City Council - Regular Meeting

Um, we are calling to order our meeting for April 27th for our special council work uh budget workshop. um will rise for the pledge of allegiance followed by a moment of silence as we humbly seek wisdom, clarity, and discernment in the work above us. May we be guided in service to this community with fairness, integrity, and responsibility. And we're all back.

And we have Councilwoman Jones on the phone on speaker phone listening to us. Excellent. Um, first item is unfinished business, consideration of a second reading of an ordinance to amend fiscal year 2526 budgets as it relates to household solid waste fees. Could I have a motion, please? Motion to approve the consideration and second reading of the ordinance to amend the fiscal year 2526 budget as it relates to household solid waste fees.

And a second. All those in favor? I I Heather, can you Thank you. That passes unanimously. All right. Item two is our budget workshop. Um Charlie, you want to take that up? Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Madame Mayor, members council. Uh we'll get David up here to the uh to the table uh David Taylor uh with our with Pinnacle Golf Management uh to go through the uh golf budget and then golf capital um which I've uploaded to council. Uh so David, take it away, my friend. Great.

Thanks. Good to be here.

You have it up on the screen and everybody they have it up in front of them, too. Okay, great. Um, lots of exciting things going on at the golf course right now. So, that's it's a fun time to be a part of it for sure. Um, for the budget, um, we've prepared obviously the the new fiscal year budget, uh, which is great. And so, we've broken it down into revenue categories, expense categories, and then we'll kind of talk through the the, uh, bottom line when we get down to the end. But it's it's interesting um when you when we look, I guess, you know, going forward with the budget that we have now um with a total revenue of just shy of $3.1 million uh in golf course revenue. So, and that equates to member dues. You we have memberships that's involved with the club, although primarily we do the bulk of our rounds through daily activity. Um but we do have the membership category. So we have dues, entrance fees, uh 483,000 and then walk down through greens fees, cart fees, driving range fees, uh merchandise, other golf, and then this year we've budgeted with the renovation and the newly addition of the new golf shop with the pavilion renovation. We now have food and beverage as part of this budget plan that is primarily, as we all know, to service the round of golf. So, we're talking hot dog, sandwiches, Gatorade, water, the the basics, beer, alcohol. Um, basics to to take care of and to enhance the experience of the golfer. Uh, obviously, if they would like to get a a bigger meal or salad or shrimp or steak, they'll come inside, too. to the clubhouse. So, um, so we've added

that to it. Uh, so a little just short of 3.1 million. Interesting enough, and I always like to revisit this when our first full fiscal year at TIG K, which was in basically eight and nine, 2008 and nine. Um, back when Charlie had less gray hair, um, we did 1.4 million in revenue. So, we've grown it from 1.4 forward to almost 3.1 million. So, um really proud of that. U so the cost of goods sold this year, um we typically will do it just as a cost of what we sell in merchandise, but we've added now food cost and beverage cost. So, we'll be selling those items. Um that's just the cost that we have in obviously purchasing the product that we're selling. So, um it all equates to a net profit down the road. payroll per department, golf department, maintenance, food and beverage, uh, tennis and administration in general. Um, down to the expenses, obviously the same categories for golf, golf course maintenance, food and beverage, tennis, AMG, sales and marketing, property option, energy, utilities. Um, and what's great about this budget is for the f for the fixed cost, um, we have a $350,000 bond payment included in our expenses for the golf budget. Um, to net that down with a total revenue of three almost 3.1 million uh, minus the expenses minus the uh, fixed cost which is includes the three $350,000 bond uh, assistance payment uh to back to the city. Uh there's still a net operating income of $69,000. Um and then we have other income and other income which is great which is Bob's favorite category is the interest

on the cash that we have in reserves. So, even though we are we are um reinvesting uh heavily back into the facility this fiscal year, uh we still have a plentiful reserve amount and we'll be adding to that to continue getting an interest rate um on that reserve and so we have income for that um budgeted down from this year. Obviously, we won't have quite as much in the reserve as we did this year because of the reinvestment. And then um the loan principal payments which is primarily well is the cart payment loan payment that we make um one time per year. We have an a cash flow from operations which we like to call uh profit to go back into the reserve account of $533,000 um after we make the bond payment to the city and after we make all the loan payments. So we are still in really good shape financially. um after making all the payments and taking care of the asset. And again, uh we'll walk through the capital here in just a second, but all the capital that we're currently doing and all the capital that we have planned to do is is utilizing the reserve fund to do that in cash without borrowing any money or taking out any bond issuances. So, we're really proud of that. Really excited about how the business is performing in order to continue to take care of it to make it as one of the best golf facilities in this region in which it is. So, we're really excited about it. So, that's a quick overview of, you know, the business operation. U again, it's exciting time to be a part of what's happening out on the golf course. uh for sure to certainly like to answer and can't answer any questions you have regarding uh the general operations budget and the reserve amount that's going back into the fund. Council, do

