City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, it's uh 6:00 p.m. Uh we'll go ahead and get our regular uh shirt city council meeting. Go ahead and call it to order. Today is March 17th, 2026. Um thank you all for coming out. uh take thank you for taking the time out of your day to come out this evening to uh join us here at the city council meeting. We'll go ahead and uh open up with the opening prayer and pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States in the state of Texas by Councilwoman Hayward. Please bow. Father God, I want to take a moment to say thank you. Thank you for this city. Thank you for the people. Thank you for our staff who worked hard every day to try to make the city run as smooth as it can. Thank you for the folks that are sitting here tonight. Thank you for those that are at home who are counting on us to do the right thing by them. Lord, I want to thank you for bringing us all here safely tonight. And as we make decisions tonight about the business in front of us, the parks, the trails, the flood protection, the finances, help us to remember that every decision we make impacts someone, someone's family. Help us to never forget that. And Father, tomorrow early voting begins across this city. I know people are tired. Lord, I know that we've had a long election season and I understand that voter fatigue is real. But I pray right now that you would prick their hearts, the people of Shirts, to remind them that this election matters, that showing up matters, that their voice matters, and move them to get out to vote. I pray that the right person gets elected. Not someone chasing a title looking for power. Not someone serving a personal grudge. Not someone who says one thing and does another. But someone who genuinely loves and cares for this city, the community and what is and wants to serve it with truth and grace.

Someone who will make church the place we all call home better for our future as we move forward toward it. Lord, I have seen the division. what division does and I'm really tired of it and I pray that we have a leader that will bring people together who will listen before they speak and who will remember that the work is about the people and not about themselves because we know what things need to happen in the city and we're not to be removed from this community that we are part of it and keep us that way keep us humble and keep us close. Now, let us make the right decisions tonight and pray that we all make it safely home. I ask these blessings in your son's name. Amen.

Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible. Thank you for that, Councilwoman Hayward. [snorts] So, we do have a special announcement, the Hal Bowwin scholarship. Students attending for the Hal Bowwin scholarship need to sign in on the sheet located in the back of the podium. If you're watching remotely, please email Sarah Gonzalez at ask Gonzalez.com to virtually sign in. Please direct any questions to Miss Gonzalez. We'll go ahead and uh move on to presentations. Uh quarterly financials first quarter 2025. James. All right.

Good evening, mayor and council. My name is James Walters. I'm the finance director here for the city of Shirts. bring up our presentation. Give you an update on how we're coming along in the first quarter of 2526 fiscal year. So for the revenue for the general fund, majority of the revenue we actually get in December and January usually. Um this is when the property taxes start to come in. They make up a good portion of the general fund uh revenue. Uh the rest of the uh of the revenue can come in a little bit more variable throughout the year. sales tax follows a pattern which we'll see in a second while other revenues are a little bit uh um more contingent on project schedules and we'll see with those as well. Um I will say we'll move over to the expenses. Uh expenses we look at a more um flat even for the most part sort of average. Uh we'll see a little dip in December usually. Uh everyone goes on vacation. There's not a lot um much dirt moving. Much is progress going along. Um this last year we saw a little bit more in August as we're wrapping up some other capital projects. Um but as you can see we're pretty close to where we expect in the budget with that blue line uh following where we um are expecting. So Avalor tax revenue. This is what I wanted to to show you as well. This is just the property taxes and you can see that we expected to get uh or this is what we've got the past three years. So, two years ago, last year, and then the current year. Now, it looks like we're way far behind. Um, but guess what? January, when I come back to you next time, is going to be so far off the chart. [sighs] It's going to make it look um much much smaller. Um, but due

to how the dates fell, a lot of the escros pay on the very last day of December and that kind of means that the payments arrived in our bank account two days later after they make the payment because at first it goes to the tax assessor collector and then they turn around and forward it on to us. Uh, so a lot of payments actually wound up in our bank account in January this year just due to how the dates fell. So you'll see a very large January and a little bit larger February than normal. Um, rest assured that we are still on target for our revenues overall for the general fund and that'll be a restatement I make when I come back to you with the next quarter. Um, so I just didn't want you to panic when you saw like, oh, we're not getting anything in. No, it did come in. It just came in one day later into the January time frame. Sales taxes, uh, we've we've sent out a memo on the sales taxes. This is another graph showing just kind of the overall impact of what actually is happening here. U so you see around March last year this gray area is when we started see receiving some one-time or very large sales taxes. Um we thought oh yeah one-time sales taxes is something that we do get from now and now and then usually related to construction projects. Whenever a construction project comes in, whatever area the construction project happens generates that sales tax and that community gets those sales taxes. Um, so we thought, man, we just got really lucky. This is great. We didn't really realize that there was a big uh construction project going on, but maybe we missed something or maybe it just delayed and this where it kicked off until we started seeing those high payments start to come back a little bit more regularly a couple months later and has so far continued into the 25 26 um time frame. And we did speak to uh the companies involved and this is we've confirmed this is a limited time sales tax increase. Uh they have confirmed that this will go away around the second quarter of this year. So this will still

be good for us. It'll be a good boon and lucky for the city to get uh but it will die back down to our normal levels uh by the end of this year. So a little bit more on sales taxes because it's having such a big impact on us uh both last year and so far the first quarter of this year. So sales taxes are collected by companies and are submitted to the state either monthly or quarterly. They have that option. Then the state distributes that to cities and counties the month following the submission. So they make sales in January. They submit that to the state in February who then turns around and gives it to us in March. So, it's like a two-month delay when the sales are actually generated versus when we get them. Due to privacy laws, only the city manager or his specific design can request to see the full list of sales taxpayers and we can only use that data for auditing and for fiscal forecasting. So, we can't share that data in any way that could single out a specific company with the amount that they're paying. Um, that's about the only kind of rule. Uh, you can you can parse it different ways. You can look at top 50, but uh there's certain there's kind of a gray area for what's um what much detail is actually allowable, but we don't want to go a little bit too far. Uh so we we do when we approach sales taxes, we'll look at industry. Um we can look at zones, we can look at top 50. Those usually the ones that are paying us the most or the top 10. So we've uh engaged with Zacttax who's uh been make gaining market share with the with the cities. This company compiles and verifies sales tax data on behalf of the uh city of shirts. They have a robust platform that let staff review sales tax locations easily each month and ensure the state is allocating the taxes correctly. So that could be an issue. Um there's a whole issue with uh the zip codes and how they don't actually align with cities exactly. So

it could be a majority, but you can have a U 78108 zip code. You could be inserts. It's usually big Selma population. Um, and so if you're looking at the wrong way, the address on a on a on a store could be New Bronals. And so they could get the sales tax initially because like, hey, I think I'm in New Bronals. My address says New Bronals. Um, and so that's kind of up to us to go on, oh, nope. That's that's actually ours. See, it's in our boundary. We can make those requests to the state. They can do an audit. they can turn around and um they can fix those taxes for us and start allocating them to us. Uh so this is a chart um from Zacttax showing sort of the distribution in shirts of where the s sales tax are being generated from. This is I35 and and 39. You see we have a big retail center there. So that's where a lot of our and then the industrial park and you'll see out south we have some more uh businesses out over here on so this is helpful to track businesses and their location in shirts but not all sales tax contributors actually re uh we receive actually come from business that have a physical location uh so like online sales or construction material purchases I mentioned before so online sales becoming bigger and bigger especially after COVID which don't have a physical address. So much harder to determine how much shirts should actually get because only people that actually have that data are the companies that are taking the uh taking the sales. Uh for construction generated sales tax staff looks at building permits determine if we receiving applicable taxes. So we see like hey we're doing this big old permit where are those construction we can follow up with that with t uh with Zach tax as well as the state to say hey um we're seeing this project where is it and they can do an audit on our behalf and and turn on and correct that. Um, so if the audit is successful, if in case yall are curious, they say, "Yeah, those are actually yours." They can actually go back four years and take that money from the city that actually

