City Council - workshop

call this Monday, July 13, 2026 session of North Augusta Council study session into an order. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to city admin to move us through the agenda.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Pro Tem, and council members. As is the usual practice, we'll do an agenda review for next week's council meeting. You'll have department details from the department heads, and then we'll have one item under Mayor's Matters for focus items, and that'll be this year's financial audit. So this will be an opportunity for the council to do a full review of the finances for the last fiscal year. And we'll be able to close out effectively that way. So with that, we'll go ahead and move into the agenda review. We have a number of items here for old business. Most of these are in the planning or in the tourism side of the house. So first under planning and development under old business ordinance number 2026-13. Change the corporate limits of the city of North Augusta by accepting the petition requesting annexation by the landowners and anything plus or minus 0.16 acres of property located off Lake Greenwood drive and owned by the lakes LLC. 2nd reading, you know, obviously have Tom paradise here to answer. This has already been voted on once and just as a. Reminder for council members and for the folks that are watching from home, this is in regards to a piece of property that has a very small piece of roadway that's connecting for the new development that's going and that's in the city limits of North Augusta at lakes and streams. So the road is going to be built regardless. The question is, does that road come into the city or not come into the city? And so the council has already previously voted once to allow that annexation, and this would be the second reading of that ordinance, but if you have any specific planning and development questions regarding this item, Mr. Paradise is here to be able to handle those questions. I mean, the questions will move on to the next items. These are actually linked even though they're listed separately under administration and tourism. So the 1st item is item 8. Ordinance number 2026 dash 15, amending article 15 sections 2 dash 286 through 2 dash 290. The code of ordinances to reclassify the position of tourism manager as tourism director. Uh, 2nd, reading again, what we're doing is, and the reason why these are linked is because we're moving the Greenway. Team 3 person element from parks and rec into tourism and based on the scope of responsibility. And financial aspects that are along with that, we felt along with the mayor that it was time to elevate the. Position of the tourism manager, tourism director, so it's a peer. with all the other directors that are outward facing. And so ultimately that's what's before you is to change that position in In the ordinance itself, and then I'll move if you don't mind collectively, so we can talk those together. Ordinance number 2026 dash 16, authorizing a restructuring of the tourism department to incorporate greenway operations staff, sales and programs for 2nd reading. So, again, these are both 2nd readings that council heard both through study sessions and also in the. A city council meeting itself that the tourism department would then elevate to a department and then would incorporate. Elements of parks and rec specifically the greenway team to move over to tourism and we've already started to get the ball rolling as far as moving some of the greenway items out. Over into the old public safety headquarters in the Bay areas, we are not allowing people to operate in the office spaces of the old public safety headquarters. just based on the environmentals there. But as far as storing Greenway equipment, the bays are sufficient for that purpose. Again, we view that as an interim plan. We had a discussion at the Greenwood off-site talking about capital project sales tax for and having a wedge for the Greenway for that action. Part of that would go towards paving the Greenway in a future year, but also part of that proposal would be eventually to replace the old Johnson & Johnson electric facility to have that raised and then put a smaller facility there that would incorporate the Greenway storage and likely a restroom facility. So those are the actions that are before you for second reading, both of those involving tourism, but listed separately, 100 administration, 100 tourism. JD is certainly able to answer most of your questions or would call, but I'll pause for any questions from the council on these items.

Just one really quick from me. Did we ever get an opinion on whether or not this action would separate the Greenway from parks and rec funding like impact fees?

So, Kelly, the question that had been asked previously was, by the fact that this would be moved out, the tourism department with the Greenway assets, would that affect the usage of impact fees? Because impact fees are specifically used for parks the way that it was written in 2019. That was the question and my, my response, I believe to the councilman was. Impact fees cannot be used to take care of existing facilities. So, for example, I cannot use impact these to repave portions of the Greenway. But my understanding at the administration level was that we're doing a.

change or update to that facility for example we're going to extend the greenway into a neighborhood or go somewhere else that that would be eligible for impact fee funding and that was my read of it i would be of the opinion that if it relates to the same activity the same scope of work that we'd still be all right thank you

Yeah, just a couple quick comments. One is I think the Greenway is probably underestimated in how much tourism it brings to the community. Carl, you might be able to speak on how many different groups use or rent the Greenway for races or other kinds of events throughout the year. It's probably a number that would surprise some of our councilmen. So moving the Greenway under the tourism department makes sense.

