City - Regular Meeting

Good morning. Study session. Mayor and city council meeting 11:00 a.m. Tuesday, May 12th, 2026. City Hall council chambers. Call this meeting to order. Please rise for the pledge of allegiance. Mr. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, sir.

Yes. Go to item three, fiscal year 2026 2027 budget. A budget workshop regarding the presentation discussion of the 2026 2027 preliminary budget where we will continue. Mr. Pocket. Yes. Go ahead. Yes, we'll continue with uh actually with parks and wreck. That way we can uh go through the cemetery and the parks uh budget first before we go back to other words. Come on up, David.

That'll be in page 34. Beautiful. Okay. One of the biggest uh changes is just a decrease in the other contractual services. Uh I think we added uh more budget just this fiscal year for was for the tree cutting, right? the trimming and the tree cutting and uh and that's the the rest it's normally about the same amount that we normally tend to budget. So if you have any questions with regarding this budget uh feel free to ask go ahead please

Mr. On the handout that we just got here, it says other capital equipment cemetery payment carryover. Is is this uh for the next fiscal year or is this can we possibly complete this project within this budget year? I don't think we'll be able to uh I don't think we'll be able to complete it being that public works is paving a few streets this year. So time is of the essence. So I think it's better to carry over and then schedule it with public works to make it easier for his crew to do whatever it is that we need to do. And and is this enough uh is this enough funds to cover

it was just a carryover that we had u we had a roughly about $21,000. So there were $7,400 left over. So that's just being part of a certain section in the front entrance of uh the cemetery going towards the veterans as well. Okay. And my next question is on the columbarium those 55,000 is this for a new colarian or is this for

No, those are for the niches. These are for the niches for the for the columbarium itself cuz basically there's no more room in our cemetery. So we need niches. So everybody's doing the cremations and they're going fast. And where do the funds that uh that the public pays to buy these natures, where does that money go? To the general fund. To the general fund. Yes. We don't see anything. Okay. So that that you can pass it, but no, everything goes to the general fund. Anything any income that comes in through parks and rec cemetery goes to the general fund. And and this this doesn't cover that those expenses

for the Yeah, because you you mentioned it was a the amount that we collect normally more than what we it's Yes. What we collect it's about $1,300 per niche. So roughly you get about 9 thou $90,000 in revenue. So deducting the $55,000 you're obviously the city is making over 30ome,000 in in wins. It's it's Just like the golf course. It's just All right. Well, that sounds good. Thank you. Yeah. Is there a record of what what funds uh amounts uh are being collected from uh

there's a line item for um for I know the revenues for general fun. Yeah. General fund revenues. I know they have I don't know if they have it on their parts. I have to look at the code that they normally because I know they have recreation they go cemetery it's on 778 page cemetery

page five of cemetery fees is where the revenues are are reported for cemetery it's on 4430 is a line page five yeah it's the fourth number Mayor, we tend to forget that this is a service we're providing for the community that we need to expand on. This is not just a like, you know, throwing money at something that it's not going to bring a big benefit. Besides, it's a small, it's really a small compared to the benefit we get. And like Mr. Pesa said there's still a return of a profit at the end of the year. So, you know, it's not like a big issue. It's something that should be done.

Yeah. Go ahead, Miss How many niches do we still have? We have probably about 20ome niches right now only. Yeah. We ordered at the first we ordered two then we ordered one about a year and a half ago and that's almost completely done. Wow. So that's the only alternative people have these days unless you have a plot. So you're requesting that we wait for this for next year? Yeah. It's only going to be a month. We're we're pretty good for about a month and a half. But then having ordered this that will give us the flexibility and the lux luxury the the liberty to

have those niches installed so that for future references we can we don't have to worry about buying some more in the near future. Hopefully with this one we'll be okay. think what what happened to the Dodge property that was supposedly was going to be offered or was the Dodge property. Yeah. Or the Masonics. Is it the one on the That's a Masonics. They're still in talks with the Masonics. I don't know who that person is. But eventually they wanted to donate that, but nothing has come up yet cuz that's a big area.

Well, it's a big area and there's only one person and then it's Mr. Masonic or Mrs. Masonic and there's nobody around with their families or the Masonic. So, it's better off that somebody gets a hold of somebody to see what they want to do with that land. I thought there was only one person around. There's only one person. That's it. In the bottom. Had he communicated to to the I have not, but I can I can sure try because we would either get it donated or even purchase it. I think it's something that That would be nice. That's a big area. Go ahead. Uh, David, do does the city maintain that property? No.

No. Okay. They have a their individual that does that. They have the top portion as well. So, when he's cleaning up, he'll come and get his little riding lawnmower and mow it. Okay. But they did give us the little land just to put our our storage shed in there about three years ago for the maintenance people. Thank you. Anything else? Uh

good morning, David. Thank you for being here. I wanted to ask you uh two questions I have. Um, first of all, I I really appreciate I think the community does too that that the trees were being the tree the trees were trimmed trying to recover from a cold. So, the trees that belong to the city in Noales were trimmed and some of them were discarded, which is great. I think the community really appreciates that. And also, um, will the city can the city do anything about people planting trees? We, um, because we have to pay for it, right? are asking every plot owner not to plant a tree. Is there something in writing though that that that

it's uh in the cemetery manual that I believe that when Mr. Kramer was here, he redid that and it's out there. So, he gave us a responsibility that uh we can relay the message to the plot owners that please do not plant any trees unless you have our permission. So, okay. Uh we're just keeping track of it because not only do we have to maintain in the near future but the watering the water we're just they're spending a lot of money on water you know and constantly we see a hose on every morning so you have but we are trying to educate these people as they come in just not to plant a tree.

Yeah. So I have permission from the owners to mention their name but um Dr. figure out and his wife spent thousands of dollars as you know to to knock down one of the the trees that belonged to the city because they were going back and forth who had who had um you know ownership of that tree because it was almost in between you know where I'm talking so you know I I don't blame Dr. G. He just said you know what I'm going to deal with the city I'll pay for it. So he did and it costs a lot of money to, you know, to tear that tree down. But there are people that, you know, can't go about it and pay for it on their own. So, um, that's good that that that something was put in writing, um, not allowing trees to be planted in private property.

Yeah. And usually what we've asked is that if it's in a private property, we don't get involved because it is a private property, but if it's something that it will, it's a danger to the citizens or anybody in the cemetery. um we will trim whatever we can but not to disrupt their plot because we don't we don't want to be responsible for any broken headstones or or any of that nature. But we we'll try we try to maintain as much as we can but we always tell the uh the plot owners that we cannot get in there unless we get approval from the family and then we ask for permission to to get in and do so. Okay. Well, thank you

David. Do we have just one water meter at at the center? Just one water meter. And you said there was a problem. Some people would leave the the whole water going constantly. Isn't there a way like to do a schedule of watering hours like from 7 to 8 and then

there used to be a a there used to be a timer a few years back. So we had a lot of complaints that people would get out of work off of work and try to go water their plants or trees or what have you. had a lot of complaints. So, water department went out and just removed that that timer. It can be brought up again, but it's just a matter of setting the time later on at in the evening.

I mean, they can scatter the the the schedule, right? Like an hour from 8 7 to 8 and from 11 to 12 and then from 2 to 3. So people would have, you know, make plans to go at a certain time of the day to to do the watering because I I have seen people go there and they open the they just throw the hose in there and they go to work and that's what we find the next day and I've seen the the the plots flooding there. Correct. We've had a few floods in the past where it's started digging out and event you know it gets close to the caskets or Okay. the cremations of the box. Yeah. So it's It's sad.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions on Mr. Bessa? You know, we're reducing the contractual, you know, the 103. Do you feel that we need to stay with any of that uh or maintenance? You know, it's always better to have maintenance than come and tear you know, full branches all at once. Yeah. I think the the biggest part was the trimming of all the trees

this time around. You know, maybe that can come up in the near future if we do need other contractual services, but at this at this point in time, I believe that the arborist have done a great job and it's up to us to maintain what is there just to save the city a little bit of money and and move it somewhere else. But I think they've done a great job and we can handle it from here. Also on equipment, we're reducing 12 12,000. Are we good with equipment?

Yes. Yes. This is something that this cemetery never had. What I did is started ordering equipment for them to trim trees, weeds, whatever. So, they're pretty much equipped for a while. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions on cemetery? Move on to parks.

Okay, for the parks and wreck, uh there was a decrease uh in special events and other contractual services uh which is a bigger amount obviously and the forms that you have in front of you are for the capital that they requested. You had some carryover, right? From We did have some carryover. So

I have a question. We have so many requests on park and wreck and we don't have a permanent director. What's going to happen with that? Because I see that Oropeesa is taking over as as interim. If he's a qualified person, why don't we offer him the job? Well, ordinarily we don't make those changes quickly.

Usually designate an interim director immediately so there's leadership in the department and then take some time to determine whether or not we wish to advertise on the outside or not or even advertise internally or not. And uh since David was just designated the week before last, we really haven't had time to have that discussion yet, but we will. And uh that certainly doesn't eliminate him from contention if he wants the job. Um I haven't asked him if he wants the job yet because it's a little premature. Um but we do necessarily have to go through some process uh rather than just boom, just say, "Okay, next guy, you got the job." Mhm.

So, so anyway, um yeah, it probably will happen relatively soon, maybe before I leave, but we'll see. Okay. Go ahead, Vice Mayor. Mr. Pin, uh on your comment there, uh most uh directors have an assistant director, right? Uh just in case that the director's not present, you know, the assistant takes over. Isn't wouldn't this be the process, you know, like like a promotion from an assistant?

If not, if if not by name, at least by point of fact. Okay. I think at least I have and maybe you have considered Mr. Opa the assistant director right along. Uh even though he doesn't have that title per se. So, uh some departments I in fact I don't know. Do you have an assistant? Um, you don't have an assistant director. Well, we have a deputy police chief, deputy fire chief. Yeah, I think it's more um police and fire. It's more public safety than anything else, but usually the second in charge happens. Well, it happens with the city manager. They have a deputy city manager.

Yeah. Well, where is he? Well, we used to have one. I I've been asking you many times and you said you're going to rather wait till the next city manager gets here for well particularly for an administrative assistant. I think that's a selection the next city manager ought to make.

Yes. Um, as far as the uh uh deputy city manager, um uh we haven't really had that discussion because I I was uh appointed to serve for three months and I don't feel that those kind of positions are positions that a temporary person ought to be making because I don't have to deal with them for the long term and I would rather have that. So, as long as the position exists and is authorized to fill then your next um city manager will necessarily make those appointments.

Well, I'm not saying that uh that we do need a deputy city manager. I'm just saying the the the process is is there, you know, for any any other community when you have a city manager and a deputy city manager or a parks and rec director and assistant park director. It usually works that way, you know, and and a lot of the employees, they they strive to get to that point so they can be assistant and then one day maybe be the be the director. So that that kind of uh how should I say it, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Well, the qual well, you know, as as when you're the assistant, you you start working on your qualifications like you're trying to get your degree or whatever whatever you want to get there.

So, are are you making recommendation for this department? No, no, no, no. I'm saying, you know, you know, it's just that when you said, you know, that uh you haven't thought about somebody that Mr. Odopeza has been there for I don't know maybe 30ome years you know he's got all the experience I mean I know that people around here have looked to him in that respect uh just by virtue of his competence and his time served. Um so you know uh creating a position would be something that would take a council action. I'm pretty sure

u but uh in the past I you know um I I don't have enough history here to tell you u whether that's something we would need to do in this particular case or not. Uh but for purposes of this budget okay this is what we have. Okay. Yeah. Right. That's that's a discussion for another day. Go ahead. Yes. Uh David, the $16,000 for the library floor repair that could be uh gazebo.

Um what can you tell me a little bit about that? What we talked about is either replacing the tile in the gazebo or removing removing the uh the tile and make it into a rough surfaces as painting it with paint with sandbased colored depending on what color. It'll make it a lot easier, safer for everybody and it going to last a longer. And that would cost 16,000. Um we What's the 16,000 for? The 16,000 we got from a source, a supplier that will do the job, but we thought it was a little bit too high for that.

So, we can probably go in and do that either ourselves or hire somebody and then just paint it with acrylic with sandbased paint for non-slip. I think that's I don't know about my opinion and that's if it was my own money, I wouldn't pay $16,000 to paint floor outside my porch. So, I'm not I don't know about the rest, but and we had that discussion with David when we we met with him a couple of weeks ago, and I think universally we all feel like the solution that he's coming up with with the sandbased paint is probably a not not only safer, but more durable.

My next question, uh David, now that we're on the same topic of uh these project requests, is the 15,000 Meadow Hills swing set. Is that an addition or improvement? That's an improvement. That's an addition to the facility to what it it has now. Yes. And then also the pickle ball. I play pickle ball as you all know. So this is a resurfacing of the pickle ball courts. Uh which ones? The ones back here. All three. All six of them. Once the construction was done, I don't know. It was financially that didn't finish the job. Oh. So it's the surrounding work just basically concrete and it's very slippery. Okay. Good. That's good. Um, also, how about lighting? I don't see it.

Um, we did not anticipate any lighting, but we do have lighting structure for the recreation center at this point in time. So, unfortunately, our electrician fell and he's been injured for about two and a half months. Um, and he's going to be out for quite a bit. How about um budgeting, lighting, because there's a lot of us that play. Absolutely.

And there's no lighting. And is there any way we can budget lighting for these pickle balls? Because there's a lot of people that play pickle ball now. So, I think that um we can, you know, a lot of people have been requesting for lights to be put on the pickle ball. I think you too, right, mayor, have been asking for that for some time now. So, we need to address that because there's been people that have been asking for that. We're going to resurface the courts. You know, especially us oldie people like to play at night and we need lights there. David, do we have any estimated cost in terms of

if if we buy our own poles and we piggy back off the electrical at the current building behind the restrooms. I think it'll be a lot cheaper and easier for us to do that inhouse. And uh we just talk to our electricians or uh public works director and see what we can do in order to put a couple of poles and just throw the electrical and I think we can sum that up and that's not horrible expensive. No, especially if we do it in house. Yes. Yeah. Works people.

Um if um if you if you if you were going to hazard a guess, how much do you think it would? I would say about maybe 20,000 just for this one here if we find the polls if we have the polls behind public works. I think we do have some poles laying down. He says that you do. We can go ahead and go ahead and do so. I do believe we had some electrical poles out there just the way we did with the poles at the golf range. We did that in house. Okay. And you you and I discussed this when we were working on getting these together. Yes, sir. Um, there is a right way to light athletic fields and there's a wrong way to light athletic athletic fields. And I think you understand what I'm saying about being dark sky friendly.

Correct. Uh, there there are light fixtures that are made for athletic fields that can also be dark sky friendly. Correct. And uh I know that's true. Ngalas is not necessarily a dark sky community, but I know many of your people would like to be. And I think that it starts with the city because the city is the biggest polluter. So, and it doesn't cost anymore to be night sky friendly. Correct. Uh why don't can we put another 20,000 for the pickle ball? Yeah. I I have a concern also with lighting the the soccer field, David, on the top. Mhm.

