City Commission - Regular Meeting

workshop is called to order on Wednesday, April 16th at 5:00 p.m., we have a moment of silence for those in our community that need our support. And now, please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I 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. Okay. Can I get a motion to approve the Oh, roll call. Fisher Bryson here. Fisher here. Fisher Clawson here. Fisher O'Brien.

Fisher Rory here. Mayor Vanablash here. City Manager Reed here. Hey. Um, sorry. Commissioner May, I'm not going to take that personally here. No, you're at the bottom of the list. I'm sorry. I I'm not going to take that personally either from the work. Uh, Commissioner O'Brien will be running late this evening. He's on his way home from work. He should be here by 5:30. Okay. And can I get a motion to approve the agenda as proposed? Support. Any discussion? All in favor? I opposed.

Okay. On to five for public comment. This is a time for public comment. Any of the member of the public may address a city commission on any topic. Please step to the podium, state your name for the record and be heard. No commissioner, department head, or city staff will respond. City manager will follow up on public comments as necessary. Please limit your comments to 5 minutes and please direct all comments to me as the meeting chairperson. Please refrain from the use of profanity and please do not direct any comments to any other members of the public. Is there anybody who'd like to speak tonight? Okay. Hearing and seeing none, on to six, new business, the fiscal year 2026 27 budget and city manager Reeves.

Thank you. Uh I'd like to break down how I'd like to see this go be uh to try to keep it out of chaos as much as possible. So, I'm going to have a a short opening that I'm going to refer to my budget preparation and process report. I'm not reading all six or seven pages. You can fill in the gaps in there. There are a couple things I want to highlight. Um, you've all had an opportunity to look at the budget. You've all had an opportunity to look at the deficit. It approximately is at this point uh $650,000 in deficit. I want to make sure that everybody understands that both revenues and expenditures are at time a moving target. They're a snapshot at the time that we do it. So even the information you have in your book changes as we we move forward. As an example, um a few months ago I kind of gave you a heads up. We were running a little light on our uh general fund balance of about 300,000. Today we were at 29,000 and change. We had to transfer money in. So we haven't received all our receivables for this year. We have some revenues we expect to come in, but things are always in a state of flux. So, when we talk about wages or we talk about uh uh certain bills, they're estimates. There's a lot of information that's not in the budget yet because we don't have it in regards to uh lighting costs, insurance costs, health care costs. They're all placemakers in there and then we adjust accordingly. uh $650,000 is the deficit, but if you came up with in6 $650,000, you wouldn't be able to move forward because that would give you no flexibility whatsoever to handle the day-to-day things that come up here. And I think we're all well aware that uh um we have a significant history of of

issues coming up that require mergent issues, if you will, that require use of the general fund. And I think you all understand that. I'm going to go over a couple things and then I'd like to do this in a couple different sections. I'd like to go over um first of all um a wage sheet and that'll look like this. The first page got an explanation and then there's a couple different pages in the back. One is a 202526 and one is the proposed 2627. I just want to draw some attention to it. That won't take long. In your pack, you also have two letters from department heads, one from the clerk on potential cuts to city hall staff and one from the treasurer on potential cuts to city hall staff. I've uh given them to all of you. I've sent them to you via email and I'm going to request that I meet with the mayor and consider those going on the public comment for the next uh meeting as well. but you've had a copy of the hopefully you'll have an opportunity to read those. You'll see a historical tax review that goes from 2015 what our taxable revenue was and what our millage rate was. Then it shows 2026 our tax revenue taxable value and our estimated millage rate uh for 2026. And then you'll see revenue in mills. That's for a SAD special assessment district 1 through five mills. Again, that is an estimation based upon the 2026 taxable value as we know it today. That is also in a state of flux. So, let me start first with my uh budget preparation report and then we'll get to uh uh a number of the cuts that I'm proposing. I'm going to give you some background. Um first of all, I want you when you look into this uh you won't find the fee schedule yet. Uh there's

not a lot of changes in the fee schedule. I didn't get an opportunity to produce it in draft form today because I had a couple questions on it, but they're really generic. I don't see it changing a great deal from last year. There's a couple things I have in regards to um the use of the escro fee policy and how that affects the fee schedule and that, but uh I'll have that soon. In addition, I just realized I did not bring in the proposed uh water sewer rate increase. I have that on my computer, and if we take a break, I'll run back and get that. That hasn't been uh tenatively verified. That increase will be tied to the $3 million capital improvement bond, which was is an emergent situation we took to do water and sewer repairs, issues out of the wa, excuse me, sanitary and storm, not water, sanitary and storm. The sanitary uh repairs can be charged back to water and sewer. The storm cannot storm has to come out of by state law general fund. Right now, those repairs are going 80% storm, 20% sanitary. So, only 20% will get charged back to the um water sewer rates. The other 80% got to come out of the general fund somewhere. So, uh I'll give you that and I apologize by not bringing that. I uh I thought I had in the packet, but I I don't see it here. So you'll find the proposed budget wage schedule for 2026 27 is flat, meaning there are no scheduled pay increases this time in the budget for all city employees with the exception of the clerk and treasure who both have in their original contract agreements increases tied to certifications for their uh respective employment areas and I indicated the amounts that they're uh scheduled to receive. We do have two groups that have active contracts this spring, the end of 26 under the union bargaining groups, the police and the

DPW. I have attempted to open contract negotiations with both. We've had a negotiations with the police already, and I'm awaiting contact from the business representative from the uh DPW. Those will be ongoing. At this point, the city's position will continue to have no wage increases for the upcoming fiscal year. That's not only for those two unions, but for all city employees, and that would include seasonal, part-time, whatever city employee there, there'd be no uh wage increases. Uh the individuals proposed the 26 27 that are taking pay cuts include the city manager reverting back to his original st salary of October of 2024 and the city commissioners who I expect to take a total of $1 each uh for your work in 2627. I know you uh received a pay increase last year. Excuse me. Um it wasn't what everybody thought it might end up being. Um but unfortunately these times uh I've discussed it with each of you and I believe I'll have agreement when we go forward that you'll accept $1 for your work in the upcoming fiscal year. The recently adopted city goals must also be reconsidered as those have a monetary cost associated with achieving those goals. They must be possibly revised or rescended. The funds earmarked for those goals are used as place marks. We've not been able to determine the actual cost for some of those goals as the financial component has changed. This you find that the general funding portion of this budget also eliminates recent attempts to fund CIP in multiple city departments. So, I want to make sure that everybody understands that as we go through here, we've tried to come up with a process over the last year and a half, two years to plan ahead and and set money aside and whether it was $100 or a million dollars, set it aside for CIP needs, infrastructure needs, whatever we needed, so that when the item we needed, whether it be a police car or DPW truck

or whatever, we didn't try to buy it all at once the year it was due, out of the general fund. That all has to be shelved. Uh you will also find that the funds are taken back in order to provide service littles that are equivalent to our funding capability. So as an example, the clerk's electronic dissitation project for the city's uh resources, our files and all that. We were going to go through each city department. The city's had a history of losing files, floods, uh misplacement, uh put in other areas. we we didn't uh expect uh we started that process with BSNA cloud that allows us to start putting a lot of that stuff into the system. In addition, we started this this process of digitation that'll now also be shelved as will additional projects that I'm going to talk about as we go forward. Staff training, lodging, conference attendance, supply line counts all been significantly cut or reduced. Uh that doesn't mean those needs go away, by the way. That doesn't mean that we can uh not do mandated training, especially safety trainings. That doesn't mean that the CIP needs or any of that go away um very candidly and some of those yet I don't have an answer for you, but we don't have the funding for them and those lines have been cut. I'm not going to go through each department because we're going to do that in the budget. But I'll give you a couple things uh in regards to the general fund. Um, as we started this process, we tried to remove move employees salaries connected to water and sewer. I've given you the transfer sheet where a majority of the employees um are are situated in terms of where their salaries come from. The main component we're going to talk about tonight in terms of issues is the general fund. The general fund is the what I would call the city's main