you all want to do questions now or wait until after capital or do them after both sections? Whatever whatever council wants to do. I don't have any questions on this part of it yet. Okay. One I was just curious about the golf carts how they holding up. I know we were hoping to get some extra years. Yeah, they're good. You know, the lithium the lithium battery makes a huge difference even with the terrain here. Yeah,

which was in order for it to do the length of time that it does. The lithium is certainly important. So, they're holding up well. Yeah. Good. Yeah. You know, and we and we purchased a few extra carts this go around, which is made a huge difference in the number of rounds that we're doing because if you look at the bottom page, bottom of the page, we are budgeted to do 42,500 rounds of golf. uh back to the first fiscal year, we did 26,350 rounds. So, we've basically grown uh the business 16,000 rounds over 50%, you know, and that's just really a credit to the condition of the of the facility and uh and the job that the staff does and really you all's commitment to take care of it. I mean, to use these reserves to continue to to enhance it and to continue to take care of Okay. Yeah. And so there's a lot on this list. A lot of it we just really is a kind of a reminder that of what we're in progress. Um you know as we got a lot going on in capital currently. Um but coming forward for this fiscal year uh we wanted to make sure and put on here some of the items that we have outlined as as important as we feel like are needed. Um, obviously the we've done 18 holes of the cart path uh improvements which has been huge. Um, and and any golfer that you'll talk to uh that's riding around will say that. So we still have nine holes to do on the cove. So we have in in the capital budget next year to do the cart path work on the cove, which will also include the tree work that we need to do in relation to the cart path. We've got to get the trees that are right next to the cart pass removed so the roots will not make the investment, you know, null and void within within the first year. So, we've got to make sure and get the roots out of there. So, those those are that's that's one the biggest project, one of

the biggest. And then um we still have some work on number four cove um drainage repair that we have in the capital budget to take care of in this next fiscal year as well as um on number 16. We were trying to the original gold tea was on the right side and where the trees have all grown in over the years but it's in a wetland area and so we're not able to go in there and take those trees back to the original boundary to open up the right side of that hole. We would like to build a new gold tea u on the left side of that hole now since we're not able to capture the original gold tea on the right. So we have $15,000 in there to rebuild that tea which would be a huge benefit to um to to the golfers. And so um on here just for future we do have um uh Cove obviously really taking a hard look and investing into the Cove. We want to get through all of these budget items and all these capital items that we're currently finishing and just to make sure we are where we think we were going to be from a cash standpoint. We're we're on pace or better, but just to make sure. So, we want to keep that on the the radar potentially this year, but probably most likely we may move it to the following fiscal year, but we want to have it on the list so council is is aware of what we're trying to do and the plan moving forward with the Cove renovation. Um, also on here is um capital the very bottom and I'll come back to the driving range in just a minute. the capital items at at the very bottom. We have we have ordered the two Toro 3300 triplexes. Uh they are due to be here in the next 30 days. Um we would like to uh order and and replace existing equipment of the John Deere uh

prog it's a high-end people mover dump truck you know uh uh workhorse type of vehicle that we need uh to continue to continue improving what we're doing out there. And then a new rough mower. Our rough mower is at the end of its useful life. And so we need to replace that, which is the new Toro 4500 rough mower that we would like to to add and get approval to uh put into this capital this this fiscal year capital. Again, it's a cash payment. It's not borrowing the money for it. We have the cash set aside to make those two purchases. Uh we would just like to get council's approval to go ahead and do that because the lead time equipment is sizable and sometimes it's anywhere from nine months to 18 months and so we'd like to go ahead and get these things ordered. If we can get them sooner, it's great, but we don't want to delay that and have to wait, you know, much longer past that. So those that's the equipment items and then circle backing up to the to the driving range. We did receive a quote. There's been some discussion on adding netting to the bottom part of the uh driving range where the balls are flying now far enough where they're getting past the tree border that we have and getting into the number 10 fairway. And so we had a company come and take a look at it. Um they came in last week. Uh this this quote of $167,000 is to put a 62 foot 60 63 foot 63 foot net at the bottom of the range which will not get much higher than the existing trees. And so there is questions from the company on whether they're able to pull this off or not. They're not sure they can they can get access based on our terrain to get the poles down there to actually do this project. They quoted it but with a

