City Council - Regular Meeting

It's 6 p.m. Welcome to the Shenandoah City Council meeting for July 22nd, 2026. I'm going to call the roll, and then we're going to stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance followed by an invocation. Councilman Summerall is not present today. He's not in an excused absence. Councilman Summerlin? Here. Councilman Pollard? Here. Councilman Brock? Here. Congressman Robinson. Here. All right. We do have a quorum. We're going to stand up and say the Pledge of Allegiance.

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

Mr. Derek Wynn, please, invocation.

Will you please pray with me? Father in heaven, you are our creator, and you are our Lord and our Savior, and we just thank you and look forward to the day when your kingdom will come on this earth. Just pray and thank you for blessings that you've given us with this city, with this council. We pray that you would just guide them as they... seek to serve others and to honor and glorify you. And just pray also for those in the wake of the storm in the Gulf. Just keep people safe, keep people prepared, and help them to deal with that disaster. And also just pray for tonight and for your safety on the way home. And we thank you for Jesus Christ, our Savior. In his name we pray. Amen. Amen.

Thank you. All right, we're gonna move on to item number five, citizens forum. Citizens are invited to speak for three minutes on matters relating to city government that relate to agenda or non-agenda items. Speakers are asked to approach the podium and give their name, address, and address before sharing their comments. Do we have anybody signed up?

No, sir.

No, okay. All right, we're gonna move on to the consent agenda. Has everyone had the opportunity to read the consent agenda?

Yes, sir. I move the consent agenda.

All right. We have a motion to approve the consent agenda by Councilman Robinson. Second? I'll second. Seconded by Councilman Pollard. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We're going to move on to item number six, discussion of possible action to adopt the following resolution. Resolution approving the Montgomery County Emergency Communication District budget for fiscal year 2027.

Council, we thought we were going to have someone here to present that budget, but this is the 911 Emergency District budget. Because we are within that district, We have the opportunity to review and approve the district budget each year, or I guess we cannot approve it. And in the past, we have handled this routinely by approving the budget. Based upon what Sam and I looked at, it appears to be in order, I would say.

I had the opportunity to look at that as well. All right. Can I get a motion for this? Approval.

Motion to approve.

We have a motion to approve by Pro Tem Brott. Second. Seconded by Councilman Summerlin. Any discussion? Yeah, this is pretty routine. We do this every year. All right. Any additional discussion? If not, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Item seven, discussion of possible action to accept the excess collections for the 2025 debt service and certification for debt service collections for 2026-2027.

Mayor and Councils, you see in your agenda pack is the... Tax Assessor Certification for the excess debt collections of 25 and then the certification for the debt service collection for the current, the upcoming fiscal year and tax year. This is a routine item that has to be approved by Council as per Truth in Taxation law. Basically what it does is it takes into consideration our debt collection rate because there are always times that there is protest and also lawsuits against property value when we are setting our debt rate. So the tax assessor will take in that consideration to calculate the debt rate for the next year. So we did have excess debt collection, which is good because it means that older outstanding has paid. So that then goes into the calculation for the debt collection rate for this upcoming year. And it uses the last three years, so we're at 100%. So this year, our debt collection rate will be 100% when they do the tax worksheets.

Okay. All right. I'll get a motion to approve, to accept it.

So stated. I'll make a motion to approve. I don't know if I'm getting the verbiage correctly on that, but I'll make a motion that we accept it. Okay. As is.

At the same time, I'm trying not to cough. And I'm watching those words just slowly roll out.

They're spilling out. They're spilling out.

It's slow.

You were correct. Was I correct? You actually were correct. To accept the excess collection.

I have a motion to accept the excess collection report by Councilman Summerlin. Do you have a second?

Second.

Seconded by Councilman Robinson. Even in his absence, I still get confused. I know. Any discussion? If there's no discussion, all in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We're going to move on to item number eight, discussion regarding the proposed fiscal year 2026-2027 budget.

