Council - workshop

Tim, let me know when we're good.

We're good? All right. I'd like to call to order the Radcliffe City Council work session for Monday, August 10, 2026 at 5 p.m. It's being held live at Radcliffe City Hall and being streamed live on Facebook. If you can rise for an invocation, you can remain standing for a place. Thank you.

Let us pray. Father, we thank you for this day and we thank you for your abundant blessings. We thank you for the mayor and his council. We thank you for their wisdom and their vision to move this city forward. Father, we ask that you bless our service members who are serving both here and abroad. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

We don't have to have a roll call vote, but thank you all for being here at our work session. It is already August. It's almost state fair time, which means it's going to get hot, Mr. Pike.

It's already there.

And so, hot, humid, school started. I hope everyone had a good start back to their school. I know that when I took my boys to North Middle, the drop-off line was all the way out into Joe Prather, so everybody's getting back acclimated with drop-offs and getting kids. So we hope everyone's doing well with that. First on our agenda for discussion is the world traveler, Mr. Chance Fox. World traveler. You did. When you close a war, when you hit Canada, that's leaving the country. Straight off of one of his big Iron Man trips. So he has a couple of things he wants to talk about on here for some policies and procedures.

It doesn't matter. Any particular order?

Everyone do it.

I didn't have the agenda in front of me, so I know I had three things. I forget they're back to back.

The bereavement and the retirement leave.

Just it's one of these things that, you know, we have these, we have our handbook that goes over a lot of our, these aren't like police and fire policy procedures. These are just, matters of a lot of these are matters of human resources and it you know whether they be sick leave annually even sometimes situations come up where there's a discrepancy or you can read between the lines and sometimes if you're not definitive on what you want your policy to be then it's up for discretion and what's up for discretion sometimes you get caught in the middle of you know well it can go either way so if you don't address it you know you have to kind of close that loophole so um anyway so the bereavement policy there section 4.8 has been basically the same since probably it was first approved. But a situation came up, and as a result of the situation, and I can explain it if you'd like, but you see some wording there that I'd like to add. There it talks about to attend funeral and visitation services. So, and I'll just highlight it without getting too specific, but generally the bereavement policy has always been written as a means to be paid for time off when it deals with having to attend a funeral or visitation services for an immediate family member or non-immediate. And the policy already dictates what's immediate and non-immediate and how many days you get for those. But there was a situation that came up where someone was unable to attend a funeral. They were unable to attend visitation services but just wanted time off and never really had that situation before. And then you were kind of caught in the middle of, okay, well, the policy says this, but it doesn't say that. So I thought at least bring it up and try to have the policy state what the intent has been always and how it has always been administered, which is the city will pay you either one or three days, depending on whether it's immediate or non-immediate for time off, when you attend funeral services or a funeral or a combination of both. And not just because you need time off because a family member has passed and maybe that family member lives on the East Coast or the West Coast. You're not going to go, but you just want to be off for the day because you're mourning. So my recommendation would be to add some language on that, as I've described there. to kind of identify what the intent of the policy was and always has been and how it's always been administered. Any questions?

I think you've addressed that very well.