I think there could also be a case for a lot of other areas in the city.

There's so much overlap, softball fields, soccer fields, for tourism that already occurred, basketball gyms, almost all of our parks and recs. But how many events would you say a year are people that rent the Greenway for a race or for some other event? Blood Walk.

I'm sorry, Carl, if you're gonna speak, please come to the mic.

Yeah, so I've been out of coordinating races and all that for a while since tourism became a thing. But I know when I was doing it, there's probably at least 12 to 15, you know, 5Ks that go on. And obviously the Ironman and the one in November, the Peach. Palmetto Peach. Palmetto Peach obviously is a big draw in filling up hotels as well. But it also, you know, serves a lot of people. 5Ks within communities. I know Augusta University has one, their dental department. Their residents always sue one.

Is there a blood drive walk or a heart walk?

Sure, a heart walk has been in our town for a number of years, probably close to 12, 15 years now. We've been doing it, and that's a good regional draw as well. Yes, sir?

Very good.

All right, barring any other questions, we'll move on to new business. Under administration, resolution number 2026-37, authorizing revised request of award allocation of the accommodations tax advisory committee for the disbursement of revenues from the accommodations tax year, year 2023-24, accommodation tax funding program. I'm going to probably pump it over to Jamie. She's one of our A-tax experts, and if that blows off of her, then Linda can certainly handle it as well. But I'll turn it over to you to tell the council what they're doing.

Good evening. For the resolution that is in front of you, the accommodation tax had asked for an extension, and with that, the recommendation for the change is due to some monies that were then not expected to be covered were covered, so they came up with, because the money needs to be spent by the end of the year, and they did not want to lose it. Any other questions? I'm here.

I believe the project is the water wheel. It's down there. They want to invest some money in the water wheel, which is an outstanding feature of the Living History Park, if you've ever seen it work. It actually works the grist mill as well. And they had some labor donated to move the water wheel as well as put it back in, but they needed some additional money to repair. Excellent choice.

Or any other comments? They'll also be under boards of commissions, Parks and Recreation Advisory Commission and Planning Commission appointments by the mayor, receipt of information by the council. So the mayor will be making a new appointment to the Parks and Rec Commission because I believe one of the members is coming off. So that, subject to any questions, that's what we have for the agenda review for next week. And we'll go ahead and move into department details.

Good evening again.

First up is finance director Linda Williamson Good evening council Just quick update from finance our cycle one customers our schedule their disconnection date will be Sorry, for their June balances will be Tuesday, July 21st. The due date for their July 10th bills is going to be August 3rd. Cycle 2 customers will have a due date for their June 26th bills on July 20th. And the disconnection date for their June balances is scheduled to begin Tuesday, August 4th. That's all I have for tonight.

Okay, and then for human resources... For the week of July 13th, there's two new hires she had listed and or stated and on the back of your page is employment opportunities Have we hired somebody the assistant at the animal shelter Chiefs going to talk about that because it's Okay Then next up is engineering public works director Tom Caesar

Good evening. I'm pleased to state that all the work under the NRCS grant, all the physical work is completed, our contractors, and so now we are just wrapping up and preparing what we call our closeout documents to submit to NRCS. So hopefully bring that grant project to a conclusion by the end of August. And I'm sure there will be a full accounting of that grant at some time in the future once that's wrapped up. Also this week, Dominion Energy will be working in the median on Center Street in Riverside Village. to do their portion of the work to bring permanent electric power into the median there that will supply electricity to the tree lights and as well as other receptacles that are down there we've been borrowing electricity from the crown plaza with their with their permission of course for quite some time so we will have that service in place soon the contractor working in the woodlawn crestview ditch or drainage project he should finish all concrete work this week and then so it's just a matter of property restoration and so again hopefully that work will be substantially complete by his contract end date of july 31st And then lastly, the Creighton Park contractor doing the site work, the parking lot and other improvements down there. He's going to be putting in a parking surface this week or beginning that work. And then, again, he fully expects to have that work substantially complete also July 31st.

Is the parking lot surface permeable?

Yes, it is a pervious. It's a gravel-based pervious system, yes.

Very good.

Thank you, Tom. Next up is Planning and Development Director Tommy Paradise.

