Board of Aldermen - workshop

of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Alder Member Starr? Here.

Placke? Here. Finch?

Here.

Polson?

Here.

Wren?

Here.

Palmer?

Here.

Deerwoodson? Here. We have a quorum.

Welcome to our guests and vendors. Right over there along the lines. It's in the end of it. I think looking to set the agenda. Are there any questions.

I know you're going to send it through.

I have a motion and a second to accept the consent agenda. All in favor?

Who seconded? Okay. Can you please say aye? I'm sorry. It's hard for me to keep looking up and down. So just say aye. Maybe I can recognize your voice.

Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. All in favor?

Aye.

All those? I'm 0-1. I'm stitched. I'm stitched. Okay. Thank you.

Mayor report. Bottle jumpers. I thought foam jumpers was outstanding. And I want to recognize one of our longstanding older women who just volunteers forever. Thank you very much, Mickey. You're part of what makes Odessa great. I got to spend time in the water. It's where the police had one young lady who initiated me to the dump tank. There were three children that came over and the first two, I don't know, they were four or five years old. First two took the officer that was in the tank and put him in the water. The third young lady was about eight years old and they asked her who she wanted in the tank. And I was back by sitting all kind of, way to the side of her she didn't see me and she just pointed and turned and you know no clue who she was but she had to have the mayor in the tank so i am going to have those corrections

We had a planning and zoning meeting. The offices were elected. And the free parking is coming to an end. It is wrapping up and is in its final stages of being brought up to become an ordinance.

Who did they elect as the chair? Matt. Matt?

So I've received I received a few reports regarding and probably regarding the sidewalks and I know that there have been some concerns and hopefully as we're on our next phase we can maybe I don't know the process in this but it seems like main concerns are that things are finished complete and then recognize that it's not right when obviously there have been places where it's not wide enough like it's supposed to be um and do we know you know has compassion been tested has confidence integrity and text tested federal slope restrictions all of those things um who does

Um, that would be CFS, the engineering company that we hired. They have a daily inspector out to make sure that all those things are in compliance.

So did they not catch some of the things?

So the first block, I would say that, um, there were quite a few things that happened or not the first block. Cause the first block was really easy. The second block, there were some things that were noticed after the fact. And, um, We meet every other week with the contractor and the engineer, and we've corrected that. So they now know to look for these things so they don't happen more than once in the project.

And that was my hope, because some of that stuff, I'm not a concrete expert by any means, but some of it is pretty obvious. And the concern is maybe not so much that you know, mistakes can be made, but let's not keep making them because every chain order costs a lot of money and we already failed it.

I would say in that second block, there were duplicative mistakes because it was all kind of the same process for that one, but we've made those improvements on the other side to where the crews know to look for that and make sure that it is in compliance with ADA.

they will be going back and correcting some of those items.

Yes. There's still two major corrections that need to be done in that second block and one on the third.

So in that case, is the engineer responsible for the payment of the change?

No, not necessarily.

Even though we paid them? Yes.

Thank you.

Alderman Palmer. We have a finance meeting tonight. So first of all, our ECN credit process is almost all the way behind us. Most of the credits have been applied. We have new rates. Our new rates are going to be applied to our utility building at the end of this month. And Birgit's here today to talk to us about our audit, which is complete. I want to point out that we made a ton of progress since last audit, seeing as though our last audit was only in March. So I'm excited to hear more about that tonight. How's our sales tax running? What'd they say earlier?

What were we at?

11%. Yeah, 11% above right now. So, yeah, that's great, great, great.

She's doing great as far as business. Big retail business. Oh, yeah. Great. All the roads start.

Puddle jumpers. It was a challenge. But our, we can't thank all the departments enough for all they did. I mean, we had some snafus with the electric guys who just, they were on it. I mean, we'd call them and they were there within 10 minutes. And we want to thank all the businesses for letting us close them down basically for three days. But I think all in all, with all the little quirks we had, I think it went well. I don't think anybody went to jail, which is a plus. Maybe at first. And I did. I did get to do this. That was one of my favorite parts of those numbers. But anyway, all in all, I think it went well. And we can't thank our people that donated stuff for a raffle, the people in town, the businesses, our guys. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Just want to say I think the streets are looking good. I think that finished, that schedule finished last week, I think. Yes, I'm ready. I've driven around. There's some of it done right by my house. It looks really well. It seems fine to travel on. So if you haven't been out to drive around and see the progress on the street improvements, I would encourage you to do that. So, thank you.

Thank you. Not to forget the city administrator reporting this week.

