Board of Aldermen - workshop

basically dedicated to discussions and information around our proposed twenty twenty six twenty twenty seven budget year which is upcoming so the budget committee has met with department heads department heads provided input as to what they feel their needs are for the upcoming budget year and so there's been a compilation of information before we get into it I do want to touch on a couple of things just for informational purposes we which they're going to roll out the new jet way. I believe the Vice Mayor went out there yesterday and viewed it as sort of a little preview. And it's a very exciting addition to our airport. So if anyone wants to get out there, that might be something worth doing. And then if you haven't, there's an event that is at Rick's that was there last night. It'll be one more night tonight. They are not sold out. So it's a covered event, and it is to benefit Starkle Strong. But the fun part is, for those of us of the generation, somewhere in that generation it's a it's a Motown thing and so I suggested it's fun and if you don't have any plans for this evening you might want to go out there support Starboard Strong, support Ricks and enjoy some good music so all right having said that I will basically turn it over to the budget chair who is pretty much going to lead this discussion for the morning and we'll go from there.

I will give some 30,000 foot type comments and then as we dig into it, as we have questions, I'm sure that Mr. Corbin will be a great deal of help in answering those questions. This year is special. And it's a reassessment year. That happens every four years, so nothing unusual about the reassessment piece of it. What is unusual is that this reassessment comes with the state adopting a new construction cost list for mass appraisals and the fact that market values have gone up in the city considerably. So as a result, in addition to new properties coming under the rolls, that sort of thing, we've seen a bump in our assessed values related to that reassessment. One thing that most people aren't aware of that would be very meaningful to some 1,500 property owners here in the city that if you are qualified for that level that the special exemption for being 65 or older or if you are disabled and you qualified back during the time period the state passed legislation not long ago that essentially freezes your taxes at the previous assessed value so The mayor, pro-temporary, and I will have our taxes frozen at the rates that they were last year. Alderman Skinner. As will Henry. Well, I didn't want to single out everybody that was over 65.

We've got senior folks here that have experience and wisdom.

So those will be frozen. Alderman Skinner, Mr. Corbin, Ms. Moreland, Mr. Pogo. they will be assessed they will be taxed on their new assessed value so if if you have constituents who are older and concerned about that just be sure that they're aware aware of that and there are according to the tax assessor's office there were 1566 of those applications so that will that will touch a lot of our homeowners a lot of our homeowners so the impact on the on the increase is not as much as we had anticipated. We had thought that it was going to be in that 25% or larger range. The impact on our assessment is really closer to 18 to 20% as you adjust for the homeownership of special class floors and that sort of thing. So that will account for We've set this up, leaving the millage at 34. And that will account for the majority of the property tax increases. As you go down through there, you'll see other things that we've increased in the revenue side. Sales tax, we've bumped that number up 2.5%. It's possible it could go up a bit more. The reason we kept it at 2.5% is that this year there was a catch-up for some properties that had not been being diverted, some vendors who had not been being diverted to us. And so there's a month where we have significantly higher revenue than we would normally have. And so we've sort of kept that at 2.5%. We're assuming that the county, and we've not heard, we've not gotten an answer from them yet, that the county will assess road taxes at the same rate that they have done in the past. So that $185,000 increase in road taxes is related to the increase in a value of a mill over on the county side. The bad news on the revenue is that we had $400,000 in our budget this year that related to road taxes. aren't going to be recurring they were prior your taxes and they're not going to be recurring so as the mayor said when we get to expenses let me stop there and talk a little bit about assessments and millage we left it at 34 mils the average average increase is 18 to 20 percent there's there's no way for us to reduce millage sufficiently to not impact a person's tax bills if their assessed values went up. If you look at the city's millage as a portion of the total millage, if we dropped our millage three mills, which would be a huge amount to us, if we dropped our millage three mills, it would have less than a 2% impact on somebody's tax bill. So if your taxes were going up $100, they would go up $98. So we just don't move the needle much as we increase or decrease our millage. On the expenses, we have tried to include things that were requested by departments and they were all fairly reasonable as you roll through there. We also included some things that have to be considered that aren't necessarily related to a specific department. PERS being one of them. The debt service for our street bonds being another. increase in utility costs for various things streetlights is a big one property insurance went up so there's some things that even even if we try to reduce expenses there's some things on this list that we just can't touch there are things on there like health insurance we're told that we probably should be increasing our health insurance amounts by 12% or so And if we don't, we have to pay those bills. We're self-insured. So when those bills come in, if we budgeted for them, great. We've got the money to cover it. If we didn't budget for it, we've still got to pay the bill. So that's kind of where we are. It's a balanced budget at the current millage. And if we want to start looking at changes than we can. This would be the second year, third year of living, but that we have not done a citywide Stennis Institute rate analysis. We've plugged in $400,000 for pay adjustments have not decided how those would be allocated because we haven't gotten the final Stennis Institute numbers yet. But that's roughly 3%, which is kind of the cost of living for the past years. Some people got raises last year, but a lot of our employees did not. And so they would be living, if we don't do something with pay adjustments, they would be living on the last pay increase, which would have been two years ago.

