City Council - Regular Meeting

And we're ready to go when you are.

All right. Welcome, everyone. Sorry about the delay. I appreciate your waiting for us. Today is Tuesday, 05/19/2026. This is the Sandy City Council meeting. We start all our meetings with a prayer and the pledge. Miss Christianson, would you do that for us?

Our dearest heavenly father, we are so grateful to be gathered together this evening. We ask that you to bless us all that we'd be able to know the things that are best to do for Sandy City and its residents and for the budget that we're working on. Please bless us all that we'd be able to be safe and be able to return home safely. We love thee, we say these things in the name of thy son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen. Thank you. Will everyone rise and repeat the Pledge of Allegiance. All right, and introductions. Dustin?

Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Dustin Fratto. I'm with the City Council office. There are two other council staff members in the back of the room, Justin Sorensen and Liz Theriault and then our meeting clerk Chris Edwards is out of town and excused this evening.

Hi my name is Tracy I'm counsel for the council.

Chris Nichol District 3.

Brooke Christensen, District 1.

Cindy Sharkey at large. Allison Stroud, District 2. Brooke D'Souza at large.

Mayor Zaltanski.

Shane Pace, city administrator.

Lynn Pace, city attorney.

We have two council members excused this evening, Marcy Hausman and Erin DeKaiser. Okay, we have one information item tonight which is more budget presentations that'll take up quite a bit of time. We have one item on the consent calendar and one public hearing. We'll be taking general citizen comment at about six after 06:00, and it's likely to be well after 06:00. Anyone who would like to give general citizen comment, please fill out a blue card at the back of the room.

And then we'll be taking public comment on our public hearing item as well. I'm ready to roll into agenda item number one two. Is it two? Yeah. Parks and Recreation.

Awesome. Looks like we're set. Appreciate the opportunity to become tonight to come before the council to discuss the parks and recreation tentative budget for the fiscal year 2027. Before, since we went through this process, we were trying to identify the city council's budget priorities. In parks and recreation, we get to focus mostly on the quality of life and what we bring to the citizens in that in that area.

So we'll start there. I broke it down in two different slides on each of our different cost centers. The first one is parks and recreation administration. We do have an elimination of a marketing specialist position that will be coming out of this budget. But at the exact same time, we had a reallocation of the parks and recreation assistant director who was previously in the parks and cemetery cost center.

So that comes back getting the the assistant directors both in the administration budget kinda offsets things. So we'll see the savings in the parks and cemetery when we get there. We did have an increase in training for 2,000 and travel, 1,200. This is for URPA and NRPA these are our state and our national associations they have a conference each year really critical for the staff to go and to experience the latest trends in the field Ultimately, goal is this picture here is a CAPRA accreditation. This is an accreditation given by NRPA, for the Park and Recreation Agencies, as a really high achievement.

And it takes three or four years to accomplish this, but we got to get go into these trainings so we can get all the information that we need so we can do this. Currently, now in the state, there's only one other agency that has this actively in the past, so we've had about two or three. So we're working towards that. In the park and cemetery budget, we've got the reallocation of the parks and recreation assistant director. So that's kind of a net savings of 55,000.

Of course, there's some additional savings within the benefits and other line items that are associated with salaries. We've increased salaries or increased travel here as well for state trainings. And as you all are experiencing in your own homes, water bills are are always going up. So the yield utility payment of water has gone up by 20,000 even though we're trying to be as conservative as possible. It's just cost has gone up.

Fleet purchases for fiscal year '27 is 405,000. This is gonna allow us to replace some of our fleet that we currently have matured out of its useful life. A couple trucks, three trucks, three mowers, a fill a riding filled painter, two side by sides with plows, two utility trailers, and one golf cart with utility bed that allows for those larger parks to get around and for multiple people to use those. Some capital items that we have, of course, the page numbers are all located there for you as we jump in the budget. Quite a few pages to get the capital, but wanted to keep that in the same discussion, talking point with Parks.

A number of of capital improvements that are are we're grateful to be able to have to move forward on the irrigation improvements. This is something that's gonna just be continuous. There's always needs for irrigation improvements. The streetscapes and wall replacement, $700,000 there. This also helps with our beautification days.

This is as we know, we had a few residents come recently to council meeting and talking about the Newcastle fence. This is where we're trying to get that budget money up so we can make a plan of attack there to replace that fence. Again, some playground replacements. We'll prioritize that with the biggest needs and see how much we can make that stretch. Park and trail renovations, restroom improvements, hazards, concrete replacements, backstop replacements, tennis court resurfacing, and some other items there that you'll see.

On the recreation side of things, I wanted to kind of just give a little quote here. It says, enhance recreation enhance the quality of life for the Sandy community by providing accessible, sustainable, high quality recreation opportunities and programs that serve residents of all ages and abilities. We're not in a field of making money when we provide these recreation opportunities. We're trying to, of course, get the cost recovery to a number that we're Okay with. But a lot of the times, the cost recovery is there for the hard costs of the program.

But it really needs help. It needs to be sustained by the general fund in order to provide these services that we can do for our youth and those, know, whether it be through scholarships or whatnot. So there's an additional ask of $75,000 to increase for that subsidy to help out with recreational programming. I've got a picture here of a Utah jazz junior jazz program. We're we're looking at opportunities always for grant opportunities.

One of the ones that the jazz have kind of offered that we're looking in into is to provide funding that would be set aside for those that can't afford to play. So if someone wanted to come play junior jazz and can't afford it, the jazz and along with Delta Airlines would be the sponsor for that. So we're hoping that comes through. Wanted to dedicate a little time for the senior citizens. I'm sure this is one that we don't talk about a lot, but we had a 100 a fourteen thirteen individual individuals attend the center.

That was an 18% increase from 24 to 25. The center serves 6,731 mills, an increase there. And we were able to provide transportation to 29 individuals who otherwise would not be able to benefit from these services. There's been some changes within the part time staff here. So we've actually we'll see a savings this next year.

So we were able to bring back to the budget 24,000 and not lowering the the level of service at all. The Sandy Recreation Center, thank you all for being at the beam signing. That was that was a great monument monumental point to get to and to see. You know, it's gonna be we're scheduled to open early twenty twenty seven. So in this budget time frame, we've got six months of planned revenue coming in when we're open from January 27 to June 27.

It's going to take us some time to figure this all out. It's not like the old center. We have a lot more amenities, lot more opportunities to bring in revenue so we can compare what other recreation centers are doing around us. And so and our team has tried to do the best guess that they can to see what the revenues will bring in in that first six months. We've been conservative knowing that hopefully it's better.

Less less events and more revenue would be the goal. But we also have an opportunity with the with the Salt Lake County ZAP. The application is due this Friday, and we're putting in a project for the outdoor pool. So we got this nice brand new building, and we weren't able to really touch up the pool. So this application is a $2,900,000 ask to get the pool refreshed and to match the recreation center.

You know, we're also looking at one of the priorities of the playgrounds there at the rec center that's right in front to make that a priority as well. It's it's outdated and old. We're we're aware we're gonna have this brand new nice looking rec center, and and it might make other things stand out in that area.

So, Oh, I'm sorry, Ben. You're still going through this. I just want to clarify that what we're projecting here for the 2027 tentative budget for financing sources, we are projecting for income from both the current rec center as it's operating, basically for the most part out of the old Parks And Rec Building, and about six months in the new recreation center as well. So what we're seeing on this in terms of recreation fees, instruction fees, membership fees, admission fees, that is all our best guess for both rolled up, the old and the new.

Yeah. So you can see there's quite a bit of subsidy coming from the general fund to help offset us because of those six months that were closed. And we're just not we are programming, but we're just not bringing in and generating the funds we normally would.

Yeah. Okay.

My question is similar to Cindy's. It seems like those are high numbers. Like your instructional membership, admissions, like merchandise, like I don't know. I'm not an expert. Those seem high. Like, you don't think they are?

We feel very comfortable with it. Anytime a new recreation center is built, it will bring in people will come. They'll come in to at least try it out. And then it'll be our job to do a really good job of offering services so they continue to stay, and we don't see a decline. We're going to be doing a lot of advertising and marketing prior to opening, so we'll start bringing in revenue for memberships months before it even opens. Okay. So I yeah. I feel very confident with that.

So you only think 250,000 from the general fund is our best guess for the year.

