City Council - Regular Meeting

We've deemed this the non-voting. The non-voting. Okay.

I guess you're going to pump me on.

At least for today.

At least for today.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for your help. Yeah. Go ahead. I've combined all of the pictures into a PDF, and it's just on that laptop that's up there. So I don't know if you'll just have to open it, and it'll be on the TV again. Absolutely. So I don't know if you're going for Alexis or Alexis is going and then, okay. So I think she's going to come. So then we'll probably just send that over to you and then once you're ready and everything. Come help, yeah. And we can even open it and have it open. Once I switch over, then it'll just be there.

Is that all you need? Oh, look what you've done. Thank you. Needed.

Just regular. Find it.

Oh, is that your cat? I'm like, I miss that cat. How are you doing?

Good to see you.

Good to see you. How are you doing? I'm good. I'm good. I'm not doing that anymore.

I didn't know that.

Do you want to sit?

Yeah.

I'm sure Ben misses you up there.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure he does.

I don't know. Yeah. 45 days. Yes. Wild. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Like, by the time it's over, you're like, okay, I don't know if I'm good for another year. But while you're, like, fireworks, it's, yeah.

It's just so fast-paced. You're like, okay, I'm ready for it to be done. But then it's done, and you're like, wait.

It goes by so fast.

All right, well, it's good seeing you. Good to see you, too. Okay.

You know I will.

To see you. but i give this back Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, we'd like to start our council meeting. Today is June 16, 2026, and the time is 5.30 p.m. We want to acknowledge Councilmember Spahr, Councilmember Saxon, Councilmember Jackson, Councilmember Wilson, and Councilmember And tonight we will have Councilmember Jackson lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance and the moment of silence. And the moment of silence is first.

Please join me in a moment of silence. Thank you. Please stand for the pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the flag

OK, so we don't have any consent items tonight. So we're going to go directly into our presentations. And the first one will be Councilmember Jackson.