And Nav is here. We can also welcome Nav, because we don't see him very often anymore. So happy to have him here with us to help out. But Nav, anything about that, the pay element?

As Ms. Sanders said last year, everybody didn't get an increase. And so once we did, something like one in 2024, but a lot of employees were skipped last year because we went to the 95%. And so a lot of them were within that 95% range.

Yeah, and we had tried to do 100%, but then we did roll it back to 95%. and we when do we expect to get a final stennis study end of this month they're working on it now so they I was told they should have it by the end of this month or by the first week in August okay for the determination of how that four hundred thousand increase would be so we really just wanted we really just wanted you to be aware that that that's a number that could be in the budget it just hadn't been distributed at the departmental level I know there's always an interest in reducing

and keeping taxes as low as possible. And I applaud those efforts. But the reality of those efforts are that without increases or without keeping up with where we are, we're essentially starting our departments. We see what happened when the city went 15, 20 years at a minimal investment in streets, and now it's taken us 10 years to catch up on on getting our streets in pretty good condition we're seeing the same thing in some of our enterprise funds water and sewer I did take that list that Webb gave us and I pulled out the things that are not contractually committed or things that we have to pay and I completely eliminated a property tax increase so just to just to give you an idea of what that would look like we would need to cut roughly three quarters of a million dollars out of our budget. And if we did that, and that eliminates salary increases, so all those big ticket new numbers are out of there. This would be three quarters of a million dollars of current year expenses. And I prorated that equitably amongst the various departments. And for instance, for the police department, that would be a quarter of a million dollars that they would need to cut out of their existing budget. The fire department, 160,000 that they would need to cut out of their existing budget. parks 68,000 they would have to cut out of their existing budget and and carry it on down to the Board of Aldermen we would have to cut out 7,000 of our existing budget but just just to just to give you a sense of what that feels like if you don't have that property tax increase in there or don't keep the millage at 34 that's that's the kind of thing you're talking about and the things that we are

are unable to do anything about is going to be the PERS increase, the street lighting utility costs, the debt service, the property insurance. Right.

Software that we've already committed behind the jail expense.

Yeah, the jail expense down here. And obviously, I'm doing my share. I'm not going to replace it. I'm going to replace the position out front here, so I answered my own phone. I see I'm not getting any smiles or credit for any of that from anybody. So, all right, fine. I'll be that way.

So that's where we are. If we left right this minute, we have a balanced budget at current millage. There will be people who will have an increase in taxes because their assessed value went up. There will be people who... won't have their taxes changed at all unless millage changes because of that special exemption class 4.

Sandra, can I touch on this? Sure. Yes, it went up about 18%. That's average. Our overall assessed value. Average, yeah. 2% of that is new construction, new builds. So the reassessment's probably only about 16%.

That's right. That's right. average just that's right and averages being what averages are somebody's went up two percent somebody else has went up eighty percent and that's just when you get down to the personal level that's how that works yeah has anybody taken the time to look at the green sheets and see what the change has done so you've gone to the

Courthouse? Joey's got, you know, it's accessible to anybody. Have you looked at it? I have not yet. Okay. I didn't know from a real estate perspective if you had. I took a picture of mine on a screenshot, and I haven't looked at it, but I did notice it. For example, for the properties that I have that are off of Helen Circle, Park Circle, etc., etc., The land value did not change. I'm sure the building value changed. But in a lot of cases, some of the land value has changed. So that's a differential there that I think will be interesting for people to look at. But it's just going to be on a onesie-twosie kind of basis. It is. It is. I would encourage you to go take a look at it. And you've got the green sheets down in your office, do you not? I have. So you could go down to Webb's office and take a look at them. specifically look at your property to see what it looks like. But anyway, I just thought it was interesting and available to us to look at individually. Vice Mayor, have you looked at yours? I'm going to do it this afternoon. Okay, all right. Yours are frozen, Vice Mayor. Thank you. So the revenue piece of it, is what it is. I mean, some of it's estimates and some of it is pretty much solid, right? But as we go through the court's position, for example, the judge had added an additional day of court. Ms. Larry is working, struggling to keep up with the new court dates and all the things that come with that. And she's asking for an additional half person to make one more FTE.

