for that. Um the one concern I've mentioned to the city manager too, I would like to see street lights put on Maple Road. That's a consideration right now. I mean, we have an our own issues with DTE related to other street lights and contractors and whatever and maintaining them from either Michigan Avenue or North Ann Arbor Street, but Maple Road only has one light where it's at that crosswalk um at the Hawk signal and maybe at the intersection, but that road is very dark and now it's a city street that we own on both sides. And so, we should be looking at whatever we need to do to hopefully update that in the next year or two. Um, when I look at engineering, I guess I'm looking at what we had committed for the budget in 26 and then looking what we're doing in 27. And of course, we've got a 40% increase in public drains and a 45% decrease in um I think it's a decrease in engineering. Again, can we clarify what projects weren't getting completed in 26 or what was what's the change? because I see a number of them are related to professional services and other things that we had like $80,000 for pro professional services and drains, but we're not even going to spend year to day is 10,000 and the next year is 30,000. What's the change for that?

Um, basically the MS4 permit is um finally off the dead center. Um, we've been budgeting and assuming that it would get moving um ever since I got a violation letter from Aville a couple years ago. But so what we've done in the past year is we've nested the schools with our permit which is saving us money and um we just are the permit is due April 24th here. So it just is behind schedule and that's because of people. That's the short answer and so but again so we are we going to have another violation that raises another question but I want to make sure that whatever's completed that gets completed. I just didn't know why we if we had $80,000 allocated for this year, what didn't get done?

If you can answer that question, not this time. I just identify those and then um and then the other one being in engineering overall. Um then the only other thing when I look at when we talk streets um with Ann Arbor, are we still considering a roundabout at Bennett and um Ann Arbor Street or is that because I'm not sure what that had been discussed in our um previous meetings, but I hope not.

Um the roundabout, we've filed the report for the roundabout as far as we were looking at the right way and we still have the rightway issues at Ann Arbor and Bennett. The idea was um that the carbon reduction funds we could get the roundabout for free um as opposed to a new light there, but the carbon reduction funds is um aren't the same. That's that was before the current administration from the Fed. So those funds are likely gone. So yes, I I the roundabout proposed because it was a cheaper alternative because roundabouts are were free under carbon reduction funding that that whole funding structure has changed. Yeah, I don't think you'll get all the Yeah. All the carbon reduction, all the environmental those dollars ways of their whole Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Very We're lucky we we are so lucky we cut that 800,000 for the Seline River Valley Trail because it was about that close going right back to Washington. That was reduction reduction because for that one I we would want to have more discussion considering it's a historic district and that big change would be a significant impact to that. So um when we do those kinds of ideas, I think we have to have a little more discussion on it going further. But I wanted to make sure whether or not we had to commit more monies to that. Um and then um I think that's it for me. Thank you.

Very good. Um well, thank you. You are uh you're welcome to leave unless you're want to stick around. You want to stick around for another hour and observe, you're you're welcome to do that. But know all seriousness, we appreciate your time and uh have a wonderful evening. Um, Tesh, I think you have to hang tight for um, actually, I don't think you do.

If you'd like to, if you'd like to stick around, you're welcome to do so, but uh, I think we're going to transition to our final three topics, which are parks and recreation, TIFFA, LDFA, VURF, rubbish, and, uh, related funds, and then we'll close it out with some restricted funds, specifically water and sewer. So, um, Sunshine, it looks like you took Priscilla's seat. Bill, if you want to come forward and uh sit next to uh to city manager Swallow at your convenience, that would be great. Um and Treasure Finch, you may begin.

All right. Before I hand it over to Sunshine, I just wanted to talk a little bit about the graph in front of you for this one. Um like all of the others, it's going to show revenue and expenditure history. That's the blue and gray bars. It's also going to have that light blue line that represents fund balance. Um you'll notice we don't really carry a fund balance in this fund, but I wanted to show you that. And then the green line is going to show you the um general fund contribution historically. Um I do want to point out obviously the very large spike in the current fiscal year is the purchase of that DHU because the general fund did contribute that that money. Uh in 27 we are looking to come back to the $400,000 contribution from the general fund to support um operations and facility maintenance. Um, so otherwise I think I'm going to let Sunshine take over for a few minutes.

Wonderful. Thank you so much. Um, so good evening, Mayor and Council. Uh, so tonight I want to walk you through the parks and recreation portion of the fiscal year 27 budget and I'll um address several highlights in this year's budget and the factors that are driving them. Um, the rec center remains uh one of the most utilized community assets in Seline. Um and our goal is to ensure that it remains financially responsible while continuing to provide a high quality service um and facilities to our residents. And um Treasurer Finch touched on that slide. I was going to talk about that, but she already covered the information for that. Um if we could go to the next slide. Does she have Hold on one second. You got it. Thank you, Sarah. Okay, so this is an overall budget snapshot um for the 208 line item. Um the recent announcement of I can't stress this enough. So the recent announcement of the $2.7 million in appropriations for the rec center has certain um has been the spark that we've needed to update our aging infrastructure and directly impact the safety and user experience for our members and visitors. So that just such a significant gift um and and and you know the spark we needed uh to address some of the issues we've had um with this gift. We still obviously have a lot to work on. The annual general fund contribution has certainly been a point of discussion. So I do want to take a moment to walk through the factors driving um that number that we saw in that previous uh slide. One of the largest impacts has been the minimum wage increase um that we've seen over the past couple years. Uh the state of Michigan implemented two substantial minimum wage increases backtoback with a third one anticipated for 2027. So to kind of give you an overview in 2024 minimum wage was 1033 an hour.