was receiving it and turn on giving it to us. Um, so if you look at the sales tax allocation that's on the on the state website, you know, sometimes you'll see audit adjustments. That's the state making changes between communities going, "Hey, we actually gave you them. It belongs to this people over here." um we have just limited view of that data. That is something that can and does happen whenever uh something gets caught. Uh permits is another one I wanted to touch on real quick. Um as you can see permits can be can vary wildly from year to year time period. Um going so far as I guess general December is fairly consistent. Not a lot of construction going on in December. Um and then we see a little bit higher time frames over in the spring as construction gets off. Um commercial permits are usually the ones that are causing this big gray last year that come through um cause big spikes overall in the in the permits. Uh it's makes it very hard to anticipate when those projects will go through. We know a big project's coming. We don't know when they'll be ready to submit and pay the permit or if they're going to pull out entirely and decide to not go through through with the project. Uh so we have a just a very general idea of when we can expect those. Uh but we try not to count our eggs before they hatch in case it falls into another fiscal year or if they decide to pull out. As I mentioned, uh franchises, these are generally very uh very steady. Um these are companies like um water systems or telecom or the power companies that use our ride ofway and usually basically the power lines um uh to provide services. So they have to pay us in lie of going out for a permit every time they want to go into our into our ride ofways. Uh moving on to the water and sewer revenue. Um their revenue is fairly consistent throughout the year. Uh you may see a little spikes up here in the grays over in June um time frame when

people start watering their their lawns more before they hear San Antonio starts putting water restrictions in. Again, Sir Shirts does not put water restrictions, but they hear that in San Antonio and they think, "Oh no, I got to turn back." So that's where [snorts] that kind of comes from. Get a little more granular detail just on the water side. Um, we'll see a little bit over in October, November. It dies off whenever we start doing sewer averaging as well as during the winter months and then comes back during the summer to start people start watering the yards. Uh, so far we're generating more revenue than we were this time last year. Uh, sewer revenue uh comes in. Um, we make updates in April and updates in October versus the rates. Now, this is zoomed in quite a bit. So, it looks like some high increases. Uh, but we're already starting at the 740,000 to 900,000 as opposed to like back here we're starting at zero. So, this is just a zoomed in version showing that we do have some increases and those are the two times we usually have increases in whenever we do our sewer averaging and then again when our rates change. Uh, but overall they should be fairly consistent. any dis changes would be to um u corporate customers on the garbage revenue. You'll see our garbage revenue is a little bit low this year and then it dropped off right around July August. So we did change our contract terms with our new garbage provider. Uh they are handling all of the commercial billing. So before we would handle commercial billing, we would be collecting those revenues and then once we engaged with the new provider, uh they took that over and so you see that drop off. This is so now you're seeing just residential. So they're on target. They're hitting what we expect. Um but that's the reason the chart looks different over in the drainage fund. [clears throat] Uh so this is the uh coming a little bit lower in the first part of our drainage

fees, but we're coming back in December. Um these fees will be very consistent um going uh going forward. Uh these fees are a set based on um both a residential side or a commercial side based on the um impervious surface coverage and don't fluctuate. So far as range fun expenditures, again we had some capital purchases towards the end of the year. Um otherwise we're trending just a little bit below budget and we'll probably see some more capital purchases come in or high dollar expenses come in during the summer and towards the end of the year as well. Uh EMS revenue is another one that can can vary quite a bit depending on um how many call volume. And then you'll see every three quarters the revenue jumps. That's when we send out the invoices to other communities in the in our local [snorts] agreement portion to cover those areas. As far as EDC, the primary source of EDC funds are sales taxes just like the city of Shirts. Uh so their chart on their revenue matches very close to what uh the sales taxes are doing. So again, they started seeing the high jumps in March and they're seeing seeing those high dollar amounts until that sales taxpayer uh payers make some changes and then those will fall off at the um second quarter back to the average. So also in our uh report we have our investments. So majority of our city insurance investments are investment pools which are like money market mutual funds but just for um local governments and they're sponsored and verified by the state of Texas. Um uh we have just a little bit 3% in cash at the time to make our payments. Um we're actually increasing our CD portfolio. We know the rates were starting to drop so we started to leverage out a little bit more CDs u to to remain at a higher yield for a little bit longer. And then we have Hancock Whitney um which is has our trade uh agencies and treasuries only about 1%

there. Uh we're going to be transitioning into our own um probably more of those here shortly. Uh depending on what the Fed decides to do with some rates in the future. Um investment pools have been very good as you can see in a moment. So uh starting about January of this last year, this is one year's worth. Um, our portfolio is beating the 3-month T bill, which we kind of use as a benchmark. Um, earning about 4.51 and over 4% until the very December, the 3-month T bill dropped a little bit to 3.67. Uh, but except for this one little section in July and August, um, we have have beaten our our general benchmark uh for our return. Right. Are there any questions over the city of Shirts um revenues, expenses, or what's in the report for our sales taxes or how our revenues come in?

I have no questions. Any of the council members have any questions?

Thank you very much for your report. Next presentation we have the fiscal year 24 2025 parks and recreation annual report. Lauren, good evening mayor, council, Mr. Williams. I'm Lauren Shrm, director of parks and recreation. see here. There we go. [clears throat] So, tonight just wanted to present to you our FY 2425 uh annual report for parks and recreation here in shirts and we um gave you a copy there on your on your desk. Um we like to summarize the year uh and show the community the impact we have um on quality of life and shirts. So, just some quick highlights I want to review with you. Um, a little bit of a highlight reel here of all of our photos from our different events and the team and the projects. We have uh 21 full-time staff, two part-time staff, two seasonal staff, and over 200 volunteers that help make our programs possible here in Shirts. um and our leadership team. As you know, uh when we presented our gold medal award a couple weeks ago, we have a lot of staff heavily involved in professional development in the state association, the national association. Uh we're getting our folks trained that we getting their certifications. Um and really focused on uh building the shirts brand uh doing classroom presentations in elementary schools. Um, so we're so we're all out in the community making a difference for shirts. Um, just highlighting the different boards and committees um and different community groups that we meet with and engage with on a regular basis. Um, to help make parks and recreation possible in the in the city.

Um, some highlights of what we do. Um, you know, again, we have 27 parks. Um, 1,131 civic and community center bookings. We've got 46 different events. We partner with 18 different organizations to put on events and programs, 12 different sponsors, 25.6 miles of hike and bike trails, 36 playscape units. Our picnic and pavilion areas, we've got 12 of those. 457 acres of parkland across the system that we're maintaining. Um some year numbers, we just track the data to show how we're doing um and the health of our of our parks and our programs. Uh, one thing to note here, we had an uptick in large pavilion rentals at Pickle Park, 283 from 158. So, we're seeing a lot of demand there for more um, people renting that space for parties and such. And then another one I wanted to note was the Wendy Swan Pavilion. Um, when we renovated and opened the splash pad and opened the bathroom up year round, we now have an uptick there in rentals. Um, people now want to have their party there. There's something there to do and there's a restroom available. So, it went from 2 to 45. And then we added capacity there under the restroom awning. It's a secondary pavilion. So we went from not having that to 10 rentals. So that's a need that keeps coming up to in our parks master plan, more picnic pavilions. So we've added that. Um 20,000 people at our events, a little bit down from last year. We had a rainy 4th of July this year. So we saw a little bit of a down tick in attendance, but still 20,000 people out there in our programs. 51,750 in sponsorship dollars. Um there's some civic center rental numbers. still having an uptick at our pool. Visits 20,000 up from 18 the year prior. Um admissions and season passes are going up. Youth sports still strong, looking good. Um we have 2200 kids in BVYA up from up from the last fiscal year. And then we have 1993 in soccer with CISA. Volunteer hours are still