And the reason that looks like a fairly large amount for a half person is um she's expanding a part-time position to a full-time position which means that that position now also qualifies for benefits and so a big piece of this is that benefits not not just salaries yeah we forget that benefits is what an additional 33 percent it kind of depends on the the level of wages but anyway Yeah, it could be as much. Roughly somewhere in there.

35 to 40. 20% plus health insurance. Okay. All right. Anyway, just from a rough conceptual standpoint. And then the IT software, Joel, that's something we've obligated for, is that correct? Yes, ma'am. Those are all... that we've agreed to over the last couple of years. And that's keeping our securities high?

That's right. Mostly the security stack that we've implemented over that time. OK. And the phone system, that is? Yes, ma'am. So in the 15 years I've been here, 15 years plus, We've changed phone systems three times. And that's not because we desire to do that. Once phone systems sort of moved over to the voice over IP paradigm, their software, their hardware. And so we were informed this year that our current phone system is being deprecated, no longer supported by the vendor. And so with that in mind, when we undertook the research to find what we wanted to do, we really wanted to implement something that's going to be a decades-long plan. So we wanted best of breed. We looked at several products. We settled on Cisco, which is a worldwide industry leader. It's an enterprise-grade system. It's cloud-based, so this is going to reduce our environment cost, our technology environment cost long-term. It's going to be a predictable cost over time. It's got a lot of enhanced features. You can answer your extension on your cell phone. You can use your computer as your phone. For instance, many people will no longer have a phone on their desk. They'll have the cell phone and the app on their phone. So there's a lot of lift. There's some opportunity to get rid of double cell phones that some people carry because they'll have that Cisco WebEx app on their phone. Like I said, we wanted to stop chasing that five year paradigm and try to think about something that will be with us for at least 10 years with a predictable cost that we don't have to invest money into infrastructure. And, and frankly, Cisco is a very stable companies that platform, they're not likely to get bought, we're not likely to get any of it. And we've been acquired and the system is no longer available. So with all that in mind, and the history, Over these last 15 or 16 years, I really feel strongly about getting something really stable and predictable for a long time.

Okay. All right. And so postponing this does what? Just puts our vulnerability in terms of things happening to the system? That's right.

So this system will essentially be unsupported by the vendor after this year. So it will not cease to function, but if something goes wrong with it, then we're sort of on our own at that point.

And what about phones? Like, let's say we, my phone breaks and no longer works. Can we acquire new phones?

Are we kind of we can acquire new phones. And in fact, the way we've structured this deal, it's a lease for the phone. So the other good thing about the way we've structured this, in my opinion, is that service support hardware replacement is all included in that in that price. And so if a if a physical hard phone goes down, they will ship us another one. But even if that phone goes down, and even if we lose power at City Hall, it is web based calls will still come through if somebody calls my extension and the powers out here are we're at home during an ice storm. My extension will ring on that Cisco WebEx app on my phone. So you wouldn't know. That's right. The new one now that we're just talking about the old right, the current one is posted here. And that's right, we cannot replace them. So in other words, we're If a physical phone broke, then we have no moves. We would be without a physical phone for that individual.

Is there a swap of costs? Is there a cost that's associated with our existing phone system?

Yes, but not as granular. I mean, we pay a little bit in support every year.

Right, I see what you're saying. Right, so when we purchased this phone system, it was an outright purchase of the software at the front end. And so it was around $70,000. We pay around $10,000 a year for support of that phone system. Plus the environmental cost. When I talk about the environment, I'm talking about the data center downstairs where all our servers live. And so we have to refresh that every five years as well.

I'm just talking about this upcoming year. Is there a swap amount? Are we supporting it $10,000? Is that in this differential?

It's probably built in. It's probably built in. It's cooked in that other number in the back.

Well, that's what I was trying to get at. The $40,000 is next to account for losses.

That's right. The $40,000 would consume that $10,000 that we currently pay yearly for the support. All right. That's what I was trying to get at. Can I ask you a question?

Sure. Joe. Yes. Question. So I was looking at, like, the Board of Aldermen, for instance. Our communications is, like, $4,500. What is communications set aside for? Phones, too?