In 2025 there was a 20% increase. It went up to 1248. Um that was a little bit more aggressive than what we had anticipated. The state of Michigan, if you go uh to their website, they they will give anticipated increases, but that doesn't always hold true. They they often make adjustments with when those get implemented and the the amount. So, that was a little more aggressive than we thought was going to be coming. In 2026, so this year in January, there was an additional 10% increase up to 1373 an hour. And then the state of Michigan um has been uh stating that the 2027 increase will go up to $15 an hour and that's that's in our 10% increase. So this directly impacts recreation departments like ours. So it's not just our department, it's ones throughout the state um that heavily rely on part-time staff. So we're talking our lifeguards, our front desk staff, uh our swim instructors, childcare staff, program leaders. um it's it's the people with the with the face value who are working directly with our customers who are making these amazing experiences for those who come through our facility. So at the same time um I'm sorry in response, excuse me, in response we implemented some targeted fee adjustments to help offset a portion of these increased costs. So we took a look at our uh program fees. We did cost comparisons with um other agencies within the region just to make sure we don't outpric ourselves. We want to make sure we keep things affordable. We also need to address you know those minimum wage increases. Um at the same time um you know we sat down and and put pencil to paper and um you know our full-time staff has absorbed some of our part-time hours where appropriate where we're able to do that. Um so allowing us to manage expenses while maintaining service levels. So, an example of this is two nights a week instead of having a part-time building supervisor. Um, we

have staff who cover those those closing hours. Um, and we have other areas where where we we jump in and do the same. Um, just to save a little bit here and a little bit there. So other cost drivers um you know not just the the minimum wage increase but other cost drivers that pose challenges um include the significant increases in fringe and retirey benefits as well as increased costs related to our aging facility and equipment repair. And I know you've heard me say this over and over again. The facility it was built in 1991 and you know it is certainly showing its age. So when we talk about retirey benefits I just want to give an example. Um I've been really comparing because the previous slide if you see the general fund contribution um from fiscal year 23 and then we look at where we've kind of grown to. So in fiscal year 23 um that retirey benefit uh contribution was $80,000 a little bit more than 80,000 um whereas uh for um this coming fiscal year fiscal year 27 we're budgeted at $147,000. So, um, that's about a $67,000 increase. When we speak of the aging facilities and equipment, there is the positive news with the $2.7 million in appropriation and and that really could not have come at a better time. So, these funds are going to address the much neededed capital improvements as outlined by our 2025 plant Moran um assessment. So, the improvements will uh address safety and user experience. that that is definitely a key priority. We want to be able to attract more users into the facility. We want to ensure that they are safe. Um our pool deck, as you know, is is in a in a state of disrepair. We've been cited by uh the county each year for the past several years uh due due to the surface. Um these improvements will help attract and retain members. It'll it'll freshen up

the facility. Um it will help reduce some of our maintenance costs over time. um and it should extend the life of the facility. So investing in the facility now helps prevent larger costs in the future and positions the rec center to remain a strong community asset. So when we look at um the performance outlook, I do want to touch on just some of our programs that we've seen um uh some some positive news coming out of. So first is our personal training program. uh you know, we had run a really strong program and then there was a significant dip. Um but this year we actually quadrupled um from the year before with uh bringing in some new personal trainers um and and making some changes to our personal training packages and and that came out of um com kind of a combination of uh the rec task force recommendations that were made by the previous RC w task force as well as working with our trainers who who work in other facilities and getting their feedback and doing some evaluations. So essentially we went from between $4 to $5,000 in revenue to about 19,000. So that that's a a very positive um uh jump for us. Our aquatic specialty classes um our aquatic manager Sarah Zetlo has done a wonderful job of growing our aquatic programs. So, in addition to our Red Cross training, um so that's lifeguard training classes, um CPR classes, we've done some babysitting training classes, um as well as the Take Your Mark progressive skills program. Um we're going to be expanding this line item with the introduction of a new master's swim program this summer. Um it's been something that's been talked about for many, many years. Um and and our aquatic manager, Sarah um Zetlo, she's she's been working diligently. She's it's actually a cooperative program with Selen Area Schools. Um we're hoping that they will host meets because we don't

have that capability to do so, but we'll host the trainings at the rec center. Um so that'll that'll mark an improvement in that line item. Um swimming. So you've heard us talk about the swim school. Um we just had our one-year birthday party celebration. Um we've doubled our our our um number of students since, you know, starting the program. Um our enrollment right now is topping over 200 students. Um and we went from about $77,000 in revenue to projected 164,000 as we head into fiscal year um 27. So that that's positive. I know many of our our classes are are full. Um we're starting to build some weight lists. Um, it's a balance, you know, trying to make sure that we have appropriate staff and we're interviewing and and, you know, getting ready for the summer. Um, I always like to talk about kids camp. It's just one of those consistent programs, you know, so we we we continue to see a steady annual growth. Um, we increased, you know, the the fees for that program once again this year. um you know due to the demand and it really accounts for when we look at just the programming budget about a third of our programming budget revenues and then there's other programs that just consistently contribute to the health of the budget. So those are tennis, our birthday parties, our water aerobics classes, our special events. I I those are um those bring people into the rec center. we actually see a lot of people who maybe don't have memberships or we don't see them regularly, but the special events draw people in um and then they can take a look and and see what we have and a lot of times they come back for more. Um and then our adult leagues that we run. Want to touch on our membership and day passes. Um so they account for approximately 40% of just the overall revenue um of our budget. And you know

we see an opportunity for growth. Okay. So, we've had um I'd say we've stayed consistent, maybe some slow growth uh you know, with the memberships. We, you know, each year we've we've implemented um uh increases in the fees. Um but I think we've stayed about steady with the numbers of of members. You know, at the rec center, we have um a little over 3,000 members within 1300 membership packages. Um so this past year you know presented challenges to us particularly with the inconsistencies and temporary shutdowns of the aquatic center um due to you know the failures with the the dehumidification unit. Um and that you know that impacts our member experience. Um our hot tub is down you know we um we have people who really do rely on that. Um so so as we address some of these infrastructure concerns it helps bring consistency. I can tell you since we installed that Seresco unit, the the pool temperature is a the lab pool is consistently at 82.4 almost every single day. That means a lot to our swimmers. You know, they come in, they'll notice a half degree difference. We'll hear about the front desk will hear about it. Brian, our maintenance, you know, Brian's pro does maint, you know, that that becomes frustrating. So the consistency we've seen um it took a little bit of time for balancing. We kept bringing engineering back. We'd bring you know the contractors back but we are now looking really solid um in the aquatic center um and and great feedback. For those of you who spend time and maybe Tmaine you might notice it's quieter than it was. Yeah. Which again that's great for our staff. It's better work environment. Um, we're also because the air is being recirculated in

