Town Board - Regular Meeting

[clears throat] Okay. So, the public meeting for uh the 2026 budget. Uh we'll start off this meeting with the uh pledge to the flag. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the reps nation indivisibley and justice for all. So, this is a chance for the public to speak on the budget. The board has been through it and through it uh several times. I think many of you attended public meetings we've had over this budget. It's been posted online. Uh there's no action tonight will be taken by the board other than to take public comments, take them under consideration if there are any, answer questions to the best of our ability. So, at this point, um it really is up to you, the public. If uh [snorts] anyone has questions, we'll entertain those and we will answer them to the best of our ability and uh take any comments under consideration. So, at this point, the the floor is yours is the public.

I'll start. Yeah, absolutely. Waters, Shelby Center. speak up. Yes. Thank you. No problem. Uh couple of things right off the bat that I noticed. Uh general fund a yep is appropriations are overstated by $3,000. Yes. For some reason there was a mistake in in the uh it should have been we just caught that. after we had posted it. So that'll be a correction that we'll make.

And the budget line for the fire districts.

Yes. budget column didn't print off 2025 doesn't show what the budget is missed on the print. Okay. Is that something that we can I'll have to dig that up. I can get that to you though.

I got some specific line item. Sure. First of all, the fire. First of all, do we know where the 3000 offsetting 3000 figure is? No, not exactly. Are you going to raise?

That's something that I got to look at closer. I just noticed it today to be honest with you after we got to this point. So, it's something that we missed earlier. I'll have to take a look and see where that uh [clears throat] general fund a work fees [snorts] A1255 actual 91600 Hang on just a minute. Let me get there. I think it's the page right after a 1255

1255 right here. Okay. Year to date $9,000 roughly 2025 requesting for 1,600 [snorts] that the trainings and things that we took out uh u know the clerk fees there was I'd have to go back and look at our notes from the earlier meetings. Um we moved some items out of that into another line. Next one down. Refuse fees. Yep. Uh 15 or call it 1,600 actual. Yep. Year to date 25. Number one, what is that? Number two, is that something we wait till the end of the year to do?

No. What you're going to find in a lot of these as we went through this is that the in the past a lot of the u revenues and the appropriations never got coded correctly. And so consequently as we went through this uh over and over we moved items to the appropriate lines. And those are questions I can tell you exactly what was moved out of that someplace else for instance things like office supplies into the building

building those appropriate. So a lot of this when you're seeing differences in those are there were items that were charged inappropriate to certain areas or the revenues were associated. So, it's anticipated whatever that is, we're going to spend 1,600 on it. Yes. Well, you've got fees, clerk fees that again, those are revenues. Those are things like dog licenses, things of that nature. That's a separate line down there. Yeah. But I mean, there are other there's other things that go into those fees.

Uh, next one down. Sale of cemetery lot 7500. Again, kind of sticking in in line with 23 and 24 uh 1,600 [clears throat] was the budget for this year year-to- date actual uh 2750. You know, again, how do we determine how many lots are going to be needed?

Well, part of the other problem we've had with the budget right from the very beginning is that [snorts] as you know, there's been bookkeeping problems here since 23 and even as the other day I was informed that we've had other errors that were made in 2023 and handed over to 24 sort out even as we speak remember we've only been on this budget for about four weeks and so what we're finding Larry is that even items that are being build are being are being coded incorrectly so there's a lot of the times there is even revenue it's not being recorded correctly uh in the right eye. And that's that's a process and I think that John can tell you who's been here that we're slowly working out about how um the invoices come in, how they're being coded correctly and and there's been a lot of changes over the last few weeks to try to better associate the actual revenues or the actual costs to those particular line items. [clears throat] I know that uh during one of the comprollers audits it was stressed that there are too many accounts bank accounts too many things to keep track of. I know we pull back on a lot of those things, but I still believe, you know, going through this that there's not enough at this point broken out a bit further because a lot of these things are cryptic, you know, commissions.

What's that? Commissions from I think actual zero 2026 budget zero. Yeah. Was 26,000 25,000 234. So again, you know, and here's the here's the other onto the, you know, tax ro if for some reason we think we're not getting that from someone. And here's again to go back and even find out today why was there a revenue associated with that? It's been almost impossible. The challenge here has been enormous. Not only did Well, I can appreciate that.

Well, let me finish. Not only did we come into what was a mess in terms of bookkeeping since 2017, but then the group that was hired, LGSS, came in here, and you remember going through all of that and how there was push back from at least two members on the board to hiring LGSS. They contributed to more errors. We're finding some cash statements that are incorrect uh in the 2023. So now you're asking how do we we can't find were those those commission what were they how did they get in there doesn't appear that they are anything that we should anticipate um and I'll tell you coming in the computer data was erased the files are almost impossible to find here contracts I have to go back to either the county or to spectrum whomever to find the contracts that we has uh to locate the revenues. Um so there's a lot of things on here yet in four weeks. This is what we could do. There's going to be a lot of work when it comes to the next budget. And I think your ideas are absolutely correct. We're going to have to better define where our expenses, what goes into those different things. U Linda spent a lot of time on it and unfortunately the last few weeks she's been out and as you see she's still ill and not here tonight. So, there's a ton of work yet to find out are we are we coding things correctly on these invoices and the vouchers so that we know exactly where the expenses lie. Uh because you can't control these things if you don't know what's in the fines and there's still a lot of work to do.

