City Council - Special Meeting

I'd like to call this special meeting of the Sandy Springs City Council to order for Tuesday, May 26, 2026. Mayor Rusty Paul.

Present. Council Member John Paulson. Here. Council Member Melody Kelly.

Here.

Council Member Melissa Mueller. Here. Council Member Frank Roberts. Here. Council Member Mary Ford.

Here.

Here.

Council Member Andrew Chensky. Here. Thank you for that. We'll turn it over to the City Manager.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. We're excited to be back with you this day after Memorial Day to present the formal proposed FY27 budget. This is Budget Workshop 3 in our process. Before you today, you have a copy of the slides that we'll be walking through, and you also have the line item detail for the budget. Copies of both of these documents have been published online, and they are also available downstairs at the front desk for any members of the public who may wish to see a hard copy. Without any further ado, first up, our second slide today is a recap of our calendar for the year for the budget. This is unchanged. We've been looking at the same dates since we started the budget workshops on May 5th. We are today at workshop three. Our first public hearing will be next Tuesday as part of regular council meeting. And then our second public and final public hearing and the budget adoption is scheduled for the second meeting in June on June 16th. Our budget principles have been unchanged since the start of the city. We always work to conservatively determine our revenue and expenses. By doing that, overestimating our expenditures and underestimating our revenues, it helps us eliminate financial pressures that may come up during the year. We also never propose the use of one-time revenue sources for ongoing expenditures. Doing that creates an automatic unfunded increase in following subsequent budget years. As we discussed during budget workshop one and two, all of the expenses that are proposed in this budget are tied back to council's adopted priorities, which were discussed during the council retreat this year and then adopted by council in early February. We start today's presentation with some answers to some questions in workshop two that we were not able to answer during that discussion. First up, we had a question about the grants that have been received since in the last year. Here's an overview of the grants that have been received. And then the next slide includes a recap of the duties of the grants administrator position and an overview of the grants that are currently being managed by the position as well as the grants that have been awarded since 2024. All told, we have received $6 million in grant funds since 2020. That position also helps reduce duplication of effort by serving as the single point of contact for our funder agencies, instead of having to go directly to departments to determine answers and to get answers to them in a timely fashion.

So the Fulton County Arts Grant was $27,000 last year?

Yes, remember they came back and added some additional money at the end of the year after they had done that. And we went back and refunded some other things. Refunded being the wrong word choice, but we did receive the extra.

And this doesn't have to happen now or anytime later? This isn't related necessarily to passing the budget, but I'd be curious as to how the 27.5, would you general? Tony can pull that up. Thank you.

Any other questions about the grants administrator position? All right. Next, we had a follow-up question about Red Speed and the amount of revenue received by Red Speed. The city received 65% of the revenue that is charged and collected. Red Speed receives 35%. So here is the breakdown on those numbers. Based upon the guidance of council during the last work session, we do have a meeting with them later this week to talk about a possible one-year extension with options to renew. That would be coming to you all the second meeting in June, should Red Speed be interested in taking that approach. That was the direction and the consensus of the last meeting. do we agree to have options to renew i want to give council the ultimate flexibility instead of having it just shut down so i think it is worthwhile to have those built into the contract you can opt not to renew it still by having that in there but we can circumvent the law that's going into effect if we have the renewal option if that's council's desire all right thank you okay all right now we'll jump into workshop three First up is the operating budget assumption slide. That has not changed since budget workshop one. These are the same numbers that we talked through before. I'm happy to answer any questions you all may have about these, but it does include an increase, a 3% cost of living adjustment for city employees. There is a slight increase in health insurance. We do have an increase in general liability insurance and then also increases for our animal control agreement, North Fulton Regional Radio Authority, contracted agreements in place for our public works subcontractor agreements and recreation of parks subcontractor agreements, and then our continued EMS subsidy for reduced response time.

Yes, sir. So a question on health insurance, because you and I have been talking informally about this. What are you hearing from the people that are submitting and proposing to submit? Are we still going to see this kind of an increase?

Right now, we don't know that for sure because they're waiting until they get our full end-of-year numbers. Remember, that doesn't start until January. So we've had three interviews. Staff has done three interviews with third-party administrators looking at migrating us over to the self-funded programs. we'll be bringing that back to you all with some better numbers later in the year, which will be after the start of the budget year. Unfortunately, I have to budget for the worst case scenario.

