Common Council - Special Meeting

So

call this special meeting of the common council of the city of Platburg to order. Please rise and join your meeting different ones. Gotcha. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one nation indivisible

please. Mayor Hughes here. Councelor Bond. Councelor Evans here. Councelor Stra here. Councelor Talent here. Councelor Vanette here. Councelor here.

How are you? There is public comment for the game. Does anybody have any? We're going to do that first. Yeah. Does anybody want to make any comments for the fiveear plan? How's that? We'll get you in. How are you? Good. How are you? Good. We'll see. You want to wait? No. You sure? Um, so dear comprehens have you identify yourself just for name and how to record?

Um, Rain Martin, owner of the Gem Goddess Emporium at 72 Street, where I got my crystal ball and and my Himalayan healing bowl. Yeah. Very nice. Yes. So, um I've been working on um the ground floor, the new group for downtown businesses.

Yeah, I see the eyes rolling. Um but this is not one of the typical ones. We are friends of downtown and we are looking to work collectively with the city and other businesses um to bring some exciting ideas that will help bring customers to our city. Um our mission to advocate for and address the needs of downtown Platsburg and helping downtown to thrive. We've got some beautiful new shades. Um we need to capitalize on on the momentum that has been started. So some key areas that we want to work on strategic planning um long-term goals, communication, uh promotion and relationship with everyone here. uh special events. We're looking at bringing back First Friday. Um

Mayor's Cup back downtown, too. We've been pushing. We came in and talked I brought Sunrise last year. We came in and talked to you guys about it. And I think it's imperative we get some of these things back. No. Yeah. We appreciate that.

Uh winter events, we kind of roll over the carpets in the winter time, so it'll be nice to uh try to come up with something for the winter time. get people out of the house. Um, beautifification. Um, some people have tried to put flowers and stuff out and make it beautiful out front so that it's more inviting. Um, but sometimes it's vandalized and it deters people from doing that. How can we do that? How can we do that without other cities hang life? I know hanging stuff. I mean, and the hard part is getting them with water. That's it. So, we create issues sometimes.

Yeah. But I mean, like in my storefront, I have four window boxes and I have fresh herbs in them, right? Because that is what we do, right? Um, nobody's touched it. Going on. You have perception.

Yeah, we um so going on two years now. um with the window boxes and it changes seasonally. Um so other businesses want to do that and when I talked to them they said well we've tried that in the past and it's been vandalized. So that's for another conversation. Um but um beautifification um again flowers out front, possibly some string lights. Um and then safety. People that I talked to say downtown isn't safe. It's not safe at night. So we want to take a little walk downtown in the evenings, kind of see what people are talking about. you know, what are the what are the issues and um and then try to come up with how do we fix that? Um maybe evening events, you know, with the businesses, let's promote something in the evening, more feet on the street, more eyes on the street. So, that's a big thing for us, too. Um, and there's some new stores and restaurants that have recently been added. That's really cool. Um, it's good to see new people um picking out downtown Plats um because it is a vital part of us um and we want to keep that momentum going. So, what do we need from you guys? Support. Help promote some of the events. Listen to our ideas. If it's a no, what's a good suggestion? You know, what

can we what do we change to get that to a yes? Um, in a partnership, that's all we want. We want to work with you guys. We're we're not here to be against you. I would like to know when you meet. Yes. because I think it's imperative. I met with Mr. Sheet and Mr. Merkel today. Um they just happen to come in today on different times and I I think the communication I walk downtown all the time and it's hard to get into each of the stores. Some days some people aren't open and I try to get that's where I get powerful is when people give me ideas. Right. So anytime I would like to know when you're meeting Well, we're meeting with you. No, on the 27th. Yes, I'll be down where? Oh, so you're going to be down there? Yeah.

Okay. Okay. So, we're going to be meeting at the Old Farmers Market at 6. Yeah. 6 p.m. Are you meeting as individuals or are you meeting as the downtown business owners association? Uh, because it's time to bring that back. So, all of you have some say in some poll. Yeah. The downtown Business Association kind of has some negative connotations to it. So, we've renamed it or named our group Friends of Yellow. Would you be able to send us an email that tell us when you're going to be doing

if you Yeah, make it I'll make it easy. Send it to me and we'll get out to the council. How's that? Is that fair, Beth? And I can I should say me. I Yes, I am totally computer illiterate. So, Beth, we will get it out. How's uh seriously, that would be great. I would I I'm glad you brought that because I wanted to do this. Anyways, it's just been it's a lot busier than what I we're working through things every day and uh listen and and painting the fire hydrants downtown I think would go a long ways too. Little things add up to be big things eventually, right?

So, I think you know we had a brand new fire hydrant on that one side and you know I'd go by there and that just brought my attention to it just because it was so neat and so clean looking. So we do that and a few other things and then other people notice that. Right. Exactly. And signage. Signage is horrible in the city. It gives right to the businesses that are downtown. Yep. And you know there's still so many empty event things. How do we get those right? That is like one of my questions. We have a revolving loan fund too to help people get those stores open back. Right. I mean, that's what the point of our revolving loan fund is, to help folks and and to keep folks down there that are struggling, right? Yeah.

So, I mean, anytime like I I'll make sure they get the information for the I did. Okay. So, all right. I didn't know you were going to be there. Now I'm not that I wasn't excited before. Now I'm more excited. How's that? Yeah. It's been like You guys know my door is always open. Yes, communication solves a lot of problems and more communication you have less problems hopefully, right? So, please anytime I'll buy you coffee, water, soda, whatever you want. Okay. Seriously, I got one. I I do Hold on. I do have a question. So, I'm extending your five minutes. Is your group including everyone all the business owners downtown? Yes.