checkbook. It's it's it's its largest bucket, if you will. The city's um u monetary revenues are placed in different buckets. There's road buckets which is major and local. There's sewer and water which are enterprise funds. So these we draw these funds from all different buckets. We can't take funds from one bucket and just use them for another bucket. So I can't pay for police services out of the wastewater treatment plant. It's illegal. I I can't uh uh take uh other funds uh out of major roads and put it into the sewer plant. It doesn't work that way. Even though you may see a large amount of funds in one, I can't transfer it to the other. The the problem the funding issue that we're having is in the general fund, the largest contributors to the general fund in terms of use of revenue is the police and fire. They make up a little over 50% of the general fund. That's not untypical of other municipal governments or even uh other large organizations where public safety services take up the brunt of the general fund money. Um I couple things that I I will tell you that we're going to continue to do here. Um one of the things I won't do is that we're going to continue to take a very conservative approach to revenues for 26 and 27. Uh, I started that back a couple budgets ago. It only causes problems and issues if you overinflate the the revenues you expect to get. Just like your own checkbook, you say, "Yeah, I'll get a raise this year." And you start spending based on that raise, and the raise doesn't materialize, you've got a problem. It's the same thing here. Another thing I refuse to do is is take expenses and and try to cheat on the expense side because when the expense comes in, there's no cheating. it has to be paid for. So again, we're going to be realistic, conservative in the revenues

and try to estimate to the best of our ability on the expenses. Um, one of the dangers here long term is, uh, and the history of this city has shown this, and I hate to say it, we're going to repeat history here, in the long run, the lack of planning and CIP attention is a danger going forward. And we've seen that and live that, and we continue to live that in this city. uh it's especially uh indicative in in sewer and uh water, but it's in roads, it's in a number of different issues. A good rule of thumb for us would be 6 to 8 months of operating revenue. We currently have about 3 and 12 to four months. That's the funds that are kept in uh a tiered um uh account for maximum uh ability to attract interest. Uh, I'll give you I I don't I didn't pull the number today, but I it's about $1.5 million and change, give or take, depending on the market and what we've we've gained. I will tell you I would strongly oppose and urge you to do not touch those funds. That is your rainy day fund. That is the break class in case of a real emergency. That is your stop gap to bankruptcy and receiverhip. If the housing market flips, if the stock market goes upside down, uh all of a sudden the value of everything drops and we don't see the taxable. We don't see that coming in. That's your only stop gap from receiverhip or bankruptcy. It allows you to operate the city three and a half, four months until you can try to work something out. So again, I would strongly urge you to not consider touching those funds. I know it's been approached uh by a couple commissioners. Uh that's my position and I'll leave it at that and uh answer questions that going forward.

Uh a couple different things uh I want to talk about as we get through the different funds. I'll talk about u um you'll see rarely an increase in any department's actual budget unless it's impacted by a known service increase as an example. And I'm not saying this is an increase. If uh porter potties were $50 a piece and they went to $80 a piece, you're going to see for the next year that line jump. If we had a ser I'll give you one uh IT services, we just bid that out. We had 19 different uh providers uh provide that. Um we're going through them. We reduced it to eight. We're going to reduce it again. None of the ones that uh we'll probably have an opportunity to look at will cost what we're paying now. So that price is going to go up. Um you know, we we hope that a consideration, but you have to look at other things. So things like that as you see them in the budget are going to change. Um there's a couple different areas that you'll you'll see that I'm suggesting um realignment of personnel. Personnel from full-time status to part-time status. Uh full-time positions not being uh filled going forward. A full-time position reverting to part-time to a couple of those. Um I I I've told you this before and I will say it again. Um, we'll go over a number of these cuts and and I would hope that we don't get to the point that um, we're going to try to cut $20 out of a budget here for this or that. Um, I've tried to come up with a budget that matches the revenues that you have available. A couple things I want to state right off the bat. You cannot balance this budget

on the backs of the employees. It cannot be done. And when I say that, I don't mean that the employees because automatically they endure part of this, okay? It it's automatic. And and I I talked to an employee the other day that uh made a very valid comment just in regards to water and sewer rates and how some people respond to those type of increases. It's getting to the point you almost have to take the police with you in order to do maintenance at those at some homes. Not all, but there are a few. But in going forward on the other side of that coin is that government's responsible to provide services not employment. I know people don't like to hear that but that's true. Okay? And a lot of other businesses go through downsizes and reductions and it's uncomfortable and it's unwieldly. Um, I will tell you in this budget here, I can't make enough budget cuts in order to satisfy the amount that we need, just the minimum amount. I cannot. I'd have to wipe out total departments. And I've talked to you. So, on the other side of this coin, as we work our way through, and I hope, please don't think I'm I'm beating up on you because I've I've talked to each one of you individually, but I'm I'm saying it also for the public. There has to be service level changes in this budget. Without people, without materials, without goods, you can't deliver in some cases the same value or level of service. It gets to be. It just can't happen. Now, we can determine what those service levels are going to be. We can determine as much as possible what service levels we're going to cut. But I'll just just throw you a couple out just off the top

of my head here. Uh keeping the office open to 4:30 minimal. It's going to end. We may shut a day a week. We may have to close for lunch. Police department or DPW employees may have to close for that public access, not answer the phones, whatever. Um uh I mean I I can think a number of different things. Committees. We have a plethora of committees. I've been here two years. We have committees that we shouldn't have. I'm gonna be honest with you. There's no I see no basis for some of these committees meeting. We burn more paper and time cancelling meetings than we ever do holding meetings and getting something accomplished. I'm going to recommend a good handful of committees don't exist anymore. I I it you take staff time. You take things into that. Some things have to give. Those are just two of the things and you're going to see a number of different service related issues. I'm going to come back to you and say the delivery of service has to change in order to rightsize to the amount of resources that we have. So, uh I'm going to let you look through that. There's a couple significant changes uh in um a couple offices. Uh I can go into those now and then we can talk about it. One is in the clerk's office. Uh uh one of the recommendations is to take the deputy clerk and reduce that to a part-time employee. Um that's not great. That's not good. There will be a service decline. There's other impacts in that. There's other people that are going to talk about that. Uh it's not what I want to do, but it's on the list. It's a general fund impact just like the police department when I give you cuts there. general fund impact. Um, another one is part-time employees both

in the treasur's office and the special uh projects office. Uh, there's two and a half people um, right now in treasury. My recommendation is the part-time person would go away. Also, the counterperson goes away. The special project administrator goes away. he would come back under a contractual agreement at a greatly reduced number and then the other half of his salary if need be would be paid for by those people that need the planning services. Um you're going to see that in there. Police department, you're going to see the unfilling of a a position that's going to be open here soon for retirement. One of my recommendations is I I'm talking with the chief of police. He's eligible for retirement. He has his time of service in. I'd have to reopen the pension plan to wave the age agreement. I've had discussions with him. I would bring him back in a part-time role after a suitable uh what they call a bonafideed separation. Uh I've got that in consideration. Um uh I'm I'm still working and talking on inspections and code enforcements and and other things. Uh engineering is is something that continues to cause us issues and problems. Um I I looked at recreation and park facilities, the seasonal help. I did uh approach a union about the possibility of a uh uh full-time employee going to uh part-time employment. That's not an option. So you'll see a number of those different things. And then let me just talk about a little bit about the summary. When you read this, I've talked about the services must be reduced to meet the level of revenues. If we look at this just to achieve the $650,000, then this is an exercise in futility.

And I will tell you that. Why do I mean that? I don't think anybody wants to go through this now and nobody wants to go through it again next year. Um, I think this has to be a combination of a couple different efforts. One, there has to be some cuts. It's unfortunate. I don't like it. I don't like doing it. It's part of the job. I understand it. Two, there has to be an increase of revenues. We're very limited on how we can increase revenues. I'm going to talk about that. Just like your home budget, you don't bring in more money, you cut something. You bring in more money, you have the ability to meet the expenses. It's the same type operation here. But it's short-term thinking if we do it for a year. We need to look at it one, two, or three years until we can get this thing right sized and get on our feet. You did it with the water and sewer rates. You you you took a stand and we started that process. That process is going to take a while and it'll have to be tinkered with. We've already talked about that. We all understand it. It'll have to be Tinkerbell, but it's a it was a start. I think the rebuilding of the general fund almost has to occur in the same way. You're not going to eat this elephant in one year and and it's going to take time. You're actually going to need help outside the city. What I mean by that, um, we're not set up, we're this is no different than a lot of other cities. Proposition A, Headley Act, as we sit here and talk, uh, back in 2015, our millage rate was 16.8707. 10 years later, 2026, our millage rate is 14.2755. It continues to go down. The sale of houses are stagnant. The