There's just so much going on in this industry.

It's rapidly changing.

It is. And there's money to be had there, okay?

Money to be saved.

Yes. Thank you.

Yes, ma'am. So in our last workshop, the number quoted for the public works subcontractor agreement was 6.189. With the Delta being 76,000 now, you all have found some savings there.

Yes, we have a detailed breakdown further in today's presentation, and I'm having trouble flipping to it, but I believe it is. Sorry, Tony. Say it again. Oh, potholing, the 240,000 that we had to add back in. That is the additional cost of potholing. meaning not a pothole, but you go out and prod the earth, make sure there's no fiber in the ground and you don't cut it accidentally.

So is that line, so that line is correct? Because I'm just saying there's a disconnect between what we saw on slide 25 in our last meeting and this slide.

Tony's looking that up right now, but I do see what you're saying, because if you look at slide, let's see the number here. believe it's 26 in your slides today. It shows 6.189 million. But the difference is that pothole in contract, which is a new one that we just need to add here. Any other questions here? Okay. Next is our fleet fun there it's a lot of change here. We've been create police week on by $200,000 for police fleet vehicle replacements. Next is the tree fun. This is the same as we discussed and worked up one. Next we have our capital budget assumptions. This is a slight change. City Springs district to District improvements is at 2.2, and the police fleet is at 1.45. Otherwise, everything else on these slides is the same. And further in here, we will talk through the five-year CIP as well.

Can I ask a question? Yes, sir. So I'll just pick on the Heritage Lawn stream buffer remediation and then the playground just because I'm excited about that. Suppose we get into the project and it's not enough. that there's a million dollars for this, there's a half a million dollars for the playground, would you then come back to us and request an increase? Would we have to wait a year to get additional?

No, we don't believe we're going to need additional funds, given the options that we're looking at. Thanks. Then we go over to slide 16. There are no changes here from budget workshop two. If you would like to now take out your proposed line item budget, we're going to start going through the pages here. So this corresponds with pages three, four in your budget detail. all right now going into each department we start with city council which is on page five in your budget detail in your book and you'll see some nominal increases this year next is the office of the city manager that is on page six And 7 you'll notice decreases here to account for the realignment of 2 positions over to the new office of innovation and delivery which is page 8 in the budget book and the next one here. Big expense and this one is on the capital side to cover the cost of a new citywide CRM. After that you have the city clerk's office which is on page 10. The decreases there are largely tied to not having an election. Finance, page 12. The largest increase you see here under operations is for technical services, which includes some of the primary functions or the programs that help finance run DocuSign, Laserfish, our ERP system for the city, Munis, DebtBook, and Bonfire for our purchasing and procurement program. Next is information technology, which is page 16. legal well sorry but legal is actually not on the line there legal is remaining the same with the exception of the cost of living adjustment for the two city employees it again page 16 in your line item detail Human Resources is the next one, and that's page 18 in the book. Our change here for professional services is largely due to the increase in health insurance broker, moving that away from being paid as part of Cigna line to being directly paid by the city. Facilities is next, that's page 20 in the budget book. One of the large increases here is repairs and maintenance for the buildings. And that includes things such as our account for, or excuse me, our contract to make sure that the HVAC continues to function in this building and all of our city buildings. Parking deck, roll-up doors, Rupert landscaping to keep all of our properties in good shape, general fountain maintenance, and then miscellaneous for repairs that come up throughout the year that needs to be made. The next one that we go through is communications, which is page 22 in your book. There is an increase in call center, which is a contractually obligated increase. Next, we have general administration, which is page 24 in your budget book. Technical services here includes CRM implementation costs, which we talked about under the Office of Innovation and Delivery. Yes, ma'am. Oh, I'm sorry, Councilwoman.

No, so you answered the one about technical services of professional services.

Is that I would have to tell you that technical professional services is bond administration fees, asset recovery services. It is our insurance broker for general liability insurance, our financial advisor fee, the amount that we have to pay to the tax commissioner to collect property taxes. Arbitrage fees for arbitrage that we have to do on our outstanding debt, and then the citywide identity theft protection service for all of our employees.

I have a question on communications, website enhancements. Okay. He tells us what's happening there for the additional.