Thank you. The retirement. So, again, this is another section of the policy, 4.14. You see some language there. Now, this isn't my language. I mean, I did the language, but it's a result of a change in the statute. effective. The statute is effective July 1, but for any and all wages paid after August the first and this is for any city, any county in the state. So Kentucky retirement periodically changes their benefit tears. There used to be just a tier one as I'm in there's others You know that came in later or Tier 2 and you have Tier 3 and each of those tiers are dictated by different forms of benefit coverage. So the recent change has that was implemented by the state. Says that. Anyone we backtrack. Most employees currently pay out of their pocket either 5%. If you're not hazardous or 8% of their paid. for their pension contribution. That's the standard. That's not what the city pays, but what the employee pays, either five or eight. And when tier two was started, which has now been almost 20 years ago, employees that were asked to pay an additional 1% to that 5% and that 8%, and that was to cover the future cost of their health insurance once they retire. When they're active with us, of course, the city pays for that, but once they retire. To go along with their pension, everything goes to the state and the state, my guess is needed more money to fund the retirement or the pension. The health insurance component, so they came up with called a 1% is what we have administered since then. Well, then they came up this recently. Now it's going to be 2%. Now that's not for everybody. Um, so for hazardous it is 2%. So they're only tier one hazardous people, which is you'd have to be here 23 years plus. So in our case, I think we only have maybe three that don't pay anything towards that because their grandfather then. But this law now went back to a five year period from 2008 back to 2003 and is picking up five years of people. that were hired in that time frame and now mandating that they pay 2% instead of 1%. So in a sense, you know, they were taking, I guess, in theory, a pay cut, but it's not necessarily what we've done. It's just that the state of Kentucky is requiring 2% for their future health insurance costs. I guess it's, again, because as health insurance costs rise, the state's bearing the burden of that cost and they're just trying to increase the funds associated. Now, for non-hazardous... Some people that are in that five-year lookup period from July 1st of 03, and it goes to September of 08, they are now having to contribute 1% when they didn't have to contribute anything. So they're going from zero to one. And again, tier one people like myself and others that have been here 23 years plus, they don't have to contribute anything. They were not pulled into that timeframe. But anyway, to... follow suit with what the state has done, I needed to make an adjustment in our current policy or handbook that talks about that. And this underlining here that I've done with the highlight in black accomplishes that. Any questions?

So is this something that you're going to automatically implement in their pay structure? I've already had to do it, yeah. You've already had to do that?

As a matter of fact, today was our first payroll, which hits Wednesday, to make those changes. That's correct.

And so then you have to explain that to everyone. I sent an email out. Okay.

Yeah. I think twice once, maybe when I first heard about it. So I think those impacted people know about it. And I think it's about 13 people. So this isn't. I shouldn't say it. I mean, we have 110 employees, so it's maybe 10% of the work. Many were already paying it. Some now, especially on the police and fire hazard side, they're going from one to two other than about three, which are tier one, and they're not impacted.

So they already are aware of it, you've already started it, and it's already in place.

I mean, I sent the information out. They'll certainly see it on Wednesday if they're paying attention to their paycheck.

Am I one of those 13?

You are.

Your name was one of them. That's right.

So you will now be paying 1% when you weren't paying anything. Sounds about right. And the last component there is something we typically do every August after the books are closed for the end of the fiscal year in June. And it usually doesn't make the July meeting in time. because the last payables that we do are usually around the 10th or 12th of the month, and the work session is typically right around that date, so it doesn't need to cut off. That's why I do it in August. So this is an amendment in two departments for fiscal year 25-26. So this is last budget, not the current budget we're in that we just adopted. And we had two departments, and you see the little breakdown, a breakdown that I attached to it. Two departments went over their allotment, and typically when you go over because it's an ordinance, you've got to come back to the council and show that you went over, and then you obligate those funds from somewhere to meet those expenses. The additional obligation that I just chose, but I could have chose a couple of line items, was insurance premium tax to offset that. Although you see that figure there, $4,004,300. I mean, we actually took in a lot more than that. But I had it show somewhere where that offset was able to pay for the additional expenses. And you see the two departments there listed with public works and economic development. Really minor costs. I mean, economic development was $21,100. And half of that cost came from electrical inspection fees. And that's not really a bad thing because... Although we pay more money out to our electrical inspector, that means we collected more money on the revenue side for the inspection. So it's not like we would have received more money than we anticipated on the revenue side, but because it's a contractual fee or it's a percentage fee paid to the contractor, it shows on paper that we spent more.

Basically, he made more money because we got more permits.

We just got more permits, so we collected more than we anticipated, but then we paid more out. So again, it's not really a negative. It's just... When you have a small budget like planning and zoning does in its entirety, when there's an $11,000 change, because their budget is probably the tightest one out of all the departments, it's going to impact the bottom line.

And there's a lot of permits in that department as far as, yeah.

The other one is Public Works. And you see there are 73,200. But again, the majority of that, or a good portion of that, at least half of it, has to do with just the snow and the ice event we had this year. We had to buy more ice. We had a lot more overtime than we typically would have.

We had rental equipment.

Yeah, rental equipment.