Good evening, Mayor and Board of Aldermen. We'll start with the Parks Department. They finished up all of their fall signups and volleyball will start on September 14th for the week of September 14th. Fall soccer is ready to go. All the fields are ready and the pool is officially closed, drained, and has been tested. So their next step in the annual process is they meet with Midwest Pool Management, and they go through a punch list to just see what is needed for repair while the pool's closed for the season, make those repairs and get them budgeted for, and then work on our next season. But it was a really great pool season this year. And then Men's League will start on September 3rd. For wastewater, normal operations, we have some sewer jetting, jetting and painting of lift stations. There was a sewer main backup or clog in the north plant that they were able to get repaired and made a process improvement to, so it won't clog in the future. For the finance department, we have, like we already said, the auditors have everything finalized and they'll be presenting tonight. The electric rates, we have the billing updated and we'll talk a little bit more about the classification when we get to that on the agenda, but we do have the billing rates updated in ENCODE and ready to go now just to finalize the classifications for each different category. AP has been working on a process improvement for the franchise tax collections and our pay point study is moving along and getting closer towards an end date. And we have two bids going out this week, one for the slakers for the water department and one for a bucket truck for the electric department, both CIP items. Also working on some budget monitoring as we're approaching the halfway point throughout the fiscal year. And then the sidewalks, we had a lull in the sidewalks, a little peace and quiet, less stress for a week there with puddle jumpers. And now we're going to swing right back into it with the most challenging quadrant of all. So we're keeping our fingers crossed that all goes well. Economic development, we had another request for information submitted. Kathy and I also attended the District 3 networking event in Sedalia this past week. And we started a business retention program. So this has consisted of and started with Leslie and Jenny just going in and introducing themselves to all city businesses. So anyone inside of City Limits with a business license, their goal is to make an introduction to all of them. And that's just kind of the first entry level of our BRE program. But we just wanted to get it up off the ground and start something from somewhere. So that's what we're starting with. And then we'll continue to develop the program as we continue through that and learn more about each of our businesses and their needs. For the water and food department, Vance Brothers is done with their work in town. We only had a few little tiny mishaps in comparison. I spoke with some other communities who have recently done micro seal projects and I think ours went very smooth in comparison. So we're happy that that's completed and we're happy that it looks so great. And we just have a couple things to finish up and then we will prepare for our next street program. We have a couple storm sewer repairs that we need to get done. One along Dryden near the 1912 building and one at Southeast Railroad and Mason Street. So we'll get those repaired. Typically any storm sewer replacements or repairs are not budgeted for or programmed. take a look at the budget and see what that does to our street department's funding, but, uh, we don't have an official storm water program, so that will be something we need to work on. Um, we have free removal at the park that the street and water department is helping the parks department with, and then we are trying so hard to get all of our street cuts done before the winter, and, um, We also have been working to get some of the painting done around the school and the school zones. So like the crosswalks and the stop sign lines and things like that, just to create an extra level of safety around the school zone area. And then the new street building that's going up off of North First Street is coming along pretty well. The sewer should be very close to done, if not already done, and then electric is planned to be installed for next week. And we will start working on getting the water sails ordered and installed too, so it can be operating shortly after construction's complete. For the police department, they're monitoring the traffic impacts to Odessa right now. So we also have communication coming out soon too about the Johnson Drive bridge closure that's happening on September 15th. So we put some information out on social media. We'll continue to put information out. And then MoDOT themselves, they put information out as well. So that will be the overnight street closure due to the demolition of the Johnson Drive bridge as a part of the Improve I-70 project. We have, the department is working on a few major cases that have recently happened. So that takes up a little bit of their workload and keeps them busy. And then we have the approval of a MoDOT grant that we'll be bringing to you in an ordinance format here in the next meeting or two to approve for funding. We expect the FIFA payout to arrive very soon as well. And then the Blue Shield grant, we intend to move forward with that very soon and hope that the reimbursement is quick. We also have a Bulletproof Vest partnership with DOJ, which that money is coming in soon for grant dollars received. And then we... The chief will be meeting this week with the RSALP program with Pioneer Trails, where we were able to actually score the highest on a grant application for up to $40,000 in radios. So we're very excited about that opportunity. We continue to work towards resolution for 610 East Orchard, as well as the outlet mall. We are planning to pursue submitting court violations for the numerous outstanding codes violations that are at the outlet mall. And then the dog pound or the animal control building that we're putting up or that was on the last agenda, the contractor's currently seeking their appropriate permits, building permits for the county. And then as soon as they have that, they'll be ready for construction. And One other thing is the parking lot at Mason and First Street has been an open codes case and we do anticipate they've made some improvements over the weekend and we do anticipate that that codes case will be resolved. I think by September 1st was the date that was given. For the electric department, they've been working on some outstanding projects that they have kind of had to put on the back burner for a little while. They're bringing those back to life where we have a pole replacement project on Gall Street and some underground infrastructure at Dyer Park. We also, as just an update on the transformer issue in the substation, we will be getting that. We have to pull it out of the sub and then someone comes in and test it, test the fuel and things like that to help us identify what the issue is. And then once we do that, then we can seek a proper bid for repair. So we're moving along on that project, but electric department also in the final stages of the sidewalk project, they're kind of in a lull where they're able to catch back up after a lot of dedication and time towards the sidewalks in an effort to get them done before Pedal Jumpers, which they did. Very happy about that. And they have completed some of their work they have for recent housing development projects. Those are recently completed too. So for the communications department, we have created an EcoDevo landing page, an economic development landing page on our website, and it is now live. So we're very excited about this. We kind of work with KCADC and has a community profile and things like that. So if you get a chance, you should definitely check that out. And then we're also creating a new development handbook for the community development department that we can use as a resource and a tool for those who are interested in developing in Odessa. So that is in its final stages of edits and will be available on the city's website once it's complete. And then, like I mentioned, the continuous communication for the Johnson Drive bridge demolition. And then we're also making some slight updates to our monthly newsletter. And for city clerk, we have We've had quite a few public records requests over the past, I don't know how long, we've had a lot of public records requests. So we've created a kind of landing page for public records and created an optional new form to help us kind of keep track and stay organized when it comes to these multitude of opening records requests. We're also focusing on records retention and trying to get as many things documented and retained digitally. We have the performer that's on the agenda, still working on the inspector position. The work comp audit is complete. And Karen has reached all of the requirements for her advanced MGI training to be a certified public official. Gates. Gates.

I don't know how that is.

And she said you won't be at MML, but that's when you'll be announced your certification. So you all will be at MML. We'll see your names. As for administration, we put the UDO bid out for bid, collected those bids we received for last week. So we're trying to kind of get through those. They're RFQs, so If you know our cues can be kind of lengthy and hard to get through sometimes. So we're trying to get through those and determine who's the best fit for us. And I am considering we do maybe a more official interview process with those consultants. and bring in a member or two from the board and a member or two from planning and zoning. So you guys can be involved in the early stages of that process because it will be a very large and significant project for us to completely reorganize and restructure our development code or create a development code. So I want to get you guys involved early. The rate classifications, like I mentioned, that's on the agenda. very high priority for us for this week, given that the bills are supposed to go out at the end of this week. So we're trying to get that all finalized and cleaned up with this opportunity that we have with the new rate study, new rates, clean up our classifications and make that process improvement overall. One thing that was also mentioned today was with our utility bills, We pay our NPUA monthly utility bill or purchase power. And we've been paying off what they call the polar vortex. And I think it was from like February of 2021. So we reached frigid temperatures nationwide. Everyone's electric nationwide skyrocketed. And in an effort from NPUA to not hit everyone in the pool, All at one time, they created a debt program for that. And so it was 60 payments, I believe, monthly payments of about $4,000, $5,000. And we just recently paid that off. So just a small debt, and it wasn't really debt issued in our name, but it was still something that we were tracking and needing to kind of reach the end for resolution there. So hopefully no more polar vortexes come. Definitely not right now. And then again, I just wanted to give credit to the street program one more time just because I do think the streets look really great and it is very exciting. It's a kind of a historic moment for Odessa.

We're trying something new and it looks good.

Good questions. Thank you. I'm hearing it is 624. We'll open the public hearing for the tax rates for 2026. Ms. Thompson.

I just want to make a clarification that I'm a math person and a script reading person. I gave you the corrected numbers. For the tax year, it was 18,514 instead of 513, which was posted. And then the total assessed valuation should be 79,384,285 instead of 034. So didn't get a great proofreading. I apologize. They've had somebody else proofread it for me, and we still get it wrong. But the tax levy doesn't change any. We're not raising it from last year, does it? Those scrivener's errors do not affect the tax rate or the levy that we'll be asking you to approve later. Yes, ma'am.

Could we get a corrected one just posted, like with the meeting in case of the most reference?

Yes, we will. I'll attach it to the minutes as well. Because they'll have to go to the county clerk.

Any questions from the public? regarding the tax rates. Hearing none, any questions from the board? As Kathy said, the rates are not changing. The assessed valuation did go up. And so that everyone knows just how rich the city will become from that increase in assessed valuation, that should generate something like $17,000. do. So it's a whole lot of money. I think I pointed out a week or two ago, the comparison of Odessa's property tax rate to other cities in the county. And we were very compared to maybe the bar for eight. So hearing no more comments, we'll close the tax rate hearing at 6.27 p.m. Moving on, we have a presentation on the 25-26 tax audit. No taxes. I'm sorry. I'm attached to that.