Well yeah. So you have the 250,000 from the general fund, and then you also have the the district's property taxes and and things like that that offset it. But, yeah, we've been looking at that number, and we feel confident

with that.

Okay and then can I ask you why in that budget the administration charges went up so significantly? Yeah

yeah I can address that one and the prior one if you look at the fund balance and you look at the contribution from the general fund the prior year, we put in a substantial amount then. Then we're drawing down the fund balance. So our balance endings, we're projecting $8.75. So we're projecting to go through all of that $8.75 plus we felt like we needed to add another $2.50 so that's why that kind

of answers your first question

yeah and then the administrative charges went up because of the significant amount of time that the whole city administration, legal, finances spent on this project. It's and we do this study annually. And since it's driven by the number of hours. And so those admin costs fluctuate based on the time they're spending on different things. And since so much time was spent on Alta Canyon project, that's why it's gone up

this year.

So by 2028, it should go back down?

Yeah, we should see a decline. Thank you.

Brian, while you're up there, I have a feeling this question might be for you. I'm looking at in the financing sources, line 3,170,101, interest income. So I'm showing some interest income in 2025, none in 'twenty six, none in 'twenty seven. I am wondering which fund is taking the interest income from the money, the cash that's been set aside for the new recreation center? We've been compiling.

We've been putting together millions of dollars saving for this. Where has the interest income from those millions of dollars been going if not to the Sandy Recreation Center Fund.

It stays in the fund where the reserves are put. As you know most of the reserves for this building have been in the capital projects fund so the you know whatever was $1,011,000,000 dollars that we've been saving that's that's in the capital projects fund Another good portion is in the impact fee capital projects fund. Very little is actually being funded from the rec center, from fund 54,000.

But the money was set aside for that purpose. So if it's in the capital projects fund, and the rec center is in the capital projects fund, why isn't it going to that fund? Is it being dispersed?

It's just like every year, whatever balance we have in the capital projects funds and that includes we're funding road projects, parks projects, other general types of projects in there. We use the interest income on that fund to help fund new projects the following year.

You spread it throughout all the consolidated capital projects. That's what you're saying?

Yes. And that's been our standard practice for as long as I've been here. We never earmark interest for a specific project in the general like, for example, you have an account for the Council Chambers remodel, 355,000. It's earning interest. We don't earmark that interest on 355,000 to stay with the chambers. It builds along with the interest of every project in that fund. And we estimate what it we calculate what it is for that year and

what

we estimate what it will be the next year. And that goes towards our appropriations for the budget.

So is this telling me that in 2025 some of the money from some of the interest from the capital projects fund actually went into the Sandy Recreation Center is that that interest income line item that's showing for 2025?

That's most likely just that's just interest earned on their fund balance so we did contribute 2,000,000 and the prior year 99,000 so some of those general fund it's a combination of interest earned on all of their line items that go into that fund so you know we receive property tax usually November it starts earning interest All of these line items earn interest month to month throughout the year. And that's what that is.

So on our is this, I think, the same thing, right? So on our page 13, our interest income for capital projects. So for that money, had $279,000 that we made in interest income. And then that was just dropped to the total balance of capital projects to be reallocated the next year.

Correct. Yeah, that's the And

see with the general fund, dollars 465,000.

Yes.

The funny thing about that is that recreation in page 13, recreation is the only fund that didn't get interest income deposited to that fund. None. Right? Every other fund has it.

You're looking on which page?

13.

Sandy Recreation Center is the only fund that has

a Of the packet or of the budget document?

$3,600,000 in interest income spread across all funds except Sandy Recreation Center.

Shouldn't we have had a little bit there?

Sometimes in this fund there's actually even interest expense that's incurred. And a lot of the times that's what we've had in previous years. So depending on cash flow when the revenue is coming in and the expenses are going out, we may be in the negative. And so we'll we'll earn interest income, and we'll incur interest expense as the year goes on. And so we just haven't projected any at this point.

That's one that we've been interest income projections or calculations, I should say, were late this year just because of the workday implementation. And so that's that we just haven't any interest that that comes in this fund, it will accrue interest. All the funds accrue interest. We have to accrue interest income on every single fund. So whether we project it or not is a different story. But if there is a fund balance in this fund, it would be accrued in that.

Because there's like an $800,000

balance. And the interesting thing is, too, that could we not have the millions of dollars that have been set aside for years for this project that we're finally spending down, right? Could they not have been held in this fund instead of in the capital projects fund?

If you would have transferred them back then to do it, yeah, they would have been there.

Yeah. And the source of that funding has been from general fund revenues. It's not from Alta Canyon revenues. That's usually what's in the fund, Is the revenues that are generated by the fund through the center, that's what stays in the fund? And any general fund transfers, obviously, that adds to their interest income calculations as well.

Well, there's been at least $5,000,000 that were specifically for this purpose only. It didn't come from the general fund, right? They haven't been in there for long, but at least it seems like it should have been credited with something. That's all I'm getting to is the why is that? It could have been substantial, I guess, had we done it another way.

So we are showing $33,000 of interest income there on that page 13, right?

Well, not on the rec center on this one.

Oh, that's easier.

Yeah.

The the, you know, the issue if we would have transferred it in earlier, then we'd have less money in our capital projects fund to fund roads and parks.

Or the rec center?

Or the rec center. We've transferred quite a bit to the rec center already from the general revenues.

Right. Okay. I'm just curious. I hear what you're saying. But why would they be the only ones without interest income when they had over $800,000 in fund balance from the previous year?

You're talking about projected for next year why it was zero?

Yeah.

Yeah. I think that's just a that's an estimate based on the fact that in years past, we've had interest expense sometimes. This is a guess on what the on what the revenues are gonna look like. There may be interest income in there. And, you know, we can we can project that certainly, but we don't we don't know what the cash flow is gonna be exactly like for the coming year.

I'm just getting it in my head. So you're thinking that we'll spend all $800,000 before it has the chance to have any interest income?

It yeah. It's it's gonna be probably a little amount. So this is a conservative estimate. We just went with zero. But all in all likelihood, the actuals will end up having some. But it's not going to be a lot.

Yeah. It's possible that we could have interest expense, though, since the center won't be open till halfway through the year. And so it would be less than the zero, really.

So think this next slide kind of ties into that a little bit. Just showing the capital for the Sandy Recreation Center. So last year, they responded over $23,000,000 to build the recreation center. And then in this fiscal year coming up in '27, the impact the park impact fees will contribute 478,000 to to see that project through the finish line. And there's the latest picture that we have of where we are in the construction.

Next cost center is the community events found on page sixty one and sixty two. So we are continuing to offer all the events that we we have listed here. Some of the codes or the budget line items have changed. So I've made note of that on my slide, the heritage festival decreasing by 5,000, July 4 8,000, and light up the Karens 5,000. But then there's this this additional new line item that's called event supplies.

And that so that basically, we're taking the money that goes down and moving it over to event supplies and then needing additional money for event supplies that will help all the events just because of the inflation cost, the tariff cost that we're seeing with these the increase in contracts, the emphasis on America two fifty, which actually actually doesn't kick off until July 1 through the entire next year. And then we also have the twenty fifth anniversary of nine eleven with the Heritage Festival. So there's some additional asks there so we can continue to honor these community events that are so great for our neighbors.

Ms. D'Souza. Thank you. I have a

couple of questions about the community events. And so the first one is the event supplies. I guess help me understand what kind of additional supplies would be coming out of that. Because the way that I'm thinking about the way that I would intend the budget when I cast my vote is we've allocated x amount for that event. And so all of the supplies should be within everything that you need for that event should be within that event's budget. And so help me understand why we need an additional like $40,000 in supplies that aren't allocated to an event when there's already been money allocated to each event

yeah and I think it's just a matter of the budget and working that out because, you know, from my staff's perspective too, they would they would be able to see it better that way too. This is how much I have for this event. This is how much I have expense for that event. The way we can think of it this way, event supplies, is it gives us the opportunity to if we have savings overall, we're spending the event supplies on each event and not going to overexpend that amount through all of them. So this year, essentially, the July 4 and Heritage Festival, we expect that to be more with pins and different commemorative things that we'll have for February and the twenty fifth anniversary. So we're it's kind of a a general area that can touch all of them.

Okay. Is this something that you think we're going to have ongoing? Because you know I do recall a conversation about you know wanting to allocate like $50,000 or something towards America Two Fifty and I know that there was some you know maybe some initial concern about that amount of money for that particular event anyway. And so it just seems like, is that what's going to be used for? Is that event? Or what kind of supplies are coming out of it? You said pens for America two fifty?