That lighting is horrible. I mean, that those lights, they don't they don't they're not any good. If you want to use that park at night, you can't use it. Talking about the top park on Ron Turley. Uhhuh. That top soccer field. The the lighting is horrible. You can't I mean I've had people tell me that they caught the ball the soccer ball with their face because it's so dark you can't see the ball moving. I thought that's what you did with soccer balls. Wow. I don't think I don't think you want to catch it with your face. Oh, okay. It's It's real. It's real. those those are solar powered and and they're very dim

you know one thing I might suggest um and because um dealing with lighting okay so one field prompts another field which probably prompts another field and another field and another field um probably what you might want to do in the over the next year is have somebody who understands lighting Okay, not necessarily an electrician,

okay? But there are people out there, especially on athletic fields, uh, that you can bring in and consult on the correct way to light them. And so, um, I mean, as soon as you light that one field, everybody else is going to want one. Okay? So what I would suggest is that in the next year you guys make an effort uh to bring in a consultant that will give you recommendations for each field because you'll you'll not only uh get the right kind of lighting uh at the same time hopefully you will also be um lighting smart. Correct.

Okay. uh because uh people do tend to overlight things uh because there's a common held misconception that more light is safer. More light is not safer. The right amount of light is safer. And and you know uh for years uh the electric companies uh used to put street lights everywhere. Okay? Every 500 feet there was a street light. You'd find out in later studies that it wasn't necessary at all. And so you start cutting, you can cut down half your lights and still be just as safe. So I think that one might be something you might want to undertake as the as the next year goes on. Uh because you want to be able to use your fields,

right? And comfortably, safely. And so that would be my recommendation. But for the time being, let's get that one done. Yeah, we deal we deal with mus. I know. Okay. They they've got Yeah, but they may or may not be the right people because they sell lights. I'm talking about people who know lights, not people who sell lights. Musco will sell you as much light as you're willing to pay for. Yeah, but there's grunts for all that. It's still got to be right. Okay. Even if it's even if it's free, it's got to be right. Yeah. I have another question. Go ahead. here in special events you cut down $50,000

but I think every time we are having more and more events and then what's going to happen okay that was a result of our discussion and along with that discussion what we all want to know is um because of the celebrations for America's 250th celebration um I don't have a concept after Independence say whether or not the 250 celebration will continue into the next fiscal year or not. No. Okay. So, you're you're done after Independence Day basically. Okay. I wasn't clear on that because well, I was unemployed when it started.

So, okay. So, we don't have to worry about that. Um but I mean that was just the conversation between parks and recreation. Um and and of course Jessica was still in that conversation. She was still here. uh and finance in my office. This is what we thought that would unless there's something we don't know about. Yeah, she increased it because uh she thought it was going to be a little bit more costier. She just want to be more comfortable, make sure that every event that that the city conducted it was budgeted for. Based on the historic uh use of uh special events, the most uh the city has spent is 87,000.

So we haven't even reached the 100,000. So that's that's one of the reasons why we decided to decrease the the the budget down to 100. Just to uh give you a heads up, this year so far we have about 40,600. Uh the previous years was when it was 87,000. Before that was 75 and then 66. So um so that's around the norm that we've been uh using for that line item.

Yeah. Well, the looks like we're going on an uptrend cuz the year before it was uh what was it? It was 75 and then it went up 12,000. So, you think uh this year might go another 12,000? Uh to be honest, I I I I don't think so. Uh unless we have a two bigger events these two months where again we are at 40,600. uh we would have to you know at least to go up to 80,000 we have to spend almost $40,000 more within the next Most of these uh fireworks are purchased from China it's for the next fiscal year I mean from another country right they're not uh Americanmade yes they're Chinese

Chinese so end of story you can't get them anywhere else so so I'm talking about the terrorists you know maybe the cost will go up Y for this year they are but but we're scheduling for next year. So so next year

yeah part of the part of the the cost gets paid at the end of the fiscal year and then the rest gets paid with the next fiscal year's budget. So that is the reason that uh you know we we still don't even reach the $100,000 in expenditures. So, out of this $150,000 that that they budgeted, we've spent 40. Um, if I'm not mistaken, it's another what, $10,000 for for maybe fireworks. I don't know. Um, the remaining balance is about 8,000 9,000 approximately. So, okay. So, we should be covered for next year.

And if we're not, we could move move it again, right? Yeah. for the mayor's budget. Yeah. No, we we we we can do again budgeted transfers between the the department and the last of an emergency then we would request it from the re with the reserve, but they they do have enough right now. We have about $90,000 left to use up to the end of June. Thank you. Mhm. Pretty much. Yes. Yeah, I mean they they um I'm not showing a bigger encumbrance in that department, but they'll be coming in shortly.

Yeah. Yeah. Encumbrance is 28,000 right now. So they still have about 80 80,000 left for two months. Now on on the back on building improvements, parks improvements, we did some hefty cutting there. Where Mr. What? I can't hear you in the back. Capital expenses. Oh, you're on capital. Yeah. Oh, capital. You know, I know you're you're you're doing uh the addition to the to the recreation, right? Mhm. That's correct. Yeah, that's carried forward.

So, that's carried forward. Is that within the 640? Yes. the 500,000. Correct.

I know. Messa, we were looking at down at the concession up at Little League uh the flooring that considered in in the budget that's inside the other contractual services and so forth. We can get it all all of that. So, we don't really they've done quite a bit of it already. So that's not going to be that expensive. So that that's already part of this fiscal year. Yeah. I have a question. Yeah. But we haven't we haven't been able to finish it. You didn't uh you you'll be able to finish or are you carrying over the the rest?

We're just going to finish it off carrying it over because of little league play which ends in August July. So there's there is no way we can finish off during the month of April, June. You say you put that in other contractual service? Well, it is um I believe Jessica had placed it under repair and maintenance of equipment or buildings. Uhhuh. And that's where she put $10,000. All right. Okay. So So you're covered with that one. That's in the budget. I have a question. Yes, ma'am.

Um, what about the the scoreboard at the Little League Park? Because it's really sad that I had to see a grandparent buy a temporary um little uh you had to buy the little sign for us to see what was going on in the game. So, what's going on with you? What What sign are you talking about? The the um Let me give he Let me give him what's going on cuz he's not there at the gates. He's not at the game. We haven't we haven't turned on the scoreboard all year. Mhm. The reason is we haven't turned on the scoreboard is because we we don't have access to the top floor of the concession staff cuz the floor is weak. Correct.

No, they they No. No. Let me let me correct this. Okay. The scoreboard is cordless. I know. You can turn on the key in the back. You turn on the scoreboard and it flicks on your scoreboard. It's simple as that. There's no electrical already. It's been like that for four years. Yes. Correct. So, but if if if we don't get the word saying if you guys aren't using the if we don't get any notifications saying what happened to the scoreboard. So, we're figuring the scoreboard is on. Okay. But the scoreboard at Memorial Little League, Flesher one, Flesher 2 are all the same.

They don't need any power. The power is already connected. is just turning on your your component and it turns on your scoreboard. Well, we did I guess the grand we none of us knew that as a coaches. So, one of the grandparents bought a little temporary scoreboard. No, no, no. So, it sounds like a field trip is in order. We need volunteers to turn it on and put it. Yeah. You don't you don't need the press block up. You can just sit down on the score on the bench and just turn it on. Well, David, why don't you You got to plug You got to plug the box. Yeah, there's electrical behind.

You got to plug the box, but we need volunteers to help us put a table outside and all that. You know, it's uh and I told Miss Bas about it, you know. You know, I'm doing I've been doing the scoreboard and that's a whole different item. You know, not not here, but it it's you know, it's David, why don't you and the mayor work that out? Yep. It's easier. I have another question. Go ahead. The are we ever going to have uh at least temporarily restrooms at the park here at the Western?

There's so many complaints. going back to camp little. Um, if you can recall back in the Adino administration, you brought it up. Yep. And it was just got to the point where it was going to get too expensive. There's going to be more utilities, more janitorial supplies. Not only that, but the danger of the kids crossing the street to utilize the facility because in that facility itself, there's no room for restrooms unless we minimize the parking. M or we minimize a part of the park. They considered right there in front of the corner going up McNab. Is it if I'm not mistaken? What's the in front that McNab?

It's right in that corner. That was the only part of the that's the city property. And I think that's where it had a manhole and so forth. But what I can recall and remember is that Mayor Aino at the point in time was it's too expensive. vandalism, janitorial supplies. Um, and that's where we're at on that. But it was just the danger of kids crossing the street to utilize the facility. But I don't see a park without restrooms. the ones the temporary ones. Is it too much just having say two of them there and having you guys clean them up every

We can try to look into a portable restroom uh where it's unisex. Just have one instead of having two sides because these days it's all unisex. It's Yep. But we can sure look into it and see what the price is for that because if we do that then I know um the Monte Carlo Park and uh Meadow Hills Park those are without restrooms. So it'll be a domino effect. Well, well we if we have to do it, we do it. Uhhuh.

Well, and neighborhood parks typically don't have restrooms. So I don't know what you consider this one. And I thought it was a neighborhood park. It's a neighborhood park. All of them are neighborhood parks. And typically that's the way it it I mean that's the norm. Uhhuh.

Um so and um and and we had this discussion in our other budget session a couple weeks ago. Um if you do build restrooms in your parks, they need to be bulletproof. Okay. Probably one of the most annoying and expensive things about restrooms and parks is vandalism. Okay. Um, and uh, and I can say without equivocation, every place I've ever worked, uh, one of the most annoying things we have to deal with is people going into parks, breaking the lock off the door in the middle of the night and taking a baseball bat, porcelain fixtures, and then for the next week, the parks crew is in there replacing everything that got broke. And uh and I know there's, you know, there there are more durable fixtures. They're made out of stainless steel or they're made out of aluminum. Uh I understand there's maybe some resistance to that. Uh I I think if we're going to do something like that, we got to I guess we can we can sit on an aluminum toilet seat if we really got to go. And so, uh, you know, the National Park Service has probably the best example of portable toilets in a lot of your national park facilities. You can you can clean them with a fire hose

and if they don't vandalize them, some of the messes they leave behind, I don't want my employees touching that stuff because people do leave huge messes. So, we have to be realistic about how we do if we do restrooms, how we do them. Yeah. Go ahead, Vice Mayor. Mr. Lopez, on one of your requests here, uh you requesting 140,000 for for outdoor recreation restrooms. Which restrooms are those?

Those restrooms are for the uh the the swimming pool at the rec center. They looked into this a couple years ago and trying to get some restrooms out there because there's a lot of kids or users come into the rec center. and they're all wet and they're slippery floors and we have dance classes and we have basketball classes and people coming in and we constantly see kids and families just slipping all over the place. Okay. So So you're asking for for outdoor recreation restaurants, right? Not Yes, correct. Not the ones inside the No, it's in it's in the pool area for pool users only. Okay.

All right. Thank you. Anybody else have questions? Any questions? Go ahead, Miss David. Um, I have a question. On the soccer fields at Fletcher, Turley, whatever you want to call it, you know, the parking lot between Fletcher and Charlie, it is, you know, the condition of it, you live there. Um, can that be resurfaced? Absolutely, 100%. Have you added that to the budget? We have not add it. I mentioned it to Jessica way back, but it's something that I guess she didn't put down. Um, but we can get a ballpark figure with public works and see if we can do that in house and then get a price on that.

Yeah, correct. Yeah. Go ahead, Solo. Yes, sir. just waiting to see if somebody would cover the that park and and that's was there by Monte Carlo at the end after challenger school. It's a it's an IGA with a school that the city had. That is correct. And uh what's the condition of that or I know there was no lighting there u and they do use it quite a bit the people in in the residential area mostly to go walking and correct the kids you know to to have a good time there in the on the field. Mhm. But uh what's the situation in that

on that facility in the past years? I know that Unisource was going to go and try to install electrical nearby the area, but their electrical is further west of that park and what they're charging the city is astronomical. It's it's it's completely high. And then once again having to get musco or a professional lighting to light up the facility is not pollution to uh Mount Hopkins or the surrounding area in that area. So it all depends. Should we spend 250,000 and then the school will say thank you very much but it's our land.

So it's that's a decision that we all have to make because you never know. It's a it's it's it's an IGA and basically we don't own that facility. We're just maintaining it. One one of the things councilman on on that that um we had the discussion with Mr. Bermudez about that because uh I I believe uh M. Travers had some of our people go and ask the the the houses around if they were in favor for having lighting and most of them said yes. Mhm.

When we went back with precisely with the Ngalas Unified School District, uh from what I remember, we allocated money for lighting David, remember it was like 150,000 maybe, but we never got to that project because precisely no Gallas Unified School said, "No, we're going to do it. We're going to do it because it's our field." And then the whole crisis happened with the $40 million and and so they didn't they were unable to finish that project. But you are correct, Mr. Obesessa. It's something that we have to look into. Um it's not our it doesn't belong to us. No, I I

it doesn't belong to us and they can just turn around and and say, "Well, thank you." And but but regardless of that, the biggest the biggest expenditure was that the electric it was way too expensive. Well, the mayor had touched a base on that a few years ago uh about uh putting like solar lighting that was kind of inexpensive and it's kind of low lighting but it but it creates a a safe uh uh uh I guess for at night when it's really dark you can't even see the Havalina. It's we're going to go back to the same problem as we do with Sky Park at at the recreation centers. It's not sufficient. They play ball over there. They try,

but but there it's mostly because they use it more like to go walking and they they just to so they can see their footing where they're where they're placing it cuz it's so dark there that you know it's it's great during daylight hours, but at night people like to go out especially in the summertime and and take a walk. But anyway, is it is there something that you could just kind of look at or maybe get some kind of code on what solar lighting would be just just so there'd be some kind of light there just not necessarily to play ball because of course once you're playing softball or soccer, you know, it speeds up and but mostly for the residents to feel safe going out and walking around the park and the kids just playing like kickball or something, you know.

No, absolutely. I mean, we could look into any solar lighting that we can and place that up there. Uh, but the residents are going to have to take into consideration that it won't light up like a ball field. It's just definitely and you know, so why are you putting these type of lights and wasting this money when we can't even see the ball, but yet it's good for the walkers, but for for the athletes that are playing there just it's not going to be it's not going to be sufficient lighting. Thank you. Yes, sir. Uh I have a question David on the pool out by White Carpenter. Uh years back we decided not to invest in that pool anymore. Correct. However, we are still maintaining that pool. What what's the

I think it's a decision that city council, mayor and council are going to have to make in order to make a decision with the school district to see if you want to swap lands or what do we want to do? because um you know the issue we cannot use the swimming pool cuz we don't own the other side of the fence. So basically if we don't have any restrooms we cannot open the swimming pool. So I don't know if the school district wants that land. If they do want it then we come and empty it. We fill it up and then it belongs to them.

Well I think that was a discussion of of draining it and covering it up and then having the discussion afterwards to see if they want it or not. But I you know how much does it cost to m maintain that pool throughout the year at least a month? 6,0007,000 a month. I think it's a little bit more than it's about. Yeah. Yeah. So that that that is the reason we decided to close down that swimming pool because we can only use it what two months out of the year. Month and a half. Month and a half. And then after that we can't use it. But we have to pay maintenance and it's over $7,000. I see no need to us be paying u over $100,000. Yes. Correct. for that for that pool that we can only use for a month and a I thought it was at least two months.