Thank you. And our staff here is hooking me up to the, oh, there we are, up on the TV. So I just wanted to share some of the things that I have found about the budget and the options that I have considered and the options that I will continue to consider as the budget process progresses. Before I launch into our situation, I want to just share a brief background on just a couple of things that are commonly misunderstood about this very complex process, things that I have taken a lot of time and care now to understand and hope to help to share what I have learned about those things. But before I do start with that, I want to be very clear that I have taken this budget process seriously and personally. And because of that, and because people and families and homes are in my mind during the process, I want to bring this up. And it's a QR code to a link to tax relief through the county because I understand that tight times are here for everybody. That includes me, that includes everyone in this room. And so just to be very clear about where my priorities are and where my heart is, I want to share this with any who it might concern. So feel free to scan this or share it at any time. On my subsequent slides, where it fits, it will also be displayed a smaller version. So it will be available and visible throughout the presentation. I just want to draw attention to a new law in the budget process this year. And this is a slide from a slideshow by ULCT, and that's the Utah League of Cities and Towns. And it's available at ulct.utah.gov. And it just is highlighting one of the reasons for this new law that was put into place for the additional steps in our budget process. And it says, the legislature wants local entities to be more transparent about the need for increased property tax revenue. This is your chance, speaking to us as elected officials, this is your chance to fully educate the public about the value and cost of municipal services. So I wanted to take this opportunity, as they have directed, and go ahead and share some more information about that. This is just a picture from the budget, page five, and it is available on our website. This is just showing the budget process. So as you can see, work began on the budget in February, at least on this, but although I suspect that our staff has been working on it even before that, but that's when the budget request forms were sent to department directors. And then we have some ongoing work, as you can see. The very first time that the council would be officially presented with the budget would be May 5th, which was about a month ago. Yeah, it was about a month ago, a little bit longer. And that was, there's a new step now because of that legislation on that May 5th meeting. AFTER THE NEW LEGISLATION WAS PASSED BY THE STATE, THE CITY COUNCIL IS NOW REQUIRED TO ACCEPT THAT BUDGET BY RESOLUTION JUST AS A PUBLIC STATEMENT THAT WE HAVE RECEIVED IT AND THAT'S OUR OFFICIALLY BEGINNING TO WORK ON IT. AGAIN, THAT IS THE LEGISLATURE'S INTENT TO BRING MORE TRANSPARENCY TO THIS PROCESS AND BRING THE PUBLIC ALONG TO EACH STEP. So as you can see, that was what was intended with the May 5th meeting. And as you can see, today is June 16th. So today we will be discussing and adopting a tentative budget for next year along with a proposed certified tax rate or the possible cap for the tax rate. So just to review a couple of the, well, the two resolutions that were passed that day on May 5th, and this is from resolution, the first one that was passed, a resolution 26-7, stated that Utah State Code, Title 10, Chapter 6, requires a tentative budget be filed with the governing body, or the city council in the case of Roy City, This action will meet that requirement to officially file that. So no longer do we just pick it up at the office, take it home, and start working on it without any presentation. Well, it was presented to the public in the past, but now there is a resolution where we have to state that we have received it. It's clear and it's public that the city council did receive it, and so that is an additional thing that we had to do. The second resolution that was passed that day was 26-9, and there were certain statements that the budget officer had to present in accordance with the budget. And those statements were the proposed tax increase as a percentage, the amount of revenue that would be generated by that, the average monthly cost per household, and also the reasons that the tax increase was proposed. And those are always requirements. But now there's a new a new law that requires us to also acknowledge that the budget officer made those statements so those are the statements that this resolution is referring to when it states the following resolution acknowledges that the agenda included a separate item notifying the public and i added the numbering just for clarity on that notifying the public that one that the budget officer intends to make these statements two that these statements were read in a public meeting It also acknowledges, three, that the public hearing dates have been set for the interim budget adoption and final budget adoption. So for that resolution, the city council acknowledged that the budget officer read the statements that we saw the budget and that we have set the public hearing dates. And one of those is today. So those are the purposes of the resolutions. Nothing was accepted. or agreed upon that day as far as what's in the budget. We simply received the budget on that day, so I just wanted to make sure that that was clarified for any who might be wondering. So just going back here to this, this is, again, today is June 16th, and as you can see, there is still more work to be done before the final budget is adopted and the certified tax rate is agreed upon on August 11th. So we're about midway through this process, and we'll continue work on the budget. I don't want to go too much into this just because I have options that I want to get through in my investigation of those. But this is just, again, from USCT, their presentation to governing bodies. And I starred their point that I feel like is applicable, at least for my presentation today. Truth in taxation is a process that not every state goes through. Many states, actually, as home values rise, their tax rates also rise to make sure that they are getting more revenue taxes just automatically. And the truth in taxation process in some of these states, including Utah, actually backs that out. The amount of property tax that a city or a state that goes through Truth in Taxation, the amount of tax revenue that they receive actually holds constant unless they decide to intentionally change their certified tax rate due to either by a tax raise or a tax decrease. That would be an intentional change of that tax rate. just because the valuation of a property goes up does not result automatically in higher taxes. However, some, well, and so for what that means for us is that our tax rate actually has been going down almost every year. If I'm not mistaken, it has been going down every year. And that's because values on homes are rising. And so in order to balance that out and how much that a person should be paying should equal out. Now, that doesn't always work because in the second, as you can see, the second starred bullet, their valuation increases and decreases, usually result in tax burden shifts. And what that means is that some areas of Roy or a city, well, we'll take Roy certainly for the example here, but some areas of Roy, their property values may increase at a different rate than other values or properties around the city. And so for that reason, you may see a shift in tax burden If your property tax from Royce City has gone up on a year where Royce City did not increase their tax rate, it's because other properties are paying less. And that's balancing out across the city and giving the city the same dollar number of revenue. So there is a natural downward bias in property tax. Inflation is actually backed out on purpose. That's the responsibility of the governing bodies to deal with inflation as they see fit. And so I will discuss a couple of those options today as I've been looking through them. Primary residential properties receive a 45% tax break. That is to mean that if a home is valued at what the average was at least for last year was $432,000 in ROY, only 55% of that is going to apply to the tax rate. And then they wanted to point out as well, despite all of the above, property tax is the most stable revenue source for local governments and is the tax over which local officials have the most control. This is a sample from Weber County on an average ROY market value. And the market value is assessed by Weber County. And the same standards are used to assess all the properties in Weber County. So for this example that Weber County provided, you can see that the average ROY market value is $431,848. And so the taxable value, again, only 55% of that is going to be a taxable value. So that actually drops to $237,572. The total tax bill for this property will be the $2,448.65. And you can see a breakdown there of where each of these things go. So when Royce City considers to change their property tax rate, it's going to affect what's illustrated here in yellow, the yellow portion of the pie, or the city tax. And it doesn't affect the rest of the pie. only as much as it affects the total. So in the case of this budget here, which has a proposed 55.45% tax increase, would be an increase of $213.16 per year, or an 8.71% increase to the total tax bill. And I wanted to break that down because we were reminded in a work session previously that $17.76, which is required by Utah law to represent as well, represents an average. There will be some that will be higher than that. There will be some like myself that will be higher, and there will be some that will be lower than that. So I took the initiative to go ahead and calculate what the dollar amount would be on various home values in hopes that people will be able to find context for that as well. I wanted to know where Roy fits into this puzzle because here I was faced with a budget that I could see needed some amendment and some attention. And so I wanted to know where we're at. And so we can see, and this is taxfoundation.org. They pull their information from US Census Bureau in 2023. We were rated number 46 out of 50 states for the fifth lowest property tax rates across the country. And as far as Weber County goes, we are just below the median rate. And those rates do include their fire service. You can see that the ones highlighted in green have their own city fire departments. The red ones are Weber District, Weber Fire District, and then you have your Northview Fire District as well in purple. And those are included. That does include their fire services and those taxing entities if they are different from their city. And so I wanted to know where we sat with that because where we look at a tax increase, I want to know if that makes sense for Roy or where we're at. If we're already maybe too high for our population or for our services, I would want to know that. And so this is what I found per the Weber County Treasurer. I also wanted to look at where we were at. So where we have a median tax rate, I can also see that our population is second in the county, but is about half of the next most populated city in the county, which is Ogden, of course. And then where we're at with our home values and So I added a couple sources at the bottom. Sources will be notated throughout, but I don't want to take too much time drawing attention to them. But on the average home values, I can see us down there close to the bottom. Just so that we're clear, though, that's not every city in Weber County. Those were the ones that did a truth in taxation last year and were available from the Weber County treasurer. So, where is the budget shortfall coming from? When we talk about that currently, we are attempting to balance the budget. Now, where is the shortfall coming from? The revenue increase proposal is $2,807,745, or from now on, I'll probably refer to it as the $2.8 million. From the budget page seven, we can see the operations budgets are actually operating at the same levels. If it were not for the personnel concerns, the budget would actually be entirely balanced. 46.45% of the 55%. So it's not, it's not, so if you take the 55%, 46, if it was just a 46.46% of that goes to actually COLAs and wages. And then the remaining 8.99% is from the March COLA that was implemented for the remainder of fiscal year 26. 100% of that tax increase is intended to benefit full-time employee wages. That includes our fire, police, public works, parks and rec, administrative, the court, HR, etc. 61.55% of the increase is to public safety. City council, mayor, and part-time were all not included in any wage studies that were conducted, nor are we included in the increase. There was a wage committee that was put together by some fiscal staff, two council members, and the mayor who went through and wanted to do some digging to find out what the turnover was about. We were seeing high, high rates of turnover and also hearing anecdotally that employees were finding much higher wages available and were not able to stay here. and for a job. It wasn't going to be feasible for them at all, and so they were leaving for higher pay. And so that prompted a research into this wage compensation issue. And so I wanted to just discuss briefly what was done during that wage committee, or with the wage committee. They conducted a salary survey, and to do that, they investigated 12 peer organizations based on geography, service offerings, size, et cetera. Those peer organizations were Bountiful, Centerville, Clearfield, Clinton, Kaysville, Layton, North Ogden, Ogden-Pleasantview, Riverdale, South Ogden, and Syracuse. The reason that these were chosen is because they were nearby, and also there are some that also match the... They have similarities to Roy, Excuse me. NOT ALL OF THEM ARE EXACTLY STRUCTURED LIKE ROY AND NOT ALL OF THEM ARE NEAR, BUT A COMBINATION OF THOSE TWO FACTORS, PROXIMITY AND SIMILARITY WERE VERY IMPORTANT SO THAT WE COULD SEE, WE COULD COMPARE WAGES AND BE COMPETITIVE WITH THOSE ENTITIES THAT WERE TAKING EMPLOYEES FROM US OR THAT EMPLOYEES HERE WERE LEAVING TO GO THERE. SO THEY WERE IMPORTANT FACTORS IN DECIDING WHICH PEER ORGANIZATIONS TO CHOOSE. As far as market survey goes, the TechNet database was consulted with information on job descriptions and titles to provide matches. There were adjustments made to account for differences in job descriptions where we have a few employees who do several jobs or people that have different qualifications or additional qualifications rather than what their job would entail. Those were all taken into account for adjustments. In best practice, these processes were verified with independent contractor who actually does salary surveys like this, and it was found that the processes were in line with his. I wanted to compare this with a recent... compensation study done through Baker Tilly for Weber County, and that was done last year. There were 17 peer organizations that they looked at, and they quoted in their presentation that these were relative to size, service offerings, geography, and growth, which looks similar to what we have done. They did use a private sector comparison, and they used published market data, just that you can look up, and they used that as their comparison for the private sector. Some of their peer organizations were Davis County, Salt Lake County, Utah County, Boxelder County, the city of Salt Lake, the state of Utah, Layton, Roy, West Valley. There were three counties as well included in Colorado and a county in Idaho. So they also were focused on those two factors of proximity and also similarity with those. Of course, Weber County is not likely to lose employees to Colorado, but um very often certainly but there was some value in in observing their structures and how they were similar to weaver county also those ones like roy layton west valley are not the same size as as weaver county but they they are worth looking into because of their proximity and the competition that that ensues from that As far as their market survey, they did their own market survey, of course, and it was with similar parameters that we used, which were a summary of work, minimum qualifications to find matches, and the adjustments they made as well. They did make some adjustments when certain matches couldn't be accurately found, and those were account for differences in work week, geographical labor costs, etc., I did also find their contract. The contract for this through Baker Tilly was $98,000 and required a seven month timeline. This was important to me because when I look at the wage committee, I definitely see the value in a professional wage study that's third party, that's professionally done. And I can see that that would probably yield better results. In fact, it might even yield higher results. These are results that are two years old and they were done internally. And as I understand, they were done conservatively. But for me, the reason that I do depend on this and that I do think that it's valuable is because of that seven month timeline. That was something that right now I can see that we're up against time and we're really up against the clock as far as turnover and solving this problem. So that seven month timeline was a huge hang up for me as to whether or not we should wait for that. So here are the results from, well, some of the results, and of course it's three pages of results and they can be referred to in pages 101 to 105 in the budget. But this is just a summary of them. What it found is that there were eight positions that were found less than 5% below average, nine positions that were found five to 10% below, 26 that were found between 10 and 15% below, 24 that were 15 to 20% below, 5 that were 20 to 25% below, and there were 10 positions that were found to be upwards of 25% below average. The low on that was 44.41% below average, and the average percent below average was 15.13%. And I just made a graph on just an Excel spreadsheet to show me what this looks like. So we did have three positions of the 83 that were looked at that were at or above average. And the rest of them, as you can see, fall anywhere from slightly below to quite below average. So I wonder how we got here, how did this happen, I can see, I wanted to look into cola and merit history since 1990 and also history of Ray city tax increases since 1997. Since 1997 Roy city has successfully raised their tax rate five times, and you can see that here on when that was done. When Roy City has raised their tax rate, it has actually kept it from falling because, again, there's that natural downward bias in the tax rate. It will naturally fall as home values are rising. So if you look at what the average household was paying back in 1997 and what the proposed increase is in the current budget, and that's, again, we're halfway through the process and we're still ongoing discussions on that. But if you compare the two, they're nearly identical. It's in the $500 in 1997, and it's in the $500 in this proposed budget. So we actually are recouping a cost that we used to have, but here in a time of inflation where that dollar actually doesn't go as far as it used to. And then on the right side, you can see the COLA and merit history since 1990, which I had sent to me by the fiscal department. There have been long stretches, two, three, five years where no COLAs or merits were implemented. And what that means is when other government entities or other cities are implementing COLAs and implementing merits and Roy fails to do so, we are falling behind. And so I actually found it interesting as I looked at this, you can see right after 2004, there was no COLA and then there was a small tax increase in 2005. And then you go 2010, there was a small increase all the way 2010, 11, 12, 13 and 14, there were no merits implemented. After 2014 and 2016, you see a big tax increase. Then you see no COLAs for five years following that, 18, 19, 20, 21, and 22. And then in 22, you see another tax increase. So what I'm seeing here is a pattern since 1997 that, or I guess 1990 in there, is that when we start to get into this catch-up mode, we start to see it's been several years since we've implemented COLAs or MERITs. And then there's a tax to try to bring that up. And so that's this cycle that we've fallen into since 2022. In 2018, as I understand, there was actually a professional wage study done, but the city council elected not to implement it. And when I learned that, I found another part of this history that, at that time, had it maybe been addressed, maybe we wouldn't be here now, but as it was discarded and disregarded, those issues continue to follow us now. We had another four years after that that there wasn't a COLA. There was a partial COLA, which is why I have that in parentheses, 2026, and that was for the last three months of this fiscal year. in 2025 or last year attempts were made to bring these wage wages up to halfway So that everybody would be, well, actually, I think it was more, it was actually fully focused on the fire department at that time. But that is about half of it. So if last year's tax increase had been approved by the Utah State Tax Commission, that's 28%. As I understand it, the intention of the council at that time largely was to do it half last year and half this year. 28 plus 28 would be about 56. That's about the 55.45% that we're facing this year. So I wanted to know, after that, I got the percentages. And these are just a few. These are just a few. But I wanted to know the dollar amount. And I picked about 10 that were below the average, eight that were above, and about two or three that were in the middle. So I tried to pick a good spread there. But it showed me just how much money it is that some of the staff is actually going without. And this is a yearly figure. We have anywhere from a legal assistant who's shorted $1,700 a month, and that's for a starting. This is all based on the starting salary that was indicated in the wage scale. You've got a public works operator, someone who drives a snowplow, shorted $5,000. Parks and Rec director, minus $10,000. The court clerk supervisor, minus $11,000. Some other things, police captains, minus $15,000. Prosecutor, a lawyer, minus $21,000. And then I did want to indicate as well the highest, which was minus 44.41%. There at the bottom, IT supervisor, minus $54,000 a year. So what I have found is that this is causing turnover. And turnover is an important thing to look at. And when I have, I have heard some comments that have been, that perhaps the city council is too focused on the staff, we're not focused enough on the residents. But what I found is that high turnover results in decreased staffing levels, and that translates to interrupted services. We can take the fire department as an example, because at a time of extremely high turnover, we had to actually close a station in December. And so that's something that's frightening to me. I don't feel like compromising on public safety at least. And there are other things as well that I don't want to compromise on. as far as interrupted services. This is something that we have to get to stop. With high turnover, you lose institutional knowledge. You have supervisors who are training people who may be six months old, or six months in the city, as is the case in the court clerk position, and that's actually a particular position that's a high turnover, and they're consistently about six months old are the people training the others. Loss of collective experience with the knowledge of systems and public works and working together as a team as far as public safety departments go. We also find qualification concerns with the applicant pool. So we are fortunate to have some who have been able to be hired on such low starting wages. But we have found that there have been some where they're being hired, they're accepting a lower rate, the qualifications of many of those individuals go down and those people end up getting dismissed. That's another concern with high turnover. We also find there's a very high cost with rehiring, especially in specialized departments such as public safety when you have to rehire over and over and over again for a fireman or for a police officer or for someone specialized like in public works. It's taking a lot of money to retrain them and re-outfit them and re-onboard. This turnover is happening at every level. We can see firefighters, police officers, the city prosecutor in fact, a police sergeant, an EMT, a paramedic, accounting techs, shop foreman, a customer service clerk. It's happening all over at every level. Of particular concern, as far as turnover goes, the department heads, with one exception, are all about five years or less here at Roy. And we are very, very fortunate to have incredible department heads. But when they're underpaid and we're getting new people that are coming in all the time, that's going to create a lot of instability within the departments. There is a single employee credentialed for drink for the drinking water system in the entire city of roy and that person is also underpaid and we lose that person and um i don't know how else to say it we all risk poisoning i mean that's that's our potent water that's our drinking water There's over 300% turnover in the court clerk position. The supervisor is currently six months here at the city. And again, that public safety interruptions caused by the turnover. 61% of this wage correction, again, it would go to fire and police. So we've had the question, is pay the problem? I mean, this is something you're gonna have to use your best judgment. What I've seen is that the extreme turnover does correlate with the extreme pay disparities. Of course, that correlation doesn't indicate all by itself causation. However, when we take that into account, With the fact of the exit interviews that have been conducted, the people who sit in the department head's offices and say, I can no longer stay here because I can't afford to feed my family on this salary. I've found a place that's going to pay me another $5,000, $10,000, $15,000, or $54,000 more a year. I can't stay in Roy. so we're hearing that me and at least another council member have had interviews with staff without their department heads present to make sure that we do have that understood correctly i have also done an interview or two with separated staff that have self-separated that have left the city but have reached out to me in order to share some information that they have about the culture of their of their uh of their job and how it was not the culture that forced them out in fact i would argue that culture is the reason we still have what we do Beyond that, Weber Fire District, during a presentation, noted the culture that's here at Roy Fire and how it is an incredible culture. So we have this budget shortfall. And I've looked into many, many options. There are still more to consider, and I'm still going through them, but let me catch you up to speed on what I have found about some of these. We've heard a lot fat trimming. They call it tighten your belt, bloating, cut the pork, this kind of thing. So I wanted to look into that. Two years ago, each department head was asked to cut 7.5% of their discretionary spending, and they did so. I asked the department heads then to report to me what things they chose to cut. In Public Works, they cut out, and this isn't like all of it, but these are the areas where they made cuts, In equipment and supplies for street jobs, equipment operation manuals, vehicle maintenance, part-time and overtime, commercial driver's license testing. This year, there is a request of $3,000 restored to that because the cuts were found unsustainable. In building maintenance, Christmas light replacement was reduced, as well as lift rentals for that, tools and supplies, furnace filters, HVAC units, and part-time and overtime. In 2027, they will maintain all those cuts in that division. However, their utilities and cleaning did increase on them, so they will have to front that cost. In fleet services through Public Works, they cut in the areas of equipment operation manuals, again, scan tool updates, a subscription for the Mitchell Class 8 truck repair, automotive training, seminars, ASE certifications for their workers, as well as tools, cleaners, chemicals, hardware, welding supplies, shop equipment. And this year, they actually reduced that division $4,500 further. In parks and rec, they cut $82,000 overall from the rec complex. They cut out some weight room equipment rotations, program supplies as well for the aerobics, water aerobics, swim classes, et cetera. In the aquatic center, they cut out money for the deck furniture, that's the umbrellas and chairs, as well as preventative maintenance, which when I met with them, I came to understand that the preventative maintenance that they're cutting out will cause problems for the budget down the road because when we don't maintain that, we're gonna find higher costs in the future because of the upfront cost we'll find to finally catch up on those projects. As far as Roy Days, they cut back on marketing, signage. They did cancel the BMX competition for Roy Days, reduced the hand-washing stations that are provided. They did not provide candy for the parade. And in fiscal year 27, they further reduced spending in the areas of reduced tent size, tables, and chairs. And that is for Roy Days again. In the Parks and Rec, just department overall, they reduced in the adopt-a-tree program, reduced funding toward the Easter egg hunt. They canceled the trick-or-treat and cut back on fertilizer. HR, these are the cuts that they had to choose. The employee wellness program was reduced by $2,000, as well as mental health services for public safety employees and families. There was grant funding that actually was able to help that in the last couple of years. However, that is an expense that will return in fiscal year 28 due to a new law requiring that, and that grant funding will expire. In fire and police, here are the things that they chose to cut from their discretionary spending. In fire, we have overtime, EMS and fire training, fire equipment, fire prevention, their PPE, EMS, and fire vehicle fuel, and fire vehicle maintenance. Again, with the maintenance, that's going to cause problems later down the road. Police was required to cut from theirs, and these are the things that they had to choose. Ammunition and Glock rotation, some of that will be returning in fiscal year 27, unsustainable to continue. Uniform allowance, $27,000 from their training. Subscriptions for all the security cameras, including two that were actually approved two years ago. Department photo ID cards, radio radar repair, that was reduced $15,000 when it was actually $19,000, so they reduced that quite substantially. Traffic school and youth court supplies, SWAT equipment, safety, fair and community relations, and also pepper spray holders. What I found when I asked these department heads to report this is that it is possible for a budget to be fully cut of its fat. When we see departments cutting into stuff like that, we're no longer cutting into fat, we're carving off steak. And I'm satisfied when I sat down with each of them and required them to justify every dollar that they spent. Beyond that, I also found initiatives from each department beyond what they were asked to do to implement frugality. In all the departments, they do not take a spend-down approach to the budget. Oftentimes, when governments or perhaps a company offers a budget to a department, they will say to themselves, well, we better spend every dollar of this because next time it won't be funded. That's not the case here in Roy. Those department heads are very frugal with what they do. And when they do have leftover, they use it as we intend, which is going to the capital projects fund. It goes into savings to improve on capital projects in the future. And that is actually the way that we avoid taxing for capital projects, is by their frugality and the ways that they find that they can cut back. And they do save that. And that's what I found for all the departments. In Parks and Rec, they have left a position vacant after somebody left two years ago. They are implementing a parks efficiency study with grant funding to try to find out how they can be more efficient and how they can save even more money with the parks and the trails. They use park impact fees when possible. They use grant matches and they, in the case of a couple of recent playgrounds, the very cheapest one to replace was selected and park impact fees were used as the match for grant funding. Those park impact fees are not tax-funded. They're given to the city, and they're a use or lose. You have to use them within a certain amount of time, and they're given when a person develops as a park impact. They have to pay a fee, you know, for park impact. So that is something that they do to try to be frugal. In public works, I've noticed cross-training. They're employees that maybe work on the water system or work on different... Maybe they're water workers and they work in the streets. They cross-train so that they don't actually hire They are not fully staffed for each division. They actually cross train and they work across each other. All the supervisory positions do field work. Maybe a better way to put that is that some of their field workers have supervisory responsibilities, but they are all out there doing work. From the deputies on down, from the director on down, they are all out in the field doing work. They also secured grant funding. I also noticed that they reduced the number of janitors and they have a cleaning contract for other building maintenance on that. The fiscal department does also find grant matches. I'm pretty sure they all have grant matches on this list. They moved to a full-time instead of additional court clerks to save money that way. In administrative, they saved on overtime by changing a few positions from hourly to salary. In police, they are doing a feasibility study for a contract versus if we should do it in-house. They also have grant matches. They also have at least one unfulfilled position to try not to put that into the budget. The fire department has been calling in part-timers instead of working people overtime. And as well, of course, we are going to be talking today about investigating the potential annexation into Weber Fire District. So that, for me, tells me that fat trimming is not an option anymore. That has been done. And I have been pleased with what I've heard from department heads and their attempts on that. Next, I wanted to see about these little cuts. So we've heard a lot of, we even talked about a couple of them last time, and that is, you know, should we cut the fireworks? Should we cut the salmon bake? Should we cut a few things from Roy Day? Should we cut this or that? Well, I wanted to know before we just go axing things from the budget, what's the actual financial impact on the budget? Because we might find that certain things we hope will go a long way, perhaps they won't. And now I don't have my... Oh, here we go. We can do that. Here's the budget. This is about $51 million. But can I draw your attention to the blue section? Because that's the general fund. That's the fund where the property tax goes. But also, actually, more than property tax is sales tax that comes in to fund that. This is a general fund. This is not the enterprise funds, either water, sewer, stormwater, or solid waste. None of those are in this problem. This isn't their problem, nor is it Capital Project's problem. This is a general fund problem. So we're going to have to cut that pie down and focus on just the blue part. So the red part is outside the general fund. It's not part of the problem. In the general fund, we have a few transfers that go to, like, because we can transfer to the IT fund and that kind of thing. Again, those are not affected by the general fund. They're not affected by property tax. And, of course, the Class C roads or transportation fund. Class C roads is funded. It's a state allocation from gas tax. You simply can't move gas taxes to pay for firefighters or pay for public works. So that, again, isn't usable. So we're down to about half the pie. Of the pie, we have or this half of the pie we've got 41% of the entire budget is personnel of the entire budget only 8% is operations. Here's your public safety. I put them in red because we're already running on fumes in public safety. So I'm just going to read them out right now and let's take a look at the blue. We've got our other personnel and our other operations. So these little cuts that we're talking about, cut a few services, see how they add up. That's going to come from that 5% of the pie, that little light blue section. We're going to try to find out how some cuts that we can make will affect that. So I asked... I had a an interactive app built that would show me how these would affect. So I have some services here that I asked the app builder to, it was a data scientist, built this app for me and asked them to please add these things in, how much they cost. So I went and found net cost for each of these things. And so we can start talking about them. He ordered them in order from most expensive to least expensive. And so let's start talking about some of the things that we considered. Right now we have the budget shortfall here is $2.8 million. So the proposed tax rate would be 0.002515. If we change this to match that, right now there is a deficit, but if we change that, we see that that deficit goes to zero. So that is one option to raise the tax rate to 2.002515 would clear out that deficit. Now the deficit is gone. However, if we don't want to do that, 618, okay, we could extend drop services. So I wanted to see what do these do? What I found as far as the REC programs, if you see these negative numbers, it's because they actually are making that much money. The user fees for the REC programs in most cases actually do come back and earn us a little bit of money. Exceptions for that are, I think, basketball. Oh, Roy Rookies does cost $56. I also had him please add the... dollar amount per month that it would save from that 1776 to show us how much that would actually affect it so if we suppose we cut basketball boys basketball does cost a thousand and six hundred twenty three dollars per year so we cut that out that will cut one cent from the one cent per month it didn't actually even change it so that's going to save us nothing So we could add to that perhaps we add we cut out the. Arts Council that will save 8 cents per month from that 1776 and we can now change it now says here's the net there here's the new required tax rates, we could actually lower that tax rate from point 0 0 to 515 to 2511. But your 1776 it would change a little bit if we if we update it let's add a few more things that we can start cutting out here. The movie in the park was discussed. So we can now change this tax rate. We've cut out boys basketball, arts council, and movie in the park. This is just for a tool to illustrate so that I could understand. So we can change that to two, five, one. That went from $17.76 to $17.66 per month. The same thing is true if we pick pretty much, well, a lot of these things. We could start to add up a little more. We could save about 10 cents per month from that if we cut out, if we sold, for example, Fox Glen Park. Or if we take out the fireworks, it would save about 16 cents per month from that deficit. So then I wanted to look at, let's just take one of the biggest things, let's take out the complex, let's change our tax rate, because now we can afford to actually drop that tax rate even further to .002375, and our monthly cost has gone from $1776 down about $278 per month, or about $1499. So I wanted to find out just what how much these would actually impact it because some of these amounts are a lot to my budget, but to a city budget, I'm finding that they're not. And so I wanted to illustrate that when I was toggling through this, what I was finding. So if we cut out, just for example, let's say we cut out the biggest thing on this list. We can now drop that rate to 2.002014. And we brought that amount down to $7.84. That's to sell every park and cut every rec program. It does bring it down. But now we start to have a conflict in my mind because we are also cutting into value. It's saving about $10.00. Saves about 10 bucks a month. However, the impact on the community as far as value is too hard for me to consider. So for me, that strikes that. The little cuts that I'm looking through, that I'm hearing, and that I'm considering, I'm finding are not adding up to cut into that. And that doesn't balance out the impact to the quality of life here in Roy. So we can talk about using fund balance. this is an ongoing um investigation for me i talked with with council member saxon a little bit today and i got more information from him and so i'm going to look into this more um and so i appreciate the conversation that he and i had today but i do want to bring up one thing at least on this and that is that in the unassigned fund balance there's 5.5 million dollars that's 21 of the general fund revenues And the maximum that we can have is 25%. We cannot, however, fall below 5% of our general fund revenues. So we're at a pretty healthy fund balance. To pay $1.5 million for wages is over a quarter of that fund balance. And so I wanted to check into what kind of things might... Might we be concerned about that for? I asked Public Works to give me an idea of how much, should we have like a serious disaster or anything we had to recover from. A water line, a sewer line, and a storm water line are all about, are each about $1 to $1.5 million per mile. And if we had to rebuild a road, it would be about a million dollars per mile. So that just kind of puts it in perspective for me, because again, this is on a scale that's not my own budget. So I want to know what things cost around the city. And that's what I found. From the budget, though, on page six, we find that part of the 55.45% proposed increase for the shortfall $455 and $321 addresses what is quoted to be the revenue shortfall associated with the COLA implemented this year. That COLA was implemented for the last three years of fiscal year 26. So this year, April, May, and June, a COLA was implemented and one-time funds were used. The council did direct the staff to do that. One-time funds were used to pay staff for that and it created an expense for which we had no answer. We have an expense now. We don't have revenue coming in. We paid it one time, but we will actually have to pay that again next year because those compound. COLAs don't go away after just this fiscal year. We will continue to pay that. And so that's created an expense item or an expense item in in the budget with no revenue so as you can see on page six of that budget it describes that as a revenue shortfall the use of one-time funds for this ongoing expense created a shortfall in the revenue just by itself so we will continue to talk about this there could be however some room to talk about fund uh using fund balance for one-time expenses and that is something that i'm continuing to look into that does remain an option open for august We could talk about cutting personnel. I wanted to briefly, I guess, talk about Public Works because to me, I do see them as a critical department. Not just me, but actually they are. They do provide what's called an essential service. That is services that are required by law. You do have to provide drinking water, streets, that kind of thing. You have to fix the roads. You have to do those things. Those are required, so we do call them essential. They also maintain fleet vehicles, including police, fire, the service trucks, the lawn mowers. They do maintain all of those, as well as the fire hydrants and the water system. They provide drinking water. They maintain the streets. They do capital projects. They do building maintenance. And all their supervisory positions do field work. About 40% of what they pay for wages in Public Works comes from a general fund. That means if you were to cut positions from Public Works, you'd have to cut three of them in order to make up the equivalent of one full-time position. So if you're going to cut, let's say we're going to trim down Public Works by two salaries, we have to cut six of them. And so now you're running into a problem. They're already cross-training. Now you're running into the problem where you don't have enough staff to do the work that's required. And they're that dark blue piece of pie. They're that other personnel. They are in there, but only 40% of their wages are in there. The other personnel you could consider is just a list of who else is in that pie, that dark blue piece of pie. And we got one city planner. We have one economic development director. 20% of that is all that actually comes from the general fund. The other 80 is from the RDA fund. You got one code enforcement officer, one building inspector, one community development office manager, two court clerks. They're both part-time. You got your public works. Again, we talked about that. Receptionists are both part-time. And then you got 14 parks and rec full-timers. So a lot of part-timers, but they don't all come in at the same time. They're part-time or seasonal. Only 14 positions there, and only 13 are currently filled. So we're still going to talk about a multi-year approach. I won't today because I haven't finished investigating it. That's something I want to go over with the budget officer. But as far as I can see, there are a few There was an attempt of a multi-year approach last year. Had it actually gone through, we'd be halfway there. This would be the end of year two of that multi-year approach, and we are yet another year behind because of that. Also, when I look at the COLA merit history, I have to ask myself, what's the promise that staff can rely on? And what I see is the trend, and what I see is the... Is the history and that history is is is a scar and and for that I I can say is is insulting When I look at an amount of I'm not I'm not staff I mean, I'm technically I guess I I work here now, but I haven't been staff But when I see this that that's what it speaks to me just since we lost the tax 21 people have turned over just since then and Yeah, I mentioned that. Just another note about the two-year process. So if we just consider perhaps we do half of it this year, half of it next year. This year, a 55% tax rate averages $17.76 per month and generates $2.8 million in revenue. If the annexation should take place, Utah State Tax Commission will actually drop our tax rate because we can't rake in taxes for fire service while another taxing entity is taxing for fire service. So we get ours cut out and they will lower the tax rate and it is anticipated to be 0.001071. to put this in perspective a 55 tax create tax increase on that tax rate would not be the same as 1776 it would actually go up 26.42 so if we're hoping to do half of it this year and half of it next year your percentage is going to go up next year. And that's what it will appear. And so that does throw a little bit of a wrench in the plan and we'll have to consider that. But again, that's still part of ongoing, that would be part of ongoing negotiations if the annexation does take place and it will change there. And so those are part of the things that I'm also going through and learning about more. so in the in in the end i just wanted to present the options that i have looked um looked into and and be very clear that i have been as thorough as i absolutely can i have done hours and hours and hours of research to understand this from every angle from the residents to the staff to the services um and and the budget and the numbers and i have taken a lot of time to do this i'm taking it very seriously and so i hope to communicate that and i hope to share what i found and to make it clear that I'm still working on it and we're about halfway there. Comments and input is still very welcome and still timely at this point because we're not done with the budget. Today we will look at setting a tax cap or a maximum that we couldn't possibly go over However, that's not an agreement on a tax rate right now. And so I guess that concludes what I found, and I just hope to share that and hope that that helps people to understand what I've done and what I know and where I'm coming from.