Mayor and Council, this is the second scheduled budget discussion relating to the operating budget for the upcoming 2026-2027 fiscal year. There's been no changes to the departments as listed. If there's any summary, any changes from now to the budget workshop, I composed those onto one Excel, and that's the one we'll use during the meeting when there's adds into tracks, and it'll kind of keep that running balance for us. So tonight's departments that we're going to talk about are Police, Public Works, Pool Park, Water, Sewer, Utility Bill, and CVB. Just to start off, is there any other questions from the last discussion that was for anything or any general budget questions that anyone has prior to getting into these departments tonight?

I do have just one that just posed to you guys. I wrote this down so I didn't do that verbal thing again. I wanted to touch on a couple of key words or phrases that continue to come up during budget discussion. Parity and step raises. When we were discussing the police department, I understand why we continue talking about parity. I'm not sure why we keep labeling it that. And I was just looking for some clarification on how we're moving forward. My assumption was that parity was an identification of us being out of alignment. And so once we got ourselves into alignment, What is our process moving forward in bringing that in-house and not doing a parity study each year and budget cycle? And also parity was one of the things, the step promotions or step levels as opposed to merit increases for employees. Do you want me to take this, Sam?

Sure.

I'll take a stab at it, and then if I misstate anything, you can correct me, Lisa. So let me unpack that a little bit, Councilman Summerlin. The pay parity was designed to take a look and evaluate how our police department compared with other agencies around our area. And so what that was designed to do is, okay, are we in a line with some of the other agencies as a competitive rate and competitive packages of what other agencies are offering to their officers? So what that does is once that study is done, we make changes. And last year, of course, in the budget, you all did make some changes. Now moving forward with that, I feel that it is necessary to evaluate that just to ensure that we're not falling behind. It doesn't necessarily mean you have to take any action to make improvements, but it's definitely something you want to evaluate. I don't think you want to fall behind on the comparison of other agencies around the area, but I think it's something that we need to look at at least every year. With that said, going into the second half of your question regarding step raises, most cities... use a different variety of ways to incorporate raises, if you will. Some use a meritorious program, and some use a step. Now, most public safety agencies operate on a step program. Now, for the other half of the city that are non-public safety, there's either a merit raise program or a step program. I've worked in both. and different cities. What we have here at the City of Shenandoah, I feel, is more of a hybrid. And so what I mean by that is we do have a STEP program. And it's designed to be easily forecasted so you know what to budget for the next year. But in addition to that, every employee gets evaluated on their performance. So that performance dictates whether you receive that step or not. So that's where I feel it's a hybrid, because you still get evaluated as an employee. Now, if an employee doesn't meet the satisfactory components of their evaluation, well, then they did not receive that step raise. And most of the times in agencies, you're put on a performance improvement plan to get that employee back up to par. But if they meet the required evaluation, then they get that step raise. And so, in my opinion, the step is a lot easier to manage, and it's fair, and it's impartial. Meritorious can get out of hand a little bit because... you it's very hard to budget for because it sways different ways on the different you know increases you want to give and also it it allows for a little bit more fairness in the way that we're evaluating employees as well so i hope that answers your question a little bit and lisa and if i misstated anything no i think that that i think that's kind of

makes it as far as you describing the step as a kind of a hybrid, that there is an evaluation process that is taking place and there are goals that employees have to hit. And that gets lost just in the word. It's a step. And so the assumption could be, you know, that no matter what, it's just a rubber stamp and they're automatically going to, progress just showing up for work. So thanks for the clarification on that.

And we can get into much further detail on that during the workshop. That's what that's designed for. But for now, I hope that helps answer the question.

For clearing it up for me, yeah. Thank you.

I have a question on that also. How are we doing in comparison to the other communities that we're competing with? And what does it look like for Montgomery County and Harris County?

So the pay parity study that we presented last year was like a four-year outlook, right? And because we only can approve funds on an annual basis, we can't approve you know, that scale, we have to talk about every year basically. So we, it's because that's the approach at Montgomery County and also Harris County and Houston PD had taken all at the same time is to look at a four-year view. So that's why that, it'll say year two pay parity. It doesn't necessarily mean there's going to be an approval. It's just to put it in front of you. Um, I have not heard anything from the county at this point, what they're looking at. I do know that city of Conroe is going to do a whole, um, collective bargaining with their fire department and their police department this upcoming fiscal year. I'm not sure how quickly that'll move. Um, but Troy, if you have any more information about the county's current.