There are accounting firms also, you know, helping us out on that quite a bit. She's she's trying to get the straight out too. as they go along. It's been a tremendous job and I got to commend you guys for nose to the grindstone. I know you met a lot of times. Some of those times I wasn't able to attend. Um, and it's been difficult for me because, you know, I haven't been able to, you know, speak and and offer, you know, my opinion on things until now. And unfortunately, I'm, you know, at that much bigger of a loss because I'm just trying to decipher what it is that [clears throat] you guys put together in that short, you know, period of time.

And at the same time, although we pulled a million, pulled almost a million out of there, we're still looking at a tax increase. It's uh you know well the tax increases really should have starting in co time prices shot through the ceiling and after co uh the federal government sent out a lot of money and that kind of masked a lot of the cost increases that we're seeing and [clears throat] afterwards

and Afterwards, in the last couple of years, once the ARPA money was gone, they dipped heavily into the uh reserve funds to the point of 2024. where they took out 917,939 of the reserve funds which show you didn't [clears throat] have any increase in your taxes to speak of because they robbed piggy bank to put in there. Last year they took out 9,900 9,95 900,957 $799. So total of $1.9 million in two years. Part of that actually went if you looked on your tax bill last year was that your fire tax went down. How the heck did the fire tax go down? That's because they took reserve funds and used 10% of the tax for the fire department came out of the reserve funds. Uh and trying to sort out how expenses got co has been a nightmare. uh and to go back into the uh into the invoices and vouchers [snorts] and then to try to sort through them. Um you have to understand that really who did most of the work here uh was not quite frankly the supervisor, it was the bookkeeper.

And then when she left there was nobody to do it and it got even worse. And the filing system here leads needs a lot of work. Um, and it will get fixed. Um, but happy to try to answer any questions you have. I'm not trying to keep you from answering questions. I just it's it's been I've been in here every day. I've been in here on the weekends. John has been helping me. Ed has tried to help. Linda did a lot till she got sick. Um, we haven't really started to even address water. We're just beginning to look at that. And that is another

comments on that as well. com because we we you may find yourself on January one with some some work. Uh well, you know, show up. Oh, you'll show up.

Can I make a comment before we proceed? I think now that we have a software program that can go back and you can visually see what was allocated to those accounts very very easily, which we have no process for doing that in the past. anything that is mis uh referenced as far as expense or revenue can be addressed very quickly. So that that's a major change that uh coming in what happened this year and going forward. So those are positive things are happening. Well again that's only as good as the data given. No but you can look at it now. You don't have to go through the files

happening is there you know there's catch all funds here that are easy numbers to remember. uh B8140.60, you know, just throw it in there and technically it should have been maybe I guess my comment to that there is someone has to be vigilant to go through and make the corrections because you can't trust some of the people that are doing it now. So unfortunate again sales other same page couple lines down uh $9,800 year actual

that I can speak to that that is when the fire department comes over and gets fuel or we give salt to boseis that they buy it that uh that all comes up in that number we don't anticipate selling any next year I think I think that we've actually put that in in another line. We anticipate putting the revenue someplace else. I thought we furnished the fuel for the fire departments. I mean, we don't charge them for that, do we? Oh, yeah. They reimbures them. There's a thousand. I was always told that they come to fill up.

Well, they they come to fill out. They fell out. They fill out a document for it. Boseies bought $1,000 worth of our salt last year. So I know for a fact that that number is correct. With the fuel station being down and the computer system not being up, how how are we accurately tracking the fire department's gallons?

So doing it manually. Manually at this point we have begun getting quotations on getting the system fixed. Um the problem we've got right now, we haven't been able to address it again in the short period of time. Uh if somebody would like to go and look at my desk at the number of items in audit that need to be addressed, I'm happy to share them with everybody. The gas pumps are one of those items. Yeah, we've gotten some we've gotten some well, we've gotten some quotes on it, but as we go through the budget, finding the u anywhere between six and 20,000 to get it fixed is one of those things we'll have to look at. Um

I think it's well worth the money spent. Well, those are budget items that we'll have to take up as we as we go through this. There's a lot of expenses that we have to address. Uh we're on track here this year already um out of this budget of money that we got 2025. Uh we spent year to date $162,000 and over to [snorts] legal. We spent last year 144,000 for leave. We're over 300,000 in two years. So the funds have been depleted, the reserve funds have been depleted, the expenses have been through the roof. So looking at any expenditure is going to have to be a job for the board to take a look at. Uh I did call somebody again today, some other quotes on on a gas fuel system and we'll have to analyze that and we'll have to make some decisions. Where's the money going to come from? Can we afford it? And is it going to pay for itself?

Part of this is for us to say what we would like to happen, right? Absolutely. And I would like to have what Julie is talking about. I would like to have uh money included in your like say 20,000 is the highest number you've gotten. Then you budget for that 20 20,000 even if you we have we have money in contingency funds in here. That was a question I believe. Yeah. So you know if we determine over the next period of time that that is something that is uh where the money should go because there's a lot of places the money should go. Uh it'll have to you know, what's what's the most important for us to address. We're going to find, too, quite frankly, that there are some things we haven't even anticipated. True.

Um, we're not through the year yet, even on legal. And we've cut down tremendously, we don't call the lawyer every day, but the books are so bad that we're expending way a lot more money on our accounting than than we did. I [snorts] understand what you said about um contingency funds, but just member of Shelby, I feel it's important enough to say this is this is included in some particular budget versus we might do it at the beginning. I I that's certainly a good point and we'll take it under consideration. I think that's that's certainly a valid point. Um [clears throat] you talked about she

I'm sorry. Larry, you finished all Well, I got a lot lot of lines I have questions on. Uh we'll do the best we can to answer. We're in appropriations still in uh a fund first line. Town board services is that council members pay 18850 town board services a 1010.