strong and scann at the senior center and all are still very very strong. Um budget expenses, the our budget was 4.488. We came in at 4.2 296. And this just breaks it down um by fund. The vast majority of of the funding is to park operations and personnel um revenues there. Um parks and work fees, civic center fees, the different the different funds where we we collect fees. Some of our top highlights um we launched some things that were in our parks master plan that came out of the community uh survey. Residents wanted to see more uh farmers market type events. So we we launched our shirts hometown harvest. that's been successful. The Power Wheels Derby and the Cardboard Boat Riata, different events that replace some older ones that we've had for many years. They've done very well. Um, together we play an inclusive event that we started with the library. Um, we named Hilltop Park last year. Um, we transferred our uh North Center Community Center Rentals to an online platform so people um could reserve them more easily. We planned the transition of the senior center to cityrun operations. That's going very well. Obviously, we'll report on that in next fiscal year's report. Uh we adopted our postmaster plan last fiscal year. We chaired the Texas Recreation and Park Society central region workshop planning committee. We held it here. It was very successful. We enhanced the shirt soccer complex through the installation of the new LED lighting, the public art edition, the new mural. We updated the Veterans Memorial Plaza with the uh addition of the Purple Heart, Gold Star families, and the Space Force uh plaques. We upgraded 13 restrooms throughout the park system with new epoxy flooring. And we converted all the lighting in the civic center to LED for better energy efficiency. And then um experienced we participated in a lot of Texas Recreation and Park Association initiatives. We walked the halls at the Capitol and held a play day

out on the lawn to talk to legislators about parks and recreation. Um, again, we had a unusually rainy season for events, so we keep note of that. Uh, parks maintenance crew had their maintenance morning. We had 80 professionals here that we hosted for a playground safety course. We had our biggest summer last summer with parks and recck month attendance and events. and we had our first summer intern who really helped elevate our social media presence and increased our community engagement online. Um, so yeah, and then there's just a few highlight reels again of our of our events in the community. So, just wanted to update you with that impact report and that's it. I'll take any questions.

Thank you. I have no questions. Any council members have any questions? Okay. Uh, Council Member Westbrook. Hey, good job. Thank you very much. Um, I think you have a great array of uh offerings. Um, I've even taken advantage of one of them uh recently. Um, but are y'all operating at a at a deficit or not? Are y'all when was the last time y'all raised fees or Yes. So, uh, we actually raised fees slightly with, uh, the civic center this past fiscal year. Okay. But yes, we are offering a deficit overall. Overall,

yes, we don't have like a cost recovery model yet that's been that hasn't been the direction of council in the past. Um, we could discuss that in the future if that's the route council wants to go. Thank you, Council Member Guerrero. Yeah, I want to make a comment about the volunteers and it's not just the volunteers in parks and wreck. The volunteers, they may be in the uh working with the first responders, the library,

YMCA, wherever we have volunteers. We need to ensure that the volunteers are acknowledged, appreciated, and thanked every single time that they come out here. They're out here for a purpose. They love our city. They love the the department that they're volunteering. So, we need to acknowledge them, appreciate them, and thank them every single time they come out. Yeah, I agree. Thank you.

I agree with that. I don't see we have any other comments. Thank you very much for your presentation. Moving on to city events and announcements. Sarah.

Yes. Thank you, mayor. The right thing in front of me. All right. So, a couple of things and a couple of the um parks events that Lauren had mentioned. So, um on Friday, March 20th will be a partnership with the YMCA for the Easter Extravaganza and that'll be at the Shirts Aquatic Centers. There's three different sessions. So, if you go online, you can sign up for the session that works for you. On Sunday, March 22nd, the Power Wheels derby that she spoke of um will be taking place from 2:00 to 5:00 at the Community Circle Drive. On Sunday, March 22nd, um there will be a nature scavenger hunt from 3:30 to 4:30 at Crescent Bend Nature Park. Friday, March 27th, will be the pre-budget retreat for council. It'll start at 8:30 a.m. and council chambers. Also, um I apologize. Let me skip back to this coming Saturday. uh will be clean the creek event and that'll be 8:30 a.m. to 11:30. Again, information is on our website if you'd like to sign up to volunteer for that. On Saturday, April 4th will be the shirts hometown harvest from 9 to 1:00 p.m. at uh Pickrol Park. And then finally, just to touch on um first day of early voting is going to be tomorrow go through March 31st and election day is on April 4th and it'll be for the city council place 6. and then we will be back here for our next regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, April 7th at 6 p.m. Thank you.

Thank you. Announcements and recognitions by the city manager, Steve Williams. I do not have any this week, mayor. Thank you very much.

And I do not have any announcements or recognitions either. Moving on to a hearing of residents. This time is set aside for any persons wishing to address city council. Each person should fill out the speaker's register prior to the meeting. Presentation should be limited to no more than three minutes. All remarks shall be addressed to the council as a body and not to any individual member thereof. Any person making personal, important or slanderous remarks while addressing the council may be requested to leave the meeting. Um, when you come up to speak, if you'll also state your name and give your address. Mayor Pro Tim Davis, do we have any residents wishing to speak?

Yes, Mr. Mayor. We have several tonight. First up is Maggie Titterington.

Good evening, council. A few uh announcements from the chamber. Uh, we're going to be supporting Shirts EDC and one of our newest members of the chamber, Piata Italian Street Foods grand opening on March 25th at 10:30 a.m. Very excited about that. Love my Italian food. Uh, so hopefully you all have that on your calendar to come out and uh support our shirt TDC, our newest business in the area. March 27th is going to be an extremely busy day with something going on morning, noon, and evening. Um, in the morning from 7:30 to 9:00 a.m. we have coffee at the chamber. It's going to be hosted by Shirt Civil Emergency Clinic. Uh, free coffee, free goodies. Come in, come out, uh, grab it to go before going into work. Again, that's 7:30 to 9:00 a.m. Then from 10 to 2:00 p.m., our military affairs committee is doing a veteranowned business expo. Uh, that is going to be located at Wayland Baptist University. They're partnering with them to give them the space that they need. They have room for 40 booths and I believe there's only seven left. Uh it's free to the public to attend. We just want to support our veterans that own businesses in the area. If you are a veteranowned business and want to have a booth there, like I said, there's about nine booths left. Just contact the chamber. We'll get you hooked up with who you need to be hooked up with. And then we have a ribbon cutting at 400 p.m. that evening for uh Shirts Creek Beer Garden. Um they've been open for about a year now, but they never had like an official ribbon cutting and celebration. So we're doing that for them at 4 pm on the 27th. The 28th, the next day, we are having our shred day at the Shirts offices, 17:30 Shirts Parkway. That is from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Uh our Young Professionals Hyper is putting it on. It is free to bring your items to shred. We do ask for a suggested donation of $5 because we are doing a fundraiser for uh jointly Big Brothers and Big Sisters and

then the other 50% goes to uh giving holiday meals and presents for from Rayap for families in our surrounding area. Last, we are closed on April 3rd for Good Friday. And uh that is all I have. Thank you.

Next up is Tiffany Gibson. Tiffany Gibson, 6939 Hallelu, Church, Texas 78154. Good evening, council, mayor, staff. Thank you for having me this evening. I am grateful to come here and um ask for the opportunity to run for shirt city council place six. I am one of the only candidates that have u prior experience and I will continue to run on the priorities of ensuring that we support our law enforcement as well as protecting our small town values and as well as um fiscal responsibility for our taxpayer dollars as I did before and as I will continue to do in the future. It is a pleasure to be a resident here and also to continue to serve this community. Thank you. Next we have Raquel Gutierrez. Good evening all council mayor Schz neighbor city staff. My name [snorts] is Raquel. I live at 1016 silver tree and I wanted to share with you this evening what I've been doing over the past few weeks. I spend a lot of time walking our neighborhoods, going doortodoor, and standing on front of porches, engaging with residents. And I'll tell you, when you're face to face having real conversations, you learn what people are really concerned about. Not just the easy conversations, but the tough questions, the real concerns about shirts. Last Thursday in particular, I engaged with a homeowner.