Yeah, mean table cloths. Anything that you can think of. Any type of thing that we need to go and purchase for that event, the watermelons or the the water. Just the catch all for all the different events. I don't know if that's what we're planning on moving forward. I think we'll take the suggestions and look at how it affected us this year. I don't know if that was out of necessity or it was just the way the budget just fell through. Okay. And yeah. But it makes more sense as as we break it down to say, here's the July 4. What did we spend on that? So we can really evaluate these.

That's kind of where Yes. That's where my mindset is on this. You know, I I know that we've had a lot of conversation about non departmental, and I have been a council member who has kind of railed against some of aspects of non departmental and trying to better budget, better allocate, know what's coming out of it, transparency. And for me, feel like this event supplies when we've already essentially allocated money for the event and everything that's needed kind of seems like an additional fund kind of in a non departmental way that can be like spread throughout all of the events. And it just I'm not sure that I'm loving that idea in full transparency.

I understand that. And I think what Sarah will be doing too is she'll be documenting and keeping track of that money too. So we'll know at the end of the year exactly where that money was allocated.

Is it only going to be allocated for the events that are listed in community events?

That's my understanding. Yeah. Could could work with the parks department events and try to fine tune that and put them into those different projects.

Okay. Well, mean, if

we're At gonna the time we put this together, we hadn't gone through that exercise. And they weren't, I don't think, exactly clear on how it was gonna work out. Transition and staff. We could definitely fine tune that.

Okay. I just think that if we're going to hold events then we should have a line item for the event and we should budget money for the event. And that way everybody's got the same level of understanding including the public about where the money is being spent and how it's being spent. And so if we're going to hold an event and fund an event, then my thought is that it should be listed in this slate of community events and get a budget. And then there's no issues or questions.

I have another question about the July 4. And I know I've kind of casually asked Brian about this. And so July 4, the council has some level of participation in the fourth of July festivities and parade along with the administration. Right? And it's been practiced, and I don't know where this comes from, but I guess the question is it's been practiced that the council has our own little set of budget allocated for our participation in that.

And it's very small, and it kind of gets split between a couple of different things and some of it like our discretionary funds that help us attend you know the conferences and whatnot it comes out of that money and so my question has been why why is why isn't the council accessing the fund, the money set aside for the July 4 for our expenses and participation? Because I believe the administration or when the mayor participates that it's coming out of that line item, is that accurate? And is there an issue with us utilizing that that I don't know about? And maybe give an explanation as to why we're doing it the way that we do it?

That would be new understanding to me. So I would have to do some research on that. But if anyone else wants to

New understanding as far as like that's how we're doing it, or that we can't utilize that fund where we can? That line item. Well,

from my perspective, it's just a matter of coordination, is what I had mentioned. And I don't I don't really recall when there was money set aside in council budget for fourth of July but we could put it all in one place and have it be managed by one person and they just coordinate with you as a council what needs you have and it be managed by Sarah and community events and she just coordinates with you it could be all in one place.

Okay so we could do it that way if that was how we chose to. Okay Thank you.

Ms. Nicholl.

Thank you. I would like America two fifty broken out because this is I don't want the ask to be ongoing because it's a one time expense. So I'd like to know the estimated amount you plan on spending on that. And I think a lot like Councilmember D'Souza in that we've given you the amount of money that you've put in the budget for the historic barbecue. That's my mind. That's saying, please stay within that budget. Not you have a little here, you can spend on it. So that's my perspective of it too.

Okay, perfect. Yeah, we do have Sarah is prepared to do a whole presentation on America February. We're just trying to figure out when we can fit that in with budgets.

Miss Christensen, go ahead.

Okay. So next year, we're not planning on doing the life of the parent's spend. That's off the table.

Life of the parents?

Yeah.

No. We we are planning on that. The funds that we had previously in that last year would be 5,000. And so that $5,000 got removed, but that is in the events supplies. So we are planning to move forward with that event. It will just come out of the event supplies. So

still planning on spending $5,000 on that?

Yeah. That's kind of the rough estimate there.

And then on the heritage festival, are we spending less, or is the 5,000 in event supplies?

It's in event supply. So we're not spending less. We're spending the same, but it will just come out of a different line item.

And then in the July 4, there's, like, $23,000. Is that part of event supplies too?

Yeah. It all got removed and put into there and then additionally asked. And I think, like Brian said, I I think we can work with Brian and his team and clean that up.

So when I'm thinking about this, just so we're only gonna spend $6,000 on American two 50.

Oh, what's left over?

Yes.

That's the Sound right?

Don't know. I would have

to I see

where It was got a $50,000 ask, where is the $50,000 that we

I'm not sure where it's coming from and why we would spend less on. I mean, know that you moved it into that fund.

Yeah, I don't think it was.

When you say the 50,000 ask, are you referring to some of the preliminary meetings we had? Uh-huh. Yeah, we did away with that. Okay.

That what you understood, Dubroek?

There was DeSousa? I'm going to leave it at that for now. Okay.

All right.

Thank you. Yeah.

So I did the rough math, just what I've got on the screen here. So you've got about 20,000 covered in minuses, and then you put it over there. So there's about 20,000 in ask. So that's not all just $2.50. That's tariffs. That's inflation. That's contracts that have gone up. That's planning for the twenty fifth anniversary of nine eleven.

Is the hot air balloon in that?

No, there's nothing been budgeted for a hot air balloon.

That was brought up in a meeting, too. So that was cut out.

Yeah, that was an idea. But that was never put in the tentative budget.

Okay, thank you.

So are these supplies in events, are they things that you use over and over again? Like you buy them once and you use them for all day?

Essentially, could. Right? You could buy something and, oh, I'm gonna use half of it for this one. And, oh, we have extras. We can use some of that stuff. But most of it is bought. Disposable.

Right? Yeah.

Yeah. Most of it's event specific. Yes. So I think it would be easy to go back to the

So I guess I have similar questions about that.

We'll work with Brian on that and see if we can come up with something.

Do you know why so on this slide, Sandy Healing Field is listed. But it's actually in non departmental. And its charges are in non departmental. Do you know why that's the case?

I don't.

Where are you referring to?

The Sandy Healing Field. It's listed on this slide, but it's not, the expense is not here. And it's in non departmental.

I took this list of what Sarah's working on in our department.

Yeah,

we'll have to get back to

you with

you on that one.

Okay. And then also, where's the Hells Center Theater Cultural Celebration?

I

think that used to be a non departmental, and I can't remember if we removed that. We'll check on that and get back to you. Great

questions. As I get more experience, I'm to be able to answer all of them. But appreciate Brian and helping. Thank you. So I wanted to conclude with some positive some really good stuff.

So the River Oaks Golf Course, it's currently standing at 125% of its total annual revenue goal. It's just it's just killing it. Just had an amazing winter because of the lack of weather, and spring has been great. And with that additional revenue that they're bringing in, because it's an enterprise fund, they've been able to do a a ton of capital projects this past year. And we're continuing to look at projects for next year that will again come out of the enterprise fund, so not out of the general fund, but the that they'll be funding themselves. But additional bridge deck replacement, clubhouse deco replacement, outdoor lights, and just a bunch of other things that will make the golf course continue to be thriving.

Ms. Christensen. Do you are you concerned at all? I know lots of capital projects. That's amazing. Are you concerned that the fund balance is going to be so much lower than it has been the last couple years going forward in case there it's like we have wishful thinking snow for seven months.

Right. You gotta look for the drought. No. Because I think this is with golf courses, it's been a steady increase in the revenue projection throughout all the sport in general. And I think you gotta take advantage of those years that you're you're doing well, get the course up. And then when you go into that drought, you just just hunker down, and you do what you have to do to get through those years.

Council any more questions for Ben? Did you want to add something?

Yeah if I could. I believe we took out the cultural event last year so that's why we'll confirm that for you

okay

and then the healing fields 10,000 I believe is to purchase supplies like replacement flags because we're doing that in house we have trailers of flags and we use volunteers to set them up and we have two trailers full of flags and that's to be able to replace those as needed.

And I'm not arguing the expense I'm just wondering why it's not in the events categories.

Yeah maybe that's one we would it would fit to move over there and we did that in some cases maybe we just overlooked that one we could potentially move that over to events. Think that would probably be a good idea.

