Town Council - Special Meeting

like if you want to join it's $10 if you live in town, it's $20 if you don't live in town. We do have some developers that live in town though. Well, that was my I mean that's where I was going is could we do [clears throat] because you see that in other facets of government where if you can't pay or you don't feel like you fall like based on income or whatever you can't qualify for shouldn't be paying us kind of a rate hardship application. We do have a lot of applications processes already just add on to that with time. Let me just point out we're talking about a line 7.7 taxes million.

Yes. But I'm not big way. I think that's what Yeah. Yeah. Basically, I we can raise them if you want. I wouldn't do it the full scale, but um the issues that we have right now are larger. I'm notating this measure trying to make sure my understand is it needs to be reasonable. So if you are too far out of line for your fees

and to the 110 um these are not the only fees that go in that line. while they are definitely the majority um there's about5 or $6 thousand dollars of that that are not even the fees that we're discussing. So exactly not a discourage conversation about that might be right way to do that. [snorts]

But I thought if we went somewhere in the neighborhood of 25% 50% of the fee based on staff time number um you know like every every cent counts what we bring in and [clears throat] That's a relatively simple way to do it. Your recommendation might do to think about $700 instead of 22 something like that. I think it's it's definitely permissible according to max policy. We can definitely set that at a 50% rate versus current 12. So bring it up to focus on conditional zones.

Nice to have a count here. average count $75 for a simple permit. Even if you raise it, yeah, I mean it's not going to really move the bar at all. Maybe you just focus on site plan review high complexity requests.

Well, we just don't know. For example, I mean the Stevens Village is a very high complexity conditional zoning, but so is their general resoning. And then there's the regular general zoning. It doesn't take very much staff time, but when we had this the Stevensville Stevens Mill Road, I can't remember the exact number, the the White House that got resoneed recently and that took I was meeting with people weekly on a fee that was probably $600. Um, so we just don't know. I thought that was going to be a simple one, but the general residents got um mail notices about that and picked that up and were concerned.

There's a good chunk of time in some of these that really responding to residents as well. It's not just interacting with developers. Yeah. Um like for example, those simple adments could be a simple fence permit someone submits. Right. Right. for the conditional zonings village for example um for the complex ones now I'm I'm meeting to develop a weekly zone with residents as well right those numbers include res time um let's put a pin in this if you don't mind sure

um as already been mentioned um storm water fund is balanced um with the $67 residential and eru um for non-residential already. Um so we're not proposing changing that fee. Um and there is no appropriation of fund balance for that fund. Um, as already mentioned as well, we did either cut or push into the future $543,600 from the notable items list. And then we also made a lot of um what I call kind of nickel and diamond things. Okay, $500 decrease here, $1,000 decrease on this line item. Um, so we've already done a lot of that internally as well. Um so you know we have cut this budget significantly before even bringing it to you um for recommendation. Um but ultimately this is our recommendation is the two cent um tax increase. We were proposing no change to the fee schedule but again we will do what y'all want us to do. uh on storm water

because that's I it's a fund a separate fund. Yeah, it's uh nothing's needed now. But how's that projecting going forward? Storm water is doing fine. I mean if you want to talk specifics about projects and things that would be Kevin's area, but that fund as far as financially has no issues. So it's it's the $67 is is going is keeping it well funed or funded enough to do our needs. It [snorts] is. Yes.

I think the movement towards doing a lot of the work in house is one of the driving factors behind making that more sustainable. before we were contracting out a lot of things. Um, that was really expensive, especially the scale, you know, mobilizing contractors for a bunch of different small projects. Kevin, is there anything else you'd like to add to that?

No, I think just to put in perspective, projects that we were spending contracting out and spending 10 grand on the contractors we're doing in house for a,000 $2,000 that's just material. So, um, we're faster, we're cheaper. Um we're doing a better job uh when it comes to there's larger scale projects that we have to contract out, but our budget will sufficiently fund that. And do you keep a reserve? We do. It's a million.