Good evening. My name is Mark. I'm a manager at Bergen KAB, which is the firm we do our audit test work through. I'm actually employed by Curdier Planning, but we do services for Bergen. So to get to the audit, you all should have two packets in front of you. One's big, one's small. I will Start with the independent auditor's report. It's page one of the big packet. So in this document is our opinion. That is basically what you guys pay us to come in here and provide you. And our opinion this year states that the financial statements are federally presented in all material respects of the financial position and change the financial position of public government activities. and business type activities and each major fund of the city. This is an unmodified opinion, also known as a clean opinion. It is the highest level of assurance that we can provide. It's the same assurance we provided last year. That document goes on to state management's responsibilities for the financial statements, which is basically that they are responsible for the veracity of the financial statements. an audit approach that adheres to relevant standards in order to express an opinion on the financial statements. So that involves several considerations that we've gone through and risk assessments and things like that to develop the procedures that lead to our audit opinion. And that kind of details a little bit of that. It's important to note that an audit provides reasonable assurance, not absolute assurance, that the financial statements are fairly presented in all material respects. So there is still some possibility that there could be errors that were not noted through the normal process of an audit and the state policy standards. financial statements by the way started on page 15 and people wants to go for a quick look at the financial statements the first set is the government-wide financial statements so this presents the uh results of the city's uh finances more like a business would present their financials uh it is not necessarily the way governments were fund financial statements, which start at page 17. But the government-wide gives it kind of longer term. It includes your fixed asset. It includes long-term debt, things like that that are more long-term pictures versus the yearly focus that the fund financials tend to have. Included in the financial statements on page 21 is also the proprietary funds. I do need to mention here that there are several differences in the independent auditor's report this year. The first difference is that there is not an emphasis paragraph. So last year's audit report had an emphasis of matters paragraph that explained that we had a prior period adjustment to another auditor's work because we were not the prior auditors last year. And we did find some errors that needed corrected. The second portion of the emphasis paragraph last year is that you guys implemented CASB 101. It's a new standard for compensated absences. This year, you did not implement that because it was already implemented. So you just continued. Therefore, we did not need to bring that to any further light than the normal audit would for you to. The second change is that there is now a, what's called an in relation to opinion given at the end of the report about the schedule of expenditures of federal awards. This is a single audit this year because you got to spend more than a million dollars of federal funding in one year. We came in and specifically audited that funding and The in relation to opinion just says that that schedule, the schedule of expenditures of federal awards is federally presented in relation to the overall financial statements. It does not necessarily provide assurance that it's correct the way that the financial opinion does, but it does say that it is correct in relation to the overall financial statements, which also received a high level of assurance.

And for clarification, that was the ARPA dollars.

That was the ARPA dollars. Um, I'm going to also talk a little bit more about that when we get into the financial analysis stuff, because there are several things that that affects, uh, that will make, if you look year over year, it'll make it look very weird. Uh, and maybe even alarming because of the big number. So we will, we'll get into that a little bit later on. Uh, So then I have more on the single audit part, which is on page three is where that interrelationship or interrelation to opinion is given. There is also an opinion on page 73 in the report on compliance for each major federal program. This is the audit report that was added for the single audit portion. And there we say that in our opinion, the city has complied in all material respects with the compliance requirements under the Uniform Guidance. So that is just addressing whether you guys spent the ARPA dollars in compliance with what you're allowed to spend the ARPA dollars on. So that's what that address is. Also because of the single audit this year, the schedule of findings and responses in the back of the report changes to a schedule of findings and question costs. Just a federal way of saying things. We are not questioning costs with this audit. So there are none of those. But page 76 is where that schedule of findings and question cost starts. It basically recaps that the major program selected was ARPA. It's also the only federal program on the CEFA. And it will include details on the material weakness and significant deficiency that I will cover here. Other communications. This is the small pathway. So, in accordance with government auditing standards, we also have to communicate a lot of things to management, which is you, Mr. Board of Aldermen and BEAR. that aren't necessarily stated in the audit report, but are important to bring to your guys' attention. A lot of that smaller packet is kind of boilerplate information that doesn't really change year to year, but the important items to note in it are the page that discusses the material audit weakness, So this year we do still have material weakness and internal control noted because there were material adjustments needed to make the financial statements be presented fairly in all material respects. And so we do also mention a reliance on the auditors to make some of those entries. The city has made huge improvements in this area versus last year, and a lot of it was still climate cleaning up things that we kind of expected to require a couple of years to get cleaned up, especially since the last audit was finalized with about a month to go before the end of the year. It makes it very difficult to implement some of those things. I have been working with Kathy Thompson to make sure that all of those entries that were needed are understood so the city can provide an appropriate trial balance measure and potentially eliminate this finding. So that's been one of our goals was to get through these two processes to get things cleaned up and the city functioning at a level that I don't need that finding. The second or the next page with that small packet is a significant deficiency in internal control. So this is less severe than a material weakness, but still severe enough to warrant special attention to the board. This is just for a lack of segregation of duties because there's just not a large amount of people involved in the finance function here. The city has engaged creative planning to do an overall internal control assessment that goes a lot more into each of the internal controls a lot deeper than what a financial audit would do. A financial audit looks at internal controls to a point that it can say that the financial statements are fairly presented versus a point that says that there's not a weakness in internal control that doesn't affect financial support. doesn't have a pretty good possibility of affecting financials. With that engagement, it will result in recommendations for changes to those internal control processes that can maybe spread things out a little differently than they're spread out now. And depending on the implementation of those recommendations, we're looking at potentially reducing or eliminating that finding as well. So the city does have a plan for that. and is working towards it. Also in the communication letter is the required communication, the legislative summary that just says what new standards are coming out this year. You'll have two more standards to implement next year, which is 103 and 104. Fairly simple in comparison to some of the most recent standard releases that have come out in the prior years. I will work with Kathy to make sure that that all gets implemented correctly. A lot of that has to do with explanations in the management discussion and analysis section and the way the budget is presented in the financial statements and where it gets presented. So should be fairly minor things to address. And then there's also an emerging issues section. I guess that is the section that talks about the legislative summary. It's kind of just a summary of what changed legislatively that led to some of those emerging issues. Again, that packet also contains the material with dis-insignificant deficiencies that I talked about. So, financial communications. We can talk about the general fund or PERS. This information is found on page 17 and 19 of the big packet. That's where the fund financial statements are for the governmental funds. I'm going to focus pretty much on the general fund, but there are other funds noted there as well. They just did not have a significant amount of things to talk about. So this schedule here shows our Revenue by source, and you can see that the biggest source is state sources. That's where most of your guys' revenue comes from. And you can kind of see the way that that's changed over the years, edging up slightly each year in the trend. The next one is just a bar graph of a different version of breaking down the sources of revenue. The important one to notice here is in that intergovernmental at the bottom that you can't see on my screen. Or if it's the next slide, or if it just got cut off. Oh, it just got cut off, I'm lagging. Anyways, so the intergovernmental revenue source is where the ARPA money comes in. So that does jump from 389,000 noted last year to 1,551,000 this year. So that looks like a huge jump, but that's all based on the ARPA dollars that were considered to be in reserves prior to our involvement. We made a change to that to call them unearned revenue. This year they became earned through those expenditures. I also have We'll come back and talk about this one. The budget to actual chart. I'll make some key notes on that schedule. So in looking at the budget to actual comparison schedule, it's on I didn't write it down in the page number, but it's in the big packet. The intergovernmental revenue source is also far exceeding its budget, and that's because the ARPA dollars were not budgeted for its revenue, so I've accepted to kind of consider them in their reserves, but the way they have to be presented for financial audit purposes is that those have to flow through revenue this year. The other big budget category that looks very odd is the community planning and development, which is where the ARPA dollars were spent. And it did not have a budget, again, because it was kind of in its own budget category in the ARPA fund versus the general fund, I think. But that's what that project is, and that's why it presents that way. Everything else was basically as expected within the budget. So I didn't see anything else that was significantly off of the budget that would raise any alarms. Fund balance does end up being, in the general fund, does end up being 3,087,210. Of this number, $3,744,000. is unassigned fund balance, meaning that's the amount that's available to be spent. This is about 72% of your fiscal year 26 expenditures if you consider the ARPA expenditures. Without the ARPA expenditures, that's about 95% of the fiscal year 26 expenditures. So that's a really solid place to be. We typically recommend that cities look to try to stay at about 50% or above. The city of Odessa does not currently have a fund balance policy that dictates what it needs to be, but that's kind of what we consider healthy is at least 50%. So you're in a really healthy spot as far as the general fund is concerned. Then I have a couple of pie graphs. Those are kind of tiny up there, but A couple of paragraphs to just compare last year to this year. Again, those are expenditures. I must keep looking at this later. So we'll move on to the expenditures because the revenue changes. Oh, they're not in there. Okay. It's really weird. Anyways. The expenditures pie graph does note a significant shift in the different pieces of the pie, but that is all basically driven by your intergovernmental spending for those ARPA dollars. It shifts all the other percentages because that didn't exist last year. Otherwise, spending stayed pretty much in line with the 2025 as well. Find out what comes next. We'll just talk through these other ones because I guess we're not in that presentation somehow.