only ones that become uncapped are those that are sold. revenues go down, they're capped here and cost of services skyrocket just like in our own houses. They're not matching each other. So, we'll need the state somebody to start paying attention to a lot of these communities, municipalities, townships that are struggling to provide services. And then there's these other people that say we should do away with property taxes, we should do away with sale tax, we should there's no plan to provide for services. and sometimes those people are the biggest users of those services. But that being said, we're going to need help outside of this this process. So, a couple things. The process of identifying cuts in the budget is never easy, especially when personnel cuts, demotions, or lack of pay involved. I told you can't be achieved on the batch of employees. Uh we're at the point now that employees are choosing departments or each other or co-workers. Let this one go. Let that one go. Don't let this that's not good for morale. It's not good for anybody. Uh another thing is that um we're going to expect our businesses and our residents to do more provide more resources for the service they receive. I don't like the tool that the community is left with. Unfortunately, I don't know of another tool that's available. I don't like the tool. My suggestion is be open, honest, and transparent about the use of the tool. Uh I talked about Proposition A, additional changes. I talked about a number of committees, deliver service, the reduction of service, and um I I just want to tell you this discussion just can't last this one meeting. It can't just last the next couple meetings that we go over budget stuff. It has to be an ongoing process. we we really have to defer thinking about some other stuff and really put a

lot of effort on how we're going to rightsize this ship and how we see future services here going forward. So the rest of my information you can read in the letter when you're can't sleep tonight. Um, I guess we'll start um with this page here that talks about the wages and it looks at 24 and 25. Uh, I had the treasurer prepare this. Okay. And um I wanted to make sure that all you saw this. So one section of financials are for the past year and our ongoing year and one are for the proposed year. But what's more important is really the cover page. And what we're trying to show you is that currently and again these are these are estimates. The amended budget for these uh year-to- date wages show about 1.9 million. And I'm not going I'm just going to take estimates. Okay? That's about 70.34% through April. Okay. So, we've gone through 21 pays which is about 80%. Just like a PI and just like the department has when we look at their budget. I look to see total budget what they're expending what's their burn rate meaning how fast are they going through their budget and then I look to see is what they're going through is it seasonally adjusted are they buying something because it's salt here chemicals? What is it? why are they burning it so fast? And then will it last through the year? Are they going crazy on overtime? Is there So I look at those kind of things as we walk through it. Um there's a couple caveats in terms of that in terms of not replacing a sergeant for 6 months and the hiring of a part-time DPW worked a full-time in January 26. Um there are also some additional um projected wages

without cuts. So, uh, it's currently at 2,38740. The difference between last year and this year, what we're looking is about 133,540. What could accommodate for that? And these again are rough estimates. New budget includes payouts for retirement. New budget includes contract payouts 10,000. That may change again here very shortly depending on something else. Click and treasury have contractual uh increases. Election year increased. Now when you say election wages increase, that's a misnomer. When you see uh uh full-time people in the elections area, that's not necessarily the clerk's wages there. That might be the DPW coming to set up for the election. might be them doing painting the parking lots. It might be a collection of different people doing things. That's where their full-time wages are taken up. Just like when the DPW goes out to do work and and one day they're sweeping uh uh our local streets, they pull a ticket for that. And if they're sweep sweeping M29, that goes to the county bucket and they they mark a flag for that. If they're plowing snow on our local streets, that's one area. If it's on the count, so it depends. It comes out of these different funds. That's why you see these funds get a little bit each one. That's how they're spread out. Um, so increase in uh DPW staff, but we also reduced full full-time wages midyear for a $30,000 shift and a cost savings and as needed the budget uh consultant for DWSRF at 182. We're hoping that that will even go down. All those total about 1258126. So the reality is you're about eight grand

give or take from last year. Eight grand. Now we can delve into and go specifically for that. I'd ask you that we not do that today. Look at the documents. Look at the material. You got questions. We'll go over that. What I'd like to do now is switch to proposed cuts and the value of them, if you will, and talk about those and the impact that they have. And then I'll get into the budget step by step. Um, again, what I'm focusing in on is the general fund budget because that's where we have most of the concerns. So, we'll just go right down the top of the line. the elected officials the wage. You see the wage amount that's minus the $7 that we're going to hand out next year or this fiscal year. But you also see that there's an impact in terms of FICA and Medicare. And then you'll see a number off to the right. That's the total impact to the general fund. So what I asked is that as we go down by these departments, you can see the impact to the fund. City managers wages reduced as you see the impact cash and loo reduce reduced FICA reduced Medicare reduced defined contribution plan reduced there's the impact it was uh pretty close to what we projected and then as you go through I reduced more office items out of my office I basically cleared any of the accounts uh that had any money in them to also uh reduce that as well and then you go to the clerk's office full-time wages is you see the impact of the deputy clerk from 40 hours to 30 hours and then you see the impact of FICA Medicare cash and

loo defined contribution then to the right you see the total impact go back down contractual services out I believe it's out of the same offices the 25,000 the 2500 memberships and lodging those are budget trims out of that I think the contractor services if I remember was a project. It was the digitization digitation project. Thank you.

253 is special projects. You see the wages of the part-time account I'm sorry 253 is the uh treasur treasur's office removal of the part-time accounting assistant summer clerk. You see the FICA and Medicare then you see the impact on the budget cash and loo spread to other funds uh uh out of the same and Katie why don't you talk about what cash in loo means and how we changed it from what we did last year to this year and the reason why

so cash and loo is basically the insurance opt out payments so if employees don't take insurance they get insurance opt out it's called cash andlue on the state accounting means um last year because the water sewer funds were so depleted and we had to work through right sizing those we had moved 100% of that expense to the general fund in order to have a balanced budget in those funds last year. So this year since we've right-sized the water sewer funds are were they're better than they were um we res-plit them out to the same percentages as the payroll expenses. So, for example, I don't take insurance, so I get opt out. Um, my payroll split 50% to general fund, 25% into water, and 25% in the sewer. So, we reallocated those percentages back to cash and loo. So, for like 253, 3,000 is 50%. That's why 50% of it's out because that's going to water sewer now as it did previously. It had been that way for a long long time, but we had to um shift it until we right sized water sewer last year.

Thank you. Let me focus also on something else just because it came to mind. Uh I was asked about uh a number of different things and we we'll get into that as we get into the HR, but one, could we change the uh um cash buyout for uh not taking healthcare from 6,000? Could we lower that? Could we uh cancel phone stipens? Could we cut them in half? Could we modernize them so that all everybody gets the same amount? There's not a high and a low. Just get a fixed amount. Could we do a number of those things? Um my answer is you can. It's not easy. A lot of them require contractual language to be opened up. It won't be done in time of this budget. And be careful what you do because uh I've seen it happen in other locations where even uh they they gave 8,000 at this location and they took it down to 6,000. Uh some people judge them if you will out of spite took the Medicare medical and didn't use it. And it cost you far more than 6,000. It cost you far more than 6,000. So, um, you know, we encourage our employees where they don't need it and they have somebody else that covers them, uh, it's it's a plus. It's it's a nice thing, but I would be very hesitant to go down that path. You may find that it costs you more, especially in health care costs where I can't seem to pin a number on where it's going other than doubledigit increases. So, but cell phones are the same way. We could talk about doing away with cell phones. Buy cell phones for everybody. I've looked at that in terms of first of all legally that might be a better option because those phones are

subject to FOIA. Uh they're subject to to uh review. Um they're subject to phone policies. They're different in law enforcement than they would be from the DPW they'd be for the So it's it's a wildly moving thing. I just want you to think about that as we walk through this stuff. So, I'm down to elections compensation. Uh, as you see, there's a lot of different uh uh moving parts there. I don't think I have to explain that in detail unless somebody has a lot of questions. But you can see in terms of uh 262 and then 265, it shows what we're removing out. So, we were saving doing our job like we're supposed to for uh required election equipment. We had to do away with that. Okay, here's the problem. When they mandate that, and yes, I know the state's not supposed to mandate anything they don't pay for, but we all know that's BS. They do it all the time. Um, where are we going to get the money from? You know, we removed access control and a salt spreader from the side by side. I will tell you that salt spreader will cost us money more probably in the long run than the cost of that. It cost him manpower hours. It cost in it it cost longer. Do the job quicker. Do it more efficiently. Control the distribution, but you need the dollars. Uh employee wage incentive program. We've given out half of that. We're going to cut that program entirely. 271 the project special projects administrator. You notice the entire salary plus the FIC and Medicare is gone. Community forestry was cut, community promotions are cut. So, all the nice things and I I'm a fan of this stuff. The shred days and things like that we

do for residents, all gone. Uh wages, full-time employee, police officer, we started talking about this, not replacing the police officer upon retirement. Remove the full-time chief. uh remove accreditation personnel and read add the part-time chief the Medicare and FICA involved in that. I reduce the clothing allowance based on the one employee gone supplies office supplies furnishing households the clothing line for the chief and new hires was reduced. Community promotion promotion was done away. Meals was done away. Conference and training was cut. Lodging was cut. Landing building repairs was cut. fire down $11,200. Um that is because there was a recalculation of the run differential between the four communities and other communities picked up additional runs which lowered us. We were about 58%. I think we're at 48 and change so it lowered it for us which is helpful. And then we get down the code enforcement. Um, it's removed on this budget here, but I've talked to a number of you. The question is, okay, what do you do for code enforcement? I can remove it. A couple of you had some ideas uh that you um assign it to the chief of police. Well, he'll be part-time. You assign it to Scott. That's the highest paid part-time employee that you had. I don't think you want to do that. you sign it to the DPW director, the clerk, or the city manager. Um, I'd caution against that. I'm not sure that would be uh a good use of their resources. I don't know how they're going to take that on and I think that may conflict with other city policies you currently have in

place or ordinances in regards to how that's carried out. So, the other side is that do you go without ordinance enforcement? You know what happens when you go without ordinance enforcement? It's not about the personality involved in the ordinance enforcement. It's about the position and do you need it? So, you're going to have to think about that. Uh 441 DPW