Oh yeah. Yeah, it must be. Yeah, that's that's that's everybody in there. That's the council people and um supervisor. Does that include you? That should have four. The supervisor line is a separate line.

Well, it is a separate line. That brings me to my next question. Who types in the names on these accounts? Justice services. A lot of those come right from the state. I don't know that all of them because we've got two versions of personal personnel. Correct.

I don't know. I can't answer that. Clarity. that 188 is just before council council. Right. So on the next page it appears in wrong that you're giving [snorts] up a portion of your pay for you got supervisor services 812. Well, my pay if you're looking at 81220.1400

actually the supervisor services I think we put the uh my fee there along with um some about 10 grand to find somebody to uh take care of a part-time person uh for about 10 hours a And quite frankly, we're probably going to have to find somebody else to do some more than that. Yeah. Everything in it in a in a 0.1 is a salary for uh on everything. Mhm.

Controller contractual 5,000 2024 85,000 budget 25 year date 91,000. Yep. That's that's the account. Do we have a replacement? Well, that's who we've got now that we're working with. Single source. Single source. voted in to take over. That's their fee for the year. 70. Uh it's a little bit less than that and we put in a little bit more to cover it, but I'll tell you probably not going to be enough if we keep finding problems.

And then the next one down individual auditing continue with it. Nope. We hired a new auditing firm and that's their fee mi. before earlier this year. The um total for uh highway superintendent services 5010 salary. Yeah, 0.1 is a salary 0.1's are salaries. The published salary that is on the website 69904. Yeah.

And the website that posting you'll see on the paper there's a correction that should be associated with that. Okay. When we put there that he did not take a raise. We did not give him a raise. Okay. So the posting on online was wrong. Oh okay. And I talked to legal and they said no problem just corrected in the budget. Clerk services 683. That is Darlene and assistant cler. Correct. That is correct. And our next favorite line, attorney contractual.

Obviously got a little out of control there. We're looking at 24,000 base 2,000 a month. Is that correct? That's correct. Um so we're 24,000 over that base for that. Mhm. For whatever reason that may be on top of skipping back to the water districts charging each district $3,000 attorney

fem which I know that you were asking the attorney to look through those things. It's been quite a while since that has transpired and and I've seen no report on findings or any offering of what we should be doing there. Just wondering if that's a little overkill.

Well, given the situation that's occurred since um the discussion about having the attorney look the water, um we had three resignations and a huge amount of legal fees that went towards trying to maintain uh Shelby as a functioning entity. Um, since we've gotten a quorum, we have slowly pulled back on that, but water is going to require uh a tremendous amount of work. Hopefully, we don't have to use 3,000 for each district. Um, I think probably we're going to end up looking for something we haven't budgeted because we have no quotes for it yet. I think we're going to have in order to straighten out water, going to have to look into uh getting a rural water consultant. Um, it has turned into a bigger morass than I ever thought.

Well, I know. I'd be happy to share that with somebody. It's four weeks has been a little tough to look at water given everything else that we've looked at. Well, I just got my water bill in the mail today. Well, the rates for water have not have [clears throat] not changed. Well, I know they have not changed and that's a shame because I've been getting water for nearly a year. Yeah. That's a discussion for and more than happy to have somebody come in and help straighten that out. Any volunteers? Guess not. [snorts]

Okay. A little further down. Records management contractual 81460.4. We're averaging 300 about $365 a year. Buding I have to go back and look again. Docuare we moved from where it was into into that category. It was mis misapplied to another. So that's software support. It's software. Yeah. It was taken out of other some other

well we use it we use it for zoning and you know it's all permanent record stuff. So where it came from all the different departments it was going on buildings. So because on records management. We decided we should put it under records management and it's like $248 a month to have the docu. It's in the cloud. Um and therefore everything is permanent. It's in the cloud. We still keep the hard copies. We don't destroy them. But um we just have it for easy access and then we're not handling old records.

Uh a couple more down. I I spoke on this one a couple years ago. We got a chuckle out of it. But uh the central store room contractual uh again a tremendous jump $140 spent 125 with budget,000 from what I understood and was told before this was for pens and pencils and thought you know those are pretty expensive pencils. So

it really is this is another one where um the office supplies are used uh throughout the building by a number of departments. paper is a tremendous expense. We do go through a lot of paper that was never getting coded correctly. So, we've moved all of that into this area as opposed to going into buildings in general uh so that we can now keep track of exactly what is it costing us for office supplies. something again that we've done on a number of line items to try to track the cost more closely and without being able to do that you have to kind of guesstimate on on the budget and say given what the last order of paper was how much was it um you know how much do we think we might use for the year pens and pencils aren't really the biggest thing but obviously the paper is is a much bigger cost

toner go into that yeah Envelopes are big too. Big two. Yep. What is the next one insurance?

That's the for the retiree in the insurance. We there's a number of insuranceances that we that we carry. Um I'd have to go back and look exactly to be honest with you, Mark. I can't tell you right off the top of my head. Um I think that's what it is. You think that's the retirement area? Now the buildings uh the insurance on all the buildings the equipment that goes to the that goes to the building or the oh is that uh yeah the buildings item is that chart to that or is that I'm not sure. [clears throat]

Municipal dues is that is that dues to the association of town that's one of them. Yeah. Yeah. Is there more there? Is that what that is? Who's the other one, darling? Do you know? Municipal dues. We've got the association of towns. Who else do we have in there for municipal dues? It's just that like the town clerk has dues. Tax collection has dues. Um the highway has dues. Um we have dues. What? Okay. Yes. And I municipal dues is any department that he has dues along with the association of um towns.