a proper fashion, it will it's not seeping into the rest of the building like it had been. So that that was corrosive, you know, that impacts our fitness equipment. It impacts um our dumbbells in the weight room, you know, I mean, it impacts a lot. So, so this has really been a positive um project that that we had worked on. Um, okay. So, yep. Let's go to the next. Thank you, Sarah. Okay, so slide three. So, I want to talk about um uh this which was presented in our 2025 WCK uh task force report. So, it should be somewhat familiar. So, the task force took a comprehensive look at the long-term term sustainability of the rec center, provided recommendations to strengthen operations and enhance uh program offerings. And um in addition you know we had uh contracted with plant manor man um and their report highlighted the importance of continued capital investment to uh maintain and improve the facility. So together um these efforts gave us a clear path forward as we invest. So you look at the capital investment. So as we invest the $2.7 million in capital improvement and we continue to enhance our programs and our services we expect to see increased community interest and engagement. So, more people coming into the facility. So, this will help support our membership um and help grow that membership and then move us more towards sustainable operations. And then once we can get into more sustainable operations, obviously we're able to then at that point continue to invest. And so, you know, we can't fix it and walk away. we have to continuously, you know, have a plan moving forward on how to address because any of this equipment only lasts so many years, right? So, two years ago, we got a new domestic hot water boiler. So, looking at that and I mean, we're talking about asset management, just being prepared for, you know, the lifespan of that piece of equipment and

and knowing that down the line we'll have to address it again. Um, so in closing, you know, for for my section, I I um you know, the I kept coming back to the um you know, what do what does the parks and recreation department do? And and when I look at the mission statement for the city of Seline, so I looked at the 2023, you know, city strategic plan. The city of Seline mission statement says that our mission is bringing people together to build a sense of community to provide reliable and sustainable public services and then to elevate and grow for now and tomorrow. And I think if you look at parks and recreation, we check all those boxes. So the rec center and the parks and recreation programs play an important role in the quality of life in Selen. Um they support health recreation programming for youth and adults and seniors especially seniors. We we see such growth in that area. Um and our community events that bring people together. So this budget reflects the realities of our again our rising labor costs, necessity for facility improvements and and the broad role that we play in serving our community. Um we remain committed to operating responsibly while continuing to p provide programs and services uh residents expect. and um with our 2026 rec center task force implementation team, we're going to be kicking that off within the next week or so um to start addressing uh several of these issues.

Very good. Uh thank you, Director Lambert. Um city manager Swallow, uh Treasure Finch, you want to transition to TIFFA, LDFA, uh rubbish and uh service funds?

Absolutely. So this is uh obviously just want to touch on this uh briefly. Uh these are some uh funds that work in the background that we don't always pay close attention but are critical for that we do provide. Uh well we mentioned you know the LDFA is uh no longer generating capture. Our TIPA district which is uh obviously fairly fairly broad in terms of the geographic area covers uh is still generating uh a significant uh capture and supporting a lot of projects like the Sling River Valley Trail Woodland Culver uh Sling Main Street course repairs and maintenance uh and our downtown green space. So still critical funding source uh for uh for a lot of different projects and really it contributes those a lot to the capital needs in those. So, uh I know there were some questions about how that functions. I think this is a great graph that shows how uh how that capture occurs and again the advantage is we also get to capture some of the other uh tax revenue from the other taxing jurisdictions. So it's addition to just our local slant taxes that Yep.

Uh so a rubbish fund obviously we do uh mill for excuse me year to year but we do uh collect a separate millage for our rubbish fund uh to uh provide that service. The good thing is as you will see uh we've been kind of growing that fund balance. So we are in a positive revenue standpoint. we actually may be able to reduce that millillage a little bit uh in the coming uh fiscal year uh since we do have some funding to work from and uh see costs are are somewhat level uh going forward. We did anticipate obviously the decreases that will occur with our current fiscal year and carrying forward next year with a new contract with waste management but that should be relatively stable predictable going forward and we do believe we'll be able to actually uh reduce the uh the bill for uh for trash service or rubbish service.

Yeah, I would just comment that that's part of those those March 4 values that have just been finalized. I'll use those now to calculate what the actual millage rate will need to to support that service.

Great. And then we talked a little bit already about the vehicle equipment replacement fund. This has draw pulled out of the general fund so we can track this more closely. Uh obviously treasure finch and the department heads did a deep dive into their vehicle equipment needs over the next uh several years and that's actually projected out fund uh or Cuna plan. Uh the other thing we might want to mention is we are increasing the contribution by about 4% across the board uh from the various departments that require use of the vehicle equipment replacement fund. Uh the idea is to build up that fund balance a little bit so that we can replace equipment as needed. For example, how old is your pickup truck? 20 years old.

20 years old. So trying to get ahead of that and not have you know aging equipment like that that's obviously costing repair. Is that a Ford or a Chevy? It's Ford actually. Okay. But this again pays for a lot of the equipment for example at DPW. Um that uh and it contributes from like local and major streets as they contribute funding as well as some general fund contributions. Uh and then also water and sewer contributes heard police contributes. Anybody that has significant equipment contributes to this fund. And uh we had a number of deep dive into the vehicles that need to be replaced and as presented in the capital improvement plan.

Okay, transition to the next slide, please. All right, so

yeah, water and sewer. So obviously um significant uh capital investment uh across as we go forward uh the wastewater treatment plant obviously the big one but on the water side uh looking at some investment in the water plant they'll cover in more detail on that but trying to also be conscious of water rates as as treasure pinch mentioned we will be doing within probably next year a rate study update to fully understand uh impacts going forward. What those as we understand more about the capital investments we need to make mentioned already well potentially well eight uh also looking at uh uh improvements at the water plant to increase uh production we grow it all or approach our maximum production uh potentially the future storage additional storage water tower uh so a lot of those things that we need to look at going forward u but also being conscious of keeping our our rates reasonable bill more detail some of the things that he has planned.