Good evening. The Planning Commission is Wednesday evening. We have issued the RFP for the comprehensive plan. Those should be received by noon on July the 30th, and then we'll start evaluations. The Arts NPO Governing Document Committee that I serve on will be meeting July the 15th. That's Wednesday afternoon as well. The Arts NPO Policy Committee meets the next morning on July the 16th. Our code enforcement in the last couple of weeks has opened 17 new cases, closed 11. One lot was cleaned, and that will go on as a tax lien to the property owner. We're currently receiving bids on five additional parcels that we need to clean. We removed 46 illegal signs and did 13 landscape inspections. Questions?

Thank you, Tommy.

Next up is Public Services Director James Sutton.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. This week, 700 block of River Bluff Road will be reduced to one lane of traffic on Wednesday the 15th during the hours of 8 a.m. to 5 o'clock p.m., and also on Friday the 17th from 10 a.m. till 3 p.m. so that utility crews can work out in the street and the roadway to make a wastewater service connection, extend it over to a new residential lot, and they'll also make repairs to the roadway. Also this week, utility technicians will be working between San Salvador, over around Hammond Hills, between San Salvador and Hammond's Ferry Road along the 1.1 mile walking trail. They're going to be conducting inspections and cleaning of the wastewater main. As soon as they finish doing the cleaning, it'll be evaluated the condition of the pipe in the office and ranked, evaluated, and Any of the problems that we have out there will be scheduled to make repairs. No problems, everything will move forward. We'll list it and put it in the asset management program file. It'll also help us determine how frequently the pipe needs to be cleaned or if it needs to be replaced or portioned thereof.

Thank you, James.

Next up is public safety. Chief Johnson.

To answer your question you started with, our new animal control assistant is supposed to start on July 29th is when that person will start out there. And also this past weekend we had 12 of our members attend the National Fire Academy for a weekend, a South Carolina weekend training course in Emmitsburg, Maryland. So it's going to be very similar to a 8 to 5 schedule, but we're setting it up so that the weekends will also have coverage. That way we can expand the amount of time. That's right. Yes, ma'am. We can't expect them to work all seven days, but between them and Craig, we want to be able to have someone there seven days. Yes, ma'am.

Thanks, Chief.

Council members, if you wouldn't mind, just a reminder that please use your microphones. We've had a number of complaints from citizens that watch the live stream and can't hear.

Oh, they heard him.

I didn't say that. Parks and Recreation Director Rick Meyer.

good evening mayor and council last week we hosted over two hundred junior EYBL teams and during the tournament WE HAD A MEDICAL EMERGENCY ON FRIDAY, AND I AM SO THANKFUL TO REPORT THAT THE GENTLEMAN HAS SURVIVED AND WILL BE OKAY, AND IT'S A BIG THANKS TO THE EFFORT OF PSO CHRISTOPHER MOOREHOUSE, TWO CERTIFIED ATHLETIC TRAINERS, TRISH LESLIE AND JESSICA COLEMAN, THEY WERE QUICK to respond to the incident to save this gentleman's life. He's from Texas. And I might also add that the activity center AED in the front office was also utilized in the save. So we're thankful to report that tonight. This week, the activity center will host the 30th annual Nike Peace Jam Tuesday through Sunday. And the last thing I have for you tonight is the city of North Augusta has been awarded a $100,000 recreation trails program grant for the Palmetto Parkway Trailhead. This grant will provide funding for a parking area, ADA accessible path to the trail, a shelter, benches, and trail signage.

That's exciting.

Yes. I'll hand that one off, a gift to tourism as we turn that greenway over to them. Thank you.

Rick, was that the one, you know, we applied a year or so ago and it got turned down, so this is it back?

Yes, we reapplied and got it. Yes.

Good deal. Thank you, Rick. Thank you.

The closeout department details its tourism manager, Carl Waldhauer.

Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem and Council. Explore North Augusta is going to host an amazing race event this Saturday. We had 17 teams register. It's our trial run, so we're thinking plus or minus four hours for that event. But we'll see. Hopefully we didn't make the clues too hard and we're out there all day. We are going to cut it off at some point, though, and text them and tell them to come on in. The Chamber of Commerce will host their next Power Lunch at Community Center on Tuesday, July 28th at 1130. Mayor Williams along with leaders from SRS, Aiken Regional, and Fort Gordon will be speaking on trends in the CSRA. And tickets are still available for that Chamber website. I just want to share a few mid-year stats from the Explore North Coast website and social media. Our website's had over 13,000 visitors since January and appeared in over 27,000 searches. Our Facebook account has had over 56,000 viewers and 242,000 views since January. We've gained right at 2,000 followers since this time last summer. And the ENA app has been downloaded over 3,900 times since we onboarded last fall.