Couple more down. Uh traffic control contractual you know again not to be nitpicky but no budget $116 budget 5,000 spent 922 call that a th00and um you know do we need all new traffic cones? What you know? Well, we did spend 922 this last year. Uh, it was budgeted. We did budget it at 5,000, which was too much. I mean, my goal is to get some of these lines taken down by some. Well, that's what we did where a million dollars came out,

you know, for whatever it's worth. [clears throat] On to the next page. Pilot

highway equipment and outlay $1,200 $50 a year to date for what is that a 510.2 You know, again, I can't tell you exactly. We we we went by the uh um the request of the highway department and we spent more time on the larger items, [clears throat] but those I could tell you by the 1200. Well, I think that should be zero. Yeah. You can't explain what it is.

If I can't Yeah. Couple more down. Street light contractual one 14 and 23 26 and 24 that was probably paying for the fixtures and have year actual $767. Um, we've got nothing in the budget. It switched over to the

move that somewhere else. I know that has special section. I don't know why here why would are special districts

and that's just changed at what he was talking about here.

Street lighting number can't tell you Larry.

All right, we're done with that one. And again, it's overated by three. So, we got to figure out what that is. [clears throat] Uh fun. appropriations [snorts] should be personal services obviously I see a budget of zero so anticipation is no that's correct couple more down parks contractual 1500 is that maintenance is that improvements is that Oh, we contribute some money to the village and some other for parks. Think we put the 1500 in there without knowing what exactly this year.

That's for the youth program. Youth. That's right. The youth program. No, that's the next. That's the next one. 9500.

Reason I bring it up is I've got a park within stones throat distance of my house. That's frankly an embarrassment to town, 1500. much of anything to enjoy. If it's not for improvements, uh certainly not for maint that's that's come down. Couple more down. Zoning equipment $1,500. Uh Dan state what he has to buy 26 for spent $40 this year. Needs 1,500 for next year.

I think that was the software that he uses. The um there's a software that they use for mapping. Next page, general fund outside B8160.4 again refu and garbage contractual $1,800 1900 budget 2500 year to date $400 call it. Yep.

We're looking at 2500 again for 26. It's because the 39777 is not correct. Uh it's not the pay a monthly fee. It has not been coded correctly. Uh the monthly fee 2500 will cover the monthly fee. That's just for like you know modern coming dumpster. Yep. Nothing overstated in that fun. 9901 that

what was that again? the the last one on that page.

That was that was actually another that was part of the um that was moved to purchase was part of the crazy work that they did moving um money from one line one budget area to another to pay for the trucks. Uh but that that money was never spent, never should have been. The transfer should ever been made. Uh so consequently, it's it's certainly not going to be the next. [clears throat] All right. Around the DA fund revenues, DA2302 services for other governments. We're looking at 13,000 26. Yep.

84,000 year to date. Yes. Is this shared services? our contribution towards

No, no, that's revenues uh from the state and county uh for maintenance and plowing of the roads. Uh we moved that to um to DB 5110. Couple more down on revenues. DA fund DA2665 sale of equipment $150. We've put a few things up for auction.

Well, I sat in here during the last workshop there when Mr. group was stating he would agree to sell at least one of the trucks, uh, all the chairs, the light fixtures, the overhead doors that got replaced. Certainly, you have to think that's going to be more than $150. Hard to know. The truck is really about worth putting it up on the scrap. Um, if we get a few thousand for it, five, not gone up on auction yet. Whether they're going to realize those sales or not, we'll have to see. Um, if we get extra revenue, then great. if not, but I can't anticipate that's necessarily going to bring us anything. Most of the rest of the stuff, truck might bring some money. Everything else, I'd be surprised if anybody makes it.

Yeah, probably nothing. But again, just trying to increase revenues tax. So, where it appears obvious to me, I have to mention. Yep. Uh appropriations, DA. It appears we've made the we made the jump and we put the snow to outside the village. Yep.

Um obviously that's a that's a striking amount of money. We offset almost the total amount of that move by moving uh two elements uh to the DB fund to offset um the uh move of the snow. So [snorts] one we moved sales tax. If you look at DB uh 1120 sales tax had actually been in the townwide um and the fact that the village already received some portion of the sales tax from the county. uh it didn't seem appropriate first of all that it that the village residents would also get a boost from the 99,000 for the townwide. So we pushed it all to the outside the whole 99,000 the estimate of the sales tax that we'll get also um you see transportation snow and ice that is um the amount of money that we get pretty pretty closely to the money we get from the county and the state to plow the roads. So we moved just about 300 and some thousand for snow plowing outside the village uh outside and offset it with revenues that were actually not in DB for

I see that I do see that personnel services and contractual bump slightly 132 to 135 45 to 5600 being well we actually salt remain the same at 100 well actually there was no line previous it it shows up in the previous year that's because we split it up there was no 51 dB 5142.41 401 uh previous to to this year we put it in. Okay.

Uh the reason for that is we've never tracked what's the cost of salt has always got mixed into everything else. Um so we created a separate line item that you can with like you talk about creating a better idea of what's where um and put salt in its own line item. So that's why it's the 113. actually split up or what was budgeted last year between those three lines as opposed to two before. Well, that still has caused a dramatic jump in in tax rate outside of town. I'm just for whatever my two cents is worth wondering if that would have been split up.

