City Council - Special Meeting

good evening everyone welcome to the north flat city council special meeting on wednesday september 9th 2026 of course it's 5 30 p.m and we're here in the city council chambers calling the meeting officially to order angie would you roll call please word four is a little underrepresented tonight believe both of them had business they had to take care of outside of town tonight a current copy of the open meetings act of Nebraska is located at the back of the council chambers we are beginning tonight's meeting with a bit of an accolade or it's a very direct accolade and we received quite a nice letter recently chief would you like me to read this is that okay Should we make him come to the podium? Okay. Assistant Chief Kleinow, would you please come to the podium? Thank you. This is a letter received by Chief Thompson written on August 18th, 2026. Dear Chief Thompson, I am writing to tell you about something truly remarkable that one of the members of your about one of the members of your department, Trent, did for me on Friday, August 7th, 2026. Trent was on vacation in Oregon with his wife, mother-in-law, and father-in-law. Bless you. My husband and I were out to dinner with them because Trent's mother-in-law, Jannie, we were best friends growing up. I had just recently finished 25 radiation treatments for breast cancer, and as a result, I had been having difficulty swallowing. During dinner, I choked on a bit of chicken. Trent immediately jumped into action. He performed the Heimlich and back blows until the piece of chicken came loose. There is no doubt in my mind that Trent saved my life. What he did was instinctive, courageous, and incredibly selfless. He didn't hesitate for even a moment to help someone he barely knew. I will be forever grateful to him for his quick thinking and willingness to act when I desperately needed help. Trent was a complete stranger to me that night, but he will never be a stranger to me again. I will always remember him as the man who saved my life. I am writing to you because I sincerely hope Trent can be recognized in some way for what he did. I know that your members are trained to help people in emergencies, but witnessing Trent's actions firsthand showed me just how much courage, compassion, and dedication he carries with him. Please know how grateful I am that someone like Trent is serving your department and your community. Thank you for taking time to hear my story and that you have a person like Trent on your team. With sincere gratitude, Kathy Heukin, I think is how it's pronounced. So we have developed this certificate of meritorious service to honor Trent Kleinow for performing the Heimlich maneuver and taking decisive action that helped save a life. Your quick thinking, compassion, and willingness to act in a critical moment

made all the difference.

Your actions are truly life-saving.

We were very safe from fire for a few minutes there.

Continuing with our agenda, no formal vote or action will be taken at this meeting. This is just a public hearing. I repeat no formal vote or action will be taken at this meeting. We will now have a public hearing regarding ordinance number 4265 to adopt the budget statement and to appropriate city monies for fiscal year 20262027. Again, no action will be taken. We'll just have the hearing as, as the council will debate this item on September 15th, 2026, which is, of course, next Tuesday to begin the public hearing. We'll 1st, open it, of course, and to start, we have a presentation, um, starting with Don and Lane. We'll finish it up. And this is a short presentation council of information that you, you have already seen, but we felt we should open the public hearing with everyone having the same information. So, Don, would you please take us through your part?