So, um I I would say that we need to make a decision as far as uh draining that pool, covering up and then uh and then talk to the school district. The school district, you know, um the school district can't use that pool because they don't have certified lifeguards. Exactly. That's why they pulled them off of the poll. Wouldn't that be an agenda item? Wouldn't that be an agenda item for this discussion? Yeah, we probably should move on to something else that's an operations question. Go ahead. This is part of the discussion. Um, David, my last question here because I didn't finish is the $500,000 for recreation building edition carryover. Could you just

That's a carryover. Yes. This is the carryover that you're going to use for it's going to be a multi-purpose field with three offices so that that way we can hold all of our summer classes and any other meetings that we might have in the city. We can use a recreation center. Okay. And just going back so I can tell so so I can know after this meeting is that the parking lot between these two fields will be resurfaced hopefully hopefully in the near future. Yes. I I have a lot of faith in you David. Absolutely. It will be resurfaced. We'll get her done. Okay, great. Thank you. That's it. Any other questions for parks? What else do we have? Anything for parks, recreation?

No. Going once, going twice. Okay. No need for equipment. Beating the dead. No, we we're good. I've done everything that it had to do. You guys need We have it, but we can get it out. We did We did discuss that with him pretty thoroughly. Okay. Okay, thank you. I didn't need no ice. No black eyes. That was good. Thank you.

You want to do next? Uh internal internal funds which is page 57. for public. Okay. Yeah. 57.

Here you go, Eric. Again,

just to uh give you a little bit information, the fleet department gets paid out by different funds. It depends on whatever they budget. So, it it matters if they increase their budget. It it affects the other departments uh funds actually be the general fund uh enterprise funds uh that will pay into it including HERF as well. um they normally don't tend to spend everything that they budget especially when it comes to fleet maintenance that that gets paid in is normally what they you know they do oil changes or any type of work on on the vehicles depending on the fund what they fall in just to give you a heads up where the revenues come in for the fleet department

Eric Stewart public works um Okay. So, again, a replay of yesterday. We've tried to um budget our department so that it's equal to what last year was or less. Um our contractual services are down for fleet. And did you have any capital items for fleet? Uh for fleet there was uh let me see there was a carryover of the uh the fuel tank. Fuel tank. Yes, that's all the that's all there is is the fuel tank. the fuel tank and I think you requested a vehicle lift, correct? I'm sorry. Yeah, a vehicle lift and then the garage door openers. Yes.

And are those still in the capital list? Yes, it's all on in the list. So, to be specific, the fuel tank that was is in the budget this year. It's been ordered should be delivered July 26th. And um we've had some savings. It's smaller than we had planned. We're going to utilize the same location where the existing tank is to save some money and get that installed uh by a contractor as soon as it's delivered. So, um and also the vehicle lift. There are three bays now. They have lifts. There's one that does not. It'll just make the team more productive.

And then the doors are um very tall roll down doors. And so, they just want to put an opener on it to to automatically raise them and lower them. And so that's it per capital. So the tank's going to go where the existing tank is. That's the idea. It's not going to go the outside where it was planned.

Um we talked about it. There's more engineering involved. There's um more security items issues with that. Um it works where it is. It's it's just um it's complex where we have to have a contractor come in, pump the tank out, put up a temporary fueling station so that we can utilize fuel on a daily basis, do the work, and then um um hand it over to us. So, but it's doable. It's very doable. Yes. Okay. For the budget we have. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. Go ahead. Uh good morning. Morning.

Uh on the repair and maintenance for the vehicles, uh I know that you're cutting $47,000. Is this because we replaced the old inventory of vehicles? I know that every year we've been replacing vehicles. So So you're cutting $12,000 from the repair maintenance of vehicles. I know. And then we've spent only 8,689. I think it was over inflated last year and we just brought it down to what the average number was for previous years. Is that right, Sergio? Correct. The the usage the base of the actual what they end up spending compared to the budgeting and again this is one of the funds that affects the budget of so many different uh

so every department pays for their own vehicle correct repairs and stuff. Correct. Okay. So increasing that amount when they're not using it, it affects water fund, sewer fund, general fund. So if we lower it to the amounts that they actually just need, then it also helps the other funds lower their budget. Okay. And and the other question was general insurance. Is that what kind of insurance is that your question? That's part of the build the building liability insurance which includes all but we separated just to the track. So that's part of the the fleet the full uh section. Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Any question? Go ahead. uh on the fuel inventory like the you know the fuel's going up uh at different times and then it comes down and it gets up and down. Is is that going to be the hopefully the the the right amount that we're budgeting for this this group? Can you speak to that, Sergio?

I know that the the costs have been going up. We haven't been reaching not even the $400,000 because of that same reason that happened a couple of years ago. So we did balloon the the uh expenditure request for that fill inventory. I believe that that will be enough for for this uh coming fiscal year as well. Because back in 24 we went all the way up to 468,000 and that that is that was increased. Let me just I'm trying to get the right number. Well, I heard that when the war is over, it's going to drop like a rock. Why is everybody laughing?

Yeah. For the last um at least three years, we have it at 500. But I mean, if you feel more comfortable, we can increase the the the amount to either 550 or 600, whichever you prefer. But again, that again I have to adjust this and then I'll have to adjust it for the other funds as well. Yeah. And and we're still we still are these numbers from uh April because we're at uh Yes. This is this actually this number is uh May. We still are. It wasn't as of through May. Yeah. Still have still have a couple of months to go. Yeah. Mhm. I think we'll be okay. Be okay. Yeah.

Okay. All right. Rich warehouse. Go ahead. You know, in the past, uh, we've spoken about, uh, placing GPS systems in the vehicles. They're at fleet and they, as a matter of fact, they were ordered to. Now, I don't know what the status is on that. And are they is there a maintenance uh cost to keeping them up? uh if they are been installed or or or if they haven't are they going to be that's my question. The answer is yes.

They have been installed and there is a maintenance fee. There's a maintenance they're being kept uh oper in operational. Yes. Are the GPS units being maintained? Yes. Is that just a certain vehicles or is that most of them? I'm pretty sure it's every city vehicle. Oh, okay. All right. Thank you. Welcome. Who who keeps track of the GPS? Uh

the GPS. So, um there's access to this information. So, public works, we monitor staff. We use it for um basically service requests. Uh if there's a specific request in the area, we'll look up, see who's in the area, and then we'll ask them to go take a look at things. I know fleet does. Uh I can't speak to any other departments. So, so is there like a like a monthly report on on where the vehicles uh you know if there's any changes from one month to another on a certain vehicle you know

like if they used it like for 20 miles in one month and then the next m month it went up to 300 miles. Do they keep a record? Do you generate a report every month? That's a good question. I I'm sure we could generate reports, but I I haven't thought of that just to see what usage they have or we can we can uh contact the fleet manager because I know he has control if we needed access like if we wanted to verify it is like I want to see where uh our meter readers are, you know, if where they're at and he gives us the access to

to verify and check and I'm assuming that um they do track it so we can request and ask him if if it does that type of reporting that we can see how many miles, you know, monthly or weekly, however you just for for the director's information because, you know, what's the use of having GPS if nobody's even monitoring them or generating a report?

Any other questions? Okay, the next department will be inventory warehouse page 59. And this is also the same uh treatment with fleet that depend depending on the budget of this department. It it gets paid out by the rest of the department and again um contractual services are down and that's the only item worth noting here. Why would your general insurance go to zero?

Because uh since it's both of the departments together, they there's no need to to have it build twice. So, it was just put into one. Okay.

Next, this is utility management. the this is the department that holds the admin uh positions. The public works director, the admin assistant, the superintendent, the project manager. It's mostly that department and this specific department gets uh the revenues come from the sewer, water and sanitation. So it affects those three funds. Thank you, Sergio. Mhm.

And so, um, this next year looks like employee related expenses are up a little bit, contractual services are down, and it's actually, uh, just a little bit less than we budgeted last year. Any questions? That's it.

You can do either just review all the grant. We have the grants, miscellaneous, and other funds. Those funds are normally just which is page 65.

Thanks, Eric. So most of these funds are are either there's grant funded or don't it can be donation funds. So we just tend to make sure that we have the the funding available uh more of the spending authority available when we do the budgeting that way and they have the grants they're allowed to and these the it's money out money in this more for tracking county tracking wise. So the 865 you have a police uh bulletproof vest grant. 866 that's the homeland security grant which is stone garden. They have uh they budget it because they have equipment and they also have personnel. So that's uh depends on every year it changes. Sometimes they'll get uh vehicles as well budgeted. For this one they're not applying for any. For some of the ones that are applying, we have a separate uh fund just in case they get the grant. Then we do have the spending authority in case they want it. So we could add it to the as a with a budget transfer. Page 67. We have DUI uh and let's see it says DUI for page 67 and page 68 which is the same fund 021. It's called the step grant and also the car seat grant fall within this these budgets. These are smaller grants. The step and DUI grants. They they uh tend to be used every so often as scheduled by the police department. 69 that's a tonum for non-EP departmental. We have nothing budgeted. We're not expecting anything, but I know for or for page 70, it's police is expecting to they're applying for a $300,000.

Yes. Uhhuh. On the toodum on your um summary of all funds, it notes there that there's a $400,000 projected uh amount, but it doesn't reflect on page 69. And am I not Are we talking about uh page 71? um 69 the home automotive contribution. It doesn't have an amount there. Yeah, that's this this is non-EP departmental. So, okay, we're not Yeah, for non departmental, we're not expecting anything this coming this school year,

but for the other uh departments, which is page 70, that's police. They're they're uh requesting 300,000. So, we're we're uh doing the spending authority in case they get they they receive that grant that they're applying for and that way we have it budgeted. Why is it noted 400,000 on the uh summary of if you add the the 300,000 for police and then in page 71 there's $100,000 dollars also for Oh, for the total. Okay. So, you added both of them. Yeah. So, that's the total of that fund. Okay. I got it. It's a total of Thank you.

Mhm. 872. That's the miscellaneous fund. As you can see, that's where we budget that extra spending authority, which is four million for if because we have we do have a fire pending some uh applications for grants and so is police. So once we we when they receive it, then it comes from this extra budgeted amount. It's just just there for a spending authority in case we get extra grants that we're not expecting throughout the year. Uh if I'm correct, you have some pending, right? The still a decision in the near future.

That's correct. So, we we tend to uh have that um the and page 73. You see that the the library had a $90,000. I don't think if they got that grant or they did I have to check on that, but I think that's the library's not here. So, that was money that we received this year for was a a joint with uh Mariposa. So, next year they're not applying for it. Normally this fund in page 74 you'll see that uh police department is the one that has personnel grants and also a lot of individual they're all at the capital expenses. We have all the individual grants that they are still pending and they're carrying over the balances to the next year. These grants that are budgeted here uh they were already approved. So, as I explained, they're carryover and once they get the new grants, um pretty sure they're they'll bring it up to council meetings once they uh get approved. Page 77, you're going to the impound piece that that uh that's a fund that's only for police as

I got a question, Mr. Himemenz on capital expenses. We're dropping down almost $5 million.

I would have to see exactly the paperwork. do that that more correct assessment on that.

Most of the five uh for that for this fund the carryovers are budgeted. Some of the the the amounts that were budgeted were for grants that they were applying for and they did not get. That is why that we're not putting it as a budgeted amount when they're applying for it and we're leaving it within that $4 million that we already extra that we budget. That way in case you guys receive it, then we do the budget transfer down to that those line items. So when you see sometimes that there's amount budgeted and there's nothing this fiscal year, it was probably because they were applying for a grant for this fiscal year and they did not get it. So it just goes back to zero for the for the future. Go ahead.

Sure. I just want to go back to page 72. There's a ARPA capital project. There's uh $61,000 from last year. And uh I was listening to the meeting, yesterday's meeting, and and councilwoman Montiel brought up that uh that funding of the ARPA for the Mortley project, and you said that that funding wasn't used uh ARPA wasn't used for that uh project came from a transfer.

This was actually the that ARPA fund that was budgeted for this fiscal year. For the next fiscal year, we have the it's in you're going to see it in the the money that we received from South 32. It's budgeted in a different fund because we can consider uh the cell 32 money part part of ARPA. Okay. And then on the on the on the homeland on the homeland uh on page 66. Mhm. Uh so so the is this part of stone garden? Correct.

Stone garden plan. So are we collecting uh funds for the pension for the for the officers for for this uh for we get reimbursements for the fund. So and as you can see that I'm not budgeting anything for health insurance and life insurance and this fund we don't we don't bill that we don't it's not reimburseable so that never gets built. But what we get reimburseable is the FICO Medicare that the city pays and also the pension portion of it. So whatever we pay out of uh an a pension we get reimburse for the hours that they work during the stone garden.

Okay. So again, back to we do have a impound fees um that the the police department also has. They have a the impound fees which is on page 77. Those are just carried forward of the balances of what they collect. And um what is SB 1398 which is that other fund that you guys have that 057. So, just to clarify both uh uh pages, the impound fee is a it's a shared funds that come from uh the impound fees that the state collects that us and city court do share and it's usually for um impound related uh uh needs like we need a new copy machine or we need to buy ink and stuff like that. So, those funds have to relate to what the needs are. we just can't get impound fees to purchase let's say uh food or something like that. It has to tie into the requirements. The one that Sio just mentioned is the actual uh funds that come from uh the issuing of citations. So the state reimbures or returns some of the the fees that are collected back to the courts and we share that with uh the courts too. So once again there's restrictions on what we can use that funding for. So if it's for instance buying more ticket books and stuff of that nature. So

yeah I think those are the two uh questions here on on page 76 parks and rec um they had 576 and and then we're taking it off. Was that not a carryover? Yeah. No, that that was a a grant that they had applied and did not get. So that is why the reason we're not budgeting here since we do have the the extra 4 million that we budget for in case we get the grants. That way we don't budget more than what we really because if they would have gotten the 576 and we didn't budget it, we could have just moved it from that 4 million that we always have to to just do the transfer to that. But they did not receive that grant.

Got a question. Where is the money from the parking meters? Where does it show? Parking meters actually gets deposited in general fund. Oh, okay. So, that would be all the way to the beginning of the No, that's okay. There's a meter uh fees. Thank you.

Mhm. 879, you'll find the city. That's one of the the other two uh court funds that the judge actually spoke about yesterday, but they also have uh certain funds for them that they they can only use it for certain things regarding to that department. So that's both uh fund 211 which is page 79 and page 80 which is fund 212. Those are funds are are for them which have different limits to what they can use it for. Page 81, that's a library grant. They uh tend to get different grants throughout the So, this is a spending authority request that that we got from uh from Donita, the director. Page 82, that's another library grant, and that's actually just personnel grant. Uh this is where they we pay out the part-time employees that work at the Sonoida grant uh Sona Library or Rio Rico Library.