The policy is a million dollars. Yes, but we have more than that. That's my only concern is I don't want to at some point we're going to have to hit taxpayers are going to have to payunate more I don't want to hit them regular taxes storm water at the same time that's so they're good for fiveyear projection

yeah I don't foresee to raise that not anytime [clears throat] soon We're going to have a big bigger bridge replacement project in the future. Um, but even still, I think that would be within our budget. We might need to dip into that reserve for a little bit, but it would not deplete any other. So the bottom line which um has been stated multiple times um is yes the current tax rate can fund the budget um but but it does not put us on a sustainable path long term. And so that's what we are really looking at. Um, and while there was a lot of discussion going on, I did the math real quick to give you those exact fund balance numbers with the two cent tax increase. 144665 is restricted funds and then 1949 is just to balance the budget um for those capital items. But we have much more than $195,000 worth of capital items. with the current tax rate, it's the same 144665 in restricted funds because they're restricted. Um, and then a million3,000 of fund balance appropriation to balance the budget. And when we say the budget's balanced, yes, we're using fund balance, but the budget is balanced based on the statutory definition of what a balanced budget is.

I need you to come talk to my wife. [laughter] She would she would tell you she does not care. You are wrong. [laughter] I I can I can relate to that and understand that logic. But it's balanced when we have an ordinance that says we can have this much revenue including fund balance and this much in expenditures. I just need the statute so I can send it to I can send it um on the fiveyear forecast. I always which one? both. Okay. Okay.

Assumed increase the projections. I'm always the one who says I think we're conservative, but I know we have to be. So, I appreciate you doing that. I'm looking across the top line at war taxes. 7.63 million projected this year. That's 110. But over here on the actuals, it looks like we're running 7.774 actuals plus encumbers through March. And I know we're probably done. So, we've collected more, right?

We have and I just haven't updated these projections since we got that additional last little bit of money in March. So I apologize. But yes, you're not looking for errors. What I'm looking for or things you have I'm just looking for trends. I take that 5year forecast number FY267630 and I grow it by 2.2%. Everything else seems to cancel out. I always just want to make sure that we understand number one that we're projecting this assumed increase of ad.

Seems like we do better than that, but I know we have to be conservative. And just to point out, those assumed increases are for 28 and forward. I used what I actually have or what we have in the actual proposed budget for the 27 numbers. Yes. And it runs at 2.2%. Correct. Um same for like power bill, right? Mind us how that is funded.

Powell bill is funded by the state. Um I forget the exact formula. Part of it is based on the number of road miles. Um, and until they actually do something with the budget, that's just going to remain at the same amount that it is. But the thing about Powville is the net impact to this budget, it's zero. So, the expenditures equal what we're budgeting in power bill revenue. If we receive more than that, we can just come and do an or we can do um what we're doing with this 27 budget and appropriating those remaining funds in the following year.

What if we got more power bill? We have a street maintenance budget bill plus $800,000 from the town. Bill is more than,000. [snorts] It's around like I think we got about 560 this year,

right? Okay. It feels like where we've saved money in the past is is by taking that promised 800,000 a year or 1.2. I thought it was Alex and we were going to put torch like it's gone to 1.4 plus pile bill is gone up a little bit as well. So I just want and then we're doing the slurry microcing. I feel like the only opportunity to save money in this budget is personnel and just about that dialogue about can we save money on street Then the last question I have would be just the police cover the two new officers coming on board this coming year.

Is that the end of the funding plan fully staff two more next year as well? When I said next year I mean fiscal year 2728. So last year we added two which is in this fiveyear projection. Yeah. Yes sir. Yes sir. In our current fiscal year that we're in now, we added to the fiscal year that we're talking about now. We're proposing adding two and then we call for an additional two following year. I just think the message to the community is chief. I love you, but if you want a police force,

how many staff do we have and how many are police? I'd say about 50% is police. Is that about right, Karen? You think it's more? You think it's more? Okay. Yeah. If you're non sworn officers that are police, I feel pretty confident it's more than half of police. [snorts]

That's a decision I think the town makes. It's personnel cost or driving the budget up every year. house instead of contracting things out because we save money us as long as Kevin at his current level can handle the equipment and all that stuff that works but as soon as Kevin says gosh we're doing so much work in house now that need to add another person that's sort of hard that last question% rejected person all the scenarios. Are we able to do that?