Thanks, Carl.

With that, that concludes department details. I'll turn it back over to you, Mr. Clifford.

I'm actually going to have Linda Williamson come up and introduce our guest speaker, and I'm excited to be able to present the audit results for our budget. This is really the standard that we wish to achieve where we're talking about the previous year's budget here by July. And so that keeps us all on straight and narrow on making sure that you will have some accountability for the general fund and other budgets that we are required to manage.

evening again yes and I just as we talked about last time our financial audit was completed last month it is up on the city's Facebook page so for anyone that is interested in going to that it is under the government tab and if you'll scroll down it's under transparency and performance

Not under the Facebook page, but on the web page.

On the web page. Under transparency and performance, and there's a button to click, and then under financial transparency, then there's a financial reports. So that's where you can find that particular audit report. Under the financial transparency is the budget and all those kinds of reports too. But the financial reports has the comprehensive financial audit. And with us tonight to share the results of our 2025 audit is Grant Davis from Malden and Jenkins. And I know most of you have seen him before. He's been with us for quite a few years. So I will turn it over to him.

Well, members of council, thank you all for having me to go over the results of our audit or the calendar year ended. Twenty twenty five, as you can see, I've prepared a PowerPoint presentation to try to summarize. everything that you'll ultimately find in the annual comprehensive financial report itself. I think you may have hard copies here in front of you. I'm just going to go through the presentation here in and of itself, but I want to mention a couple of things about the physical copies of the documents that you have. One as I mentioned a moment ago the annual comprehensive financial report is the is the result of the whole process so that's your financial statements with our audit opinion included and I'll talk about these reports in more detail in just a moment But you ultimately find three reports with our letterhead on it within that document again. I'll explain what those are but in addition to the annual a comprehensive financial report. The acronym for that is called the ACFER, just for the sake of saying fewer words, I'm gonna refer to it as the ACFER from now on. But in addition to that, we've issued another document that's about 25, 30 pages long. We call it our auditor's discussion and analysis document. And the purpose of that document is to communicate to you all, some things that we are required by our professional standards to communicate at the conclusion of our audit. A number of those required communications I have on the slides. It's not completely comprehensive, but I'm going to mention the ones that I think are of most importance and anything that I leave out just simply means that I don't think it's of super importance for you all to know here tonight. But again, all those required communications are memorialized in that auditor's discussion analysis document. In addition, if you happen to look at it, in addition to that just to give you kind of a format at the very beginning of that document, just some information about our firm, our governmental practice, how we spend our time professionally. And then right after that, you get into some really high level financial analysis. Some of the charts that you'll see throughout that auditor's discussion analysis document I have here, and I'll refer to those. Just some things that I thought would be helpful as you read a document that's as long as the annual comprehensive financial report itself. really is so just again to try to summarize these things and then you get into the required communications and at the very end there's some information about new accounting standards that are on the horizon it seems like every year we have to adopt two or three new accounting standards and so that again there's some information about those in that document but at this point i'm just going to jump into the slides and i've kind of gone through our agenda at this point but on the next slide My intention is certainly not to read all this to you, but just to show you a little bit about our firm, our governmental practice. I'm a governmental auditor. That's all I do. I don't even do my own tax return. So I can talk to you about GASB and single audits and governmental stuff, but I can't help anybody out on income tax questions. I have to have other people even help me with that. So, again, just a little information about our, our governmental practice, but just beyond that is really what you care about. And that's the results of our 2025 audit. And I mentioned a moment ago that we've issued 3 reports in the act for itself. The 1st report is at the very beginning of the document right after the introductory section. So, probably 1015 pages in, we've ultimately issued an unmodified. Opinion on the city's financial statements and unmodified is not glamorous language, but it's really the only acceptable result from your perspective and a financial statement audit. So, that, that, that report that opinion goes on for about 4 pages talks about management's responsibilities for the financial statements. Our responsibilities as auditors, different elements that comprise the act for and what assurance if any, we've, we've provided on those different elements. Uh, talks about the auditing standards that we followed. There are 2 acronyms gas and gas, I guess, is a way to say that. So, gas is government auditing standards. Gas is generally accepting