Where does it show here? U maybe I uh I passed by and I didn't notice uh the part where the county pays to run these uh these two other libraries or three li Oh, for the library. Yeah, we have it in the revenues. Is it in the revenues? Okay. The general I'll look at it. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Mhm. And that amount is still pending. We just copied the same amount that we got. It's right here. Um they're working on their numbers and as soon as the the county completes their their number then they'll they'll give it Thank you.

251 is also a U lease grant. So you can see it's only $73 as part of the some of the money that funds that they normally would collect. the these are actually also uh have a different bank account that are linked to that. So the balance always matches the bank account because that's uh state money or federal money. Okay. So 251 is one of them which is the $73 one. Um this is the miscellaneous fund which is the page 84. This is where we normally get uh donations and we we make sure that we put it into the

What would be an example of somebody donating to the city of Noales? Example would be sometimes uh we give out in kind constantly but who gives us money? Uh I know we receive checks and normally police is the the one that normally tends to uh get it. Sometimes we get fire a check from fire. They'll donate to the department and they'll bring it and it'll get deposited and then they'll they'll have the spending authority within that. That way we can track it in case they request and aware where we're spending this money or the funds and then that way the mayor and council are also aware that we're getting donations for certain certain departments. As you can see on page 84, we have the 80,675. That's actually what we received from uh South 32. Oh,

okay. That was my next question. And so saw 32 um has uh this is where we're going to be $8,000 the additional uh cost for the for the arch. Okay. So this is I know it was for downtown projects. So it depends on who's going to be handling the projects as well. So was going to be the community community development from public works. Yeah. It'll be community development which is the Eric Whoops. Eric Fitzer Piter. They they did all the all the engineering and architectural and all that stuff. For the arch. Yeah. Uh and I thought it was done from an agenda item

from the ARP, but uh listening to yesterday's meeting, you said that it was it came from from a transfer from one account transfer to to the uh to that project. It wasn't used from the ARPA. No, it was the the original um movement was from ARPA. transfer was because they had it in the general fund. I think that's where it was originally. Then they moved it to the miscellaneous fund to track it separately. Whatever was already paid out was paid out of that. For the future ones, it's it's uh they're looking into this amount. Just out of curiosity, how much was that fund for the ARPA for that project?

I don't have that amount to be honest. I was not included in that project. I know uh Jean had some type of spreadsheet where she was tracking it and communicating with uh Mr. topia at the time. I I I don't know that information, but I can get you that information if you want. And and has that the arch been paid for? The arch is mostly almost all paid paid off. Is that from my understanding is based on what I've got the information from Hinava, which is the admin assistant, is that they're still pending approximately 25,000. Is that so they can they're just waiting for half the footing so they can just install it.

Okay. because this 80,675 that's uh targeted for the for the footings and the and the base of the arch, right? That's that was that was pending for that project. And that's how we the the community development person requested this um amount this grant amount because he he did all the numbers and he and he figured it was going to take like $80,000 to do the the whole base uh foundation.

Okay. Yeah, we would have to have to look into what the continuation of the project is. Again, I'm not involved in in in those talks. I can try to reach out to see what they have. I know that they're already u working on trying to get the information for the footings. That way, I can get the project completed. This Yeah, because grants have obligation dates and and expended dates. So, you know, we we can't sit on those for a long time. Yeah. Yeah, we did obligate the funds from ARPA were obligated, so we're good. We don't we won't be in danger of having to give those back.

So, uh my question is on that project, uh since it ran around so much, uh what was uh what was the actual cost of the ark and how much savings was it? Was it saved by sending it down to Mexico? And I mean, I don't know if assembled or or finished up over there.

Well, we would have to get the um we know we still owe a balance on it. We know how much we paid. I don't know off the top of my head how much we've paid so far. So, we'll take invoices that have been paid plus what we haven't paid and that will be the cost. Now, whether we saved any money fabricating it one place or another, nobody knows. Okay. So, I can't tell you that.

Now, we did receive some information that Mr. Fitzer has now as far as the engineering is concerned apparently and and I believe he got that information u by virtue of information from Mr. Tapia. uh and and he did supply the paperwork that verifies uh the engineering and um despite the fact there was some concern about a tunnel underneath one of the one of the foundations that apparently was already considered in the engineering. So, it appears that uh once we get everything here, we're going to be good to go. And I believe uh public works employees are going to be building the foundations, what I call foundations, uh because there are uprightes that are fabricated to foundations that are at street level. So our people are going to do the foundations and then they'll bring the arch in and the and the and the posts and and set it. So um that's all a question of when Mr. Fitzer and and the public works staff can make that all happen. Mr. Buckin, when you say uh tunnel, you're talking about the wash or is there an actual tunnel there?

Yeah. I you know, uh I'm Mr. Horus, I I don't know anything about the engineering. All I know is the engineering was done because there's a wash that runs under underneath the the street there. Yeah. So, I think that was the biggest problem for that project. Right. And my understanding was is the design we have took that into consideration. Now, we're we're able to second guess that once we get everything here, but we don't we don't necessarily need to have that discussion today. Okay. If

I could just add to it, maybe we could put it as an agenda item in the future because that way we you know, we kind of clear clear some of the questions you have like, you know, is it even going to be high enough for for people to pass through like parades and so forth, semis or whatever. We don't have semis going through. Well, that should have already been taken into consideration. I realize that but I realize that but there's so many questions as you know we're asking so maybe we could just put an discuss in high and that's what yeah yeah in the future I know already requested that for the next agenda. Yeah. Okay. Oh, you did? Okay. Good. He may not know he did but he did. Good. It'll be on the agenda. Thank you,

M. Mr. Fitz. Mr. Fitzer will need to be ready for that. And any other questions?

Ready? Yeah. So, back to uh page 85 where this is the also part of the same miscellaneous donations. This is the police department. Right now, so far they still have about $10,00021. So they're carrying it over to the next budget. Next page you also have fire has some some certain amount there still available. They had more um they're using part of it this fiscal year right and the rest will be carried over to the following year. Are they restricted in some cases? Are they restricted? It depends if they who does the

the donation, right? They can only some people can donate some money to you guys and say, "Well, it can only be used for a certain amount of things." Because I know the fire department has 97,000 right now. So, are they restricted, Mr. Le? No, 97,000 is the total of the the fund. Yeah, I get that. But they I mean, they still have a lot of money, right? They have 6,500. Am I reading the same the the 97,000 is the total of the whole fund which includes the the donation I mean the includes the police department and the south 32 money is that on page 86 page 84 yeah 84 85 and 86 is the same fund you you put

this is the total of all the three funds all the I was like what is Mr. in the fire department. I'm going to do a 97,000. It's my bad. Sorry about that.

2.54 is also an it's uh an e- rate which uh the the library also gets some money for certain things. So they if I'm not mistaken the rate is for more like for computers or anything technology, right? 255. That's a treasury uh fund for police department. Again, this also has a a bank account separate so it doesn't come out the this money doesn't get mixed up with the general fund money. 262 is the fund uh next to it, which is page 89. That's the wildland fire. Now we budget for when fire department sends out uh their employees for for wildland uh fires and this is where we get the reimbursement request and we budget in here.

Right now that you mentioned uh different accounts. How many do do we have track of all the accounts we have? And yes, especially when it comes to grants, we have to make sure that we we can track them. They want to know that what where we're spending is actually what we're requesting. We have a separate way of tracking and certain grants request for us to isolate them from the general fund. Yeah. All all state and federal grants will require reports from us either periodically or at the end of the grant period or both. Go ahead.

Yes. S on the on the on the overtime for for this uh wild wildland fires. We didn't we didn't uh budget anything for this year. We we did have a a budget for 2425 of 11,608 is is there that gets collected as well. So whenever they there's extra extra amount of they book it to the overtime we bill it and they they pay it back. So these funds whatever we budget is more just for spending authority just in case they need to use it. we have it and then so it's it's more of a we we spend it and we get it back.

Page 90 which is victim's right grant. This is actually for the attorney's uh department and this is a fund that we a grant that we get that pays a portion of the victim's rights when for one of the admin uh ladies from the from the attorney's office see then we have the CDBG G 295 sewer development fees is 92 and water development fees of 93 94 that's where we have the budgeted to track it separately is the whiff of fund The last one should be yeah last one is page 95 which is just so we can where we track the health insurance. They send us reports of all the claims and we have to journalize them with accounting and then also any any other costs or anything we could just for recording purposes. That includes all the miscellaneous and brands.

Um, it's 12:40. Did we take a break? Yes. No hesitation on your part. Yeah, let's take a break and then uh what do you think, Mayor? 30 minutes. Yeah. 30 minutes. We need to discuss payroll and we need to discuss the water fun again. And I think that's all we have, right? Unless you all have something else to bring up, right? You got the rest of the day for that. You want to Let's take a break. Uh we're half an hour. Back at 1:15.

Javine from uh our break for uh study session. Go ahead. Okay. Um where do we go?

Oh, where do we go? To the mic. Um, okay. So, um, part of what we there's two more things we have to do today. One of them is get some direction on what to do with employee salaries. Uh, because as I mentioned yesterday, we the the budget numbers that you just went through do not include increases for anyone. And so um uh Sergio has worked out based on the scenarios that were suggested. Um and I also uh dug out this salary table which you have uh this was the it says 2019 salary plan but it was for fiscal year 25. So I just noticed that today because it the header isn't on the when you look at it on a computer screen the header isn't on there. So that's a typo. Um and so basically um the first set of columns are the the current

ranges

ranges for our s all of our positions. Uh the the middle one that's kind of colored green. Um if I'm not color blind, it's green. Um the uh that is market data that was collected for the survey. And then the last set of columns on the right uh is what the consultant had uh proposed and um as um Miguel will tell you this study came in draft form and I don't know what if any further work the consultant did on it. So, this is officially still a draft, but I'm guessing that usually once you get to this level with it usually goes into final with only minor changes. So, but uh Miguel did bring up a good point. If we paid them the whole amount that you contracted for, we probably should get a final product, too. But that's immaterial at this point as far as I'm concerned. So anyway, um M Mc M excuse me, Sergio has uh worksheets based on scenarios, some of which were requested by members of council and uh and he's added a couple of things of his own. And I'm just going to uh let him explain those that chart to you.

So everybody understands it well. Um, so Serge, why don't you go ahead and explain how you put this together? Can can I interfere? Yes, sir. You know, we we've gone through the through the budget. We've gotten to the details. Mhm. And I think it's uh page 36 that gives us u kind of a full rundown of the final numbers before we get into the details. So everybody understands for the general fund

for the general fund and you know how how do we stand you know you know in and overall how do we how much you know room do we have you know where where do we stand um as as a city to give you know to look at wages to look at you know increments and all that. Where do we stand?

Okay. For the general fund, it's a it's a healthy uh fund as also when we spoke to the auditors how they're, you know, showing the they're showing actually a higher fund balance. One of the things is that uh you can see that we we're showing the revenue I mean not the revenue the reserve for expenditures. We had about that's I'm just want to get sack amount that I have here. Carry forward 27 the reserve it's actually the the unfunded the un um budget the unbudgeted uh right no it would be page eight that's the carry forward that's the revenue

eight so in the reserve we have a 11.6 uh that uh haven't been that's extra revenues that haven't been budgeted that's basically it so if any any of the raises, any of the costs or any that that the mayor and council decides if you decide to make any type of changes, it it comes out of the reserve from the 11.6

million. Uhhuh. Um based on some of our talks that we've been having with uh with the auditors are actually the fund balance for for the city is actually bigger than than that. Once I get something very better information then that that number actually will be higher and increased uh once we have the final uh talk with the is that including our our commitments with payments and

yes this is what what reserve is is that if you have excess revenues so every department submits their expenditures and if the department decides all the departments after we total for the For general fund, let's say it's $50,000, but we have an excess of revenues that are more than that expected revenues including the carry forward. Then you have you have to balance the the funds. So in order to balance the funds, you got to you got to have the same number of revenues and expenditure. So if you have more revenues, you you have to uh so since we didn't budget that 11.6, six it becomes just a reserve kind of like your rating date fund that in case of an emergency you know you have that amount there in order to use

so yes how much are we required of having the reserve you know to keep the city going one of the recommended amounts is normally about three months of operational cost it can be two to three months that's the the recommended reserve that uh that they you know but as long as you have at least one one at least one month but the recommended would be two to three months in case no revenues come in at all. In our in our case, how are we doing that? How many months are we are we good for? I don't have that number right in front of me, but I can get you that information uh as soon as uh today actually what what does it take for the city to run for a full bud?

It depends on every year what they decide to budget. So if if if you if we budget let's say more amount of money we we have to remove first of all you remove the the capital you want to include the capital in part of that. So you you will look at the bottom line number which right now it's about 51,000 then we remain 51 million then we remove all the money that's capital and then you determine okay out of that how much is the monthly to maintain that and then you determine okay we have three months do we have that in reserve from again from my talks with auditors it looks like the fund balance is actually higher than what's for the past previous years has been noted on the on the on the the balance uh I mean the balance of the general fund. But right now, I'm I'm just going to what we've continued doing from the past couple of years and we show about 11.6. They say it's actually a little bit higher than actually not a little bit actually enough, but it's a healthy fund according to auditors. And

so in in every department you you know you have a contingency. Is that the same thing as a reserve or is it to reserve actual funds and contingency is just a number?

Yeah. So you you have um the contingency reserve or the carry forward um one will be revenues and one will be uh reserved which is unbudgeted revenues uh for the general fund only the general fund will be the non-EP departmental because we have all the departments. So not all the departments don't have a a reserve and then you know because we only work with all the revenues that come in for the general fund which will be just one whole fund that handles all of the departments. Then you have your her fund they have their own carry forward and their own reserve. It's a separate fund but this one is only the non-EP departmental. That's where it gets budgeted. That's where we carry the the reserve and the carry forward revenues.

Okay. So, I've been asking this question for the last couple of weeks. I'm going to hit you with it again for forgetting any car carry forward balance in the general fund. If I if I had just current revenue and I subtracted current expenditures in this budget, what would it be? removing the the carry forward. Removing carry forward.

So, in other words, all I'm interested in is what this year's revenues are going to be and what this year's expenditures are going to be. I should say next year for 27 and what that number is. Well, not necessarily.

Mhm. So, yeah. Yeah. Well, the amount that's included in that and the Yeah. the 77 and the 75 that includes all the reserves for all the funds. So, so you're saying that in 26 27 you think about there will be an increase of$2 million

most of you see the increase was basically more in the HERF fund I saw that and that's why I asked you yesterday earlier did you get that huge increase I mean that's it was based on their expected revenues their carry forward and that 6.2 2 million. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. So, what you have is a revenue forecast. That's usually pretty accurate. The state share revenues.

Yeah. They send us an email and say this is how much we're estimated and giving you for the city. So, that's the number that we use based on the numbers they report to us. Yeah. Yeah. With state share revenues, we should end up pretty close to the exact number every year.