We're actually seeing more than that. That's actually a conservative increase. Well, the thing to keep in mind is we've been adding staff. [snorts] So, you know, it's it's hard to when you're doing it like this at this level to really calculate exactly how much is new staff versus how much is true increases without getting into it at every single little itty bitty line. And so that's we just kind of picked a 10% conservatively. But you're really conservative [laughter] on the revenue, but you're really not conservative on the staffing. So that's the problem.

You know what I mean? We've got 2.2% 2% revenue grows and I think it's going to be more but then on something like staff it's going to maybe be 14 and yet we're lowballing it to kind of make budgets that concerns but based it on projections to pass performance both on the revenue side revenue

and also on that we actually dropped it down we made it more conservative than the the trends are I think a couple things one it's it's adding police, right? It's having positions. Um, and two, we also those numbers, those trend numbers include um some pretty gnarly COVID related inflationary increases. And you recall that the board there was one that was like seven or eight or nine%. And uh you recall the board put half on the CPI increases of 5%.

So that takes the top a little bit off of that. So that's all we felt going. But I think your point is right, right, is that the the revenue numbers are much lower than the percentages of the the numbers when you have that naturally you're going to have that since valid point I don't want to dismiss it we also had a salary study last year that gave some additional increases too so

right we're saying nothing worse than It's hard to really truly factor that in.

Yeah, we don't control that, right? [snorts] And we've been seeing for years 1% increase on the sworn officer side and a 75 increase on the nonsworn. But Karen does a good job of trying to get us the lowest insurance rates we can have. So

the only staff we're adding is But there was the administrative assistant at the front

and I don't love What um what take into account elements that are going to come online this year

to do the re the tax revenue I use the numbers that the county gives me. That's what I'm using to do those. And so they're telling me these are your valuations as of right now. And so no, to answer your question, that's what I think they're conservative because farms will come online in the next five years. [snorts] the next year. Yeah, it's not

every single developer says they're going going to, but I have no idea. Well, is under construction, but they got capacity. The apartment complex,

but it's just dirt right now. I drove by it last week. Yeah, I don't know what to think about that. Feels like built into the last five, six years. I'm always hopeful that sitting here next year we would

well and we do have to be conservative on the taxes. Um there is statute that tells us we cannot budget um for more than we received in the prior year. So like if we received 99% of our taxes, we cannot budget more than 99% of the tax levy that we calculate based on the values we receive from the county. We just we cannot do that. So complex behind Harris. Yes. [snorts] Okay.

So then if it's online, it would be in the values that the county has given me for this year because they gave me values um within the last couple months. Well, I mean, but remember when EPCON came in on your side of town didn't change the values, those apartments still stayed really low for the first couple years or something. So I guess that would be my question. Yeah. Yeah. But I mean I think that's all theme around the same point is that either started not started influenc

and the two

and the I thought they were moving the our fun the last because I'm seeing 16 million and I I I thought I mean when I we saw a budget a couple years ago that it was closer down to the 10 million. I mean we're getting close to 10 million.

Well, there's a difference. So fund balance is a little tricky. There's a difference between what's available and what we have. Those are two different things. And some of it is restricted fund balance. Um we have a fund balance policy that says we must maintain at least 34%. Um part of that's a cash flow issue. I mean, even last Friday, I had to transfer money um from the trust account to our general fund checking account just to pay the bills because we're now in a point where we are not regularly receiving big lump sums of money. And so that's why we've really got to make sure we do have a fund balance. Um but they're all different. There's a um a stabilization by state statute calculation that factors into that. There's a lot more to it than just saying we have X dollars in the bank and we can spend all of that.

I appreciate that. But um I I I think I say this every year. I have in my mind is especially as a tax as a taxpayer [snorts] but public town is sitting on $16 million. Why are you raising my taxes? Right? Like use some of that that you to cover the gap. So just how I can see that breakdown that' be great. Okay,