So, uh, as you as you're aware, should be aware by now that had an issue with one of our iron filters. So, that's going to cost us about $120,000 to repair. Um, that is unplanned and unexpected obviously. Um it's going to cause some planned budgetary figures to change in the current year and probably need done here because if we can't get it done this year with money we have we might have to shift it next year which will change the numbers that I already had for next year. But those numbers shared on reflecting those numbers a little better in April update. So you'll be able to see those come up. Um, also water plan, one of the things we we kind of toss around is increasing the amount of equipment. Uh, maybe another RO skid and maybe a couple more iron filters. I'm not sure exactly what uh cash put in the capital budget for that yet. That's that's something out there a little uh very uh of course terminal costs continue to rise. In fact, I got an update today from Univar. They're the company that does our low chlorine water plant and that's going up like penny a pound. Doesn't sound like very much until we buy thousands of pounds of it in the real money. Um but those costs are going to impact water and sewer. Um sewer side things are really not not known to do due to change. In addition to our excuse me on the sewer side things are really not known what punctuation due to the change in addition to processes. So we're adding some processes pressing a cake with um blowers um blowers for irriation um we may end up having to change the

chemical that we have to do with some of these processes. um the delta we've been using for years may not quite make fit bill. We might try something additional. So we just don't know all that until we get everything up and running unfortunately. Uh and then also um we put a little money in more money in the professional services line item to help with equipment diagnostic issues in the next year. Uh we never know exactly when things are going to go south on us like they have water last couple days. We did um have on Friday we had a gentleman come over from Kennedy to look at our booster pump for the RO system is now making noise. He said there's a bearing going on in it. He thinks he can fix it there. He just got to get the bearing. So hopefully I think this week we'll have a better idea how long it's going to take. He said we can still run it and know if you're not sure how long it will actually last if we do that. So that's one of the reasons we have to put some money in there for diagnostic professional services. And the sewer like I say sewer budget not going to be the same as in the past. It's going to change whether it goes up or down or sideways. We really don't know because the different equipment, the motors, the electrical, chemical needs. Um the actual cost will take some time operating the new plant uh up and running and equipment before we can make accurate forecast as to what we're going to have to have for electricity and chemicals, sledge hauling, landfilling, all that good stuff. So

that's it. Okay. Uh Mr. Swallow, anything else you'd like to add on on wastewater or water?

Yeah, just on the sewer fund 590, obviously the very unusual in the last couple years due to obvious the wastewater treatment plant. Uh so that should normalize somewhat. We will be then, uh bringing on the full debt service. So uh so that and as Bill mentioned here, uh we are looking at projecting out some of those operating expenses. We did some of that for the last rate study. We'll want to take a closer look at that. uh as we do our next rate study, make sure we have those uh costs covered. Uh so with that, uh we should look somewhat more normal, if you will, or back to a new normal uh in the in the sewer fund after fiscal year 27. Um so I don't know if there's uh certainly take any questions. Um before I do uh the last round of questions here with with my colleagues visav the the last four issues which is actually more than four that were addressed parks and recreation tip lfa verve rubbage uh water and sewer. Um we will need to have another uh meeting discussion about the uh proposed budget. Um you had mentioned earlier today Mr. Swallow potentially having a work meeting prior to the second meeting in April which is the 20th. There's also the possibility of doing a work meeting on the 6th, but I'd like to inquire at this time if there would be availability from staff to do a special meeting on Monday the 13th. My concern with doing something before a council meeting is it limits the amount of time that we can devote to this issue. Um, and as has been noted by several of my colleagues, adopting a budget is probably the the most significant responsibility we have in any given calendar year. So, um I I guess I would defer to you if if um you and your team could be available 5 6 p.m. on on April the 13th if council was council was amendable to meeting at that time.

I can soccer and tennis rides, but yes, right. I don't know. We can maybe uh if there are specific questions, we could not necessarily have all departments. I don't know if there's, you know, some focus there or

Well, I would certainly encourage my colleagues if they do have questions or points of clarification to email you in advance. I think probably having you and and Treasure Finch as a start, it might be necessary to have Director Lambert andor Engineer Humphre. Um, but we we'll play it by ear based on the comments and feedback you received. When I defer to you for um questions and comments here in just a moment, I would ask that each of you indicate um what your preference is. is if you'd like to do a work meeting on on April 6th or the 20th or you'd like to have a special meeting to reconsider the budget on on April the 13th. Um and I'll defer to uh Mayor Pro Tim Rice in just a moment to ask questions regarding this round of presentations. Um I do have one quick comment at this point to director Lambert. Um as was noted at our most recent council meeting, improvements to our parks, not necessarily the rec center, but our parks is also going to need to be a key priority for us. and that we many of us have noted that um there's been the absence of key strategic investment in our municipal parks over the past several years and we want to we want to rectify that. Um and there was a solid plan put forth by the parks commission um at the last meeting and there were two sort of lowhanging fruit items that I think we ought to pursue in the short term. One was um some minor work to the pavilion to to improve that from a a safety perspective and then also to engage an independent third party who I think helped install or build romp 30 years ago to do an evaluation and assessment on that structure. I guess I would ask uh recommend two things. one, I hope that we can either discuss or take action on that at either our next council meeting, which is the 6th or on the 20th, and that the funding can be available either in this uh current fiscal year, or we can make it available at the beginning of the subsequent fiscal year on July 1, because I'm very interested in moving forward on on that. We still have a long way to go to get to the final vision of how we could transform uh Mil Pond Park, arguably our nicest park, into something that's even greater than it is today, but we need to take these additional steps, and I'm hopeful that we can do it in the next 30 days. Um, council member, mayor for Tim Rice, excuse me. You have five minutes for

questions. Um, if you if you'd like it to follow up on that comment, Mr. Mayor, we do parks is one of the commissions that does um request a budget each year um based off of things that we know that a we do every year, but then also improvements we want to make to the parks. So, we still have some money left over from what I'm looking at from last year that could potentially cover that $2,800 for leathers to take a look at that assessment. And then we have also budgeted for next year for additional assessments. Um, and from what I understood, DPW has budgeted for the roof and the the that would come out of DPW. Yeah.

Um, so we Yeah, we've had those preliminary conversations. And if you look at the parks commission budget, there is an $8,000 request for next year. And we do still have a large chunk of money from this year to fulfill some of those. What page are you on there? Um, page 11. I'm less interested where the money comes from. More interested in just getting this done. My question is, does does council need to approve uh since we approved the budget for last year, does would council need to then again approve $2,800 towards that assessment? Happy to bring it back. Uh I think it ju just I would just bring it back to the next council meeting. Yeah, happy to do that. Yeah. Okay. Um makes it cleaner. Sure. Yeah. Um

please proceed if you do have any questions or comments.