Well, and and there's there's a motive for me asking that question. Okay. From year to year, I think we should have a pretty good idea if we just isolate the next fiscal year and look at just those revenues and just those expenditures for the general fund. Okay. Um, I mean that's that's your benchmark. That's what you're going to do. Um, and is it is it a a positive number or is it a negative number? And even if you even if you backfill with uh a carry forward balance, you want to know from year to year um exactly how you're performing. And so because I was I I did notice that, you know, we had a carry-forward balance for this year projected at 24 million and then this year we're projecting 22 million. Well, that's a red flag in my opinion because that means that did we spend 2 million more than we took in

and so that's why I'm asking the question. Yeah. And that no it is a good question and that is uh why it's I'm in the conversations with the auditors because um based on the calculations there could be actually more carry forward u according I don't care about I don't care about the carry forward right now I just care about our projected revenue for fiscal 27 and our projected expenditures for fiscal 27 in the general fund. I want to strip all the carry forward any money we have today. I don't want to count it. Okay, that's uh 28,805778

28 is that uh revenue that's without the or is that expenditures? That's revenues. 28 million. Yes, that's the expected uh Say that again. 28 million. Mhm. 805,000. Mhm. 778 778. Okay. I grabbed the total amount of revenues minus the carry forward. Okay. How about expenditures? How about expenditures? Yeah. What did what did we just what did we just go through for the last two days?

It's more than that. Yeah. The goal is to have the reserve equal the carry forward. So when if it doesn't equal as as you notice we have 11.6 is because we're balancing. My goal right now is to find out how much are how much we're appropriating expenditures in the general fund. 36. I got to go to piece 36. 39,747 and 341 budgeting more.

39 million in what? 39,747,341. 341. Mhm.

Okay. And that is something that I did uh bring up to Mr. pocket because I realized that based on the history is being budgeted or balanced based on including the carry forward not just the expend expected revenues. Do we get to spend that based on the history for general fund it's 24 we spent three 30.4 4 million. Uh 25 we spent 30 million.9 and so far to this year we spent 27.1 million. Now, it's not necessarily atypical to budget more expenditures and revenues in the general fund because typically uh what we try to do in the general fund is to remember is to put in every possible thing we can think of that we need to spend money on. and and that's after and that n this number comes after stripping away probably four or five million in just our conversations with the department heads

about three to four yeah three to four million and uh so um but I think you can see where I'm going with this okay so in other words in in order for this budget to balance you need to use you need to use carry forward balance to do it Okay. And and this is not the first time, by the way.

Okay. Um I I have I have a problem with this format only in that it doesn't give you that number every single year. And if you get that number every single year, you tend to deal with it in that in the spirit of expenditures versus revenues. Uh you know, when I very first looked at your budget, that was the first thing I noticed was well, where's the, you know, Where's the revenues minus expenditures? It's not in this document. Okay. Is it? So,

so we need to uh now will you spend 39 million? No, you probably won't. Uh what will you spend? I don't know. It all depends. We have no idea. Especially this year. So, so anyway, um I know it's an eye opener, but I'm I'm not trying to I'm not trying to pour water on your campfire or anything. I just want you to know where we are. Nope. I Nope. Nope. I told you. I I told you.

You said we spent 27 something 27 million. We budgeted. We budgeted 50. How much was it for the fund that we budgeted?

Yeah. 53.3 and we only we spent 27.

What's that? Uh uh peach. Hold on. Um, it's uh page 36 and page 26 at the bottom you spent so far we have 2021,

right? So, you know, if you look at your year-to- date activity, you're running pretty close to balanced right now because you got 27083 in revs and 27180 and expenditures. So, that's pretty, you know, that's balanced for all intents and purposes. What? Actually a rough estimate

51%

about 58%. I mean based on based on last year's budgeted amount to what was actually spent last year 58 so 58% of the budget that was budgeted in this was the only thing that was uh used 58

okay so just so you know where you are and uh I went back six years Just to double check uh on the revenues that actually came in and the expenditures and none of the six years in general fund we in general. So it was always more revenues at the end of the the year more revenues. Yeah. Typically. Yeah.

And that's that is what I question. That's when I I look into it and see why we had a certain amount 40 years ago. 7.3. There's 10.3 is that four years ago. Oh, four years ago in 20 in fiscal I'm looking at fiscal year 22 and uh 43.9 43.9 million came in. Huh? 40. Yeah. About 44 million and 24 only was spent. So that was there was a big uh savings there.

So almost almost a 20 million that we so that's why I feel like uh the carry forward seems kind of small and I'm looking at the the draft uh draft audit is shows about a 40 close to 47 actually 47 um carry forward not a 20ome Mr. pocket. I have a question. I have to leave, but I I want some endpoint on the salaries. So, could I email those to you and to the council or how could I do that?

Sure. Um, well, okay, I made my point here. Okay. And you have to leave right now. Oh, I'm sorry. Um, because we were going to go to that next. This is the for the tenative budget anyway, right? Yes. Yeah. Whatever we change here, we'll still bring it up and discuss it. And uh I'll make the changes then and for the tentative, you'll see the the report with all the charts and graphs and everything. Plug it in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is a rough draft. All right. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Anna. So, we're all clear with the numbers. Continue.

So, okay. So, I just wanted to go back to the spreadsheet so I can explain to you guys uh how uh how it worked. So, I was given uh eight scenarios and then I added uh a couple of more just to give an idea. So, cuz he didn't like any of the other ones. Well, the because uh again because of the concerns of the council, I know that most of the issues was like it shouldn't be across the board. It should be treated differently. So, I did a separate

Oh, wow. I did separate uh uh uh scenarios based on that. Um so the first of all the red numbers on the top I just wanted to show you so you guys can have an idea how much base was increased for that for the for that year and the total extra cost with er it was for fiscal year 22 which was back five years ago um when it was implemented in July 1st 2021. Um, so I just wanted so you guys can have an idea of the increase amount extra that that the city approved. When it comes to uh the scenarios, you have uh we did a 1% 2% 3% and a 4% across the board. We also did a 50 cent, $1,50 and $2 across the board. Those are the black numbers that they'll show you. The first uh green column shows the the difference in base of the increase that and then the overall difference which means it includes the base plus the er. So that's the extra cost that will come out of the reserve if those scenarios get approved. on the scenarios that are in red I have a 300k 400k that's mostly roughly about the base amount that we would increase and then how much the overall difference only difference is that with the the the red numbers the 300k up to the 800k and that one is separating the employees and tiers based on how much they make. So you have your tier ones which is the lowest of employ which is the majority of the employees. Uh we also have tier two, three and four. Four normally is uh directors based on on on those tiers and the amounts that that were I was working on to increase the the base amount for the employees. It determines

uh the percentage. It's a It's a mixture of a a one-time flat amount and a and a percentage raise. So, let me just This disconnected me. You didn't need to use six passwords to get into a city computer. We could do this faster. We're supposed to say,

so the ones in red indicate a a a different amount. It's not across the board. It's based on the tier that the the the employee falls in. For for example, what it showed is that any anybody that's in tier four, uh, for example, the directors, it'll be a flat amount and then a 0.5% increase. You got three, uh, tier three, which goes into just get that for you. So that shows a um so for the lowest the tier one they'll get about 2 and a half% the tier number two right here. There you go. So T there's we have about 275 active employees right now active positions 275 the rest are vacant. So these numbers were calculated based on the active employees that we currently have. Tier one we have about the majority which is 123. Um they average from $40,000 and below. That's 123 employees. That's tier one. Tier two, it's 111 employees.

Oh, my bad. 123 employees are in tier one. Correct. Tier one. And they they average about about 35,000. Uh these are tier one employees are anybody that makes under 40. Tier one, correct? Tier two is for employees making 40,000 to 60,000 and that's 111 employees. And then you have tier three that make between 60 to 86. That's only 32 employees. And then tier four employees are 86,000 and above. Tier three is between uh 32

60 to 80 60 to 86,000. Is that what you said? Tier three. For tier three, it's from 60,000 to 86,000. And tier four is 86,000 and above. And those are nine employees essentially. And number one, what's that? Number one. How many employees did you have? I have 123. 123.

Mhm. So in total is 275. So we have tier one, 123, 111, 32, and 9. Um, based on on these costs, if we if we decide to let's say the 600,000 uh base cost increase, that will cost the city about $92,000 extra, that is that would give the tier one 2.5% increase, 1.5 for tier 2, 1% for tier three, and half a percentage for tier four. But the flat amount will be approximately estimated about $1,400 per. So it will be a onetime $1,400 and then 2.5% also as well. That averages about about $2,300 per per employee in tier one. And then you have your 22 uh 100 average. And then and then you have your percentage raises for tier four. Let's say so you go you average from 2,300 average and then to 1,700 average from the highest tier. So it it just depends on what they make and what what tier they fall that they'll get to treat them uh to have that equity between the the treatment of employees instead of doing it all across the board and given the high percentages to somebody that's going to get more money out of it. So we try to balance it try by doing that that uh calculation is actually you're treating everybody based on what they make and you're not overpaying somebody that makes so much compared to somebody that makes so little. So it it equalizes the amount

the cost to the city. If you look at the green green spreadsheet that I put there, it depends on which which uh tier you decide the number. What's that? Oh, okay. So if we decide let's say we decide to do the 600k, which is the the the middle ground base compared to the last time we got a raise like that. Uh it it cost 28,843,813. That's only 92,76 above to what we currently pay.

So in other words, John, if we put 600k in in this budget for salaries, uh the cost of the city is going to be $92,000. That would be cover that would be the raised salary plus the% no that's if you decide to increase at least the base at 600k for all the employees total that averages separating it by by tiers and treating them equally by giving a certain percentage based on how much you make. So the obviously the higher you make the less the percentage that you'll get as a much how much 600,000 under a million 900.

Yeah. So, it's 900. The overall cost will be 9 uh 2,76. And if you look at the the the columns where they have the light blue, it gives you kind of like an idea of what an average yearly increase you're giving to the employee. So, the first if let's say if we stick to the 600K, it's an average of 2,175. Again, some will have more, some will have less. It just depends on what this is just an average. Uhhuh. Mhm. So if per paycheck that that averages out about $84 extra a check with without So that's that's just kind of like

was that each pay period correct which is about $15 more uh per hour that and these are averages but I wanted to show these numbers to you guys to get because it's if I tell you oh it's going to cost you a million dollars but you don't know the cost of the change so it actually doesn't affect to the employee themselves. So this is about an average about how much more an employee will, you know, get per check per year and a dollar an average dollar per hour. Ser, so the two the $2 increase that's across the board. That's across the board $2, right? If you go across the board,

well, the problem's been in the past that we're trying to help tier one and tier two and part of tier three. Uh, but then the directors end up getting these hefty bonuses that are 10, 11, $12,000 and they got one last time, not last budget, but the last time we raised it. So, I do think it $2 for for tier one, two, and three that would be viable. But when we start getting into the weeds as far as and I'm not trying to discriminate uh from directors or or the other tiers, it it it does it does it does seem kind of unfair. um you know you know these guys will get uh a $4,160 uh raise but but directors they're going to get probably twice as much right

correct and that is the reason that I did the the estimate um scenarios with the rep if you guys decide you know what we like the we we can do the 1.6 6 million for example, but we don't want to do it across the board. We wanted to equal like I can grab that base difference that we normally and I can plug it into my formulas and instead of going across the board, we can still use the same amount of money that the city decides to uh give as an increase and then I'll just spread it out on and separate it by the tiers. So again, it it'll give more to tier one and two than it will for the rest of the tiers because it's actually being treated equally for that reason to avoid that excess increase on certain employees that make more because the percentage that's given and the flat amount that's the onetime flat amount that's given to treat that base pay of the the annual b the pay will give you that that balance. That way you're you're not, you know, giving, you know, some say groundskeeper, you're giving them, let's say, 2500 a year, but then you're giving uh somebody $5,000 a year or $6,000 a year. This averages it out and and spreads it evenly based on the on the studies.

And that here, just for the record, because I want it to be on record, that's exactly what we were trying to accomplish a few years ago, as you well know. And that is a reason that was not taken as a joke. And uh and I went through it and Mr. Boris, we had to succumb to this. So, thank you for putting it in writing. And so, I just wanted it to be on record. And so, now I'm going to I'm going to differ with my colleague to my left.

You Okay, so we got that.

Okay. So like I said on the left is our current uh range, the middle is the market and the right is the recommendation from the consultant. Um there's a reason why we're having trouble hiring directors. Just look at the market. That's the way we should go. I got no dog in this fight. Okay? I'm not applying for a job. Um, in fact, I wish I didn't have a job at all. Um, that was the point of retirement, I think. Um, but as the years pass, okay, this is what we're talking about here will do two things if you don't modify it occasionally. The first thing it will do, it will it will continue to cause the wage wage compression that everybody's been complaining about. Okay? Anytime you go up here and you go up here just a little bit, everybody's wages are just going to go end up like this. That's what we're trying to battle with this right now at tier one and tier two. Okay. Um and plus, you know, um you know, if you look at the the the market, okay, I just pick top four because uh they're by contract. They're not on a salary schedule. uh you know, city attorney 186, city manager 2011. Okay, remember conversation we had a few weeks ago about what we should what we should advertise for a city manager. My recommendation was 175 to 200. That's because of this. Okay. Um now, I'm not saying you won't get anybody. In fact, I got another guy call me this

morning wants to apply for city manager. And that's good. Um, but uh, you know, I'm not as concerned about the city manager job as I am about police chief, fire chief, public works director, particularly your big three. Okay. The guys who operate the city, okay? Those are $200,000 jobs now. Okay? I'm, you know, I'm I'm not lying. They're $200,000 jobs. Now, I'm not saying with this budget we can afford to pay everybody 200,000, but we got to understand what the market is, okay? And we're fortunate to have good people at this point. But some of those guys are getting a little bit like me, a little long in the tooth. And you're going to be looking, you're you're looking for a finance director, you're looking for a HR director now. you're looking for a city engineer now. Okay. Um I just think it's not a good idea to give anybody a one and a half% increase. Quite frankly, that's you I'm I'm at a loss for the word, but it's kind of offensive.

I thought about 20ucks.

These people are responsible. Okay. Especially the operating chiefs, okay? police, fire, and public works. These guys are the guys you depend on to get all of the work done. Okay? Yes, the support positions are damn important. Okay? I I'll I'll you know, a good finance director is worth your weight and gold, but these guys are out there every day. And you know, you got guys like Eric here who's just here uh you know, part-time and he's already made so many changes over there uh that uh I am just totally thrilled to have him and uh you know, but keeping good directors is also a very good thing for the city manager because I probably deal on a daily basis with a lot more than I would need to if all those department heads were full. All those department positions were filled with a good director right now. Okay. And so, you know, to give department heads a percent and a half, I'm sorry, it's an insult. And I'm not even one of them, but I'm insult.

We understand that. And I am agreeing with you, Steve. But my biggest concern right now is um because I've been working close with the police department. My biggest concern right now is um we have 11 through 19 police officers that could retire in theory tomorrow if they so desire regardless of their pay. Regardless of their payard so but with that said I want to keep them around. I'm going to keep them around for at least two three years more. I totally get where you're coming from. Totally. Okay. But when we leave out their leaders. No, no, no. That that's that's

one and a half%. You're leaving out the leaders.