auditing standards. So both of those are required and we ultimately apply those in our audit. The second of three reports is at the very back of the document. So there's a section at the very back of the document that's called the compliance section. There are two reports there. So reports two and three are in the compliance section. The second of three reports is a report on internal controls and compliance over financial reporting in accordance with government auditing standards. That report is not designed or intended to provide an opinion. but to say as a part of ultimately planning and performing our audit in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards and government auditing standards, if we become aware of any deficiencies in internal controls or instances of noncompliance that are material to the financial statements of the city as a whole, we are required to communicate those to you all. And so we call this negative assurance. But ultimately, it's another clean opinion, or clean, it's not an opinion, a clean report, in that we've not identified any internal control deficiencies that could be characterized as a material weakness or a significant deficiency in internal controls, and we've also not identified any instances of noncompliance. And that noncompliance could be with laws, regulations, grant agreements, bond ordinances, things of that nature, all really financial. element so again no noncompliance no internal control deficiencies identified so another clean report ultimately the third and final report again you can find it in the compliance section we'll go to the next slide is what we call a single audit report so you may or may not be aware but in any given year if an entity ultimately expends and the important word here is expend it doesn't have anything to do with when you receive the money it's when you spend the money You would think you'd have to receive it to spend it, but that's not always the case in any event when you spend in excess of a 1Million dollars that its original source was at the federal government level. So, even if it went from some federal department to the state of South Carolina, ultimately here to North Augusta. If the source is originally federal, it triggers this compliance audit. And so. the city ultimately expended in excess of a million dollars during 2025 under a variety of federal grant programs and that triggered a compliance audit or what we call a single audit. We have issued an opinion which you'll see there in that third and final report on compliance with the federal requirements surrounding the one major program that we audited and we audited the coronavirus state and fiscal recovery funds program. You might be more familiar with it. Some people called it ARPA. That was the original legislation at the federal level that created it. But that program was about $5.8 million of your total. We audited that major program for federal compliance and have issued an unmodified or clean opinion on compliance. as it relates to that federal program. And ultimately what that means is we did not identify any internal control deficiencies associated with the federal requirements around the use of those monies. And we, again, didn't identify any specific instances of noncompliance relative to that program. So, beyond that, I mentioned at the very beginning, some required communications, you can find these in that auditor's discussion analysis document. I don't not going to read all this verbatim to you, but just to mention a few things. I've already said the city has to implement new accounting standards 2 or 3. it seems like every year. 2025 was sort of an easy year and that we just had to implement 1 new standard. It was this Gatsby statement 102. ultimately that standard did not have an impact in any way to the city's financials the act for. So, very easy to implement this year. The financial statements themselves include a variety of judgments and estimates. And our job as it relates to those judgments and estimates is to evaluate what we call the inputs and the outputs. So, both from a qualitative and a quantitative perspective to evaluate management's estimates. And those estimates are things like the useful life of a capital asset, the collectability Of certain receivables things of that nature and ultimately we did not have any disagreements with management's estimates relative to those more significant items. Um, on the next slide. The footnotes, what we call here, the disclosures just seem like they go on and on and on and on forever. That makes up what seems like the bulk of the document itself. Those are subject to audit. So we've audited those disclosures in addition to the numbers in the financial statements themselves. We had full cooperation from the city's management and staff. We didn't have any disagreements with management. I would say if we had, you'd probably already know about it. I don't think that would be news at this moment. But that's always a positive thing that I do like to highlight. Again, just a great working relationship throughout the audit. We received representations from management as it relates to the completeness, the accuracy of the information that that was provided to us to ultimately conduct the city's audit on the next slide. I'll just mention 1 thing at the very bottom here. We're independent as are required by, or as is required by our professional standards of the city of North Augusta. If we weren't independent, we couldn't do your audit. Um, just after that, that's basically the required communications. The next couple slides are just some really, really high level financial analysis. And again, if I had to put myself in your shoes and look at a document that's approaching 200 pages, if not, maybe a little bit longer. What would matter