Town Council - Regular Meeting

But to call this budget meeting back to order from our recess, when we left here yesterday, the council came up with some new figures to go back to the town administrator and the finance lady. We've got everything together now for us, so that's what you'll be presenting. So the floor is yours, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of council. Welcome back. Friday, version one. All right, so you sent us away with some homework yesterday, and when I say we... Alicia spent a lot of time putting this budget together. And what we have for you is what you asked us to bring back, which there's a summary slide if we can get that up on the screen. It just is an overview of the changes that were made to what you have in front of you. And this is what direction the council gave us when we left yesterday. So in this budget, you'll see the town administrator salary funded at $175,000. The position for an assistant town administrator is partly funded at $50,000. This budget has no COLA. This budget has no longevity. This budget includes a $500 Christmas bonus for all full-time staff with the caveat that they would've had to be employed since July 1 of 2025 to be eligible. That total amount to this budget is $26,000. With benefits, that total amount is $35,441. In this budget, STEP has a one-time payment for those that are eligible. It's added to this budget for a total cost of $48,089. Total benefit cost $65,870, so salary and benefits $65,870. It's a one-time payment, not added to the base salary. This budget has a 3% step adjustment for other full-time staff that was employed with the town since October 1 of 2025. And again, this is not added to the base salary. and this is for those that are not eligible for STEP, so all other employees that have been with the town. This is $75,461. Total with benefits is 103,865. You'll see an increase in inspections budget of $50,000 in contract services line, and this is what Carrie talked about at the end of the meeting yesterday for that inspector that's gonna do the Hampton Inn project. A slight change to the police line item 540 at 111,995. We talked about that yesterday, it showed 108. This is because of a difference that we received at the 11th hour yesterday from our camera vendor that just fluctuated a little bit. Still a reduction from what we presented originally when we presented capital, so it's still less. To balance this budget, we're bringing forward from fund balance $822,270. We anticipate at least a half a million dollar carryover from the fiscal year that we are currently in. And as I mentioned yesterday, this is gonna be pale compared to the 95% proposal of our fund balance. So we'll be well over 95%, even if we brought that full 822 forward, The next bullet talks about appropriation from inspections to fund balance of $95,000. This is partly that previous bullet where we talked about the $50,000 in contract services and then an additional $45,000 for a vehicle in the inspections department. As you know, that money can't be used for anything else. This budget still shows 50% dependent care for current employees, and for any employees that are hired after June 30th, 2026, they will be offered 25% dependent care. The balanced budget that you have in front of you is a total of $13,107,090.

$13,107,090.

Did I say $13,000 again?

Did I do that again?

No, I think that $13,107,090.

We're good.

Okay.

You have the revenue sheets, the budget line-by-line expenditure sheets, and then personnel spreadsheets in front of you if there are any questions. Yeah.

We obviously will just understand that those are the changes because we can't go through all this quickly, as you know.

A lot of pages. We just saw it. So the summary is exactly what you sent us away with yesterday. Exactly. And then Alicia's put this all together. and changed everything in the system, redid the spreadsheet to correct.

This is what you at. This is what we ask our administrator and finance director to do. So what do you need from us now so that we can say that we have a balanced budget so we can present it to the public to give them the 10 days to view by general statute? What do you need from us?

Kimberly, do we need a result resolution? Do they need a motion? Just a consensus? Oh, we want to be official.

We do need a motion, but that's all you need.

So a motion and a second to schedule the public hearing.

And that date was, what are you looking for your date? Have you got it figured out as far as the day date? Because that needs to be in the motion before we set a public hearing.

Deputy clerk, do you know what the date is that you need to get it to the paper?

I'm looking at that right now.

Okay.

Okay, so the timeline puts this being advertised in the paper on June 3rd. 10 days puts us at Saturday, June 13th. So anytime after starting June 15th, Monday. We can have the public hearing.

After the 15th? We could do it the 15th.

Anytime after the 13th, which is a Saturday. So our earliest availability would be Monday the 15th.

I'm available the 15th. Yes, it's fun. The better.