Okay, thank you, Alexis. That is a lot of work. I can see you spent lots of hours. We've had lots of conversations, for sure. And so, council, do you have any comments on what Alexis just presented to us?

I just wanted to say thanks for all of that work. I think many of us have found very similar things while we're going through, but you're always great at how you present everything and share those ideas. I especially wanted to thank you for making the app that shows us how much each month. That was a really good idea, and I appreciate that. And also, I wanted to say that I also have met with employees when their heads of departments weren't there. And I found the same thing, that the culture at Roy City is good. Lots of our employees have told me that. And then also, I found the same with the fat trimming, that there is very, very, very little things to cut anymore. And so I appreciate you bringing that up. So thank you.

absolutely exceptional and I think it confirms what we've been working on very diligently the last year and a half so thank you for summarizing that so well and it's so nice to have this outside fresh set of eyes to be able to look at it because that objectivity I think is very helpful for us as well as for residents because I think the number one thing that I take away is that we really are a team. It's not us versus them, it's a team. We are residents and you are here, we are here working together as a team to try to provide the best services possible at the most frugal prices. So excellent presentation, thanks.

Okay, Alexis, so you wanna now talk about the fireworks?

Yeah, I'm sorry. This is really actually intended to be a discussion here of the council, but because it needs to be done ahead of our budget discussions, I mean, of the budget decisions, and I wanted to have the discussion ahead of that, and so it was placed here on the agenda. But just to bring back up the fireworks, I'm sorry to dig it back up, but when we talked about it, as I showed in the budget app as well, for me, it wasn't a money thing because it saves very little of that deficit per month. And so, or even per year, I mean, just it saves very little of it. And so for me, the reasons that I actually was on board for looking at it to cut it out of the budget were safety issues. And so those were things I think the fire department didn't come forward as far as I recall with any real concerns about like the fireworks. And so it wasn't really a fire safety thing. It wasn't really a drought thing. But we have heard from the police department concerns over the fireworks and concerns over some of the Roy Day's activities as far as gang activity and things. And So I wanted to bring that back up. I realize that now we have a very generous donor that is willing to solve the money problem there, at least for this year. And then we're going to have to discuss if we want to keep it in the budget or if we want to rely on donors and whatnot. But for me, it was more of a safety issue. And so when I heard that, I was grateful for the offer. And I understand that if we so choose, it could be funded. But I wanted to bring it back up and just make sure that we as a council are comfortable with that risk because I do recognize a risk in it. Um, as far as just what has happened in the past, um, we had a neighboring sitting with a shooting. Um, and, and I just wonder, is that what we're waiting for here in Roy? And so I just, I want to open up to the, to the council to maybe hold some discussion on that and just make sure that that's truly what we want to do and what we want to commit to.

I just wanted to bring up when we did say we were going to do away with the fireworks, the very next day I got a text from Speaker of the House Mike Schultz saying, Ann, you can't do away with the fireworks. And I'm like, well, we're trying to trim the budget and we're trying to show the citizens that we're trying to do what we can to not raise taxes. And he said, but it's the 250-year celebration. We have to celebrate America this year. and I said, well, I'm sorry, Mike, we just don't have the money, and he said, I'll fund it, and I said, are you sure, and he said, no, I will, he goes, but I want to make it bigger than the $33,000, so I called Mike King, our fire marshal, I said, how much bigger would $2,000 make it, he goes, let me call you back, so he called the He said, you'll be the biggest fireworks in all of Weaver County if you go $35,000. I called Mike back, and he said it would be the biggest fireworks in the county. He goes, okay, I would like to have it say the Mike and Melissa Foundation, Schultz Foundation, and we will fund the fireworks. I said, we have to pay for our policemen that night to help keep everybody in check. I had somebody call me the very next day and say, I don't want my name mentioned, but I will get the funding for the police department. Everything is going to be fully funded. I talked to Armando today at my 911 board meeting. and said, we're going to be okay. He goes, no, we have lots of help and we're going to take care of it and make Royce City a safe place. And as of the drought, I had somebody reach out to me through the news and I said, well, luckily we don't live on a mountain. We don't have a lot of grassy fields in roy in all the years that i've lived here um which is a long time we've never had a fire um that's gotten out of control or that i know of because of the fireworks so i just wanted to give you the history on why and how that became funded so any other comments

yeah i also wanted to clarify that there are reasons that some people like alexis mentioned that she was voted against it but the the reason it was brought up in the first place was for budget reasons so we want to be clarify that that it wouldn't have been brought up in discussion if it wasn't for the budget so right

And for me, that was why it was brought up as well. And certainly there are safety issues and we need to take that into account. And I think that's luckily where our public safety help us with that. For me, I believe it's a calculated risk that they have gone to great lengths to try to minimize that the concerns and the risk there. But for me, that would be a budget decision as well. Although we appreciate you bringing that up because that certainly plays into it. But if I'm trying to decide which thing weighs me over one way or the other, the budget would probably be the more important factor of that. But thank you for bringing that up so we can discuss, you know, it is multifactorial.

Great. so any other comments on the fireworks nope okay then council member wilson is going to talk about points of information um about the public comments stretch the cord okay are you gonna watch your head

Well, this presentation really follows up well with Alexis. And again, thank you for that immense amount of work. It has been so helpful. And I just want to tell everyone that I certainly appreciate being able to serve fellow citizens in this position of city council, because that really is what this is. This is a position of service. And it has certainly consumed enormous amounts of time, but it's definitely helped me come to the realization of what a lot of the fallacies are that are easy to think of and easy to adopt in regards to budget without the education that we've had an opportunity to go with. I've shared this previously, but 10 years ago, I stood in the audience at a Truth in Taxation and I asked the city to tighten their belt and if we as citizens needed to tighten our belts, the city needed to tighten their belts too. And let me just say, if I could see a better way than proposing a tax increase, I'd be all for it. However, over the last one and a half years of very intense budget study, I now understand with full knowledge that the city has tightened its belt and then some. And that fat and meat description, I think, is very accurate there. So this presentation is really to provide information in response to a lot of frequently asked questions or comments that have been there. um... we all have taken extensive notes during the public comments we researched the ideas the possible solutions and i'd like to address at least nine of those issues now and we will continue taking those notes and continue trying to answer those and i just want everyone to know that it's important that we are willing to learn we as city council are willing to learn we as citizens are willing to learn and that we're learning from each other and it's, again, it's a team, we're a team and I just wanted to go over that. So this first topic that I'd like to address is there is great concern and fanfare over the term 55.45% increase. What we come to find is that term of percent increase is really a misconception. It's really a disservice because what does it mean? What is a 55.45% tax increase? Well, in Roy, it's different than any other city. And so what we really need to come to is what is that in dollars? It has been mentioned, we may possibly have the fire department go to the fire district. So that will change our tax rate. Currently our tax rate is 0.001618. So if you look at the red column, that is our current rate. And if we use that and apply that 55.45% to that, that would be the $17.74 that we have previously discussed. However, if that future rate is put into place, that would be .000535. Well, what is 55% of that? I mean, 55% still sounds pretty bad. It sounds pretty awful. But guess what that would be? That would be $5.87. So when you're trying to raise money because of deficits in your city budget, the percent doesn't mean anything, actually. It means very little. And so you have to take it in context. So if we take a look at this, the next slide just reviews that in just a little different way. And I want you to remember that we must focus on the dollars. Because if we focus on the percent, no one will really understand what's being said. It won't be consistent. And the same percentage just cost a different amount. So we have to focus on dollars. Remember, the key findings is that the percentage increases do not show the real financial impact. The dollar amount depends on the baseline rate and we must focus on dollars because if we focus on percentage, it could definitely be very misleading. One of the things that I would like you to also keep into mind is, what if we needed to raise that same amount next year? Because we were talking about splitting this into, maybe we don't get the tax increase now, or maybe we split it in half, but if we needed that same amount of $17.74 next year, That is absolutely kicking the can down the road. But guess what? It isn't really kicking the can anymore. It's kicking a 55-gallon drum down the road because for that same amount, if that tax increase is adopted next year, we would have to have a 168% tax increase to equal $17.74. So we must remember dollars are the key. We cannot use, you know, it's very sensational, it sounds very emotional, but it also is a disservice. It definitely doesn't help, doesn't help at all. What I'd also like to do is now discuss One of the key things is just remembering that clearly the percent doesn't matter. So keep in mind what the dollar amount would be that you would agree to or what you would want to think about. And let's go to the second principle that has been brought up. And this was addressed, well, this will be briefly. And this talks about the tax increases in rates over the year. And Council Member Spahr has done a great job in providing this. And I don't know if you... feel good enough that you could maybe talk about your research and this, or he's done a very nice.

Let's see if I can struggle through this. This mask is for y'all's benefit, not for mine. Let's just say that. I'm recovering, so I'm coughing up a bunch of stuff. So talking makes it come out more, so I apologize. Now, Alexis did make some points about this with her presentation, so I don't know that I need to spend a whole lot of time on this one. But this was also, because individually, I've done my own research as well. We don't go into this all together. We go and talk to these people or the department heads and stuff individually because we can't meet as a council with the department heads together. So we do this individually. So this was initially done with getting numbers from city staff. asking the question to see how often we had the taxes, how often they were raised, and what that meant for our certified tax rate over time. So this chart just shows that as the time has gone on, each tax increase doesn't really meet inflationary needs. And so that's the downward slope of the line that you see going there. It's just our dollars have basically are worth less every year that we don't increase the taxes excuse me that the city doesn't so for inflation goes up and and we don't increase any of the taxes and if if we don't have the sales taxes to cover the the difference then it continues to be a loss over time so that's basically what this this chart shows Now, there is argument, of course, that the average home from 1997 was $400,000, where there wasn't a whole lot of homes that were probably worth that much back then. So I recognize that with this data, but it... It just shows the issue that the city is also encountering, along with everybody else that's having issues with their budgets. All of our money's worth less. The city's money's worth less, too. Years ago, what we could buy with a million dollars road-wise now costs us three times that. So what we're able to buy as a city is a lot less. And we haven't been able to meet the inflationary rates. So I think that pretty much covers what my chart there was.