And then we contracted a couple to help clear.

So bottom line was really on a percentage basis when you look at public works, I mean, it's a $1.7, almost $1.7 million budget. And they're going over $73,000. And it's not like it's a result of poor management. It's just when you set that budget as an estimate one year ago, things happen throughout the year that you can't anticipate. And that's really kind of what led to the bottom line. But because they did go over a little bit, obviously, we're just making a correction there to adjust the work. And then stormwater was the other one there. Stormwater is kind of a tough one because for this year, or for the year in question, you had the North Locks and FEMA project. And that one has – it's really hard to project a grant project from FEMA because you don't know when the projects – you don't know when the timelines are going to come due. It's not like you're going to buy your fleet vehicles in August. And with a project like this, it's all – we did it all in-house. I mean, we're building these bases with in-house forced labor rather than contract labor. So it's like they have to blend that work in along with the other work that they do. So we estimate as best we can on what those costs are going to be. But when it gets down to on paper, we needed to make some adjustments on maintenance, repair gas and oil overtime. All those accounts are related to FEMA. Now the good news is because we did it in house and didn't contract it out. All that money comes back to us in a census income because we're able to turn in our time sheets for the hours of labor of the staff as well as the equipment rates of our own equipment and all that is reimbursable to us. So as compared to hiring a contractor, all that money, you know, you get reimbursed, but there's a net zero. When we do it in-house and we have the ability to use in-house workforce to do it, then, you know, you're in a sense already budgeting those expenses for the most part, other than some of these overruns. But you're getting back quite a bit of money from FEMA. And that project, by the way, closed August the 7th, last Friday. And at some point soon, probably, they'll probably, maybe... We'll do like a synopsis or something on the project. I'm sure Mayor probably had that on his agenda anyway.

And we won't go into big detail now, but that was the project that we waited several years for on the FEMA side and then got the grant. Then it was tabled, and then we got it again, and then they shortened the funding on it and closed it out. So we'll do a review. They're still closing out and trying to wrap everything up. We got some invoices that were left out that we have to complete. That's what I have. Any questions? Mr. Fox? So next meeting, we'll be doing a reading, or I guess a first.

Yeah, so I guess next Tuesday will just be a second reading on these three. Well, second reading and a couple of them will just be voiceover.

We've got to do the first reading ordinance.

Sorry.

I'm sitting here thinking it's the first reading. Sorry about that. First reading next to it. There's no need to have another meeting afterwards. We can wait until September.

Still stuck on vacation time, I think. All right, sir. Thank you. Thank you. So that's one and two, three, uh, police chief is out of town, but we wanted to go ahead and get you these. And I'm sure at the next meeting, uh, Willie, when will he be back? Do you know when he'll be back at the end of this week? I think he's gone to Thursday. Um, y'all should have several standards there in front of you, um, regarding the policies, still continuation of the updates. Um, We wanted to go ahead and give you those just so you'll have them. That way you can review them. And then Chief should be back next Tuesday, and you'll be able to ask any questions prior to any vote taking. We don't want to actually ask you to vote for something that you didn't have any opportunity to question. So just take them home and scan over them if there's anything that sticks out to you or needs clarification on either one of these two statutes, policies and procedures for the department. Chief should be able to ask you those for next meeting.

Any questions on that?

We apologize. It just happened to be the meeting and him at a conference. He wanted to be the one that had the discussion. Willie obviously is capable of doing it, but the chief said he wanted to be the one to answer it.

Not so much a question as a statement. These, like the other policies that the chief has brought forward, are KRS revised statutes that We have to implement because they've been revised to the state. So this is just for our information, but they are revisions that the state made that we're implementing, correct? They're required by the state, right, by the KRS.

Yes, statute requires us to have policies and procedures in place. So if any incidents may happen or things may happen regarding the officers, they want to see that you have policies and procedures in place that are being followed by our officers.

These are not in-house policies. These are Kentucky statute policies that we're bringing.

The chief and the command staff do review these and add some things in there that fit our department locally. Some might, but most of it all is approved by the KACP as well as Kentucky statute. Mr. Pike, do you want to add anything?