Uh we've reached out. Not a lot of people have replied yes. I think a lot of businesses have been went things on their own and trying to survive on their own and collectively we could make a bigger difference. So if we all knew that someone was going to you know have a first Friday terrible example um we could all be part of it and maybe come up with something, you know. Um I have so many ideas my brain is just like crazy. But um there's some great ideas out there and we want everyone to be involved.

Um it started out as four people trying to figure out what do we want to do and then we extended it and we had a larger meeting and we'll continue to add people and I think more we make the more people will want to hear. So positive results bring positive people, right? Yep. So awesome. Any other questions? That's great.

Thank you. That's that's last year's. No, sorry. That's uh the new one. Should be last. So that's last year's. That's last year's. Yes. We should move that first and see if anybody else questions. So then how do we get rid of this? That's the zoom.

You got kicked out of your seat. In case that didn't sound good.

Yeah. The origin of this set of worksheets is from state. It's what we used to fill out for substantiation and receiving any funding which gave it some incentives and still isn't the sign municipalities. We used to have to send this to the state because they wanted to see a fiveyear plan meaning how are you using our two or$3 million for 70. They stopped requiring us, but we kept doing finance as our five-year plan. And then I think when we had Mary in, he came up with a whole new worksheet which divorced, you know, away from this whole process. So now we're back to Mayor Rosen for us to put this back together, you know, updated. So what happened last year was we said here's the results for 21 through 24 for all funds not in the first come through then here's the budget and that's projected based on assumptions for expenses that are way in the dining side. Um that is the approved budget for 2025 and I guess one of the big questions would be what do the actual results look like for 2025? Is there any way we can run a munus report from this?

How is it, Richard? How is this going to look when we have open good? Huh? How is that going to look when we do open wish list? I mean, it's going to be this worksheet could stay the same. Okay. It should stay the same if we're going to use the same concept with a whole new but basically it gives you the good fouryear average of what happened. Yeah, this one's good. Not like the mun paperwork, but the percentage change over here, right off of those years,

then you know this percentage we're using to forecast these years here, right? And it also shows the change in the fund balance which means you said lose available earnings. It also shows over deficits for this plan for 2026 230. I was that was forecast didn't work out that way. 25 wasn't a zero. It's quart million dollars of good. When you look at the next version of this, how do I break casing

and go to the general fun tab?

249,7. What was the other one? It was budgeted for zero. We always budget for a balance. Oh, right. I'm sorry. I didn't even see that.

We always put through a balance question. In fact, the state requires us to have it balanced. If they say you're going to have anything appropriated out of savings or anything that you're going to have as a surplus, they want you to have that as other balances to see as part of the reporting. So anyway, this is the actual results for 23 through 25. And if you roll down a little bit further, you'll see what happened with the fund balance and the projection for 26. Obviously, it's a balance budget. And then with the assumptions that I just threw together, percentage increases for payable and say contractual services, increases in property taxes, increases in sales taxes. That's where these numbers get. forward by use 2% for the taxes because that's the mandatory caps. Move over a little further this way. There you go. And I use 1.65% on the sales tax because it's going up at about 1.7 1.8 a year. um kept the state age at 1% because that's not very obviously you see on that three seven and then inter transfers we've been aggressive with that and so I put three in there and the other revenues as well they grown quite a bit and I left those 3% so that's what's projecting the revenues and these are for uses it's kind of kind of based on averages that we're seeing and they're assumptions that we can make about anything. We can figure out if we like

two or three or five%. When it comes to the debt service, the ones highlighted in the middle of the expenses, that's the actual debt service schedule that we've got all the way out through 2031 plus any anticipated additional borrow. If you roll down to the bottom of that schedule CC, put the actual debt service schedule in there and be factoring on top of that. So in capital projects meetings which we haven't been having we haven't really decided is there going to be new borrowing or not but we know there's new borrowing going on for the water fund and for the super fund because of the drinking water and clean water projects that we're working on. We're on 16 million on one 19 million on the other. And debt service is very predictable because it has to be paid consistently

just like that you saw at the bottom. Once you put the debt in place, that's what you pay, right? It doesn't escalate with inflation, which was one of the mistakes that Reed had in his worksheet. He was escalating our debt service at the rate of two or three or 4% a year. It's like that's not factual. That's not going to work. when when you look back like to 22 23 24 is 2 million in debt service just about average thereabouts well so can um

there reduce it there that's the the reductions are coming on that for the general fund in these two years because of use of debt service reserve where we borrow the money we're not going to use it for debt service so it goes back into the reserve to debt service as opposed to going right back on to the debt. You can't pay it off. Say, "Okay, I'm going send you a million." No, you got to stick to the debt service. Interesting. Okay.

And the only time you can refinance it is if you have a refunding bond issue that say in place for 20 years after 10 years rates have changed. You've been refunded as I said, which means terms refund. And we only do that if we're going to say death service which is interesting in principle. We've got the marina should be done what this year this year Marines think. So this year or next year it's coming this year or next year. I know. Let's go to the rec complex.

Yeah that I know that put the death service. No, I didn't put the schedule, but yes, 28 it goes zero. Okay. Yeah. Oh, is it? Oh, it's 28. Yeah, I know that's coming. So, it's been looking for that because that's going to be So, do we use this to like decide on the capital projects or do they do capital projects decide this or you know, pretty much it's what happens from the streets and buildings and the parks and grants, the infrastructure itself. Facebook project solved 10% 20% matches 50% matches depending on a lot of things

but going up a flat this goes up a flat percent it's not really taking into consideration like what you're saying right window like like but you if we know we're going to have $500,000 worth of grants in 28 do we factor that in or not really it just goes by the percentages in the yellow if we're going to call it grant revenue venue. It would give a revenue section. It's just going to reduce our debt of service. We wouldn't add it to that expense line. So, we don't delay. But it's not straight math across there like 2.5% 2.5% like every year. It's just straight math across there, right?