Phones, iPads, Google Workspace, I believe. Is that included in communications?

I'd have to look and see exactly what it is. Is it just spread across departments? There's some calls that are just spread across departments. Some calls are like the cell phones go to that specific department based on who's got it. So I'd have to look.

There's also internet service provided to the facility, and Webb would have to speak a little more on how that's distributed per department, but we all share that communication, so that's considered part of the communication budget, I think.

Yeah, I would have to look and see what particulars in the BOA, I haven't looked at those allocations lately.

And the reason I was asking with the new phone system, I didn't know if the communications would be cut down on the contractual services. I didn't know that changing over if it was later across the board and other ways.

The most direct effect on that would be any board member that has a separate city cell phone, which a few do, that could be replaced by the Cisco WebEx app.

Okay. I'll give you my phone.

OK. All right. So full explanation or a good idea of what Joel is talking about as it relates to the phone system. Right. OK. Comprehensive plan. We have been rolling for 10 years since we've done one. And every 10 years, and we've annexed since we did one. So we've got some elements there that are, I think, important for us to do a comprehensive plan. Is Daniel in here? Daniel, are you hiding out in the corner somewhere?

No? Okay.

What we did, it's approximately $150,000. I think the last time we did it, it was $120,000. And so what we set it up to do is spread it between two budget years. So you start at the middle of next year, and then it takes eight months or so to complete. So then you pay for the other half in that following budget year. But I think it's important for us to... look at that because it is an activity that we need to do in order to keep our comp plan, our land use all updated. Then the police sergeant position, Chief, would you like to come share with the board some of the requests we've got in here, the police sergeant position, the police officer position, and then the PT parking position, and then code enforcement position. So can you speak to that?

Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Before he gets started, can I go back to the comp plan? Oh, sure. I'm sorry. There's a statute that says zoning regulations, Mississippi Statute 17-1-9, says that it requires that zoning regulations be made in accordance with a comprehensive plan. And so if we wanted to zone for data centers, for instance. You had to do that. I know.

Could you use another one?

The only one that came to mind immediately. But if we wanted to do any major rezoning in the city, It would have to be supported by our comp plan. Data centers I brought up because they're not addressed in our comp plan. Yes, the special use. It's the special use. But that's just one reason that it's important.

Well, and our annexation makes it important, too, because we don't have anything to substantiate the decisions we made in that annexation.

And it does provide a vision for where we're going. Absolutely. We'll cut. Sorry. All right.

Chiefsman, back up.

Absolutely. Thank you. So a little bit of adjustment managing our growth. Originally under Chief Nichols, we had a group called Special Operations Group. There were specialists that were within your warrant officers, different components that just allow them to stay more proactive and reactive on what is needed to meet a police mission, right? So we're looking at reestablishing a supervisor, crossing K9 or Motors or DUI all up under one element to where they are not totally reactive like you get on the patrol sites where we can be more effective on traffic requests other things that really dominate what we get from the community and feedback and so when we move a sergeant over to that position we're looking for a replacement sergeant within patrol the secondary position is citizen journalism is taking off meaning FOIA requests or dominating and we are losing love lady on a lot of his missions trying to uh legally uh work with city attorney very closely on what we can produce what we can't produce and it's becoming a lot uh with video and everything the requests are coming in there and the the imaging and messaging uh is starting to take some serious hits there so we've got um partita transferred over to there we're looking for a replacement officer in that regards and then lastly code enforcement i was surprised to say several years ago when code was inherited up under the police department i did not realize in my own naiveness a little bit of how tenuous it is the deadlines the dates the everything that goes with it i think this past spring and summer We've had multiple rooms full of individuals that care deeply about code. Obviously, we all like to be well dressed, and that's the dressing of our city. So we're asking for another code position. In comparison, Oxford has six. I'm asking for three to be able to maintain. Again, in the increases that I'm asking, Oxford has 109 officers. I'm asking to go to 78 officers. So that's our request there with the personnel changes. Part-time parking. And part-time parking, I'm sorry. Again, 24-7, anybody that knows Curtis White knows he is a phenomenal individual working it well, but he's only one person. And again, to use that Oxford connection to have six, I'm asking for a part-time to make us 1.5 to be able to do what we need to do.

Okay. And the security camera, I mean, I realize that's kind of an IT, but at the same time, it's driven by your needs. And so we've got five in the budget. Is that accurate? I believe we spoke about ten. Okay, five. Five's in the budget. So... Have you looked at the whole scope of what you're going to need? Have you got a projection of the next five years of security camera replacements and expansion and that kind of thing? I don't want to say that just because this is a year and the next year and the next year.