Some of that is, and some of these names I do not know, and I may have to ask Carter to tell me about Pantheon and Netlify, which we've helped secure our website, make sure that it does not have bad actors doing things to it. Document repository to get all of our documents out there and searchable. And then also additional website development hours for some changes to the website. okay the next one we have is municipal court which is page 25 in the book their increases are strictly related to salaries from the cost of living adjustment and health insurance then we have police department page 27 in your budget book We've already gone through a number of their enhancements from our earlier workshops, and I've got a breakdown that I'll jump ahead to. Here is a summary of some of those that are included within each of these slides that we're talking through. technical support for the Intelligence Operations Center, this is to keep the screens functioning, the narcotics and chemical identification device, ballistic shields, canine tracker, car radar units, all the PD this time. Next is the fire department, which is page 29 in the budget book. And that includes the replacement aerial and engine and the new bonus structure for parity with the police department. Page 31 is emergency management in your line item detail. And their enhancements this year include EMA preparedness exercise, the annual cost of our drone program, and the annual cost of our Avive citywide program, our AED program. The next department is Public Works, which is page 33 in your budget book. The enhancements here include a new fiber optic asset management transition, sonic network management service, utility marking, that is the potholing that I was just talking about earlier, maintenance on our traffic poles and increasing our street light maintenance and painting. and then two replacement sand and salt spreaders to replace some that are 12 years old.

If I may refresh my memory of the utility marketing services for G811, those are where they're putting the wire along the utility lines to actually positively identify where they are?

Yes, and it's part of a state unfunded mandate. Actually, you'll recall last year.

It's a state unfunded mandate? Good idea, though.

Yeah, it definitely is. All right. Then next, we have Recreation and Parks, and they are on page 35. Oh, excuse me. No, Fleet Services is next. Fleet Management is page 35 in your budget book. And the only increases we have there are related to the cost of living adjustment. In fact, we have an overall decrease in Fleet Services. Then next, we have Recreation and Parks, page 37. And that includes new recreation management software. Auto is the name of that that we'll be transitioning to. An increase in program supplies for our recreation programs. And then site improvements, which includes various things that come up at any of our parks throughout the year. Community development is page 39. And the enhancement there is related to additional costs for the comprehensive plan, specifically related to public meetings and making sure we get sufficient and significant public input into the comp plan. Page 41 is economic development. There are no increases here, actually, except that that is related to salaries. Then other financing uses on page 43. This is our section of the budget where we transfer funds out of the general fund to other funds to pay for debt service, to purchase vehicles, to support the Performing Arts Center, and to support capital programs, and then also stormwater. And that's page 43 in your book. So we're gonna jump ahead and look at the Performing Arts Center, which is page, that is the last one here. Page 72, 71 is the actual fund summary. This shows you the enhancements that were requested by the Performing Arts Center this year, which include Everpass, which is licensing for various sports programming so that we can show them both on the screen outside and also in City Bar. An increase in cost of goods sold for signature events and then also for ice rink. And then finally, an increase in seasonal positions, both for the ice rink and for any other programs that make part-time positions. what page are we on right now that is page 71 in the budget book is the summary and then when you get to 72 and 73 and we do have a slide that we'll look at as well i just wanted to reference it so we're doing the ice rink again this year yes the uh sandy springs foundation has uh agreed to provide some funding to offset the cost of that with the cost of bringing that here.

Okay.

All right. But the next slide is public works subcontractor agreements. And Dr. Paley, to your point, we will add the potholing here because that's the difference. I hope Tony's correct in that.

The slides are incorrect. The total is $6,189,000 for FY27. It is the same as it was in the first presentation.

Okay. Because pay So 6189 was the, because I have on some budget workshop one, budget workshop two page, slide 25 has a different, oh, well, well, I guess what I mean is that the first slide has a higher number that the one that has all the expenditures, I mean, all of the capital assumptions had a higher number where there was a delta of 200 and You hear there's a delta of 76. On the previous slide, there's a delta of 295, but I guess it's because of the pothole.

Pothole was $240,000. Right.

So that's what Madam City Manager was saying. That adds up.

Then we have recreation and parks subcontractor agreements. There's actually no change in this. These are the same amounts as in fiscal year 26. Then personnel by department. This is the same that you have seen since workshop one and is captured on page two in your line item detail budget book. Our nonprofit summary is unchanged since workshop one.