to me if I really wanted a high level view and this is what I've tried to do. So this 1st slide is again, this is. balance sheet right here at december 31st 2025 and i've just picked out more significant elements if you try to add up my subtotals you won't get to the totals i've just again selected a few things to highlight but you can see total assets this is all funds all activities of the city wrapped up together 320 million in total assets and you can see capital assets make up the vast majority of that total and those capital assets are things like buildings infrastructure vehicles All reported note of accumulated appreciation and you get your liabilities at close to 120Million dollars. I've just mentioned here the pension liability. I don't want to get too lost in the weeds on pensions. I could talk about pensions for hours, but this is the state pension plan that the city is required to participate in. This is the city's share of the state's pension plan. It's basically that $25 million figure. And it varies from year to year for a variety of reasons that the city has no control over. And then liabilities in the form of bonds and notes. So these are long-term liabilities, typically to finance infrastructure or the acquisition of vehicles at $83 million. This gives you net position, which in our world, that's equity. of 202 million, it's broken down in three components. As I've listed here, the net investment in capital assets is what it sounds like. It's the investment that you've made in your capital assets, again, buildings, infrastructure, vehicles, less any debt that was issued to finance those. That's how you get to that figure and then restricted restricted net position is something is net position or equity that's been restricted by an external party. So you think about grants, things like that that have to be spent for a specific purpose. Or things that have been restricted by state law. And then unrestricted at a million dollars there to make up the total of net position. The next slide is really just an income statement. The income statement for a government is called the statement of activities when all funds and activities are combined into one. And it is a bizarre statement to look at. You start at the left and go to the right and then go to the top from the bottom. It's crazy to try to follow. But again, I've tried to summarize it here for you. So total revenue is 74 million. You can see there are a couple of buckets that are larger portions there. Versus total expenses of 59Million gives you an increase of 15Million dollars in equity. That position you can think about this change in that position is basically a net income type figure. For the year again, all funds, all activities together. The next slide is a focus just on the general fund. I promise you, we're getting close to. The end of my financial highlights here, but the concept is the same 1st, 3 large bullets are the balance sheet of the general fund. You can see a little bit of the composition of that. 3.7Million dollars in fund balance unassigned is the vast majority of that unassigned is basically available for appropriation. So it's about 3.6Million dollars and then the income statement here below. revenues, expenses, change in fund balance. The reason those figures don't net exactly to a $1 million decrease is there are some additional items, transfers between funds, things of that nature that just for the sake of not blowing you away with lots of numbers I excluded here, but again, you can see kind of the highlights there. After this, the next couple of slides are just some charts. Again, these are all in that auditor's discussion and analysis document. This is just a composition of revenues in the general fund. You can see what makes up the bulk of your revenues. The concept is exactly the same on the next slide. This is what makes up your expenditures by what we call functional area. So general government, think about administration, finance, HR, those being in general government, public safety as well. what it sounds like, so forth and so on. I think I've only got two more in here. This is just historical, basically ins and outs of the general fund. Blue is in, red is out. How that's basically shown up over time. And then the next and final chart, I hope, that I've put in here for you all is just a look at how the general fund's fund balance has changed since 21. Again, just some historical information to see how things have moved. But after that, the last couple things I have here for you tonight, I mentioned in the auditor's discussion analysis, and it may seem a little bit irrelevant to you all to talk about accounting standards, but I do always like to mention that there are new things coming on the horizon. It's helpful when you're looking at your financial statements themselves, I think, to be aware of what changes have occurred and what changes are expected to occur going forward. So this is some brief information about new accounting standards for 26, the year that you're in now. And other than that, I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have Um, if you may have any, and I, before I say that, let me just say one more thing. I just want to thank, um, the finance management and staff and their hard work and getting us in, you know, we started just to give you an idea of timeframes. We started the audit in February, February, and, uh, that's really early for, to be able to close your year end and have us basically in before, you know, I guess maybe say 45 days after your year end. And, um, To have us here and presenting on time certainly is something that's important as well. So I just want to thank all of those folks for their efforts in helping get us in and out and ultimately having a good report to bring back to you all.