Well, then we'll have split up the revenue when you're still going to have a jump. The jump is is again I'm going to tell you the jump should have been gone on slowly over the years. The cost um and we've already moved some money. We did take 100,000 out of the reserves to try to help a little bit with this but um um salt went from went with co from 30ome dollars a ton. It's over 60ome dollars a ton. And the fact that you haven't seen the kind of tax increases reflected that the price of doing business uh should have been this your taxes should have been going up more year to year. Uh and with both the ARPA funds and both of the um taking 1.9 millions out of the reserves has kept your taxes to probably unrealistic rebels levels quite frankly. Um, you know, I have to agree with you that nobody wants to pay more this this walk in this building and think about how many people used to work here. There's no bookkeeper. There's two people in the office over there, one part-time, the clerk and it's part-time clerk. There used to be more associated with water. We've got one part-time person there. So there isn't we've looked and I'm sure Larry when here there'll be more areas where we can grab another thousand maybe another 5 10,000 I hope um but the revenues have remained flat and you know even taking a million I I'm would love to be able to see to take more out of here until we know where our costs are as we slowly get there by coding these these items correctly and

we can see where maybe we can save a few more dollars. I mean, we took away going to conferences next year. Um, you know, um, we've we've cut a number of other areas where we can, but the contingency fund for highways been put significantly.

So, yeah, that damage has already been done unfortunately. And that's what you get when you have, you know, trio of people that don't know numbers from So, you know, we're here picking up the pieces and there's more to be picked up. There's no doubt this isn't a perfect budget. Um, I wish we'd had more time. Um, I wish that we had better data to know where those items were that we we could afford to cut. Part of the thing in these some of these areas, you know, we left money in because we don't know yet. And if you don't budget money for it, um, it's tough to to refund those and and don't put any money in there. It's hard to transfer money from different accounts in in this municipal budgeting. So, there's more that come out. I I don't know if we're going to be able to get where we want to be, but certainly there's a lot more work to be done.

What happened with 5112 highway? DB, which one? 112.2. That is actually, you'll see that that's offset by um the CHIPS funding. So, the uh highway fund there, 260,000 is actually uh a flow through from the chips funding. Okay.

All right. Let's skip on to special electric lighting. [clears throat] And it's kind of stick. I know we upgraded to LED fixtures. As we all know, we go from incandescent 100 watt bulb to similar LED, it drops down to 2 watts, five watts or whatever. You're saving a lot of money there. Uh there was a cost associated with those fixtures apparently.

Uh 7523 there's no numbers in 2450 budgeted 25 it says 10 to50 actual and then we're looking at 7,000 and I'm talking about special district one uh 7,000 for 2026. Is this based on actual billing? And are those pictures paid for?

The pictures are going to take uh what she told me is going to take quite a few years. They charge a little bit every year on the account. It's going to take quite a few years to pay for that. But then uh she also [snorts] said that we did save a lot of money in the on the power, but they're raising the rates, too. So, there's a story behind that, right, Jim? So, well, none of it's funny, but I haven't had a lot of fun sitting here for the last four weeks, Larry. [snorts] You signed up for Well, yeah, it's a little bit worse than I signed up for, to be honest with you. Be happy. It may not show up.

I'd be happy to trade it for anybody. Again, I'm just, you know, I'm not looking for grandiose movement here. I'm just looking for little movement here and there. these lines that I think that we could do something with. And I just find it hard to believe that you're going to go to an LED light, which in all intents and purposes, a flashlight on my phone is brighter than that street light down the road. If you recall, I had asked Ed to see if uh they would not replace that light because it just shined in our bedroom window all night long. They put these LED ones up. Doesn't even make it to our house. So, I mean, it's uh

we as we can get to these things. We can get to them. I would tell you that that as John said, there's a little bit of a story. Um I looked into what we're paying per kilowatt hour. A gentleman over there asked the question last meeting, which was a very good question.

So, at the same time, I get a phone call from somebody trying to sell us electricity. Um the previous administration had signed up for the low rate without following up and staying on top of it. And like most of those rates, uh you sign up for a variable. They start you out low like seven cents a kilowatt hour. Uh we have been paying for some time 23 12 cents per kilowatt hour. Now, how how that relates to uh this particular bill, I don't I I don't know that I can tell you exactly. It took me the better part of a day to get a hold of the right people uh to u and I'm still in exchanging emails to try to get we're going to drop to national grid for the moment at 9 cents. Uh it'll take one or two billing cycles. They to get us there. But even if today I got another email, I had to list all 14 meters, the meter numbers. So, every one of these line items you're talking about takes uh an element of time and labor to get the answers to get you. Now, we'll save some money with it. [clears throat] Um I did get all 14 meters and get all the numbers for them. I did turn them in. Um so, those will all get changed over hopefully shortly. I got another email exchange today. So hopefully we'll see as we start tracking these costs very I think that even in these you know like the the light districts hopefully we can bring them down some more. I I agree with you 100%.

Well are the lighting district electric bills separate from the electric for the building? Yes. They state specifically.

They don't state that and I'm not sure where is where, but I'm trying to sort that out. There's 14 of them. They don't tell you exactly where they are. And I'll ask I've asked what are the meters that go here and I haven't got a square straight answer on what meters go to this building. The only way I can tell is that the meter price the electric for on the largest bill runs about $2,000 a month. That's got to be from here. You know, cemeteries each have one. They're a couple bucks. You know, every water pit has one. Uh, and I don't know that right now I can tell you exactly where they all are.

Okay. And then the special district fire. Yeah, that's a contractual price. Um, this is the last year of the three-year contract. It went up, I think, 3% from last year.

Um, and that'll have to be renegotiated. We're just going to look at one water district because basically they're all similar under revenues. SW1 needs to be renamed not charge properting

right that should be named on M I would assume operating maintenance fee based on the dollar amount for 2600 that's about 143 homes [snorts] in district one sound about right so to avoid confusion and avoid people thinking double taxed by increased charges in per gallon rates, uh, operating a maintenance fee, and then property tax bill unless, uh, you've decided to move that operation to maint.