DPW. So, you see a little bit there. I cut a little bit out of supplies, a little bit of equipment repairs, uh, vehicle repairs a little bit, and I removed the savings for a back hole. 2005 back hole. How many more years you think we'll get out of that back hole? So, I removed 15,000. We were saving for three years, I think it was, for the back hole, if I remember right. Two two

two years for the back hole. Um, our 2018's been in the shop for two or three weeks. We're expecting to get an eight or $10,000 bill just to fix that one. So when you cut CIP stuff like that and we take it out of the budget, I promise you you will pay for it either in maintenance costs for what you continue or when you go to buy new or buy a demo, you'll pay for it. The problem with the DPW is no equipment, no work, no back hole, no digging up a water man. That's counterproductive. I know other communities that have downsized their DPW. They don't do they do very minimal uh salt or snow work. They do minimal or no landscaping work. They don't do their own water system repairs. They're going to try to revert back to having staff do that stuff and pick up additional staff because the privacize models not working. Um, I did not offer uh any cuts to uh the DPW. Uh, I'll I'll tell you why. Um, couple reasons. One, their impact on the general fund is negligible. Because they're spread across all those four, five, six different buckets. The vast majority of their work is water, sewer, uh, uh, major roads, local roads, the other things. So when it gets to the general fund, I'd have to get rid of more DPW guys to equal one person somewhere else. The second one is historically, and I'm not saying other departments haven't either, but historically the DPW, as far as I know, has taken the brunt of service reductions. As I look back, uh they were up to five or six, then they went down to four, then they went down to three. And I will tell you, you've

paid the price for that and you'll continue to pay the price for that. Uh you have valve covers paved over from years ago. You have maintenance not done. You have we see it in buildings. We see it in parks. We see it everywhere. And the last but probably the biggest one out of it is you have a ton of projects ongoing and planned. And I will tell you, you have to manage those projects very carefully or they will get out of control and they will cost you additional money. The only resources I have to do that are those seven guys. And literally when they're assigned to a project, you lose them for all that other work. So I can take away a DPW employee. You don't get to choose which employee it is. So you may think we may not cut the grass, but that may not be the guy that goes. The grass guy may have more seniority and by contract and other things, he may stay. The guy that maybe be doing the water mane breaks may be the guy that has to go. But if you're willing to do that or you're willing to try to have that impact, then we're going to talk about not cutting the lawn at the cemetery, not taking care of the parks, not maintaining the beach, cutting back on portagons. Service has to go up or down based on the number of people. I would urge you with the projects you have, the cost of those projects and the impact if they go uh in some days it's a it's a struggle they go sideways will far exceed what you save in cutting a body. So, if you look real quick out of all those numbers, uh, and I I I guess I didn't have an opportunity with changing numbers and going up and down things to

go back over there, but you basically see a savings of 451,126. I don't expect you to accept all these cuts. Maybe you'll make more, maybe make less, maybe you'll move them around. What I'm looking for is a couple things. I'm looking for because then I'm going to talk revenues. I'm looking for a consensus on what the cuts you see. I've given you my cuts. You have the authority to change what I do. It's your budget. I recommend you adopt. I follow what you give me. I mean, I like it, but I follow what you give me. Can we reach a consensus within a package of what the cuts will be or a number of what the cuts will be? So, let's just say for argument sakes we come up with $400,000 of cuts and everybody was not happy, but we could agree to that. You take 650,000 minus $400,000 leaves you 250 still on the hole. Where are you getting the 250? That's got to come from revenue. And then back to my original premise, the 250 doesn't get you all the way there because you got to have the ability to take care of those other things. U I can't tell you what that number is, but I could very well explain to you what it's taken this year, the amount of emerging issues I brought forward to you, the amount of times we'd have to go to uh fund balance. I could tell you all the ones that we have out there that we don't know. Landfill, a bunch of other stuff that's out there and the impact of that. So I think everybody realize it's probably significantly more than the 650. So the other part of that is the revenues.

Originally I and I look back at my past budget messages. I had already addressed this in the last if you pull it up. If not, I'll send it to you. I addressed this to the past to you that you got to start looking at this. This is a concern. We're probably going to have to go for a headley override there. I have some concerns there and and it's really nothing new that hasn't been broached previously. um 15% or less of the headley overrides uh make it through the state and I think that number is even dropping and and you can say for good reason or not good reason good campaigns not good campaigns people don't believe anything people believe what they 15% um nobody wants their taxes to go up everybody believes you can deliver the same level of service that you delivered you should deliver more service delivered last year and it should be cheaper than two years ago. Nobody drives up to DQ and says, "Hey, look, uh, I'm only going to give you a dollar for that cone even though you're charging 250 because I see the Well, then you don't get the cone. It it it's almost the same thing here. What do you do with the revenue? It's unfortunate. The only tool I think that you have, I don't like it, is what's called a PA33 or a SAD, special assessment district. What is that? I've provided each of you the information on what a SAD is. I've had the city attorney issue an opinion on a SAD. I've given you an idea of that. Basically, in layman's terms, not an attorney, so don't hold me to the letter. It allows your body, your governing body to assess

for public sav safety services, I believe it's up to 10 mills, and I I didn't bring that up to 10 mills for public safety services uh for ongoing public safety services. And those are generally police and fire. Some organizations run an EMS that's not affiliated with the fire department, but it's public safety services typically across the state and other states it's police and fire. As I told you, your police and fire are the largest participatories in the general fund. They're about $1.3 million, give or take. Now, I am looking at service alternatives. I am talking to other communities about a number of different shared service scenarios. I'm talking police. I'm talking fire. I'm talking city manager. I'm talking DPW. To me, it's all on the table. You have to look at it that way. Um, but those type of things, those discussions don't come to fruition quickly. You've got to have a balanced budget here by the end of May. State law mandates it. So what do you do? The only tool available is an SAD. That's the what I am going to propose is that approximately the funding is $1.3 million give or take. You have that funded now through the general fund. I would request that you initiate a SAD and that we fund it at approximately 50% of the public safety costs. So if you have 1.3, let's call it

650,000 and change 675 maybe somewhere in there. and that those funds that are currently the general fund assigned to those be used to shore up the general fund so that you can continue to provide services as mandated. You're a full service city until you have an opportunity to go back to the voters and or the state and get the funding mechanism fixed that they fix Headley, they fix Proposition A, they give you leeway. Um, that's it's distasteful. It is it is difficult. I I I understand the the ramifications for such a uh recommendation. I don't like it. I don't I don't want to put it on the citizens. But I also know the option is no police service. The option is um drastically reduced other services. the option is is is and and there's no raises. You're not changing money for raises. You're chasing money to exist to provide services to buy you time. And when I said look at it as a one to threeyear, if you were to level five mills, it's about $700,000 and change give or take. That would give you the opportunity to do 50%. That would give you enough to cover your deficit and give you minimal money in the general fund

going into this fiscal year that you'd have to manage exceedingly tight in order to get through the year. And with that, there would be some differences in services. Now, um, you're going to get a lot of information from me, from us. You're going to get a lot of employees here tonight. A lot of residents I hope will watch this. I've tried talking about uh water and sewer and infrastructure and budget. It's not exciting stuff. I get it. until it impacts somebody and then there's an interest. I am willing to meet with the citizens. I'm willing to meet with business groups. I'm willing to to go out and and work to establish an understanding to those that are willing to listen. But I'm also understand that I take direction from you and you have to give me direction as to your thoughts on something like that. Um, I don't see there's no miracle. There's no grant I can write. There's no impact I can bring to the table that'll fix this issue. You are where you're at. It's a tough decision. But without the additional revenue, you can't balance the budget or I make much more significant cuts and I bring them back to you. And I would do that quickly. I will tell you once you destroy those services even reducing them has an impact but once you destroy the services you start a run you start losing employees you start losing body you start losing infrastructure um people are already nervous