I should I should ask I'd love to have Kurt's answer on that. That's a [snorts] philosophical really good question. We got a manager here and manager here. There were [clears throat] there were two instances in 911 after the housing meltdown in 2007 2000 where the city of Charlotte revenues pl1 it was sales 2008 property tax everything but for balance we would have had to sharply services really that's that would have been the only option because we couldn't even say once a You have to have in my opinion you have to have cash in bank in order to avoid those draconian things. They do come once every 10 years something bad seems to happen very wealthy that does something toility race or property. So that's what I would say to a citizen that just like in our own uh in our own financial situations we need to have a rainy day fund and town is no different in

how big it is. Um I will say the world is entirely different now. The targets when I was budget director 34 [clears throat] everybody has moved in the LGC LGC

the 3 as well because of smaller towns across the state. And so my mind is at a much lower level but but you're comparable with what I see in other places. some others are considering. So I can see why the citizen would say just spend what you have and there's probably a margin in there you could do which is probably about the margin that they have done but um to avoid having to lay off half your workers when sales tax that's that's why that's what I would say And I I guess I should step back and say that I'm not against it, right? And I I'm not saying we should reset our 34%. That seems reasonable. 34% of your budget. That gets you through rainy days. I'm looking at we're at 114% of our budget, which if we got no money next year, we could fund with fund balance and still carry over some money to the following year. I mean, that's like just Tuesday and at that point you might as well we're all dead anyways. Um so that that's kind of where I'm at and I I see we're we're progressing. Eventually we will dip below 34%. I do not ever want to be in that situation but I also have an issue with like this year should we bring it back down to maybe 100%. And we also have a cap where we don't ever have a fund balance that's over 100%.

Because it makes no sense to me to have a we're saying that next year's expenses, we actually have more in the bank than we need to even cover those expenses. It's kind of like Harvard, right? Like you can go to Harvard for free now because an endowment is more than they need in perpetuity.

Yeah, that but I mean we aren't a business. We are a government. we are representative fiscally responsible. I think we do a great job with that. I have but I there's part of me that says if you have 114% over your budget are you being sponsored the [snorts] money currently. So the 34% is is of the total expenditures of the last adopted budget. Mhm. What was the last total?

13, I think. Yes. Yeah. Point is, we would be in the minority of the total expenditures of the most recent adopted budget. [snorts] I'd have to pull up the policy um to give it to you exactly. Okay. Look at the the fiveyear forecast. Oh, this 34 is just your base like your bare minimum. Oh, yeah. That's the policy. Yeah. So, if you're actually talking about that, we are three times.

No. What do you We'd be in the minority of what? If we It's quite normal for places to have over 100% fund balance. Going below that, we would be in the minority. So So that's I'm going to steal one of Brad's questions that he asked every year again. I mean, if I had $16 million in the bank, the first thing I would do is tell my boss, "See you because I can certainly live off a 4%." I don't [laughter] question.

Okay. I'm add living some of the work the um but but I mean if we if we the question that asked each year is that set 16 million sitting in the bank. I mean it seems like it should be generating at least 4% at this point in time. So what I mean

it's a little below four at this point. It started out the year at four but it's a little below that now. But if if I I think I' I've asked this question of Jesse before is that you're thinking about the stock market on average goes up six to seven% per year, but that's because you could be in equities, but we have to be more conservative, right? That's where I would go. We have to be more conservative investments. So, so I mean I guess what I've heard in the past, I mean, we could have taken half that money and put them into a a couple years ago or a year ago and we would have been making 5%. So, I mean, are we so restricted that we can't even invest in things that have guaranteed returns or better what we're getting right now

because we've been using the trust and things. I can't fully answer that question at this point. I would have to do a little more research, but yes, we are restricted in what we can invest in. Um, I mean, at this point, it feels like it makes more sense to us to take $16 million and just start buying a property because it seems like we' make more money in the long run than 5%. I mean, [clears throat] %

Well, and I mean another just hypothetical and what others do, you know, is buy property to build a community center or something like that. Well, when you have money in the bank, you can put a big down payment and not have to take out as much debt. So, that's what we um that's where we have to kind of decide or you guys have to decide as a council where you want the town to go. If all you want us to do is just manage daily and not add any amenities, not do anything else, then the the logic of well, yes, we should just charge what we need to pay makes sense. But if the town wants to grow, you you have to have those additional funds.

