City Council - Special Meeting

All questions are valid. Thank you. Thanks, Levity. It's great. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Back on page three of the packet that Member Koza was talking about, Just as kind of a note, if we can, that cost recovery goal, 75 percent for FY26, FY27, I'd like to make sure we talk about that when we get to strategic planning next year to look at what that cost recovery goal is moving forward, because I think through different conversations we've had, we want to get that cost recovery goal back to 100, and I think that's where you're headed anyway. I just want to make sure we have that as a target to dis

certainly not putting forth a direction other than just say, I want to make sure we talk about that when we get to strategic planning. Um, also just you guys have kind of answered this offline, but just for, uh, public record in our memo it talked about under our IT strategic plan that there were 49 initiatives. Eleven of those have been completed, which is great. Seven of those were moved to day-to-day operational budget functions. One was removed altogether, which leaves about 30 initiatives from the original IT strategic plan that weren't listed in the memo. As I understand it, there's anot

Okay. Other than that, I just want to say thank you guys for your work on this budget and for coming in below no new revenue. That's always great. I know you all put a lot of effort in this year at revamping the way you approach the budget, looking at your departments, making cuts where you need it. And so I know the taxpayers appreciate it, and I appreciate it as well. So thank you guys. Mr. Fernandez.

Thank you, Mayor. I believe it's slide 20 out of 27. Trent, can you maybe give a little bit more, how do you, 20 out of 27, the fire department's proposed new fees? Okay. Just a little bit more context on how are these fees gathered? I see that it says similar to the existing emergency medical services cost recovery fees, but how do we gather that? Do we compare it to other cities, or how do we get to these numbers?

Okay. I also want to echo Councilman Byram's comments. Great job to the staff, everyone that put in to make this possible. We came together in February or at the end of January at our retreat to give a request for a no new revenue rate, and y'all exceeded that. So I just want to say thank you to all those that made that possible. Thank you.

Council Member Echols? Yes, I too would like to say thank you much to the staff for your hard work on this budget. When we asked for no new revenue, I knew that was going to be a challenge. And then when the state went from $2,500 to $225 on Abdullon deduction, that put a big strain as well. So it's much appreciated. Two questions. One question would be on the fees for the fire. what percentage of these fees do we feel like will be attainable on receiving through insurances and other needs whereby we usually write off the unpaid balance of insurance? So of the practicality of these fees, what

That's reasonable. And the second question is on animal services being a pet owner. And some of these services that we have here is far, far less than services provided by any local veterinarian clinic. Is there any way we could look at these fees and not saying be exactly that of the private veterinarian, but we're staffing a veterinarian, we're paying their salary, paying the medication. Is there a way that we could look at a more structured fee that would correlate with the commercial entities that are the veterinarians in the area?

Mr. Patel? Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to take the road that's not popular, but I had asked you to provide the gross employee salaries or payment, and what I would like to do is on the budget to include that full, I guess for the past 12 months, and include that. You can take names out, but keep the positions. I think it's important for transparency that we share with our constituents what salaries we're paying when we're talking about 70% of their taxes going towards payments. Also, I would like to have this council consider including all vendor payments included in our budget for the past 12

We have 700 employees and we have over 200 softwares we're supporting.

So I guess the exercise would be, Dan, and maybe this is the next year's budget, what are we really, what areas can we really cut back, right? Especially on the ones that are costing us. Is there an opportunity there to consolidate some of this? Or if the group is really small that's using it, is there a way we can get them off if there's cost associated with it? And I guess how much time are you guys spending on maintaining it, right? If my understanding is correctly, you have 14 people in your department?

Sorry. Okay. 25 people. So I mean, I think it's kind of, it's worth looking at, right, the IT software, supporting that many software among people and what the usage is. So just a suggestion, but I think it's worth looking at. And maybe we can send that money somewhere else, if that's possible at all. Justin. Trent, how many, I guess, open positions do we still have that we don't fill on an average that we have funded?

And I guess what's the dollar amount attached to it, and what's the average if it's six months, 12 months that we're rolling these positions? Because if there are open positions that are not being filled, either we need to eliminate those positions, maybe we can take that fund and percentage-wise increase it for somebody else who's already doing that work, but maybe we don't need that position.

Well, I mean, again, if it's long enough, is it really needed? And again, if you don't know how long those positions have been open, I don't know the answers. I'm just asking. Sure.

And again, I guess the question that goes back to that position being open or exposed or unfilled for however many minutes, two months or six months, I guess the salary on that position would go to your fund balance, correct? If it's unutilized? That's correct. Okay. So I guess what's that balance for last fiscal year that we have these positions? Are the departments able to use that money for some other line item?

last year or year before I had mentioned considering doing EVs for certain departments, right? We have this new maintenance, I guess, building we build out there. And again, I know in Houston they do use a lot of hybrid vehicles for inspections and code enforcements. And I know we end up always buying trucks, it seems like, for most of our, so if there's an opportunity, I think it would be worth it. Again, I know there will be some costs incurred for charging stations and stuff to put those in there, but since we have a new facility, I hope that we have the power. Again, it's a long-term plan,

And I guess that's a fair point. We can ask. I mean, I think it's $10,000 per charger to put it in, overnight chargers. So I guess that's my take on this. I think it's worth looking at it. But the other thing I'll tell you, Kerry, I know a couple of council members mentioned cost recovery. The goal is $100,000. But I guess you're not including CapEx on that. That's just breaking even to operate that buildings down there in Natatorium and the

Yeah, and I think I want council to kind of understand that. You know, Kerry mentioned HVAC is, I guess, you just had it repaired. Right? Yes. But that cost is going to probably come due, and Member Byrum, you can probably tell us better, but I feel like HVAC, every seven to 10 years, you got to rip them out and start it over. And I think we should make it a point with all departments to say, you need to budget just like we do with the motor pool funds and stuff like that. Same thing with the natatorium to say, hey, you guys need to put the CapEx consideration into your budget. and start budge

So, we were able to use that. But otherwise, that would have been a hit on our P&L, right? And so, and I think, you know, one of the big costs when I look at this, it's kind of, one thing I would ask you, Trent, again, I know we got the meet and confer for the police and we're gonna do with the fire. What is that five year, I guess what I would ask you to do and what this council should understand is what a stress test looks like, right? What does it look like if, let's say, we do have another recession and the values plummet and we have all these agreements out there and the percentage are gu

Well, and I guess for me, what I would also ask, in most businesses, and I know we're not in a business here, but if we don't consider it, there should be a cap on everybody's salary. There should be. At a certain point, you've got to put a cap on the salary. And I think it's important, if you're going to look at this long term, that we're very clear on you can't have certain people and this is why i want that uh... the pay that we have paid we i think our city does well i think we pay fair uh... and i think it's important for constituents to be able to see what we have paid uh... and the reas

Yeah, I think, look, again, my point is we talk about transparency all the time. And, you know, I think even I was shocked when I saw last year or the year before when you first gave me the – the payment for what we have paid our team, which is fine, but I think it's important to understand that what people do make with the city. I think it's important. I think it's important for our constituents to be able to see, hey, people are getting paid pretty well. And again, there's nothing to hide in the city, show it. Right? Share.