Well, it's cuz I I you know, the county has, you know, they give a pay raise and then they include every year a 3% COLA increase. In the past, we just given five. I think the biggest one I've been part of is a 5% increase, but there's no cola increase, you know, so it doesn't really matter if we give them a five or six because uh COLA is so is so high. It's really washes out any type of a a pay raise that we give our employees. Now, do I think that the the $2 uh $2 more is it is it high? Is it low? I I personally think it's kind of low, but it will cost us 1.6 million. Um

Mhm. I don't want to I don't want to short change our employees. I think our biggest investment should be in our employees every single time.

Um we have a bunch of projects out there that cost a whole lot more. Are they necessary? Absolutely. But it always seems like we get at the end of the of the budgets every year and it and it always seems like we seem to sacrifice our employees uh in all departments. And I advocated last time, not last year, but two years ago for 5% across the board. Did I take a hit? Yeah. But if it's going to cost 1.6 6 million at $2 across the board. Why not make that investment, John? I mean, it it's it's not obviously it's not cheap, but we didn't give him a raise last year.

Has things got You are preaching to the choir. You do know that, right? Yeah. Okay. I'm I'm the one who put the dollar per hour. Absolutely. And I think that's a great idea. That way you don't get w You don't get wage compression. That's, you know, we talk about wage compression. You've probably talked about it every single year.

Okay? The only way to battle wage compression is to not let it happen. And if you give everybody a dollar per hour or $2 per hour or $3 per hour, then the wages aren't compressing. Okay? Uh which is why those are in there to show you that. But I I still I you know if you don't recognize you know your your top staff with anything other than a poultry insult then you start to lose those two. Those are you know if a department's running smoothly it's because of the department head. You just don't notice it. And that's how it's supposed to work. That's the whole theory of organization whether it's private or public sector. Steve, I've got a question on the market data. Are you comparing like Nogalas to like city of Phoenix, the city of Tucson on these sellers? Are you comparing the the wages for cities our size?

Um actually one of the cities in the study was Bisby. Bisby. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Um the the full the full binder of documents lists all the cities that were listed uh that they used for their uh market comps. And uh I I can't remember them all. I just it stuck out to me. The Bisby was one of them because it didn't help you.

Uh their wages are even lower. But uh it was a mixture of different municipalities in Arizona. Okay. Um, so, uh, it it didn't focus, it it tried to balance out small, medium, and large.

And, you know, I I love to give the employees a 78%age increase, but you have to look at the the financial situation of our city. You know, not all the cities have, you know, well, every city has a different crisis. We we don't depend on on we only depend on retail tax. We don't collect any property tax. And uh it's it's kind of hard, you know, we would love to give those big races, but it's kind of hard due to our situation. You know, sure, you know, you can buy the Mercedes-Benz, but can you afford the gas? You know, it's it's it's one of those situations where where we have to look at the at the at the community first at the at the uh fixing our infrastructures. you know, we're talking about raising water rates and and and instead of that, you know, trying to figure out that out, you know, we're looking to raise uh salaries on employees and and we've gone through this every year, every single year, you know, every time that we give employees a raise.

Uh we get the uh concerns from the citizens. You know, you're giving all these raises, but you're not fixing the infrastructure and you want to increase our water rates. we're we're in the red with water rates. So, it's it's a difficult situation. I hope that we can work something out that that that's good for both sides, you know, for the employees and for the city. We're putting it all out there for you. Ultimately, it's your it's your choice. I I put it out for you. Um most of the water rates, it only affects the the water departments.

Uh so, that's it if it'll be some type of concern. uh at least that I would say is uh it's just mostly obviously the water employees if if any type of race or anything and then that will fall into my will be my concern will just be well will we be getting enough revenues and water or sewer or sanitation general fund is it's good but when those are the three you know and it's only affecting those employees it doesn't u the rates won't affect any general fund employees uh unless it's that we're always constantly lending them uh the money. So, that's something that, you know, when I'm looking at these numbers, of course, I I I I I look at not just the general fund, but also the other funds that can be affected because the revenues, any anything that comes in for utilities, obviously, it's it affects, you know, your your three enterprise funds. So if they're not collecting, it's it's you know, it's something that we you know that I at least I will say those are the three funds that I would be maybe a little bit more concerned and than any general general fund employees may I think uh I got the the impression of the V is that you know we're talking about not

Mike

uh we're talking about not uh being offensive or insulting anyone, but and and and I thought he brought up a good point that we have to take our our constituents or residents and into play uh because they're the ones at the end that are going to have to carry anything that we do to that creates a bigger expense, whether it's to increase salaries and whatnot. If we had the money, it'd be great. But but the thing is like he says we're going to have to raise a rates to cover a lot of the different costs and and right now the way the city's uh gone that the infrastructure a lot of the streets aren't uh are in pretty shoddy conditions uh there's a lot of things that that our residents have to complain about and and uh I think you're just trying to take him in consideration of saying let's let's work out try to work out something that that won't create uh negativism from any area. Uh and basically you're you're the wizard, so I'm hoping you can come up with some magic and help with it.

I've heard that same story over a thousand times. Well, now do your magic. Okay. In in a lot of different cities, and my only response is this. If you have good employees and you pay them fairly, your con the condition of your infrastructure is going to be better. And keep into account that those streets took a long time to get into the condition they're get they're in today. Okay? It's years and years and years and years of neglect that does that. It isn't what we pay people.

Yeah. But if we pay people fairly and we can hire good people, we're going to be able to fix those things and keep them maintained. And invariably, one follows the other. You can go either way. One follows the other. If you don't do it, your infrastructure deteriorates. If you do it, your infrastructure stays in stays in place. It's not something you can quantify from year to year in a budget. It's it's it's over time. Okay. The city's what? 100 years old, older. Okay. You know, every every street that you can can show me that's in bad deteriorated condition probably hasn't been touched in 25 years.

Okay. That's what I'm talking about. I I want to add something. You know, we're talking about raising the u pay making a pay increase to employees. Well, it turns out now that well, we're in deep trouble with the water. Water water rates, increasing the water rates has nothing to do with playing our employees more. It is a strictly an enterprise fund issue. It has nothing to do with if we're in the red with the water department or sanitation or sewer department. This is strictly separate. So to come back and say, "Well, I'd like to give more to the employees, but we're in the red with our water department." We all know it has nothing to do with that. Am I correct, uh, Serge?

Well, kind of like how I mentioned that the the water rates only affects the water department. So, and if you increase sanitation's fees, then it affects sanitation employees. So, you don't, you know, they don't pay each other's salaries. they have their separate funds. Uh same goes with streets and herf. They're a healthy uh department so they can sustain the the races.

And and one more thing that I want to add. Uh you are correct, Mr. Bhor, is that we don't have our we don't charge property taxes. However, I would say that Ngalas is a unique city and we have a we have a booming economy in Noales that deposit our money here. So I would say that yeah, you are right. We don't have property taxes. that's which is like $18 million that we don't see anything of it. Um, but we do have a unique uh relationship with our neighboring country that they come and leave their dollars here. So, I'm not saying that it makes up for for property taxes, but we do have other unique ways of uh of raising money or incoming money. So again, you know, it gets down to the employees and it seems like it's always at the last part of the budget and it seems like in past years, we always tend to count their money and we do give raises. However, I wonder, you know, it's uh at the end of the day, what does it translate to? 35 cents more an hour, 40 cents an hour. You're talking, Mr. Pockin, about a slap in the face. Uh we've been slapping the faces of our employees for the past maybe 10 years. You know, we we we like to come back and say, "Well, we gave them a 2% raise. I feel great." But really, what does that translate to? 35 cents, 30 cents an hour more if on a good day. Um we need to make a bold decision today and really making that big that big investment in employees.

Um because, you know, I even talked to you, Mr. talking about about and I'm only talking I'm sure other council members have talked to different directors and different departments. I I really was more advocating uh because I'm worried as I said earlier with the police department and I was really look advocating for them at least having a $4 increase. Um six would have been fine but but four is as as always you know you want more more is better. But what is what is realistic is because I I am deeply worried of of losing these people. I I I'm pretty sure the fire department is also in that that same wagon, you know. Um I I don't know if any council member has has talked to our chief, but I I spoken to a lot of police officers. I got numbers and um and we always come back and say, "Well, you know what we pay our employees is, well, what are you basing on on big cities? Who cares? It cost the same. It costs the same to fill up the tank of gas. It cut the same price of a pound per per potatoes or meat or whatever. It costs all the same. It doesn't matter if our if our city is smaller or bigger or whatever. That's that's that's irrelevant. We need to make an investment today with our employees. And that that that is it. You know, we can't we can't turn around and say, "Well, it's a smaller community. It's okay. We don't have to pay them all that much." Or, "Wait a minute. Who are we to be counting their money? And like you just said, you know, we need to keep our good employees. Like uh I'll use the street department. I really like the the work they do. I think they do a better job than than most of these companies that we hire out.

I want to keep them around. I want to attract new employees to the city. Um but you know, that's just me

and I can tell you this as well. me. Um, and no offense to the guys in the back row, but um, uh, public works affects your life every single day. Okay? Hopefully, you only have to see a police officer or a firefighter on your bad day, okay? But public works is every day for you, and that's what makes them important. Well, John, I think the $2 if if that el alleviates the the compression.

Well, like I say, I think that's why I've always favored dollars per hour in increases as opposed to percentages because it doesn't impress on the 150 and the $2. Um, so you're just to be clear when you go home and think about this. So you're talking about if you go over uh to your right at Hill with Mr. Pock 150, it's 1.2 million, right? That's correct. For for every single 275 employees, correct? Okay. Right. And then the

And actually that could actually be lowered if I if I'm not mistaken since I did this across the board. That also included the vacant positions. Oh, okay. Yeah. So, and it's and since it's across the board, it's it's all funds, not just the general in the general fund, it would be lower. Yeah. So, yeah, true. Okay. And the same with a $2. So, it Yeah. For a buck and a half, it would be a million2 and for $2 an hour, it would be a million six. And that's all every fund, including every fund. Yeah, it's all funds. Okay, that's good to know. Well, it's at the last two one point on the bottom of this bottom of this chart. These two right here. When when are we getting our audit?

Uh it get it by the end of this month. Now until we until we settle this and and the water rates, we're not getting an audit period. Oh, what's the question, Mr. When we getting our audit? Oh, that was somebody. We got to solve the water problems and let them know what they're going to be before they finish the audit. They're not comfortable releasing the audit because they see it at the city of Naz is a high risk not having the directors and so do we want to shift over and talk about water now? Depends or do you want to give us the recommendation? Well, I would recommend personally the the the $2 the $2

U if it's going to it's it's not what most of Well, of course, more employees better pay, but um like the water fund, it takes more than one year. Yes. Exactly. And so, you know, we we need to take account these are Yeah. $2, but what's the cost of living? What's going to be the cost of living for next year? Are these $2 going to be enough? I bet you it isn't. But however, we're trying to put a band-aid on this and we're trying to retain our employees. Um I would say that $2 right now is is okay. I would go about it and having a 3% cola increase too, but um that's just me. I mean, it will help these guys to higher higher quality of talent, too.

Absolutely. Because people will apply if it's $2 an hour or more. Yeah. Well, do do would you agree, Chief? I agree. Do do we look at you know Metropin?

Yes. Do we look at you know certain you know certain departments are you could say fluctuate on being you could say less less paid than others in the sense of you know of comparison to what you have here, you know, should we also look at, you know, those departments that are that are in a bigger lower scale than than what the proposed average salary is.

I understand your question, sir. I understand it completely. Um, my response to you is if they're of a lower skill, why do we employ them? No. Why do we have why do we have those jobs? Why why do they do what they do? No, I'm not saying lower skill scaled scale like lower paid lower paid. In other words, give some people a buck and a half instead of two. Is that what you're saying?

No, no, no. you know, I'm I'm comfortable with it, too. But there's there's there's some departments that are, you know, that are even less less paid than our average. I get I get it. Okay. I get it. They have a bigger percentage below the average. Um, how do you work that? I I I don't think you do it without any push back at all. I think you treat everyone I think you treat everyone the same and I know not everybody likes to hear that.

Um but I think you know I mean the uh one of the foundations upon which this country was built was equality. And so you know the jobs we have here serve a public purpose no matter what they are and they all provide us with a public service. And I mean, it's up to us to make sure that public service is good and equitable and and and and high quality. Uh so I don't know that I would treat anyone differently.

We don't have anyone sill uh pay in the pay rate uh lower than 43. Am I correct? Uh range 43 which is about 32,000 something. Yeah. So that's the lowest. What we can do though, it's something it's a it's a suggestion is that you know, you can say, "Well, we can recommend $2 an hour." Uh, but also look at the individual employee and look at the range because we have some employees that are actually get paid outside of the actual range. So, they're at 43. Let's say the max is 40. I'm just I don't recall the exact number, but let's say the range 43, the max is uh 44,000. Mhm.

If they're already over that, you can you can decide that you know what, anybody that's over the max already on that range, then they can either get less or they get nothing. They're counted. There's, you know, they're not we don't have many, but we do have some employees that are closer to the max. The majority I I don't have an exact number, but the majority are below the the the middle of the range. This is not including the ranges that Mr. pocket uh just pass to you guys. Yeah. Um because we're not even I haven't even looked at those numbers. I I don't even know how the the comp study compares to what we're currently getting paid.

So now the $2 an hour will ensure that everyone will be above whatever the state minimum uh wage is now. Okay. Uh I think we've ensured I think right now everyone is at or above the state minimum. Correct. And so, uh, and I think the ranges, the the the salary recommendation that I handed out to you, um, I mean, this this discussion is kind of making that that thing moot for the moment, but I think you have to come back and adopt a new a new a new wage scale. You can go back to the vendor and ask them to finish it up or you can just adopt it or you can adopt something else or you can start over.

I I have to have something. So, Secretary, I have a question. Do do we still so one of the issues that our former city manager had and and I was president and so was councilwoman Monte there we we do have but the 1% remember the 1% you remember that that they we had done the budget and and our former city manager came back he didn't know it was a 1% yeah so we increase automatic you remove that yeah that was removed last fiscal year last fiscal year. Yeah. So this fiscal year didn't go into effect to anybody. it uh it was removed and uh not even so that's not happening anymore. So nobody's getting that 1% or anything like that. It was

topped off at 10 years, right? It was supposed to top to whoever has 10 years, but that only brings them to um to the middle of the range between the mid the minimum and the midpoint. So it's in the middle between that that would just bring them to the amount. So, it's not really bringing them to the midpoint. My understanding was that the goal was from the old uh comp study that we were trying to get as everybody close to the to the uh medium, but we're not. We're actually it was capped in between the minimum and the median.

So, you said he if we give them the $2 uh the $2 raise, that would be like a 4,1 $4,160 increase average. average out of the $4,160, right? 2, you know, for the annual salary would increase like $4,160 per employee. Like if you're making 32,000, you'll be making 36,000, right? With Yeah. With the $2. With the $2, right? Uh, can we vote? Well, no, we can't vote, but If if we hear your direction correctly, then I'll plug in the number.