I'm good with that because you're right. That is a lot of categories that are not online. See, I was looking at my paper, not the screen.

Yeah. So, anyways, I have no idea what happened there. It's essentially the same one I printed and I thought I made. And it obviously didn't go well. Page 21 of the big book is your proprietary fund statements. I will start a water fund. Here are the total operating revenues this year. Went up just a little bit compared to last year. from 1.4 million last year, 1.51 million this year. Your total operating expenses actually decreased this year from 1.6 million to 1.3 million. So overall the operating Income is actually an income this year at 183,000 versus $159,000 loss last year. That's just the operating pieces. So there are also non-operating items that go into whether the fund balance changes or not. But the operating ones are kind of the focus because that fund is supposed to be operating at a level that sustains itself versus relying on taxes from the government. That's why it's in the proprietary funds. Total operating income without depreciation is $412,000 this year. It was $230,000 of income last year. So that depreciation is the main reason it looked like a loss last year. Here I have a note that the net position is 6,537,921. Of that amount, 1,341,640. That's what's kind of available to be spent.

This is page 22.

Yeah, that's right. This schedule is a two-page schedule, so the net position numbers are at the bottom of 22. Basically, you have one year of expenditures in that fund right now in the fund balance of unassigned. The other category of note there is your net investment in capital assets that eats up a big chunk of your overall net position. And that is taking your capital assets within that fund minus any depreciation on those assets and then minus any debt to purchase those assets that remains. And so that's where a big chunk of the fund balance is taken up is in all the capital assets involved. I'm going to move on to the wastewater fund. And that one, the total operating revenues this year actually increased as well from 2.25 to 2.29. It's about a huge increase. But the operating expenses went up this year from 1.64 to 1.82 million. The operating income then drops to 465,000 from 610 last year. The net position in this fund is $8,036,509, and the unrestricted net position is $1,243,586, which is approximately 70% of the year's budget based on 2026 budget. This fund did have a correction of an error noted in it. And this just relates to some cash accounts that were in the financial accounting system, but not actual bank statement or bank accounts that through a process this year of confirming things with the debt company, we've determined that those accounts don't exist. believe that they were set up when the loans were initially taken and then the money was actually in a checking account because they never had a separate account for it. They used up that money that was related to some credits. But the new person took over in between, I'm guessing, and did not know that those extra financial accounts had ever been set up. And so they just basically weren't using it. and they didn't actually exist because they started operating everything out of the main account. So this year we cleaned that up and took those off the books. So that's why you see that correction of an error in that fund.

What page do you think? 22. Okay, the electric utility fund.

This fund had operating revenues actually decreased just slightly from $6,072,634 to $5,933,768. The cycle operating expenses did increase significantly this year, mostly based on purchase power, and that increased. So our total operating income this year was $423,769 loss as far as operations go. That is the only year in the five-year period that it was a loss. Last year, that was an $852,654 gain. So that's also part of this number is some of that timing between years and when things get recognized for financial audit purposes. Kind of goes into that. To note, the operating income for loss without depreciation, it was still a $73,522 loss. So almost break even without depreciation of feeling. The net position here is $5,918,299. Of that amount, $3,735,134 is unrestricted. This one also contains an error correction. About $317,000 related to purchase power. And the fact that we had 13 months of purchase power charges put into this year, so we need just to back one of those out. It should have been applied the last year. At some point in the past, there was probably a year with only 11 in it. So again, it's just kind of a timing difference of what gets counted for financial audit purposes and when things get counted for you're actually making the payments, you're actually paid basically monthly every month, but sometimes that fall fell to where it got counted into the financial period previous, and sometimes it falls where it gets into the next period. So the good news is that we have now cleaned that issue up, and Kathy knows how to do that going forward to keep 12 months and every year. So we should expect to see that be a little more steady as well. With that, I will open the floor for any questions.

What was your audited fund balance number for electric?

For electric? That fund balance is $5,918,299. The percentage, I'm sorry.

Oh, the percentage?

I did not write that number down. Okay. But the total expenses were our operating expenses were 6.3 million. So it's roughly a year. It's not quite a year of the operating expenses. Any other questions? All right. Thank you all for having us again this year. We really appreciate the opportunity to work with the City of Edosa. I definitely want to make sure I take the opportunity to thank Kathy and John for all their homework and all their staff for what they do to make us get through this audit and get that contract to be presented at a normal audit time. We're excited about that as well.

It's like the first time in like four years, I think, that we'll have an audit on time to the state. Exactly.

I think that alone speaks directly to how you and Kathy have been working to straighten out the issues that we've been through in the past regarding our products. This is the first time we with the requirement to get our audit report filed by September 30th, six months after the audit date, after the end of the fiscal year. So thank you two very much. Recommendations and appointments. I hereby recommend and would appreciate your consent to appoint Tony Easter to the Planning and Zoning Commission. replace David Benjamin's term of office. May I hear a motion to consent to that appointment?

I'll make a motion to consent to Tony Easter for the appointment at Planning and Zoning. Thank you. I have a second.

I have a motion and a second. All in favor? 6-0. A recommendation and appointment of incoming Board of Adjustment member Marty McDermott. I think Marty would be a wonderful board member on the Board of Adjustment. It was to replace Ann Jones. I have a motion to accept that appointment. I have a motion by Alderman Fitch. Do I have a second? And a second by Alderman Starr. All in favor? 6, 0, thank you very much. Introduction and reading bills over 2026 dash 30 settings. Thanks for the year 2026 for the city to go. The amount to be used for general and park purposes in accordance with state requirements. I have an appointment. We have a A motion to accept the first reading of Bill number 2026-30.