So as far as the county goes, I haven't heard anything from them. I know that Harris County, I believe it was Harris County or HPD, they approved their second year step in the pay parity program. But we just have to bring it. because to keep competitive with the other agencies, we don't know what they're going to do at this time. So we had to bring something to the table. So that's what we're doing now.

Okay. Thanks.

Anything else or just move on to the department?

I think it's just a concern.

Mm-hmm.

the diocese part here that pretty much salaries and wages go up 4% every year, just like it was automatic. Sometimes you have parity like PD. We had to come up with 22.5% to make them whole, and it worked. His staff is up and running, and we're holding them. But now every budget, and we got We got the legislature hammering us for property taxes and lower, lower, lower, lower, lower. So we're just feeling assaulted from the legislative branch of the state and the city. So yes, I've looked at it, you know what I mean? And there's other things, just group insurance going up 15%, 10% every year. There's just so many little things that add up It's out of everybody's control.

We have been lucky with the insurance rates. What changes most of the insurance contribution is more likely with the individual's plan type. So if you have someone who was an employee only for 10 years and now they have a family, that obviously is going to add to your budget basically every year. This year the insurance rates were a little bit higher percent increase, but historically we've been pretty lucky the past couple years of keeping a pretty modest increase. And then also the pay parity study that was presented last year, obviously those numbers were an assumption, right? So if you do look at the last year's study, those numbers will be reworked based on Montgomery County when we finally get that data from them and then some other surrounding agencies. And at that point that is council's decision on what, which way to go. We did have a pretty good, we did go a little bit higher than the county last year to create a little bit of a cushion for us so that it helped us out this year.

That was intentional. So that a way this year wouldn't be such a big impact if it was to be approved. But I did rework the numbers just based upon, uh, everything that I've seen and all the other agencies around. So, um, Even the presentation of it was a lot less than what the pay parity was projected to be.

And I have not released those numbers because I'm still waiting for the county. So I want to see what that comes at first, and then we'll have that discussion at workshop.

But that's, you know, that's up for, that's y'all's decision.

Well, I was just saying that I share. Joe's concerned, okay?

And it's understandable. We just had to bring something. We had to put something together without the knowledge of all the other agencies, what they had. So without knowing what Montgomery County was doing, without Conroe and everything, we had to put something together.

Private Secretary, it's called a swag. It's scientific wild guess. Thank you.

All right. So ready to have some fun? OK. So the police department's the first department we'll talk about tonight. Overall, they had about a 2.61% increase to their budget. And as we can expect, the majority of that is salaries and wages, like we just discussed. There were some minor decreases, but some of the big highlights would be... Oh, and the other thing was last year we did add a detective position, so that also influenced the salary wages, not only just the pay parity, but then we did approve an additional position. So as you'll see, the only really major increase other than the cost of vehicle increase is going to be some furniture for that detective, just a desk, stuff like that. And then also because of how fuel prices have been trending right now, there was some increase to the fuel cost for police department. But other than that, there wasn't a whole lot of changes.

Have we filled that detective position?

Yes, sir. We went with that, and we tested for it. And Jennifer Genovese filled that spot.

Did you fill her position when she got promoted?

So, yes, Howard, we did have somebody leave, so we have an opening for that spot.

Any other questions on the police department? We're good to go. Public Works, once again, they had about a 10% increase, but a majority of theirs is based on energy costs for electricity, and then also landscaping increase based on contract for the city's landscaping services with Ambassador. And then other than that, there wasn't many changes.

I'm glad you clarified the furniture, because I was going to ask you, Chief, why it went up 88%. But we're only talking $3,100, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Not a lot of money.

As you'll see with a lot of these budgets, a lot of things don't change year over year with the operational. They're pretty stagnant. It's always going to be like these one-off items that kind of sway a little bit, or swag here and there.

And I look at that, and I agree with you. There's trends. Yes.