Sure. Yeah, I have a couple of comments. Let me go back to my pages. Sorry. One of my comments is that as we put together the new well the the just sort of the enhanced um implementation group for the rec center um I would question whether or not um some of our experts on that panel have some tangental anecdotal information about improvements that they've made to other like um Tony to the YMCA or Greg to the Canton Aquatic Center just like what that increase in membership looked like I realize that those communities will be different. They'll look different, but just tangental information would even be helpful to kind of talk more at length about that. Um my second question is when we look at this budget, and I am not saying this in a pjorative way by any means, um have we taken a deep dive into some of our programs that really are not bringing us in revenue streams? Um, things like, and again I'm not saying these out loud because I disapprove of them, but things like Pilates, cardio drumming, art classes, cycling, things that are probably offered elsewhere.

So the fitness classes are part of the membership. Okay. Um so by getting a membership to the rec center those classes are included as a perk of that membership and that came out of I think it was around 2013 mayor 2014 was that the 2014 task force went into effect in 2014 but it was the work was done in 2013.

Exactly. because they used to be alleart. Um and when we had that model actually our our participation was quite low in those programs. And so what we did was a very thorough evaluation. Um a significant increase in membership fees across the board which then allowed um us to be able to fund the instructors um and our our class participation. You're better attended now. Okay, great. I stand back on that one then. That's wonderful to hear. But it does look because it's, you know, when you look at the budget, you're you're seeing the expenditures much higher than the revenues, but that's only because it's it's part of the built into the package.

That makes sense. Yeah, that's where it gets a little tricky. I totally get it. Um, second question is, um, have we accounted for, and I couldn't find it here, but it could just be me. Are we getting any senior millage money for our rec center? Like we requested for some of it to go to senior um the selener senior center and some to go to the rec center. Is it all going to sler senior center? Yeah, we are not. We have we need to meet with the new director and I just she's coming over on Friday afternoon. Wonderful. Yeah, please have that conversation. I like things just getting pushed over to the schools is killing us slowly. The new director is going to uh do a tour of the senior center on Friday. We just got that kind of ironed out uh this afternoon and then we'll be coming over to the rec center.

And just just for clarification, if I may, Mayor Prom, uh city manager um uh Swallow, when we adopted that resolution last year designating the uh senior center as the main repository of funds if there was a senior millillage, we also made an addendum and an addition to include the rec center or I think maybe it was Selene Parks and Recck more broadly. So if there's a technicality and they need official action from the governing or legislative body to disperse those funds, we have we have taken the appropriate action.

Absolutely. Yeah, we we filled that out to the best of our ability to say we wanted some of it to go here and some of it to go here. Um and this is no, you know, slight on the schools, but everything gets pushed through schools and then it it's you know like then we got to go in and we got to say we need it for this, we need it for that. It's just the whole thing with the CARES mod and everything. Again, no slate on the schools. It just becomes a problem for us and for our taxpayers who see things like Selen W, Selen Senior and they assume that that money is going into a rec center when it's not. So again, for the public certification. So yeah, whatever you need our help on to try to fight for what we deserve, you know, like you said, there's a lot of senior programming that goes into the recreation center. Every time I'm in there, the aquatics classes are full of seniors. you know, once we get that hot tub back up and running full of seniors, right? Like

Mayor P, I got to stop you there because it's five minutes, but real quick, um, did you have a preference on an additional uh work meeting or do you believe that there's merit in having another meeting to discuss the budget? Um, I'm fine with whatever. Okay. Um, I'll transition then to Council Member Harm. You have five minutes.

Um, so there's a comment about the 2.7 million. Um, and it's saying that it's going to reduce long-term maintenance costs. I would like to know uh kind this kind of goes into my next question, but I'd like to understand um how those are estimated to offset specifically um those items and what the like how we're offsetting and the dollar not offsetting. And then with regards to the general fund, um you know, I know we've allocated 400,000 for this next fiscal year. Um, I guess my question is is how much moving forward is going to be covering the operating versus the capital uh additional capital. And then I I guess I I have a third question if I get all my questions out here along with um kind of inversely to council member Rice's question like you know what's working, what's not working and are there any um high participation weight list uh programs that we need to maybe invest more in like those camps that seem to be revenue generating. Is there something we can do to kind of double down on that um to add more capacity to those items that have weight lists?

Yes. So, you know, when we talk about the weight list, especially at the swim school, um I I met with our aquatic manager and um she's working on obtaining more instructors, right? Um it's really important that we balance quality programs so that we retain students. Um but yes, we are we're actively, you know, um interviewing and and this past probably about two months ago, we brought in an additional instructor and we're able to add uh more se sections which helped us surpass the 200 mark. So yes, are we capped on the kids camp?

Registration will open up in April and we will see. So one of the examples this summer there's 12 weeks of uh of school. So that kind of came as a surprise. It's just the way Labor Day falls in the um the calendar. So normally summer is about 11 weeks. So this this year will be 12. We lose a lot of our staff. They're going back to college. Um so we're actually going to be contracting with um uh a group that runs some soccer programs for us and they're actually going to run like a camp because they have staff. So, we're going to offer some specific camps, but not using our staff to help accommodate those families um and not leave a gap. So, that's some of the things that we're we're working to do.

Okay. Okay. And then those other item questions that I had 400,000 whether it's C I don't

so where where it will help uh in terms of well let's just start with the I guess your first question was the the 2.7 million where we're looking at is we have some expenditures if you look at the history uh and building repair and maintenance um line items uh that are couple different prices just looking at it but generally speaking uh that 9 well 28756 757 931-0000. Uh so we have had some fairly large equipment replacements obviously DA2 being major one. So we're looking at with that 2.7 million knock out a lot of those uh those those equipment replacement things that are on the current schedule for replacement. So it will reduce the long-term maintenance cost in not having replace equipment or rehab equipment. So things like pumps, things like uh HVAC units that are, you know, near requiring significant maintenance costs. Uh so that's and do I have an exact number? No. Um and the other area where we're looking more closely is also energy efficiency. You know, obviously newer equipment is going to reduce some of the some of the electrical costs, but that's a hard one to exactly nail down. So in terms of 400,000, I'm just looking at some history. There's probably been, you know, a quarter of that at least that has gone to uh significant uh equipment replacement at least uh probably threequarters of it though is for operations.