I'll make a motion to accept the first reading of Bill number 2026-30, proposed tax levy rates for the year 2026. Do I have a second?

Second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor? 6-0, discussion. Yeah.

There. That being further than what I just said, we aren't adjusting them. The RSS valuation did go up a little bit, but not most of it was due to new construction. It wasn't an assessment year. So let me just say.

I think I will take a motion to accept the second reading of the number 2026-30 Setting the tax levy for the years going on the same person who has been during this meeting the amount to be used for general in our churches in accordance with state report.

I'm in question to accept the 2026 dash 30 proposed as a second reading proposed tax will be rates of the year 2026. As amended as we. Thank you.

They got you this time. I have a second. I'll second.

Motion and a second. Roll call. Alderman Placte? Yes. Wren?

Yes.

Holson?

Yes.

Finch? Yes. Palmer? Yes. Starr?

Yes.

Motion carried. Given ordinance number 3194. Thank you.

Introduction and reading. First reading. Introduction and reading. Bill number 2026-31. Amending the city code. We're going to work group classes of service. I have a motion accepting the first read.

Make a motion to accept the first reading of Bill number 2026-35, Electric Classes of Service.

That's second. And the motion has a second discussion.

All in favor?

All in favor.

discussion.

Okay, so with the electric grates, we got the grates into ENCODE, which was a hill in and of itself. And then once we did that, we realized that we needed to take a little bit better look at how the different classifications are defined. So the Proposed ordinance does so, but I will say this has been a little bit of a moving target the last few days because of the timeline that we're on. So we had to find time to meet with ENCO, get those updated, get everything in there. We did that, and now we have, like, this week window to make sure the classifications are accurate and then get the bills out or else we miss the deadline. And then our new part, my goal is to be able to have our classifications done and everyone where they're supposed to be at the same time as the new rate. So there's not kind of two shifts in billing back to back. So I've been trying to work with David very closely to determine what the line is. So what makes large commercials? We didn't have large commercial before. What makes large commercial large commercial? What makes industrial industrial? And so on and so forth. But we want to do that in a way that doesn't upset the apple cart too much because we just based our study off of our existing categories. So we want them to be accurate, but we also want them to be in a way that doesn't disrupt everything, doesn't shift, you know, half of our commercial customers to now industrial. But what we've kind of pinpointed here is that In reality, one of the big things that we added and we previously added it in the original ordinance was that now there will be an annual audit where city staff can determine each of the different classifications and make sure everyone's in the right bucket. We didn't have that process before where we might have needed that before. So a lot of customers have been in the same classification their entire time. even though their usage may have changed or their load factor might have changed. So the moral to what I'm trying to say is no matter what we pick, no matter what number it is that says, okay, this is the line we're drawing, there are going to be customers that have been, say, commercial for X amount of years and now they're going to be industrial or even vice versa. They've been industrial and they're now going to shift to commercial. But that's primarily because their classifications have not been reclassed historically. So that being said, I do think I just want to explain this ordinance here. So it's very similar to the ordinance that you guys previously approved, but the previous ordinance really was just touching on the small and large, because I'll admit we were hyper-focused on defining the difference between small commercial and large commercial since it was new to our code. So then once we got in there, we're like, okay, well, industrial and large commercial now are relatively similar. And so we want to make sure that that line is strong where it wants to be. So one thing that I've learned from this entire electric process is to make sure that the make sure that the formula is a part of the ordinance. So you'll notice in the code that the formula is a part of the ordinance to determine load factor. So previously, the industrial classification based it off of what was a 35% load factor. we didn't have the backing and the support of our engineers to really know that exact calculation. So that was previously determined by the electric department. So one of my main goals here from this was I told David, I said, whatever we do, I need to make sure that we can calculate this inside city hall and not be dependent on our electric staff. So that's why we have a calculation. So previously on the first section, letter E, that was where we defined how the applicant could apply for a change or the city could audit the classifications one time per year. So what we're doing in this ordinance is we're actually moving that because it was under commercial. So we felt that that really gave us the authority to adjust commercial classifications instead of all classifications. So we move that to the end. And then for the industrial, so the big difference in this proposed ordinance is it's anything over 25 kilowatts or greater of demand is large commercial, but it's also industrial. So the real defining factor in what we've kind of been trying to draw the line and see what the impact of that is, is the load factor percentage. In this ordinance, I do have anything over 20% would be industrial. I do need to revise that, though, to 35%, which arguably is what was already in the ordinance was 35% load factor, but I do believe that the way we revise this is much more explanatory and much more detailed to where it's not as big as it was before. So, I know this is like, I feel all over the map, but the moral to the story is industrial and large commercial are both based off of an even greater than 25 kilowatts of demand. So then we take it one step further and say, industrial is anything over 35% load. So load factor is how much of your total load path possible as a business, how much of that are you using? So in order to change your load faster, if you were wanting to, you would reduce your usage to reduce your load.

Or you can also upgrade your,

Transformer, that would also get you more capacity for a reduced load factor percentage.

I have been hanging out with David.

So do we need to unstrike the 35% or are you saying we need to change the 20% that's in there to 35%?

I would like to change the 20% to 35%. And then the other thing I talked about with the mayor today was at the end of that last statement where it says that the customer can request and reclassification where we can do one on an annual basis. The mayor suggested too that maybe we mentioned something related to the fact that we wouldn't necessarily issue a refund for reclassification. You're basing it off of usage and you don't necessarily know what someone's usage is going to be until they use it. So The theory behind that is there's no way we can predict if they're classified and then they are too high or too low based off their usage. So just to make that clear in case someone does request that. And then the statement in there for new customers was also discussed in case we set up a brand new account and then We're basing that just off of total voltage and what their transformer was that was first installed. It gives us an opportunity to, if their usage comes in significantly higher or lower than what was originally anticipated, we have a statement in there that we're able to change those new customer accounts with no refund after a certain window of time. So it also suggests that.

Any questions? Certification questions? I don't have a question. I do think it's better to have it defined in a way that staff or a customer can go back to and really see and test kind of where they fall in that. I think it's good that the updates are proposed to be in the ordinance. lesson learned from previous changes. Shawna, did you say there will be a statement added or you'd like to add a statement about going forward basis if a rate change was made? Yes, I think it's a window to reevaluate a new customer once you can see who it is.

I'm very excited to have the statement in there in general that the city is able to audit those on an annual basis. But I do think that making it clear that, you know, it's not an error. It's just kind of how cost of doing business. And we don't know what your usage is until you start using it for a completely new business. So I do think that a statement related to that would be.

If I'm reading this correctly, a customer could request kind of a review or reclassification, and the city has the opportunity annually if someone is falling outside of the parameters of their reclassification. Correct.

And the request can be done at any time. The city will only audit in that October time frame. Just so we're all on the same page, I personally don't think that the changes that will come as a result of this are necessarily because of the score. I think it's because of the lack of the annual audit and the fact that people have been in the same class since their origin, quite frankly, will be the reason why there are some businesses that have a shift. They may be commercial today and industrial tomorrow. So just so we're clear, but we've messed around with a lot of these numbers to make sure that it's the most minimal impact to our customers. And we're not shifting like 50 accounts from commercial to industrial, but like 10.