I thought it was a very clear way, and I know that this process of education has been very helpful for me, and I've been able to readjust some of the thoughts that I had over time. The next slide goes over one of the next concerns that people have had. Some people claim that ROI taxes are higher than all other cities that were the highest, and so this chart actually, goes off of similar data that or the same data that Alexis had in hers but I think it's very clear that it tells us it's impossible to fairly assess tax rates from city to city because there are so many variations in services but this list at least does include fire service and so some of the cities when the percentages are combined it shows Roy is a very good deal and one of the things that I want you to remember is that At this point, for a mere $1.05 a day, we have roads, fire, police, parks, rec, and other services, and if we did adopt the tax increase as proposed, it would go up 59 cents, but still, that is an absolutely amazing value for the services we are able to obtain from that. I was checking into car insurance, and if you had liability only on your car insurance, that's still, for average car, $3 a day, and most people pay more than that. So when we take a look at the services that we are afforded at that rate, we can see that the value here in Roy is exceptional. The next slide goes into how many citizens believe as property values go up, city gets a lot of money and they get extra money. And I think Alexis really did explain this well. This diagram just might help you understand it a little bit. It is a bit tricky because we don't realize that The county gives us a ceiling on the amount of money we get, and if we don't do a specific tax increase, then the rates will go down as that previous chart that Councilmember Spahr did. So just keep in mind that property values do not automatically increase our budget, and at least in this state. Darn it anyway, right? That would help us in a lot of ways. The next point that people have brought up extensively is that the widows and those on fixed incomes will lose their homes, that we are driving people out. I've had several comments in regards to that, and I don't believe people understand how Weber County, we're very blessed to have a lot of tax relief programs for Weber County. Now that may not affect or be good for every person, but there actually are some private donors and options, I should say, private options that can help some of those. It may not help 100%, but it certainly helps a lot of people. And if for some reason you look into those programs and you're not able to find the help or the relief you need, please contact us because we can see what we can do to help and at least try to help be a team and investigate some of those options for you. It's very important. We are a team, as I mentioned, and we have an amazing community cohesion in this city of Roy, and a lot of what we've done has actually increased that, and that also helps us with these concerns when we realize this is a very difficult time. It's a very difficult situation for everyone. The whole nationwide we're having difficulties with increased cost, increased expenses. And so please know that there are resources there and contact us if there is a possibility we can help you with something else. The next area that I'd like to report is that There have been some comments made that we should terminate managers or department heads or pay them a lot less so we can take care of employees at the bottom. Again, Alexis did address this to a certain extent, but I'd really like you to take a look at this slide. This brings up a lot of really good points. This is a very serious fallacy. Most Roy City staff have held tight with us through these significant wage shortfalls, and they state that they're doing that because of the managers and department heads and the positive environment that those managers have created. Many have left for wage adjustments because they just needed it. They couldn't continue life and paying rent without it, but they call back saying they didn't want to leave and they've provided excellent information that the environment is essential and that is created by our managers. So properly paid managers and department heads are critical to the successful experience at the workplace, whether that's in the city or elsewhere, we know that. The key here is the success is not just for the staff, the success is for the residents. When we have a successful workplace with a positive environment, the services that are provided to our citizens is higher quality and we have a much better situation. And again, you know, it has been really fun for me over the years to hear the saying, Roy Boys. We have a strong bond here, and when people grow up in Roy, they have that unity, and our staff have been able to help facilitate that, and so we need to remember how that is done. So we have to be careful when we start making some little change here or there. It can definitely disrupt the Malou, and we will end up with a result we were not hoping for. The next slide that I wanted to go over was one of the principles that has been brought up several times. One of that is cut staff, and some public comments have said, and in recent articles, they said, the last mayor said to cut the last 11 employee positions that were created, or cut 11 employee positions. Now, it is a little bit hard to see here, and I'm sorry I wasn't sure how to get that, but let me just say to you what those positions were. Five firefighter positions. Every person that I've heard speak has said they don't want to cut fire services. Three police officers, same thing, no cut desired in public safety. One public work staff, that was the recommendation, or that was the position that was there and was recommended to be cut. Well, we already are very short there, and we're just holding on to our water and sewer hopes, so we're trying hard to make sure we don't do that. The economic development director, and what's very interesting about that is the previous mayor really insisted on that, but more importantly guess what the citizens concerns are when we get reports and we're not talking about budget because citizens email us and staff about roads water and sewer one of the number one things the second is we want economic development we want restaurants we want and and why would we then want to shoot ourselves in the foot and do away with that particular position that can help us with that. Now, this is a very difficult thing about that position. There is no way for us to quantify and say, oh, this position is worth it because they got this much money in economic development. That doesn't work because the decisions aren't ours. The decisions are the businesses that come in here. But let me just reassure you, our economic development director is very busy all of the time facilitating that. And if that's really what the citizens want, which is what I hear frequently, that has been a very important position for us. And then the last position is a parks and rec position, which because of budget constraints and trying to be as conservative as possible is not being filled, it's vacant. And so just remember, The most important citizen demands are don't cut public safety, don't cut public wars, and we want economic growth. And so that, in my opinion, lets us know that this particular option of cutting staff really actually isn't an option. But it was nice to go through that. It was nice to know exactly what those positions were. So then we can have an educated decision when we're talking about that. Now, the next... slide is talking about the vehicles. And we have had a lot of comments about vehicles. And if we can, Council Member Spahr again has done some extensive research in detail. This is just kind of a diagram that gives you an idea of what those details are. But again, if you feel good enough, you're the one that's done this extensive research and it would be very helpful for you to share that with them if it's okay.

OK, I'll try to struggle through it. So when I asked department heads about the purchasing program for the trucks and why we did it the way that we're currently doing it, is we didn't always used to do things the way we are right now, which is to Currently, this doesn't account for all the trucks that Royce City has, but the ones that mainly that seems like citizens were asking about were ones that we purchase that seem to be brand new every year, which they are. So when I discussed this with the department heads, they had weighed the options. There was a former council member that brought this up as an idea to begin with, I believe. and when staff looked at the differences between purchasing a vehicle and when when the city does they get We get fleet discounts on the vehicles. So we're not buying the vehicles and the same price that you and i can buy them the city's buying them at a steep discount and the way it was explained to me by staff was that we've figured out which options that are most desirable so that when they do sell the vehicles the very next year they've retained most of their value and when they sell them that basically they haven't even had the tires need to be replaced yet. So as you know, if any of you own trucks, cost of replacement tires is quite a bit. But when the staff looked at the difference between what some cities do with leasing their vehicles every year, The leasing costs, it varies depending on which models of trucks you're purchasing or leasing, but the average seemed to be about a yearly loss per truck of about $5,000 on leasing the trucks. And so with this program, It was shown that during COVID, we were actually, because the plants were shut down and nobody could buy trucks, that we were actually making money on our used trucks because they were worth more as we sold them used than what we even purchased them for at fleet cost. Because the market for the retail, when we're selling it, we're not just selling them for fleet cost either. We're selling them for market value of the truck. So we're buying at a discount and selling at full price is basically what is happening with those trucks. So with the loss per vehicle was basically in the cost of the value of the truck was half the price as if we were to lease those vehicles instead. And so the vehicles that we're doing the rotation on are basically vehicles that are, if an employee is taking the vehicle home, there are employees that are on call 24-7. respond to any emergencies the city has whether it be broken water mains or or whatnot and they do go often go out often on these calls so the other vehicles that are not on this one are lower use and they're not typically they're they're used by parks and rec and some of the other other departments where the vehicles the maintenance on them and doing that stuff it works out better because they're not they still are not going to keep the vehicles so long. As soon as the maintenance costs start outweighing the cost of keeping them, then they sell them. But when they also sell them after when they've had all those miles put on them and all that use, then also the value is dropped off. So they don't get a whole lot for those vehicles when they sell those ones at the used market. But there's a less of a demand. The vehicles aren't on demand 24-7 to respond to emergencies. So that's why I'm told that they did that in that way. So with the gas card accountability, as you see from the staff there, they keep tight reins on it. And so there's some interesting way about how they do the gas here. And I don't want to go into detail about it because it would be extensive about how we keep our gas. And every state city employee can go use different gas things everywhere. But the gas cards are kept per vehicle. and there's just tight reins kept on it. So no employees are just using the gas card to fill up their personal vehicles. And if they do, that is fraud and the employee would be charged criminally for doing so. So I think that covers that.

That was excellent. Thank you very much for that. And I can just say for myself, I was involved in part of that decision. And the concern was the optics is going to look like the city is overspending for these vehicles. And so do we make a decision based on optics, or do we make a decision that's fiscally responsible? And when that decision was made, we were making money. And we decided that it was more important to be fiscally responsible. And so at that point in time, when that table is turned, then we know we may change that policy. But it's been nice to have had at least that opportunity for at this point. So thank you for reviewing that.

Council Member Wilson.

Do you mind if I add anything? Yes, please.

So this is actually this city vehicle management kind of display here is part of a series that I wanted to implement when I started to hear questions that were really good questions. And I went into the city manager and I asked him all these questions that I was hearing from residents. Like, these are really good questions. Like, what's up with this? And this was one of those things. And then it struck me perhaps to have an archive on the city website. And so it's new. There are a couple of answers on there, but there are these questions that seem to come up a lot because residents who are paying attention, residents who are engaged start to recognize these things and they start to scratch their heads and go, now what's with the trucks here? And why is it we're buying new trucks all the time, and we have budget issues, and how does that work? And then once they come to see the answer and the wisdom that, in this case, you can see the wisdom in this process, then residents, I find, would start to go, oh, OK, well, that makes sense. And so I thought, well, why don't we make that information SO READILY AVAILABLE THAT PEOPLE CAN ACCESS IT ALL THE TIME. SO I HOPE TO MAKE A PUSH WITH THAT AS TO PUBLISH THAT AND MAKE SURE THAT PEOPLE ARE AWARE THAT THAT'S THERE. BUT WE'VE, YOU KNOW, SOME OF THE COUNCIL MEMBERS HERE HAVE WORKED REALLY HARD GATHERING SOME OF THAT INFORMATION, WRITING SOME UP, CHECKING IT, YOU KNOW, FOR JUST FACTUALLY WITH THE CITY STAFF AND MAKING SURE THAT IT'S READY TO GO UP. And I've gotten good feedback from residents on that. Even a resident or two has come back and said, hey, I've read this about the trucks, but I have further questions. And so that has really helped us to refine the answers. And as we continue to work on that transparency page, there will be an option to submit questions so that if you have a question that you're going, well, I wonder why they do this, or this doesn't make any sense to me, or this seems wrong, I wonder what the story is there, that there will be an opportunity for you to submit that question that can be responded to and then publicly available for all to see.

Thank you. And I just want to reiterate how the public comments and these questions have actually been very helpful for us because it gives us an opportunity to see things from so many different angles and has allowed us to have direction in when we're studying and repairing. And so I think that this opportunity has been helpful for us as well as hopefully for you so we can answer those questions that you brought up. And then the last slide I have, but of course this is for Brian and Janelle to pop up at any time, but I'll just go to the last slide that I prepared. We've had a few voices that are saying cover essential services only, they're saying sell the parks and rec, replace them with commercial development or housing. and close the complex, close the aquatic center, and I must admit, when I first got on council, I heard that option may be a possibility, there may be a problem with the complex, and I was kind of probably leaning that way, and I felt it was my due diligence to do extensive research on that, And at that time, the research showed me that the benefits of the recreation complex were definitely outweighed the expenses. So now that this topic has come up again, I've done some further research and there are several excellent studies that have been done in regards to that. And there's pretty solid data that firmly states for every one dollar the city puts towards parks and rec programs, We, the city, conservatively save $4, and that's in a lot of different areas, and so some of the biggest areas that we save it are in, as kind of briefly mentioned, courts, police, fire, but we also have other benefits. It saves money in regards to mental health, physical health, community cohesion just a lot of benefits and so what i think has been absolutely amazing is when we take a look at that slide you know the big number says one dollar gives us four and the benefits but look at the bottom it says recreation complex visits this last year about 79 000. when we take a look at the impact that has on so many people Now, maybe that was one person that came 79,000 times or maybe not. But the key is it still has great impact. And then if we look at the aquatic center just to the right in the blue, nearly 86,000 visits. And that's in a three-month window. So when we take a look at the impact that this particular department has on our community, and there has been some interesting city statistics that have come up that indicate there may be some real truth to this, I am starting to think Parks and Rec in this day and age because we have a different day and age. You know, we don't have the same options and opportunities for our youth and for our elderly that we used to. VASA and EOS, they do not welcome those two populations very well. They don't have services available for them. And so I am starting to realize that this probably is an essential service, especially when we can do it in such a fiscally responsible way. So I believe that that's, it's been eye-opening for me that it is even more so than I thought when I first researched it a few years ago. So I just wanted to thank everyone for being willing to come up with public comments and giving us an opportunity to research this. And, you know, Janelle, do you have anything? Brian, you know, we want this. We know you all have been researching, you know, frequently asked questions and things like that. So these are just a few highlights, but you might have other things.

Yeah, so first of all, thank you so much for doing all of that research as well. And I want to I guess go along with what's been said so far in the fact that when you guys send us questions or ask us questions, then it does help us know maybe what we're not clarifying very well or what kind of things the public's thinking of that might be different than what we're thinking of. And one of those questions that came through was about this, about how much money it will save us. And so I went and did a little bit of my own research and found that Just studies directly in Utah show that we save $4 of savings in public safety and other things. And that's just from studies in Utah. But nationwide, I think it goes as high as $13. And so I do think that there is a lot of value there. And it's not always something that you see right away, but it does give a lot of value. Not only did I do that, but because so many people brought up the complex and closing it or not closing it when I ran, but also now, our family bought passes there so we could see what really was offered there. And I've now paid for my water aerobics classes, which are fantastic, by the way, and really help relieve stress. So I just recommend them to everyone. But anyway, I think that, you know, I know there's so many on this council. We don't just be like, we don't listen to what you say or whatever. We are listening to what you say. And sometimes that means, you know, we're diving in deep into these situations to the point that we're buying memberships in the complex to see, what it's like and make sure we understand it and maybe it's like having our kids go to some of the sports activities or maybe it's I mean there's just so many things that I know that people on this council have been doing to really dive deep into things and so I just really appreciate that we do have a council like that right now and I also wanted to comment quickly on what um Jason talked about he talked about the cars and and I just wanted to say that I actually appreciate that creative way of thinking to save money and I know that it's a little bit out of the box. So sometimes it's hard to understand But I also wanted to assure everyone that that is Re-evaluated every single year so when it has a breaking point that is not beneficial to the city any longer Then the city will discontinue it and there is a plan on how to discontinue that And so I just wanted to make people aware of that as well.

Thank you. Brian, did you have anything that you've been working on? I know you've probably been researching a lot yourself.