So, I'd also just like to say for the councils, you're going to ask some financial questions. I'm sure. You know, what has been presented here on these slides is specifically the general fund. And when you get your budget book. That consists of many different funds that includes the capital projects fund that includes capital project sales tax balances on both 4 and 5. It's going to affect other funds that are out there. We're from Central Corps among those. So when you see things up here on a pie chart that show like, hey, the public works wedge in red there is a pretty small portion. When you look at it from the perspective of you wrapped it into utilities as well of what the city council previously approved for RIA grant funding and ARPA funding into major projects, that wedge looks completely different. So when you think about the general fund, you're really thinking about the daily operations of the city, not big swing, large projects that you may direct from the diet. So just as you look at this general fund balance and the audit that is associated with that, again, just recognize this is one of many funds that you have authorities over, but this is the one that most taxpayers are the most familiar with because this is where their property taxes go. So with that, I'll turn it back over to Mayor Portima and Council for specific questions about anything in the presentation that either our auditors or our finance department could answer for you today.

I have a quick one. So I'm not an accountant. So this comes from a non-accounting statement. So the summary that you provided us on page 9, where it has the... General fund revenues, expenditures, and transfers. So the last two years, we've had more expenditures than revenue. In fact, three of the last four years, we've had more expenditures than revenue. It was on one of the slides as well, I think. This is what you're looking at? Yes, sir. Yeah.

Yes, sir. This is just inflows and outflows of the general fund and the general fund alone. Like I said, blue is both revenues. We make a distinction between certain transactions that are inflows that we call other financing sources and then certain outflows that are called other financing uses. It may be a little bit more complex than it needs to be, but there is that distinction in governmental accounting. So those other financing sources are typically transfers between funds. If you issue debt, strangely enough, in the governmental world, under the modified accrual basis of accounting, you don't record the debt as a liability. In the general fund, you record the proceeds of the debt. Some of this is a cash inflow. Again, we could talk one evening over a coffee or something about all the intricacies of governmental accounting.

We'll take more than coffee. Councilman, maybe I can.

Yeah, right, maybe a beer. But you've got different things in other financing sources. Other financing uses are typically comprised of just transfers out. And so what you have here is not simply a view of revenue versus expenditures, but you could have, and I don't have it in front of me to tell you specifically what comprised each of the amounts, but you could have transfers from the general fund to another fund, a capital projects fund, a utility fund that make up this higher red bar.

Well, I think the other thing to keep in mind, really, council members, is that we've had expenditures out of the general fund for Hurricane Helene. So ultimately, we've been, you know, over the last... you know, 24 months, if you will, almost 24 months, not quite 24 months, have to do expenditures to the debris contractors, to the tree services, to any number of organizations. Sometimes that billing doesn't come right at the moment. But you'll see 2025, we were still paying out a large number of you know invoices uh expenditures that are associated with helene and then what happens is we get influx of fema money but there's a gap of time between the time that we have an expenditure for a hurricane related event uh and then actually the inflow of replacement funds from fema and linda's going to give me the head shake that i explained that correctly i did not and i did all right so that's so in very simple terms again the The way I view it as your administrator is you are going to see those down flows, and that's not because we have a higher debt load or because we have other expenditures. It's largely based on the hurricane expenditures, and what you're going to see over the next couple of fiscal years is as we get FEMA reimbursements, those will start to even out.

And perhaps we've heard Hurricane Helene for the last time after the audit. Is that correct?

I doubt it. You're probably going to hear about it again in 26.

No, we have ongoing actions associated with Hurricane Helene to include grants to get generators for some of the facilities. So as we learn some lessons from Hurricane Helene, I think we're going to have some other things as the FEMA money comes in that we're going to be trying to lay out some options for the city council to build better prepare the city for a future weather event that involves being able to have power generation at some of the key facilities.

Very good.

Yeah, I'll just comment briefly. I know you want to go on to the next thing, but so many of the communities that I serve in this capacity were impacted by Helene and have been by other storms previously. It was obviously a little unique for a hurricane in this part of the state, at least to the extent that it was, but you see the importance of having that unassigned fund balance because you've got to, this is a conversation I've had over and over and over again where you're seeing that you have to float these expenses for sometimes six months, sometimes a year, sometimes two years before you finally get your reimbursement from state level and from FEMA. So again, you see the importance of having that cushion to be able to absorb these things so that when you ultimately do get made as whole as you're going to get, you never get made completely whole in these events, but just to have that ability to float these things. Because otherwise you're looking at trying to get some kind of financing just to clean up and operate, which would be less than ideal. Any other questions?

Thank you, as always. Appreciate the report.

Just one quick question. So on your financial highlights, you've got intergovernmental listed as a revenue. Can you just kind of explain what intergovernmental is?