You're saying for the future, the 114% that we would have in the fund balance could then in a future budget be allocated into a um special fund to be able to say we want to put it aside for this parks project, this engineering project, that kind of thing. Not the full 16, but because of the but yes, that's exactly what I'm, you know, okay, if we wanted to do something, here's a million dollars. We can put it over there. Yeah, if it's in on the balance sheet, it's not in balance. It's just an

asset. And to the contrary of of questions is the way that I have looked at it in my head, which is the chart that that Jesse said was helpful earlier. Well, she didn't say, she said, we said that it was helpful. Um, but I look at it as, is it reasonable to ask the average homeowner in town to pay 77 more dollars this year to provide the high level of service that you get? [snorts] That's that's the that that's I think that's the simplest question and and a Socratic response to the Why don't you spend some of the $16 million? I mean my argument is time value money and I would rather keep that allow people to use their money those $77 if we can stay above 100% fund balance for a year because I think to Brad's point you mentioned before we have a lot that potential new change is coming and it seems that raising the rate when we might not ne when it we don't necessarily need to this year we do in the future I fully acknowledge that I think but it's also there's uncertainty out there and we don't know what some of this stuff what will happen guess I'm concerned I I personally concerned that our budget is growing at a rate of almost 10% every We're now what? Close to 14.5 million dollars. We're up from 13 last year in the event. That seems like I mean to me that seems

like a lot of growth and it seems to be consistent. I mean we just a couple years ago we we barely crushed it over 10. Now we're all the way up to 14 and a half. Well, 14.1 million is the budget. 14.1 million, right? As [snorts] far I mean, I think I was going to go back to you said earlier on a lot of our expense is stuff we can't cut. I mean, we it's kind of out of our hands. 1.45 million is transferred to capital projects as well. Okay. And what is that? Just

you would see that 1.4 45 million in the general fund had we not created another fund. It's, you know, the splash pad chemical building. Um, they're things that we would have in the budget anyway, but because they're larger capital projects, there's just a new fund that we're putting them in. That's the difference there. Um, and my understanding is the half a million for that building still just penciled in cost, right? Yes, going up for that one. [snorts]

Yeah, fingers crossed. Um, we got a number back for just the design work of it and we're still kind of filling the waters with that. It's just there's a lot of stuff that goes into that just with code requirements and yeah, it's a big it's a big piece. I don't think we're going to need more than that. Um, but I definitely would not budget lower. And solid waste is a a huge part of our budget. I mean, one we're budgeting over $1.5 million for solid waste. That goes up every year.

And Steve, I had a similar question as you did as well when I was, you know, over last summer thinking about do I want to run for this position and looking at the budget and wondering like, well, how did how did it go up? How did everything go up? Yeah. And I I think part of that is like we've talked about like do we want police cars that are operating at the highest level of efficiency? Do we want a splash pad that works or one that's you can sit on this hot cement because the water doesn't work this summer, you know, or or a pay increase for staff because then if you lose somebody because the next town over is paying more money, then you got to go through the process of doing that. So the question is what don't you want in that sense of when the numbers go up, what would you cut?

Yeah. I mean, I'm just I've been through this budget and I mean in the past and I know that we're running pretty thin here, but it's it's still difficult because we raised taxes last year and so we would be looking at another tax rate this year. So, it's just again going up at a rate of 10% a year that's going to be stomach. But I mean half a million of that is splash pad which there's no money next year and I not see any funds for the splash pad to be redone next year.

So that's what we did in this budget is we removed the spears and we're replacing with the flush jets and that's happening right now um as we speak. However, the only thing we're fixing with this is just that chemical piece, how we feed the system.

Apologize, but in the notes over here, it says this is in preparation for redoing this flash. Did I read that wrong? [snorts] Says necessary for compliance until this is underway upgrade. So, Does that mean that that we are only replacing what you see? The sphere is the only thing that's going to take away nothing internally can be done. And so so again, but for that particular line item, is that the sphere upgrade or is that we can't upgrade the system beyond what we're going to be doing this year?

Exactly. This is all that the county will approve. And I know it gets a little confusing. Um I promise it was for me to kind of grasp what the county is going to approve and not. So, it's a little out of my hands. However, this is just the safety portion for the public that we're taking out. The other part that we're trying to fix is our system is honestly almost 100%. I love to walk you over there. I know Mike kind of went and took a field trip. It's hard to imagine it, but this is truly just to get our chemical system to match what's out there now. Because if something were to happen, we h it would have to shut down. Is that a is that a fund balance appropriation?