I'm sorry. Yes, ma'am. I have a question on personnel by department. Yep. Just on number of total employees. How do we compare to cities of similar size? Smaller. So we are small. Yes, ma'am.

Greenville, South Carolina, for example, has over 1100, which is much smaller landmass and much smaller population. But we can run some comparison numbers and show you that.

We did this at the last... Before last.

Not this past one. We consistently had one of the lowest, for a city of our size, one of the lowest employee population. Yeah.

So for the new folks, that's actually a pretty instructive set of slides. It would be good for you to recirculate those to all of us because that's pretty impressive.

I would too. Thank you. Mm-hmm.

Okay, our nonprofit summary, again, not changed since our workshop one conversation. Then our general fund contingency details, this is also the same as what you saw in workshop two. We've not made any changes to that. And then slide 25 is a summary of budgeted expenditures by fund. This year, our total all funds budget is proposed at 1.156 billion. And as a reminder, the reason it is so large is because of the way we have to account for the debt that was issued for this campus for police headquarters and for all of our fire stations. So the public facilities authority is what is bumping our all funds number up. We are unable to reduce that number until we fully pay off the debt. Okay. Now, We'll start on page 44 in the line out of detail. First up, we have the confiscated assets fund budget. This is what used to be known as seized funds or asset forfeiture. These are funds that the police department receives for participating. And these are all court ordered monies that are received by the city. They must be used to support police or law enforcement functions. Next, we have the opioid fund budget. You'll recall we are proposing to utilize these funds with the addition of an additional community paramedic in the fire department this year. Next is the E911 fund budget. As a reminder, these funds come into our budget and are transferred out to chat com. These are amounts that are received from the fee that is paid on telephones to support 911 services. Next is the tree fund, which we've talked through this. We do pay for half of our city um urban forest coordinator out of this as well as the other programs that we talked through in our prior workshops how do we go about um making our assumption for so for example the 761 i mean the 671 sorry like how do we um what goes into determining that number it's based off of what we have coming in and what in terms of development so a lot of these are folks as you well know that are removing trees and they have to pay into the thought so that is how we've been trying to project it year over year okay so i guess you expect quite a bit it's kind of keeping with what we've seen the last two years Next is the impact fee fund budget. This number is much higher than what we have seen in the last couple of years, but as a reminder, that is because we sold the parcels to the National Park Service, and that is the recapture of those funds back into the impact fee fund budget. So they are earmarked for recreation purposes.

Aren't we reviewing this impact fee process? Is it this year?

Yes, it is this year. Okay. And in fact, this next slide gives you additional detail on our current recommended projects. You'll recall we had conversation in the last workshop about the potential of council allocating nothing real to see. We are not at the point that we believe we need to allocate that money now. So we're only recommending the additional needed for Old Riverside Drive Park and then the transportation model will improve. The next one that we have is Community Development Block Grant Fund. This is to account for funds received from the CDBG program. It's page 53 in your budget book. It is worth noting that it's been talked about for many years that CDBG will likely be going away. All of our revenues are pledged in that program to repay our Section 108 loan. At some point in the future, we do anticipate we may have to make a general fund contribution to repay those, but I don't want to formally put that in here until we have a better sense.

That runs out. How long was that deal?

CDBG has been going on.

No, no, the repay the 108 loan.

We have, let me get the number for you.

I thought that was coming to a close here. The Section 108 loan, our last debt service payment is going to be fiscal year 2031. So we've still got four or five years to go. But it is forecast that If our last grant received is for 2028, the year after next, then we will have to start a general fund transferring in money to finish paying off. So if the program dies. If the program dies.

What we're anticipating is that CDB will go away either for two reasons. One, Congress ends the funding. Secondly, we don't have any areas left that qualify.

Qualify.

So we... Yeah, so we're going to have to watch this one carefully. If Congress does away with it, there'll be some kind of glide path. But if we run out of areas where we can spend the money, then it will pretty much evaporate immediately.

Well, that's actually a good result if we run out of those areas. From the overall well-being of the community, it hurts our income, but it means the community is elevated.