I guess we're saving the best for last. Great information. Appreciate all the work. But as an elected official, I have to balance what I've received from the public with what and how I'm to vote. And as great as this information is, and I recognize the work that's gone into it, It truly does not outweigh just the three emails I got today from residents begging for help, begging for a little relief. And so I hope I don't disappoint. But that being said, I know why I'm here. I know who put me here. And I realize that $17.74 a month is a couple of combo meals. But for some, it's too much. There was just, there was an article on Utah media that was done. And it talked to the owner of Sparrows about the 55 number. And The gentleman made comment in this news story regarding how much his taxes are going up on his commercial business and how they've jumped. And I just, you know, it'd kind of be nice if on some of these sheets, we have a better idea of what it's going to cost some of our commercial partners.

That'd be great. We're going to have these discussions. So, yeah, that'd be great, Brian, if you want to bring that up.

In the meantime, I'll challenge the 55 and say, until I know more, till I hear more.

And I think the key, of course, is remembering 55 is probably not where the information is. What we've really come to realize, it's got to be dollars. So when you're doing that, it helps everyone understand it better if you can do it in regards to dollars. So thank you.

Thank you very much.

A couple of condo meals at least. Yeah, that'd be great. Okay, well, thank you very much. And if there's anyone else that wants to

Yeah, Jason? I think I'll make a comment, too, just because I thought when I was going to be on the council when I got here that I'd be able to root out some of the small stuff and be able to get this text. down to nothing. And I find it quite frustrating that I've been stonewalled as of yet to it. But as when I was campaigning, most of the older residents of Roy, when we'd come up to meet and greets, one of the first questions they asked was, are you for keeping the complex or getting rid of it? And I'm on record, when I was on the planning commission and they were doing the remodel discussion, I spoke at that meeting as a planning commission member, but as the public, that I was against it. So after that, when I've been asked that, when I was running for council, how I felt about it is that I said, well, the money was obviously raised by the people, the public that wanted it. and we got a lot of huge donations and it would sure be a waste to get rid of it so for me personally um my my position on that hasn't fully wavered but after seeing the little that even getting rid of the complex wouldn't solve this issue. But if anybody still is feeling that that's something that they want to pursue, that personally, I don't believe that it should be up to a council to decide that on such a large piece of of property that's owned by the general public. This should be put to a vote. So if somebody is still wanting to try to back that, I say you need to support trying to get it on a ballot for a ballot year discussion. So I don't know that it's going to really make a huge difference eventually. If that's something that citizens would like us to look at, then there needs to be some backing behind it. I don't think the council, myself, I wouldn't want to be one to take away facilities that the youth would use myself. But if the general public, this is where I have to decide whether my personal feelings on something are more important than what I'm being told by the public. And I think I'd rather have the public's vote on something that large. So that's all I have to say about that.

Anything else then? Okay, thank you. Thank you, everyone.

I just wanted to say that I spoke to the mayor of Clearfield, Mark Shepherd, about their pool. And he said at one time they did try to sell their pool I didn't have any takers, but then they ended up building a brand new one that coincides with the school there. You will be hearing from the lady who ran the Clearfield Pool on August 11th. She's going to come and talk about some things about the facts of running the Clearfield Pool for 20 years. um in talking about the aquatic center i think that when people go to the aquatic center too they visit different um restaurants i mean burger bar i mean when we go i just go grab a bunch of little caesar's pizzas so so it does people do spend money in roy also or stop and eat on their way out so it's just it's a great facility but that's all i have to say about that so have any other comments anybody Okay, then I think we'll go into our public comment period. Before we continue, I want to remind everyone that we ask all attendees to treat one another, city staff and elected officials, with courtesy and respect. Outbursts, clapping, shouting, interrupted discussions, or any behavior that disrupts the orderly conduct of the meeting will be not permitted. individuals who engage in disruptive behavior will be warned if the behavior continues they will be asked to leave the meeting so the city council can continue conducting the public's business we appreciate everyone's cooperation and maintaining a respectful environment here and all voices can be here can be heard so to now we'll go into the regular public comment period but we will have a public hearing also after so if you want to talk about any of the resolutions and save your comments for that or I mean you're able to come up and say anything but when you come up just give us your name and you have three minutes.

Hello council, my name is Jeff Cox. I want to say I was very impressed with the presentation Alexis did. And yeah, it kind of opened up my eyes too. As you understand the hieroglyphics I passed on to you, you can ignore because Alexis has said everything. So what I do want to talk about though is the absolute transparency and extreme fiscal restraint. I see you've worked on that diligently. The one note I want to make is my previous background was working with commanders on financial budgets for the entire base. And one of those areas was fleet management. And it was fleet rotation. Back then it was GSA. That's all we had to deal with. We're talking a few years back. So I did a little research with my background along with appreciate Jason's input. That kind of opened up my eyes too. And what I found out was being a one-year rotation seems to make a lot of sense when it's presented in the manner he presented it, okay? So I went to other cities and I went around and looked at what they did. okay, about 20 different cities. And then about half of them were our population or greater. And I went from all the way from Logan clear down to Provo. And out of that, every one of them was three to five years, if not five to seven years, if not greater, and we're just talking the vehicles that are dealing with the one year rotation. My concern, too, is it's great to do the one-year rotation, but what was never brought up was there's an extra cost every year. Okay? We're talking about you've got to put on flashing lights to the vehicles. You've got to put on lights on the vehicles. You've got to, with the police force, I don't want to say anything on our – response team at all, because you guys do what you got to do. But there's cost, and whatever they're under, there's cost for the lights, there's cost for the radios. These are tens of thousands of dollars that we haven't spoke about. And I think the citizens need to be aware of what that extra cost is that has never been brought up. But again, Out of the nearly 20 cities we went through, Roy was the only one one year. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Barbara Atencio. I just want to make one comment about EOS. I belong to EOS. EOS does have older citizens go there, and they even have water aerobics. I know of a lady that's 91 years old that goes there. So that's all the comment I wanna make. The next one, I was looking at the org chart you've posted on the website, and it shows the residents of Roy at the top, then the mayor, then the city manager, and goes on down with the departments. My question is, since the residents of Roy are at the top, are you listening to us? And then another thing I want to look at is, read, is the guest commentary from the previous mayor, Robert Dandoye, about looking at the realities of Roy's proposed tax increase. And he said the reality, The reality is many local government positions are paid far beyond what state, federal, or private businesses would pay for the same duties and responsibilities. And I know that's true because I have the salary tables for Utah for the federal government and Roy City, the majority of Roy City employees make more than this. And I have the same salary table for California, Oakland, which has 46% locality pay and the majority of the Royce City employees make more than the average person there too. Another thing that he said was the employee compensation details in what is driving the need for the 55% property tax are not made public. leaving Roy City residents and business owners with a 2.8 million tax increase with little factual justification. The public has a right for local government transparency, particularly when faced with the highest proposed property tax increase in Roy's history. There is no question that Roy needs to provide fair compensation for employees. However, what is also needed is a city administration that cuts spending and manages manages to the existing reality that Roy is facing. He also said the proposed 27 budget adds more personnel to the organization, further stressing the financial burden of property taxpayers. And so I just think Roy sitting needs to make the hard decisions and balance the budget without a tax increase. Thank you. Thank you.

My name is Kevin Homer, and I live here in Roy. I wanted to talk about a couple of things. 26-16, which has to do with the possible annexation of the fire department into Roy Fire, sorry, Weber Fire District. There are some positive things that I see from it, which is the fire personnel get access to a lot better training, a lot better equipment, probably salary as well. There are some disadvantages that have to do with our ability to control the money that is spent on them. That's going to be sent up line and is going to be on a separate line item with our property taxes. Despite that, I want to let you know that I support the resolution 2616, and I think it would be a good thing for the fire department to move there. One thing I want to bring up to this body is I have concerns about any of the presentations which, whether they're large or whether they're small, I want each of you, I'm challenging each one of you to provide a lot more citations, a lot more reference to the data that you're trying to post up there. As I look at all these studies, it doesn't matter where it comes from, If you don't have a citation, for me, I love looking at data and I love trying to find where everything comes from. If you don't provide a reference for what you're citing for the studies, it does not matter whether we're talking about average salary, the number of citizens in our city. If I can't verify that data, it's a very big question mark for me. So every one of you, I believe, needs to do a much better job providing citations for what you're referring to in these presentations. The last thing is everything in all the presentations sure seems to be very specifically related to what's going to come up in 2617, discussion about the budget. I sure would have put that whole section right close to the budget so that discussion could happen there instead of an hour and a half for us to wait for that. My opinion, it would have been better in a different place. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, Council. My name is Melissa Conkling. I have been very upset about the 55%, but given that, you did explain it very, very well, and I appreciate that. Fifty-five percent sounds really, really bad, but when you put it into dollars and cents, you're right. It's a happy meal. Not that I buy those anymore. I do appreciate, Diane, when you talked about the green spaces, our parks. Those are very, very important. As a person who uses the parks and when my kids were young, did use the parks and did use the Aquatic Center, I do use those things and they are very, very important. I am glad that you also all the council got the fireworks back. I could care less about fireworks personally. I'm married to a vet and a dog. I have a dog. They don't like the fireworks. I'm not a big fan of fireworks, but they're very important in the 250th year of our nation to have the fireworks. I hope you bring back the run too because I participate every year and I love doing that. So those things are all good. What I'm upset about is that some managers make more than the average person in Roy. That's not cool, okay? Y'all don't need to make, I don't know what the big person makes at the top. But those prices need to come down a little bit because it is, you do have senior citizens. I'm married to one, I'm not one myself yet. I'm getting there. And I don't want to be priced out of my community because of property taxes. That's hard to bear. I know it is a happy meal or whatever, but it is something every month that adds up. At the end of the year, you're having a much bigger bill. It's easy when you break it down into, yeah, you can back off on a meal, but when you add all that up at the end of the year, that's a bigger bill for people to swallow, especially senior citizens, which I'm married to one. So I appreciate, Alexis, your description. I appreciate that you guys are looking at how to cut the budget. I do understand it a lot better than I did, and I appreciate that. And I think you guys are doing a good job. Just work a little bit harder. You don't need to have a new car every year. I've had mine 20 years old. It works. So just think about some other things, but I appreciate what you have done.

Thank you.

Richard Jensen. I just have three items that I'd like to address. First of all, I want to advocate for the complex. I think the complex is a great asset to the city. I use it several times a week myself. and she mentioned a lady from 91 going over to AOS. I'm 92, and I still enjoy the complex. I have just a suggestion, and I don't know how many people over there are on Medicare Supplement, but all of those Medicare Supplements will pay for your gym membership. I had one that would pay up to $400 a year. My membership over there is 125. So I would suggest we can look at maybe some of those insurances, see what they're paying, and adjust accordingly. Or I would even advocate raising the admittance fee a little bit. You mentioned savings a little bit at a time. Same thing goes with adding two. A little bit adds two. The other item I'd like to address is the raises. I know you are not required by law to give COLA to every individual the same. You do not have a contract that you have to do that. And I agree that everybody should have a raise, but I think of these people that are getting $180,000 to $200,000 a year Sure, they need a raise, but they don't need both. They don't need COLA and wage adjustment. So I think we need to look at those things.

Thank you.

If our department savings is mentioned, sure, we're going to have a deduction in your sales or your property tax if we go to Weber County. But what's Weber County going to do? They're going to increase your Weber County taxes. So you're going to pay it regardless of what you do. The other thing is I just propose all the work you've done on the budget, I appreciate very much, but I would propose that we go with option three for a tax increase. I know we're going to have a tax increase regardless of what we want, but we're going to have to have it. So I propose option three. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello Mayor, hello Council Members. My name is Brianne Ahuman and I'm a mom and I live in Roy. And my daughters grew up right by the park that you guys just put in. We watched it built every day and when they put the fencing in and the girls would just love it. One thing that struck me, though, is when they put those trees in, I thought, you know, maybe it would be our community putting those trees in or something like that, but it wasn't. So it just sparked in me that, you know, I've never done this council meeting stuff before, but... What I realized is you have a lot of older people and you're dealing with that, but I don't see you guys trying to incorporate the youth into this situation. For example, you know, trying to plant trees. Why didn't you advertise, hey, we're doing this on Saturday. That would save some money. You know, or you have Roy High right here. You have... you have people wanting to go, students wanting to go into EMT programs, wanting to be firefighters, wanting to be policemen. Why aren't you guys utilizing those programs and putting them in to your fire stations. For example, like when I graduated from Weber State, I had to go up to the hospital to learn about health information management. I had to be there and learn all that stuff. You guys aren't doing any of that. And that's, I don't understand why students would go because they have time to do that. They have classes that they have to take that require them so many community hours. And I don't understand why you're not utilizing those things to try to save money as well. I get it. I'm on a budget too. I'm trying so hard to save money on my end, and I get you guys are trying to save money on your end. Why aren't you using, helping utilize our youth to help our city, grow our city? Where is that camaraderie? with the younger generation that's not there. We're getting more gangs. Why is that happening? Why aren't you having people help plant things in the city building? Why aren't you doing community action work like that? Why can't we have a place where I could take my kids to maybe grow vegetables or something like that where they love it or learn about the bugs or something, you know? and that's community-based, right? But I don't see that here, and I'm just learning. So that is my suggestion, and I hope that helps. And I know it's hard for everybody right now, but thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Mary Hargis. I'm a 50-year-plus resident of Roy. And I'm here to speak in favor, and I'm so happy to hear you, so many favorable comments of the complex. I have attended the women's strength training class.

Would you put the microphone just a little closer?

For the last 16 and a half years. When I began, there were eight to ten people attending one session three times a week. 12 to 20 women attend two sessions three times a week. In addition, the silver sneakers classes have increased to five days a week with an average attendance of 35 people. Water aerobics classes have also added to meet the demand, and most of the increase in class size has occurred since the remodel and the updating of the complex. Patrons' demands for exercise programs is fueled by the benefits gained. These include improved muscle tone, stamina, endurance, and better balance. Other benefits include an increase in the sense of well-being and a decrease in social isolation. The complex also offers a wide range of other activities, as you probably know. Why is this important? Exercise is one of the most important components of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. I had a 35 year career in healthcare. The majority of it was with people experiencing heart disease in one form or another. I witnessed the return to a better state of health for many patients during a cardiac rehab program. The chief components of a cardiac rehab program are exercise and education. Over the last 50 years, multiple studies have been conducted assessing the role of exercise and its health benefits. These studies repeatedly prove the value of regular exercise and the health benefits thereof. My husband and I can attest to the results thanks to our access to the complex. I urge you to evaluate the complex not with a financial lens, but with one focused on the health and well-being of the citizens and on the lives improved by the services provided. Thank you for updating and maintaining the complex and for thoughtfully considering the valuable services.

Female Speaker 1 Thank you very much.

Shelly Polston, you knew I couldn't resist, didn't you? Government produces zero. You don't produce anything. Everything you spend and do, you took from me. Everything. Government produces nothing. That's why we're concerned. A little tax here, a little tax there, a little tax here. It never stops. I've listened to all your comments, the different things that you've talked about concerning the things that you have researched and looked at. I understand that. And I believe that you're committed to those goals and you're not willing to change your stance. I get that too. I don't agree with that, but I understand where you're coming from. I don't believe that you, when you talk about, I'll just, this is in the middle, the complex. Are you telling the residents of Roy that there's a $600,000 deficit every year? that it's going in the hole, that that is money just lost. You're not telling people those kinds of things. If you're gonna keep that baby that you love, make it free for every resident in Roy and we'll just pay for it. I can only use half of it because it doesn't have an elevator. We have nine parks in Roy, nine. Do we need nine? I'm all for outside activities. I'm all for fun. Do we really need nine parks in Roy? The city tracks yearly the first year you buy a vehicle is the biggest depreciation you will take on that vehicle. Somebody sent me a little thing about these really cute little trucks that go over 30 miles an hour. They're electric. They're golf cart trucks. And they're $15,000. But you have already decided this is the way you're going to go. And I I'm struggling. I believe you have champagne tastes on a beer budget. I'm tired of people taking my money without changing anything. It's very frustrating. The other thing I wanted to say is you changed the comments to three minutes, which curtails free speech. Are we the people? So I would ask you to keep your comments concise and limited as well.