Well, these are our city policies. They're part of the RPD standard operating policies and procedures. The state does not mandate that you have to have the following wording followed by these pages. These are pages that are drafted, usually PHCP. Sometimes KLC has input into that. And of course, the chief has the ability to alter language as he sees fit, especially if he has concerns. They both have to deal with advanced technology, the automated lights and play readers, the clock cameras, and then facial recognition. So I advise you to look at the policies. They're good policies. We want to be able to use these tools properly, safely, and have the utmost respect for privacy rights and other legal rights that individuals have. But it's one of those situations where you've got to have policies for these technologies. You just have to. So that's why they're presented for you and your consideration. And we need to approve these or something very close to them, I would say.

All right. We have a fairly short meeting, Kim. So you got anything to add?

I'm just going to say go to our Facebook pages once again if you're looking for activities throughout the city through the parks and rec Facebook page called the community center Facebook page the city of Radcliffe Facebook page. What isn't on that page is a new event that's coming a Sunday, Sunday Funday, Sunday, August 23rd, 2 to 5. It is free to the community and it's called Play Picnic and Popsicles. So some are still here. We got quite a few weeks left. Come out to Dolly Park Sunday, August 23rd. This is hosted by a new business that we have in Radcliffe, and it's called Playing Go Kentucky. So it's geared towards party equipment and things that you could rent out for your kids' birthdays or different types of events. They're hosting it just to help get the word out on their new grand opening of their business. So it's free. It'll be hot dogs, popsicles, chips, play equipment, and, of course, Dolly Park is open for the public. And Radcliffe Women's Club is celebrating their 64th anniversary. Tonight is their meeting. It's the second Monday of every month at 6.30, and they are looking for membership. They've been serving Radcliffe for 64 years, giving back to the community. So if you're interested in seeing what Radcliffe Women's Club is all about, you can come to call them at 6.30.

Yeah, Dolly. Which park? I think it's Dolly. Dolly? Dolly, yeah, yeah.

have to look at some sometimes if we don't have anybody on shift or anybody working the bathrooms are locked during the day um i'll have to check because um usually when the teams are out there the team the coaches and stuff have the keys they unlock them lock them back up right sunday i have to check into those families out there uh playing and barbecuing and stuff like that okay nothing tonight Okay, thank you all.

I would say that this heat is going to continue, so be careful out there when you have something to do. Really important, then jump in the car and go and do it. But if you don't, just stay home, air-conditioned, and all that good stuff. And the cold water, that's all. It's hot.

Actually, we got anything else?

Do you want to mention the applications for the parade, sir?

I'll let you do that. Okay.

So on September 19th, we are having our Radcliffe Days Parade, which will again be an evening parade at 5 p.m. If you are wanting to be in the parade, you will have the application online, radcliffe.org, as well as you can always email me, ashley.russo at radcliffeky.gov. And I will be happy to make sure to send you an application. So we would love to have everybody in the parade. It's going to be a good time. We're going to be celebrating both America's 250th as well as Radcliffe's 70th. So it's a birthday celebration here in Radcliffe.

And parade season started. Many communities are starting to have parades. And then we have the festival right after that. Again, Mr. Countryman, you're helping get all that set up and ready to go. Okay. All right. Sounds good. And then we're working on some other things, honoring some of our people here in our community as well. So we'll be getting that information out. So a lot of good things going on. And candy is, God, I saw Pam at Sam's this weekend, and she heard me complain that candy is getting ridiculous. Chocolate. it's expensive my goodness you want that one chocolate on saturday it was pretty hot i i was yelled at about buying chocolate yes i was told i shouldn't have bought chocolate but i think everybody's getting sick of tootsie rolls so but yeah it was but no uh yeah the kids the kids really got to enjoy it's it's just so great to see little kids out there you know with their bags and You know, I know Greg was out there and I mean, they just love it. And I mean, they're just, you know, literally, if you ever think about it, it goes from now all the way through October. These kids are getting candy like crazy. And it's like, whew, my goodness. Parents are welcome. So council regular meeting will be next Tuesday night, August 18th, 2026 through 530. And then our work session will be scheduled for September 8th.

So with that, we are adjourned. Thank you all.