For the debt service. Yeah, it's the actual debt service payments that you're talking about. Mr. I think I'm kind of talking about all of them because in the yellow section it has percents all the way across the board. Are you just taking See, we don't protect service. We put the actual debt service payments in here. I got to check those numbers, just bring them up to date for, you know, schedule because the years pass and, you know, there's new debt. We've got an island in the sewer fund. We've got 2.8 million in the water fund addition, right, that's coming from EFC. that's going to be subsidized borrowing either no interest or 50% interest

of whatever the market is. And there's also a grant funding coming in there. But the other line items are based on those percentages that are up to right now. Once again, I just threw basic assumptions in there with no real basis for doing it other than pick a number and pick it based on what the average has been. So we are, you know, able to change those however we want to and see what what it's going to do to the sketch on the big storm. Do we try to stick to that in some way or is it impossible to try to predict what's coming? Just like the base water project and the base, right?

Nobody plants. Yeah. Right. I mean, and and certain things you can't plan for. Can we plan for if we're going to go tear Frank Street off up and put up new sewer lines and everything, we can plan those and that's what we do in the capital project meetings. Yeah. And that would be once again affecting the debt service. Right. Right. And pretty much only the debt service. As far as the other numbers, you know, the economists say that they can project what's going to happen 10 years out there. Who knows? I wish we could. You know, the crystal ball is fuel prices were going down, right? Yeah. All of a sudden $6 a gallon killing us, right? Diesel was killing us. No,

but that wasn't going to happen. How do you project that last year with this year? You know, you can't. But you know, you can use some basic assumptions for hey, inflation this rate and this is doing this. Now, one of the things that's really uh encouraging for the is can you go back to the general fund? If that's Casey's got this. Casey's got this and you can go home. Dave, we can tape it. Right. You sure? All right. All right.

What's interesting about this for your average for employee benefits only up what 4% over four years. That's a total difference by four. It's 1% a year. We have really really low health care cost increases every year. We run three to say six or seven% increases in our healthcare costs where the rest of the market is in the teens. What's the driver for that 3.8? We have a self-funded plan and we have a conscious group of users. Our people use us smartly. We also have a lot of refunds and a lot of rebates on drugs. We have a lot of programs that drive the costs down. So, we're managing it really well.

We have really good insurance, too. I don't have the city insurance, but I know I've talked to folks around the city that, you know, all the workers, they love the insurance. That's huge. I mean, we get it at a decent price. And, you know, you have the meetings. We have meetings in here all the time with the uh with representatives, too. So, benefits. They do a good job. Yeah, they do a great job. And Proact is a good pharmacy group, right? They're always looking at programs to save them.

Um, one of the things that's good about our healthare plan is we got to keep it as a more lucrative lucrative plan lucrative plan than the Obama care plans. We were supposed to get rid of it because the government was trying to tax us out of using tax. But in Trump's first term, he got rid of that. I was going to start to cost those 400, 500, 600, $700,000 a year in excess taxes to pay to the government for them to do what with? Waste it on some stupid ass program, right? But we got to keep our plan. We got rid of the Cadillac tax. And since it's self-funded and we manage it well, we keep the benefit. So that's one thing. Um, other drivers on that line of course are the retirement costs. Now, they're pretty far up and they keep going up every year. But anyway, so this plan is basically to take a look at every line item close and say, okay, where do we go from here? And we can do it any way we want. We can mix it any way we want to. We can, you know, based on anything that that we see marketplace information or economic information

sales tax first quarter was on projection just above it was above projection so that was four and a half% ahead yeah it was it was really uh positive like some of the counties what's that even with the Canadians well for Clint County our numbers some of the counties weren't so generous though some were really behind we were really favorable I mean, uh, it was good to see those numbers. I was worried about them. It was kind of relief to see what the numbers come in. There was two to three really bad some of those and some of those were other border towns out west. Yeah. Yeah. But those are areas where people are kind of moving out. Yeah.

But ours were right on we were above projection. So you know, one of the big drivers there is uh taxing online business online. Really? Yeah. That's huge. That filled in during co everybody thought, "Oh, we're going to get killed on sales tax. There's no Canadians. Nobody's out doing this. Nobody's out doing that." It went up more than we ever thought because there was a lot of online buying and the online purchasing has all been allocated to, you know, state sales tax based on the destination. So, we made up a ton and it's still it's still a big driver. Now, the big drivers are car sales, big box department stores, and gasoline sales.

You got to count the online sales, not so big. Yeah. And at one time it was your option to pay state sales tax. It was a sales tax, remember? You could pick at the end eBay say, "Do you want to pay?" They have right now. I'll claim at the end of the year. Now, they take it up front. So yeah, it's a truly number. In the old old days, you could add up all your sales tax and take it off your taxes. You can't do that anymore, right? At the border, you get them both back. Yep. Come back.

Yeah. So, I've uh worked on a general and rec complex and parking and I want to go back through the numbers especially that service and and shore those up and then we'll finish water sewer library MLDD and we can send send this out to everybody. And if you go to sewer, could you go to sewer real quick? Sure. But is was that just going to show the older numbers? Uh yeah, the headings have changed, but there's there's still last year's Okay. Actually, if we want to just last year's number. So, it's less confusing me to do that. My mind about these things.