Sure. So I think replacement, Joel and I have discussed that. I mean, it is technology. So we're at a point rather than... expansion expansion where we're rolling into being prepared for more of the rather than heavy on the expansion with hitting a growth rate of where we feel very comfortable with and now it's preparing for the replacement component and then Lastly, the over there. So those are kind of subpar issues. Okay. All right.

Mayor, I just wanted to clarify. Sure. Okay, that's what I was going to say.

Because we've set aside for $55,000. Okay.

So while Chief is there, you may want to speak about jail expenses going up, police vehicle repairs and maintenance, and then police names. And we really don't know at this point what those jail expenses are.

No, we're just wagging.

We have reached out. We've tried to get. There's a long wait between March and September in our court systems under the position that most of us are aware of that the changing position for the jail. It's no longer being bound over in our lower courts. It's now the position of the county has been to wait until they're formally indicted by the grand jury. So we can speed them through our courts, but until the circuit court decides to meet regularly, they're going to be on our tab before we can get them before grand jury. So there's a very long wait there. There will continue to be a long wait. I spoke with District Attorney Scott Colon. There's not a lot of interest because of the levels of complications to try to have more regular terms. as of right now and so there's something they're looking at 2027 that's going to impact us uh with the jail and it's unknown because we're in untraveled waters um in that regards um all the woman says trump uh talked about uh mentioning the fleet right now we're trying to get on uh fully embrace the lease fleet right now what we have is A large percentage of our cars as first responder cars are seven to eight years of age. And when you are running like we run and do what we do at 40,000 calls for service, that's old for a first responder car. So we're trying to get the fleet in there to bridge more on a modern fleet, a less maintenance fleet. to be able to save costs. The mechanical costs are eating us up. And at the end of the day, you know, we still haven't invented a way of being able to magically appear at another location other than through a vehicle. And so I don't think horses are an option right now. I know that's coming up with some of mine. Or a horse detail. It was going to be in bicycles. Right, in bicycles. Michael Latham was honest. But the fleet has been a full-time focus for us. We've even created a vehicle fleet committee that monitors every expense, every contractor, to make sure we are not getting nickel and dime because somebody thinks it's government. We have pulled, plugged, played. We've done everything we can to skin it. But at the end of the day, when you have an older vehicle, that's running at 110 degree type of heat, you're going to have problems and issues. And when they're down, you have to have another one, and now you run that 24-7. So that's a little bit on the fleet. I apologize if I'm missing anything.

No, I think you undersold the age of the fleet. There are cars that are in the fleet that are considerably older than seven or eight years. Right.

Yes, ma'am.

How many Crown Vics do we still have left?

Curtis's.

Well, I know Curtis's. Probably about three or four. Best car ever made. I know. I was going to highlight that is the fact that we've got some that are 100 years old that are still running. I really wish. Well, we have one that for a while that's driving it. He was in third grade when we bought the car. That does speak to it, doesn't it? Yes, ma'am. Okay.

All right. Any other questions of the chief while we've got him queued up here? Okay. All right. And I've already tried to get a little bit of a laugh out of you guys for me not replacing that particular position. So we'll move to the firefighters. Chief, would you like to give us a little feel on your firefighter requests and how you see your budget for this upcoming year? Yes, ma'am.

Mayor, Vice Mayor, we're asking for three additional firefighters to help with the keeping our Class 3 rating. We have been paying a lot in overtime for the last year to keep our shifts up to 18 people per shift. We spent over right at $350,000 for in overtime to keep our manpower up to at least the unscheduled amount. And we're asking for those people that will cost approximately around $203,000, $204,000 to help offset that overtime. That's a savings of around $140,000. And what the plan was was to reduce

to reclassify from overtime to personnel. And that's why there's a dash there. It really is not an increase in expenses. There could be some savings, although we're going to leave some unscheduled overtime in there going forward, but not much. So chief is going to have to balance that carefully there.

Well, I think it's worth noting that that's a piece of what we're trying to do in terms of what you're doing with your department to offset that, and I realize that it doesn't show a factor of a dollar amount, but it still, I think, is important to talk about.

Probably makes it a lot better. The expense that comes with it comes with the need for promotions. That's right.

That's on the next page over here.