Oh, okay. He's going to plug that in and then you're going to get to discuss it again. And the tentative, then you'll see the full amount of everything. In fact, once he gets that all plugged in, he's just going to send it out to you because we've got this. What What date did we schedule for the Wednesday of next week? Wednesday of next week. It's a tentative. Yes. Yeah. To to discuss the tentative budget. Next Wednesday. Yeah. The 20th. Yeah. 20. So, right now we can let you know what we want. Uh, you already have. Okay. Thank you. Uh, active at least I had 275 active.

What date did you say? The 10th for the tenative budget 20th of May. Oh, okay. I I kind of thought you might be on the wrong page. Yeah, I am. Getting tired. What time would you like to meet? Miguel has said 10, but we can always change. Yeah, Miguel is penciled in 10 o'clock, but we can do it anytime you want. 10. It's okay. Miguel, you look different this afternoon. So, let's So, it'll be at 10 o'clock.

10 o'clock next Wednesday. Yeah. How many hours do you think are going to be involved? Well, the tenative It's all up to you, sir. Well, okay. Mayor, you beat this thing to death. I can be here two hours and I got to go to you, M. Thank you. Thank you. 10:00. Yeah. The interviews for Yeah. The 19th we've got the city manager interviews, Wednesday, the next day. Yeah.

And normally tentative is just having the the more complete book with the graphs and everything and the final numbers so you guys can look at because normally once we have that once it gets approved the bottom line number doesn't change but even if you make any changes let's say within the general fund and example uh it doesn't really change the bottom line because if you increase a certain department you're like you know what I think we want to give this department a little bit more money it just comes out of the reserve. So it just it doesn't really change the bottom line number or if you remove it into the reserve. So you have to take it away from someplace else. So we're going to be here the 19th and the 20th. That's correct.

No, wait. Can you repeat all the scheduling? The 19 is for the manager for the interviews at 12. At 12 budget at 10. Okay. And if no changes are made for the tentative budget, that normally kind of becomes the final budget. Okay. But you will consider the final budget then at your next regular council meeting uh June 3rd. Is that right? I think we still got to have the two weeks to uh to advertise a tentative. So it might be a week after the Okay. the normal. Do we have time for the two? Mhm.

Yeah. But not not for the council the regular council meeting in June. It will have to be the following week just to to pass the final budget.

Yeah. Are you changing? Oh, then then it'll be enough. You might want to check to see if that's okay with uh legal. Yeah, it's okay. Is it cool? You're winking You're winking at me, mayor, which means you haven't checked with legal. Nico has always told me no and we always start. Okay, okay, you just did that on the recording the pen and it should be has always said though and we've always done it because it all depend it all depends on who can be present. You are you are violating your charters. No, I'm not.

Okay, we got one more thing to do. We have to talk about water rates. Okay, let me just raise the water.

Well, okay. So, I don't want to repeat yesterday's discussion. I think you all know where we where we are. Okay. Uh so, uh here's the bottom line. in order to make up the difference um of the million2 that we're short literally dollar short and it's this is this this money is not on paper it's real dollars um we have to raise we have to raise the rates effective as soon as possible because it's process uh 25% immediately negative 25% immediately okay now A million what? A million two

actually almost a million three for this balance. Okay, so um why can't Okay, hold on. You got to listen. Okay, you got to listen to the explanation so you understand it. Okay, here's the deal. Um the the 25% is going to increase your water rate from two. So right now the base pay the base rate for water is Well, no, just tell them the answer. Okay. Yeah. I thought you had the number. It's about four. In other words, four bucks a month.

Round. Yes. Okay. Right now, your base rate is $10.83 or something like that per month. Yeah. 1056 is the base rate for water. Uh increasing 25% takes it from 1056 to uh 1320. Thank you. Okay. So 1015 which is approximately 200 $250 64.

Okay. Now that doesn't solve your problem completely. Okay. We had two items that we couldn't put in the water fund because we didn't have the money. So, what we're also recommending is that the $300,000 that goes to uh general fund allocation

general fund allocation be dropped. That will free up $300,000 to hire an engineer to engineer the design to solve the problem on the water tank where the ground is sloughing off. Okay. Um, we hope for $300,000 we can fix that problem. There was one other item, Eric, that uh we wanted to put in there with that 300,000 the arsenic arsenic

that uh we have three wells that have arsenic issues. One we've addressed um with $70,000 this year. Right. Next year we have two of them to address and they're 140,000 each. So the plan is if council directs this then we would use that additional funding for arsenic mediation in all three wells and the slope stability design.

Right. Okay. And that's not all. Okay. This is a long-term fix. Now, we also have to to show the auditor and show funding agencies that when we borrow this million2 that we're going to have a future plan to pay it back. Okay? That means you're not done raising the water rates. You just That's just in year one. Okay? In year two, Sergio's going to come to you because I'm not gonna I'm not going to be there. Um, and he's going to show you how you're going to pay it back because it's going to be just like a bank loan.

There's no No, they won't fund you. So, so why can't we Okay, but there's no butts. This is absolute, folks. Why can't we just borrow it borrow it from the reserve and pay back the reserve? That's what That's what I'm talking about doing. But we still have to pay them back. Okay? We're not allowed to take the money. We're allowed to borrow the money.

And and we also have to have a plan to pay it back or you won't get your your your your um you're going to get a big you're going to get a big nick on your audit because they won't finish it. And if you don't get a good audit, you're not going to be able to borrow money to do the infrastructure projects that have to be done over the next 10 years. I'm sorry folks. We're between a literal rock and a hard place. You have no options left. Sure. We can talk about water rights, but not until you hire a water lawyer because I don't think I don't think you can do what you think you could do. Why not? It's already been Are you talking about selling wastewater or are you talking about do you actually possess water rights?

The wastewater that's not a water right. Th those have already been approved by you know the excommissioner that we have those rights that we could sell. But but that hasn't been placed that has not brought brought uh before uh council mayor and so we need a quick fix. We need to fix it today. The water rights and all that. You already got the response from you don't have a choice. I'm I'm telling you you're you're you're out of options and selling water. Our first choice is wellorrow my choice would be borrow from the reserve and that's what we're doing councilman. That's what we're getting from there. An acre foot of water is worth but we won't pay it back from you know what an acre foot of water is worth. Find another way of paying it back.

Tell me. It's worth about $1,000. Yeah. Based on the research. Okay. How much how many gallons are in an acre foot? You know the answer. 326,000 gallons. And we have 5.5 billion. 5.5 billion what gallons? But that's not ours. That's not ours. The 5.5 million did not belong to the city of Ngalas and you know that mayor. So come back and saying give me those numbers that 5.5 billion belongs to the city. That's not true. I'm a water lawyer and you need to figure that out and I'm going to tell you because I was in a business of selling water. Okay? Thousand an acre footfoot. Okay? That that comes out to a lot less than you think

and it's not going to solve your $1.2 million problem. Now I'm not done yet. Okay. So, after you've considered increasing your water rates in year two to start paying back your debt, now you still have to deal with your regular budget. You still have to deal with whatever happens with costs increase for the water fund and wage increases for the water fund that year on top of it. Okay? Now, I'm not going to tell you that you have the lowest water rate in the state. You already know that. Okay? Believe me, folks, you're not special. Okay? You're special because water costs nothing here. Okay? I'm not trying to be offensive. I'm just I'm just telling you it is a fact that you are broke and you've got to dig yourself out. And if you follow those steps, and I'll be calling him next year to see if you do it. Um, just joking.

Mr. Ta, what about the the surplus that we get from the sewer and and the and the trash? You don't have a surplus and trashing. We don't have You're about to go down the same road in sanitation. It's going to happen. The same It's going to happen if we don't we don't It's going to happen.

So, we're going to race those two. I'm trying to be as easy on you as I can this year. And I think maybe you can you can hold out another year on uh sanitation and wastewater, but you're you're going to have to increase those rates, too. Now, hopefully you can raise those rates, too, without getting down to ground zero where you are with water. Go ahead. microphone. Um, why have such a large problem with the water?

Uh, what? Yeah. Why is there such a problem with our water rates? And well, the the first the first the easy answer is you haven't increased the rates in 10 years. Okay, that's your biggest problem. Okay. Um, and I think you're

you're, you know, uh, I think the mayor says it pretty often. You've got a an old bundle of pipes, uh, that you're using and and your treatment system is old. Um, and even though, uh, we've got a lot of projects in the pipeline for infrastructure upgrades and repairs, um, they're they're they're significant. and a day doesn't go by that water doesn't go out and fix a broken pipe somewhere, sometimes more than once. You got a very old system that needs a lot of repair. Okay? Now, going forward, you'll have options on how to make those repairs, but you can't you in the next 10 years, you cannot miss increasing your water rates a single year. It's going to take you 10 years to dig out. Okay? So, and hopefully while you're doing that, we're also able to show because we're not only we not only got to show our auditors and WIFA and any other funding agency that we are financially capable enough of taking care of our bills. But if you have a bond rating, that bond rating is not at risk. Yeah.

Rants are always better. Rants are always better. So what you're saying is that there's at least earlier before 50% um if 150% um 113 I think 113 so you know who made that recommendation do you know

who made the recommendation 113% Yeah. And so now you're saying that we should look at 25% now and I ask again why why didn't we say that none of the administrations prior to

yeah we have this issue right now that we have to clear Sure, there's a variety of reasons, but number one is not having increased the rate in 10 years. And I'm only saying 10 years is because that's what I was told. 2016 was the last time, I think. So, so give me uh John, uh Steve, um one point back in 2016, had it been raised to 1.8% up to 10 years, uh we probably could have had a a nice cushion, right? Maybe a 3.3 mill in. Yeah. And that salo that's the beauty of incremental increases.

Yeah. No one would we would have not been in this situation if we if back then 1.8 would have been implemented for 10 years or 12 years. Yeah. We would not we would have been able to balance our budget. My biggest concern is why do we have to keep uh not taking care of is of issues or problems and we say well the next administration's going to fix it. We can fix it today. We can start fixing it today. Like you just said, it's going to take maybe a few years to to get out of the hole,

but you know, we can start fixing it today. It's something that is going to continue and probably none of us are going to be here, but I don't believe in in in in inheriting the next administration with a time bomb. This is an issue that we can handle. We've gone through the numbers not once, not twice, three, I think we've been through this many times and we need to fix it. And I am comfortable uh Steve at 25%.

To to to start fixing this problem. Any other way we need to start make a decision at 25%. It's $4. What' you say, sir? It's a $4 difference. Okay. We're going to be meeting um Damascus pretty quick. Yeah. Sorry. Um yeah, he's in fact he was calling Serge this morning. Um and uh and don't forget what we told you yesterday. He's going to want to meet with all of you as well.

Um and uh but in order to put a any price adjustment uh in motion, you have to go through a procedure. Uh it it takes a month or two uh to do that. I'm unfamiliar with the process, but uh that's for Joe Estus to help you with. Um and uh we can start the process. It's going to be a while before you can make any decisions at all. Um and and and of course you'll be adopting your budget next month and and I think if you can clarify for Councilman Bhorquez, what is the 1.2 million that we're taking from our reserves? And that's only to cover what they're in the red, right? We're actually 1.3, right?

To balance them, right? Um yes, Hector. Um, if you if you go to the No, that's what I just explained. If you go to the water fund, page 51. 51. Thank you. Go to page 51. 50 is where the expenditure start. Okay. Well, I want revenues, too. Uh, 49.

49. Page 49. Okay. Now, keep your finger on page 49 and then go to page 52, but don't flip over. Okay. So, at the bottom of page 49, you see the water fund revenue total of $3.1 million.

Okay. So, and now flip down to The bottom line on expenditures is 4.3 almost 4.4 million. That's a $1.2 million gap. We're take we're taking away the carry forward. There's no carry forward. There's no carry forward. It's the deficit. You look at the carry forward, it says. No.

So, no. So based on this carry forward, it was based on the calculations done in the previous years, the way they were calculating, but they weren't looking into the actual fund balances for these. So based on that, it's like they really didn't have that. Based on a conversation with the city's auditor last week, our fund balance in water is zero. That's the actual that's the number you're going to get when you get your audit. So it's a it's a real real easy 1.2 2 million. You take the 3.1 and subtract the 4.3 and you end up with 1.2 negative.

That's the urgency. We can't operate that funding with a million dollar deficit. happens if nothing was done.

So you would have an unbalanced budget especially for this fund because this is the only fund that I could not could not uh balance. So you can either have to get rid of a lot of expenditures and this fund doesn't have that many that doesn't you have about almost a million dollars just in paying bonds and then about the same approximately about actually it's about 1.3 million in bonds and and and and the whiff loan that we pay and then the rest will just be uh personnel. They would have to start looking into getting rid of personnel. we can't operate the plant, we don't make our bond payments, we're in deep trouble.

Because if you look at every other different line item is that's where you're going to have to determine, well, where can we cut? We can't cut in the uh debt financing because we have to pay back the debt. Um then you start well let's remove we can start snipping the line items the training the other professional services but then you're removing the operational um budget for the department to function correctly and the co it's costier now because of all the years since the last increase of the rate then everything costs more to maintain it the water lines any type of emergency uh you know god knows what can happen if you know there's some burst of lines that it's going to they would have to get some money out of of the general fund just to correct it and fix it because currently right now they they have no money.

Uh you want to say something? So So Steve, do you mind do you mind if Steve? Uh so it's part of this problem the the billing process that we have because I know that uh for as long as I've been here, you know, the people have been complaining about the billing. As a matter of fact, I just got a a text from a constituent saying, you know, what the heck's going on with the city. You know, I paid they were charging me $67 a month for for a water line for a water line that I have in my house.

And uh they told me it was a water leak and I fixed it and everything. And and now I get my next month bill isund $109. I think it was. He said it went from from from high to it went higher than the before he got the fix on the on the lines. So is that going to take care of this problem? No, it's not going to take care of it, but it is part of it. Okay. So, and on top of this, we're going to give him a 25% increase.

Uhhuh. So, when it comes to situations where there's issues with the water lines, if it's on our side, it doesn't come on in on a meter, we tend to fix it. if it's on the side of the of the customer. Obviously, if they're having leaks, that means that the meter keeps running. So, but that's an issue that they have to the customer is responsible for any leaks from the meter to their house. Um, if that's an issue that the billing went up is because of the leak, then it's it's it happens, you know, like when when we have frozen pipes, you know, I I tend to have to pay the bill, my water bill goes up because of the consumption that happened of the leak. Um, I already spoke to the revenue manager. Uh, I was actually talking to them this morning because I know, uh, Miss Montella was also asking if you know about the issues with the billing. Uh, building wise, if anybody now is giving you calls, it'll probably be because we're billing them for their past due amounts. As I explained yesterday, we're up to date on posting all the payments. So if it shows a a higher amount, it's a usage amount now or because they h they're they haven't been paying the months behind them. We're actually up to date on building.

The issue is you're billing for supposedly passed due amounts, but there's there's no proof to them that you know you're billing for I'm going to just give you an example. you're billing for February or or January of 26 with them having any proof of what you're building. Okay?