Thank you.

Good evening, Council. Robert Griffey, lifelong resident of Roy, Utah. Recently retired, and I've spent a lot of time lately on the Denver Rio Grande Trail, and I have a public safety concern I wanted to bring up. It's like the Wild West out there. I'm out walking every morning or every night, and I have bicycles and motorcycles and all these e-vehicles. They just come out of nowhere, and they pass you going 20 miles an hour. So... I'm thinking maybe, I know we're having this budget crunch, but if we could maybe get some, there's no rules posted on the trails at all, and most of these are adults. They're zooming by me, and they're not saying anything. I said one thing one time, and I got a, obscene gesture pointed at me for bringing up the fact that they passed me and didn't say anything. So that's my comment. And I got on the internet, I typed in, you know, on Google, Googled what are other cities doing? They have these signs posted. It has rules for bicyclists, rules for pedestrians. When it says, you know, class three e-bikes and motorcycles are prohibited from the trails that use a bell or call out clearly when passing on your left. So for safety, there are also rules for pedestrians that when you're using the earbuds, keep the volume down lower, take an earbud out and keep one ear clear so you can hear when someone's passing. But that's my, I'll just leave this, but that was my concern is that it's an accident waiting to happen. And there have been accidents where bicyclists have slammed into So that's all I have. Okay, thank you.

So I'm Ty Chasten with the three minutes. I don't get a lot of time to say thanks for those who are doing the work. I want to tell Theron thanks for putting forth the effort to annex the fire department. I concur with everything that Kevin Homer said, so I don't have to repeat what he said. The complex was the mistake that we made repairing it. We should have took the funds and made the complex compete with Clearfield. Clearfield's kicking our butts. Weber School District sends all the sixth graders there, and all our funds go to Davis County, not to Roy. We miss out on those funds. Shame on us. We could do the same services for our 92-year-old man Not at the complex, but at the aquatic center. If we would have done it right, we would put in the right pool and we would put a roof over it. Compete with Clearfield. We messed it up. We made a mistake. Let's fix it. And let's also fix the fact that the tax increase could be fixed, it could be resolved. Because if we would have put both In one location, there'd be not two places for chemicals, not two places for equipment, and not two places to have to maintain with maintenance and employees. We could have reduced costs. We need to look at all the reducing we can do. So yes, we can trim the fat too, or the meat, because if that's all that's left, cut the meat. And we're doing that with our fire department. Unfortunately, it's our fire chief that loses out and I'd rather get a tax increase from Weber County, even though the Weber County commissioner makes more than the governor, but the fire department's gonna be taken care of. And if they're taken care of, they'll take care of us. So let somebody bigger who can manage a department do it better than what we have because we failed.

I'm Clark Roberts. I'm interested in understanding the economic development of Roy. I know there's a lot of people that were upset when it was discussed, the possibility of 10-story commercial buildings. I'm not one of those people. I think up there by Harmon's and that area up there, I don't think we would have to blink very much to, you know, a 10-story building wouldn't bother me in certain locations. We try and shop in Roy. If not Roy, we try and shop in Weber County, even though we're really close to West Haven or Clinton. There aren't a lot of choices and I know probably City Council, a government shouldn't force businesses, you can't force businesses to come here but I'm just kind of curious what we're trying to do in economic development to attract other businesses with with the Falcon Hill complex and all of the people that come into Northrop Grumman, there's no reason why we shouldn't have a lot of high end restaurants and things there on 5600. And I'm just Again, just a curiosity of what can we do to help. I think that would help relieve some of our tax burden on property taxes. I know it's been talked about a lot. Different council members have tried in the past and things haven't happened. Again, we can't force property owners who have those businesses. It seems like there's some big property owners that just want to keep status quo and don't want to help redevelop. Is there a place in this forum where that's going to be discussed of what ideas there are for economic development? That's kind of my question or my input is I would like, I'm interested in that. Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Hi, I'm Steven Hughes, resident of Roy. You know, in my business, I'm a real estate and insurance broker. Obviously, there is a time where better service or coverage obviously makes sense. I think there was even an analogy given. Unfortunately, despite the preparation of the presentations that happened, and gosh, I'm surprised we even got to public comment tonight, I couldn't help but think of a scene within a very famous book, which I probably overused in any sort of protest with any government action is George Orwell's 1984, where the government changes the chocolate ration from 30 grams to like 20, I think. But then all of a sudden, the government says, look, we raised it to 20. And there's a lot of things in the studies that are presented in that sort of fashion. Since I have only three minutes, I have to give a quick analogy. I think there's a tendency for government to do that. And unfortunately, the citizens are seeing that, how do I say this? The citizens have a perception that, this council in the city is looking out just for the employees and the staff. They're being told the budget's good for them, that the increase is necessary. And this is, of course, on top of higher insurance, higher grocery bills, utilities. It's on the backs of people like me who did not grow up in Roy, which is a big part of the city. A lot of people came here as first-time homebuyers, young families who came here for affordability, and even renters. And that's being destroyed today. The question a lot of people keep asking is, how does this help me? And we saw some examples, and I think there was some attempts at a case from that earlier. But I still have a lot of questions that I can't get to completely during my public comment. I know one of the points that has been made that I would push back on, and I am confused, is this idea that because of low pay, we hired people who were incompetent. and thus they had to be terminated. Why is the conclusion then we have to increase pay to prevent the hiring of incompetent people? Where's the accountability for department heads that went about hiring those people? Where is the accountability for the hiring process? Has there been any data or study on that? I mean, it's, but there probably hasn't been, just like the wage study was totally in-house and biased. I'm sorry to sound that blunt, but I will say I feel a responsibility to speak for this, especially as someone, I mean, I'm in my late 30s. We feel the burden more than people who bought their house 50 years ago in the city, who have supplements. We really do, and I don't see a lot of people standing up for people of my generation. So I guess my encouragement would be, and I know there's an attempt, but I would keep encouraging you, please try to articulate how these changes are gonna benefit people such as myself. Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm Mike Gann, city of Roy. And we talked in some of the past council meetings where questions were asked. They were being asked here. And I was wondering if there's a way, if we can't answer them while we're in this three-minute discussion, if there was a way you could put... some time for you specifically to answer a specific question that the guy that I'm sitting next to asked one or two questions. And it would be nice to be able to have those answered. The other question I have is I heard about all these expenditures. But I've seen new businesses in certain areas. I've seen new buildings starting to go up. I know they haven't gone up yet. I was just wondering, have we got any new revenue that's going to come in to Roy? And do we count that? Is there a way to count that for the next year's budget? I was really surprised to see when it goes to dollars and cents, I saw 56% tax increase, and when they put it to dollars and cents, it seemed more feasible. another thing i might mention is and i've been thinking about it through this meeting is if you want put a place on my property on my roy taxes a city bill that says i can donate five dollars or ten dollars we can all of us make this work and uh I just, I haven't seen the young men and young women that used to sit over here in this end seat. And if we don't get young people to start coming to this meeting, we're going to have the same problem in 20 years here. So if we could develop a little more pride in, so we're taking this meeting downstairs. I don't really want to go downstairs, but So we have more room. I've had a lot of times I was told. Excuse me. I went over. Sorry. OK.

Thank you. OK. Since we're done with our comments, now we're going to go into our action items. And Matt Wilson will present Resolution 2616.

Yes, thank you, Mayor and Council. So Resolution 2616 is basically expressing the intent of the City Council to annex into the Weber Fire District. This is just the start of the process. It's not a final decision. Basically, it provides us an opportunity to, one, let the district know of our intent here, that we do plan on if this is a proof that you would approve on, excuse me, that your intent to move forward with an annexation into the district for fire services, EMS, and other related services also allows staff to conduct those or entertain those negotiations with the fire district and proceed down that route. There's also public hearings that will happen, but a lot of those will be hosted by the district. I don't know if there's any questions.

Any counsel?

Yes, so I do have one, just because when we went to, when I went to talk to the fire department, they gave me a whole chart of all the different things they do, and several of them, you know, have several jobs, not just one, but are responsibilities. But anyway, so I know that Chief Williams, for example, is our emergency manager is that the name okay and so I do I was wondering what we would do with that if there's any plans yet about that and I know Alexis has asked about that as well at some point so

So there's no plans for anything right now because we haven't had those negotiations. So that'll all be something that occurs during the negotiations. We have to first provide the intent to annex and allow that and provide that authority to entertain those negotiations. Otherwise, if there's no annexation or no intent to annex, then there's no point in having those negotiations.

Okay. So we don't know if that would stay in-house. I'm assuming it has to be in-house according to law or... I believe so. I guess that's my question really.

Yes. It would all be, like I said, part of our negotiations. It's something that we address. There's quite a few moving parts to this and those would be discussed and that's why we're also doing this now rather than waiting until... Because I know there was discussion of a date of January 1st and... rather than waiting until further down the road, and we only have a couple months. Now we have six months to be able to address all those issues.

Okay, thanks. Okay, so do we have a motion? Sure. For Resolution 2616?

How do we phrase this one? Move to... Approve the consideration of Resolution 26-16, a resolution of the Roy City Council expressing its intent to annex and requesting annexation into the Weber Fire District for fire, EMS, and related services, and establishing the service area to be annexed.

Do I have a second? Second. And then roll call vote, Brittany.

Councilmember Jackson?

Aye.

Councilmember Wilson?

Aye.

Council Member Spahr?

Aye.

Council Member Halbert?

Aye.

Council Member Saxton?

Aye. Okay, now we have public hearing. So, no, no. Okay, now we'll go into consideration of Resolution 26-16, and Amber will present that.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Resolution 26-17 is to adopt an interim budget and set the ceiling for the property tax increase amount that will be voted on in August. The interim budget will be in effect from July 1st until the final budget is adopted in August and the State Tax Commission certifies our tax rate. Resolution 26-17 will adopt the budget document with our current property tax revenue, but not anything associated with the tax increase. There are copies of the property tax impact schedule available on the table outside with the sign-in sheet, and it is also available on our website. This property tax impact schedule shows exactly what the tax increase would be used for, and we will not implement any of the employee wage increases associated with this property tax increase until after the final budget has been adopted in August. Since our last budget work session, we have received our new tax rate for this year, which adjusted the numbers just a very small amount. With the new rate, if the proposed budget is approved, Royce City would receive an additional $2,807,745 in property tax revenue per year, which is an increase of 55%. The tax on the average residents would increase $213.44 per year, or $17.79 per month. Any changes to the current proposed budget can be added by resolution to be made part of the interim budget. After tonight's meeting, the budget document and property tax impact schedule will be adjusted to reflect any changes and posted to the website for the public to view. A final budget will be adopted after the Truth in Taxation hearing held August 11th, 2026, 6 p.m. in the Roy City Council Chambers. A proposed tax rate must be submitted to Weber County by June 22nd. The amount of the increase will need to be added to the resolution tonight, and the final vote on budget approval in August can be for less than this proposed increase, but not for more. In the Water and Sewer Utility Fund, there was also a 5% water rate increase, or approximately $1.30 per month, that was proposed due to the increase from Weaver Basin Water. This rate increase will be part of the budget approved tonight so that we can begin billing in July. At this time, we recommend you receive public input on the proposed budget. After the public hearing, I can answer any questions that you have, and then after any discussion, please consider approval of Resolution 26-17.

Okay, do I have a motion to go into public hearing? So moved. Do I have a second? I'll second. Okay, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Okay, so public comments. Anybody have any public comments?

Yes, I looked at your app, Alexis, and I have something similar. My skewed, if you want to call yours skewed as well, that you can skew those numbers in the algorithm to fit however you want them to be. I'd really like to see what the algorithm is of the person that put that together, just to validate how he's getting those numbers, because I can make my numbers go from .002 to 20.2 to 1.2, depending on the algorithm, using AI. It's a very simplistic thing, and you can ask AI to do it for you, and as simple as just a semicolon can skew it. if it's there or not. It's a programmatic equation that can fail a process or win a process. That's why I doubt a lot of the things that are going on. In the study, the wage study, we already know that that failed. What should have happened, we should have paid the money to have it professionally done. I know Matt asked for it, he didn't get it. Now, it's not on you guys, because you weren't here at that time. But you're here now. Do it right. Then we don't lose our fire department. That's too bad. But it is going to benefit them. They need it. And we all know that if they don't get it, and so I'm glad we passed that. I feel bad again for Theron, because he's the one that's going to get the cut. But he's doing it for his employees. So I hope they thank him. I got a minute left on the vehicles. I'd like to understand the depreciation. Do we do that all in one year? Or do we do that over three years? Do we do that over five years? I can't find that data. Do we understand what depreciation is? Accounting 101? I know Matt's laughing because he knows I know it. We're not talking about depreciation. I'd like to know depreciation of maybe even this podium, which is way too old, it's already depreciated. But we need to know what that is in the budget.

My name is Kevin Homer and I live here in Roy. It seems like it would not be a very good public hearing if we didn't have at least one person talking about constitutional things. Well, guess what? I'm your Huckleberry. I'm going to talk about some constitutional things. It's interesting that the First Amendment, the Constitution, provides for five rights of the citizens. One that kind of gets put in the back a lot of times is the right to seek redress for grievances. And I applaud you for allowing for that right almost all the time here in these chambers. That means for me, I get to stand up here and tell you my thoughts and my ideas, but it does not require you to listen to them. And it does not require you to be in agreement with them, and I'm kind of used to that. But I'll tell you, 55, there have been problems that have been created over years and years by not addressing the salary problems that we do have. There are real problems. I agree with that. Trying to fix them in one fell swoop by an increase of 55% to the Roy property taxes seems to be extremely reactionary. I hope that Mr. Saxton is gonna be able to bring up what we talked about in the workshop last week of a maximum 18% multi-year fixing of this problem. That is what I would support, is that measure. I hope it's still there. I don't know if it is or not. Anything other than that, I do not consent to. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mike Gann here in Roy. The only thing that I'd like to say to add to his comments is don't let it happen again like it did this year, where we're trying to do 56% instead of 28%. You got to rip the Band-Aid off sometime, and the hair's going to come with it. I gave you the rest of the time.

Okay, so I have a motion to exit public hearing.

So moved. Second.

Okay, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Okay, now we'll go to the discussion. So the 2618, no, I mean 2619. We have to go out of the public hearing.

Yeah, so we can have discussion now and adopt the interim budget and then we'll move on to the next resolution after you adopt 2617. Okay, so we're on the 2618, right?

Yeah, to 2617. Okay, do you guys want to have a discussion on the 2617? Sure, I'll jump in.