Okay, next is the hotel motel tax fund budget, which is page 54 in the budget book. We're projecting a decrease this year, given the changes to travel and the economy. Followed by excise tax on rental motor vehicles, which is page 55. That number has remained pretty much around 100,000 for the last four or five years, so we're keeping it at that number. Teas Bloss 1, so page 56 in your budget book. It's probably going to be easier to look at it there. We are fully budgeting all remaining projects for Teas Bloss 1, which is why you see a zero ending fund balance here. And that, again, is page 56. Here is our detail of those, which is printed in your flat item detail.

I mean, those fonts any smaller, could you? That's why you got these.

This one.

I got my papers on.

So you can look at it on the big one. Then we have T-Splice 2. Again, we are fully budgeting all of these expenditures as well. And that coincides with page 58 in your budget book. this is the one that's really small that's even better yeah i thought you'd like that then we have the capital projects fund budget which is page 60 in your book these projects are all fully budgeted as well it doesn't mean that we believe we will beat all of them this year but we are past practice and what we recommend is to go ahead and fully budget everything on the off chance that we do make significant progress with these because I believe that we will make a lot more progress. There is that detail and that corresponds to pages 60, 61, 62, 63, and 64 of the book. next we have our five-year cip which is on page 65 in the budget book there are two new projects that we have added at the bottom of this five-year cip and for our new council members this is intended as a planning document so that you can have a forward look at what we as staff based on conversations that we're having Council and what we are seeing on progress with projects we could reasonably expect to have as a future expenditure. Many of these are numbers that we simply, they're a worst case scenario. We can't guarantee that they're going to be this number. And the reason I mentioned that is I've added two new projects here this year. They're at the very bottom of page 66, which is the revitalization of Brackett Center and And the revitalization of Hammond Park.

2030.

These have been added as we work through the comp plan and the recreation of parks master plan. We anticipate there will be a need for debt to be issued, which will have to be tied to a voter referendum for a revenue source to pay for them. 75 million that you see in 29 for Hammond, we are projecting that with a auditorium, if that is council's guidance. Again, this does not guarantee that this will be what we ultimately go with is simply a planning number so that you have awareness, visibility of future capital needs. All right. Next, behind that, we have the fleet fund budget, which is page 68 in the budget book. We've already talked through these numbers earlier, but there will be a fund balance remaining, which we'll carry forward to the next year. Then we have the public facilities authority fund budget, which is page 69 in the budget book. That includes a breakdown on all of our expenses to date for City Springs, for other projects, including public safety, the police headquarters, Fire Station 2, 5, 3, the fleet facility, and then planned additional expenditures that are being budgeted. 71 is, page 71, excuse me, is the Performing Arts Center Fund budget. And we are projecting to have a fund balance at the end of the year of approximately $100,000. Stormwater fund budget, page 74 in the budget book. We are fully budgeting. And again, this is funds that are being transferred in from the general fund and are then used to complete stormwater projects in the city. And then the final fund is the Development Authority Fund budget, which is pretty nominal. It will have a fund balance projected of $257,000 at the end of the year.

I have a question.

Yes, ma'am.

So on the slot improvement program, I think that you had recommended that that come out of the general fund and not the Development Authority Fund. We did. And we were going to wait until the design guidelines were completed later this year. Will that be part of, is that a line item somewhere in the budget, or how does that work? It is included in, it's in capital. Okay, so it's in capital.

Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

Eden, a question back on the Performing Arts Center fund budget. So the revenues, I didn't realize the revenues for 2026 are down $600,000 from last year, almost $600,000. Is there any particular reason why that was?

Economic factors. buying as many tickets. And we're seeing it across the board, not just for our performing arts center, but other places are showing similar outcomes. Bill and I are working to try to bring in some acts that are going to be at a family-friendly price point to try to make that up. But it's getting more and more difficult. $100 tickets are pretty difficult for a lot of folks.

So then you propose 2027 is yet 1.5 above What do you think we're going to do in 26? So what do you think of there? 2027 plus 9 million in change revenue, which is actual this year.

Additional sponsorship coming in with the Sandy Springs Foundation being more active and helping bring those in, plus additional rentals within the building. So not just theater, but rentals on the third floor, studio, theater, and then also within buyers. We do have quite a few rental folks that use them.

So is this the foundation granting us money?

They would be almost like a pass-through. So they're out doing fundraising, bringing in money, and it would be supporting various programs.

But we still consider that revenue?

Yes, it is revenue.