And I just want to say, you have done a good job with your unscheduled overtime, because you cut it almost $80,000 by the time we finished this. I don't know if you've seen that from 24 to 25. So good job at that.

And you want to talk about the fire promotions and how that trickle down effect or trickle up effect, I guess it would be.

On the promotions, right after I became chief, we wanted to maintain our class three level. So we put another engine company in in the fire station to help with our ratings. And in that position, well, we need a position for that. We just put the truck there, and the guys acted as lieutenants and sergeants without pay for over a year. And we were asking that we could get those guys, get paid with those positions, with those responsibilities. And it's going to cost around $70,000. Okay. All right. Any questions? Around 70. It's on that second page.

Top of the next page. Yeah, there you go. Right there. Okay.

But it should also, if we do it and do it right, it should also absorb. Like that 70 will be traded out by the unscheduled overtime, correct? Some. That's the plan.

I think there will always be some unscheduled overtime.

Well, because you'll have things that you don't expect coming up at when FMLA. Four people are out at one time.

Over this past year, we've had a lot of people. On military leave, they've been going to military trials.

I don't see that stopping anytime soon.

I don't either. And also, we would have a lot of people out on family medical leave.

All right. Any questions with the chief? How many firefighters do you have now?

We have 54 firefighters.

Are you at full complement right now? What's your goal?

We want to get 50. We added three more onto it.

So 57 is your? Yes, ma'am. OK. So we are at full complement right now. until we unless and until we have the authority that's what we we've got to replace one we had one to resign just last week okay all right so we're missing anything else and y'all have moved to station five y'all aren't occupying three anymore we're not occupying three we're at station five thank you sir and then uh debt service is obviously not one of those things that's negotiable.

What we have done though and Webb can speak to this a little bit is the last two sets of street bonds we were able to fund completely with the debt service completely with use tax but that has a ceiling and so we have funded what we can with use tax and the remainder will be funded out of the general fund.

And then the street lighting that's that utility cost that bumped up on us from the whatever the TVA Calculation is it goes with it that we don't we don't get to we'll get to negotiate that and that's just a or turn the lights Or turn the lights out. That's right. It's a set rate And that came became effective what last year is that when we year?

Yeah, it was it was a very big year this year.

Okay. All right. I knew it's new So hers increased same deal Yep, it is what it is and we're mandated. End of story. Health insurance increase and that is the employer portion of that?

Well, that's what we need to fund because we're a self-insured entity. There's three components. There's the administrative cost. There's a reinsurance cost because we buy reinsurance for large claims. There are times when we have such large claims that they require something called a laser. And so I think, what is our deductible on just regular large claims? $135,000? $125,000, $135,000. And then our laser, we have a laser claim this year. So we're responsible in that case for the first $125,000, and then the reinsurance kicks in. The claim that we have that has a laser, we're responsible for the first $290,000 and then the reinsurance kicks in. We suspect next year that we'll have two of those laser claims and they're just large claims. We've been very fortunate since We had a large claim during COVID, one large claim during COVID. And post COVID, we have really not had large claims until this past year. And we have four that fall into the category of large claims this year, some of which will carry over into next year.

We had a reserve, health insurance reserve of about $1.2 million. It's down to about $600,000. Because of those large claims. Because of those large claims.

And that's what I'm saying. Whether we budgeted for it or not, we have to pay those bills. And so where we've been able to pay those bills is out of reserves. They recommend that we keep three months.

About 800 is what Mickey usually, 800 to a million.

So is that what this 163 would do at this point is put us at that?

It would help, you know, health insurance's health costs are always going up. Okay, just so we understand the. It's what they recommended.

Okay, all right. Then obviously we've already talked about the pay raises. It's just a placeholder. Yeah, thank you. and property insurance about that one parks. This increased utility bills associated with the new parks coming online, which is not a surprise. I think the surprise was more of the amount of water that gets used by the splash pads. You know, we expanded jail King and we we in fact, it's almost one year on August the first it will be one year that he's been open and running. And so we've got borderline one year of information related to the utility bills. So that was just not a, that was just much higher than expected. And along with the high usage, which we should be very pleased about, comes the need for janitorial because that of all the things that I heard when we first opened up with McKee is that we needed to pay more attention more frequency to the to the bathrooms basically into the cleanliness of the areas that are under such use and so Mr. Owens has has beefed up his staff to make sure that we are staying clean and I think that's important because if we're going to invite all these people into these wonderful parks, then we need to make sure they stay wonderful.

And that's across the park system, not just McKee.