So so if we spend the 2.7 and we're going to continuously need these maintenance is there are we going to be back in a situation where we're going to need another lump sum of money in order to maintain if you look at that plant brand report with all of the capital needs in the building. The short answer is yes. There will be an ongoing need for capital replacement, but this does not the 2.7 million does not resolve. It's it's a nice chunk, but no, we still have to address the capital needs of the building and that'll take care of I think there was a total of about 10 million that was identified over the next 10 years, but about a million dollars a year that was recommended. So

if you look at some of the numbers pre- pandemic, we were actually starting to build fund balance um for uh you know the 208 fund which was great. Um but in 2020 we were looking to address the pool deck and that just didn't happen. We didn't have the funds to do that. Um so I I as council member Rice spoke about um some of our colleagues on that on the new implementation team for the rec task force getting some of those numbers. Canton, for example, they replaced their uh pool deck not because there was anything structurally wrong with it, just to freshen it up and they saw a surge in registr or surge in um membership sales after they reopened from that project. So, um but that's more like these conversations that we've had with some of our colleagues um through different

Yep. I got to stop it there because we're over the five minutes. Council member Harmon, do you have a preference on a follow-up meeting or do you want a follow-up meeting? Um it sounds like we're pretty stacked for Monday the 6th. I would vote for this 13th, but I don't think that I need a follow-up meeting personally. Okay, I appreciate that. Uh, council member um Hal, you have five minutes for questions, comments regarding any of the four issues or three issues that we discussed at the tail end of this meeting.

Uh, yeah, a lot of actually related directly to the rec center. I'll probably ask a lot of those. Um, I'll get a lot of those answers in the rec center implementation task force. Um, couple questions that I had kind of one piggybacking off of Nicole's question. Um, what criteria or is there a set criteria for how we delineate which classes our landbased classes are free? Um, and and which ones are ultimately still allocart.

So, we've we've actually we were trying to add like a TRX class that would be allocart. Um and unfortunately we ran a couple uh sessions to try to gain some interest and there just wasn't. So we we cut that right away. Um most of our classes that we're holding that are part of that. Uh so pre- pandemic we had over 40 classes a week that we were offering. We actually brought that down because of the challenges we were having, you know, with with um the budget overall. So now we're at about 25 classes per week. And then my other question is um and this is open to Sunshine or uh Treasurer Finch. Um what is the current rate of change or the year-over-year change in the general fund contribution since about 2019 when things kind of went wonky? Um, I think it used to be around 250,000 was the hopeful. After 2020, it was around 250,000. Um, and then it jumped to the 400,000. Um,

have to look back and see 2019. Oh my gosh. I don't think I did that. 2019 should have been pretty nominal.

2019 was round up. 2019 was about 150,000 fund balance. Um, because they had, like Sunshine had mentioned, they had actually built up a pretty healthy fund balance. Sorry much further back. Um, there we go. Um, anyways, to my knowledge, just from what I've found in in old notes and worksheets and things, um, as I've kind of gotten to know it, I believe the original intention was to have a $250,000 annual contribution. That was kind of the agreed upon support until we started having those significant um, equipment issues. Well, then just like to point out that, you know, obviously even though it's carried in the rec center fund, um I would think even if the building closed, we would still have a recreation parks and recreation program.

Correct. Um and so, you know, you look at $400,000, um you know, part of that is covering, you know, existing programs and you'd still have to have a salary for an individual and part-time staff to run recreation programs. uh you'd still have to, you know, have someone to oversee parks and what, you know, capital improvements we're making and do the parks and recreation master plan, those types of things. So, um that's all covered right now under 208. If the rec center closed, uh we'd have to shift some of those costs to the general fund.

So, let me try to restate the question because I don't think that answered the question that I asked. So, I'll try to make sure that I'm asking it clearly. What I would like to understand is that we know that the amount of that contribution has increased or in some cases decreased. By what amount or what percentage does that increase or decrease on average over 2019 until this fiscal year? So he wants data from 2019 to the president of what was the general fund contribution to sport operations or capital needs at the rec center.

No, that's not what I want. Okay. What I want to know is how much is that support growing or decreasing year-over-year as a percent? Is it are we are we contributing two more percent per year? Are we contributing six more percent per year? How is that growth or change over time sort of fluctuated is what I and I can calculate those out for you easily enough. Um like we talked about there's really no contribution I think until 2021 or 2022. Um okay and the overall percentages will vary pretty drastically um especially with the DHU purchase you know this year and things like that but I can get you the overall

yeah I would love to see just the the rate of change over time to understand is are we when I think about operationally that's kind of the number that I'm that we all have identified as the number that's got to significantly be reduced and so when you think about making a metric or thinking about a north star and how we do that I would imagine that We're trying to decrease the amount that that rate of change changes per year. So that's where that question came from. That's a teal line you see on the graph. Yeah, that's what I can assign percentage to that. I got to end it there. Council member Hal, that's five minutes. Do you have a preference on when we meet again or do you want to meet again?

Um I don't need a meeting and both the 6th and the 13th are kind of bad for me. So if we do need a meeting, I would vote for the 20th. Okay. Uh fair enough. Uh, Council Member Deloro, you have five minutes if you'd like it. And again, if you'd note if you'd rather if you'd like an additional budget meeting and when you'd like that to occur.

Okay. Thank you. I I think I'm going to defer the majority of my questions until after we get some recommendations back from the implementation team on where things are going and what we can and cannot use uh grant dollars for. I think that's a big question mark right now. Um, I will say that it does seem like there's pretty clear indication that we can use the the 2.7 million for the repairs of on the hot tub. And I think that's going to be important because we're likely losing memberships as we speak, possibly hemorrhaging memberships because they people can't use the hot tub. So, the sooner we can get the funding agency to release the funds and develop a work plan and get uh RFP out for that, then I feel like that's the next step. And I'm focused right now on next steps for the rec center and hearing back from the implementation team is going to be important for me on that piece. Um, Bill, I think you did a great job of summarizing what what's going on with water, sewer, waste water. Um, that felt pretty straightforward to me and I had a lot of my questions around TIFFA, LDFA, and BURF. uh answered by uh Treasurer Finch in our our meeting last Friday. As far as my preference on meeting next, I I think a work meeting would be helpful for everyone to take a deeper dive on the budget, look at their questions, and bring bring them back. I don't know if all of the department heads need to be here. Maybe we can email some of our questions in advance, but my preference will always be to do something ahead of the the council meeting simply because I can't really get here by 5:00. I'm always cutting corners and and leaving work early to do that kind of thing. So, if it's a six o'clock meeting, I'll be here. If it's a 5:00 meeting, I'll be late.