Oh, here, Alexis, you. So I think that we've had a very good presentation of limited fat or nonfat to be cut and trying to be as at least aware as possible to the dilemma that we are presented with I believe that there are some services that benefit a wider population of the city and those I think hold more merit to continue but as we have looked at every line item there are a few of the services that don't benefit quite as many people and that might be a place we could try to use the surgeon's scalpel and cut a little bit of the fascia off, but, because we're past the fat, we're into fascia now. One of the things I just wanted to mention is we had previously, two weeks ago, talked about Friday events at Roy Days, and I was just going to review some of the numbers on that. I believe that we should still go ahead and cut Friday events, and that is because, not that they're not good events, but because the number of people involved at this point in time probably don't merit the cost. For the Friday night movie, the average cost is around 4100 and we have around 150 participants and so that leaves us at about 27 per person and so i believe that at this time deleting and cutting the friday night movie would be good i believe that future restructuring could be helpful but at this point in time i think that if we cut it from the budget we know it's cut from the budget and that means we would have to re-implement that at some point in time but i do think that's important so i would i would go with that The Salmon Bake, although it's also a very nice event, it's kind of been dwindling a little bit in the last few years. The average for ticket sales was 394 the last four years. I believe we had 448 last year. But if we go with the average, the total cost is estimated at $14,755. We do have an exceptional title sponsor of $5,000 this year. that would bring the cost to $9,755. And at that average ticket sales, that would be $24.75, which is about a $9.75 subsidy above the cost of the ticket. And because that's a smaller number of people, I think, again, restructuring is is possible here but until we get that into play I believe that it does make sense to cut the Friday Friday events it cuts it's not an extensive amount it would cut including the The donation, it would be about $14,000. If we don't have that same type of donation again, it might be upwards of 19,000. But that would be the Friday events for the numbers that I have. And then we also talked about the fireworks. And so I know there are several viewpoints we've talked about. Thanks, Alexis, for kind of reviewing those. And I don't know exactly how this works. I do believe that we should still cut it from our budget, which means that we wouldn't have it in the budget, but then we still have the donation that can supplement that, right? But it would be cut from the budget so we could do that in years to come and then just use that donation for that. Is that how that works, Matt?

So if we wanted to keep the fireworks in this year, we would have to have the expense to expense that off. The revenue offset would be different. It would be donation rather than like a property tax or something. So I would keep it in, you know, the revenue offset would just change.

okay so we would just cut that expense portion of that the other thing and i think portion of it okay so i'll talk to you as if if that goes further i believe we have some other things we can maybe possibly cut but i believe these particular items are just time sensitive and so another roy day's event as i was looking at how many people benefit from it is the arts I think that it's nice, I've enjoyed it, but it did cost a net expense of $1,500.55, and for 61 entries, that equates to $25.50 per entrance, and that's after they paid an entrance fee. So I was just believing that in the big scheme of our budget, you know, really it has very little impact, but I'm not sure that the value, you know, we've talked about the importance that everything we cut now probably has small financial benefit and often has larger value, but But I believe that the size of the value of these things that we're talking about are a little smaller than we'd like. And hopefully with restructuring, it can impact a greater number of people. So then we are able to do that. But I think for this time going forward, that that should be cut as well. And if we did... then that would be approximately $50,000, about $49,000. And if we don't have the $5,000 donation, then it would be up to $54,000. But whatever that is, anywhere from $49,000 to $54,000, that is at least a 1% tax increase. And right now we're, I think, doing good to do the best we can to get a little bit of tax increase. That would be my ideas for cuts. And the only reason we mention them specifically now is because it is time sensitive. And all of those have been great events. I've enjoyed them myself. Arts Council has done a great job with it. I love the salmon bake. But I do believe at some point in time, maybe for now, that that value is a little smaller on those than the value from some of the other events that we've got. So some of my thoughts.

Well, I agree with you about the fireworks, but I think that's been clear. And there was a safety thing, but also, as I mentioned, I think the value is significantly diminished where you split people up and they're not watching from one congregated area. And so for me, that does diminish the value a little bit, which is why, although I acknowledge it's not a large savings in the budget, it also has another practical reason for considering it. And so that is something that I think I would agree with on at least the fireworks. I think it's an interesting point that you bring up how much per person that it is, because I will push back a little bit and say that I like that Roy Days and Roy in general does have something for everybody. So even though maybe for some it's the salmon bake, for some it's the movie in the park, for some it's this and it's that, the place has something for everyone. And so even though all might not engage with every single opportunity that's extended, there is something for everyone so i think that is part of the value for me and because the the financial impact is so minuscule i think i i just don't see a reason to cut the other things although but then i explained kind of my reasons for the for the fireworks and and the value impact on that particular item um but those are just my thoughts so if we're going to agree or not agree on these things do we need to

do every every one of these separately or yeah you would want to notate what you you can discuss it and then you would want to notate in the motion of what you wanted to cut because tonight would be adopting everything in the budget except for that tax increase if that makes sense and it was oh yeah and setting the max rate so your the tax increase stuff will and that's all wages and things but if you wanted to cut it out of it out of the budget you would need to make that notation in your motion so we'd need three people to say they want to do away with friday night essentially you would be voting on that yeah yeah right and so what are your thoughts on that brian

Well, I'll address that. But I wanted to jump back, if we could. This council has a two-year, at least, a two-year window to fix this tax increase. And I want to say I'm amazed we're not using that to our advantage. I know the graph of the man kicking the can was really cute, but

But it's really real, too. Yeah, but we've seen it.

You're not kicking the can with 18%. No, you're not.

No, you're not. Okay, so how much is that? So what is 18% if we're having a discussion?

We went over this.

I mean dollars. What is the dollars?

And when you talked, I listened.

Okay. If you want me to listen, I'm fine. I thought it was a discussion. Sorry about that.

No, it is a discussion. Okay. But the bottom line is we have a two-year window. Why are we not taking advantage of that? And I explained how we could use nine for the payback, and nine for the wages, and how it would keep that momentum moving that direction. So no, we're addressing the issue this year, and we likely, if we dump 2.8 million more on our payroll, what are we going to be looking at in 28? when we have to raise the percentage to 2% to 4% to pay for the COLA. I mean, we're acting like once we raise it 54%, we're safe. And we're not. And I'm just wondering why we are so quick to throw that out. regarding the friday night it's you know it's tough for me to raise taxes on people and not cut so if that's if that's my option then yeah i think we should cut it i agree with council member wilson but Before I say that, I just wonder if somebody will really address why we're not taking advantage of what's been afforded to us.

Well, if I may, after our conversation today, I started to understand your plan a little better and I still want to look into it, but I hope that I could help shed a little light on it. And this is where my hangups were that I expressed at least earlier. And so we took, we're just kind of, you called it the nine and nine plan, right? So you had a 9% for the COLA and then you have a 9%. And what was your description of the second 9%? What is it for?

For wage compensation.

For wage corrections. So closing the wage gap. So this is where I think I understood now what you have been saying. So the 9%, if we're going off because we have to go off the full correction or the first like option or the original tax impact schedule for the discussion so that we can understand what the 9 and 9 does. Now we're... It was 61 yeah they I mean we we estimate we just said 450 and 450 you just to just to simplify it right, we agreed on that, so the 9% was to address the. cola from fiscal year 26 okay and so last year when the we were not able to give a cola in fiscal year 26 then there was an option by brian brought up let's take a look at using one-time fund balance to give the cola in the last three months of the fiscal year of 2026 so that was april May and June, like the end of this month. So that's the end of your fiscal year 2026. That COLA continues into the future, right? it continues to next year. We will, we will continue to pay that. Right. I asked in the beginning, I said, so what happens, you know, if this all, it doesn't work out and we don't pass a tax increase, what happens? Can we decrease the COLA? And the answer is legally, no, we cannot do that. So we understand and we admitted, and that was the whole deal in that discussion in the, in the, in the work session about that, that, that commitment to the fiscal year 26 COLA would be perpetuated in coming years. So the first 9% in your plan is to perpetuate the COLA from fiscal year 26. The other 9% must address the fiscal year 27 COLA. Am I understanding that right?

It would be included with, we only, correct me if I'm wrong, We only prorated that amount in which we voted on with the March Cola.

correct in the in the last year's budget that's correct and then this year's budget the full amount would be owed yes so the 2026 budget would be the proration march to july and then this year it would be a full amount yes yes so if we if we look at the actually i can tell you what page it's on in the budget and

on the budget on page 99 will show us the original proposal, what the 55.45% goes to, and it breaks it down by percentage. So 36% of that goes to wage correction. 8.99% of that, we could round up to nine. Are we fair on that? We round up to 9% is for the revenue shortage, but that's fiscal year 26 COLA, okay? So fiscal year 26 COLA is covered by 9%. Fiscal year 27 COLA covered by 9%. So this is my hang up. Those address COLAs. They keep the status quo. They don't touch the wage corrections at all. They're addressing COLA for last year or for the end of this year, and they're addressing COLA for fiscal year 27. That's your 18%. The percentage is gone. The 36% hasn't been addressed, and we keep status quo at below average.

the nine percent of for the cola would pay for the coming year fiscal year 27 right okay yes so you'd have from the nine percent the other nine you would have 450 000 in new revenues that could be used. That isn't including the 18 that you could pick up on the backside the following year, or even the 36. It'd both be lower and easier to swallow than a 55% tax increase. And I know you guys don't like hearing percent, but I told you last week the reason the state legislature requires a percentage is to prevent tax and spend city councils from going astray.

Well, then let's at least keep it so we're doing both so we understand it because the percentages do kind of distort things. So could you... And the state tax commission does require both.

Right. They require the percentage, the dollar amount average per household, and they require the total overall amount. So it's fair to use them all. I just want to understand that I don't know, I don't recall that statement being made as to why they... said that we need to address the percentage or to use the percentage, but I do recall that the reason that they want the average household increase per dollar is to put it into context. So I think it's fair to use both. I think we shouldn't just leave one or the other out, but just to add. I know what it was implemented. Okay. I don't know. I don't recall ever hearing that.

Just to clarify, you're saying you want to use 9% for wage correction. And then 9% for a COLA. Which COLA? To pay back last year or the forward.

Which COLA?

In place in March.

So the 26 COLA. 26 COLA.

Okay, so that's your 9% for 2026 COLA. And it's here actually, page 99. We can even actually put a real dollar amount because it's giving us the 8.99% was for fiscal year 26 COLA. And that's $455,321. We can add that to the dollar amount we get from the other 9%, which is fiscal year 27's COLA alone. No wage correction included. We can add that, though. It's $481,523. It is $936,844. That's the million dollars I think you keep referring to as this is the new revenue. However... This only addresses COLA. So let's just play this out. Let's just play it out. If we do, let's say we do the 18%, we do the nine for last year's COLA, we do the 9% for fiscal year 27's COLA, both of the COLA's are now together. And we leave it there. Next year, we still have to grapple with the wage correction. And you're right. This COLA thing doesn't go away if we do it right from now on. Like South Ogden, which I looked up, but they had incremental increases for seven straight years. And that was after they did a large increase. And then they did incremental from then on. And they're not in this situation. So in a perfect world... Next year, we would only grapple with COLA. This year, the nine and nine plan, the 18% only addresses COLAs. And so that's when I understood that after we talked earlier, I thought, okay, I think I understand where you're going with this. The million dollars you keep referencing, it's roughly, we can go with that number. It's roughly a million, it's 936, but okay, million dollars. That addresses COLAs alone. It does not touch the wage correction. And that's where I get the hang up because what that does is keep us where we're at below average and it doesn't get us any closer to the goal. So to me, I don't see a way out with 18% because otherwise you just stay where we are below average and you don't address the wage gaps. You do address the two COLAs, but the wage gaps are not addressed.

Well, I think I'm... Well, first, I don't think it's fair to say... We're all against you because I don't think that's true. Well, you always say you guys. I know. I'm just saying that I don't think that's fair because we're all individuals and we all have different ideas just like you. But also I wanted to say that the two-year, if we do two-year, I think it would have to be over 18% because 18% leaves still 36.95%. I mean, I'm just rounding here, left. So then if you're spreading that between two years, the second year or the first year has to be higher. You can't do, unless you want to do 18% over several years. So I'm just saying, I don't think, I think you have some good ideas. I'm not against that or spreading it out possibly, but I just think like, We have to look at how that would work exactly and look at, you know.

I thought the goal was to get to a point where we could make smaller incremental increases. And the only way I can see that is we start it now while we are a council. and start it this year because we start it next year then on the second year, there's no guarantee. With this, we'd have a two-year window to fix it.

And I absolutely agree with that.

So that could be possible. And I'm not saying it's not possible. I'm just saying that the 18% you bring to the table does not make any strides towards the wage gap. So like we're talking about three different things. And in the beginning of the budget, it addresses the three things that... that the revenue increases for. And they're listed. Oh yeah, here they are here. So it was on the resolution. Resolution, what do we got here? The first resolution that was passed on May 5th. And it says the three things. The additional revenue would be used to balance the budget to the revenue shortfall resulting from cost of living adjustment giving to employees in the current fiscal year. So COLAs for FY26. That's the first thing this tax increase would have to address. The second thing it needs to address is the COLAs for fiscal year 27. Total, those two things total 18%. So there's your 18%. My contention is that the third thing that we still haven't even addressed in that 18% is item number three on that resolution to give wage corrections to all full-time employees. So you have addressed the COLA. The 18% does address two years of COLA. But what is neglected is the wage correction, which is a different issue.

And you're right. And the reason those two numbers moved is because We did not want to use reserve funds to pay back the first call.

That's true, right. So we were, we were.

So I understand because otherwise it would have moved 18 to wage compensation.

But we did, I think you may, you may have lost me there. So we did use one time funds on the.

We would have used the reserve or not paid back the reserve.

Well, have we committed to pay back the reserve to the fund balance?

That would be $112,000, right, to pay back the reserve. And could you calculate what the tax increase would be next year if we go with the fire department, that .000535, to be able to obtain that $1.9 million?

i was thinking maybe i could do it but too many thoughts going through my head that's okay you can so but i mean for for the sake of discussion if we just leave out paying back the fund balance like just for the sake of discussion yeah we'll just say 18 goes straight to like forget the whole just for sake of discussion But do you see where my hang up is? Because because the wage correction hasn't been addressed. And that's where I wasn't clear so far, like up to now, until we talked earlier and I was able to understand what you were what you were saying and where the million dollars was coming from. So the the nearly million, we just were rounding and we admit that. But the nearly million dollars that you stay of new revenues is. is to COLAs. And here on this breakdown on page 99, we see that $1.8 million, which adds up, right? Because about a million, we're left with 1.8 million, which is the 36.95% of that has not been addressed. So we've neglected to address the wage corrections. We've only go so far as to address the COLAs, which does help us next year. But next year, it would require a full wage correction plus the next year's COLA. adopted for fiscal year 28. So I wanted to entertain that because I could see that you were addressing two of those things, the COLA and the COLA. The wage correction, though, hasn't been, and that's where I pause.

Again, I'm telling you, there's got to be a better way than creating an historic high.

Well, and I think that's what we need to talk about still, right? Like we have until August.

Well, we still have six weeks.

We do, we do. And we're not done looking, right? We're looking. I'm just, I wanted to make sure that I fleshed that plan out to understand it.

So just so you collectively all understand that I'm not giving up. and I'll probably be voting nay to the 54. And that's all. Just so we, you know, because.

But let's keep working on it, please. You and I and Amber, let's sit down and let's say what else then? If this doesn't get to the wage corrections, like what can we settle on? What can we find that will make a dent? Is it possible to two year thing? Because if it is, we're going to have to address a part of that wage correction this year and then part of it next year. So let's keep working on it.

Okay, yes. And is there a way, Brian, that you would be able to feel comfortable in saying what is the dollar amount that you feel good about? Because for me, I find that easier when I'm making these calculations. So instead of saying a percent that you're going for, could you say what is an acceptable dollar amount? Because then I think that allows us, then we would back into the rate, but it allows us what is an acceptable dollar amount per month as a tax increase and then we can make a decision because then we know how far does that go for cola how far does that go for a wage adjustment and so if you could come up with that dollar amount that would be very helpful and allow you know certainly the presents part of it but as we're making the calculations that i think would simplify it thank you i appreciate that And what we need to do, I think Alexis was bringing, is if we only do the two COLAs and we still have $1.8 million, but our tax rate will only be .000535, Now we're not looking at a 55% tax increase. We're now looking at a lot more. It's like that 168. A lot more percentage. Percentage, right. The number is the amount. That's why. But I think it would still be that 168% that we talked about, right? It would be... If you're not going to do well, it would be because it would be a 37. So 37, it would be a little less than 168, but it's still going to be an extraordinarily large amount. And now we're talking historic, but the dollar amount's the same. It's just now that our whole rose glasses versus shaded glasses, it's still the same amount of dollars, but you're just looking at it differently. And I think if we could get that information, that would help us immensely.