We have to budget for it. One of the things that we've complained about for years is the lack of sponsorships for some of the things like City Green Live, the skating rink, some of the performing arts programming that we do. They are making a concerted effort to go out and get sponsors for some of these. And they've already picked up a few.

And also remember, we have a planned $500,000 transfer out of the general fund that would be booked here as revenue. That's $250,000 in parking revenue and $250,000 from the general.

So does page 71 break out how much of the revenue is sponsorships? Yes. Yes.

actually it's a let me put my papers back on yeah so page 71 at the top you see revenues so there's theater revenue conference center revenue education signature event that would be where revenues would come in sponsorships

ice rink which is ticket sales for folks skating and then that's the transfer from the general ton and from hotel motel well it just it seems weird that we're our revenues are going down and that we're projecting a big split for next year but hopefully it happens okay

All right, then we get to what I refer to as the magic slide, which is our projected undesignated fund balance. So we start with our audited end of year as of July 1st, 2025, which was 63 million. Then we add in our 26 projected revenues at 147, less our projected expenditures to give us a subtotal of 65 million. Then we have to keep 25% of budgeted revenues for our fund balance reserve, our rainy day fund, which is 35,117,000, which leaves an available fund balance of $3.26. That means that 29 million of that 65 million is being planned for one-time uses within the budget that we have presented today. So that leaves us with a zero amount for estimated undesignated general balance. With the same tax rate, no tax increases, no fee increases, and it's a completely balanced budget. The $29 million is back under capital budget assumptions? It's back within, yes, sir.

Seriously, where is it?

It's throughout.

It's in various places. A slide that specifically talks about unbalanced uses for this coming year.

No. We can pull that together for next Tuesday, but we've historically just included those in our capital budget assumptions. So if you look on page and the slides, page 13, 14, and 15, that adds to $35 million. So it's included in all of those numbers. And then the final slide is my favorite slide every year, which really speaks to the success that we have experienced as a city. Since the city was incorporated in 2005, we have invested back more than $500 million in our community. And this does not include this campus, the police headquarters in municipal port complex or any of our fire stations. So that is money that would have been used in other parts of Fulton County had Sandy Springs not been.

Yep.

I'm happy to answer any questions.

I have a quick one. So would you refresh my memory on the CRM updates?

That is the replacement for Lucity, our ticketing system, the current ticketing system. You're calling that a CRM system? Yes, sir. And we don't have the ability with Lucity for residents to sell to her. We need to go look up a ticket. The new one, we will be able to do that.

Okay. I didn't realize that's what you were calling it.

Yes, sir.

Yes, ma'am. With the updates to make the website ADA compliant, is that complete, or will we be spending any money in the next budget year to continue that?

There is some money, right, Carter? We have a tool that we're utilizing on our website, so we'll have additional fees to renew that service that makes PDFs on our site compliant, but we are looking to wrap up all the compliance on our side really by the end of this fiscal. We're ahead of the game. The deadline has been pushed out, though, for another year.

I have a question for you. All right. Multiple grant fund has three full-time employees.

Those are the CVRG folks at PD that are now moving over to be city employees.

Okay. Okay. There's still 24 on the multiple grant funds. It says that we still have those three.

Because the grant ends in October and then they transition to being full-time city employees.

Okay. All right. And just to be clear, the tree fund, the numbers we see in the tree fund for salaries, bonus, the first couple of the personnel numbers are just for a half.

We used to previously have a full in there, but we split that four years ago, I believe.

The full amount is in the tree fund and then we transfer 50% over. So Tony reminded me. Say that again. Because these numbers look full. Yeah, that's what I was like. Transfer 50%. Transfer in for the refund. Yeah. That's the part.

Thanks. Make sure.

Can I finish really quick?

I have one other question. It's on page 29. Let me see. Book? Yeah, in the book. Oh, yeah. I was curious about, actually noticed this for our police department and our fire department, that the overtime appears to be increasing quite a bit. I think. Well, part of the reason.

So for fire, if you'll recall last year. the shift schedule. So they now work a 4896 schedule. So we knew there would be some increases for that. And with PD, we unfortunately had quite a few of our votes been called up to active duty. So that means that we've had to use existing employees to have overtime to offset that. But we are closely watching that to make sure we're keeping it. So it'll fluctuate.