All right Ben thank you that's it. All right administration is up next. While Martin's getting down here you can ask your question.

Ben, do you have any grant writers? Do you do grants like the police and fire do? Grants? Do you do any grant writing in your department?

Yes, they do.

Who does that?

Sorry. Well, this past couple weeks, that's been me.

Okay.

So there's not, like, an assigned person? It's

just No. And and and Todd are and we we just all come together and and work on those. But this app application, you know, which is a critical application for us to go for, yeah, just inside us doing it. And I've got a lot of experience doing that. So we're hoping that we'll be successful, but there's limited funds available, and that's always the hard part.

Thanks, Ben. Just to add on to that, within Parks and Recreation, last year was one of the most successful years. As a reminder, TRAC is a grant program. And the administration worked closely with Parks and Recreation Administration and brought in $3,000,000 for for our city and for that project. So and before I I start with this, just wanna echo as a as a reminder at the steel topping out of the recreation center, the mayor made this comment.

But I hope it's not lost on the council as well. You all deserve a ton of credit for that building, the mayor and the council together. It's so unique to build such a big building without going into debt and incurring debt for a city. There hasn't been a recreation center built in the county in the past thirty years without debt. So kudos. Alright. The administration budget. It is good to be with you and be back in person. The fiscal year 2027, you know, the the budget is tight for everyone. The mayor and administration's budget are not exempt from this as well.

So tonight I'll be going through those and then the the communications budget. As a result of the tight budget, the operating budgets of both the mayor and the CEO budgets are proposed without any line item increase. The only increases in there are for mandated overhead charges such as IT and administrative costs that come in and adjustments from from human resources HR. There is one technical adjustment that you may see and that you may have noticed. As it reads right now, when Barb Smith left Sandy, we looked at reducing the overhead communications by reclassifying her communications director position to a communications specialist position for a salary savings of approximately $50,000 This would then have Susan Wood service the PIO for the administration and the comms director.

In an effort of transparency, we're proposing to shift half of the PIO salary from the mayor's budget to comms. So you'll see a technical adjustment of a $115,000 in both budgets, dollars 115,000 in, dollars 115,000 out. It's just budget neutral. So those are neutral and offsetting each other. At the time the tentative budget was submitted, we weren't aware of Councilwoman Hausman's proposal for the communication division amendments that was discussed last week.

Had we been a part of that discussion a little bit earlier on, our comps proposal might look a little bit different. But as the discussion with Councilwoman Hausman policies concludes, we may make a proposal to change the comps budget as currently proposed. But in summary right now, the mayor and CIO budget and the comms budget, there are no proposed line item increases for fiscal year twenty seven. So

on page 18 of the presentation so the reduction of 115 in the mayor's budget is no more. So there were no reductions is that what you're saying?

It's a transfer so it was transferred into the communications budget.

So there are no reductions?

No. Any

questions?

Where is the miscellaneous stuff? The council has miscellaneous line item budgets for our things we spend money on. Where is that?

So there are some office supplies, various meeting supplies within the mayor and CAO budget. They're in the line items there, and we're not proposing any increases to those, in both the mayor and the CAO budget.

I

don't know. Like our discretionary funds, you've got to have discretionary funds, right, for the mayor? I mean, somewhat you've got to have some somewhere.

Yeah. I mean, there are some line items in the budget there. And once again, it's we're just it's the same budget that was proposed for

So meetings is the discretionary fund? And miscellaneous supplies?

Miscellaneous supplies.

Which is fine. I just I didn't know where that was accounted for.

Yeah. It's literally comes out of there. And sometimes the CAO budget will pay for something, sometimes the mayor's budget. We try and track that and code it. Sometimes you'll see a lot of our ledgers it's split fiftyfifty just depending upon what the topic of the meeting is or what what the need is.

Is that it, Martin?

That's all I have.

Any questions for Martin? Any more questions? Looks like not.

We're available if you have others later. Thank you.

Oh, boy. City attorney.

So where does travel come out of then? Sorry. Apparently, I'm missing everything tonight. Sorry, guys. Oh, there

it is. Yeah. There's a line item in both budgets for travel, for memberships, for

Got it.

You know, that type of thing. Yeah. And before we go to the attorneys, Merle was also going to present.

Oh, I'm sorry. You are absolutely right. The best part. How was I going to skip the best part?

I think you're mentioning it first.

It's all yours. Thank you.

And also, just by way of scheduling, it so happened that I was here last. It was February, and it was my birthday. And there were no donuts. And today is my anniversary. And let the record show there's still no donuts.

Happy anniversary.

I know. 29. Who'd have thought? You'd think she'd have over, awakened by now to the silliness of being married to me. Hi. This is a presentation for the Sandy Arts Guild and the Sandy Amphitheater. They're split into two. I think some of the questions you had earlier may also be happening here in that some of the things that we have, I'll get to it with the expenses, but there's a lot of line items that have just been moved around. You'll see like $8,000 came out of here, but it went into there. Or it, we there's a lot of that shuffling that's happening.

And really, lot of that is to align better with workday spend categories. Now, we still have projects. So even though it might be like, well, those are really professional services, like you're hiring in people to do something, that's still for that show. So that show will have a project, but the money now is being allocated from different line items and then still carried under a project. So, for example, we used to just have a line item that was called plays and musicals, and it had, you know, a $107,000 or something like that in it.

But now we're trying to say, well, but when we buy these things, that's actually a professional service. So we've now moved the budget money to professional service. And then when we code it, it gets coded under the project code for that play. When we rent material to do something as opposed to putting that just in plays and musicals, which tends to not have as much meaning, instead it goes under equipment rental because that's how we're spending the money. So you'll see in our a lot of them, most of the changes that we put in on the forums and that you might see going up and down on the line items as they come across is really just a rearranging of money to get it into the categories that more closely align with the workday spend categories.

So I think that's part of the goal that we've been trying to work towards. And so that we can budget by project, but that the money is in the place that actually represents what the purchase was for. Does that make sense? So I I can't speak for Parks and Rec, but in our in our budget, you will see that that's happened quite a bit. Most of the in and out money that you'll see happening is about us taking it from one line item that was just generic and putting it into more specific categories about how the money is actually being spent.

And then we keep track of the cost of that project by everything has a project code. So that's an additional tag or level of program that we put on it so that you still can sum up how much did it cost to do that summer musical. You can still put that together. But now the monies are spent out of the categories that more closely represent what the purchase was for. Does that make sense? So there's a lot of that that you'll see that's happened in ours. In fact, that's why under the expenses, this is really most of the money that's been moved around is all just to align better with the workday spend categories.

Is Ms. Christensen? Is that what happened with professional services?

Yes. Okay. That's why you suddenly say, Wow, look at that increase. Well, yeah, but look at the giant decrease in plays and musicals. In the form that we put in, it actually tracks. Here's $70,000 came out of here, it moved here. So you'll see that they match each other in the level of increase and decrease. Some of them are a little trickier. Like you may have pulled out $40,000 and 5,000 went here and 30 went there and another 5 went somewhere. But, it's trackable to find where all of that money went.

As far as the revenue increases, we've got a little more in grant funds, which is great. Elise George has been doing a very good job and working very hard. Part of the problem is there are several of our funding sources like ZAP and the Utah Department of Arts and Museums that are being pretty hit by what's happening in the economy. Like, they generate their revenue from sales tax and those things. So when people are going like, hey.

We just can't buy as much or sales tax goes down, that affects how much money they have to give us. Also, the legislature has been taking money from the Utah Department of Arts and Museums. So we know that coming up in future years that there's gonna be reductions there. But so far we've been able to increase what we've been getting from them and an increase in ticket sales. And then there also is some decrease there. Some is in some participation fees. There's a program that we're still trying to work out that we aren't doing anymore. And as a result, that's a decrease in the fees. But also, you'll see a pretty substantial decrease in the general fund transfer. Honestly, what that's about, we hope, is that as we're doing better, we're hopefully needing less support from you.

Last year was a 9% reduction. This year it's like a 15 reduction. So over the course of two years, 24%, that's not bad, right, in terms of what's coming out of that. We do show that we're going to have to spend into our savings a bit, But we planned on spending into our savings this fiscal year, and we might get out of it without having to do that. But it's better to have the safety net than to come back to you sometime in, I don't know, December or January saying, can we please open the budget? So we're trying to be very responsible with our funds. Is there anything specific about the Arts Guild I can answer before I go on to the next slide?