question mark of we're not sure we can do the job safely. And so we would like to talk to council not tonight but at some point in time soon. We have a suggestion and an idea of the current driving range facility has a concrete pad on the very front part of the te right before the slope starts going down the hill and then you have the grass te behind it. We would like to potentially renovate the grass tea area to make it a better hitting surface and move the concrete pad to the back of the grass which be closer to the putting green which if we do that will basically extend the range almost 20 or 25 yards. If we do that and we get they make range balls that are called limited flight balls. They don't go quite as far as the regular compression golf balls. So, if we can pull the range back 20 to 25 yards and we can add a limited flight ball, we feel like that will solve most of the problem. The the $167,000 on a 63 foot net, we don't feel is going to solve the problem at all. the ball flight because of the trajectory. We're 110 feet above the tree line and the ball flight at 180 to 200 yards is 150 ft. So, we're 265 feet in the air. If we put a 63 foot net at the bottom of the range, it will it help? Sure it will. But we feel like it may be a better idea to take a look at moving the range back some that's hitting area with limited flight balls and we would spend half of that money and have a better asset, have a better experience. We'll have a better teing area, new new synthetic mat area and then we'll have new grass tea area. So it's something to consider as we're talking through the

subject. Um particularly if they come back and say they're not able to do it safely. Um we feel like we can certainly help the issue um and spend a lot less money and actually make a nicer presentation um versus spending that amount of money and doing some good but really not doing a lot of good if that makes any sense. We can talk further about

quick quick question. Do you have an estimate on the timeline the difference between you know obviously it sounds like a better option but how long would it take to move the T box back? to move the tea box back honestly wouldn't take that long. That but what would take the the longest would be in in regrading the actual grass tea and growing that in. That's going to take about eight weeks. But the concrete pad and getting the synthetic mats in place, which we get off mostly anyway, um we can have that done in about three weeks. So that would be a more immediate solution. It'd be an immediate solution. Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. We we we'd regrade the the grass part. We saw it so it would grow in faster, but the it's just pouring a concrete pad and putting mats on top. We've got the mats in place now, so it wouldn't take too long to do that. Would would you be able these limited flight balls? Is that something that you can use with any of those options or Okay. So, is that something that we could look at using? We're going to order those now. We've already ordered them to test them.

It was about $3,000. purchase and we have to order range balls throughout the year anyway as part of our normal operating budget. So, we just chose to go ahead and let's get those balls in. Let's see how they do. Um, we think they're going to help tremendously. But that coupled with moving it back, we feel like it's never going to solve the whole problem, but it'll certainly make a huge impact to it. We're just concerned of spending that amount of money at the bottom of the range and really not getting much impact from it from both you're still going to fly over that net. And I'm trying to picture a 100 foot net and it just doesn't quite

correct. Yeah. Aesthetically, it's not Yeah. Great either. Uh but it's an issue we got to try to address, right? We're having balls go through there. The trees help. Um but if the net's still not really above the tree line, uh Tom took me down there by two balls. Two balls. Yeah. No, exactly. For

the tree line wasn't over the tree line. So I see what I know what you're saying. I disagree. respectively that you say it's not going to stop. It'll stop at least half of them because we were down there Sunday and Chief and I were playing and we're standing on the temp green and they come there was 10 or 12 people within two minutes 10 balls ripping through the trees into the fairway it'll for sure so I'm not doing it for I'm not asking for this pushing this cost savings. It's a liability in my my mind because if

one person gets hit by a golf ball, seriously injured, dies in the head, it's going to be John Smith's golf course. So, I just feel like we have to do something to at least trying to address the issue. Will it stop everything? No, of course not. I mean, there is some inherent risk of being on golf course early. you know, is what it is. But this is a known issue. I can tell you, you know, every time I'm at the golf course mess and you know, when you go to pick the balls, I mean, the current guy spends half the time in the 10th Fair. For sure.