[snorts]

He looked me in the eye and asked me very directly, "And what are you going to do to make our sure our streets are safe?" Then he followed up with something that really stayed with me. Why are residents having to ask for the basic services to be delivered? I could tell he said that out of concern. Was he referring to lack of accountability? He was concerned for his neighborhood, for his family, for the community he calls home. He talked about wanting to see increased police presence, wanting reassurance that someone is there watching, responding, and protecting our neighborhoods. But allow me to be clear, I fully support our law enforceers, first responders, because they show up for our community every single day, and they deserve our full respect and 100% support. leadership has a responsibility as well, city leaders, because at the end of the day, city leaders and the residents, the taxpayer should be the top priority. And what I'm hearing residents say at their front door goes beyond just one issue. Residents want to feel secure in their daily lives. They want to know when they leave their home, it will be safe and protected upon their return. They want the streets they drive on maintained and safe. They want to know there has been responsible planning for future growth. They want to know that they can continue living in the community they love without being priced out with tax increases. Residents want to be assured that city leaders are being good stewards of taxpayers dollars. Not just making decisions from behind a desk, but showing up, being immersed, and understanding what's really happening in the community. I've walked our neighborhoods. I've heard the same concerns come up again and again. These

are not complaints. They are real resident concerns. Residents are paying attention. They expect accountability and basic services. Things like safe streets, visible police presence, reliable infrastructure, and responsible use of taxpayer dollars should always be a top priority. And because leadership begins with listening, which I see councilwoman is not listening, I have stood at those front porches. I've gone door to door and I'm ready to show up and represent Schz residents. Early voting starts tomorrow. Make a plan. Show up and vote once more because Schz needs your vote. Thank you. Next up, we have Michelle Turleski speaking for Dana Eldridge at 2628 Gallon Fox Council Mr. Williams, Mr. Santi uh Dana Eldridge asked me to read this statement that he has written. He unfortunately at the last minute couldn't be here and I said I would be glad to. From Dana Eldridge. I commend Allison Hayward for her time on council. Three elections with 70% or more of the vote. How that dropped to 40% during the election for county commissioner is still questionable. maybe due to false statements about her owing money to the city. It seems that same individual is continuing to make false statements about other candidates.

Do we want this kind of quote leadership unquote to be part of our council slash community? The division needs to stop now. Capital N. It has been going strong since Mayor Rodriguez was voted in. Citizens of Shirts are not enemies of the city, nor are we terrorists of this city. Stop the rhetoric. Dana Eldridge 2628. Gallant Fox shirts. I believe I'm up next. Correct.

Yes. Next up is Michelle Titleski.

I'm changing the subject completely on y'all and you're going to love this. I'm wishing you happy anniversary. At least four of you. And um as one councilman used to post comments on social media, let's talk trash. I always found that quite appropriate that that council person would want to talk trash. On 28 March 2025, an announcement was posted to the city website of contract award to Frontier Waste Management. On the 30th of March 2025, the Chamber of Commerce announced on their website that Frontier Management made a donation to the chamber. On one April 2025, which was April Fool's Day, council was asked to choose between two options for services for the contract. During the council citizens to be heard portion, three individuals spoke about the contract and considerations. I and a friend discussed the bulky bins and how they would be difficult for some citizens. We were told there were no options for smaller bins. That may have been because the RF there was an RFP written from a contractor stating to the contractor stating that 96 gallon bins would be what they wanted. Maybe that was because of the consulting contractor that we paid 39,000 to. Don't know. The other citizen stated she would have no problem with the bins. She spoke as a citizen but has a direct relationship to the Chamber of Commerce. According to her statement, all the citizens have to do is store the bins in their garage, then roll out the bin down the driveway on trash day. Well, let's discuss that. In my area,

in the area where this individual grew up, not all residents have concrete driveways. Not all residents have garages because at the time the houses were built. They didn't produce them. Okay. Those of us who who do have garages couldn't get a car in there if our life depended on it. I got one in one time, was able to get out, but had to go out the side door, go around, go around the front to get in my house. Why? Because vehicles are a lot larger now. than they were um are a lot larger than they were then. I bet you some of you don't even know that there's several streets that don't have sidewalks in addition to concrete driveways. What's odd is at least two, if not more. One side of that street has a sidewalk and the direct opposite side doesn't have a sidewalk. Those houses have been there for at least 49, 50 years. I'll I'll quit, but I will have a sequel to this guarantee. Thank you, sir. Next up, we have Heather Korn. I'm sorry.

And for last, we have Jonathan Marquez. Jonathan Marquez, 5817 shirts, St. Andrews. Today I come to council [sighs] Today I come to council with mixed feelings. For one, I'm excited about the opportunity to sit to serve the city of shirts on the T-AC and parks recreations board. Yet on the other hand, I'm disheartened. I'm concerned and quite frankly I'm offended at the lack of knowledge and attention to detail from a certain council woman sorry council member of this in regards to the incomplete sidewalks at Danville Middle School. So allow me to reiterate to the new members of the council and to the me and to the incoherent members of the council. Danville Middle School is technically in shirts. They have sidewalks on their on their property line and then it goes into rural area where there's incomplete sidewalks. Then you get to the bank. Bank has somewhat of sidewalks and then there's sidewalks all the way down to the crown jewel north cliff sidewalks on rule lands. All I asked is that the city builds complete those sidewalks on either side. T-AC board. They uh they went and observed it. They did the analysis. Um Brian tells me that there's going to be a business possibly coming on the elementary school. That's fine. That's good. I can wait. But can we fill in the other side of the sidewalk? Now, I heard I get it. I've personally rode on dirt roads, ground. It It doesn't matter. But this is not Von Army. This is not

Pleasanton. This is not Floorsville. This is Shirts. we have the money to make it right. And when it's kids and when it's kids involved in the safety of children, we have to do what's right. So, I'm here again to reiterate to new members of the council and members of the council that we're not paying attention. Please build the sidewalks. And I'm happy happy to be here, happy to serve, but I just want to reiterate it because I said I would and I do what I say. Thank you. Have a good day. Mr. Mayor, that's all for tonight.

Okay, moving on to the consent agenda items. The consent agenda is considered self-explanatory and will be enacted by the council with one motion. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless they are removed from the consent agenda upon request of the mayor or a council member. Council members, is there any items that you'd like to remove from the consent agenda? Yes. one and two. Okay, we're going to go ahead and remove uh consent agenda items one and two. Uh can I get approval from Can I get a motion to approve uh consent agenda items three through five? So moved. Second.

All right, we have a motion made by Council Member Hayward, seconded by Council Member Westbrook. Can I get everybody to cast their votes? Can I get the votes published, please? Okay, having seven yays, no nays. Motion passes. Now, moving on to uh item uh well, consent agenda item one. Uh

mayor, I remove that because there needs to be a correction on the agenda under the uh I think it's the city under city events and announcements. It made it needs to be corrected that uh Steve Williams is the TCMA president, not the TML president. Thank you. You're welcome. and that uh um Sarah Gonzalez is a TCMA board member as well, not TML. Thank you. So, I'd like to make a motion that we approve item number one. Can I get a second? Second.

All right. Uh with those corrections, I have a motion to approve uh the minutes by Council Member Hayward, seconded by Council Member Watson. Can I get everybody to cast their votes? All right, having seven yays, no nays, motion passes. Moving on to item two, appointments and reappointments and resignations by city of church boards, commissions, and committees. Appointments. So, I pull this one, mayor, because we have a few of the recommend recommended board members that we're presenting to the city and they're in the audience and I wanted everyone to rec be able to recognize them. So, on the capital improvement advisory board, we have Alicia Sherman. Please stand. Um, we have on the parks and Rex, Jonathan Marquez. We have Parks and Rex alternate. So he was al he was alternate one alternate two will be Michelle Frey. We have on the planning and zoning Sean Grady as an alternate. We have on TAC J Star and Jonathan Marquez. I hope I did not miss anyone. Sonia, sorry about that. I was looking at and I was like couldn't hardly see you. Uh, and then we also have Sonia Laredo Reyes who is on the planning and zoning as an alternate one. Please stand. Thank you. So, I just wanted everyone to meet them uh as we go through because a lot of times we tend to as the interview committee, we put people on boards and then we don't know who they are. So, I they wanted to come and I wanted to recognize them. So, with that, I'd like to make the approval of all of the uh appointments, reappoints, and resignations. I'd like to make the motion for for that, please.