Yes. Yes. On balance. Yes. Capital expenditure. Yes. So with the current tax rate, we're appropriating 1,13,000 and that would be 500 of it. Now with the 2 cent tax increase, we're appropriating less than 200,000. Let me sum this up.

So my summation's going to answer all. Okay. [laughter] Okay. In the past, we've said 1% rough roughly was 250 grand, 400 grand this year. Yes, it's around 400. Okay, that changes every year based on the values and what your tax rate is. Okay, here's what I'm hearing. Are you finished? Yes.

This is my summation. I was going to go sounds like we've got um two schools of thought at some point. One school of thought is I'll point this way and point this way. But I think we all agree expenses are as tight as they probably lay off staff, you can't cut salaries, you can't expenses are tight. Well done. Well done. A great job. So now the question is how do you pay for it? Pay for it either by two tax, excuse me, two property tax increase, which that's 800 addition. One cent was next $400,000 and then take 600,000 out of the grant out of the balance instead of 200 tax increase and take 800,000 out of fund balance on top of the two a million out of fun balance.

I didn't totally follow that. The million out of fund balance is with the no tax increase. Yeah. Okay. Right. You're getting you already got 200. So scenario Alex is recommending is 200 out of fund balance and 400 out of property tax. Yes. Yes. 800 800 million 200 out of fund balance 800. Yes. Yes. Yes.

So if I might I want to keep that because expenses are tight. We need Graham or someone like might say, "Well, let's let's take the 800,000 and just take it out of the fun balance, lower that to an appropriate number budget or do something in between, which is one cent sales tax, 400,000 over here. Those are the three options I see us, right?

I can't think because expenses are tight. Y'all done a great job on that. Not with might have some staffing 10% low, but revenue projections. I think those are the three sort of scenarios I see everything in the that's in this CIP in the 26 27 column is it funded? Yes. If it wasn't funded, we moved it out into a future year on the CIP. But everything that's on the notable items list isn't necessarily funded.

There's a couple items there like the the streetscape engineering plan. in front of the town of the town hall that seems that's 15 down.

Well, either that or eliminating fun balance Well, let's just level set because we don't have three members here tonight. What we're doing I think is I would say I'd love that kind discussion with council balance to a safety net relatively Where do we leave tonight? What would be helpful?

I proposed 21 years ago and now we're there in exactly the year that I said we'd get it. So, uh, I mean, I wanted to do the jump one big time, but I mean, we've kind of known this is coming. So, and and the question is, do do we see inflation continuing at a similar rate where if we do two cents now, does that mean next year we might only have to do one cent? Or if we do one cent now, does that mean next year we have to do three cents? Look at Jesse's objection. It looks like you do two now. You don't really do anything else.

That's our proposal. Yes. Right now is to just do two now and leave it alone. Just so you know, that's kind of one of the things that we talked about taking the rebal the taxes to get us through to the rein that trend. At that point in time, we probably last year probably the number said we should have been about 21 Even now we're still one other question which is a hypothetical but is there any chance that um with pending legislation our hands are tied or is the thought that even if something like that were to pass that it would not be implemented until a future year.

Um well you there's still a pretty long runway, right? It'd have to I think it's still got to pass some general assembly hurdles. Um then it have to go on the ballot, right? Then it would have to come back to the general assembly. I'm saying if it's not a constitutional amendment, if it's just a straight up piece of legislation that says no, uh you know, there's there's going to be change to the way property tax is done. Oh, if they did it that way. Yeah, that was that was my question. I was too vague. Yeah, I haven't been tracking that part of it. July 127. Okay.

Although theoretically they could do something that's not like add on to your question. I mean I look at us compared to some of the other municipalities. Is it possible that we would even be impacted by I mean municipalities in the news it seems like they're targeting municipalities that are charging like 38 39 40% or they're raising it at a high percentage each year. It's like So we even do we think we would even fall in scope of what the changes were last was the sum of as if you could sum of growth of population and growth that seems to be high. I don't know. Charlotte had that late reaction. So I don't I don't know what kind of control they would put on that because for any urban center what you I mean that's that's the thing is it's it's all been feels like in the news reports I've read articles it seems all very hypothetical with very little grit

to it and so it's sort of like we're trying I mean so but when they have talked about it it seems like they were kind of shooting for kind of more circumstances That's no way to know.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's the thing is like might go way I understood they were going to do is they originally Yes. They basically pass the framework and then it would go back and then they would decide on what they wanted to do. So So, so what you're saying is we should we should take and raise it to 35%. And then that way we're covered for the next few years.