It will be a big month. September will be a big month for the electric billing with this reclassification and the new rates being implemented at the same time. Any other thoughts? Are you going to talk to these people before this happens or will we just blast them with it?

um yes in question well i'll consult with leslie now we can try to send some type of a notice letter simultaneous if we were to do in advance we'd have to push the changes to october so that's fine but um up to you guys so We can get the reclassifications done this week and the rates are already changed. So we can get that sent out at the same time.

And this month, the bill's due in September.

So we're on the agenda for first and second reading. Are you guys speaking to the board? polished ordinance at a future meeting, which would be at the end of September, or do you want us to give the board to give you an ordinance to pass tonight so that you can put them in effect with this billing that is to go out?

Yes, the latter option. If If unless the board objects, then we will shoot for the October building and I can get the other advice language for the refund process and working customers.

But I also feel confident in being able to make those statements in a in a in a way that's Helpful for the word.

So you're asking the board to give you an ordinance tonight to go into effect for this next bill?

Or you want us to land on the wording for the new customers specifically?

Or you could do it, yeah. That or I can send it to you as soon as it's finalized. If you guys want it all buttoned up tonight, then we can discuss the wording. Okay. So to me, the best place for this would be under Section 48-607, Reclassification of Service, at the end of that paragraph. So we need two statements, one for the refund and one for new customers to be re-evaluated. we have to point to the four months for so essentially they have to go through four months before we can really settle yeah i would i would honestly make it a little bit more than four months just because your first month could be you know they were partially not open yet or whatever the case yeah okay so i'm gonna maybe say six months

Well, if I could suggest for new customers, maybe just a simple sentence that says, new customers, I guess we need a classification. New customers for large commercial or industrial shall be reviewed after four months of service for reclassification. And then the second sentence could be, there shall be no refunds or any reclassification?

Would you want to include small? You could have a shift between the small and the large.

On the no refund?

No, on a new customer.

On reclassification for new customers.

I agree. If you put them in large, usage could drop them back to small. If you put them in small, it might not just be between large and industry.

I think they could be 3-5 if they go over the 25.

Right. After a four-month lookup, it wouldn't only apply to large commercial and industrial. It could have an impact.

Yeah, they could start as small commercial, and then five months later, their data shows that they're actually a large commercial customer.

I think it's good to list the three. They would have three funds. Yeah, no refunds across the board. They would owe more.

Yeah, they wouldn't want that. He said four, but...

I would recommend six months. Just because if they're not open the first month or they've set up their utilities, but they're still setting up their business, that could cause a shift in the data.

Sounding good, Jeff. Yes, Liz.

So put six in there, Sean, if that's what you need us to say. Okay. Okay.

And then was there a change on the 20% or 35% or something?

20% to 35% under the industrial classification for load factor.

That would be 604B. 48-604B. OK. Any other changes? Any other discussion?

Thank you.

If not, may I have a motion to accept the second reading of bill number 2026-31, amending the city code regarding the electric plastic service as amended as an ordinance. Did I do good?

So good. I think we can say so good for that. You said it all. All right.

So who made the motion?

Me.

You.

Okay. Got it. Do I have a second?

That's great. All right.

I'll remember Ren. Yes. Olson.

Yes.

Blackie. Yes. Bench. Yes. Palmer. Yes. Star.

Yes.

Motion carried. Given given ordinance number 3195. Thank you.

Proposal resolutions under 2026 dash 26 authorizing the destruction and disposition of records that have met the required retention period while in accordance with chapter or nine revised statute to some very terrible state attention to speak.

She even first does not go to me.

That's fair.

Well, something you've got to create my emotion.

This resolution number 2026 is This position of records. Second.

Any discussion?

We do this every year.

As needed.

You'll see more of this down the pike.

Any further discussion? All in favor? 6-0. Proposed resolution number 2026-27 authorizing the mayor to execute an agreement with UKG ready for human resources, payroll timekeeping, scheduling, approval to leave and related services, authorizing the mayor to execute the agreement and related documents and authorizing the expenditure of budgeted funds. I have a motion to accept the resolution.

I'll make a motion to accept resolution number 2026-27 for an agreement with the KG Reg.

Thank you, Alderman Finch. Do I have a second? Second. Alderman Poston, discussion. Karen, you want to tell us about it?

Well, Kathy, Shauna, and I have met with a couple companies for the electronic timekeeping because currently staff and the directors, they give me paper copies and I enter everyone's time. Through UKG, everything will be electronic timekeeping. There'll be a geofencing where people can log in and time in at a certain spot around whatever building that they're located and they can clock in. It makes it more efficient as far as timekeeping. Directors have more control over our Instead of all the paper copies that I received, they can actually go in there and prove times. They can schedule their, especially with the police department, they can schedule their officers, parks department as well, all of her umpires, her full staff. There'll be a calendar where they can all schedule their employees. With this though, it also has an HR mechanism with it. So Instead of being separate, I can combine it all together. So my onboarding and my onboarding, instead of me putting together PDFs and fillable PDFs for new employees, it's all right there in the software. And we're just building it out.

I think your tax information, all of that will be a one-stop shop for employees.

So all of the monthly AP, you know, our loggers, our... the investments that we have, insurance, everything is all together, all combined in the software. So it'll make my life a little bit, I have to build it out, but that's okay, I guess.

It's also going to make it easier for the employees to view, to access their pay and benefit information as well, since it's a digital format. They'll be able to log in and pull up prior pay periods or their W-2 from last year, those types of documents.

In real time, they can download the app on their phone or they can go right to their computer and they can look up all of that stuff. Any of their training, all of that will be uploaded. So I'd like to take the employee file, whatever is in there and what that I can legally and upload those documents. So the employee always has them at their fingertips. Yeah.

So we We had budgeted $10,000 for this project for this year just to do the timekeeping payroll piece of it. When we got into talking to different companies and really seeing what this UKG had to offer for another four grand, we can add that entire HR component to the package. Right now we're using... a plethora of different non-effective time-consuming HR methods. This will help consolidate that. We'll be able to get rid of the HR component of our Tyler DenCode system, which is about six grand a year. So yes, it's a little more than we have budgeted, but the ongoing cost, I think, was going to definitely make up for it in time savings across the door costs.

And I am familiar with the software. I've worked with that in Blue Springs. So I know some of the kinks and.