Yeah, that was the figure I was concerned about is the 916% increase in the debt service. Yes. And you can see and that's what

this is where we started to get the uh EFC money environmental facilities funded started in 2023. That's our first episode. This is our second. This is the third that we've uh we paid that one already. We paid 126 already for the new water pump for about 54,000. And so the projection here is for the large spending we're doing on mitigating all the plant. Yes. Disinfection, motor control, the noise as all that is the facade. Yeah. It's about 19. Have you been down there lately? Go look at it. Yeah. I mean,

yeah, it may not be the way I would have planned it, but we're stuck with it. I mean, as is a project that's in the works. There's nothing I mean, I think it's a lot of money when it's not putting inside. So, the debt service on that is going to remain high then casting out. Well, the good thing is the sewer reserve is really healthy. And um when we look at the like revenue for 25, we projected 56 or 57, but when you actually look at what we got, it's more around 64, right? Or was that those are still last year last year? I haven't touched those yet. Only got through parking.

The water reserve's not as healthy as robust as a sewer fund. That's, you know, sewer reserves about $12 million and sewer fund didn't have debt service for the longest time. In fact, really small numbers and now just because we're doing what we're doing with with all of the plant improvements. And we're using some of the sewer funding for a lot of infrastructure changes. Yeah. Or uh uh the pipe extrusion inside the old uh clay tiles that are collapsing. Yeah. Sewer sections all over the city. to line did a lot of sewer funding on Bart Street. Y that improved itself. So reserves slip pointing.

That's it. Slip line. We've been slip lining and and that's really helped on route three. I mean that has really brought the capacity up on Does it narrow the in the width of Not by more slightly on either side.

Yeah. But like Waterhouse Street, they found when they were down there, they found a lot of uh there was actually a blockage down there and they they it fixed a lot. And listen, Conwood, we haven't had the issues yet and hopefully we never do, but it seemed to fix some issues. We're doing some they were doing some over Tyrell A. We had some pipes that collapsed over there. So, it was a good thing we're doing some of these because the pipe would have collapsed eventually on its own. We would have been in there maybe in the middle of winter cleaning up the mess, right? So till the 100year storm and then this well 100year storm there's not much we can do. I mean I hear you. Yeah. I mean

big waterhouse Mr. Mayor. Big water house. Listen, I live around a corner. So I drive in the same wood that 4,000 years. Yes. Yeah. Those are the hard things. I mean you can't design things. It's like who reported the last one? Yeah, I know. Can you send me an email about the record? It's like you might even know about it, right? The cave painting of some.

So, we're going to have to break up the water sewer library and I'll take a close look at all this stuff and get it back out to you. There's more schedules out too, I think, to the right. Yeah, there's fund summaries and this just takes all the information from the previous worksheets and then we also have the tax less and employment and so we got to put the details together on those. I think we probably should look at MLDD too though

because I'm nervous with these reserves. I mean, especially with the last what we're going through right now and stuff. Uh, I'm very nervous to have both, too. Yeah. And it might be best if Joel and Kelly weigh in on those numbers and do their forecasting, right? Because they know more about their business than we do. We we don't get involved in No, they're I mean especially with you know they didn't have enough money to cover their January bills. So we move money here there and then we had some folks not pay their bills.

Some really high amount of bills. So those two things really don't help. And we haven't had a rate increase since 2009. And right now would be the worst time ever rating. But we'll have to play the numbers and see where they go. Unfortunately, it fixes itself. If we get if they if they pay us the back money they owe us, I think that'll make it look a lot better. If we collect if we collect those those, you know, receivables that are looking really doubtful, you know, not even probable of collection. That's going to be big. That's a big number.

It's a huge number. We're going to have to disclose that in a 2025 financial statements like you said as a subsequent event that Justin will have to advise the auditors to put in the footnotes right because it's got such a material impact. Yeah. Huge. I mean it's a huge what% of uh annual revenue.

Yeah. in those four accounts. And that's one of the things I'll criticize uh the city about is having concentration of business risk like that which wasn't um mitigated by collateral and by uh you know something that's going to prevent you from having that debt go bad. And it was such a perfect storm the bills going as high as it did. The reserves were were as high as what those January February bills were. So yeah, and then and again that's like building a steward a sewer system to do that 4,000year storm, right?

I mean, how do we know the need? Nobody thought we would pay that. What was the built power bill in January alone? It was almost 5.7 million was just the transmission charge. Just Yeah, right. It was $5 million, I think. No, it was just only it was only another $850,000 for the actual power. Well, we had the other bill. That was just the the overages we're talking. No, no. There was two bills, right? 3.7 million for transmission, 855,000 for the actual power. That was the February bills, right? January's were were lower than that, and Marches were lower. That was the month that just escalated. I've got them still sitting on my desk. I have nightmares. So, yeah. Three. Yeah,

that's what everybody is paying in their w in their utility bills where it's like, hey, you know, my PPAC charges so almost as much as my actual usage. It's like, yeah, it's because we're paying for all those transmission costs, which nobody knows. I don't know. I don't know if anybody knows what they're really for. You know, they're sure even say ISO and it's like, who knows what those are for. Now, we know what the bottom line ones, the Rex and the Ze are for. therefore subsidizing the uh nuclear power plants out west in New York that were going to be shut down because the owners were saying I'm not making enough money. So Angelo said we'll subsidize you to stay in business so you can make enough money but they're still upgrading those plants that I know of.