I think I have a question or two.

Yes.

Well, the first one was about the transfer in from the general fund. So that was to fill a shortfall, a revenue shortfall.

Yeah. And I think it's because as we do better, you have to support us less. That's what we hope is happening, is that we are just needing less money and subsidies.

I'm surprised that we have some expenses when Postfontein is basically putting on the bulk of the concerts, right?

So facility

rental. This is an expense. Are we renting the facility from?

No, if it's in the Arts Guild, when we're renting a facility, it's actually when we pay for the custodians at Mount Jordan Middle School, yeah. Because we do not own a facility there, right? So when we the, when we present the shows at the school, then we have to pay for their custodians and the like to be there. That's actually an expense to us to use that school. Okay.

All

right. It's greatly reduced, of course, because of our intergovernmental relationship that we have. But we do have to pay for some of that.

Okay. You're right. That explains it. You're right. I was blending the two on skill and amphitheater. So the same would be true of royalties. Same kind of thing.

So yeah, royalties are when you put on a show, you actually have to pay for the rights to do that show. And royalties are very tricky because we're planning 2027. But the only way you can get the right to do the show is you have to commit to pay the royalties in advance. So right now, we've got every show that's coming up for 2027. We've had to encumber that amount in our royalties line item. Now we don't actually pay it till it's done, but we do have to encumber it. So sometimes you'll see that royalties line item look like, wow, you got a lot of money going out there. Well, actually not until the show is done. Most of it's just encumbered.

Also in the Sandy Arts Guild, is an expense called grants for $48,000 Is the Arts Guild paying out grants?

We are paying out the grant money that the city is providing. There are two organizations, Mountain West Ballet and America West Symphony Chorus. The city provides that funding. It just lives in our line item, and we dispense it. There was talk a while about getting all the grants kind of in the same place. I don't know if that's still a goal to do that. But right now, those two organizations are funded out of our line item. But we can't use our money or our grant money because we can't re grant money for that. So instead, that's money that comes from the general fund that then we pay to those two organizations.

Any art skilled questions, guys? Okay. Let's move on.

Great. Thank you. Okay. For the amphitheater, under revenue, you will see some increases. Ticket sales, we sold out every show we produced last year as an organization. We hope to repeat that this year. Although we're finding we're not the only ones that because of what's happening with prices and how expensive everything is, that people just have less disposable income. So ticket sales are softer, than they have been in previous years. We'll see how that goes as we move forward. But, increased merchandise sales, increased concession sales, and all of those things.

So you'll see that we have planned for some increases in revenue there. There is a decrease in cell tower revenue. We used to receive the cell tower revenue and then put it specifically into a fund for the one cell tower that's on our property on the amphitheater site and then put it into a fund for improvements. But the city is taking all of that in now. So you'll see that there's been a decrease in the cell tower revenue in our capital budget.

As far as expenses, increases for capital outlay, we have tried to put in a specific request for that. But again, we're an enterprise fund, we're not asking you for the money, but we're putting it in there. Decrease in credit card fees. It's interesting we had a line item to pay for credit card fees, but that's all part of the ticketing. And so that's just a matter of over time we just didn't catch that. And then, again, this is moving money around within the budget for more accurate accounting. Most of the changes that you'll see there will just be getting stuff in the right place.

Is that the case with the ticket surcharges?

Yes. So what ended up happening is sometimes right now, the money comes into the accounting office and goes to one of the accountants to deposit. And sometimes they understand what's happening, and sometimes they don't. So sometimes we have to just spend some time going, hey, let's clarify where that gets deposited. So for a while, that was just getting put in the wrong place. So we had to pull it out of where it was getting put and then create the space where it actually needs to go, because that's things we need to count for in grant writing and things like that. So we need to make sure that it's on its own and in the right place.

One: Why

was the cell tower revenue taken away?

I think it's a citywide policy where they're gathering the money for the city.

Brian, can you answer that?

It's just part of balancing the budget. We moved it into the general fund for a revenue source.

Approximately how much was it?

About $58,000

Okay, thanks.

So when we were getting it, it was kept to be used on improvement projects. So one of the things they talked about is like, then if we need to come to the city and say, hey, we've a big project, then now they've got that money set aside.

Was it cut at a specific percent? Or how much was it?

Just the leases, the cell tower leases on that tower.

So it

was the entire lease amount.

That you've taken away from?

When it comes into the general capital projects fund now.

It didn't go to operating funds for us. It went into the capital fund.

General fund.

It goes into the

general fund.

It comes into the general fund.

Are we not going to have any gas payments at the amphitheater?

Well, since we don't have any gas at the amphitheater, my guess is we will not have any. If somebody's billing us, That we're getting

was just an adjustment.

Yes. That was one of those, like, why is there money in the gas? Right. Right.

And then the credit card processing, that's because of Councilwoman D'Souces that we don't have any

there now?

Actually, that's because when you buy a ticket at the amphitheater, it's part of the fee that you pay for the ticket. So it goes to the ticket

concessions or things like that?

Yep. And then the concessionaire covers those fees because that isn't us. Right? So just at the amphitheater now the Arts Guild, we have credit card fees, yeah. But at the amphitheater, because of the way it's structured, we don't pay credit card fees on those purchases. And Is that then

on your capital outlays, that's obviously significantly reduced.

Yes, because every year we have different ideas of what projects we're trying to do, right? So that's why that varies.

Is that like the last couple of years were huge.

Yeah, because we did that giant project with the plaza levels on the East Hill Side and we had some very large projects.

Okay.

These are smaller projects we're going try to do now. We need to try to do some trench drains to help with some water flow. We're trying to expand the merchandise sales area Right now, I mean, you guys are fine probably. The women have twice as many stalls in the bathroom as cement do. We're trying to see if we can expand that a little bit. So there's some projects like that we're trying to get done. Also some internal in the building to help it just function better. But we do have some very large ideas down the road. But that's one of those that we'll just have to approach that as we can. That would be having to go back to TRCC money and things like that.

Thank you. I have a question. This does kind of go back to

the Arts Guild. I think, Brian, maybe you could be helpful in answering this. Because thank you, Councilmember Christensen, for bringing up the credit card processing fees. So I'm trying to track that and watch that because we did make some changes to the credit card processing fees to try to pass on those fees to those paying by credit card because there's usually other ways to pay for things. Is that true with the Arts Guild? Are they or are we having them pay?

Most of our credit card fees are for small purchases like in concessions where they're spending $3 or $4 on candy. So there's credit card fees that come from that. There are some others where, for example, if you're renting a set from us or things like that, you can also pay with credit card. We don't have specific plan in place right now for somebody else to pay that. We are trying to work to do more things with PayPal and Venmo and some of the things because as a five zero one(three) we can get greatly reduced rates.

Like the cost of using PayPal or Venmo is like 1.99% as opposed to 3.3% or whatever you're paying on the credit card. So we're working actually with Glade right now to try to get some of that stuff set up Because we think that'll be much more efficient and easier for people to do. So the fees are not exorbitant, but there are some credit card fees.

Okay. I guess that makes sense. So thank you for explaining that regard to yours. And yes, any opportunity that we can to reduce those because they're just empty money, that would be

great. Right. Any other questions?

Any more questions for Merle?

And then, oh, how did that slide get in there? Oh, hey, we won. Thank you, Brian, for putting that in. Just happy to let you know. Best to say it again. Three awards this year, 13 and counting. It's like we kinda know what we're doing or something. I don't know. Anyway, hey, thank you very much. Honestly, the support we receive is huge, and we're so grateful. Other cities don't do as much, and we're grateful. We hope that we're giving back and we're providing some really remarkable return on your investment. Thank you so much.

I just want to take the opportunity once more before you go to put in a plug, if it hasn't already been slated, for striping re striping those stairs.

Oh, they have to be done.

They have? Okay.

They're done. Thank you, facilities. They're done. Thank you.

Can I just clarify something on non departmental before you move on?

Absolutely.

Okay. So the question on the health center cultural series so we did have it looks like we just had a little glitch on our line items but that is still in the budget for 34,000 and it's just been labeled incorrectly so it's we'll fix this we'll have a slide next week fixing the issues but it's on the utility box art label and then the utility box art is 20,000 and that got rolled up into the general government so that's general government will only be the 2,500 utility box art will be 25,000 and then the health center cultural series will be 34,000 so and we'll correct that for the public hearing next week

so can I just ask though utility box art why doesn't it have its own line item

it will that was just with the merger of our systems it got copied over so it's just a technical change we'll have it fixed?