Okay. Yeah. I think what I was initially proposing on the 13th would have been 6 p.m. I'm not sure we're going to need a three-hour session, but but two two and a half. Okay, that's fair. Okay. Um, thank you. Uh, council member Dylan, you have five minutes for questions if you'd like it. Thank you. Um, here we'll start with sort of the easy lift, which I think is going to be Mr. Briggs. Um, well, actually, I got a really quick one on on the on the verb. When we dispose of assets, do do those dollars go back into that account directly? Yes, they do.

Okay. Thank you for that. Um, and then I was looking and I wanted to make sure under the water fund. I know that at one point Mr. Gerba had talked about having part of fund balance allocated for a shortfall. Is that the line that I'm there's a line in there that I I would have to really look for it right now. Is it in there? Well, so I'm not sure if it's the same thing. Okay. Correct me. We do commit $500,000 to reserves in both water and sewer every year. So we are building a reserve in the background. Um and that was a recommendation of the rate study. I'm not sureing fund.

I can ask my question to it with a WTP fund and debt servicing and shortfalls. Okay. But okay. Um yes, we do commit we make a $500,000 commitment to the reserves each year. um to help build that in the background. Okay. And um the only other question I have like in as far as that part of it and it kind of goes to TIFFA and everything like what exactly is the dollar amount that we have budgeted for dam repairs this year because I've seen it across a couple of different categories but I'm trying to calculate the dollars. Capital improvement plan. We have $400,000 400 which

I think we were going to do like 200. Okay. And tomorrow engineering so we're looking at maybe being able to reduce that number. Put it in half. So the actual repairs to the dam that we are required to do by Eagle. What is being done and like how many dollars are we allocating? So, we're making some minor repairs to like the lift mechanism to some of the uh all of the recommendations that Eagle has said that we were supposed to make. Where are we? I guess that's going to be a question to have outside of this is understanding where we are with those picture here still. Okay. further out if you look at obviously

okay because it it does make me nervous that we're decreasing that amount because we've talked about you know what happens if and knowing that we've got dollars there I think is is very important for that we do carry a small maintenance line just so you're aware in the DPW department related to the dam and then there is also the capital contribution made for dam maintenance, repairs, engineering. Okay. So, there will be about close to $250,000 between the two budgeted in the upcoming year.

Okay. Um I'll connect with somebody offline and just sort of see where that matches up to what we are required to do for maintenance. I don't want to lose my time um on too much because I want to focus on the rec center. I've got a couple of questions. Um one was and Mr. Swall we had talked about this the other day is and I couldn't make I couldn't find it in here. Did we allocate dollars for the master plan for the parks master plan that's due in the we talked about it's next year next calendar year.

It's in the 2027 year it's due. We have some money for professional services in the um like the community development planning zoning departments. So there is some professional service money for plan updates, right? But shouldn't that be coming out of parks money or somewhere? Again, yes is a short answer. Um but you know 208 is really just the rec center tracking. So we can we can utilize for parks, we can utilize other funding including DPW. Mhm. Okay. I want to make sure that we have

Okay. Um and then uh let's see. And then let's see. And I think this was asked, my question was, have there been a reduction in the program for duplicate programmings like that are done by community ed or unprofitable? Because I thought that was an outcome from one of the recck task force was starting to consolidate. Even though they're included in programming, we're still incurring expenses because we're paying we're paying, you know, teachers, we're paying for equipment, things like that. So even though they're included, would we be better off? And I guess has that kind of been evaluated?

Well, again, you know, the for this the people who take the fitness classes, they get the membership because it's included, right? So, that's part of the motivation for their membership is to have that um menu of of classes available to them, right? So, we do evaluate all of our classes. Um, in fact, we do we we take attendance, we watch the trends. Um, every year we've been growing with our attendance. Um, I can get you those numbers, you know, just so you can kind of see where we're at. Um, I believe this past year we had, um, over 14,000 visitors to fit, you know, the landbased fitness classes. Um, and that has grown,

you know, since since. That's fine. It's just when you look at the some of these, I mean, the the number of them and would it be better to streamline some of that? I got to stop you there. Yeah, we have decreased the number of classes that we have offered since pre- pandemic. Okay. Do do you have a pre I'm assuming you'd like to have another budget session. Do you have a preference on on time? Um well, looking back, so we've got the sixth which is a council meeting with probably a lengthy closed session. Yeah. And then we have the following week which would be an off meeting week where we would have just a block of time. Correct. at that be the 13th,

right? Um I guess is there information that we need from departments like when will you have your border review? Does that have any impact on us? So board of review wrapped up last week. So I'll actually be working this week to update all of the tax revenue figures in all of the different places. Um so my intention is to have an updated budget packet to you by April 13th, right? Would reflect some updated figures. Um, I don't expect expenditures to change significantly, but if anyone has brought forward something, you could get it to us by April 13th. Are you going to prepare it on April 13th? Because if we have a special meeting on the 13th, we'd obviously need the packet earlier. If you can't get it for the 13th, then we can aim for the 20th.

Yeah, it would be a struggle to get it. Very hard for me to to do that that quickly um and at least do it correctly and thoroughly. That's why we proposed the 20th is probably our preference from a staff standpoint that we would have more time to get those numbers back, you know, finalized as well as if there's any feedback, you know, tonight to be able to make changes. Right. So, can I if I may or council member Dylan, um I don't have a problem with the 20th. I, you know, a standard work meeting for a 7:00 p.m. uh a standard work meeting on a night where we have a standard 7 p.m. council meeting would be at 6 p.m. I'm not sure we can get through all of this in an hour. So, I guess my question would be if we zero in on the 20th, can people make it by 5:30?