Um, and so I don't know. That's why I asked for this. I was pushing for this just to get an idea. I'm not saying something we got to do tonight, but I wanted No, we don't disagree at all. I mean, obviously, we want we want to try to address it. We're trying to get the data available to where everybody can make informed decision on the best course and be moving forward. For sure. And moving it back, like you said, what did you say? 25 feet. 25 yards. 25 yards. If moving it back 25 yards, is that going to significantly in your opinion affect how many of those balls get through the tree line? It will certainly help. It will not alleviate all of them.

There's there's enough people that hit it far enough. Now, the limited flight balls will We don't we

Yeah. So if somebody hits it 300 yards, it's supposed to reduce that down to 210. If that's the case, that will help sizably. Um so we've got we've got to find the balance between, you know, the the the good news on the limited flight ball in this range because it's such a downhill slope, most folks are coming not so much working on their game on how far they hit the ball. they're hitting straight downhill. They're just really working on direction. And so the limited flight still has the same feel. It has all the same, you know, aspects of the It just doesn't fly as far. So if we can cut down and the driver is the problem. It's not iron play. So if we can cut down a 300 yard drive down to 210 yards or 200 40 yards and then back us up another 25 yards, that that certainly will have an impact. I also see the another estimate for a 75 foot.

Yes. In the quote, it's it's basically another $20,000 to get up another 10 feet high. So, your quote was at 63 feet. And that's just based on pole limitations. And to get it up to 73 feet, which is basically the max they could do on a pole, uh, would be another 20 grand, right? I guess the question is, would that make a significant difference? I don't know that 73 feet versus 63 feet is going to change. with a with a limited flight. Yeah, I'm just I'm not challenging it. Probably not because the the 63 feet is just above the tree line now. So, and that's to go another 10 ft higher with a limit flight probably wouldn't.

Okay. And that's what you just wanted to talk that through to see if That would be an interesting Facebook post. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. So, we we had actually initially asked, can you give us a 100 foot? We can't even quote it. We we're not sure we can do this, much less go up a pound foot pole. This is just a comment with the range ball. The range balls with 90 yards saving 90 yards on that T box. That's 115 yards. That's a lot. That's a lot.

The big area where I see the You do have a bunch of driver tow hooking driver. That's right. Um, quick question. Um, then a comment. Um, are there other companies that do this? Because there's I only saw one quote.

There is. We just got that because that was a a quick quote. We do want to contact there are other companies that's a local company. Okay. The others are not local. So we but we're certainly call them and and see if they might come take a look or however they do the Tom. I respect exactly what you're talking about the keeping the safety of our golfers in the community at ease, but I think moving the tea boxes back. I think that's a great suggestion and uh limiting limited flight balls would be really good at this point and see how that affects and then we can maybe address this at some point in the future.

Yeah, I don't know how you can get your data on the limited flight balls unless you're you're standing at the other end counting to see how many actually come across, but that might be a good way to get to start getting some information. And we'll do that when we get them in. Obviously, we'll get Ty or one of the other professionals to stand up there and let it I volunteer, Tom. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So, I don't know who's gonna stand at the bottom, but he'll he'll hit from the top. Yeah. Because we'll do it at a time of day when we'll do it at a time of day where nobody's out there and just and just let because I mean he hits he hits it a long ways and so let's just see what happens. He'll aim he'll aim where the problem is

and and see see what happens, you know. So, we will do that as part of the data collection. Quick. Yeah. Quick comment from Councilwoman Jones. I just wanted to It sounds like the move back with the limited flight balls is a good first step because we can still add the net after we get that data and see what it looks like since there's already delay due to the limitations. So that's my thought on that. Good deal. Thank you.

Different train of thought. Um I didn't see anything in your um projected costs for improvements dealing with tennis and you're you're looking at me like you you know

we have no give quick comment on on tennis. We have in the budget to do continue to do the repair um that we just did on on on the courts. We have we because we haven't received the quotes back yet, but we we are due. Companies have come and look already a quote to resurface and a quote to rebuild. We have do not have those in yet. So, as soon as they come in, I'll get them to um city manager and he can distribute, you know, accordingly. But we we are in the works of getting quotes on both of those projects. We put into the budget to continue to repair the cracks to keep the courts safe. Obviously, that's number one. Um then we can look at the cost ongoing cost to the court resurfacing and then the court renovation total rebuild. Um what that looks like. We've got two companies quoted on both those projects.