It's a chrono. I know it's a chronos company. Yes. It's very large. Yes. I don't think if you work back in the 70s, you know, chronos is a timekeeping company. If you had the old card that you had to slip in the time clock, that's a chronos machine. They have that option. They made a few improvements. Any other discussion? All in favor? Thank you. Motion for approval to determine if the Marlowe Heights Park development dedication fee is acceptable and in compliance with the requirements of the City of Odessa code of the

So we currently have a few different preliminary plots and the way our code handles preliminary plots is pretty defined. But one large component of the plot is that you either as a developer, you either need to dedicate a certain portion of your land to be created or I guess, dedicated to the Odessa park system to create a neighborhood park in the future. Or you can pay a fee to the parks department or the parks fund to be spent on the city's neighborhood parks. So when we talk about the park development fee or the park development revenue in our budget process. This is what we're referring to. We just haven't had any one sign up new lately. So the last ones that we've had, obviously, was Pine Creek and Hunter's View. So we have a couple now coming through the pipeline right now. And in this scenario, the developer is Stephen Lisa Bailey, and they've selected or proposed to opt for the fee itself. It's only three lots for this subdivision, and they would like to pay the park development fee at the time of final plat, which will come shortly after the preliminary plat. And again, all of that money will be dedicated to the park development fund, if you will, and can only be spent on neighborhood parks. So In reality, it can be spent on any park that's not Dyer Park. But this is the process that we have to keep life in our neighborhood parks and create new neighborhood parks when necessary. I've also included the entire policy just so you can kind of see what the ordinance, how the ordinance reads when it comes to park development fees. And this has gone to the park board last week and they recommended a proof.

For your question is more good you want to accept the fear. Yes.

Correct.

What is the worst.

It might create a big thing. Parts there or did they pay a fee?

They paid the fee. And it's for single family, it's $1,400-ish per lot. And it's different if it's multifamily. So Pine Creek would have been a little bit different. I think it's $800 per unit for them.

Yeah, there's still three lots, right?

Correct. For large subdivisions, the park land makes a lot of sense. So like the park at Centennial Hills, that was a dedicated park land, dedicated park land per this program. And then for Clayton Park, the ordinance also reads that you can create like a private park space for the members of the subdivision, so that's what their pool is. It was a part of this program too. For the hill development, theirs is a dedicated parkland and it's a continuation of the trail around Lake Veneta.

Are you just looking for a solo pigeon?

So it's just a motion for approval. So it would just be the approval of what was proposed by the developer.

I will make a motion to approve the Marlowe Heights Park development fee.

Second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor? 5-0 and 1 abstention. Discussion of the proposal of wastewater adjustments for customers for irrigation used to be a question by all.

I don't feel like I did a very good job asking, introducing, whatever, the last time. I had a gentleman come up, approach me. who is a new resident. He comes from a city to the west. He was quite adamant on his opinion on his bill. Basically, what I was informed was this is the only city he has ever lived in who charges sewer on watering your yard. I told him I would see what we all thought. So I Googled, what I Googled was how do most cities handle irrigation billing by charging sewer fees on all water use unless blah, blah, blah. Anyway, that was what I got from AI. I did five cities. The first city that I, and I contacted these. I did not contact, I did not see the reason The first city that I contacted was the city that he had came from. I went through quite a large switchboard to find a person to talk to who put me through another switchboard that then put me finally to a person who informed me he couldn't answer my question. And he put me back to the switchboard that I then got basically told, well, I didn't get told anything. I just decided I wasn't going to sit there all day trying to go through the switchboard. The man that I talked to, what I asked all of them was, I Googled this. This is what I found out from Google. I'm just asking, is this correct or not? Is there anything you would like to add to it? For the city that he came from, what he was told, what he informed me was they averaged it out, which was, I believe, what I mentioned two weeks ago. That's why I mentioned it, because that's how he stated it. From Googling his city, that, according to Google, was not correct. The only way that you would not pay the sewer, according to Google, on your sewer bill was you would have to have a separate meter installed designated for irrigation. And you would have to pay a $100 annual fee and an annual backflow prevention test would be required. The gentleman that I did get to talk to told me that was not that was more for businesses, that wasn't for residential. So apparently what he was telling me maybe was pretty accurate to that. The second city that I Googled and called was Blue Springs. The way Blue Springs handles it is they take the first four months of the year and that's what they average your year out to. And that is for everyone. Whether you have an irrigation system or not, that is how your sewer rate is figured. It is just the first four months of the year. I called Higginsville. Higginsville takes November, December and January sewer usage and averages that out for the rest of the year. That is it. I call them Richmond because they are very close to us in population. One thing I found really unique about Richmond, I was astonished. They build water, sewer, and trash all combined on one bill. I found that odd. Smirk, smirk, smirk here. Anyway, there you have to put in a separate secondary dedicated irrigation meter if you don't want to place sewer on your water bill. Otherwise, it's just straight sewer and whatever water you use, the sewer is added to it. The fifth one that I Googled, I did not contact these people because I did not see any reason to, was the city of Wormsburg. Orangeburg is not provide citywide public. Water utility services or meter retail meter they don't meter your water their water is provided by the Missouri American water company which. A few years ago, I do believe was the people who wanted to buy ours. So if we were to ever W99 kept this one, because if we ever wanted to consider that, that is what you would lose. You would lose your own, you would lose your utility. You would have to then deal with a mega company. So basically what I found out was I'm going to go with, I guess, fair to say the majority of them just take a few months of the year, average it out. And that's what everybody pays regardless. There are a few that union that you have to have the secondary leader.

Hey, Charles does as well.

I didn't call anybody, but I did Google, and I found similarly, it looked like the majority of cities do that, take the winter sewer rate average and charge that the rest of the year. So I saw some that did like November to March or December to April.

So somewhere in those months, that's what I found.

Why the winter months? Because you're not watering. I know what I mean. Because you're paying sewer on one.

So it's not going to use it would be it would be like us that were we it's it's connected, so to speak.

And you're not you're not learning outside I would be interested to know, not a question you can answer tonight, but Maybe looking at a few samples with that because our our sewer system does have debt repayments and a number of things that we calculate our rates and revenue on what would that look like as far as our sewer revenues coming in if there's an impact, but also finding out are we set up where we could Offer like if someone really wanted to not be so brother one monitoring. What are we set up when we could offer an irrigation meter and, you know, they would have to Bear the cost of that. But are we set up to do that. And if we did go to a winter average would that have too much of an impact on our revenues. Right.

Well, um,

Well, ask them, of course. Can we get a meter? I mean, could you do it?

You have to set a new meter at each place.

And how much are the meters?

Well, the meters are about $110 apiece, but not just $700.

And that would be an irrigation meter, not like a connected to your hose meter. It would be. Yeah, I don't know that that statement about residential not needing backflow was accurate because that's my understanding is that any.

On that one wasn't even in the city. that I called. He was, which, yeah, made me go, he was in a city in the south of this city to the west of us. Yeah, that's what I thought.

Interesting. I do think an individual meter would be costly to the customer and I don't think the net value there would be worth it.

It wouldn't. You wouldn't be saving anything. You would actually be paying. It would take you a long time to pay it off.

And if we made it so it wasn't the $1,600, we would be losing money on every meter that's set up, which is what we're doing before.

How do we handle swimming pools? How much do we fill up before they...

So they apply. There's an application online. Our water meter data is up to hourly, if not further than that. So they give us the date that they filled their pool, how many gallons their pool can hold, dimensions of their pool, things like that. And then we can go back to our meter data and see that on that date they did use, you know, 50,000 gallons. I don't know what the number would be.

5,000 gallons? I don't know.

Yeah, we can do that. So it's easy to say, hey, yeah, they built a pool. Yeah.

So then we just charge them the water price, not the sewer price. Yep.

That has to be done by a certain date. It's quite...