No, nothing's been moved out of water or in water. Uh, non-meter sales. Yep. 139 in this particular case. According to Dale, we have zero leaks. Nonmetered sales. That's a good thing. I just found out today what non-metered sales are. Just flushing. Nope. Non-metered sales. Every house that a water man goes by gets charged debt service.

There is no debt service on district one. It also anybody that goes by that has a line to their house and doesn't have a meter also gets charged a water charge. Do they get a bill? Yes. Yep. I get one. I don't have water now. I don't know. We've just started digging into the water for years. It's been that way for years. You're paying for the for the pipe and the interest the bond is what? No. Well, no. But not on one,

but anybody that has a pipe that goes by and has a pipe that comes into their house, even if the water's turned off at the road, they don't have a meter, gets charged a basic water charge. It's just charge on top of charge. I mean, again, this water thing is certainly

and I believe my heart they moved change that bond payment to an operating you know an on andm charge uh in my opinion that should be absorbed by the gallon charge uh if the district is not sustaining itself then we're not charging enough and to pay this constant you know on&m fee on top of usage and now on top of this non-metered sales and then attorney fees and engineer fees. It's ridiculous. Just

couldn't agree with you more. And where we're at with this is that um we don't have enough information anywhere near enough information to entertain a lended fee. consulting just a brief consultation somewhat MRB [snorts] we need at least a year's data now part of the problem with that is that just recently because of pressure issues we've turned back three districts back to Madina because the escarment had low pressure fireflow pressure so now we have different data that $25 that you've been after for years is a real puzzle. Um, they've been charging that for years and and from what I can find and I've only spent maybe a day on it so far that originally was supposed to be for to be saved in a separate

container by resolution. Okay. And somewhere in the past that changed and why where's the revenue been going? Uh I've just started working with Margaret on that one who's the single source and as we're finding more and more problems with the whole water accounting that $25 is just one thing that came right out and we're trying to find out where did the revenue go. We're trying to find where's the revenue going off that off getting build for the $3 water for apartment. Where where did that where's that showing up?

And then in in looking we find back that there's a uh cash misstatement. Again, I want to be very clear. There's no indication that money has ever been missing. Has money been I know that. I'm just I want to make sure that anybody else understands that, too. We do have a cash mist statement that it looks like was made in 23 which carried over to 24 and carries over into today to try to sort some of this water out. It's it's showing up as as negative when there shouldn't public [snorts] water districts. So there's a lot to be sorted out besides the $25 I'm trying to determine other areas are paying you know we're paying six let's say just talk about Madina. We're paying six bucks Madina roughly and charging seven something, you know, um how did that come about? What constitutes an operation? It means is it enough? Not enough. Um that's what I'm saying. It's over complic complicated. Up until recently, when that resolution was was passed back in 2012 or whenever it was, it was quite a ways back. Uh couple of things. Number one, it said a reserve account is to be set up. But number two, there was no dollar amount ever stated. It was just Now that the bond has been satisfied, this will be moved and held in a reserve account.

For maintenance and repairs. Yeah. And uh apparently somebody chose the amount of $25. Now maybe because district one is the oldest one. Maybe that's what the bond payment. Yeah, that's what it was.

Very well. Could have been. So they just kept rolling with it. Everybody's already painted. So just keep on paying it. And unfortunately that's been all lumped together. So, [snorts] you know, again, throughout this time, depending on what we're buying it for, you know, the town is is, you know, they're profiting from water. It's just unfortunate they're not. There's not a lot of I got to tell you that there's not at this point I see a lot of a lot of profit drop bottom line and and and it does concern me because if they ever had to replace one and and I've talked to the guys about one that line is is goes back far enough u they hate working on it because it's metal line and every time you get near it it's another you're causing another break. Um, so I'm concerned, you know, again, that, [sighs]

you know, well, we have enough data, there's been enough leaks repaired, you know, water main break, so on and so forth that uh, you know, Dale should be able to supply those averages. This cost [snorts] whether we had to dig under a portrait creek or we had to dig up these shelters. Until just recently, we were not assigning and we just started doing it. assigning trying to assign labor to a district. So until until we just got in and started having to do that, we had no idea what kind of labor was going into one district or another. It was just going into water in general. And I'm not even sure how it got accounted for from that standpoint. [clears throat]

Well, two years ago, I did foil for first quarter records district one and all the fees associated with that. And I did some things that had nothing to do with water that were charged to that district and some things that should have been spread out over a certain district such as clamps and pipes and things that again, you know, we're just kind of globbing it up. I want to go home and we just vote against uh you know, SW

that has to stop because it's costing me money. It's costing everybody else money and it's a terrible way of counting money. the new payroll took over. That is when the dispensing of personnel to the water districts disappeared. I have payubs at my house from the previous payroll that has every water district listed. And when Bill worked in those districts, there were or if he didn't work in those districts, I have pays that he worked in a district He says he never worked there and there's um charges. It says water district three he worked 20 some odd hours. I was like I never worked there.

I mean but that's what I'm they used to in the old payroll system have the water districts listed out on the pay and now they're not. Well I I'm not sure how they're being um applied. uh they certainly uh wishes to get them coded correctly. Um but just as you said that the amount of labor on those districts was misstated.

So until we can get it done correctly, we can find out exactly how much labor is going into a different one. It's a process. And the final thing I have a note here on the accessories report to see included exemptions that again I'm alarmed that there are 16.2 million. I'd like to know what I think when next time you see the assessor you ask. Okay.