Second. Okay, we have a motion made by Council Member Hayward, seconded by uh Council Member Guerrero. Can I get council to cast the votes? And again, Sonia, I apologize. Can I get the votes published, please?

Okay, having seven yays, no nays, motion passes. May So, I want to thank you guys for coming in and being recognized in front of city council and uh putting in your application to be on to serve on these boards. We know that you're going to do great things and we look forward to hearing and the things that you have to say. So, thank you again for coming in and congratulations. [applause]

Thank you all very much for volunteering and serving on those boards. I know it requires a lot of time and so thank you for uh taking time out of your day, your schedule and your families to be able to do that. So, thank you'all very much. All right, moving on to discussion. Action items. Item six, resolution 26-R38, authorizing an advanced funding agreement with the Texas Department of Transportation for the West Deets Creek Trail Project. We have Lauren Shroom. Good evening again, council. Um, I don't have a formal presentation tonight. Uh, just wanted to bring this item to your attention. You had previously approved the design services for this project for the West Creek Trail. Um, this is um what was presented in the CCM for the total project cost has increased from uh 1.354 to 1.603. So, we wanted to note that um when we originally applied for [snorts] this funding, we thought that um professional services were also reimbursed by text dot. They are not in this program call. They were in a previous one we had done, but we got a little bit mixed up. Um and so this design cost is going to be um borne solely by the city. Um but then the construction portion will be reimburseable from text. So, you have the totals there. Um wanted to bring that to your attention. And then the funding sources, we already had some general fund dollars allocated for this project and then we are covering the remaining 247,000 from the parkland dedication fund which we do have reserves in there of over 635,000. That's it. I'll answer any questions if you have them.

Mayor, I'm going to make one comment, but so Lauren, we're still leveraging our 600,000 versus absolutely the state's $1 million grant. Correct. Okay. Okay. Any member any council members have any any questions? Okay. Can I get a motion to approve resolution 26-R38? So moved. Second.

Okay. I have a motion made by uh Council Member Hayward, seconded by Council Member Westbrook. Can I get council to cast your votes? Okay. Have can I get the votes published, please? Okay, having seven yays, no nays, motion passes. Moving on to item seven, resolution 26-R44, approval of the annual comprehensive financial report, fiscal year 2024 2025. Mr. Walters, good evening, mayor and council.

[clears throat] This year we engaged with a new audit firm ABIP. Uh here from their firm uh we have Jeremy who will go over the highlights of the annual financial report and we'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. Uh the audit committee did meet last Tuesday uh and review the review the book in and more uh complete manner than uh we plan to do tonight, but we'll still happy to answer any questions uh that you have. The audit committee did uh recommend approval to council tonight for the uh the annual report. Uh so I'll introduce uh Jeremy. Um who will go over the financial report.

Thank you, mayor. Thank you, council, for having me here today. Um as James mentioned, uh my name is Jeremy Barbado. I'm an audit partner here at uh ABIP. Um, I was, um, oversaw the audit of the city's financial statements. Um, with the help of management, we got here today as required by the state mandate. I think most of y'all are aware the state put some teeth behind getting these audits filed with the city um, uh, secretary um, by the 180th day after the fiscal year end. Um, also, um, there is also a six-month requirement, which is a little longer, uh, to get submitted to GFOA, which y'all have have done. And so we're here before you today to present the financial statements and meet all those deadlines. Um, but I'm happy to answer any questions. Again, this presentation is going to be more high level, but I'm happy to answer any questions on the audit process or in any of the items that are in your book that uh we passed out earlier today. Oh, and the the book we passed out, it didn't differ from the agenda packet item that y'all got um last week. So, real quick, just a high overview of what's in the the bound document here that you have this real thick um good reading material for tonight. Help put you to sleep. Um what's in the act for is the introductory section. Uh that is the transmitted letter from the city uh manager. Um that's a pretty much a profile of what the city has going on and what the city plans on going uh in the future. the economic uh impacts that the city faces as well as the capital and debt [clears throat] administration that the city uh has on on the on the financials itself and it gives a little more information on how the budget uh gets adopted every year. Um also in the introductory section is the GFOA which is the government financing officer association certificate of achievement award for excellence in financial reporting for the fiscal year ended September 30 of 2024. Now, that's the prior year. It's required to be put into the the submission offer for GFOA for

the 2025 fiscal year and uh this will be the 39th year um that y'all will receive that award consecutively. Um we've gone through the checklist for GFOA that they've they've provided and so we we we don't doubt that y'all will hit the September 30th, 2025 award for achievement. Also in the in the annual financial report is is the independent auditors report. That's our report explaining what the scope of services we provided to the city as well as um the responsibilities over over the financial statements themselves which lies with management. Then it gives the management discussion and analysis which is gives the financial highlights of the city what happened during the year as well as um a comparative outlook as a city as a whole and it kind of analyzes the the city's financial funds uh major funds that that the city has. Then you get into the basic financial statements, which is your governmentwide and fund financial statements. Um, that's where you see all the balances for the fiscal year, and I'll go over some of those and um in in in a little bit. Then you have the notes to the financial statements. There's a lot in this document, I know. um the notes to the financial statements which gives a little more meat behind uh the financial behind the bones of the financial statements balances themselves gives a little more detail on what's happening um with the balances and the um and how the the balances consist of and what what makes it up. Then there's some supplementary information that's required by our standards to to um some budget schedules that we have to present as well as your combining uh individual financial statements which are your non- major funds um that the city manages. Finally, uh this is uh exclusive to AFTERS is the statistical section and this gives um a 10-year lookout uh look back on how the city has progressed over the last 10 years in various aspects such as uh tax assessed value um uh medium income of the city, the some

demographics, um usage of your utility systems, sales tax uh sales tax payers, like your highest sales tax payers, stuff like that. So, it gives a little more detail behind um how the city's progressed over the last 10 years. Some some interesting stuff in there. Um then finally, we have the compliance section which is um required this year because y'all had federal funds. Y'all exceeded the $1 million cap that's required uh required us to do a single audit for the for the city. And that's related to your ARP funds that y'all got. So again just uh just to go over our independent auditors report over the financial statements. We did follow um certain auditing standards the generally accepted auditing standards of the United States as well as the government auditing standards issued by the controller general of the United States. Those are the standards we had to follow um in accordance with the city's financials. The purpose of our audit is to form an opinion, an independent opinion over the financial statements and whether they're in compliance with generally accepted accounting principles of the United States. Um, and our opinion is unmodified, which is basically uh states that we have no um modifying statements and no departures from generally accepted accounting principles. This is the highest opinion. It's called a clean opinion that you can have from a independent accounting firm. uh basically states we have no modifying statements um in your opinion or in our opinion of uh your financial statements as they are presented in front of you today. Um again the management discussion analysis it's broken up into these components. I'll cover more on the financial highlights. Um but if you ever turn to the management discussion it gives you a a good overview of of how the city uh did from prior year to this year. And those um those are the the segments of the management discussion analysis. Jumping into some financial highlights, the governmentwide financials. I I won't

cover too much of these because it's all your funds consolidated into one opinion unit. Um, I'll cover more on the fund level in a little bit, but uh, just real quickly, your the city reported a combined net position of $445 million and it's broken up between your governmental activities of 231 and 213 in your business type activities. Those are all your enterprise funds um, consolidated together. And this is a required statement by our standards. So the net position did increase by 67.1 million from the prior year. uh governmental activities took up 30.8 of that and business type took up 36.3. Um as mentioned in uh James presentation earlier, we did have an increase in sales tax dollars for the fiscal year that made up a sizable chunk of the 30.8 in the governmental activities as well as some capital contributions um that made up about 18 million. So um there's some development that got finished and the city has taken on that infrastructure um to maintain it. So we recorded that as a as revenue for the for the city. Also on the business type activities we did have an increase in in charges for services. Those are uh customers either the customers have increased or the usage has increased. So or a combination of the two um in the water and sewer fund. And then also some capital contributions uh for infrastructures that y'all have taken ownership over to maintain. That was about $33 million of capital infrastructure y'all took on. Going to the the general fund. This is the the budgets and and where y'all are used to managing. Um y'all did have five major funds. I'll cover the three uh more uh I guess uh ma more major funds for lack of a better term. The general fund, the debt service, and the capital projects. Those are your three big primary funds. Um you do have other funds obviously and um they're presented in the financials, but I was just going