Okay thank you.

All right now city attorney.

Good evening, council members. Welcome to the main event of the evening. I was told I have forty five minutes. I think if I speak really, really slowly, I might be able to take four or five minutes. Can I go forward on this? Yeah, we have an abundance of slides. So read this one carefully because there's only really two. We have three divisions within the legal department. We have the city attorney or the legal civil and prosecutors. Then we have the city recorder and the risk management group.

In our slide here, I wanna start first with a photo, not just because I'm front and center, but because it highlights that what we our greatest asset is our people. And we cannot replace them for what we're paying them. So request number one, which isn't listed here, is to please fund the compensation plan because I I cannot duplicate the staff that we've we've got. So that's my first and most urgent request. Second change, these are obviously, the compensation plan goes through all categories.

As far as the legal department, there's only one change there, and that's a request, a reclassification from an administrative assistant position in the prosecutor's office to a paralegal position. And I think that in total dollar figure, that is something in the range of $7,000 That is a critical need and our only request in terms of additional funding because the workload demands that work, but we can't and and we have an employee who has the training but cannot be promoted because we don't have the budget. So we'd just like to make that possible to facilitate that change. So any more questions about the legal department? I'm trying to go slow here so we can make it look like there's more going on than there is.

But if not, the next one is city city recorder. Wendy Downs is on she's out of town at a conference, which she's available online. If you have any questions about the no changes on the line on the slide there. That's really not true. We had a lot of election expenses last year, but those were onetime expenses. So there's no no changes to the ongoing expenses. And then in the risk management budget, there are a number of of specific line item changes. Megan Sundquist is here in the room, and she would be disappointed if I didn't invite her to come up

and speak.

So I'm going invite Megan up here to explain what these line items are, and then we'll field any further questions

after that.

Good evening, counsel. Thank you for having me. Like Lynn said, we have a couple of changes. The majority of all of our changes are always driven by claims. As you're well aware, the city is self insured. So changes in that. So the first line item is general liability auto insurance. So we're asking for an increase for $3,037,000. This is inflation driven. We usually have inflation with our insurance premiums. It also includes new vehicles. So this is our auto and our general liability. So we're self insured for the first million dollars, but then we have excess insurance policies over that. We also have cyber insurance. We've got drones.

We have auto liability. We have a we have multiple insurance policies, so that's an increase there. The second one is a savings of three or a decrease in $3,690 for our claim payments. Every year, we have an actuarial study with finance, and we go over all of our liability claims. So that's as a result of that.

Property insurance, where we are no longer paying with Health Center Theater anymore, so we actually have a savings of about $68,000 for our property insurance. We are having an increase in our workers' compensation insurance. I'm sure that you're aware that the House Bill 65 was passed for our firefighters' cancer amendments. Our firefighter line item just for our payroll for our for our our our line item for our payroll our line item for our firefighters went up 62.9% from what they're charging on that. So that's part of why you're seeing an increase in workers' comp.

And then the final one is we no longer have to pay for a treasurer's fidelity bond. There was a bill that was passed that was saying that they're removing the statutory requirements for certain public officers to have that surety bond, and instead they're moving it into a crime insurance, which we already have. So the savings there is just moving it to an existing crime policy. I think that's it. Does anybody have any questions for the risk management budget?

Any questions, counsel? Thank you. Thank you, Megan.

Any questions about the rest of the day?

Come on, somebody ask Lynn a tough question. He can't get up there and be sarcastic and not have to take some of his stuff. Any questions from staff over here? Anyone?

You. Ms. D'Souza. Remind me, is the real estate position out of the attorney's office?

It is funded within the attorney's office. But other than the compensation plan for all employees, there's no change there. I will say well, anyway, that program, which you funded last year, has been a huge success. And I hope you feel that way. We feel like that's been really, really helpful to have someone with the expertise, the skill level to help us navigate these real property issues. But that's already built into the current budget.

Okay. I just want to make sure it is coming out of the it's

Yes, that's within the legal department.

Correct. Thank you.

Any other questions?

No more questions. Thank you.

Thank you all.

Alright. Justice Court, judge Barr.

Good evening. Thank you, counsel. First of all, Sammy, the court administrator, she is out of town and sends her regrets that she cannot be here. So I've asked Amanda Carlton to appear with me. She is our in court manager, sitting in charge of all of the staff that works in court with me.

And we will also be, I think, fairly short and succinct. First of all, these are the three things I wanted to mention today. I'm just gonna go first to the straight slide with position reclassification. No budget impact. This is just, titles, and it is in order to align the positions that we have with those utilized at the state court. And, also, other justice courts are starting to transition. So instead of court clerks, they're referred to as judicial assistants. A lot of that has been over the last ten years. There's been a real change in the way courts operate. It's a lot more quality control and assisting the public.

A lot of that is due to the digital changes. We've got online court, digital forms, things like that. And so, again, it's we've kind of switched away from court clerks and going to judicial assistance. So we're just asking for reclassification. As you can see there, in court supervisor to in court manager, case management supervisor to case manager, and then justice court clerk one, two, and three to judicial assistant one, two, and three.

This is our large budget increase request, $2,000, which is for training purposes. Both the judicial assistants and I, as a judge, have a lot of mandatory training that we are required to take. It's mandated by the judicial council. There are increases in cost for that. There are occasional extra trainings as well that fit into that, but a lot of that is just increased costs for the, required trainings that are required for staff and myself.

Our budget reductions, also huge amounts we're discussing here. We have identified these areas where we can save. And, again, a lot of this is just we're in this slow transition, again, probably a ten year period where, you know, it used to be I had stacks of papers when I went into court. Now it's all, you know, on the computer. We've slowly transitioned where filings with the court used to be all paper.

We still get some paper, but every year, it seems like it's more and more digital. And so these costs just gradually dwindle, again, for postage, office supplies, and then the credit card processing fees as well. So proposing a 8,000 reduction there, which was our $2,000 request. We're proposing a $6,000 reduction to the budget. As you're all aware, when we talked last year, the huge portion of our budget is personnel. The rest of it is all fairly small. And this is a picture of our staff. We've won an award this year for the outstanding justice court. This was presented by the board of justice court judges, and it was actually specific staff oriented. It was presented to them at the annual

they still call it a

clerk's conference even though we're changing it judicial assistance conference. So that plaque is hanging outside of Sammy's office now. That's I came to present in our request. Otherwise, again, the budget remains the same as as last year.

Miss Christensen?

So we have a lot of credit card processing fees in there. Like, why aren't we passing those ones through like we were with the other ones? You know?

And and I don't Sammy could answer this better than I am. Amanda may be able to as well the city. No. Thanks. No. No. I can tell you that we have started so there there's different ways that people can make payments. They can pay online, and

there

is a convenience fee that gets charged with that. They can also come to the window and pay the credit card fee, and that is being passed on. Administration has additional information there.

Yeah. We are doing the same program there. We're just as you can see in '25, it's '18. The '20 the budget in '26 is '20 5. That's just the budget. We're dropping it by 4,000. So that might be high but it has declined from when we started this program.

So maybe we just need to increase the fees?

You can only charge a certain amount it's maxed it's governed by the regulatory credit card processing contracts. You can't charge more than the lowest merchant fee by any credit card.

And is that the way

We doing as much as we can right now.

Okay.

And also, we do get a lot of payments by credit cards. Not only is it just somebody paying their speeding ticket potentially, but also those with criminal cases that might have larger fines, they're making monthly payments. And they're making a monthly payment by credit card. So we get a lot you know, small payments by credit card.

And then do you have a lot of court collections? Like, that's I'm assuming that's, like, outstanding money owed to the court.

So we have collections where we are still collecting. We keep that. If it becomes a point where we are not collecting them, usually ninety days or so, we send those to the office of state debt collection, and they actually collect those. And there's a line item there, like a 100 something thousand dollars.

Yeah. I think

it's, like, $60,000 as the you're estimated to bring in this year and then 60,000 next year. Okay.

That's correct. Yeah. The so there are priorities. When there is an outstanding debt on a a criminal account receivable, for example, we can issue a warrant. That warrant is actually the state will garnish somebody's tax return. And there are different priorities at the state level, and office of state debt collection actually has a higher priority than the court does. What we found is if we send those debts to the office of debt collection, first of all, they're more efficient at it because that's all their office does. And then if we do get to a point where we are garnishing tax returns or things along, they they have first priority higher place than we do.