I understand that and that and that's not just employees that's businesses that's citizens they can't take another straw on the camel's back. I get that. But I also know they can't go without police and fire services. And for the first citizen that comes up to me and says, "Bring in the sheriff." Been there, done that. Looked at those things. I can provide contract information. I'll talk to the sheriff again tomorrow. The sheriff has the same costs. He has to buy police cars. He has to outfit police officers. At the end of the day, you know how hard it is to hire a police officer anymore? Anybody realize that anymore? How difficult it is to hire them? It's like finding that assessor. Can't find them, right? Finding that water plant operator. Got to grow our own. Can't find them. Difficult. Or you steal them from somewhere else. That that's the gist of what we do. Now um at this point here without additional revenue with the addition of cutting expenses that you can survive and then go forward on how you're going to change the delivery of services going forward into the future to rightsize your budgets to meet your resources. I will not tell you that um other people will that well you could do this for one or two years. Be honest. You ever seen a government source of revenue that's shut off after one or two years? Come on. I I just won't say that to people. It's not true. The cost of these services are going to up and up. I hope that the mills, if you're so kind to do that and consider that uh is enough to last a couple years so we can get ourselves positioned in order to decide how to tackle this going forward. But that's where we're at in a nutshell is you have a number of cuts to the general fund. We can go into the water

and sewer and I I can talk literally for hours. I'd like to end this by quarter to 7 tonight so I can go to another meeting and talk budget and then if need be we can come back early tomorrow for those that can attend and go back over it again. Available on the weekends. I'm available anytime. But at this point here, if you want me to go page by page through the budget that was issued, I can do that if that would help. Or we can talk the cuts or I can just take your questions and and go from there. However you'd like to proceed. I've probably talked too long now, almost an hour.

Start discussing. Um, I guess I'd like to address some of the stuff first. I mean, I I understand where you're coming from, Mike. I mean, you've provided us with some of there's a lot of things in here. Some of it we didn't get a little till late, but we're trying to figure it all out. I know you're saying it can't be on the backs of the employees, but it also, we got to consider the public, too. These people are drowning. I mean, we have over 45% of people that live in poverty here. We've hit them with a 75% increase on the water. We're going to hit them with a 3 mil increase, which I don't know what that is. We're going to hit them with an 8 mil increase. I don't know what that is either. And then we want to hit them with a tax increase. Now, the tax increase, the only thing I'd say about that is you risk they could do a um petition. They could put it to a vote and vote it down like they did last time. My understanding from the city attorney is that this SAD is not eligible for a voter uh petition.

They want to know that I need to know that because I know we asked Jen. Right. Right. I've got that information and I'll provide that. But very candidly, in most senses, you would think that would be an available position and both the clerk and I talked to the city attorney about that, but I'll verify that for

Okay. And the thing is, there's not a person up here that wants to make these cuts, but we gota we are responsible to the people of this community. I've lived through cuts just like this in my own job. I lost cost of living. I lost my pension. I lost my eye care, life insurance. Um, I lost raises that got wiped out. Um, I had to do the job before people. I know where you're coming from, but the thing is I still had to do the job. I still had a job. So, I was still thankful for that job that I had. It's not an easy task and I know it. I've lived through I don't know how many cuts at my company. We They did this every so many years they'd go through and they would just bring in the hatchet man and you'd have to we even had a leopard colony at one time. It was so sad. So, I I know how hard it is on the employees because I've lived it there. But at the end of the day, we still have a responsibility unfortunately to the public. Um, and some of the small things I know seem small, but they're not. I I mean, the opt out thing, I know that's tough one, but when we total up, it's $72,000. You know,

are you talking the medical op?

Um, the state mandates. I see a lot of communities now are fighting back on the state mandates and and that's another issue we have to do. Um, the last time both the PD and the DPW took the brunt because I looked back on one of the things. The DPW, well, they were down to three at one point, then they're up to six not too long ago, but you were still at four back in 2021 with one part-time guy doing the job. Um, and the Headley override, I I get it. Some communities have done it. They've pulled it off and they've gotten the Headley override. Others haven't. So, it is another thing. But the problem is that by the end of the day looking through all this stuff, I mean, it was hard. This chart wasn't good

because it didn't have the proper um information on there. This one wasn't good either because well, this was the first one. And the um here you got the part-time accounting. you're only accounting for 16,000. She was in there for 30,000 at one cuz 7500 was coming out of two different accounts plus the 15,000 and you got 750 hours. If I multiply that out, it's 30,000. So I'm trying to figure out because there's 15 bank accounts and they're split between water sewer and rates too. I know it's still $30,000 though, but it's not all out of general fund. I

I get it. But it's still $30,000 for a person. Okay. Then I went through a lot of these things. I went through all the wages and stuff trying to figure out this. I see you put this together, but again, I use the wages that you provided in the book for all part-time and full-time, which when I add it all up came to 2.162540. And then um and then I looked at your stuff and it you know no I looked at the other sheet here on uh this one your green sheet and I totaled up all that there and I came up with the figure and then when I I go through the two there's like a $260,000 difference in wages. Now, that's not this. I'm talking you gave us the the full-time and part-time for this budget, and I'm using the actual chart that shows exactly what we paid out last year. So, that's what I'm trying to figure out.

So, may I interject? Are you? Yep. Yep. No. So, I just I just want to uh comment on two things. You mentioned um on the water and sewer bills, mills, they're not done by Okay. I just wanted to make sure people understood they're not being attached. The millions 3 million on one, 8 million on the other. Okay. I just want to make sure they thinking the same thing. Yeah. I just want to make sure we're we're sure million that we borrowed and the 8 million that we're going to borrow. Those two. Yes. And then the second issue, I I agree with you. I I do not disagree with you that our residents are hurting.

Yeah. I I understand the social economic level of our community. I understand um uh the difficulties uh the majority of our residents and businesses are having. I also understand uh the impact of of what this could do and and I and I I be honest with you I struggle in way with that against the impact of who will come here who will develop a business here who will move children in the community and stay here

with no services with failing infrastructure with with so I I I I I understand. I I don't disagree with you.

When we got in when I first got on the board, we were in the same boat and I mean, we had to slash I'm sure Aaron Aaron was here at the time. I mean, it was bad. We had to do it. I mean, it was it was a terrible time for the city and um eventually we pulled ourselves out of it and that was when we had the 2008 crash, but it didn't hit us till then. Um, it's not an easy thing to do, but sometimes the unfortunate part is it is necessary. And I think we're going to have to make more significant cuts to to show the public, unfortunately, that we mean business to try to help them not have to pay the brunt of everything.

Okay. So, I'd be happy to look at those cuts, more significant cuts you're talking about, as long as we understand with those, whatever those cuts you may be, we can look at them, give you the numbers, and feed them back to you that there is a reduction in services based on those cuts because there is no other way other than stopping providing certain services or or drastically impacting the service we provide. I mean, we we went through that before and it wasn't pretty. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but and the other thing on the assessors department, there's several companies now that provide assessors. Have we checked into those to see if we can get anything cheaper?

You signed a 5-year contract with the county? Well, I know. So, I I I did not. I can look at it. I I can do that. There's an assessor administrative services and assessing solutions. There's a couple of them I found out there. So that's I will be I will be happy to do that immediately. Problematic is this budget is due. Yes. Well, I get it. I I know these things can all be done. I'm just looking forward. Okay. No, no. I I will definitely look at it. And then even in the building department, I mean, we got $100,000 in here that we don't know what the breakdown is for all that. I mean, you you finally told me what that was for, but um have we talked to Safeuilt, McKenna, and there's a professional code inspections. There's ones that provide

people. Yes, we've talked to Safe Build. Yes, I don't remember the name of the other one. I can check my past, but we did Safe Build wasn't providing inspectors in this area. Okay. Uh I asked in other communities what they they charged. It was equivalent to what we were getting charged here. I have talked to the building official. Uh I will continue to explore that. Okay. Uh I inherited that process. Um but I'll look at it again. But I mean, when we look at last year, last year's amended budget was 105,000. We only used 54,000. So for half of it, we only got a couple months left. I don't know what when was this done? February. What figures are these from the month-wise in the book?

In the book. April, right? Yeah, they would have been April. The issue is it's paid out based on permits. I I I I understand it, but I see you have to do projections based on history. You know, I get that. But I got $100,000 here that I don't know what that breakdown is. And I'd like to see a breakdown of what that what's in there. Well, that's paying your electrical inspector, your mechanical inspector that I I'm not a mind readader. I see a figure. I need you want the actual salary for each one of those.