Steve [laughter] say something. Well, I was just going to ask so what we have potentially a budget meeting on Monday before the council meeting. So what exactly would you like back by then? Because we do have a calendar that we need to keep because I will be out of the country so for a couple weeks. So we need to make sure that we know exactly what y'all want by that last meeting of May 18th. Otherwise, we will not be able to adopt a budget on June 8th.

We've got May 11th, next Monday, and then the following Monday, May 18th. So, we've got a couple more meetings. So, if you Yes, I'll have time to get things done before I leave. [laughter] Yes, we just got to have a meeting. Yes, for a wedding. That should be fun. I can kind of gauge where the votes are. People not here actually and I don't know what my own vote is yet. So this I would imagine. Yeah.

You're in the minority. I mean, I would even I I I came into thinking perhaps they used the 1%.

Yeah, it's tough because I mean I mean unless we there items in the actual budget we want cut or go back through it seems to your point more This is where I am today at least like Alex feel like we can get through with a two years. That's kind of where I am today. I am still curious about the street maintenance $200,000. What is that? Well, just thinking in my head the math eight, if we were doing 800,000, the 1.2 would have meant that we were only receiving 400,000 in Powell Bill and now we're receiving 560. So,

but the budget said we should be doing

I may have misunderstood that feel like we probably need to have a conversation about seems like we have a lot of that are unhappy. I wonder if it's worked. I know it's kind of expensive to talk about, but it seems large group of our population tends to be happy and a lot of them seem to be unhappy even months later. And it's worth a discussion on whether or not opportunity for this if it's going to make everybody cost versus happiness scenario, but it just seems like every time we do a neighborhood, people are unhappy and they hope that it's going to get better. It doesn't seem like it gets better. A lot of those people continue to

[clears throat]

5:30. 5:30. They're all at 5:30. Okay.

I don't know if we can recommend that way. thing just to clarify because we're staff. We want to kind of support you guys. It's at the policy council level. I heard Grant you say you wanted a history of fund balances. Get that. Um Brad, I heard you say a history of uh or basically what's the right budget for the street maintenance now? You know, how has that changed? Things like that. So, I can work with Kevin and Jesse on that. Help me help me understand that multi-year plan of time that are now long Yeah, we'll get a good inventory of where we're at roadwise

by this time next year. We'll get that done. I would hope so, right, Kevin? Yeah. How long does that take? A couple months maybe. Yeah. I'm curious my 114% over 100%. Going back to Grant's point about

our million. Yeah, Graham was I thought I heard Graham say that policy that council in addition to the minimum I would go but I'm just just it would be would be 5% of our fund balance if we fully funded the budget this year.

The comment I will make about fund balance is that these are estimates. We never know what fund balance truly is and what the available fund balance is until the audit is complete. So like even if I were to give you fund balance numbers right now for 26, they would just be estimates. And the audit completion date is December 31st. So it's a long way away. Yes.

I thought policy would be a huge number of I would love to see what what we could potentially I hate the fact that we're raising still taking money from fund. Feels to me like if we're going to raise taxes have in my definition of have a balanced budget because seems like we're still matching cash from our savings, pay the bills, so to speak, and yet we're still raising taxes. So, and I might could get comfortable with that knowing that half a million of that is the building which would bring us back down below that 200,000. So, I think that might be just one thing I would ask is is there something that we could cut to get us back to where we truly are quote unquote balanced with 2% streetscape design.

Well, I said I don't I hate to raise taxes and still be still unbalanced. We're not really raising taxes. You're looking for the household definition of a balanced budget. Basically,

or how my wife would explain it to even if you raised it to around 21%. So the 20.9 that would cover and and then we do away with the streetscape. That would be enough to bring us to a balance. le the problem the problem that I have and I've said this before is that other than a couple of things I feel like we're just keeping the wheels on the bus not supposed But there are some expenses that we are going to start to acrew that we're going to need to have large payments like we kind of skipped on the air conditioner because last year, right? So we basically fixed the broken system but technically left the bad system operational. I think for me feels like a lot of times we end up spending money to do half the job because we don't want to spend the full money to do the full job. Guess that that would be my one thing is like I don't want to feel like we're raising taxes, doing all this stuff, spending money, but we're not really forward. We're just kind of patchworking it until

so till so the next time we have to spend some more patchwork money I do uh because I think we have we have public property town hall, but we're also sitting in some other properties that I don't know what our intent really is. It sounds like to me, my understanding is those were event wanted them to have control, but they're not going to be public in the sense it's owned forever by the by the taxpayers. So to me that's like $3 million on the book that isn't just going to sit there. It's not like building a parks and rec department building which I know you want.