They're still not upgrading. Huh? They're still not upgrading or they still are upgrading. Uh they're running them but I don't think that they're upgrading them to make them more efficient. We paid what? $21 million in Rex. This city has paid $21 million in rent since X since 2007. Making somebody rich. Somebody's making money somewhere. Yeah. Hopefully somebody's building something because money for a city this size. That one month of those transmission charges, a million and a half dollars went to this ISO. It's like who are that? But and the same thing the year before the whole year was what we paid in January. But how can that possibly happen?

And now how much action is happening in Albany right now on this? That's what scares me the most because we're going to go through this game where we are at least a budget. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they say they are about to, right? But again, how much do you hear about these electrical charges? And and again, they didn't go anywhere. I don't know if he's fixed anything. We have my still no answers. And uh what was really troubling was you look at 3.7 million of transmission charges against 855,000 power in February. In March,

that didn't have to be 1.8 million for transmission and it's 755,000 power. So the ratio of those two things don't match up at all. It's like how can one be so extra extra higher than the other? Right. Was it because we use more power? We use almost the same amount. It's only $100,000 difference as an actual power. So what is it? Fees structural. All those fees the fees. There's one in there called ISO ancillary fee. They don't give a description. What the hell is that? I don't know. I think Bill Bill explained some of those to us and I wish I had written it down.

I think it's a guy at the top saying this is how much more I want put into my paycheck. I'm Mr. ISO and it's ancillary. So the good thing is we're going to use a little less electricity next year. So our charges aren't going to be as high. We're not going to We're going to have some This is a cold year. I mean there was no one person I got it. But my You're understanding where my point is here is we're going to have there's nothing saying he doesn't come up with the money and pay us. I got you. Hopefully it's what happens because and again I'm just hoping we get even in that accountation. Huh?

So Richard, do you mind going back to the general fund? Yeah. Um looking at the the totals, it'd be great if we call it the actual results for five against the budget. I mean I was using the budget you know the the projection we do have actually you can put those side by side right this is the approved budget in 25 and in 26 when we have results I guess you can shrink them so have them side by

I guess my question was why how does the the the bottom line get so different from year to year like in the old one from 2025 you have negative numbers that are 1.1 million, 1.4 million, and now in the new one, they're not that bad at all. They're significantly way better. Here's our actual revenue for 25 27464. We only budgeted 26, 936. And here's the expenses. I budgeted 27214 versus 26 936. million ahead. We budgeted for zero, right?

But we came out in a surplus. You can see how different each line item is if you take a look at. So, do we need to do better budgeting or are we just getting lucky that we're making money? It could also be like projections because you never know what's going to happen in the future, you know?

Yeah, our personnel services looks like we budgeted those pretty accurately. didn't have a clue what we were doing with equipment. Not too bad on contract services. That service pretty much bang off. We had a little bit of a benefit. I think it was because of premium benefits better than expected. We did have a year in benefits last year 2025. It's a little bit worse this year, but it's still early. And of course, inter fund transfers, we didn't budget those well, but that's the comparison you were talking about.

Yeah. It was just kind of seeing how we landed. Yeah. So, like sewer, this is what we had for sewer, right? I was just looking at the AUD on my phone. This was the revenue that we actually brought in compared to this. And then this was the expense compared to this expense which gave us Yeah. What was our our surplus? A surplus of 998402 as opposed to 6278. Yeah.

That's pretty typical for the uh the sewer pump. We usually underestimate or lowball the revenues. So, I guess it just depends on the first line after like 2026 where that lands because like I'm looking at last year's projections. Look at this. These are all in the millions and now it's 98,630 666 704. This is this is general. You looking at general fund or fund? Yeah, I was looking at general fund. Got it. Yeah. Okay. Never mind. I see. Yeah, those looked like the wrong ones. I was like, how can they be so different? Yeah, we are on the right page.

So, the work that we're going to do on Cornelia and possibly uproot, is that going to bring any more revenue in from the town in terms of sewer? It probably will. Yeah, because they're paying. Well, we're going to be monitoring it and actually determining what the total is an estimate. We're putting meters on all our We're actually going to be reading. It could be. Yeah, that's another difference. It could be that we're going to uh find out that they're charging them more on than the actual club. The um

but I don't I don't think that that's going to be Janelle's job is going to be coming down. Beth, when is that? Beginning of next week, right? May 18th. May 18th. So, we'll see if we'll see what we're going to We'll see what we can We got to get somebody down. I mean, the next person we want I I I think we're going to be happy. I've got a couple people that's called and said they're interested and I think we're going to be I think we're going to be in good shape. I know. That's what I was talking about. See right there how it goes to 155, 221, 411, and on the previous one it was in the millions. Like how do how does it jump that far? Which fund are we on here?

General. Um, it's a good question because it's it's substantially different. Yeah. So I wasn't I was just confused. Those are the new numbers, but they're based on I think lower percentage increases. What do I have about in the higher revenue? Do I have higher revenue? Yeah, looks

pretty much the revenue is the same. You see the 1283 for 27. I mean, they're just 2% higher. The sales tax, I think, is a little bit higher. I was uh using a higher said one and a half last year had an increase of 1.65 this year because our average for the four year period is 1.8 Okay. And it's been consistent. Yeah. Consistent for us. Uh the state I don't think is very much different than last year. Lower this year. That extra AIM funding was nice.

Yeah, we do have more revenue showing up. Obviously, our fund transfers and other revenues are up a little bit over what we forecast last year. So, the projections are way better for this this year that we're working on than they were last year. And that's right. But again, I just threw some numbers in there, right? Okay. Based on the fiveyear averages and based on, you know, looking at what we think the cost to using conservative numbers. Yeah. Yeah, we had lower revenue projections last year.