What's the rate of return?

Not not good. Okay. I I

I didn't figure it would be.

I don't know the exact amount. It's something I could research and find an answer, but it I mean, it's we have been doing better since using office of state debt collection than on our own, but it's still I mean, a lot of these individuals, these are people that have criminal accounts receivable, haven't made some of the best decisions, and there's just not, you know, income in some of the cases.

Okay. Thanks.

Thank you.

I have a question. Thank you. Credit card processing fees again, I think it's just a clarification question for me, Brian. It's going be you, I'm pretty sure. So the payment processing fees and the financing sources revenue of 18,000 is that collected from like credit card payments so payment processing fees what is that exactly?

Yeah that's where it depends on the department and the point of sale system they have in some cases we get the revenue and then we also have the expense and they offset each other some point of sale systems we have they already net those two together before so we don't see both of them we don't see the payment.

Okay so but in this circumstance or

Yeah in this circumstance we are collecting

about 18 and so and we're expecting to expense about 21,000 so that's a couple thousand $3,000 difference right? Okay and so just for clarification to for every all the council members looking at this the way that I understand it is there is revenue that we receive because we have to we charge it we collect it but there's still always an expense. And so that expense doesn't necessarily go down but the revenue can go up to offset the expense. Is that more accurate that and more people are choosing to make payments in a different way to eliminate the fee right

correct thank you

I just couldn't help but notice kind of in your department's budget for financing sources the line item that is court fines. That is your main income. I'm looking at the trend lines over the last couple of years and just trying to surmise means, what is happening. So in 2025, your actual court fine revenue was $1,070,000 And we had projected $1,100,000 in 2026 but it's looking like it's going to fall well short by something close to $200,000 and then we've adjusted down for 2027. It what it does it does that tell me anything?

It it's case filings. The the majority of our cases are traffic as far as volume. The major majority of our time is spent dealing with criminal cases, and the majority of the revenue also comes from the traffic cases. So as traffic cases and and enforcement goes down, we have fewer cases. There's fewer fines being imposed, and that's where that comes from.

And every year, we try to guess. And and I I talked to you all about this last year, kind of a general trend over the last fifteen years or so. It's really hard to guess where that or or do we reach a point where we bottom out and we stay the same? And at least this year, we are continuing to decrease. Rough numbers, you know, when I started fourteen years ago, there the court had around 25,000 case filings. We're probably gonna be around 9,000 this year. And there's a lot of different reasons societal wise and different reasons for that. But the income will specifically track with the case filings.

So you really have no control. It's just what cases are coming your way. Right?

That is correct.

Okay.

Ms.

Stroud. So the amount of traffic cases coming through your court, that has actually gone down, not

Yeah. Any

other

And and in fact, I've I have not looked at the specific numbers, but if we pulled up specific case types, and I'm I'm assuming that the criminal cases are probably about the same, maybe even slightly up. I think our small claims cases were actually up a little bit, but the traffic cases are significantly down. And and that is not I I brought this up last year. It's not necessarily unique to Sandy as well.

If you look at

statewide courts, other than a couple of areas that are really growing, you know, like in Eagle Mountain, things like that, numbers have decreased significantly over the time period.

I have one question, Judge Farr. Is there any way to capture new business? I mean, you don't want it's Good. Double and sword business. But you

know I was going say, I would prefer to what I would love to say is the numbers are down because we're doing such an effective job. The people aren't violating the law. Right. But, I mean, it it really is something that's completely out of our control. Mhmm. That we handle the cases, get filed with us.

K. Thanks.

Thank you.

And and that's all I have unless there's other questions.

Any more questions, counsel? Doesn't look like it. Thank you both. Thank you. Counsel office.

Counsel, thank you. Let me get to the right slide here. Well, I'll go through this quickly. Just interrupt me if you have any questions. But the first thing I just wanted to mention and I'm sure you all noticed this when you look through the tentative budget booklet. But you'll notice that this year, the two subsections of our department have been combined together. So in past years, had two different departments, thirteen hundred and thirteen ten, that were the city council, the city council office. Those have been combined together this year. In my perspective, I think it makes a lot of sense. It's easier for us to track everything rather than looking at two different kind of subsections.

So that's the first thing I wanted to mention to you. The next thing that I'll mention is and this is probably one of the larger changes. We started doing this last year. We've decided that we would like to take the management studies operational line item and make it a capital project. There's a few reasons for that.

The biggest reason is that we can save up over time and that money can carry over year to year rather than us having to take the funding for the management studies in the carryover process and then reappropriate it somewhere else. And so it's easier for us to save up and to actually have the money available for management studies if we make it a capital project. And so we're calling it a reduction here, but really it's a transfer. So we had $25,000 in that line item Last year we're reducing that and instead moving it over to the capital project line item, which we began saving up in last year as well. In the tentative budget, there is $50,000 being placed in that line item, which is the amount that your policy calls for.

Why the 24,005 decrease instead of the full 25,000? And that's because we would like to keep 500 of it in the special programs line item. This goes to council member de Souza's point about the fourth of July parade. I don't know when that started being paid for out of the council office budget. I think it's always been the case.

But we created this particular line item only a couple of years ago to help subsidize where it would help subsidize your discretionary accounts so that it wasn't all coming from there. I don't have a problem if it's acceptable to pay for it out of the community events line item. I don't approve that budget. And so we can send the request over. There's somebody else who will approve it.

So I can talk with Brian about that later on. But what we've proposed is just a small increase. And honestly, the $2,500 that will be in there really covers the candy for the parade. It's approximately about a little over $500 per council member for golf carts, candy, decorations to participate in the parade. And that line item covers a different amount of that depending on how many council members are going to participate in the parade.

If there's only three who are participating, the $2,500 goes further for each one. If all seven are going to participate, then obviously it goes a little bit not quite as far. Hopefully that helps to answer that question though. So a few increases. One of the increases that we requested of the budget committee and requesting of the council is a increase to our meetings line item.

Meetings line item is how we pay for council meetings. And then also, it's where the council discretionary funds are located. And so you guys use that money mostly to pay for training. We've gotten to the point where it doesn't seem to cover what you all need to be able to do. I mean, even just looking at traveling to the ULCT conference down in St. George, it's not even enough to cover that, generally speaking. It's the same amount that was initially implemented, I think, back in 2018. And so we're about eight years later now. So we put in about a $500 increase per. I still don't know that that's going to really cover what you guys would like to do.

But we did make that request and the budget committee did include it within the tentative budget. And then we had a $2,500 increase to our meetings line item. So that puts us at about $450 per council meeting, which is kind of where we're okay to be there right now but it's something to think about in the future as well the next increase so we would like to move the contingency line item back up to its historical amount. It's hovered around 55,056 thousand dollars in previous years. And last year, it got all the way down to the mid-40s.

We don't want to see that erode over time. And so this year we're requesting that it get moved back up to its historical amount, which is $55,000 As you all know, contingency can be used for a lot of different things. The reality is that most years, that operating contingency isn't necessarily touched. And it actually rolls over into carryover. And you guys say, hey, we're going to appropriate it for this project or for this equipment.

And that's fine. But it's there when there is some type of an emergency or an unexpected event that we need to fund. In the past, it's been used to fund salt on bad snow years. It's been used to fund maybe some event that the council wanted to participate in that we didn't plan for in the budget. And so those are the types of things that it can be used for.

But the reality is that usually it's not necessarily touched and it rolls over and you guys reappropriate it when we jump into carryover each year. And then finally, we're looking for an increase to professional services. This primarily covers our legal services contract within the council office. We estimated about a 10% increase prior to going out to RFP. That's when we had to have the request into the budget committee.

That was approved. I think we are going to need a little bit more, though. I think we're about $8,000 short at this point. You guys can decide to make an amendment and put that into the budget before it's adopted. Or if necessary, we can overspend that line item next year and kind of figure it out mid year next year. I'll leave that up to you. Let's see here. The only other thing that I'll mention, as you know, we're reclassifying our communications position. That will require an adjustment. We didn't know we were going to reclassify that position when we submitted these budget requests.