That's the kind of thing that'll fluctuate. Capital lease principle. That's also, I think, under fire. I just wanted to Make sure I understand that. And I'm sorry if you missed mentioned it already, but that's on page 30.

Yes. That's for the new fire trucks. Oh, okay. Got it. Unfortunately, we have to start paying for it, even though we don't get them for three years.

Okay. So can we expect that number each year? The 1.4 million.

Okay. So it'll kind of hold flat for a while. We basically, some rolls off and then we add more to it. So it stays. pretty static from year to year as we replace fire apparatus if they get too old. All right.

Well, those are my questions for now. Thank you.

Any further questions?

All right. I just want to clarify. How many ones will clarify? We were looking at the numbers, and I just want to point out that in the workshop three, page five, slide 10, it indicates 6,000,001 That number is correct. But when you flip over to slide 10, page 20, you see 6418. 6418. Sorry, 6418 on page 10, slide 10, but 6189 on page 20, slide 20. 6.89 is the correct number. 6.189? Yes. Okay.

And the difference is, again, that... And we'll adjust that. Okay.

Are we replacing any canines this year? We are. That was a capital expense. So that's in capital.

If I look in capital, I'll see it there. The cost has gone up significantly. One dog is $50,000 now.

Just a couple, I think, quick questions. The $110,000 for the old Riverside Drive Parkway, what is that? It's under Public Works Funding Source Impact Fees.

Which page are you on?

I was actually just looking at the five-year.

So is that page 66? Yes.

Okay.

I think that should actually be parks and recreation instead of public works. That's part of the park. Let us confirm that.

Okay. And just a couple of conceptual questions as a first timer on the idea. At what point in the process should we give feedback on future years? If I see something that I like two years from now or don't like, do you want that now?

Yes, please. It helps us to better project and give you all the most current information possible. right now okay um and do we put any money in our capital sidewalk program from the capital improvement plan or is that only from t-spots that's t-spots now only t-spots we do have a planned workshop for next tuesday to review all of our investments and sidewalks and then what is in t-spots one two and planned so we'll give you guys that update because i don't think you all will

for the workshop on tuesday i would love to hear since so thank you i think that's super helpful if there are ideas that we have to help speed up the process i know that's been a constant refrain i mean do we put a map up publicly and show which parcels we've been able to gain the right away from which ones we haven't so neighbors can pressure each other to help us Because I think they would. Do we make that publicly available? Do we hire more staff to help with the legal process? I'm open for anything, but I would love to hear some ideas if that's possible.

Okay. Very good. Yes, sir.

So you talked about a parks bond. You mentioned this earlier. We've had conversations about it. We have the Master Parks and Recreation Master Plan, which is being worked on this year. Yes, sir. So before, it's my opinion that before we as a city commit to doing this, We got to make sure we have a good justification, a good reason behind it. And this is going to be part of the public discussions during the comp plan review. I'm not necessarily against it. I'm against putting it on a ballot and having it lose. Oh, yeah. I want to make sure we have a good story to tell the community before we go out and do this. We've had conversation back and forth about a natatorium. People wanted a natatorium. Every time we looked at it, they cost a lot of money. I just got an email from a fellow who runs the pool services. He just said to me, I understand we're going to be talking about a natatorium again. We revisited this seven or eight years ago, and it's just too much to take on.

Anyway, my intent on putting it in the five-year CIP was we've had a lot of conversation about it. There seemed to be consensus, especially as we go through the parks master plan update. I didn't want it to be that I didn't want the public council to think that we weren't thinking ahead with that.

It's far enough out that we're not committing anything to it. We're just putting it on as a placeholder. That's right.

You've got it in the capital program, but you also got to figure out that the cost of maintenance is pretty high, too.

Brent and I have already been having a lot of conversations about that.

That's going to be an operational cost that we'll have to include as well.

It's very expensive. Yeah.

So this fellow, if you want, I'll give you his name.

Please.

Because he's in the middle of pools.

That would be great.

And he's a pretty sharp guy too. All right. I'll pass it on to you.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Yep. Can anyone give us like a high level timeline for the facade improvement program? Like when can we, When could a business owner expect potentially to see something even as high level as like a quarter, what quarter maybe?

I would think first quarter of 27, assuming that council approves the design guidelines. And then we would bring back a proposed program for you all to debate and discuss and help us with that.