Well, I laugh only because there's so much things like I understand.

No, I don't think you do to be honest with you and I and I can't wait for you to get here and I'd be willing to share a lot more of it with you because the load is tremendous. uh what has not been done here in the last number of years is shocking and I quite frankly I was appalled not only at how money is spent but how it's not recorded how it's not documented how the records are so poor it's a lot of money it's not I pay taxes just like you. Different.

I think everybody in this room is here because they care. Essentially, there the accounting system was about 1970. There's really no uh checks and balances. There's really been no one that's been watching it. And you can't undo the past, but you can certainly change the future. And that's the path that we're on.

I have a question. It's really from my neighbor and it relates to the water work that's done and how people are built and um so he my neighbor actually thinks a good idea is if we can get to the shared building for everybody that they would be there his particular reasoning was I think it's on East Shelby Road South if there's been a lot of break and so the error was made at the installation why should people not I'm just saying why should that little group of people in that district have to pay for an air that somebody else made?

I I I I certainly don't have an answer to that and I don't know how you rectify it to be honest with you. But it would look like if you're attaching um the district that a person worked in to the building, that is exactly what's going to happen, right? They're going to be charged even more for something that wasn't their problem in the first place.

So I don't know how the board Keep that in mind. We can certainly there's a number of questions about water. I I that's one of the reasons I think that we're going to have to uh there'll be a discussion in the board and certainly the public will be uh kept informed. Um there are consulting firms that do nothing but rural water districts. Certainly there a lot of questions that I and I know the rest of my board has about how we can manage either can we move this into a single water district. take care of a lot of lot of issues. I can't right now can even tell you can we even do a blended rate legally. There's so many rules surrounding water and how each one is a siloed district uh that the expenses and the you know the revenues have to stay. You can't transfer money between the districts. So how would you handle one district whether the line was installed in proper some districts of course you know by the time the water line got put in the debt for that line is tremendously you know higher than somebody else you know some people are so happy to get water they don't care what their bill is because their well has been so bad so sometimes you know it's a consideration what is the service worth to you beyond you know I'm Not sure. This goes just my own opinion here. The revenues are not keeping up with expenses. The taxes are not keeping up with expenses. We've all become used to having a a level of service that this town is going to struggle to maintain. And yes, there are costs that can still be squeezed out of this thing. Is it enough to offset the increases we've seen in prices even

today? Um, we can't do without more staff. More people we can cut down on here. Um so the challenge over the next period of time. Um I welcome all the help that we can get because uh like John said this didn't happen overnight and it's not going to get fixed overnight and we are in the same situation that almost every other community around us in this state is. Holly has has gone above Chief every day you read about another town or village west in the tax camp. We are going to that's twofold for two reasons. One because the expenses that we've got here because they use so much of the revenue the reserve funds that they actually drove our tax cap the last several years. So um that would just put us in buying there. That'll probably take me two days to get that filed. So, I'm not looking for sympathy. I'm just looking for the board is now faced and the new board of January faced [clears throat] with an unimaginable [snorts] not just based on what has happened in the past, but what the future holds for us. flat revenues, increasing costs, um, and you know, how are we going to be able to afford those services that it comes to expect? And that's whether it's plowing the roads, supplying water, you know, uh, maintaining the other services. I get concerned and every time John

comes in, he'll tell you, I'll say, I don't know how we're going to do this. I'm going I think that Bill tell you that the county probably has very similar conversations.

I was just going to mention I sit on this board for 20 years. Got off in 2006 for legislature. Um I got 20 years in the legislature after this year. It's not easy. And this year's budget on county level, you can't imagine how it is. We've got to make a lot of cuts to get down to basically a low tax rate. Maybe it's a light increase. And like you say, costs keep going up, but you can't keep the levels steady. No,

you got to have a slight increase. I've always said this when I was on town board. A slight increase every year could maintain your cost of I was in a farming industry for years. I shouldn't say I'm a smart guy on doing that, but I got out when time was right. But u yeah, it's not easy. Well, when you buy a truck for $400,000 in our budget, what 3.5 million? A little less than that. Less than that.

We bought one last year. The only solution, and people don't want to hear it, is a consolidation of services. Ridgeway and Shelby can't afford to buy $400,000 trucks. We can't afford to buy a $300,000 front loader. So, the reality is the bubble's going to burst. And there's a tipping point coming because the federal government pushes it on to the state. State pushes it on to you. You do as much as you can and then it gets shifted to us and you can't increase the taxes that much. So it's not sustainable. I agree. But I'll get up.

You get out of New York State. Not to change the subject. I've got a a son down in Pennsylvania teaching school. Another uh sister down in Virginia. You get down into them states. I'm not I don't want to change the subject here, but school systems are countywide. You got one superintendent, right? We've got what? Five. Five up here. Making you know what they're making. Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's hard to change people's mind as far as I'm concerned. It is. But it is unsustainable.

Can I bring up that budget, please? Sure. Um I had questions related to the winter snow time and the salaries for those employees and I figure them out because the [snorts] overtime becomes days off right and so you've got no it's it's up to a certain amount and be happy to share the we just I can I can give you an overview uh the MEOS are allowed to accumulate 125 20 hours of comp time and they can accumulate up to 200 for the year

and uh after that they have to get paid time and a half or they can take it as time and a half when they work. So, uh they have that they have 14 days off. They have uh one sick [snorts] day per month uh that they can accumulate up to 225 days. So, I don't know if I'm answering your question, but those are all things most of what you said I knew.