Again, that's something that we're going to want to think about over the coming weeks. I've let you know what my expectation is on cost. Typically, when you have a reclassification or a new position that's put into the budget, it's usually funded at the top end of the salary and benefits. It's your call on whether you'd like to do that. We can. I don't know that we'll necessarily need that full amount. But we can have those discussions over the next couple of weeks.

Is that the 50,000 is the top end right?

Approximately.

And then 8,000 and then where's the youth the Sandy Youth Council?

Yeah it's located within special programs So you won't see it specifically called out within the tentative budget document. But it's within special programs.

So in special programs, there's $8,000 And that's all Sandy Youth Council.

No. 2,500 of it is the July 4 Sorry. Line item. The rest of it is for the youth council.

And that's enough?

For the youth council? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. We haven't had any issues overspending youth council.

The bus is included in that number if needed.

Is what Chris has let me know that she's included that in the past. Okay. You. Any other questions at this point? Okay. Well, I'm going to go over this really quickly. We wanted to make sure just to note how we felt like our asks related or coincided with the council's budget priorities. And so I'm not going to go over that in detail. It's included here in the presentation. But really, we believe that the requests speak to your priorities of community safety, fiscal health, and then economic development. And with that, I think that's all that I have to present, Madam Chair. Are there any questions for me?

Counsel, any further questions? Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. That completes that agenda item. We will go on to general citizen comment. Alright, I have one blue card, that is Henry Butters. Henry, come on down.

How are you, city council? My concern is I talked to you about my concern about the police chief about when he came out a couple of weeks ago, and I felt like he chastised me. We shouldn't be chastised by anybody by it's in a sitting position. That is disrespectful. If I say something up here to you guys, leave it alone, swallow your pride, and shut your mouth.

That's how I look at it. Martin, thank you for every time you answer my phone call. Thank you very much. We still have problems down there on the road down there. There's still cars down there parking. If I go park my semi that long, I'd have a ticket. Why being biased? I'm sorry. Start cracking down on it. I have talked to the police chief about the weed problem I told you guys about.

He's like, don't care. Why don't we follow the law? It states in the law you can't smoke weed if even if you have a marijuana card. You wouldn't wanna buy your house, then follow the law. Don't come at me sideways and start telling me what I need to do if you're not following the law right as a police chief. That's how I look at it. I don't wanna buy my house. You guys wouldn't want buy your house. The mayor wouldn't want buy your house. Something needs to be done.

And that's where I'm getting frustrated because if I get a positive drug test, it's my livelihood. It's not your guys' livelihood for the police chief. That's where I'm getting frustrated. I have two elderly people with health problems. Someone needs to get off their cushy butt and get something done. Detective still haven't called me back. You don't wanna do nothing about it. Why are we having to come here and complain to you guys? That's my complaint, and thank you.

Thank you. That's it for blue cards. Dustin, would you like to invite online participation?

Of course. Thank you, Madam Chair. If you're joining us virtually this evening and you'd like to comment on any city business, now's the time. Go ahead and click the raise hand button on your screen. I'll call your name in the order in which you raised your hand, and you'll have three minutes.

Madam Sherri, I don't see any hands raised.

I will close general citizen comment. We'll move on to number three on the agenda that is the consent calendar which just consists of one set of minutes do I have a motion on that

move to approve the consent calendar second

motion and a second all in favor aye any opposed All right.

Madam Chair, I'm sorry. I'm not as good at this as Chris is. Who is the second?

Do you need us to slow down, Dustin? Because we can do that. It's so early. All right. Item number four on the agenda is the Rudlich annexation. Brian.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah. This is the Rudlich annexation. This is the last hearing that we have scheduled for any annexations in the Granite area. As you can see on the on the map, this is located at 9521 South Cassell Drive. And you'll see that this is an area that's not contiguous to Sandy except through the Van Looen annexation, which is across the street to the west. So once that annexation gets approved, they will be contiguous to Sandy. And this area is owned r one ten in the county, so we're proposing it to be r one ten in the city as well. Planning Commission reviewed this, and they are forwarding a positive recommendation to adopt this annexation. Happy to answer any questions.

Any questions for Brian? No questions for Brian.

Okay. Thank you.

This is a public hearing, so I'll open the public hearing. I have no blue cards, but if anyone would like to make comment on this item, they can step up to the podium. And Dustin, if you could invite our online participants as well.

Of course, Madam Chair. If you're joining us virtually this evening and you'd like to comment on tonight's public hearing, which is item number four on the agenda, Go ahead and click the raise hand button on your screen now. I'll call your name in the order in which you raised your hand. And you'll have three minutes. Not seeing any hands raised madam chair.

I will close that public hearing and bring it back to the council for action. Do I have a motion?

Is this the ordinance 2,647? It is. Motion to approve ordinance 2,647.

Yeah. I have a motion and a second. Are you with us, Dustin? And we will take a roll call vote then.

Okay, Council Member Nickel. Yes. Council Member Christensen. Yes. Council Member Sharkey.

Yes.

Councilmember DeSousa?

Yes.

And Councilmember Stroud?

Yes.

Madam Chair that passes unanimously.

Alright. That takes care of our agenda items. We'll move on to standing reports. Justin, do you have a report for us?

Yes, Madam Chair. Give me just one moment. Okay, just a couple of things to note. The Noel Bateman Award nominations are open now, and they will be until July 24. Nominations can be submitted through the Noel Bateman web page on the city website.

So if you have anybody you'd like to nominate or anybody who would like to nominate someone, direct them there. Chris helps the Noel Bateman committee out. And so you can always reach out to Chris or point them in her direction if there are questions. And then I will note, I can't provide all the information yet, but we are going to be making an award related to the council chamber's design here very shortly. And with that, Madam Chair, I think I'm going to end my report.

Alright. Council Member of Business? There were a lot of things. Okay there were a lot of things. I'll make my list short. The employee lunch, awesome. I always enjoy that. Thanks everyone for going out there. It was a nice day. Always a nice event.

Council was invited to attend a press conference with SEG which was adding a partnership with IHC to provide health care services especially sports related right there at the mall where we already have hockey and basketball taking place so that was a pretty exciting event and it certainly adds to and rounds out the development as part of the development there they're indicating now that a whopping 10% of SEG zoned property there is now being dedicated for a purpose. And we're excited to see what else is coming our way. I did have to mention that I had dinner last week with the deputy mayor of Provo, a good friend of mine. And I got to hear about how much they love Barb Smith over there. So yeah, they just, they're really enjoying her.

It's working out great. And so we miss her, but our loss is Provo's gain, and they're very happy there. Thanks to the Parks Department for putting on the beam signing. That was a great event as well. Very, very exciting to see things come along.

We're going to continue to watch that very closely and every step along the way is so exciting. I managed to attend a police swearing in, five more officers and a sergeant being promoted and fully staffed. And we're in good shape on Sandy PD. So congratulations to everyone involved and thanks to the PD for inviting us there. We were able on Saturday night to welcome some really good community partners to the RSL game and this week on behalf of the council.

The Canyon School District were our guests there and it was canyons night at the event. We had three legislators join us and we had elected officials from Draper, South Jordan, Harriman, Midvale and Cottonwood Heights. We were also joined in the suite for a while by Kyle Schroeder who's VP of Community Relations with RSL And we just we had a great night and a great event. And I hope everyone will have a chance to join us at some point along the way this season. That's it for me. Ms. Stroud?

Thank you, Madam Chair. So a couple of additional things other than SEG, which was great, and police swearing in, which Chief Nyver seems to talk a lot more than Chief Severson did. So getting a lot more information on that, but that's always fun seeing how different people handle things differently. But historic committee, so we had a chance to meet. And sad to see that Thomas left, and he's on to other things. But we had two other planners that were in there. So Cash Hancey I think Hancey, was that it? Yep. And Clint Spencer. Both seemed knowledgeable and ready to kind of look in and see what a historic has.

The committee itself were able to kind of look and see what the difference between the National Registry and then what Sandy has and try to work out those differences. So they're continuing to push forward with getting contributing structures properly marked and identified. On Saturday, fire department did their wildland community events up at the trailhead. And a lot of people that are out there on the Saturday coming and going and catching that information. So the fire department always does a wonderful job. A little warmer this year. Water temperature was still cold. But overall, it was much warmer. And yeah, I think that's it. Know. That's it, Madam Chair.

Do we have any kind of report? Alright looks like we are ready to adjourn if I can get a motion.

I move to adjourn. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Hope not. Thank you everyone.