So... We try to keep the operation budget as stagnant as possible, just because we do a zero-based budgeting. So it's not like we're asking for everything. But Public Works has more costs associated with city maintenance. So that's why their budget sometimes varies more than others. Any questions about Public Works?

Oh, yeah. You slid right into public works.

Yeah.

There we go. There again, group insurance went up 66%. Workman's comp is up 10%. Unemployment, way up.

The unemployment, it's a variable that we don't know because it's on a calendar year. So I just put that. I'm going to try to rework that a little bit. It's not a whole lot, but we'll look at that again. The workman's comp over the board did go up this year, and that's with TML IRP. But that fluctuates every year based on exposure rate. And also different departments are weighed differently for workman's comp. Obviously, public works is going to be weighed higher. They're out in heat. They're working machinery. Same thing with police. Police are going to have a higher exposure rate on their workman's comp compared to myself who sits in an office. So it's based on the job type mostly. Any questions about public works? Other questions? No? Okay. Next department's pool, very minor increases, mostly for some building ground supplies, mostly for the parking lot lights. This budget only went up $1,400. Moving on to parks, this department had an 8.16% increase, about $12,000, and the majority of that is going to be for increased beautification and landscaping. And then we did add, to add veterans names to the Veterans Park, we just put in some money in for some of those placards. And then we increased the Veterans Park flags as well, because those do get pretty, torn pretty quickly in some of their supplies over there, so.

What's the pest control?

So it's going to be at all of our parks. So that's going to be like ants, all kinds of other, you know.

That specifically is ABC pest control. We got some reports of people spotting rats at the park. So that's getting some of those hotels for them to stay in. Rat hotels.

Yeah, I think they're about the size of small chihuahuas right now.

Once again, the Parks Department is mostly, it's a city maintenance budget, so it's going to vary cost based on need.

Yeah.

No other questions, so we can move on to water sewer. So water sewer department is its own fund. It's not with the general fund, so it does operate on its own revenues separate from ad valorem tax, sales tax. It's based primarily on water usage and sales. This department is a little bit different than every other department because actually the main part of their budget is not personnel. It's going to be more contracts and chemicals and It's basically you're running a business over there. It's a business-type activity as compared to general-type activities in the general fund. There were some significant changes here. We were able to decrease the water meter replacements that we budget every year because we were getting the AMI system, so that's going to be a total rehaul, so that saves quite a bit of money in that budget. And then... There were some other small changes. And then, but we did have to increase the maintenance agreements for the new AMI because those cellular points that are on those meters require, it's an interface charge every year. And that's about $18,000.

Is that fixed for a certain amount of years?

So the good thing about it is the meter company that we went with, they own their own software. So they're not using a third party. So there's not a huge risk for major increases because they own that. And when we talked to the vendor at that point, historically, they've had, I think, a 1% to 3% increase each year. It doesn't vary much. So there were some other cost savings instead of locking in that rate that, you know, they would want more payment up front. So the theory is you can make more money on interest than you would save if you paid it in bulk.

Lisa, what is the $27,500 increase in groundwater reduction plan?

So this is a pass through. So that will always offset the revenue GL for that groundwater. That is the fee that we collect that's required for conservation. And it's used to then be used for expenses to promote conservation. So what me and Joseph do, we base it off of the pumpage amount. So I figure out the revenue side and we just put the expenditure inside to offset it so that it's not, it's basically not restricted but it's understood it's assigned. And then other than that, I don't have really anything else to really highlight unless there's other questions. If we move on to Utility Billing, this one is very small. Not a whole lot of changes. It's mostly tied to the personnel changes. We don't really have anything else that went increased on this budget. And then John is not here tonight. He is working on a film city marketing certification for the city. This budget is evolving a little bit from some of the comments at the advisory board that we just met with, was it last week or the week before? Yeah. Everything's blended together right now. So there were some suggestions and comments. So we'll talk about more of that at the workshop when John's there and some other things to look at some additional possible travel and training for some of the new board members, and then also for some other advertising initiatives. So, yeah.