This might be a dumb question, but like what is the most valuable thing that we get out of looking at this just to make sure I'm getting it? It's a good question because pretty much do this and we work on it until June. We say here it is then I don't think anybody looks at it again next year. One of the things that we could do is start looking at how well we actually come up against our budgets since how much our projections show valid numbers versus just pie in the sky.

I mean, we can see that in the budget versus actual every year it's in the budget. So, I mean, we have an idea. It's not like we don't have an idea of what budget versus actual is, but I guess I'm just I don't want to be missing the point of this if like I like seeing the debt service. Like, that's useful to me. I feel like looking across you can see where you know yeah where we're going to be but everything else is a is a bit of a um educated guess right and you know the charter requires us to do it okay u I think one of the things subjective parts of this is the hardest part you know what's going to happen with downtown what's going to happen with infrastructure what's going to happen with all parks and you know what are these things going to do over the next five years

that's hard to estimate that stuff that's where you have to have an idea of what are the plans to do with every part of the city, all of its operations and functions. Yes. Kind of piggybacking on that, my question is is it more of a prescriptive thing where we want to try and follow what's in this or is it more modeling based on what's come before to just show us what is likely to happen? It'd be better to do the first one, wouldn't it?

Yeah. I don't know that many councils have actually said, "Okay, let's stay with this. Let's focus on this. Let us see what we're going to do." Like what are our plans? It's like the development on Rugers Street. What will that do? Is it going to happen? You know, can we plan on that for not property tax? Before before I got before I started doing this, my my thought of the five-year plan was always like the city's idea of where it was going to see itself. conceptually, not necessarily right financially.

But then when I started doing this, I was like, "Oh, okay. So, this is the five-year plan." And it's and it's not a uh my brother's a landscape architect, so he helps communities develop uh aesthetic five-year plans, meaning what the city is what the city is projecting to do um with uh making sure that parks all look the same or they have some there's some continuous flow throughout the city of of uh how streets look, how building, you know, how how our parks should look.

What city? uh well he works down in Raleigh, North Carolina. Um but anyway, so so that's what I thought five-y year plans would be about and then you know I see that I see that their projection is basic where we hope to be well good at crunching the numbers but I think the better part of doing is what you guys have described like where we going to be five years from where do we want to be is where do we want to be is there opportunity to use this to project some growth and revenue recovery from that growth that we can turn around and do things with.

Yeah, this is the number crunching part of it. If there's a way to put the subject subjective plan together and decide how to value that or measure that in these numbers, that's where I think you get the real value.

That's what test. Well, and also like right now we're working on infrastructure in the city plaster what needs to be done when we do these grants. We don't we don't want to be putting in for what we're trying to rate and the most important what's the oldest lines in the city and that all factors into this as well. I mean we have some like in front of the middle school some of the oldest lines in the city. You know we're desperately looking for we've just put in for three huge grants for infrastructure. So, and then my neck, whoever gets down to that sewage treatment plant next is going to have an engineering degree and they're going to they're going to have to build, you know, wastewater all the way through the city. We have to go uphill with it and um there's so many variables to this that makes it hard because our infrastructure is so old in the city. We really need to pay attention to the infrastructure because it is really the foundation of the city, right? and our water plant. The water plant really I mean we should we wish we weren't doing so many of these facade things. Nothing I can do about it at this point, but I'd rather be putting the money into that water. I think that's way more important than and that that's something we're going to that's the next person that's working down there. We have to start building a plan and there's placing this water plant and moving moving forward. And how do we do that without breaking this essentially?

Like we're putting in the new businesses, right? Nothing in these number. So we got to build it in and we have to also try to figure out a way to measure what it's going to do for us. Yeah. Very subjective. How do we value that? Make it objective just to schedule. I think Rich made a good point about, you know, we've never looked at what we budgeted compared to what we've actually done in that year. And I think that will get you a better look at, oh, we budgeted a million dollars more of expense, but we never used it year over year over year. Why are we still budgeting that $1 million

structurally? Structurally. Yeah. But we never do that. But I think we adjust that every time we do the budget too because we look at every line in this budget. When we do the budget, we sit down the department heads and we they 500,000 on this line. Why is that? It's never been used. Hasn't been used five years. You know, Casey and Casey has run downstairs, change the numbers and come back up with a new sheet. But, you know, so I think this is a collaborative thing with the budget and and a plan. I mean, I don't think one's any more important than the other,

right? I mean being conservative and and spending the least amount of money we can and getting the most we can out of what we spend I think is the most important part and this is I think is a great drill to go through to see where the money is where you know where where are we in these debt services where are we spending here and there and I think the uh reserves are huge too making sure we do have reserves built up in certain in case we do have those unforeseen circumstances that we just you know We need reserves built. So I think I I think this is a whole package thing and I think Andrew upstairs and our next person down there can be really important in helping plan this too. That's a very very big part of it. I mean that's a big part of I thought would be here but in the subjective part

right? What are we expecting to have this turn out to and what's this going to look like five years from now? Where are we going with this plan? Right? new zoning coming in. What are we expecting? Are you gonna are we going to see a lot of people coming in trying to put in auxiliary houses around you know where we see ourselves in a lot of different areas in the next I mean that the zoning is going to be a huge change and that's going to factor into this 5ear plan as well. This is being right so we get here nice. Yeah. No, but I mean there's so many little pieces that make huge pieces to this and that zoning is going to be I mean I can't we don't know what it's going to be. It's hard to mesh,

right? I mean, you know, there's certain companies waiting to put their plans in for this new zone. And I know that I know three projects that are waiting at idle right now just because that new zone and I keep pushing them because why are you waiting? Why are you waiting? let's do it. You know, somebody's got money. Let's get it done. But they're waiting on the new zoning. So, it's going to be less steps, especially the historical the historical piece. It's going to be one less step that they don't have to wait for. So, those things go there's more property tax impact. There's more Yeah. Yeah. You know, our revenue and there's and you know,

employment possibly, right? I mean, there's a lot of variables to it. Do we know how long it takes us to recover our expenditures when we tie somebody in to water, sewer, and electric um as they pay for, you know, housing businesses, whatever we put up. So, there's output from us to put in to tie somebody in, right? Are they getting a pilot? Are they getting, you know what I mean? They have variables. Just I'm just wondering how long it takes us to recover that. Yeah. Make profit or Exactly. Exactly. Probably depends whether you're talking residential or commercial.