It would be tough to distinguish a leak in your toilet to... maybe watering your lawn with flowers too. There's just not enough, there's not a large enough difference. Right.

If somebody left the hose on outside by mistake and, you know, even though that's going outside, I mean, you're using their water and it's not really watering your lawn. So it's hard to determine.

I'm not opposed to the discussion at all. I just wouldn't want to make a decision without understanding the impact if it were to change our...

I have to wonder if you did, if you did the average, Not everybody waters their yard. Not everybody has a garden. So I don't know if we would, if we did the average, we would really be out revenue.

We may not. I don't know. I just want to note that for most of the cities that I have worked for before have done a winter average on sewer. This would just be a drastic change. And I want to know that we can still support our debt payments and and run the needs of our sewer system.

We should be able to look at our historic usage for the winter months.

Yeah, the run and run.

Calculate what an average would be and compare that to what our revenues that we have to have.

Yep. We can run that. Ideally, I want to make sure that this billing cycle gets out on time. So I might wait till after September 1st to have utility billing run those numbers.

But it's the end of summer. I mean, as far as I'm not going to say they're not going to water or fall, but it's toward the end of summer.

Yeah, we can run 12 months and see what that looks like overall and find the months that It's the cheapest, et cetera. We can do analysis on that.

We can even do, like, postpone it until January or February.

Yeah.

And still, if you decide to do it, that would time it with the averages.

Well, we'd want to probably figure it out before, like, October, November. So, one, we could start collecting it, and two, we can make sure we budget for it.

They did November, December, and January is what they based it on. If you started in November, you can go November and March.

Like Amy said, I think the loss of revenue or because you're sick, if we would have started that way, it'd be no problem, but you'd be losing actuals.

You generally use more water than something The more laundry. So I mean, that will not be accounted for. Right. If you do winter months. It's hard to do summer months if you don't have a lot of water per yard.

Yeah. Okay. We can run some numbers.

Okay. Order and request for new items.

The next month, I like to request to the session items.

Let me say something for you. We are going to put the board meeting policy on a future agenda. It's about a year old now. If you see how we think we'd like it. The board would like to make any changes to that policy. So that's going to be coming up. If you want to have five items per alderman, that's going to be the board's alderman. Or not.

Or maybe not.

Two items I have. First one, a couple people have brought to me the speed limit on double O, the part that doesn't count. Of course, discussion. I actually think

yeah from 131 on the blow at least to the curve and uh or the school zones by the part of all that where it's 45 and no one does that yes exactly where it's 45 and everybody does 60 i will say just to add real quick chief thompson has done a lot of advocating on odessa's behalf for a reduction in speed right there so we can just plan for a presentation from him on what he's historically done and where that has got him with MoDOT.

MoDOT will not change. Why?

That's such a weird... MoDOT is very data-driven, so they will not do anything like that unless they have the data to back.

So what you're saying is there needs to be a pre-banked IRAC? That's a terrible way to stand on it. Yeah. There has to be more.

Oh, really? Okay. You can't change it at McDonald's unless there's one of it.

The information that was brought to the ward meeting, there's a new statute that was passed that takes effect August the 28th, where a municipality can change the speed limit on a road that goes through their jurisdiction.

And that would be something- It's not, it won't, we've tried a lot. And that statute doesn't have to agree to.

I believe so. So it doesn't really give us that much teeth to have a conversation. I think it'd be good to have Chief Thompson present on what he's done so far. He's been pushing for probably a solid eight years that he's been here for that. This is unusual. My second one, this was actually brought to me by two different people. I don't even really know what this would be, so forgive me for the lack of vocabulary, but essentially a weekend on-call person for when utilities are down. Like, say someone's utilities are turned off, they pay it on Friday. The person that came to me essentially said their 85-year-old mother She had no AC. So that person brought it to me twice. The other person brought it to me for a veteran or something who was in a similar situation. So the first one, we can wave that off.

We do have after hours phone numbers that connect to our utilities and they will answer the phone or Doppler will answer the phone and we have a reconnection process. 24-7.

Yeah, I'm not saying the person wasn't informed or misunderstood. They were saying they had called and somebody said, well, nobody's going to be here until Monday or something like that. It was third information, third name information. But if we already have a person in place, then it sounds like that's a discussion itself. It had to be because of the nonpayment. If anything else goes wrong. Yeah, it was a nonpayment that she said she paid on Friday, but apparently paid too late or something like that.

We have the ability to confirm online payments and turn them back on after hours. I mean, if something happened in the past, I can't pinpoint it necessarily, but we do have processes for that.

Before we get too far behind, do we want to discuss the speed limit?

I'm satisfied that she topped the top.

We'll have him give a presentation on his previous findings.

And then maybe he can include what he sees about, because it's a month from now, what he sees about this new statute.

And do you want the board to look at our shutoff process?

Let me ask you, is there a solve for it or is it just late payment? Essentially, if I pay on Saturdays, if I can call and somebody will come in and turn it off type of thing, is there a process to solve that? Because if the process is already there, we don't need to discuss it on September. We do have that. Yeah, we have a process.

There's a fee for it, an additional $50.

Yeah, there's a fee, but other than that, we can turn it off by our phone. Oh, okay. All right, I think that's simple enough.

Maybe we're getting the information out at least and putting it out on social media.

I do have a little like a kind of tack on to that. I know one thing at the town hall that she mentioned was that like because you know it was her mother who was elderly and that she wasn't notified. So I didn't know if there's a process at least to like because it was like first she was told the city didn't have her mother's phone number then it was somewhere else. So I didn't know if there's a process like if someone doesn't pay do they give some kind of like a call or something?

Yes. They do.

Well, it's only as good as the data that we have, but there is a call that goes out before the 15th and before the disconnect day. So two calls will go out.

I think she had mentioned when she checked into it, there was an issue with the phone number they had, or maybe they did not have the phone number. Yeah. I think she had mentioned. Anything else. Maybe we're at a long motion to cancel regular meeting September 14 2026 is a scheduled meeting, but that is also the email.

Motion to make a motion to cancel the regular meeting on September 14 2026.

A motion to cancel that meeting.

I have a second. I spoke up. I appreciate it.

Before we vote on, I want to applaud our Alderman for their attendance at the training session. as part of the commitment that if you run for an elective office and serve on a board, you owe the citizens that put you in that position to do the best you can and learn how to be a better all-in-all or committee member. So I want to applaud everyone for the attendance that they do serve. All in favor? So thank you. That's really going to schedule meeting will be September 28th at 6pm. I am asking for a motion to adjourn to close session first one to revise statutes of Missouri 16. Oh, 21 number 12 seal visit related documents. Yes, please. revised statutes of Missouri 610.021.1, legal action, funds of action, litigation, or confidential attorney-client communication, and pursuant to revised statutes of Missouri 610.021.12, sealed with and related documents until they are open and sealed with proposals and related documents or any documents related to a negotiated contract until a contract is executed and all proposals are rejected. I have such a motion. So moved. Is that Amy? That was Amy. I have a motion by Alderman Finch and a second by Alderman Palmer. Roll call.

Thank you. Alderman Placte? Yes. Palmer? Yes. Finch?

Yes.

Tolson?

Yes.

Wren?

Yes.

Who am I missing? Stark?