yes thank you mayor mayor kelleher members of the city council mr grosseth and mr kushinsky in accordance with lb 148 passed by the nebraska legislature back in 2020 we are holding tonight's hearing separately from any regular regularly scheduled budget meeting we have three copies to my right on the table the city's 2627 budget that is available for the public and we are providing this presentation outlining key provisions of the City of North Platts proposed budget Key provisions of the 2627 budget include an increase of $316,500 to the total property tax request over fiscal 2526. This is a 4.07 increase in the total dollars of property tax asking over last year. the second key provision is a 1.3512 cent or 3.77 percent reduction of the levy from 35.7962 to 34.4450 cents per hundred dollars of valuation this this slide provides a graphical representation of the budgeted revenues for the general fund in the total amount of forty four million two hundred twenty five thousand nine hundred twenty dollars this exceeds the city's twenty five twenty six budget by approximately two point five eight million or six point two percent $985,000 of this difference consists of the additional amount we are budgeting for sales tax and another $1,043,486 is from additional revenue budgeted for fees, local revenues, and reimbursements as detailed on pages 19 through 27 of the proposed budget. An additional $13,857,062 of reserved cash balance is not reflected in the 2627 budgeted revenues. The pie chart illustrates the portion of the total that each of the various revenue categories comprise. As you can see sales tax makes up 12.56 million or 28.4% of general fund revenues. A summary containing both 26 and 27 budgeted revenues can be found on page 18 of the proposed budget. This slide provides a breakdown of the 26-27 budgeted general fund expenditures, totaling $41,904,230 by department. This exceeds the city's 26 budgeted expenditures, which were $38,233,000 by department. by 53 by $3,670,677. This slide illustrates that the budgets of the city's three largest departments are police, fire, and public service make up just under three-fourths or 74.08% of the general fund. summary containing both fiscal 26 and 27 budgeted expenditures can be found on page 24 of the budget notebook this slide compares the city's 2627 budget with that of 2526 by fund type The total expenditure shown in the darkened line reflects a decrease of $7,092,321, or 2.64% from 26 to 27's budget. The greatest change is the approximately $19.9 million decrease in the other funds category, and it's primarily because of reduced expenditures being budgeted in the recreation infrastructure and the grant funds. slide on page six here compares the city's proposed mill levy with the current 25 26 levy the total levy proposed for 26 27 of 34.445 cents per hundred dollars evaluation reflects a decrease of approximately 1.35 cents or 3.77% from 2526's levy. Reviewing records back to 1998, the proposed levy of 34.445 cents per $100 of valuation is the lowest. At this point, Elaine will now present the remaining information for tonight's presentation.

Thank you, Dawn.

Thank you, Don. Members of the Council, Mayor, this slide that we have here, we had in our budget workshop. And again, we took what is the estimated average home value in North Platte of a little over $220,000. That's 2026 average value of a home. And we took then the levy, the proposed levy of the $34.44. And so that would equal out on that home, their city portion of property taxes each month would be just a little over $63, $63.65. Of that $63, $26 goes to public safety, a little over $5.50 goes to public works, which is streets, public transit, cemetery, and the shops. $1.45 to administration, legal, and finance, just over $2 to the library, a little under $6 to parks, senior services, and recreation, $1.13 to building and zoning, and then $21.30 to debt service. That's past street projects that we've done in the last few years. And that is what the average home pays on a monthly basis for these different things, just as an illustration. THIS SLIDE HERE SHOWS SINCE 2013 WHAT THE CITY LEVY HAS DONE. IN 2013, 2014, IT WAS JUST UNDER 52 CENTS. AND AGAIN, WE'RE JUST RIGHT NOW FOR THE PROPOSED BUDGET YEAR IS 34.445 CENTS. SO PRETTY SIGNIFICANT DECREASE IN THE LAST 12, 13 YEARS. That is what we are required by law to provide in this budget hearing. And so if there's any questions to the mayor, as far as time for that. Thank you real quickly in your packets change from our budget. Our budget presentation, please note in the building department, we increased by $585,000 and that is for those roof replacements and the HVAC replacements we discussed. And then in the shop department, there's an increase of $320,000 for the remainder of the fuel system that we started replacing this year. There's also an increase of $4,000 in the grant fund. Just a formula error that we caught and just wanted to point those out from changes from our budget workshop that we had.

Thank you, Lane and Don. We appreciate it this time. The public hearing is open. This is a. State statute required hearing, so we're going to make sure that we're compliant. If anyone would like to ask questions or make comments regarding the budget, depending on what the question is, we may or may not be able to answer it, but we're certainly welcome to hear your comments. Please approach the microphone, tell us who you are, and we will listen to your thoughts. this is a state statute we're going to wait for one whole minute before we do anything different anybody out there chief

seconds public hearing second only a question on closing a public hearing but we do we do we take a vote no you don't actually have to vote yeah

We've reached the end of the meeting. The records show that no one spoke at the public hearing. The meeting is adjourned as we've reached the end of the agenda. Thank you everyone. Have a nice evening. We'll see you back here on September 15th, Tuesday.