So a 55% increase this year would be $2.8 million, which we've already talked about. Next year, actually, it just about evens out. If we do only COLAs this year, And then next year we did wage corrections of the additional 1.8 million. It would be a 55% because that's about 1.8 million on the new tax rate. So it would be. And then we would actually have to be more than 55 because we wouldn't have addressed fiscal year 28 COLA. So it'd be over 55 if you intended to give a COLA. And yeah, is it maybe like, these are just ballpark answers. It's just really to illustrate that, that I don't want to hold you to a, to a percentage either. Like I, I do want to put it in context. And so I appreciate council member Wilson's just question of maybe we can talk about what we're more comfortable with at like a dollar amount per month. And we can, and can try to back into the rate more so that we're not, you know, I don't know that we're not blowing the, the, percentage out of proportion over two years with two completely different tax rates. So let's keep talking about it. Where I stand on the 55%, as far as a cap, I will keep working on ways to finagle this. And our wizard Amber is continuing to try to find options and present them to us and everything. And I appreciate all of her work and everything I've asked her to do. She's come right back at me and said, here's what I found for you. And it's really helped me to understand this. And so as far as a cap, where there are so many unknowns with the fire department and negotiations have now officially been approved, we can start talking about it. There are so many things that we don't know about how the transfer is going to go, how the separation is going to go. And so I would really, really hesitate to... take any options off the table. It scares me to do that where there's so many things we don't know and I will keep working and we're going to keep trying to get this rate down. We're going to try to get that dollar amount per month down. Right now I think we need to stick to a ceiling that's presented in the budget with the intentions we have and we can continue to negotiate it but I would see it unwise to take options away or tie our hands now with lowering the cap. So while i while i i want to be really clear that we're going to keep working on it we're midway through the budget process this is no by no means the end um we will keep working on it i want to uh want to i guess propose that to the council and see what what the thoughts are on that um because there we have this option now we have other options that we need to get to and so we have more work to do on the budget and so in that In that sense, I want to see what the council, I guess, the rest of the council feels about leaving the ceiling as it is as we continue to negotiate.

So I agree with that, especially with, you know, ongoing negotiations with fire and looking at all of that, we need to... I think see how that goes exactly, just so that when we make that decision in August, we do have as much data as we can have at that point and make the most informed decision. I'm not against doing it in a two-year thing, but I want to know what that's really going to look like in reality. And I don't think we have that information yet because we just made the decision about fire today. And so I don't think we have all of that information, at least not as much information as I would want to make that decision. And I also think that, yeah, maybe if we can narrow it down. I don't know if we can do another work session and narrow it down to two or three options and then... look at what those look like financially for a two year because Brian's right. We have two years after that. We don't know because we could get a new council. So we really only do have two years to make it work.

I wouldn't. interject though and say that we don't adopt budgets on a two-year basis right adopt them on a yearly basis it is entirely possible that that any of us comes back to the table with more information or seeing things a different way and and and there's there's room as well there for flexibility but that also doesn't tie us to a plan for two years and I just want to make sure that that is also clear yes we can't promise anything we can't promise anything for august now we can't promise anything for next year and i don't think any of us disagree with that i just want to make sure that that is clear and understood yeah thanks for clarifying that yeah i agree i think we need to leave our option as as open as possible and so no reason to be tying our hands behind our back if we're There is more information that's coming out. I know that now we have new property values that have come out. So that was information that was expected by about now in the middle of June. And so we've got sales tax and property tax that can be adjusted a little bit. We are getting more financial information coming in too. So that all plays a part. And so I think it's wise to stick with what we have and continue to work within the parameters that we have in the budget and see what we can do to negotiate that out and just... Again, just to add that not just the fire district talk, but also there are other financial numbers that are coming through that will be part of the conversation ongoing.

And they'll continue to come in until August.

Yes, yes. Right. So I'd have a motion to set a tax rate. Do we have to say in it whether we're going to do away with Friday night or?

I think we'd have to do that first, right? Yeah.

So for this resolution, what you're doing is setting your tax rate. And then you can give that direction to cut those out of the budget as well.

In the motion?

In the motion, yeah. I move that we approve the consideration of Resolution 26-17 with a max tax rate as stated. And in addition to that, cutting the Friday Day Roy events and cutting the Roy Day fireworks in perpetuity, but I don't know how we word that, but you know my intent, and then cutting the Roy Days art show, and how would I word that differently for the fireworks part?

i think uh with the fireworks it would need to be in this year's budget and you you can give us direction not to put it in the next years if you would like but that would be voted on another time like alexa said okay so then you would just word it by saying cut friday royday's events and royday art show and then the fireworks would play out how do i counter motion after a second or

No, you say I have a counter motion.

A counter motion now before a second. I have a counter motion to adopt a 45, sorry, 55.45 tax increase with no other adjustments to cuts on the budget. Minus the fireworks. I would add fireworks.

So you're saying add Friday, but leave Friday. Leave everything. Just don't do anything.

I mean, yeah, we know how I feel about fireworks. Leave it at 55.45. 55.45%. With no cuts. With no cuts. Oh, yeah, because we decided to leave it in the budget. Fireworks in the budget. Is that what it is? No, I still say take them out. But that's my counter-motion.

so we have it i don't know how to do if we have two motions so so do i have it so alexis so um so with alexis motion do we have a second for alexis's motion can i ask a question first is there any way to individually do the events not just

I'm just thinking like we're talking about five possible things and so I'm just wondering if there's any way to do that besides another counter motion you mean do the salmon bake but not the movie something like that yeah I mean just an example but yeah there can be up to three motions on okay so you can do a counter motion I have to think about that for a second

Okay, so Alexis motion. Do I have a second for Alexis motion?

Okay, so I counter motion to do the 55.45%. That's correct, right? Okay. And to take out movies in the park, but leave everything else.

Oh. Do I have a second? So I don't know what to do. We've done our three motions.

If you don't have a second, then you go down to the first motion.

Okay, so then we go to Diane's motion.

Because we don't have seconds for the others, you go to the first motion? Correct. Okay, so now you go to the first motion.

Okay, so the first motion. Do you repeat that?

So the first motion is that we approve consideration of resolution 26-17 with the ceiling tax increase of 55.45% and with cutting the Friday, Roy Day's events and cutting the Roy Day's art show.

Second.

Okay. Okay, we have a second, so a roll call vote.

Council Member Jackson?

Aye.

Council Member Wilson?

Aye.

Council Member Halbert?

Nay.

Council Member Saxton?

Nay.

Council Member Spahr?

Aye.

Okay, so three votes, so that motion's approved. Okay, so Amber, you wanna do Consideration Revolution 2618?

Yes, thank you. So Resolution 26-18 just adopts the tentative property tax levy subject to the truth and taxation hearing and council vote in August. What it does is identify for Weber County the amounts that we are proposing for the truth and taxation hearing. Now that you have adopted Resolution 26-17, we will fill in those amounts accordingly. And so you are now adopting those amounts to send to Weber County. So to clarify,

Do we, if we're sticking with the 55.45%, does that mean we would just say to adopt that resolution? And I will fill in all of those amounts accordingly for when it is signed. And we don't need to say anything about cuts in this one, right? Because it's just the ceiling. Okay. So, any discussion? I guess I should ask first or I can just jump in and say, oh, yeah.

Well, I just, can we clarify exactly what this resolution does?

Yes, so what you just agreed on in the previous resolution, it just spells those numbers out again and sends for Weber County. Okay.

Yeah, just an additional requirement this year that was added in the new legislation.

This is similar to the other ones that we were talking about. Okay. And I will fill in the numbers exactly how the state tax commission puts them on the truth and taxation printout so that the resolution matches what that's going to print out.

Okay.

Okay, so I have a motion.

I move that we proceed with consideration of resolution 26-18. And that's all I need to say, right? And do I have a second? So seconded. With what was agreed earlier?

I would just state the percentage.

Okay, with the 55.45%.

Yes, and then with the direction to Amber to fill in.

Please fill in the blanks appropriately. Okay. Okay, and then a second. So seconded. So roll call vote, Brittany.

Council Member Spahr.

Aye.

Council Member Halbert. Aye. Council Member Jackson.

Aye.

Council Member Saxton. Nay.

Aye. Okay, then Amber will do consideration resolution 26-19. Thank you.

Resolution 26-19 adopts the property tax impact schedule. It recognizes that the property tax impact schedule has been made available as a separate document from any other budget documents and it was available at any meeting where the budget has been discussed. It also states that the property tax impact schedule may be amended from time to time to reflect any changes during the budget process. So if we continue to have work sessions, we can amend the property tax impact schedule to reflect those decisions that are made as guidance in the work sessions, but this is just adopting that we have had it available and that you can amend it.

So just to clarify, this resolution would formally opine that we have provided a property tax impact schedule separate from the budget, and it is amendable with ongoing conversations and negotiations. Yes.

This is part of the new legislation from the tax commission that we had to have it. So you are acknowledging that we have made it available as a separate document, and it has been at every meeting that we discussed the budget, and it can be amended. So you are not held to this amount.

Okay, so we before these would just be available. And that would just be the end of it. And now we have to prove that they were available by resolution.

We've never had it before.

We've never had new this even just having it's new.

Okay, that's fine.

This also does formally adopt the property tax impact schedule with that ceiling so that it reflects which is

Right, so we won't have the three alternates, like this will be the property tax impact schedule, but that doesn't mean that you can't change it. If you give us direction and say we want to present a new one with this amount, we can change it to whatever you would like to present.

Okay, thank you. Okay, do I have a motion for 26-19?

Mayor, I motion to approve Resolution 26-19. Do we have a second?

I second.

Okay, Brittany, roll call vote.

Council Member Saxton?

Nay. Aye. Council Member Jackson?

Aye.

Council Member Holbert? Aye.

Council Member Spahr?

Aye.

OK, now we'll go to the city manager and council report.

So, yeah, thank you, Mayor. I actually only have two things. The first one you should all know, but if not, 4400 South has now opened the bridge over I-15. So please go on that. It's great news for us all. That is great news.

So it did open today because I went on it yesterday. He told me by Wednesday, so it did open today.

Yep, I believe so.

You do have to wait. They do have people with stop signs. Like, you can't just drive on through with it. Like, there are delays. But no tolls, right? No tolls.

And then the second thing, if you're not busy at on Thursday, or if you are busy, you could cancel your plans because we're having a concert in the park at the library at 7 p.m. So please go to that. A lot of fun.

Yeah, it was really good last time, huh, Janelle? Yep, it was really good. So, Council, do you have any comments? Anything you want to just bring up that you haven't already talked about? Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you to the staff, to the department heads, to the council members for all of your intense work.

so right big thank you it's it's been a lot of work i want to thank all of you for all your work i know these conversations are difficult and we know many residents are concerned so please know that this council is working hard to be good stewards of your tax dollars while maintaining the services our community depends on even when we disagree we all care deeply about royce city and together we can continue building community we're proud to call home i am asked for now a motion to adjourn

I move that we adjourn the meeting.

I have a second.

Second.

And all in favor, say aye. Aye. So we'll have a five-minute break, and then we'll meet back here just for our RDA meeting.

Five-minute break.

Five-minute break. Are you RDA?

No, I'm staying.

Ah.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I see you guys.

I don't know. That is a purchase.

I'm sorry. Thank you. I got a great question.

He was going back there in the service, and then I've been seeing all that weather. It's just my presentation. Are you okay, the weather? We had a shelter today in Nauvoo because of the tornado. I'm sorry, I realized. And he said he spent the day in a shelter, and I said, are you okay?

I couldn't decide if I should split some up, but I knew Nauvoo would get destroyed. He said no.

He goes, but it's been bad, and then they're having horrible flooding right now. Friday Saturday Sundays.

So it's closed during the week because law enforcement uses the range. And then there's also they do the teacher. They have those classes there sometimes during the week as well. But as a range officer, they have competition days, and I can go in when the public's not allowed. And I could go use it. And then I used to shoot in a lot of shooting competitions, too. And previous years, if you were a range officer, they require them to have the shooting competitions are required to have a range officer in attendance. And so if you were attending one, that shooting and then they gave you a discount. That now has been killed, so I don't get a discount for being a range officer. I do get free use of the range on the non-public days. And I can come in during public days and shoot myself. I only get one day.

You can stay here. You can watch this.

No, you can stay.

It's only going to be a few minutes. We only have one consent item, one action item, and then, yeah, I'm going to make it quick.

Okay. Okay, Janelle. I didn't know this was on.

Okay, we want to welcome everybody tonight to our RDA meeting. We want to recognize Council Member Spahr, Council Member Saxon, Council Member Jackson, Council Member I mean board member, yeah, sorry, board member Spahr, board member Saxon, board member Jackson, board member Wilson, and board member Holbert. And so anyway, we have a consent item tonight. Any comments on that?

The consent item is to approve the minutes from last year's meeting.

Yeah, the RDA meeting from last year when you wasn't on this board. Just a question.

Shall I recuse myself from this vote? Because there are three new people. So how does this go?

So it's just basically approving that it does account for what happened because the minutes are a summary of what occurred. Yes.

I don't know what happened.

All right.

So I just am wondering, like, is it appropriate for me to recuse myself?

No.

Oh. Okay.

Okay, so do I have a motion for the consent items? So moved. Do I have a second?

Second.

All in favor say aye. Aye. So Matt will introduce the resolution 26-1.

Yes, thank you. So this is a resolution adopting the RDA budget. The total budget is at $1.5 million. We're currently receiving TIF of $350,000 from other taxing agencies and $64,500 of that is coming from Royce City. The reason why the budget is really like at the $1.5 million is because we haven't been utilizing these funds. We're waiting for a project to come in. We're estimating by the end of 2027, the budget, the fund balance and the RDA will be about $1.8 million. That's something that comes up when we talk to developers and things to see how much money we have available in there. That's through a couple of different RDAs. We have two currently there, one at Iomega and one over by Ocean Mart. So anyway, any questions?

So when they talk to you about the budget, I guess maybe that's part of their investigation because they're hoping to maximize that for them individually is kind of the concept. Yeah. And so whoever gets to it first kind of concept or?

The board would definitely have to obviously agree to that, but it provides a cushion or TIF that we could give and borrow against to kind of cushion projects as they want to come in.

Okay. Any other comments? Okay, do I have a motion to enter a public hearing? I just have a question.

In the future, can we do the minutes much sooner, even if we just have to have a meeting just for that? Okay. Okay, sorry.

Okay, do I have a motion to enter a public hearing? Motion to enter a public hearing. Do I have a second?

I'll second it.

All in favor say aye. Aye. Okay. So any public comments? Okay. Do I have a motion to exit the public hearing? So moved. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Okay. Do you guys have anything else to discuss about this motion? Nope. So then do we just have a motion to adjourn then?

No, we have to move. I move that we adopt resolution 26-1, a resolution of the redevelopment agency of Roy adopting the 26-27 fiscal budget beginning July 1st, 26 and ending July, June, excuse me, 30th, 2027. A second. Okay, a roll call vote.

Brittany.

Board member Holbert.

Aye. Board member Spahr.

Aye.

Aye. Board Member Jackson? Aye. Board Member Saxton?

Aye.

Board Member Wilson?

Aye. Okay, so motion approved. So now do I have a motion for adjournment?

Motion to adjourn.

Do I have a second? Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Okay.

Excellent short meeting. I need to get this damn mask off as soon as I get in my car or out of the building.