to cover those three um heavily used funds uh for for my presentation here. So going with the general fund, this is your city's main operating fund. Um at the end of 2025, you did have a $24.4 million increase. I'm sorry, $24.4 million um fund balance. That's an increase of $6.5 million. Again, most of that is in your um sales tax dollars. It does include a restatement of 1.9 some receivables that we had to um or some uh additional revenues that we should have recorded in the prior year. So that's that's included in that increase. But our unassigned fund balance is 17.8 million of that 24. So that is approximately 39% of general operating uh expenditures. The goal of for the city is is to keep at least 26. So you're well north of that. So good budgeting and good uh maintenance of the the uh city's fund balance there. Then I like to put kind of how the cash and cash equivalence of the city is um of 19.6 million. That's what we're reporting at at the end of the year. So of the 24.4 million in total fund balance, 19.6 is liquid and and y'all have access to that. So um very healthy fund balance for the general fund. Total revenues were 53.6 million and total expenditures were 47.9. And I'll cover the breakout of those on this slide. So, here's where the total revenues um for the fiscal year ended out. Um sales taxes were your your biggest portion um of 22.5 million and property taxes was next of 18.4. Property tax stayed pretty consistent from the prior year. Sales taxes had the biggest increase from the prior year. And then franchise taxes of 2.7 was the other large component. So, of that, your tax base uh makes up about 82% of your revenue stream. So heavily relying on the public dollars coming into the city to to fund operations.

Total expenditures, these are the functions that that the the buckets fell into of the expenditures. Uh 24.7 million in the public safety, which is just about half of the city's operating uh expenditures as well as 7.3 in general government and um uh administrative 6.2. Those are the big chunks. Next real high level on the debt service fund, it did decrease about almost $800,000 to 1.2 and that's just restricted for ongoing debt um obligations that the city has. Um so um but 1.2 million so it's funded primarily by property tax dollars, your INS rate. Cabar projects fund did increase 26.1 million from the prior year and that's sitting at 67.6 million. Uh most of that is related to the new bond that y'all passed of 27.4 million in 2025. Um capital outlay for the fiscal year was 7.9. So y'all are spending some of those bond reserves on projects that are allowed um under those bond agreements. Finally on the compliance section, these are the other two um audit reports we issue. We have the in um internal control report over financial reporting and compliance on other matters recorded uh in accordance with general government auditing standards as well as um the single audit opinion which is the compliance on each major uh program on the audit we did in accordance with uniform guidance. Um we had no material weaknesses in um internal controls or no control deficiencies or non-compliance noted in the financial statements during our audit. Um also we had no compliance require uh no internal control weaknesses or non-compliance related to the major program which is ARP um during the fiscal year and you had an unmodified opinion on the finan on the

single audit as well. So overall a clean a clean year on the financial and compliance side. Next is our letter of conduct and audit. This is our required communication with you and let you know how the audit went. Um accounting policies. We did have a new accounting uh implementation this year. It's Gazsby 101 which is compensated absises. Uh nothing the city could have done it. It was um in order to comply with the auditing standards or I'm sorry accounting standards uh the city had to adopt this. uh management prepared a new measurement of its compensated absences and those are reflected in uh the financial statements you have in front of you. Um again accounting estimates and disclosures um and sensitive disclosures estimates are part of these financial statements and we evaluate those and and they're comparable and consistent with the prior years. I will say one uh sensitive disclosure is is note three related to the restatement of beginning uh balances. It's on page 66 of this document. Um we did have some being the first year we came back uh we came in as auditors we started questioning things and so we we found some restatements some of it's related to the implementation of Gazsby 101 and uh that's just requires a retroactive application um the other two were related to capital assets and receivables that we we identified we had no difficulties in performing the audit or material uh misstatements or disagreements with management. So if we had any of those, we'd have to be required to communicate that to you. Uh management has provided all representation for us to do our audit. So they've provided us everything we need to get us here today. And there were no consultations with uh independent auditors or other independent accountants. Um they would be those accountants would be required to communicate with us and and we didn't get any such communications. Finally, we did perform an audit over the city's investment practices and make sure that y'all were in compliance with the public

funds investment act, which y'all were. So, um, no, uh, unallowed investments and investment officers are all up to date on their training and the investment policies in compliance with the act that y'all have in in the city. With that, I'll take any questions or about the financial statements or the audit process or anything y'all have. Okay. Does council have any questions? Okay. Councilman Guerrero.

Yeah. I got a question. Um, how long did it take to do this audit? How long? until last week. No. Um when we start I think we started in November. We came out for two weeks and then we came back in January for another two or three weeks and then about two weeks. So all in all probably about two months eight to 10 weeks I would say to kind of wrap up. Uh what was the cost for for doing the audit? 5,000 55 50 grand 50 grand. I'd have to look at the the RFP again. I don't have that number on the top of my head, but yeah, about 55,000.

All right. Thank you, Council Member Westbrook.

Yes. So, the audit was basically about if every we're compliant, right? GAAP compliant, controls are in place, and all the numbers are correct. That pretty much a a brief summary of what an audit does. Yes. So, so management uh manages the funds, the receipts coming in, the the uh the payables going out, uh the the payroll going out, stuff like that. Um and and as a part of an audit, we do a risk assessment over the those policies and we determine what area to kind of what stone to to look into um based off our risk assessment over those areas. So then we do then we perform our procedures to make to validate not only the balances are correct but also the controls that are in place are operating efficiently.

Y so we're talking about controls and compliance but what does it not tell us? It doesn't tell us about revenues deficit. Does it talk about deficit? Actually I've got some comments about that. Okay. Yeah. Yes. So, so the financial statements themselves show the the the the revenues and expenditures and our job is to make sure that those are in compliance with standards. So, if you go back to the can you go back to Can I do you mind if I make a couple comments because I think I know where you're headed with this.

So, and I do just want to make a couple of comments. Great job. Great job to James and the team Jessica for for putting together these are our financial statements. These are the city's financial statements and the external auditing firm comes in and audits our financial statements and the things that go behind how we operate. Fair common lay way to say it. So this is they're presenting the results of that. So I do want to point out the about the actual financial statements the annual comprehensive financial report some key things. So, the general fund being our largest fund and a lot of what people tend to look at, I I think it's important. If you want to turn to page 26 in your book, this is this is something that I I tend to look at when when we're evaluating the financial statements in our position. And on page 26, you'll see the general fund in the far left column. If you go all the way down, you know, you have revenues and expenditures, and then you go down, [snorts] you go down to the net change in fund balance. So, for the general fund, we had a $4.5 million increase in fund balance. And for those of you who who maybe are in the audience don't understand the terminology, the governmental accounting terminology for fund balance, which only applies to governmental funds like the general fund. It is essentially our savings account in in our reserves. So, you see the $4.5 million change plus that $1.9 million restatement. That's what bumps us from the we effectively go from 17.9 million to 24.4 million in our general fund fund balance. Another page to look at, if you turn to page 71, it breaks down those revenues a little bit more and it shows our original budget versus our final budget. What the final budget is is the amended version of our budget that's that's occurred over the years. I mean over the fiscal

year, excuse me. So you can see under the revenues the the the the final budget amounts $48.2 million and we actually ended up receiving $53.5 million. That's 5 almost $5.3 million over what we budgeted for revenues. and and like it was mentioned during the presentation, most of that's in the taxes because that's the sales tax that James mentioned in his quarterly update at the beginning of the meeting, but also if you direct your attention to page 71, you can see under total expenditures about the middle of that page, our amended budget was that 49.8 million and we actually only spent 47.8. So there's about a one almost a $2 million underbudget expenditure amount for for for those funds. But then you got to take into account the transfers. That's that's down there a little bit further. And and you can see that we we actually budgeted to transfer out 1.5 million, but we budgeted out a lot more than that. I mean, I'm sorry, we transferred out I'm sorry, we budgeted to transfer out 28 million, transferred out 1.4 million. So we're a little bit higher there. And if you go down to the the net change in fund balance, our budget said that we were going to draw down fund balance because we had excess fund balance like you mentioned, right? We're going to draw it down according to our budget by 1.5 million, but we actually ended up increasing it by 4.5 million. So that's what that what takes us to that, you know, bumps us up to that 24 million. Another really, it was mentioned during the presentation too, the statistical section. And I really like this because it shows the trends over time and really is a good indicator of your fiscal health long term. And I'll say when Gazby put this into place, a lot of us moaned and groaned that we had to do it, but I really like having it now. So, it's really nice.