And you do have a breakout of the conventions that we're going to, where they're at, and the dates? Is there a printout of all of that?

Yes, and I'll be sending that out. That was a request, so I'll send that out. I've just been trying to work through it to make sure I got everything. With his travel and training and with Billy's, it kind of follows the same progression every year. So they kind of do the same items. And then there are travel and training budgets structured in a way so that if there's opportunities that arise that they didn't know about, they can then take advantage of that. There's some set ones that they do every year, and then there's some money that's just kind of available for other things that will arise and help them out. And you have a breakout of that, so we'll know whether they're going to Dallas or going to Phoenix or going to... And some of those will change every year, obviously, because it depends on where those conferences take place, especially the Destinations International. That one goes all around the country. So that one is all dependent on every year it changes.

But you have it now? You know what it is? I've done budgets. I would say I'm going to go to Dallas on this date. I'm going to go to Phoenix on that date.

So we know some of them will be in Texas. So John and Billy, Billy's actually at a conference. He's actually at Destinations International in Portland right now, Oregon. And then John is down in Galveston working on that certification for the city. Or for the city CBB. So once they get back in next week, I will try to pin down this.

We don't have anything now on what they put in the budget for next year?

It's pretty much, it's not, it doesn't give me a location, it just gives me pricing for the same activities.

But you will have that?

Yes, I can get it. I just have to qualify where those are in the upcoming year, you know.

How can you do a budget if you don't know where they're at?

So it's typically, like, I know on our side with, like, I know at GFOA, you pretty much estimate what your airfare is going to be if you go to the national one that's out of state. And usually the registration fees are the same every year. And then you just put it in a kind of an estimate for your, you know.

So are we just putting in, plugging in the same numbers that we had year after year? Are we budgeting zero-based budgeting based on where exactly we need to be and the dates that they will be there and what we'll budget for airfare for each one of them?

Yeah, so they pretty much know, hey, this conference, it does not go as granular as that. It'll say, hey, like when I do, I know on my side, and I know probably Joseph and Raul are the same and Jackie, you know, okay, I'm going to have to probably budget approximately this for this, this for this, because you kind of know the ballpark on what these conferences cost. So, but the only thing is, you know, Sometimes, like my GFOA, they do schedule out far enough, but some of my other smaller conferences, they don't know until, because their conference might be in September, they won't know exactly until probably March where they're actually going. But basically, I have the historical of what it's cost and where they've gone.

Councilman Pollard, some of the conferences, as she was mentioning, it's hard to predict what where they're going to be, especially with the way our fiscal year calendar falls within October and September. So sometimes those conferences, you don't know where they're going to be, so we have to give a best guess based on historical data we've done for other conferences. So sometimes it can be challenging on that.

Yeah. What's your next one?

That's the last one. That's the last one? Yeah, we're good to go.

So we'll have a more in-depth discussion on each one of these in our workshop.

Yeah, and John actually emailed me today. He's still working with some of his vendors, especially with Expedia because that has a really good buy-in. So they're looking at expanding that program a little bit as well for the hotels. That's one that actually we pay per hotel. So it's one of those really beneficial programs. So he's working with them right now to get those prices and some other advertising initiatives that we'll bring back for the workshop. Once again, just a clarification, CBB is its own fund. It's not tied to the general fund. It's primarily funded by the 7% hotel occupancy tax that the city collects on every hotel stay. That's not tax-exempt by state law. And they have a very specific way they can spend their funds.

I'm glad you mentioned that so it doesn't confuse people. Yes. Just spending money and going to conferences. So we're new here. All right. So is that it? Yeah. Okay. We're going to move on to item number nine. Final report and public hearing regarding proposed special use permit for a mixed beverage permit for tasty eatery and catering located at 1500 Research Forest Drive, Suite 100, Shenandoah, Texas.

Yes, Mayor and Council, this mixed beverage permit without late hours is as requested for Tasty Eatery and Catering. They're operating under the Curry and Grill Indian Cuisine, which has taken the end cap at that in-line tenant location along Holly Hill and Research Forest. The Planning and Zoning did review this application at their meeting last night, and they did recommend approval of this special use permit.