You know, there's, you know, you're just saying it's cuz you should have paid 300 instead of 200 in in February or you should have paid 100 instead of $50 in January. And they just say, "But I paid my bill." Mhm. So I no no no nobody's giving him actual readings or anything and and this is the the the reason this is the change. This is this is the difference that we had back then. Nobody's giving any reasoning. You're just saying oh you should have paid 300 in in in February instead of 200, you know, but they paid their bill.

Yeah. And that let me uh so one of the things is that the billing does have the reading on on the bill itself. So if a customer is saying that then they're lying because it's actually printed on they pay they paid their bill. No. So if they pay their bill if you go to anywhere and you they tell you it's $50 for the gallon of milk. You're going to pay $50. They can't come back at you say no it should have been $80. You're going to pay what you get built. Okay. Okay, let me explain. That's what they're doing. The issue that was happening, like I explained yesterday, is that the payments were being posted daily. When

when uh the last management that was there when when Jean left, we had nobody there. So, there was a couple of months behind that the daily deposits, the daily payments were being posted. Invoices were coming out and it was still showing that balance because when you don't post a payment, it doesn't show it'll show pay pending. They would call us and be like, "What's going on?" because I wasn't aware of what was going on in that part of the department and when I was there then I started seeing what was the issue was because the payments showed and didn't reflect in the building. So that's why the complaints were the majority of the complaints were because we're like hey why I already made this payment and they would come and I spoke to some of them and they were right. Our system showed that the payment was showing as pending but it wasn't reflected on the bill. Now, if you get and anybody that's getting a bill, it it is reflecting the payments.

So, if they're showing a balance, it's actually that is the reason we were not cutting uh water lines. We weren't cut we weren't terminating people's contracts or anything because we we didn't know which was an an internal issue or actually an a customer not paying their bill. Now, we're up to that date that any money that comes in today gets paid today. It gets posted today. So, now we're we're caught up. I understand because that did happen and I but I understood what really happened. I mean my department the accounting area is so different than what it is in the revenue area. It's it's it's apples to apples. You talking to more about business than background and and so I wasn't aware of that until I started looking at the whole issue. Right now we're you know Francisco and that group is working hard and they're catching up and we're implementing different things to get rid of that those issues. So now actually the problems that we have with people receiving a bill with more amounts, it's either because their consumption is higher um their meter uh reading actually is not being adjusted like past management. So we're correcting that. So if they start getting bigger bills, it's because they were not being built for the actual usage. And then you have meter people taking their meters, taking them and and use and not being able to charge them because we couldn't find the meters for the for the ones that had in the fire hydrant. So now we're we're doing everything try to collect as much money. But so that could be an issue. Why also we we're not collecting as much money, but we're we're we're we're on top of it now. You know, we're we're not at 100%. But I mean of years of wrongdoings doesn't mean that we we'll be able to fix it. But we're we're catching up and we're trying to fix that and and hopefully, you know, we

okay in this case, you know, the the the gentleman says that that he had a plumber go in there and checked his water lines and there's no leaks and if it's a meter issue, does the city take care of that and will they uh now? So we we normally we do service orders because before there was

people going doing changes fixing stuff but there was no no backup. We couldn't find notes on the accounts couldn't find you know service orders. So now we have we implemented a totally different system. I was like nobody goes to go inspect the property if we don't have a service order. That way the system if you look into that account we have a tracking of everything that happened. So and so called so and so left. So and so paid their complaint. We sent the somebody to go inspect it and and if there's an issue with the meter, then we replace the meter and we track it and we note it now. So, we have we're trying to follow through because that was also part of the audit. That will be something that that the auditors really like digged into this year because of the issues that we're having. So, it's it's we know the situation. We know the problem and we're we're trying our best to try to fix those issues. Sergio, if

it was a malfun malfunction function of the meter, do we still charge the the customer?

We can we can always, you know, we work with the customers and if it's something that we can work with them and we can help, we can adjust, we we do that as well or we also give them payment plans. We offer payment plans because now we're collecting more money of the um of the customers are still owed money from for from months. So now that we know which ones are actually not internal issues that we have people that haven't paid for three, four months, we're we're calling them. They're actually coming in making contracts. Okay, well I'll pay my current amount and a certain amount extra each just to, you know, to be able to catch up. So we work with them. We give them payment plans. We don't if they by any chance can't make the payment right away. We we always give them up to a year if you know if they want to break it down. Depends on the amount that they owe just to make it easier for the customers. And in direct answer to your question, yes, there is a delinquent figure in the water, sewer and sanitation funds. Um but um we are making we do have a person working there now that is just doing collections work. So we expect that uh we we did an aging this morning. What was the delinquency in the water? $686,000.

Okay. So, we're in the process of collecting that money right now with a person who just makes collection calls all day long. And that's just water. Sewer is 93,486. Said Hill, is it fair to say that um we're charging businesses and and uh you know, residents now were charging for years of not paying water connections and and are we charging these people? If you find people and businesses out there that haven't been paying the city of Ngalas for water and sewer, whatever have you, are you going back and charging these people years back?

Uh, for are you previous ones? Like I don't know how to track it. I wouldn't know if not would have to look individually maybe even audit individual like internal audit just to to check all the new businesses. But again, how much are you willing to go back and say, "Well, we need to start billing these people." So, at least from from from right now to forward, we are not cutting services that people haven't been paying. And then if they want to get the service again, then the recognition fees, extra fees. Yeah. So, for example, if you know of a business, for example, if I have a business and I haven't been paying water because the city hasn't hasn't charged me for years and years and years and years. So, I just didn't I'm not going to get build.

Okay. on the wild. You you'll get from the previous reading to the current reading, they'll bill you for everything for but if I haven't had a couple, but if we haven't been charged for years and years and years and the city found out that that was the case, are you going back and charging them for the usage of

for the usage for years past prior that they haven't paid? So, the last thing because it's getting late, I'll I'm going to talk a little bit about the elephant in the in the room, and that is that because the lack of vision, if you will, um we haven't increased our rates for years and years and years, and now we're in this situation. So, now we have the pay the the the residents have to pay for it. I mean, you know, that's how I put it, not not putting words in your mouth. So, because the lack of vision and the lack of taking action and and having a plan uh in place uh to keep up with all of this, now our residents have to pay for it. So, we're going to have to increase what you're recommending is just a minute to increase the rates, the water rates at least 25% this year.

Yes. And that number we we determined it was for the 25% to cover that to make up to actually be able to recover that 1.3. But but next year would have to be another 25%. I mean it would have to be or could you next year it's going to be whatever is calculated to be necessary. We don't know then. 25 is just there's no way we can tell. No way we can tell until we get to about this point next year. Serio, is this is this 1.2? Is that going to increase? So this is up to May of this year, right? This is going to increase. Yes. So yeah, if we end up uh using more of the Well, actually, it doesn't really affect it because we're we're starting at zero dollars carrying forward. So, right.

But it might it might increase the deficit if we go under. Um

I feel like based on the numbers that I ran that uh we're showing to date as 3.2 million in revenues and expenditures were at 2.9. So, we're actually now above revenues than expenditures. So, you know, based on the monthly reports that I've been giving you guys, the last one, we're still in the red. I think if I don't recall, maybe $43,000, but that was based on on the previous month. So, now once we we're including more revenues, they might change it. But the more we go in the red, you know, like I I checked sewer for the last six years, uh, five of the last six years, we spent more at the end of the more than than what came in and the same is happening with sanitation and water obviously every year has been like that. So we need to

look at what can explain. We need to budget based on the expected revenues and not depend too much on the carry forward or whatever that savings amount. That way we can have the savings amount there and not depend on it to balance the budget. And we're not we're not overstating the problem here. Not a bit. So So I can see the water and the sewer problem, but sanitation, why would that be in the red? What would be the problem there again for the expenditures being more than the revenues?

So there if there there was a couple of years ago I mean I wasn't um I was more on the background but but I would see how uh a lot of capital gets approved a lot of so this time we're trying Mr. pocket and and also the previous administration also we decide to kind of decrease to not have the big hit and and over spense uh money that's not really coming in. So and hopefully in the future we can start considering not focusing too much on the carry forward is focusing how many revenues how much revenues we're going to expect to get next year and and that's uh a different way uh with talking Mr. pocket and and working on this budget this year is something that for next fiscal year before even every uh uh department is aware, you know, starts working on their numbers. We need to look to see, hey, you're especially those enterprise funds, they're to give them a you're limited to this amount because that's the expected revenue to not let them over over budget.

I think Eric came to the table to contribute something.

Mr. Mayor, council, thank you for letting me speak. Eric Stewart from public works. I uh everything you're saying I understand I wanted to make sure that everyone understood that the proposed budget for the water department there's no capital. We've stripped all capital and so the 25% you're recommending Mr. Punkin is to cover operations and maintenance of the system. Not any of these um shovel ready products product projects that uh WIFA helped fund the design for. not the valve replacement program like I mentioned uh yesterday and so zero capital in this and so and I can't speak to um Michael Vasquez and what he mentioned but he may have been saying if you want to do these these projects for capital over the next x amount of years you might have to increase it more than I think he gave you a larger number than 20

no doubt but so so that's why we are working on a water and wastewater. We are stopping the bleeding. Thanks, Eric.

Go ahead. Go. Yeah, we're talking about stopping the bleeding, but yet we have a lot of positions that aren't needed that were created in the last couple of years and uh a lot I I know personally I've checked on some those positions, they're they're not really uh they can be covered by their employees in the same department and without putting any stress or anything on anyone. So, uh, we've been trying to get, uh, forensic audit for years now and and we keep we keep I think I'll say now we keep getting lied to about why not and

there's too many things going on overall. There's too many things going on overall and you know when we can't trust the people that we have in place it gives us the problem when you bring these issues like I hear you say I went over the numbers and yet I see very simple math on your charts here that don't add up. So who who's doing the who's doing the addition or who's doing the numbers? I mean, if if you fail on simple on simple adding problems, how can we depend that your numbers are correct even though you went through them? You know, then this is just you can address that right now. I'm just talking right now overall. But but you know, we have to make some hard choices here that affect our residents. You know, this the the things about things going up in prices aren't just here in the city. It's our residents also that have to pay higher gas prices, higher groceries, higher terrorists, higher everything. And and you know, how are they going to take it? We're giving raises and now you're you're going to raise their rates. Uh and and and yet, you know, the state of the city is a mess, you know. So, so you know, it doesn't look look at the situation we're in. We're elected officials. We have we're the voice of the people. We have to represent them. We have to speak for them and yet we have to make sure the city is maintained and yet it hasn't been and there's still a lot of things going on. I even heard that they returned or that they there's a big orders that come in. I've been against recently this thing about you guys having the right to spend over $100,000 without council approval. And one of uh one of your former uh public works director ordered a bunch of material that I guess he was going to use personally somewhere because apparently

nobody in the city knows what it was for. You know, these are the things that we need to be on top and make sure that it's they're not happening. And so that's my concern. We have to take care of the interest of our citizens and and somehow make that magic work where we can still maintain the city going forward. And it's not easy. But yet, you know, I'm seeing here today, we just went in the direction instead of freezing, you know, instead of freezing, you know, the right now the payroll or or raises. No, we're going up and now we're going to increase rates on our citizens that are upset because they see the way the city is. They see the faulty, you know, streets that they have and everything else and not enough lighting. And we keep making promises here, but where are the results? Okay, John, I'm going to say this for the second time today. I've heard that speech over a thousand times in my career.

Now, wait a minute. I listen to you. Hold on. All right. Okay. So, what you're saying here is that it's okay not to give people raises and it's okay not to increase rates until the water system shuts down and then you end up like Flint, Michigan.

You No, I didn't miss a damn thing. I didn't miss the audit. The The audit is a mess because because of this. Okay. and your forensic audit isn't going to shed any new light on a situation. We know we've got a handle on it. Fixing things is a pain. Fixing things is hard. Kicking the can down the road is easy from year to year. And that's exactly what has been happening in the waterfront. You've been kicking the can. And John, I know you've been an elected official for part of it. So, you're part of the problem. You're not part of the solution. You can you can sit here and pontificate over this stuff until the cows come home, but you're not solving any problems. What we're proposing here solves the problem. It takes 10 years to solve the problem that took 10 years to get here. And so I'm sitting here with no dog in this fight at all. But I'll be damned if I'm going to sit here and let your water system go to hell and not do a thing about it. And you know, John, you're doing you're you're doing your citizens a disservice by opposing this stuff. Go ahead, vote against it. I don't care. But when the system fails, the people who voted no are the responsible parties.

Okay. Amen. All right. So now going back to Mr. finance uh office. Why do we why can't we figure things out to the dollars where they're so simple right here on the payroll schedules? Sorry. Uh u going back to the payroll schedules, why why why can't they whoever's on your staff can't add up the numbers and put them correctly? you know why why why why do we always get a dollar short or a dollar more when when they're really simple math okay when we're working with uh spreadsheets in Excel

the decimals sometimes are behind the scenes and we can't see it and it'll round off different numbers the additional so I just try to plug in the numbers as much as possible but the rounding off even in your head you can figure out 300 plus 23 plus 2 is 325 plus 195 makes at, you know, already the the 520 and then you add 18,000 to it, but instead you come out with 18,519 and the and the last number is 111,114 when it should be 111,120. What I'm all I'm saying is, you know, that's simple numbers. Just put it right. Yes. And again, this is a

you can do the decimal and anything, but you can still run your eyes on it. It's the same thing. That's why I'm asking are the numbers that that you're that you're running are also based on maybe some mistake that that you you you know you didn't check check the the the results. Uh because in math you always have to check you know you obviously make you know you get you get the numbers and then you go over then make sure you know using a different approach instead of uh instead of a computer or something you know or a calculator. Uh and where are we? But but anyway, where are we going with this?

Well, that again, we have to rely on numbers that you guys are giving us when and then I'm seeing that we're not even getting correct numbers on simple math. Sergio, that's all I'm saying. Sio,

I want to commend you and your staff. I know that you are underst staff and I'm not going to tolerate any council member here to talk down to any of our employees to accuse them of rats, cockroaches. I will not stand for that. You are underst staffed. You had 12 employees and now you have five. Am I correct in that? So we have asked you out of many employees to bend to bend back and more to get this budget done and then on top of that you have council members berating you to score political points and I'm not going to tolerate that.

We're thank you. We're getting out of here. Again, you if if the rest of the council would like to look at at the sheet payroll schedules for the council, just run your eyes and run up the numbers in your head. They're not the same as they're not the same. And that's that's all I'm saying. Nobody accuse you of a rat. I just said you you didn't follow through. Okay. I think we're getting out of the subject. I have one more thing and then we can adjourn unless somebody has anything else. We're finished. I just have one request, Mr. Mayor. The PA system in this room is substandard to be the least. So I think we should I think we should put a little money in here for a better sound system. Put it in a budget.

Okay, we are done. Thank you all very much. I know this is a grueling event and you've been a bunch of champs to to sit through it uh especially for for your salary and uh uh we will have uh in a day or two we'll have we'll have the thing ready for you guys to look at and then don't forget those dates that we just talked about uh for the next so that's all I have mayor thank you thank you that's it we move to J second all In favor media adjourned. Thank you.