It's hard to go back. Yeah,

it's it it and so it gives you a 10-year look back. And if you go to page 116 and 117, it spans across both pages, but just kind of look there up at the top, you got the general fund and you have five different categories of general fund fund balance. So being the most restrictive at the top and the least restrictive at the bottom. So you have non non-spendable, restricted, committed, assigned, and unassigned. Unassigned is effectively your cash, right? Your blank check. You can do what you want. The other thing is we've set those aside for certain things. So in in the past council has either by resolution or some other way we've set aside money to do certain things. That's why it's assigned. And then committed means it's committed for a certain purpose. So it moves up the ladder. It's more restricted. So I just want to show you in case it comes to your attention or there are comments made about our fund balance for the general fund. If you look at 2021, which is the 2021 fiscal year, to 2025, which is the 20 the this most recent audited financial statements, you'll see that our unassigned fund balance has gone from 11.5 million to $17.78 million. So, pretty significant growth in our savings in our reserves over that fiveyear period of time. Um also you know and and our expenditures have grown quite a bit also and if you think about what type of organization we are we are a service- driven organization that is run by people especially in the general fund. So if you were to look back and you were to look at where why is the expenditure side grown so much you and you could look at page 120 well I'm sorry uh page 142 and 143 you look at the last 5 years

we've actually grown from 383 budgeted positions to 433 positions so that's a significant investment in adding new positions to our budget And a lot of these affected the uh general fund. And so anyways, that's that's why you would probably see a pretty dramatic increase in the amount of salary dollars we spend. And then lastly, I'll just say on page 120 and 121, it shows the growth in in our revenue sources in the general fund. So if you look at the first two columns, you got property tax and sales tax. And since 2021 to 2025, you've seen that property tax, it's grown pretty significantly from 21.4 million to 27.7 million. And then sales tax has actually gone way higher than that from 16.8 million to 33.9 million. So all that being said, thank you for your presentation. I really appreciate and thank you for giving me the liberty to to expound on some of these things. I think the ACFR is a document that's really confusing to a lot of people because, you know, you can get caught up in the net position and going back and forth for between full acral and modified acrruel and I think that's what confuses people sometimes, but it it does show and the trend lines do show that we're in a pretty good financial position. So, um anyway, thank you very much. So, I hope that answered your question

partially, but for laymen like myself, three questions. And I'm reading off a document that I received, so you can be yes or no. Is a city operating in a deficit? No. Is a city using reserves to fund operations? No. Has a city um have the financial capacity for infrastructure and new services?

Yes. According to our capital improvement program that we have laid out, we have aligned the construction and the things that are on the list with what we anticipate to be the expected resources. If we do run into a situation, it's kind of like driving a a ship, steering a ship, and you're looking 20, 30 years down the road. You're trying really hard to hit that, but if you see that you're off course, you correct it. and it's a slow correction and you know you you you make adjustments here and there to make sure you're still maintaining that course to the north star. So that's what we're doing. If you look at the planning that we're doing with our budgets, we do a 5-year multi-year forecast for our major funds like the general fund and we also do a five-year capital improvement program that details out expenditures over that capital improvement program as well as the what we anticipate in the next five years beyond that. So I I would say no, no, and yes.

Thank you. And Oh, I'm sorry. Was that directed to me or to the answer? It is a matter better than I could. Yeah, there we go. Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate it.

Okay. Council member Hayward, did you still have a a question to ask? No, I was actually going to say thank you to James Walters and the public affairs for coming up with a new cover for this wonderful document that we all have to read as a financial statement and trying to understand it. So, I just want to appreciate it. I appreciate the auditing firm and when we had our meeting going through the things that we needed to and and explaining those things and just giving us what we needed to be able to say that we have a clean audit. So, I truly appreciate that and I appreciate your department, James Walters, for putting everything together and having that meeting and explain it. And so, I just want to make a motion that we approve accepting the audit.

Okay. Before we proceed with that motion, uh, do we have a question by council member Maluso?

Yes, I do. Um, just real quick, appreciate the report. I'm glad that we got it. I just wish we could get this a little bit earlier so when you ask if we have comments or questions, we actually have something to go off of because I'm just going off of what your report is, but you know, it would be nice if we had a little bit of time to evaluate this so we can have more informed questions and comments. But, um, you have something to say. Oh, I was just going to say um if you have any questions over the financials or how they worked or why the numbers a certain way um even if after this, please reach out to us um and we'll be happy to walk you through uh what's actually in there. And as as Steve and and Jeremy mentioned, what the report actually is is them coming coming in and making sure we're following all the rules and hand with handling the money. It they don't change what's in the report. They're not saying um we're we're doing good, we're doing bad. The numbers are what they are and if you have any questions, you can always come and ask us and we'll

and that would be extended to members of the community that maybe need help working through some of these documents as well. My my only question is on the uh unassigned portion of the general fund. I know it's up to 17 million. Is that that was largely due to the increase in the sales tax that we received at the end of last year? sales taxes are 20 24 million and what's that? Oh, the unassigned. I'm sorry. No. So, um, look, let's say if it was a more normal sales tax collection period, could you you have a number in your head of where we would have been without that?

Yeah. The sales tax, if you looked at the over under on the the page, uh, about $5 million over on the sales taxes. So, we were $2 million uh under on the the um expenses. So you can take $5 million off of that. Okay. So round 12, you would have been closer to round 12. Okay. More in line with kind of where we were. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Seeing no other questions, and I already have a motion by Council Member Hayward. Do I have a second? Second.

Okay. We have a second by Council Member Watson. Can I get council members to cast your votes? Can I get the votes published, please? All right, having seven yays, no nays, motion passes. Thank you very much.

Thank you. All right, we're going to move on to item number eight, uh, which will involve a public hearing on ordinance 26M-009. Con conduct a public hearing to consider an amending chapter 90, article 5, water and wastewater capital recovery fees, section 90-155, appeals.

Thank you, Mayor. Brian James, deputy city manager for the city of Schwartz. I'll try to be fairly brief as I often am not fairly brief. Uh but as council may remember about a year ago, we updated our uh basically water and sewer impact fees as we're required to do every number of years by by state law. And again, as we see over time costs increase, what that means is our impact fees go up with it. Um and that has an impact on uh building and development in the community because the cost to build and develop insurance go up uh to basically pay for the water and sewer infrastructure uh need that that development creates and and so it's it's to have development pay for uh the infrastructure that they need with regard to water and sewer. Typically in the past what we've done is we've done a phased in approach. So when we do these studies and we take the ordinance to council, we normally lay out to increase those fees uh over a period of time uh to let developers kind of take that into account and better plan for it. Uh this last year what we had happen is at the time we were doing that uh the legislature was considering a bill Senate Bill 1883 that as it was worded at the time would have prevented us from phasing in impact fees like we typically had. Basically, it said once you adopted them, you were stuck with those for a number of years, and that proved problematic. Uh, we reached out to to the senator whose bill that was, but didn't get the impression they were going to change it. And so, the gist of it was when we came to you on April 1st and said, "Hey, we need to update the impact fees." Uh, because of those factors, it was agreed to go with a shorter phase in for that. Essentially what we said is that um this new impact fee would apply to all plat filed after June 1st, just a couple of months. And that new fee would go into effect a