Okay. Two more questions. Guardrail replacement. which is listed as a capital program. And I just wonder, like, what makes that different than, for example, the potholing, which is treated.

So potholing is a function where they go out and market. That's not repairing potholes.

Yeah.

The guardrail is actually repairing guardrail on city roads.

Right. I knew that. I was just thinking, is it not a subcontractor kind of

We've always done that when it says in capital because typically you don't have it every year. And now more than ever, we're starting to see a need to have annual referred reductions for guardrails.

Right. I'm looking and it's like $250,000 each year. And that feels very, I don't know, operational to me. But I get it. I was just curious. Also, my last question, the Chattahoochee River SR9 Chattahoochee River Bridge replacement, which looks like it appears that GDOT is taking an interest. Once again, we have a budget line item for it. I don't know how to, I guess we'll just hold and see what happens.

We're trying to figure out what GDOT's timeline may be. You know, for quite some time, our neighbor to the north wasn't ready to do anything with that. Right. Marty and Kristen actually found a line within the TIP, the Regional Transport Improvement Program, that had some replacement there. So we're trying to find out if we can piggyback on that and do bridge enhancements. With GDOT replacing that bridge, can we do something similar to what we did at Pitts and Roberts and Mount Vernon, do the bridge enhancements to it? Yeah, Marty.

A good add. Right now what we see is scoping studies. with a dollar amount against it in the next fiscal year for GDOT. So it'll work. And that's to replace the existing bridge. So that's the scoping study that GDOT is going to go get under contract. Once they begin that, they'll start to know a lot more about where and how far they're going to take the study. And then they have some out years programmed as well for the follow-on design work right away if needed. construction, etc. But it all begins with the scoping study that hopefully begins next fiscal year.

I was able to have a somewhat public meeting with their team who's handled the project management team that's handling that and they confirmed that the scoping, like you said, they are bidding out the scoping and that part of it.

Right. And that's

That part will be underway. Well, I was under the impression, at least this year, later this year, the scoping.

This calendar year, it's their fiscal year, 27, I think it is.

But with the scoping study, we're still years away from that bridge being replaced. You've got to do the design, and then you've got to get the construction money and all that sort of stuff.

Right. time I was quoted was just after we would start the Roswell Road north. Yeah, it was like just on the tail end of that.

So Marty, while we're on that subject, that was a pretty intense look at that whole intersection, the bridge and the intersection north of the river some years back. Roswell was going to do a bunch of stuff and that's probably 10 years old, but they spent quite a bit of time looking at alternatives to finish the north end of that bridge.

Is any of that valid? Any of that on any of the radars? That's part of the challenge with the scoping study. Right now, as far as I know, the scoping study looks at a bridge replacement, the age of the bridge, et cetera. And then Roswell has a separate project with people with federal dollars aligned against their gateway project that was grade separation.

Yeah, that's the one I was thinking of.

I think those are,

They're in the tip. That project's in the tip too, but it's dependent upon Roswell. They've got to come up with matching money and the will to do it. They have never had the will to do it.

I don't want us to study this in a vacuum and then we get to come up with our plans and Roswell looks down and says, why are you doing it this way? You're wrecking everything we were planning on doing.

Hopefully in this case, this is GDOT taking ownership of the bridge. That's the encouraging thing.

So the meeting that I had was GDOT and the City of Roswell. And the City of Roswell, they're on a similar timeline as the North End Boulevard, which is going to be kind of messy, but that's the timeline they're on for their project that's north of the river.

Anything else? Well, Eden, staff, Tony, everybody, Michael, everybody that's working on this, thank you. This is a massive amount of work. I mean, months worth of work goes into this. And as usual, you've done a very good job of taking the priorities that the council outlined in January at the retreat and then turning them into concrete financial documents to make that vision come to reality in the financial aspects of the city. So thank you all who were involved. I know the number of hours that was involved to make this happen. So thank you very much. We'll have next Tuesday, a week from today, will be our first public hearing on the budget. And then on the 16th, we'll have another public hearing as part of city council. And then you'll be called upon to vote on the budget on the 16th. If you have any questions about what you have in your documents, please send those to Eden, and we'll get answers to you as quickly as possible. With that, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Aaron, we'll be adjourned. Mr. Paulson moves adjournment. Is there a second? Second.