I want to know what's contained in there. What's in there? You know, what the hell are we paying for? You know, and if we've only used 54%, you know, I realize it's the fees and as far as I'm concerned, I'd reduce We can severely under budget if we want, but the issue is if we come in higher now we've under budget and I'm not asking you for that. I need to see though what is it? You know, we're all sitting up here trying to figure out what we can cut. I don't know what that 100,000. Okay, we'll take a look at it. We need more information. Yeah. And really at the beginning, I would have liked to seen we used to get a sheet tell us um I know you gave us another sheet. You got that one

of what you know what caused this 649,000. You know, first we had two lines on there and then you did another line on there. So we went out and looked at all those things and that still only counts for 281,000. I mean we used to get a recap. We used to get in each one of these sections before it would tell us what went up, what went down and why. Um, so I know I know what you're looking for. What I was hoping to achieve prior to providing that was u a direction in terms of of and I'll be happy to do that. uh where we're at collectively so I could instead of reprinting the book eight times and and nobody knowing what section we're on or copies trying to get as close to being on the same page and then providing that what you got last year that same thing that list everything

we get there you know I got this book and now I got to take this and try to peg it to this to see for myself what's in there you know what I'm saying no I get that so I was hoping We This was good. Highlight this or or do this and then we can put those into this book. Then you can see what it looks like.

Yeah. Well, it'd be nice. You know, I don't know if you can create two accounts. So, you can just do another file, throw them in there and, you know, and uh and do it. It's just not an easy job for all of us either because we getting pulled in every different direction and we got to answer to the public. And I mean, I've I've listened to the public for a lot of years and I know the last time we tried for a a thing. Um, they came here and they petitioned it and they put it on the ballot and they voted it down. So, um, they and then they'll always ask you, why didn't we get a chance to So, so let me address that and and again, I started with that. I'll be happy to meet with the public. I invite the public. I want the public. I want to be transparent.

It's getting them here. Okay. But I What else can I do? I I I agree. What other tool would you like me to use? I think if you put out there that you're going to increase it, they'll come out this time, maybe. Well, that's what I'm doing today. This is on live TV. It's out to the public. It was posted. I've told them we're going to increase their sewer rates. I've told them we've got infrastructure problem. Yeah. Uh other than doing a dance on social media, I don't know what else I could do to engage them to get them to come. Yeah, I I I I get it. It's just

So, you had asked what changed from the year prior. I'm going to read an expert from the like a little section from the audit. No, nothing much has changed from the year prior. It says, "Over the course of the year, we abanded the budget to take into account events occurring during the year. The total budget expenditures for the general fund were increased by approximately 22.8% during the year. There were no budget variances greater than 10% of the total budget or that exceeded 10% of the line item. That means the line items didn't change or increase or by 10 more than 10%. The general funds fund balance decreased by 623,000 from a year prior. This is a result of various capital investments during the year. So nothing has changed. We just have been dipping into fund balance to make those capital purchases

and that's a substance. So was that in the list that that he asked for the capital is that the list of those that you got? Well, no, but I think that was in I mean that was in the the report. Yeah. Was it we we supplied this previously to you, but I mean we I'm not looking at the Okay. Well, we'll get it back out again. They it was always provided here. Okay. You know, I need to see it in the budget. I don't want to have to go back to Curtis's book, even though it's a good book.

So, one of the questions is going to be, well, what do we spend all that money on? I'll be happy to give you a couple of them. You had a a a large salt truck that was ordered and then maybe it wasn't ordered, then it was ordered, and then it took a long time to come in. Guess when it hit? Okay. BSNA cloud. We can argue that all day long. People like it, don't like it. Guess what's happening now in other communities around here? They're shutting off the support for BSNA. BSNA, there's other software available that Okay, let me let me finish. They're they they're shutting off support.

They can't get it quick enough now. And the price went up dramatically. Um when I came here, I saw a broken IT backbone. Literally, you had stuff that wasn't working, hadn't worked, hadn't been updated. It needed to be repaired. You had vehicles that people were welding stop signs in for the floorboards. I mean, so I know I can refresh everybody's memory in terms of what we we faced and overcame. And in terms of the software, I I didn't even look, but I'm sure there's other software out there without a doubt. She's got some more for you.

Here's the problem. Um, does it encompass and does it work well with other softwares? Does it retain the ability to uh uh put additional information and then store it in the cloud and then interface with the different components whether it be accounts receivable, accounts payable, HR and then does it meet the governmental standards requirements? Well, a lot of other cities are using it in Michigan cloud based over 10 to$15,000 less a year and it's supposed to be used more user friendly. I got a comparison here.

I'll be happy to take a and that and there's other ones but this seemed like a good choice and it's called open gov and um they will um you know migrate all your information in. It has all the accounting, publishing, budgeting, payroll, grants management, and reporting. Should give you this. So, you can have this. Yeah. But that's something that we'd have to look into. That's something that's passed right now in eventually, but we should be able to tell the the citizens that we are looking to cut more money. Yeah. We're trying to do put these things in place so that next year, you know, we don't have any ads for more money

because like um what was the one there that was 9,000 the podcast or no Microsoft 365? Yeah, you can get a free one that works just as well. You can get that one. You found another one for something else. I mean, we need to look at ones that aren't so pricey and there's stuff that's free out there that municipalities are using because even the BSNA, you found a replacement for that that one and they'll do all the stuff for it. BSNA gets got sold to every I remember when it came in here and it got sold to everybody. We didn't use it on the fire department. Why? Because they wanted to charge us $18,000 for it. So, we went with a different program that was a hell of a lot cheaper. It was only I've got the two you gave me. I'll look at the other ones. Um,

and we might Can I make a suggestion? We don't know if any of those are going to work. We don't have time to investigate them between now and when we have to pass a budget. So, we need to pass a budget assuming we're using what we have now and then look at them down the road. I agree. But we need to show citizens that we are trying to to lower the rates. And I'm not saying don't look at it, but for the purposes of this budget now, we cannot do it.

So, can we provide can we do an updated with the proposed cuts and then also we can create a list that we can read maybe at a next meeting to the citizens to everybody so they can see. But these are the things we're looking at for the next these are things we're looking at. We can't change. So, what do you want revised on this? Cuz I didn't get any revisions on this unless I missed it. You talked about implementing these into a budget. Oh, put them into the book. See, I put them into the book to see how it would impact. You want every everything on here? There's none you like or don't like. Before Before we get there

to choose these items, I I think building off of what Lisa was saying earlier about our 45% poverty rate. We have to consider what that means for the community because if you cut employees here, you are affecting the services that they get. And the higher your poverty rate, the more government services the community needs. You have a lower poverty rate, people have more money to do on their own the type of services and things that they need done. In many ways, so we become more reliant on the city of Marine City providing these services that our communities need. As we start making cuts, that's going to have larger impacts down the road that won't be recoverable over time. While we don't want to put the backs on the citizens through taxes, we will also put the burden on them in the quality of living that they're going to have here as we do these cuts. We can't just do them lightly. Also, as I'm looking at this, I'm I think seriously we need to be looking at some of these cuts that are appropriate for this year, some of these cuts that are appropriate for next year, some of these cuts that are appropriate for the year after. And I don't know that this whole list in front of us needs to be made this year. I with an election year going on especially, let alone the projects we're managing, doing those cuts this year will have an impact on what we do service-wise this year and the quality of that. And it's not just is it a quick and speedy line. This changes if someone is going to get a service or not. And that is our responsibility to the citizens to make sure that they get those. Oh. Um I you know this list in front of us 450,000 talked about let's just say 400 are where are we making the rest up coming from you know 33 or however we're doing this wherever that comes from I think part of this conversation needs to be had too of which of these blocks of cuts can we offset to next year can we wait and look

at by time both for the employees and for the community to adjust when you do slower cuts it's easier on the employees and healthier for the services because part of what happens is that you take the workload that has to either it has to go somewhere and it's not, you know, $450,000 of changes going immediately in a month onto a bunch of different employees and therefore affecting the services. You gradually find it you find the best home for those jobs and that workload that people adjust to over time. Both the citizens adjust, the employees adjust, the budget adjusts. I really think that we have to have a stable plan to slow these cuts and commit to them, but over time

I don't think you have

I don't think you have the time. I mean, I I think I and and and I will say a couple things. I agree with with both Lisa and Sean um in in many different things, but I disagree with you in in many different ways as as well. You have to have you have to have a core group of employees and staff to be able to provide the services of which they all need. Correct. But you have to have healthy staff. You have to have staff that is um not overworked, that is run down. Um and and right now the DPW is already run down into the ground. And so I completely back decision by taking that off. You can't there's you can't get blood from Iraq. Okay. I think the police department has taken major concessions into this proposed budget. Um I think everybody has to take some the commission has taken concessions. Everybody has to take a concession. We're out of time. Mike has been saying this to us for the last year. He has been building up to this very meeting. Everybody has to take a cut. Everybody has to tighten their belts and sharpen their pencils. That unfortunately includes the citizens. That's not our fault. That's not the city manager's fault. That is from our predecessors. That is what we have inherited. If we want the city to continue to be strong and to move in the right direction, these cuts have to be made. Do they suck? Yes, Carol. I hate it. I hate the fact that that you are going to be reduced in hours. But when we look at each area that there is to cut, those are those are one of the areas. If that increases your your workload, I'm sorry, but that means then you're here Monday through Friday 8 to 4:30 and you're doing the work. You know what I mean? I get that it increases. You can you can laugh, Jason, but it increases

everybody's workload. You don't think the DPW increases? You don't think the police department increases? Everybody's workload increases. I'm not saying that is perfect and I'm not saying that that this is the only thing that we have yet to do, but something has to happen. Does anybody have a better solution? Yeah. Where you going to get the money? Anybody have a better solution? I I will also put out there that there's a time value to money.