Okay. So [snorts] where I was going with that and I had brought this up before is how do you figure out in a person's work schedule if you look at the history of let's say there's an average of 160 for the year each employee that's 160 days when work is not going to get done legitimately have those days off right so how do you envision handling that in accounting if you create a separate account for days what we did is We looked at what the accumulated overtime has been in the past and in budget. Uh we calculated what were the available manh hours at the standard rate

and then calculated some for overtime and it's in different line items depending. So brush and weeds, you know, it's some there snow removal that's there and it adds up to about enough you think to cover uh the extra overtime. Um, but I know that you also, you know, I think you made a comment some time ago about, well, if you don't have enough man hours, can you go out and bring people in that'll, you know, work uh from outside? And the union contract specifically states no. Okay. But more I was more thinking of and sort of it is it might be the superintendent, but if you say this is the work that's going to get done,

right? But you can see in advance that it isn't going to get right. So that's but I don't know what Yeah. And and you know that's a tough one for the board because the board has no control over the superintendent other than other than finances and you can uh we've tried and are continuing to try to get more information about especially items like overtime what what hours are we going to you know appropriate put into into what what areas because you really move a lot of that money from one, you know, from an aid to right kind of. So,

but as an example, you were saying uh so all this money was budgeted for the uh cemetery system. Yeah. You guys were going to work on that and the answer was Yeah. We reduced the amount of time in those areas. So, yeah.

Okay. Long as it stays within let's say if it's a DB fund and it's a DB fund whether it's you know transferring time between those is not a big deal for money. You know, any tax base difference from an A to a B becomes impossible. And I'm going to strongly encourage Dale to every month report to the board how many overtime hours were worked so that we can and I'm developing uh a spreadsheet so it's a live document so you he'll know exactly what's how many hours people have worked, how many vacation hours they've worked. Believe it or not, there's no there's no document that exists like that. So, we're trying to put controls in place to protect the integrity of the payroll and everything else. I'm not saying that there's anything going on, but you can't manage what you don't know at all.

And I'm not trying to say people don't deserve those days. Yeah. Yeah. They work hard. I think everybody will agree to that. No one wants to get up at 2 in the morning and plow roads when it's like 20° out. So, [clears throat] So you lowered the legal expenses down to 50,000. We have an issue here. Still in this hopefully this calendar year. No, I'm not talking. Okay.

I'm talking about documents that have been shredded. I'm talking about programs that have been erased. Documents that have been erased on computer. That's illegal. Do we have Is anything going to be looked into that? I mean, documents, a payroll document has to be kept for six years, seven months, technically seven years. And most federal government documents I don't know that I don't know whether and I can't. Is it worth it? Maybe not. I I can't tell you whether there's been any payroll information. Well, I'm not just saying payroll. I'm saying any of the paperwork you guys go and look for and it's like, "Oh, it's gone. It's been erased. Oh, it's been shredded.

We don't know." And that's the problem. How do you prove it? You know, we survive some odd hours backwards on a camera. Yeah. But then you got to sit through the camera. I can't, you know, I mean, I I really cost you to get out of it, too. That's the other thing. Yeah. But it's just it's it's just terrible. You know, you got people you got a bookkeeper who wasn't even a Town of Shelby resident. It's not going to affect them at all. Again, I think we've done the best we can to move forward and try to rebuild.

And that is one of the things I hope you guys look into is putting the residency restriction back into this town. Well, we don't have that many employees. No. And to find people that want to do this, I got to tell you, it's not going to proposition. So, um, we're looking to cut legal costs, not add to them, right? And that's the problem. And you know, you can't we we just are going to have to take it on the chin and pay the taxes for these errors. You can come in here tomorrow and commiserate with Jim because he goes through it every day for about six hours.

I would love to set up your retirement as a payroll supervisor. I would love it.

The payroll is the least of my quite frankly at this point. We don't have that many of points. I wish that we had more answers for everybody. Uh as we dig in, we will. Uh certainly getting this budget together. I never figured this was the end of July. You know, it was the best we could do the time we had in the individuals. uh certainly didn't help Linda about three weeks ago and she's not been able to point um started out as vertigo and now something else and she's been going to a neurologist now an aologist she can't drive so you know it's serious from the effect that it certainly affected her wife and her she's been able to continue to work some on her job, but being able to spend any time on that street isn't worth but you know yourself how much she contributed to the board over the last several years. Uh and since you know even since the resignations she has really dug in and done a lot of work um you know springboarding off of what she'd done the last few years and a lot of the progress that was made in helping to define some of these areas uh that needed to be looked at what she had accomplished and it was a big blow quite frankly to to to lose her uh for this period of time. I She's an accountant. Damn it. [laughter] You know, I'm not an accountant. Um, so,

you know, it was an asset that Single Source has really been. They have really stepped up to the plate and worked hard, but they're not here every day, you know, and they don't have access to things. Uh, I talk to them probably just about every other day. and they really have done a great job of putting back the pieces. Um, but [snorts] without boots on the ground, not just in a few meetings, but on a daily basis, it's been tough to get the the documents that she requires to to to finish the job for us. So, but we'll get there. I I really think we will. We've made good progress in a short period of time. Um, so I any other questions tonight other than

Anybody else got a comment question? Pardon me. He said I'll come and see you tomorrow. [laughter] I can't come in here tomorrow. Oh, that's right. I'll give you the day off. Thanks. [laughter] Day off with no pay. I got to pay anyway. All right. I I guess if there are no more questions, we're going to call an end to the public meeting. Call vote to uh have a motion. I don't think we need a motion. We just have a roll call to end the meeting. Roll call to end the meeting.

I so move. Andy, yes. And he Yes. I want to thank you. You can end the end the meeting. Mary, can you give us those Thank you.