month later on July 1st. And that seemed to work fairly well as we looked at things and we worked with folks, we we kind of when we do this, we know the developers who are in process trying to pull building permits or file plats and we work with them and kind of remind them, hey, you need to move this thing along otherwise you get hit with a higher fee. And so it generally works fairly well. Uh but this time again it was a bit of a different process because of the legislature and some of the changes we made uh even to move up that phase and date. What we've had happened frankly is developer who came back and said hey you guys didn't really make this clear to us we feel here are the things that we had in process and if we had known that we could have pushed to get our stuff through. It doesn't seem fair. doesn't seem consistent with the city's core values to make us pay this because in fact in their situation and we sort of wrote this into the draft bill. A good portion of their property was already platted and it would have in fact if they hadn't replatted paid at a much lower rate. They had come in and done an agreement with the city, one subdivision improvement agreement to defer some of the public improvements. They were in process with us talking about another subdivision improvement agreement for a sewer line improvement. And so in and when we went back and looked at it, it seemed fair that yeah, if they had known this, they could have said, 'Oh, if we know that implication, let us rush this thing through. Let us move it through because we're already in process and get there. And and so while we haven't had others come in and looking at it, it made sense to put in a provision that allows for an appeal based on some of those factors uh that we have going. We don't think we have a lot of them, right? and we but we put some language into account for somebody else that may hit us with this uh particularly that references some of the factors. So again, it's a replat for all of the portion of the property. They were in process with applications and likely could have made the effective date. Again, I don't think we're going to see the floodgates open on this, but

we've gone back and looked at the folks who were in process. We'll reach out to a couple of them and just make them aware that we did this. Um, but that's what we're asking for you tonight is to put in this appeal process for that fee. We think it'll be very, very limited use. Um, and then again, when we come back with roadway impact fees this fall, again, this just applies to water and sewer, we'll likely go back to more of our typical model based on the state law to phase in. So, with that, I'll be quiet and answer questions.

Okay. Well, before we do that, I'll go ahead and open it up uh for a public hearing at 7:26. For those who wish to speak on this topic, uh please state your name and address and you'll be given three minutes to speak. Going once, going twice. We'll close the uh public hearing at 7:26 with nobody speaking on behalf of ordinance 26-m9. Council members, do you have any questions?

Can I get a motion? So moved. Second. Okay, I have uh I have a motion made by Council Member Hayward, seconded by Council Member Westbrook. Can I get council to cast the votes? Can I get the votes published, please? All right, having seven yays, no nays, motion passes. At this time, we're going to go ahead and go in close session at 7:27.

Okay, we're going to go ahead and come out of executive session at 8:07. So on uh so there was uh no action taken no action to be taken on item 10 uh on item number nine that refers to item number nine. So we're going to go ahead and move on to item 11 and 12. And there will be no discussion to occur on those two items when so we'll move forward with requests and announcements. request by mayor and council members for updates or information from staff. Any council members requesting any updates from staff? Yes. Okay.

Uh just wanted to ask about the U memorial for Council Member Tim Brown. Yes. Thank you. And I did have an update. We're not we're really close to sending it out, but we do have a draft of what we intend to do and we're going to run it by council. on the written update for the Yeah. Yes. So, it'll be in the written update of the next council meeting, the section of the information only. Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. Any other updates from council?

Okay. The only uh request that I'd like to make is I'd like to see what we could do to get um Mayor Goodier's picture on the wall. Uh so uh and so whatever we can do to uh move these pictures and and make those look good. So so that way we can recognize him for his time served here. So when are we when are we going to get a last meeting she request what did you request last meeting council member Watson?

Um the traffic for 1103 for the ordinance so we can go through the ordinance and have a discussion in regards to fees or any impacts to companies in regards to the railroad. 11:03 or or Shirts Parkway, I'm sorry, Shirts Parkway and Main Street relative to the 39 o overpass. Yes. But specifically for Shirts Parkway because of the the 18-wheelers over the

Okay. I have an email, you know, I'll I'll give you a presentation all day long about it. Yes. Okay. Yeah. And I think um going forward, we really do need to take a hard look on what we can do with our railroad crossings, especially on First Street and Church Parkway.

Um because the signs that are currently up there, they're amongst other signs that could be very easily overlooked, so they don't really stand out. And they're also yellow and black, which just an indication of warning, right, that you can get hung up on the railroad trestle. It doesn't say that you're not to go across the railroad trestle. So, I'd like to see what we can do to get something out that's pretty much states that they're not to go across a railroad trestle for the reason of being able to c of getting high centered on the railroad trestle. And when you come across uh church when you come on to church Parkway from 78, soon as you go over the railroad tracks, there's a sign that says no heavy trucks allowed. Well, it's kind of too late. You're already on it. So, I was wondering if we can do something to post right before they even attempt to get on to Church Parkway

from 78. Yeah, that would be the fines that I was interested in as well. Yeah. So, if we can come up with something that even like some lit signs that kind of get grabs people attention, things like that, I think would work. I think mayor, the reason why I asked is I didn't know if there was a request about the water issue. Can you address something? I have not yet about we sort of tabled it. We we passed the resolution and then I think we were going to address a second portion of it. No. at the end of last meeting. Well, I I think you're talking about what was discussed in executive session.

Yeah, but we have to pass a resolution and then I thought there was another motion to like later in the meeting to bring something back to bring u have another discussion about the second portion of it. I don't

don't recall that, but we can go back and look. We do intend to discuss what we in further detail relative to the structure of our water and sewer systems to give a deeper explanation of what we had a discussion in executive session about and map that out. We'll walk through all of that in in our pre-planning our budget pre-planning retreat at the end of this month. Um, can I get a Do you have a copy of the agreement and or contract with all of the the land owners and their water leasing? Whatever contract you have with the land owners in terms of uh their water rights, that's what I'm looking for.

We have two things. Let me try here and see if I'm not mistaken. So, I think as Steve said, we're going to do kind of a 101 at the budget retreat on water and sewer service, how it gets provided, where we get our water, where our sewer goes going forward. And then we're also going to come back more specifically to talk about the status of CVLGC in the future. And that's where we're going to cover what CVLGC is, what assets they have, what our options are as as sort of a a separate we talked about. while I still would like to sort of see the terminology and the language used for the contract and agreement with the land owners terms of uh water rights. So email is fine or you email it to the whole council but

I don't want to receive it at the last minute. We we can provide copies of the leases that the ground leases that go with CVLGC if correct that's what you want. We can provide that as long as they're they're generally the same. That's generally the same. All right, moving on. Any other questions? Have something to place on the agenda. Okay, go ahead.

I wanted to have a discussion in regards to the current impact fees and alternative options and I'll follow it with the email in specific questions that I have and other opportunities that may be available. Okay. Now, moving on to city and community events attended and or to be attended. Pro Tim Davis. Nothing tonight, sir. Nothing tonight.

Yes. Uh just real quick, was able to go to the kick cancer. Um that was a good time. And we had an interview committee meeting, but uh also you you saw these handouts that Laura gave. Um I'm I'm asking for every council member's support and trying to help with this. Um you know, we have a special event planned and um we really need some participation uh from our [sighs] companies and people in the community and so if you can help with getting sponsorships um that'd go a long way for us to put on something special.

And it's been requested that we email that out to the council and we'll be happy to do that. I just attended the uh the council council run northeast partnership lunchon. I attended the smoothie king um on la. It was great. It was a great event and that's where I injured my foot. But any rate uh I did the audit committee and the interview committee and everything went well. That's all. did the uh Northeast Partnership lunchon and uh the SUSID uh fellowship board.

Okay. And I was pretty busy. I attended the Guadaloop County Mayor's meeting. Um also attended a TML midterm year conference. also went to kick the cancer pep rally and 5K and also went to the Rotary Club meeting and the NEP lunchon and the chamber lunchon today. So having uh no other items, we'll go ahead and adjourn at 8:16.