You cut if you don't take care of it now, next year you're paying doing it with interest. it gets the further you push this and spread it out, the nastier it gets on the back end. I would can may I respond to things?

Um, you can certainly decide that you want to divide the pie up a little bit and do over a couple years. So, if you took $200,000 out of these cuts and said, "We'll do that next year." Um, a couple things will happen. You will not have any cushion then in the general fund because remember you, if the number I gave you gave you that cushion, the cushion's gone now. There's no pushing that cushion to next year. That cushion's gone. You won't be able to operate this year. I would agree with you in terms of if you don't do this now, you don't have to talk about next year because you're not going to get there. You'll be under the state or receiverhip or something for that matter. I I don't know um how you would achieve that. I I I don't have the experience in that to be very candid. I'm happy to look at all kinds of cost savings and and evaluate stuff and and have dialogue, argue, whatever you want to call it. I'm willing to do that. That's my job. I I I I appreciate that. But I also know that I've come to you with proposed cuts

and proposed revenues. It's all distasteful. I don't like any of it. And I would Whoever said this, I think a couple you said this. Somebody have a better solution. employee, commissioner, business owner, citizen, please share it. Winning lotto ticket, please share it

because unfortunately there's no time for a headley. It's not guaranteed. There's there there's no waiting for the state. Don't wait for that. That's not happening. We're still waiting to fix the roads, right? Even our own community. I I mean, I can go on and on and on. The reality is I have this much time in order to put this together. Um, and what is pel none of this is going to be palpable to the community there. You find very few that say I understand and I don't like it but I'll support it. Very few people will say that. I get that. I know what the reaction is going to be. I don't blame them. But I also know what the reaction be and they wake up one day and there's no money for the fire department or no money for the police department or there no snow remover or no trash move then I can't on the other hand remember the other hand you'll also charge me the responsibility to develop the community bring businesses in the community try to do all this stuff what tools do you give me to do that on on this end But see what I'm saying? It's it's a nasty position. I respect all of you. I know you've been through this. I I I get it. I also have to speak up in defense of our employees. I I I it's nice to hear that it's a shared um sacrifice, but it's not shared by everybody. Let's be honest,

okay? It's not. Some share more than others, but that's typical of everyday life. I I I'm not even gonna argue it because why I I'd like to focus on. Do you want me to remove something from here? Do you want me to add something from here so I know what I put in the book? Because I think that's what you want. You want to see it in the book. Would that be correct or am I be wrong? I'd like to see how it Yes. in the book. Is there anything on this sheet that you you want me to take off, revise, or do?

Um do you have any idea? I know you said you had a sheet for the 3 million um bond, but do you know when you're going to be able to know on the 8 million? I don't have that yet. We're still knee deep to the process. I can have them start figuring that, but I don't know what the total costs are. We didn't even know. So, we listed the bond at 10 million. So, if the state funding grant was available for more, we would have to redo it, but we think it'll be 8.3 or less. Okay.

I'll have an idea uh hopefully soon. U we just engaged those companies at the last meeting. Um we're still going back and forth with the state. They gave us comments the day before the documents were due. So, I know a lot of moving moving pieces I'm trying to keep track of. here. I'll give you thank you for finding that. So based on an initial look and the commodity rate would stay the same at 624. The 1 in or 3/4 inch meter.

This is for the 3 million debt service. Yeah. Ready to serve would go Now I'm trying to determine if it goes. Remember we emailed him and he Yeah. We're trying to get clarification. Is it currently 2020 and then the new ones? 5342 is what we're currently at. Yeah. So So this is an additional $33 per quarter.

Per quarter. So most residential services will see an additional $3322. But remember that doesn't include at this point 20% of that number. I don't know if he figured 20% went to this is only 20% or is this the whole amount? He says oop sorry I didn't move my chair to this is what he said we have we have a payment of 226 a year for the total for the total 3 million. So

so you use the reus that we did before wrong the table show correct I gave the fees for sanitary paying 20% and 100% of the payment. So my concern is that the rate should only have 20% applied to water and sewer. 80% goes to the general fund. She sent him an email yesterday for clarification. We thought we'd have it by now. You haven't seen it. I I didn't see it. So, so we still need again I'm waiting outside sources. I know, but that's another that's another part of the consideration with all this is that amount of money that it is.

We already hit them with the 75 and they're, you know, they're not real happy. I mean, you did everything you could to try to warn them, but that's the way it goes. If we hit them with this plus I don't know what the 8 mil is going to be, you know, that's going to be a lot more and then the tax increase. It's going to be tough. it it it's going to be extremely tough. Uh you know, nobody accepts the argument that their commodity rates were extremely low for years and years and years. Nobody wants to talk about that. Um well, probably want to argue about it, but the end of the day, and I think Jake, you were going to say this, the can's been kicked. It's done. Yeah, it is done. Not that we've been up here having to make these hard decisions because the can was

the can was the wall to us and we've had there's no room. I wish I could push this out one two three years. We tried to tell them years ago and nobody wanted to listen. So well look look at the when we're just talking about the water rates and all that is cuz for years and years water rates weren't at set at the right rate and they weren't being handled correctly. So that's why we just had to do that with what we did to get it done right, get it according to the that was based on though the person that calculated them who thought they had the right figure and everybody relied on that because you didn't have anything else to rely on. So I mean so what what do we need to do? So one other question on the is there going to be an increase in the water and sewer rates this year just in the for the 3 million? Yes.

No, not just for the 3 million just in general. I did in the budget. I didn't include a usage calculation. We did not include a usage increase because we knew these three million and 8 million million CWSRF were possibly coming coming. So, we didn't do that. I just want to make sure because today as we know it, no, we did not. So, can we get a sheet like we usually do for the rates? Yeah, we were waiting on getting some answers from and then Joe was also at least the water rates that you're not going to change them. Give me at least that something. You're talking like

Yeah. So, I guess what Mike really needs before we get out of here today is an agreement on correct this sheet so they can put it in. Yes, I agree on the sheet. Yeah. Every I think we got a we got a consensus on the sheet. Yep. Huh? So everything? Everything. Everything. Including code enforcement. I would not pull out code enforcement. You would pull I would not What do you mean pull it out as in get rid of the code enforcement officer? The position. So everything in here minus that cuz that's in here. Yes. So I don't I don't want to take these cuts and put them into the

Now this is my opinion. Oh, that's the I would not remove the code enforcement officer position cuz else there's no one left to enforce the codes. You made it sound like you the other way. Yeah, you made it sound the wrong way at first. Okay. I'm sorry. I he wants to he want to keep the code. Correct. Keep the code. Okay. That's a difference. Take him off. Yep. Yep. Is that a consensus or is that not I would agree with that. Agree. At least for now until we can figure something out with that. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Jake. And I and I I don't want to talk personnel. We're talking position, right? Position. Yeah.

Yes. I'm still puzzled and we've talked about this, Mike, about the remove the saving for required election equipment. The state is going to force us to do that. We're going to have a $25,000 budget amendment later this year to put that back in. if the state is forcing us to do it. I I don't disagree with you. And part of what we're doing, part of I to me my understanding of one of the reasons we're so far in this hole is because we made repeated amendments and changes and you we got to cover this, we got to cover this. If we know that is going to be an expenditure that the state is going to force on us,

we we shouldn't be planning on not paying it. But according to a lot of the stuff I've been reading on this, when the state mandates all the the communities are pushing back because if the state mandates they're required to to pay they can pay for the 25,000 for the darn machine they want us to use it get it for us. I mean last time didn't wasn't a grant wasn't a grant secured for the equipment ARPA if yeah so if if we bought some

like if we take this out of off of this sheet we're budgeting to pay that $25,000 and we somehow get a grant or the state steps in to pay it great that's a $25,000 surplus that we weren't planning on having. That's not going to come along though. The state is forcing to come out. states also had massive budget cuts on this material. They're not there there's no guarantee right now that that's going to come. Plan on cutting it from our current budget knowing that we're supposed to pay it is irresponsible on where that money is going. I take the chance I I well I I have I don't know. What are the what's the probability this is coming? Jason

I can't speak to that. Jason, can you speak to that? 100%. Huh? 100%. Okay. And I'd like to clarify that amount is $50,000, not 25. We were just putting away cuz we were putting away 25,000 this year and budget 25,000 in the next budget. So, we have a year to eat $50,000 in the general fund potentially. So, or find the money somewhere else.