Well, it's just McKee is now seeing that huge influx.

We saw it at Cornerstone when it opened. The bathroom can be as good as it's going to be, and 15 minutes later it looks like nobody's touched it in a week.

And Greg, how many bathrooms do you have?

So we have 99 toilets and urinals. across all parks. And so when we first started, we had, that's individual.

No, I know, I was just trying to cycle that through to how many bathrooms.

And then to clean those, we originally had one custodian. So if you kind of think the time that it takes to clean each one, you're probably getting to it maybe twice a week to each one. To do a good job to actually clean them and keep them clean. Right, and so now we're, We project three to four times a day per day.

Okay. And then we are showing another reduction. Transferred capital fund. And then transferred environmental service fund for maintenance. 182. We have to take over the 182. Yes. Okay.

And then the all other is... Just all those things that didn't add up to being worthy of an explanation. Okay.

All right. So that's a rough sketch of the things that are different and the things that are being requested and why they're being requested. So we have staff here to answer questions that may have come up as you're thinking through this. So does anybody have any particular questions or... Thoughts about the millage rate, the distinctions that we're looking at, and what else have we got in front of us? Webb, you ran?

I gave the outside contribution list. Oh, that's right. OK. If we want to go through that. Yep, let's go through that.

Thank you. I was back over here looking at the millage rates that you run up, which I actually haven't had a chance to look at. And you've got a whole list from 2022 all the way to the budget request for 2027 and the outside contributions. And everybody, of course everybody wants an increase. So you can look and see the Boys and Girls Club in 2026, we gave them $7,500 and they're wanting to increase to $25,000. So obviously that's... a bit steep so I would say hold them at the seventy five which is to me where they ought to stay what I wanted to point out on the outside contribution was the

The biggest increase, and I was hoping that they would come and make a presentation, and hopefully they would before- Except for next work session. Okay, next work session, is that spay and neuter voucher program. They do do spay and neuter there at the Humane Society. Also, there's an opportunity to use the university's spay and neuter program. But neither of those are staffed and in place every day. So they would like to try to add a voucher program that would be available to residents to go to their veterinarian at their convenience to, I didn't turn mine off. That's my alarm for the regular time work session. I didn't turn mine off either, so I'm sorry before I get caught. I didn't turn mine off. This would just be an additional way that people could go through a spay and neuter program.

And it would be... Is this means-tested stuff? don't know how they've set that up so I think that that's an element of it and then the new one of the new ones is the JL King Center they asked for 15 and we put it in at 10 because this is a new request we've not had one from them before and then the Starwood Community Theater we had given to the Starwood Area Arts Council which is no longer in existence and they were dispersing the funds that we provided to various entities and so the Starwood Community Theater is asking for what we would normally have given to the SAS.

And they're actually applying for a grant to do some infrastructure to their building and this would match their grant.

I'm sorry I kind of skipped down and followed you down to the spay and neuter and then Jeremiah on the smart bus system he was asking for 150 and we and we gave 100 last year and we bumped it up to 25 obviously that serves our community and our I think it's gotten greater and greater use. I think it's incredibly important to people who need facility or a way to get to the places that they don't have the Walmarts and the doctors and the paratransit and all those things that make our community, particularly some of our people who are unable to to have vehicles and that sort of thing. This gives them a way to get to the places they need to go. And it's a huge service. So I think we have been very, well, The value we get from it, I believe we are served well above the value that we are actually giving, which if I had more to give, I would, or if we felt like we had more to give, I'd be happy to, but again, it is a grant, and our participation has been in the past. The bus stops, and some of the What else? Besides bus stops?

We've helped with several this year. Also to think about it, it's not just the transportation part of it. With MSU's parking situation they've gone, it's that many more students. And so whenever we have, you know, if there's 20 students riding the bus, that's 20 vehicles off of the highway streets. And we're saving our piece too. So the more focus that you have on that,

that transit the less folks that are driving and the less wear and tear on the roads as well so that's another thing to think about as far as a as far as a plus okay yes thank you i appreciate that that's yes um all right and then the other piece is the library um general budget and that was remind me that's it's just a minimal increase to cover staff and some other operating expenses okay Anybody have any heartburn about any of those? Because that puts it at, with Jeremiah and with the spay and neuter, that's 46,000. So the others are smaller pieces. Did I add the 25 to it? So 46,000.

60,000. There's two bigger ones.

So in that ballpark. Any other thoughts?

