Remarks by Stacy Goss
117 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 4 of 5
The 2%, the 2.5 colon, the 2% merit, that still brings us down 1.5% from the 3.5% of the average merit. So heading into the 2028, your merit raise, because that's based off of their anniversary date, that's the one that's going to, I mean, the 2% is going to eat up less than the 3.5%. So I think that gives us a little more stability heading into 2028 also.
I know that Angela wasn't asking for specific motions on some of these items, but if everybody could just give a nod of consensus, that way she knows that this is how we want to move forward. Thumbs up.
And I think when the city attorney position comes open and somebody is looking at it, if they know that they have a good cushion of contractual services that they can tap into, I think that makes the job easier. more palatable for, I mean, you don't have the person in your office, but you have someone that you can call and reach out to for all of that stuff. That makes sense. And if we don't use it, we don't use it.
Yeah, for the historical stormwater commitment, which is the one with the limited scope.
Okay. So the $418,000 transfer to the Gulf, is that the operations transfer? Okay. And it's 419, is that the annual transfer that offsets operations?
I think that's the ghost of Paul Brown in the room, and he intentionally worded it in a way that it would give us some freedom if we needed it. But it was worded in a way that people understood it easily, and they could say predictably, these are the three things that I'm saying my city should prioritize. I think that as the public has become more aware of the financial situation of the city, putting it in the reserves is something that absolutely makes sense for us. It would help. I mean, it would raise our reserve by almost 50%. So the $1 million. So I think that would be a smart move.…
Okay, got it. So we could still do one million into the reserves and then have up to $974,000 to play with. knowing that the So later on one of the things that that I know we'll talk about is the golf course master plan and The idea there is that we would basically, instead of doing two phases this year, we could do one. Last year, we did not fund a phase. So the work that was completed at the golf course last year is what was funded in 25. So in 27, there would really not be any work done at the golf course because we didn't fund it in 26. I think this 418 to golf, yes, we're transferring…
Correct. So on paper, at the end of the day, if we're doing 418 to golf to offset operations and then we're doing one phase of the golf course master plan on paper, it's still going to look like we're giving $600,000-ish to the golf course. And that's a cut of quite a bit because the CIP for the golf course is, I think, 600 even.
Yeah. Yeah, $660,000. But, I mean, the difference is one is for operations and the CIP was for master plan projects.
I feel like we don't really have a choice.
I mean, it does keep $418,000 in the general fund by taking it from the sales tax. The thing I would like to see... increased as the streets part. Sorry.
I would like to see the streets section increased. I know that that's something that we as a council get a lot of feedback and criticism on, but it's also very important just for regular maintenance and maintenance. The brick streets was cut from the 27 budget entirely. We still set aside a very small amount that we always do, but brick streets as a line item as a project was removed from the 27 budget, right?
Right, I agree, and I think that that's not something that I... know how to make that decision. I think giving them money and letting them decide what's most appropriate would be the best avenue.
Is it something that we could do $100,000 this year and with the understanding that work won't be done on the brick streets, but that that would be banked for the next year?
With the 25K that's been continuously put in? Yeah. And I know it doesn't go far, but I think if we did this small amount this year and then next year we would increase it, I think it at least gives you a tiny bit in the bank.
Well, and if we're just making the adjustment within the $974,000 figure I guess we have to figure out what are we taking it from or are we going to adjust it and take it out of the 1 million that we're putting into the reserves? Because if we're staying within the nine 74 We've already heard about the golf fund, but we haven't heard anything about the park operations amount, and that's the largest item on there. That would be the one I would imagine we're pulling from. And Brick Streets was also just one of the options that Angela mentioned the other one that I wrote down was sidewalks. Our…
Would that be, is that salaries or is that projects or?
So, Scott, are you thinking that instead of 418, it would be 368 on the top line?
So I think, I was thinking of it a different way. It's not asking you to cut the 50 from your budget. It's just saying that, You would still get that from the general fund. It's just saying that the storm or the sales water tax wouldn't offset your request by that amount. So you would still be able to request the 490. It's just that it wouldn't go from here to here to here. It would just go to here, and then yours would be 450 instead of 490. Yeah.
So you're not being asked to cut 50K from a budget that we literally just threw at you like five minutes ago or idea we just threw at you five minutes ago.
Okay. Before we move on, can we just spit all those final numbers? It was 368 to golf, 160 to streets, and 450 to park operations. Is that still...
So if we took $50,000 from golf and $50,000 from park operations, as Justin said, the golf operations is usually in the $200,000 to $250,000 range, and that the $418,000 was really conservative. And again, this isn't asking him for a cut. This is just shifting what fund it comes from, then you could do 160 for streets, taking 50 from golf and park operations.
And in talking with Cecil, that in the, hold on, let me get to the right page. In 2027, if we took- What page is that on? Oh, 460.
In the CAP, yeah. So that would, this was the project that he had talked about, and he can come up and speak to it if he's in here. Oh, there he is. This would be increasing our contractual commitment But basically, we're getting the job done, and we're kind of front-loading the work and the understanding that we would eventually bring it in-house. Can we talk about this?
And is it the product that as it wears off, there's other reflective stuff underneath it?