I I would I have to agree with Sean. I think you if we know it's coming, you leave it in and if by some miracle we can get the state to pay for it, we can get a grant, then we're in better shape than what we were. But if we know that expense is coming and we know how the state has been in the past, then we need to be prepared to eat it. And I know it might we might have to fight with the state, but if you're fighting with the state, that means you might wind up in court to do so. That means high legal fees. So, I think it'll wind up being a wash. Yeah.

One of the and I know it's not on here, Mike, but I think we reviewed it when, and I wanted to meant to ask you the other day for clarification, when it comes to the city attorney, every time the city attorney is contacted, it's however much time, right? I mean, I'm assuming it's basically broken down into minutes. Well, yeah, he he can bill uh per item, bills for hours, worked on a project, if he's build on something, somebody calls him and he's working on something. Yeah, he's going to bill us. Okay. So, how do we how how is that controlled? Are you the only

that is in my my No, I'm not. That's in my proposal in terms of going forward. I've talked to the city attorney. I would bring that back to you as a recommendation of a couple things with the city attorney. We would start limiting the meetings that he attends. Uh in order to what I need him to do is stay within budget. He's tracking now 101 or 110 101,000 101,000. The budget was 80, but we've had a number of different things. Uh stay within budget. I control that by meeting attendance and the control any contact comes through me. So, I'm aware of the contact and what it's for, what goes down or the dollar sign.

And again, I'm saying this because in order for you to be able to control a budget, you have to know who's contacting. And so, I think that the only time the city attorney should be contacted is when you explicitly know that that's because we we need to know. We need to know that's going to be and the other half. Full disclosure, he is the commission's attorney. He is not my attorney. So, he worked at Well, I take that back. But I'm saying line level employees, department heads should not be reaching go through me and then I'm everything goes through. Yes.

I mean the main c I think it'll be an understanding in terms of just give me a an hey or a yay or like we'll research stuff all the time and just say hey we think this and this looks good. I don't need a four-page summary opinion on it. Just give us the up or down or within reason. Not an overanalyzation of every you know what I mean? I'm trying to are we okay on this path but most stuff we can figure out and and I have an idea. I just I need to control the cost. I can't eliminate it. I I had the question and I wanted to I had it on my thing to bring up.

Did we ever decide this would do we want to keep the new election equipment in or out? That's what I was at. Is that it there? for the 25,000 262. I'd like to keep it until we find out for sure. I I think we should keep it in as a worst case and if we can find like I said, you know, a grant or maybe the state has an attack of conscience. I wouldn't hold my breath on it. Then we're better off, you know, better off for it. Wouldn't Now, can you explain to me why the election equipment doesn't come out of the capital fund? First of all, it's not all the time,

but it's a capital. But very candidly, if we knew in advance that the state was going to do something that we could properly put in the capital fund. I I I don't I don't mean to be crash. We have no capital because there's no money. But I'm I'm just asking because typically over a certain amount that you purchase would go under capital versus large ticket items like this would go generally into capital. And this is what we were doing. That's what we were trying to do is put 25,000 each capital to use, but we never seem to be able to do the transfers to capital because we end up spending the money. Okay. You know, I just No, you're you're right. That's how it should be done. That's what we were doing with the back hole. That's what we were doing all this other stuff. But now we're cannibalized everything. I have another question on the

before we go. Did I get a consensus on I didn't hear it. I wanted to make sure. I have a question first. Are we going to realize any savings on the lawyer that could be put in this? I I don't know. That's an ongoing process. How I didn't know if you had a No, I I didn't say you might want to look too against the ordinance thing because I know we're ordinances. That's one of the areas I'm going to have a discussion with him. Yeah, he's chewing it up on that. And so if we don't have to, we can live with what we got if we have to. Also, certain ones. Yeah. The attorney costs on that line aren't just like when they're helping or he's here or doing things for Mike. It's also prosecutions and things on the PD side that get built there which they but it's usually not that much.

Yeah. The majority is is our end ordinances probably like 25%. So our building inspector is did he get does he get paid upfront for his permits or when they're finalized? I've got another we talked about it at my class today. Yeah. Well, in uh 7 years, one guy waited because it had him wait.

That's part of the problem is that a building he doesn't get it to the CFO that certificate of occupancy. So, I don't know which budget year it's going to hit in. You know what I'm saying? That I could hit two years later, three years later. This storage project here, it was a large chunk. The third year I had like, wow, I didn't expect that. ridiculous. I hate to try to corral you again, but did I get a consensus on which one? We're back to the election claim. I just want to make sure so I know what I'm doing. Yeah, I would I would keep it in myself. I would. I say keep it in. Keep it in.

Okay. And election equipment. Anything else? Oh, at this point, no. Part of my question is just on process here. I like we know that the not replacing police officer after July retirement. Do we have a timeline for when other cuts that we're proposing here would go into effect? Especially following Jake's comment that you know time is money. The chief process would be by the end of this fiscal year. Okay. Uh reduction in hours and things like this for the employees. When are we expecting to put

that would be after the fiscal year? I I I be honest with you. I need I wanted to sit down with the employees and talk about this, but I can't until I have some direction. If I tell them one thing and then it changes totally, they're already, you know, it's the worst kept secret in the world here. And you need to have the conversation with the employees. They come through you. We may lose employees. We may have a shuffle of employees. I I I I've got to see part of the question here to to rephrase it differently is when will the city be experiencing a reduction in services

beginning that the I will come back to you and say these are the services that we're going to reduce some of that's in my letter but you'll get a you'll get a number of committees you'll get services we're going to do so as of if you're asking July 1 there will be no Thursday late hours if you're asking that I would like to see us immediately take action to start eliminating committee I'd like to see those type of things. I'll move fast pretty quick. It's not a big time savings, but it's a it's you know what we're stacking. I mean, it's work for the staff. What's uh So, what are we doing for tomorrow? I would like you to come back at 5:00 tomorrow for those that can. So, are we going to have a budget with these out of it?

I'll try. We'll we will try. We'll work hard. that that would be I don't know if I I I get it some of this other stuff I get a question from some other people I can't give you that but we will try I just think it would help us it also gives you a chance to go home and digest this and call me up tonight talk it through another meeting I I won't be able to be here until 7:00 that's fine

I I do just want to clarify something I know Trish you said you'll work 8 to 4:30 I just I Jason puts in way more hours than I do and I'm going to I'm just saying that to him because I know, you know, putting Carol to 32 hours is going to really impact him. But on 2024, which was the last election year, a normal employee would work 2,80 hours if they only worked 80 hours every two weeks. Um, he did 2,413 hours that year. Um, is there is there a reason you're speaking for Jason? No, I'm just because you had mentioned that, you know, then we would have to be here at 8 to 4:30. No. And I and I wanted to just clarify we are here 8 to 4:30

and I'm not I'm not saying I am not saying that you're not by any means. I'm just I'm just saying that that sometimes it it's just unfortunately do I do I think that maybe not all of maybe not all of your work will will get done as effectively and efficiently as before. I I totally get that. We're human. We're human and and and I'm the same. But so I just wanted to just you know say that it's there are typically more hours going in than the 2080 that it's with any job nowadays. Commissioner Ryan you have something?

Oh when we say it's part of a job it's worth noting that employees are legally entitled to you know being paid and compensated for the labor. So when you have someone who worked an additional 400 hours and we didn't get build any additional cost for that it's worth recognizing the type of work that our employees are putting in. But they're getting paid for it. Well, they're they're getting paid for for it. They're getting whatever giving them anything to cover for the time. Okay. Commission O'Brien, were you finished? Is what you're saying? Yes, sir. Uh those were not all comp hours that hours, but they're in there. They're covered. All right. Anything additional? Okay. I get a motion to adjurnn.

I'll make a motion to adjurnn. Support. All in favor? Hi. Thank you. See you tomorrow.

Tomorrow here. Otherwise, I'd give it to you at the fire. That's all the information.