Just for clarification, the Boys and Girls Club has had the same budget the last few years without an increase. Straubel Community Theater asks for $10,000 and gets it the first year. Is that a grant?

Well, no, that's what I was saying. They have been getting funding from Straubel Area Arts Council, and the Arts Council is no longer in existence. Okay. so we were giving our money to area arts yeah the same dollars okay theaters applying for a grant for some infrastructure to their building and this would be the match for that okay i was reading and not listening i apologize no that's okay um so yeah the if you look at the boys and girls club uh 2022 and 23 was 5 000 they went to 7 500 and then uh that's a that's a very large bump there from $7,500 to $25,000. Did they say, as a part of the request, what they were doing? I don't recall.

I've got the letter. I can...

I just wondered, because I know, you know, they've always, they've been searching for a new location, but, you know, I'm sorry, a difference of whatever that would be, $18,500 or $17,500 is not going to get them to a new location, and so I didn't know if they had some particular program in mind about it. So, okay. Um...

and the PDD actually went down that's a aging grant that's based on number of meals served so the number fluctuates year to year

And then what else we got due to those serves is had asked for ten and we've been giving them five all along. And Brickfire's the same. Brickfire's gotten five ever since I can remember and that was back in 2005. So much the same. So any comments, thoughts, anything else on POCA?

I think I will have more, but I need to look over a bit. Okay. All right.

And then we can go to the other handout, which was just basically on village rates.

I got serious with where we're at and where the 10 cities larger than us and the 10 cities smaller than us in Mississippi are with their village and how it breaks down between city, school, county. So it was more of just an exercise I did just to inform myself.

Yeah, it's information.

where we were at.

And because the city portion of the total millage here in Octobaha County is so low, it's 22%, we really don't move the needle a lot when you're calculating somebody's tax bills so it's very difficult for us to have a meaningful impact and it also shows we do a lot with a little that's true I think our department heads are incredibly effective and efficient as they do and we have a remarkable

remarkable community because of it so okay anything now from a department head standpoint is there anything that we have not touched on that y'all would like to share with the board while you're here anybody anything else questions thoughts all right so we can Ms. Joanne, where are we in setting up the scheduling for publication and for taking it up?

We are going to call the public hearing on August 4th and we'll have the two public hearings on August 18th and September 1st.

And we can vote on September 1st?

Yes. Alright. So everybody got that calendar wise? So the next one will show the call for the public hearing and then the two after that will be the hearings and then the Budget adoption, basically.

Millage adoption. We are supposed to have all the stuff by September 15th. So let's say we can't get to a resolution on the 1st, we can do it on the 4th.

15th.

15th. 15th.

You didn't have to bring that up.

I'm trying to plan some time out of town. Okay. Yes.

that we will, which means we may have, I mean, we will have a work session that we will do next Friday. This will be an opportunity for further discussion and topic. So if you have anything in particular and in between, you know, if you send me an email, we'll talk to Webb to see if there's any adjustments we want to look at and issues that you'd like to bring up so that we'll be ready for that work session. And my door's open to any questions from anybody. Sure. And you've got that green sheet, so everybody can go down and sit down and take a look at it. Well, if there's nothing else, this didn't take as long as I thought it was going to take.

I would just like to remind, because you'll hear from people about their assessed values, but do remind them that if they qualify for that special exemption, theirs are frozen. Their assessed values are fairly meaningless at this point.

Well, and to be honest, as someone who has been engaged in government for a while, you'd think I'd know better, but the the people that you appeal your assessment to is going to be the county and if you want to appeal it you need to go now and look at what you've got and see why you can make your case for the fact that your assessed value should not go up and the county does that at their next I believe at their next meeting which is the fourth that the next Monday I think that's when you would be doing that so I would suggest for anybody who is paying any attention to this work session that they go to the tax assessor's office and and look at their assessed value and see if there's something that they wish to contest.

And they do need, if they go, they do need to be prepared for something other than, it hurt my feelings that my assessed value went up so much. Your insurance, how much you're insuring your property for, some scrivener's error type thing.

Well, if you've had an appraisal recently for whatever, for a purchase or something along those lines, then that gives you an opportunity to say, you know, this is what the appraiser said, and y'all got it at X. I would not recommend you go unless it's gone up, because if not, they may change it to what the appraiser said. But anyway, just sort of a public service announcement that there are things that you can do to influence that, but you've got to step it up and go ahead and do it now.

And it has to be a valid reason. Yes, it does.

All right, well, thank you, everyone.

I appreciate you coming, and we will have a good week.