Afternoon? Yes. It needs to be afternoon when the people have, if it's going to be a public hearing, I prefer to be where people have chance.

I could be here, yeah, as early, probably as 1 or 2, the earliest.

It'll be even later. Three would be better. Three o'clock.

Won't we set it at the normal time that we said, which is four? Four o'clock. Because that way we get everybody. Four o'clock. Most folks can get here.

So June, we're looking at June the 15th, correct?

Yes, sir.

At four o'clock. That'll be when the public hearing before anything else is going. So I'm seeking the pleasure of the council, if you're good with setting this, the motion needs to include this, please. The public hearing will be set for June the 15th at 4 o'clock.

I'll make a motion that we set the budget public hearing for June the 15th at 4 o'clock.

Do I have a second? Second. Any more discussion? All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

All right, next up, if there's nothing else from there, we'll go to the public comment section. It was on yesterday's agenda. Anybody like to make a public comment, you're more than welcome to come up. You know the deal. Name, dress, all that good stuff. Yes, sir.

Pete Larkin. Am I on, Alan? Pete Larkin, 453 Lakeshore Drive. Hi, guys. Obviously, what you've gone through is tedious, frustrating, a lot of work, hours and hours of work. Several people in this room have done it before. It's never easy. You'll never please everybody. I'd like to talk about two things. One is our employees. Retaining good employees should be and I'm sure is a priority for all of us. It's expensive to and distracting for the existing crews to start on square one with new employees. I think we all realize that. And it's an unseen disruption that takes place. Once promised, I think benefits need to be consistent, they need to be continuous, and they need to be fair. Our employees plan on that. Their lives are planned on their jobs, their income, and how their families are taken care of. It would be my thought that we need to keep what we've promised to the existing employees. We obviously are free because we've done it in the past to change benefits for new employees. And we've done that in the past. We've done it with health care. I'm pleased to see that you're in fact, I hope you're keeping the 50% dependent health insurance and you're changing that to 25% for new hires that would come in. And I think that doesn't help us attract new employees as easily, but it still is a benefit and we're not hurting the people that we have here already. Some positive notes. I think there's a place that a significant amount of money can be found to fill in some gaps that we have. Talk about paving. I have decades of experience in designing pavement sections for just about every DOT in the country. And the way I look at the roads that are at least on the short list, and I'm a little suspect as to how the short list came out, but it exists. my road, Lakeshore Drive, is in worse condition or at least equal condition to the roads that are on that list. My neighbors, myself, don't think that it's a wise expenditure of money. There's several years left in Lake Shore Drive. I think there's several years left in some of these other roads as well. There's some that need attention. We have a good resource here with our Department of Public Works, Matt Sorrell and Vicki. For years, they have, with assistance from the town administrator at the time, and now the existing interim town administrator to manage these projects that all of a sudden come up. Potholes show up. We're experiencing an awful lot of construction work at the reserve off of Clubhouse Road. That's going to tear the heck out of that road for another year. And for us to spend money on that right now, I think is an exercise in futility. I'd like to see a million dollars worth of the money that we're Really taking out of the general fund. And if something comes up and Matt needs to do something, he comes before you with a budget amendment. And that way, that particular expenditure is explained in detail to every citizen. Right now, I have no idea where that million four or whatever it is, is going to. I don't know which roads. Matt and Vicki did a great job of getting subcontractors to give us quotes, if you will. But those quotes, and I've been a subcontractor before. If I'm doing somebody a favor and I probably aren't going to get the work, my quote's going to be high because it's going to be high because when the project goes out for bid, I want to come in with a competitive price and get the work. I'm amazed that he's able to get that. All right, I'll cut it short, Mayor, because I know I'm exceeding my time, but thank you. Let's look out for our employees and let's not change things. Mr. Arnold, I really appreciated your comments yesterday. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Larkin.

Public comments? Yes, sir.