Right. Well, it also could mean that maybe we start talking about having the owner pay for some of the tiein. They pay for their water meters. They pay for setting up their electric service. They also paid for I think 50% of their infrastructure and sidewalks curbs for new development for new. Yeah. I didn't pay for to connect to the water sewer system. So if somebody puts in the new accessory dwelling units, would they pay for their own tie in? Yeah. They would have to run to the road, you know. But yeah, I mean anything on their side of the line they pay for. Yeah.

Right. I was just I was just concerned about our our side. It was obviously we put in time and effort to get that number. So So we can update the numbers and we can use assumptions and say here's what we thought the assumptions should be and then discuss the assumptions. But I think the subjective part is that you know get Andrew involved and get the planning side of it involved and look at what we expect to happen and how that's going to impact cost. That's a plan. Makes sense. Yep. Sounds good. Yeah.

No, I I mean, and when do we have to have this one done? June. We We have to We also have to pass last year's We never actually officially done a resolution for last year. We do court. Yeah, that's the first meeting in June and together. Okay. So, we'll finish up just putting the basic numbers together and they're going to be just draft. They're going to be something tenative numbers and I'll try and send that out to mom.

Okay. And send a copy if something start talking about stuff. No, I I think that's important too. I do. Yeah, he's he's going to have a lot of impetence, I think, for the developments that he knows. I mean, you too, you know, who's done what are we going to do with this? It's just so frustrating. You know, everybody wants to wait for new zoning and it's like when are we going to be I think we've got a couple more. We have to do one more public hearing, I believe. What? The zoning. Oh, yeah.

I'm pretty sure there's one more public hearing and then it's going to be going to a vote. But they're still changing stuff. They're still getting things, you know, nobody's looked at it now. Everybody's looking at it. So, you we're getting a lot of feedback. So, we're looking at different things in there. Some of the overlay districts are confusing. You know, I to me I I mean I've asked them if if you have an overlay district which do you have to abide by both or do you you know there's so many things it gets so complicated when you have two zoning things one overlay and then one actual right

so I mean there's a lot I've got little questions and these political signs I brought up during the meeting last time I think we need to have something in writing in this code you know something that says something about right now We really don't. And um it it's not a good look in the city in my opinion. What do other cities have? The town has 45 days before the election and theirs is I think five or 10 days out. Same similar to ours. We just don't have anything that says.

Yeah, there should be the city properties. That's another confusing issue. If you read our code, I So Justin's doing some case searching on on this because they've already threatened if we do this, this, or that, they're going to challenge it. So wait, who said that? Maybe we can't. Some of the people on the science, but isn't it isn't it 45 days before voting? Not so the town the town ran into this. the town ended up having to do they did 45 working days before the election because it wasn't specified right but I don't know why we stop

but voting early voting is soon so well that's the thing primary so you know the way it says is election right it says 45 days before the election so but this this is the primary which is in June of July June so There's a midterm election in December, right, for that one. So, they have to technically get picked up and then take back out. Realistically, in the city, we really don't have anything to say that. Trust me, I've been through everything today. I bet you and we've been looking at assessments, too. So,

y pretty interesting. That's what I sent you to say. You know, I said all we'll talk about. I got in trouble again. So, if any once we send this out, if you have any questions or any comments or any input for us to do, just get back to us right away. We'll put it in. It's like you you want to see something else, let us know. Okay. build this and build that because I think everybody's tools and better.

Any questions about any of it right now a lot of numbers. I know I mean I looked them over and I understand how it's done. There's no magic to Yeah. the kind of stuff that we've been kind of thrive on. It's like I mean the unrestricted fund balance make me nervous, right? Like the unrestricted fund balances that are at the bottom. Yeah. You know that kind of it kind of makes me a little nervous because the projections show a lot of loss too. Right. It's the savings. Right. Right. So and the summary is a good one to look at for that right that you have. Yes.

Sort of lays it out that builds from all these other And this one that's all right. Sorry. Okay. This was general and this was shown for pretty low unbalanced beginning but now it's looking better. That's a different set of assumptions. Mhm.