No or or you know building an additional office for personnel is that these are properties that will come off the book

at some date when so choose. So that I always keep that in the back of my mind. It's not that, oh, we're we're constantly dipping balance and I do think [clears throat] that something be worried about. But at the same time, I always build in those properties knowing that they're going to or at least that's the hope. But I also want to I think we do need to have this because I also think we into next week, but I think we need to have a conversation about what our town center vision is because I just spoke to the developer over Pleasant Planes. They raised a good point and actually think that point backfired on their argument. That's a different story. But I I do think that maybe we need to revisit that and then what are we going to do with these properties? Because I you can't it's chicken and the egg, right? We have properties that we want to sell. We're talking about budget constraints. Are are we going to do I mean are we going to handle the budget? Are we going to sell these properties? Are we going to invest in them? I I mean I would actually if I would be in favor of going up to your 21% and doing some those homes because I think right now they're an albatross and you need to demolish them because no developer wants to come along and buy just the home. They then have to invest money. I I hate to say you have to invest money to get money.

Oh see I was even worse than that. I joking with Alex today that we probably unfriendly condemn one choir. That way we would have this whole shot or I'm not gonna go that again with Stephen. [laughter] So we've got a we are great. So that's more of a big town center property ownership. I feel like that's that should be one we have. Mike and John were sitting here in 22nd I think is the next one

to

that might be one we do. It's just property ownership they change mentioned before I think that does feed into the budget because We've had these I mean since I've been on council five years no headway now granted attracted dealership that's something else but these other properties we were actually talking before you got here transparency I mean one of the things that we're talking about is once that building something's going to happen to that building at some point I [snorts] mean right now our parks fill the entire campus up with cars when we have something something we need to talk about unfortunately is parking for large events and you'll have to tell me was the spring fest was it considered to be large event okay so so is it on par with Okay. So, that's not too bad.

Yeah. Yeah. It's I would say it's probably slow to creep in to be bigger. Um really what I what I responded to council member he asked we got two options which I'll try to do now is true to plan the event to size it based on the available and local park are very thoughtful about that. The other option if you want to make the events bigger is to shuttle people back and forth which we've done in the past. Um but a little bit different of the calculation here. Guess what I'm trying to say though is that when we lose that park there,

I mean, we are effectively that that is something happens to that building, we shouldn't be scrambling to think about how we're going to handle parking because most most of our events do have parking over here now, don't they? These are almost all of them. Almost all of them,

which I sort of feel like we're getting ready to get into a situation where Our parks and rec team no longer going to be hampered by ideas and personalities and personnel. They're going to be hampered by can't have that event because there's only parking for 100 people. There's a shopping center across the street if you think about it. Let's put that on June 22 specialis on property. Where does the money go? If we give up those properties or choose to redevelop them, where does everything inside? See that that goes towards the fact that we're going to redevel

so next Monday I think Look at the street maintenance history. Uh what's the multi plan? Where are we now? And ideas for cuts to get away from using. Could part of a cut be offset by an increase in planning fees and zoning? Be hesitant to make on that. for several reasons. First, not guaranteed revenue.

Yeah, it tends to be it can be volatile. You know what I mean? Uh for two reasons. One is just have to expand right when come in um uh if you raise fear, could there be effect on that? I don't know. And then also the sewer capacity crunch. We don't know exactly when that will hit, right? trying to come quickly be hesitant to bank on that reasonility. better that storm water funds could be used for

when we do curricul The discussion for us is philosophically about fund balance use again tax rate level for manager option buys us three four years one year which may be the right thing to do given I'm sorry. I neglected members.

Anything else? Thank you everyone. Motion,

huh?