Typically grants. There are different interpretations of what constitutes intergovernmental revenue, as I'm sure you can imagine. There are... Without having the detail of that in front of me, it's hard for me to say exactly what constitutes that. But you can typically think of that as, again, grant monies, typically on a reimbursement basis is how most state and federal grants work. There are a few. ARPA was a good example. They advanced the money, and then you had to spend it. Of course, if you didn't spend it by December 31st, I think 25, you had to give it back. But in any event, most grants are reimbursement-based, so that's typically in intergovernmental revenues, and there are certain state appropriations to municipalities that are typically included in intergovernmental revenues. Those are the types of things that I think you would anticipate in there. There's not anything otherwise.

Councilman, an example would be the grant that Tom Zeser was talking about, the NRCS grant. You know, that's one where we actually have to do the outlay up front and then we get reimbursement for the work that's involved. So sometimes, you know, to... Here's Grant's point about the ARPA money. That was great that all landed lump sum, but the vast majority of grants that we get either are match or in rare cases are 100% reimbursement, like the NRCS grant is. But that's an example of intergovernmental transfers. We're going to get some of those funds either out of the state of South Carolina, South Carolina PRT, sometimes U.S. Treasury, EPA, for example. We've got another grant that's coming up that we had Senator Graham earmarked for in the federal budget. That's going to be a stormwater project. That's another example of an intergovernmental transfer that we're going to get at some point in time, $1.29 million for the Greenway stormwater project that we have in the pipeline.

If you want specifics, though, at any point in time, it's easy for us to tell you exactly what's I mean, Linda can't tell you exactly what comprises that component.

All right.

Well, once again, Grant, thank you. Thank you. Appreciate the information. Thank you to your team for the good job that you guys always do. We appreciate you all.

Mr. Mayor Pro Tem, that's all I have from the staff this evening.

I have nothing, so I will turn it over to.

I just want to say one thing. Former Councilman Eric Presnell, his daughter, Melissa, passed away this morning unexpectedly. Sister, I'm sorry, sister. And so if everybody just, Eric is very upset. I mean, because this is so out. But if you'll just please pray for that family. And his mother's in a nursing home. So it's real frightening.

John? A tough one to follow from there, but our heart certainly goes out to Eric. I got an email on the city website that maybe some of the other council members got recently about some proposed expenditures for golf cart parking. And the email said that they had just heard that there was this large number of money expenditures that were going towards golf cart parking. And I just want to try to clarify with mr mccauley or or mr clifford that that probably not correct there was a sum of money that we had talked about some improvements down in center street and for the overflow parking for the stadium and when i look at those numbers that were given to us on the 29th of june in the study session many of those expenditures i just don't think it's a fair comparison to say that that was $270,000 to park golf carts. And just wanted to make the point that 90,000 of them were just for tree grates. And then another 18,000 of it was to install those tree grates. And $42,000 for bollards. And it really wasn't that much money that was actually designated towards golf cart parking in the stadium effort for what was a small number of people. I just wanted to try to clarify that. How did I do, Mr. McCauley?

Well, first, Councilman, before I turn it over to JD, which is just to reiterate to the Council, there is no additional funding that's gone into the temporary golf cart parking that's at Parcel D. That's an arrangement we have with the property owner that's Greenstone. We have rights to that property until such time as he begins construction on that site. So I would anticipate we have that site for at least 12 months. We put up some temporary control measures, barriers or whatnot that we had in the inventory. So there's been no expenditure of city funds in JD had presented to the City Council an option for what Center Street could eventually become with safety measures, and much like we implemented bollards along the sidewalk in front of the Rio Canteen and Brinks Chophouse and down to Southbound, there's also some pedestrian safety measures that would be prudent there in the center of the area. But ultimately, that's going to be up to the city council to debate whether or not an inclusion of golf cart parking is how you want to do it or whether you want to make that strictly a pedestrian option. So some of the costs involved are going to be recommended from the staff regardless. If you say, hey, we want to not do golf cart parking in Center Street, we're still going to say, hey, there are some improvements that need to be made to Center Street for the trees and for the health of the trees. along with pedestrian safety actions. And if the city council gives us guidance to prepare that area for golf cart parking, some of those improvements would be specific to the golf carts. Did I answer the question?

Anything? All right.

With that, we stand adjourned.