Um the real property projections that we're having right now, are those are those reflecting the 15 to 20 uh well 10 to 15% that most of the houses are going up every year for the last four years. This year they didn't get touched. Yeah. Nothing really got touched. Just 2% increase is just 2% of 11. We have to look at the assessments too which I think are further back in our schedules. We have to determine what we're going to estimate for that combination but we can't go above 2% on the property tax that's okay because the levy is going to drop it no matter what the

the assessment will take it up and the rate will take down but it has to remain in two unless we're going to exceed the 2% tax. Gotcha. Which we're not going to do. We haven't done We are not going to do it. No, we could do it one day. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we've been watching every spending. We spend every every week. I mean, you know, everywhere we can, we watch the driver. Well, it's been the driver to take the tax rate down though. I mean, it brings the rate down, but

residential pays more, right? And commercial pay less. So, the rate down from 10 or $11, $12 on $87. Yeah. That's all because the assessments have done. And this year, the assessments didn't move much. So, we're going to be almost playing with the same amount as we had last year. The commercial went up a little bit this year, but not a lot. and I'm going to have to use those 26 numbers we just got to factor in for the 27 and then look at

they're not finally it either because they they're still bre I'm sure I'm sure people are going to come in and complain about some so they're going to lower some of those so the they're tenative they're still tenative so AC could you write home assessments Yeah, we're at a billion4 right now. So, we change that for 2027. I tax the 207 taxes. I asked them for a 10-year run of that, too. So, I think they could use a contract to say, you know, that's our information, but we have a

No, they did not. We said we have a city. They said they could only do five years. Oh, they said they do five years. They said you're going to do five years. Well, I gave you 11 years. Yeah, but that's from one point to another. It's not every year, right? But if you look at the change, you know, they should be average. 10% a year for 6% a year for residential. Big difference. And and and apples and oranges. I know I know you can't do them the same way, but it should be relevant to you. Should be relevant. One's based on property sales. The other one should be based on property revenues and I just don't know that they they meaning the assessors that

are that skilled that the commercial the lawsuit on that that one was still good you know still good till 28. I don't understand that. Yes. 28. I know. I I mean it was $200,000 for the first like three or four years. I know. Why? Anyway, we can't fix that. Crazy is we reduced it. 2 million down to 2.6 I think 2.6 is what I said on the paperwork I got and it went down to 200,000

and then we did it once again. That was subassing a billionaire from California who worried about his problems. 14 years. 14 years. That's what we do for the guy. And now they're using Bitcoin mining. Not anymore. So the tax rate per thousand of assessed value you did. It's not being changed. I know. I haven't updated that. Oh, right, right, right. Sorry. That's even though the the dates changed because I changed the schedule universally for all of them. I haven't done the updates on those schedules yet. So that that will all change. 2027.

Oh yeah. And this tax rate.6 should say 875. That's what the tax code. What was the parking? I just want to look at the parking. Yeah. one of the only ones that has a circles construction.

Yeah. What's the fund balance look like down at the bottom? That's going to grow at 17,000 by 2031. It's, you know, it's a small fund. It's supposed to be self-sufficient, but uh we still it on the next lineup that you can't see in the revenue section at 60ome,000 a year. It was higher than previous years by 24. This should be self-sufficient. There shouldn't be any fun. Why is it not? Do you know why it's not like what's the we don't have the revenue generation to cover the expenses obviously. And I know that sounds like a dumb answer.

Well, it's true. the parking and the parking bonds revenue parking fines are supposed to be much higher. It also gives $100,000 to the rec complex for the beach parking. For the beach parking that's not shown in this you go back to the rec complex one to see that. Well, last year it wasn't 100. We took a beating on that last year. 79. Yeah. Uh I thought it was 60s. I think it's more I know we took a bead down last year at the beach. Where is that?

That be the title line the home services 166573 fund transfers. See the general funds really the worst we have very low revenue. So state revenues of all drive for libraries but the rec complex we're subsidizing pretty well is no you see that as trans wreck has no revenue well yeah program right the parking

the parking there is a debt service on the parking too we owe money too so we're paying back a debt service out of that as well so that's a part of that's what really beats that fund off I mean yeah that's the parking Yeah. Right. And if that's bonded inside of that, so no matter what you make, you still hold the bond. Fortunately, can you get rec complex again, please? Let's not rec this go back. We actually have revenue. No, we got to What was the revenue based out of the gym for the most part? Oh, the gym. Gyms. the uh great center

center and beach. Um but we were we figured out that you know we're charging oneird of what we should have been programs right and was just because taxpayers said we actually get stuff for free. It's like not recreation isn't part of your property taxes, right? But there's always such a push to, you know, save money for the taxpayers on revenue just didn't have enough revenue to maintain facilities or maintains programs. Well, part of the problem too is the city has taken over for the county a lot of these things and they're not all city kids. You know, they're it's not it's they're not city kids and we end up paying for,

you know, we end up doing other people's jobs. And listen, to make an investment in kids is it's hard to hard to shoot. It's hard to say that. It's really hard. Kids had it rough enough as it is. It's unfortunate the timing back then was we raised the revenue to where we got the six cents increased like two and three fold and then you know that was starting in 2020 and then in March of 2020 it's like yeah you know I'll go the lights out the programs because it was showing results. Yeah.

And of course after we got out of the business of soccer we operated there triple the prices we still waiting list. So, we knew we were on charging for it. Yeah. And we never should have, but we did it for 20 years, right? It was just was bad business. Well, I mean, there was a lot of things with that though. We were sharing part of that, too, right? I mean, it wasn't Yeah. Just And like you say, we were subsidizing the entire county, right? Yes. The city has for years. So, but that's why we should have to correct all sort of

right should just like the beach if you're a city resident you come free if you're not pay this pretty simple I hate to do that but it is city taxpayer and hindsight's always 2020 it's always easier to always predict the football game on Monday that's right so any other questions Good

except what are these? Do we need these? Oh, those are healthare. That's a healthare I guess passportion results or pharmacy medical. This is a program on GLTS. hand. Yeah. So, okay. So, we're good. Take a motion to Mr. Evans. Uh, roll call. Councelor Evans. Yes. Councelor Stra. Yes. Councelor Talon. Councelor Manette. Yes. Counc.

Yes. Um, honor flight Saturday morning. will forget. First honor plays