This is the business that went in where Khalifa's... That is correct, yes.

All right. Can we move on to item number 10? We need to open the public meeting.

Oh, I'm sorry, I don't have it here. Oh, yeah, okay, the second part, public hearing. We're going to open up public hearing on this item at 6.35 p.m. Is there anyone here to speak on this subject? If not, we're gonna close the council meeting at 6.36 p.m. All right, then move on to item 10, discussion and possible action to adopt the following ordinance. An ordinance of the City of Shenandoah, Texas amending the Code of Ordinances, Chapter 102, granting a special use permit for a mixed beverage on-premise permit without late hours for tasty eatery and catering located at 1500 Research Forest, Suite 100, Shenandoah, Texas, providing for a penalty in the amount of $2,000 for violations thereof, providing severability, and providing for an effective date. Can I get a motion?

Have a motion to approve?

We have a motion to approve by Councilman Pollard.

I'll second.

Seconded by Councilman Robinson. Any discussion?

It's consistent with the rest of the... Yep.

Has anyone eaten there, by the way? Not yet. No?

That's another one.

Yeah, we'll try that out.

What about up to 65 now? Restaurants?

It's nice that they have a...

Attendant in there so quickly so quickly yeah Says a lot All right any more discussion If not all in favor say aye aye opposed the motion carries We're gonna skip item 11 civic club updates Will postpone that So we're gonna move time number 12 city administrator updates I

Thank you, Mayor and Council. The only update I have tonight is if y'all weren't here at the meeting previously to this one, the MDD meeting, they did approve the change order for the David Memorial and Tamina Road that y'all had approved at the last meeting. So I'll update you on that.

Good. Nothing else? Nothing else?

I might add one more thing, just a reminder that we will have a celebration of the Tamina project next Thursday. That's scheduled for 9 o'clock. And so we have some invitations out for everyone to be involved in that celebration. And it's a milestone in this project. So we're happy to get that project moving forward on that piece.

That's next Thursday.

Yes, sir, next Thursday.

All right. You got that?

Yeah, I got it. I thought it was tomorrow.

I was going to get up early in the morning and show up.

It was tomorrow.

All right. We'll move on to item 13, council inquiry. Councilman Summerlin.

Not at this time. Okay.

Councilman Pollard. No, nothing. Councilman Pratt. Good. Councilman Robinson.

One thing, I just heard that those speed signs... arrived and some assembly was required. But I was going to ask the chief if he could let us know when he expects that one to be installed on Holly Hill.

So it should be very soon within the next few days or maybe beginning of next week, Monday. So we should have that sign up. That's great. Thank you very much. That's all I have.

And that's going in on, you said?

Holly Hill. I have three more to assemble.

Chief, I had residents ask about those, that camera that was on Grogan's Mill. What can you tell us about that? Was that a traffic counter or what was that?

I believe that was a traffic counter because the positions they were at and the descriptions that were given, those were traffic counters, being that they were temporarily up. It would make sense that they would put those at the locations they were at, north and south of that intersection. So that would just make sense that that's what they were doing.

I think Charlie had something to do with it.

I am pretty confident.

Pretty sure, yeah. Because there was one just outside of the city limits over by the ditch. by the tennis courts, but on the east side of Grover's Middle.

Right.

They just moved it up and down, I guess, to get a count.

Yes.

I'd be interested to see what the results of that study is. If you find out from Precinct 2...

I'll give them a call.

All right. I don't have anything else. We're going to move to executive session. City Council will recess the regular meeting, go into closed executive session at 6.40 p.m. According to the Texas Open Meetings Act, Chapter 551 of Texas Government Code, the Texas Code is annotated in accordance with the authority contained in the Texas Government Code as follows. Section 551.087, deliberation regarding economic development negotiations. And Section 551.074, personnel matters.

All right, at 7.20, we're going to reconvene.

this session, council session. No final action, decision or vote with regard to any matter considered in the closed meeting was made during the closed session. As we have no additional business, we are going to adjourn this session of the Shenandoah City Council at 7.21.