My name is Rick Gamble. I live at 7083 Ascension Drive in Sunset Ridge. I was here yesterday just to speak to you guys. First of all, I want to thank all you guys for your time and effort. I know how hard it is. I've been the commissioner back home. And it's a lot of hard work and tough decisions to make. But I agree that all employees should get COLA. It costs a living. It was designed to add additional allowance, which meant to supplement the basic pay. Basic pay. All right? You took that away. It helps employees manage their daily expenses and their living costs. They look for that. We all look for that. Even though I'm retired, I still look for that little extra money to help me along. Things are going up. We see what's going on with this country. This along with longevity is a way to keep our employees here in Sunset Beach. Without COLA, STEP, and longevity programs added to their base, an employee has no incentive to do better and give 100% to this town. The retention or recruitment will be gone. I promise you that. I have experience. It's going to be gone. Who would want to come here? Not only will we lose some public safety employees, it will have no incentive of anybody coming to this town for employment. Let me ask you all, will you come here and work and raise a family knowing there's no increase in salary or better myself and move up in the ranks? I'm surprised what the answer would be. This could become a major impact to our community, especially the public safety section. This could be potentially reduced the level of public safety service to all due to the fact of current employees seeking other job opportunities and not being able to replace these positions here in the town. Again, the retention and recruitment is what affects us here. All town residents as well as ETJ residents have currently some of the best public safety personnel serving our areas. Within the fire department serving areas and the police department serving town limits and with additional ETJ to supplement the service office when needed. As I stated before you, public safety employees take the job seriously. They want to help others in time of desperate need and only ask in return to be compensated in a solid benefit factor. In my many years in public safety, I never met a person who took a position because of its pay scale. It was the benefits and increase in pay during the years of employment. I left the world and joined the fire department in the city of New York. I took a $10,000 cut in pay. Why? Several reasons. One, I get an increase every year in my salary. Two, I get benefits to support my family. And three, I wouldn't get laid off anymore. I mean, that was the biggest problem when I was in the public sector. I finished, Mr. Mayor. What cost would you put on public safety? The answer, in my opinion, our employees keep the best, we keep the best and support the best and the best of our community. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

All right, anyone else? Public comments?

John Corbett, 1313 Canal Drive. Mr. Mayor, Council, thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak again. At some point, you're going to get tired of this. A couple things I've mentioned before. I fully endorse what Mr. Gimbel said back here and what Pete has said. I sent a note in to the town suggesting that there be some education training in terms of some of the aspects of our budget, and in my mind it hasn't quite happened. Just to be clear, COLA is based on a national index of inflation, which is tied into what the standard of living is across the country. So with that, particularly to be competitive and maintain retention, the COLA is the basic factor that you should look at when you're going for pay raises. And it does change the pay and the scale that goes up. But that's critical that goes there. And every community around here looks at the COLA. STEP program, I think you need to do some studying for on that. It basically lays out a defined path of progression within a career in the various skill sets and responsibilities we have in this town. And it The employee has to do things to move up and to increase their qualifications, which increases their ability to serve the town within the step grades that we have. That's where longevity comes in. Within each one of those step grades, there's a pay range. When an employee reaches the cap at that pay range and has no longer got the options of getting improvements in his personal performance, if you will, in qualifications and certifications, then the longevity is a factor that comes in to keep the employee in town, somebody that we have trained, somebody who has been serving us, somebody who has been loyal to the town. And then that way they have an incentive to stick around a little bit. And then merit. Merit is very simple. It is looking at and the department heads evaluate the performance of the people within their department each year and then rate them. So if you want to do Up to 4%. One way to do it is you say 2% of the budget will go into the merit pool. And then each department will get their percentage slice of that budget. And then the department heads have a choice of going between 0% and 4% amongst their employees to give them recognition and reward for their performance. It's not something that goes to everybody. And as the burden is on the department head to make those hard decisions. So with that, thank you for the opportunity to speak again. Thanks for your service. Hang in there.

Thank you.

Public comments on agenda items. Anyone else? No more.

There's nothing else to cancel. Do I have a motion to adjourn?

I'll make a motion we adjourn.

Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor?

Aye.