Yeah, I can do that. Yeah, 5:30 is better than Okay, for sure. I am still up in the air for that week as I'll be having surgery the week before, but I feel like I'll probably But the 5:30 versus 6 start time doesn't make it. Yeah, it doesn't. Okay. Uh, council member GB, you have five minutes if you'd like it. Thank you. A couple questions have come up and one of the things um, city manager SW you mentioned is the park budget and that came up during even the um, the sessions that we had with the park um, the rec center task force, whatever it is. What is the park budget? Not the recreation center budget, but what is the park budget? And if we could get a number on that at some point to understand that because department 780

but that clearly is everything that we allocate as costs associated with maintaining our parks only and parks and trees department and then there's a park commission department. I think it's the next one in line. So you feel that covers all that? because I know that's always been the issue that stuff had been paid for in the rec center, but we thought we had moved all that stuff out and tried to allocate it to the proper categories. It's not sufficient

and that's it. And it's well, you know, it's not sufficient, but was trying to figure that all out. Some of it's buried in DPW, some of it's buried. So, at some point, we've got to figure that out because that's the thing that for me is understanding what money are we investing in our actual parks and not just the rec recreation center itself. Um qu couple questions I have in the rec center. I'm looking at some of the numbers. I look at membership fees, annual fees. The projection is $40,000 less than what was last year. And then the projection moving forward is saying a 6% increase, but that's over a number that is less than last year. Um that would indicate to me that we don't have as many memberships or the revenue's gone down. So I'd like an answer to that. Um when I look at total revenue, um total revenue for projected for this year is 1 1.6 609 for next year. It's 1.601, which is an $8,000 decrease in revenue. Once you take out the general fund contribution, I can see where you might have a revenue increase if you subtract out the two family donation. But, um, for me, it just seems that we're not seeing increases in revenue, which that's the biggest issue that we're having with the rec center is that it's not providing enough support in terms of revenue. And I look at the expenditures and it seems that after you take out the adjustments related to the transfers in that revenue approximate or expenses are going up $48,000. So I was hoping as we talked about savings and cuts where those would be. So um from that perspective I'm trying to understand because those are some of the key directives that were made by council to make sure where are the cost savings coming and so forth. Um, and again, as council member Harmad mentioned and everything else, for me, the issue is it's going to take approximately 1.4 million to keep this rec center running in perpetuity unless we have additional um um support if you're going to count capital improvements and those things. And one thing, when you look at 2021 and 2020 in terms of support, again, remember we got

significant money from the federal government to bail those out. Um so when we look at that the numbers do not necessarily drive the correction between depending on how we did our accounting in those years. Um the other questions I have in TIFA we have the continuating continuing programs or projects and things do we have an inventory of those? The number just comes in there and then it carries forward. I there's like the $800,000 and it's 1.333. So in TIF we don't actually carry fund balance. In a in a TI district you can't carry fund balance. You can have money that is committed to capital projects.

Right. And but it says continuing and I want to make sure what are those projects? What's that list and did we complete those projects? So we have carried some projects forward from year to year to to equivalate that number. I just want to know exactly is everything listed there the projects that tie to that number. And I can look into what's been completed or not. But I can tell you that what's projected forward, there isn't much at this time. We kind of evaluate that each year when the capital improvements are brought forward and what's in the district and what it can support. But so maybe you and I'll sit down and look at those. I because I want to make those numbers, making sure that the projects that we're completing are something we just continue to carry forward.

Um and then um my question about the working capital for the wastewater treatment plant was when I look at the working capital, it's flat. When we were looking at projections related to rate increases previously a couple years ago, it really raised the concern about our first debt service payment and whether or not we're going to have sufficient cash to support that. That projection and when I look at this seeing that the working capital is not going up, are we still okay? Because my one recommendation a couple years ago was even though you're not supposed to give contributions to the fund from general fund, you can loan money. And so that if we needed to until we had a catch-up or if there was a shortfall between the rate increases and so forth that we do that. So are we confident that the current wastewater treatment plant um in our next two years or when we have to make that first payment we have sufficient funds to cover it?

You are correct. It did show in some of the later years of the study where we actually have a shortfall. um right now because some of the capital improvement we completed has not been as significant as originally anticipated in the past two years because the focus has been on that plant project. Correct. The reserve has kind of stabilized for now. But that's a big part of why we want to redo that rate study and we want to take a look at where we're actually sitting now. What are these new processes going to cost? What do we look like moving forward to see where we hit that? especially with the new. So what we did was we deferred the projects and that's what's saving our um saving us from having a potential shortfall for that first step. Okay. Thank you. I got to stop you right there, Mr. Herb. Um five minutes.

Yeah, actually 5 minutes and 34 seconds. Um do you um are you good with a uh work meeting at 5:30 p.m. on the 20th? Yes. Okay. All right. So I think we have consensus for that. Um so the clerk will make note um and schedule a work meeting for 5:30. Um and then Treasure Finch, you indicated us you'll get us a revised packet uh in or in or around um uh April the 13th. Is that correct? My intention is to deliver it to you on Monday, April 13th. Okay. Very good. Um and then in the meantime, if folks have questions, please direct those to the city treasur to the city manager. I would encourage you to copy in all of city council because per uh council member Dylan's suggestion, we want to make sure that we're all on the same page and we're all receiving the same information. Um is there anything you would like to add before we wrap up this evening?

Emphasize that last point. if you can send the questions ahead of time and uh we can have some more clear answers and since we will have a compressed timeline and I made a small list there was a laundry list of of points of inquiry and questions that people asked today from the day I assume that those will be made uh available or answered as part of the packet that goes out on the 13th as far as we're address. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Just there was over the course of three hours I I wrote down maybe 12 or 13 questions that people asked that um staff needs to follow up on. Okay. Very good. Just one point of clarification. When will we be addressing the other 30 minutes that was identified city council guidance priorities for 2627? I think the goal is to do that the next meeting. Okay. Yep. Yep.

Um but of course if you want to provide any any direction or thoughts uh in addition to questions in in emails to staff, we would welcome that. Um, if there I find my agenda here. If there is nothing further to be brought uh before uh city council this evening at this initial uh budget presentation, the chair would be delighted to entertain a motion to adjurnn at 8:03 p.m. moved by Dylan. It was that seconded by Gerba. Thank you. All those in favor of adjourning signify by saying I. Post say nay. Eyes have it. Meeting is journed. Thank you all.