I'm sorry. Where where is that? It's not in here yet. We haven't received the um the uh the quotes back yet. Okay. The tennis the the re the re the repair the crack repair is a $2,500 repair. So we just performed that on the on the So they are repaired and they are fine and safe and everything's good. Was there also conversation about the lights?

Okay. reinforc. Okay.

But LED lights has has been discussed as far as when it's time to replace those lights. All the lights are working fine now. Okay. So, when it comes time to replace them, that would be the probably to look at the LED situation. Yeah, we we've talked to enough electrical contractors, especially with like the lower court lights and things like that. It doesn't have to be a complete redo of all the lights at one time. We can go pole by pole. So, I mean, right now they're all metal hali as David said, they're all working. Um Todd does a good job of keeping us in the loop uh because we're our maintenance city maintenance crews are able to go out with our pocket truck um whenever the light bulbs have to be changed and things like that. Golf has light bulbs and change,

right? Okay. Small things that um have been brought up more than once with tennis is things like the scoring systems, you know, not being the the most optimal.

I know you are. These are these are questions that are popping in my head just from past conversations just because I'm not seeing them addressed on here. And then um you guys are ultimately also responsible for the croquet courts or is that a city? Okay.

We the the golf staff maintains the croquet lawn. Okay. From a from a grass standpoint, not so much functionality of all the drainage and everything. more of a taking care of the grass on the surface is what we do. Just we put it in the same rotation as the greens, the same grass as what's on the golf course greens. So everything's in the same rotation as far as application of chemical fertilizer, airification, top dress, all of those things are part of the surface maintenance.

Okay. So the play area is your responsibility in in making sure that it's adequate and has the right slope and all of that. Not so much slope. What's built into the what's what's built into the courts is what it is. We are we are maintaining the the surface level on top the grass area on top of it. Yeah. Okay. If it if it's reshaping it or rebuilding it, that's not part of the normal scope, if you will.

Okay. And then just so that I'm I'm also clear on on these conversations because I know some requests have come in for storage and and things like that and you've been you've been looped into that. Um, when it comes to Croquet and the pavilion that's built, the the gazebo area, is that a city or is that a golf course? It all goes to the golf. Everything croquet goes to the golf. Okay. But you just said it's just the grass. No, I might

It'll do the under drainage. That would that would entail ripping it all out and rebuild. So what what they maintain on a continual basis is is the lawn which croquet pays for and then as needed. We've done some repairs u or built some things like stairs down to it. That request came in but ultimately uh it it goes through and should go through golf because that's that's who they check in with. That's who they're paying um ultimately who they're paying to maintain the facility. Okay. So if they've got I would say if they've got additional requests they should run that through David and Tai so that they can build those into the budget as needed. Yeah. Just with with the storage area we were able to find a place in

No. And I think they're very excited about that. I just wanted to understand who is responsible and for all those requests so that when I do get tagged I know who to point them at to. Yeah. Yeah.

And just to follow up on what Charles just said to Why is it golf's responsibility for not in their contract? It's not part the city put the steps in from the parking lot uh when they came back and request those a couple years ago. But like if they want the the gazebo painted and things like that, they should have those conversations with golf because golf maintains that campus. So that way golf can tell them how much it'll cost if they need because golf tells them how much they need each year for the maintenance. the general maintenance. So if there's additional request, they should go through golf so golf can tell them, "Okay, yeah, we can paint it for this or we can we can do that." It's not coming out of the golf budget.

Correct. Okay, that's correct. Correct. Yes. Yeah. Croquet is paying paying into we get a check from their croquet to maintain the the c to mow it, fertilize it, top dress it, all the things that we do from the top. Anything else? You know, we'll coordinate, but it does not come out of our Okay, that's what I was. Okay. So, it is a city funded.

No, it's a croquet funded. Croquet is a private club. Therefore, if they want new things, they want additional things, croquet should be paying for those things. And they need to coordinate that with golf because golf is responsible for the maintenance of the campus and that's on the golf campus. Okay. But it shouldn't be golf fees paying for it, right? It should be croquet fees paying for the additional things that croquet wants. Does that make sense? Yes.

And just to clarify, so on your sheet here, the capital projects, which ones are you looking for us to approve for next year? Yes. The the the the um the cove drainage which is $20,000

the new gold tea um we would like to go ahead and look at and then down for the future we would we would like to go ahead and get on the plan the cart path for the cove and the tree project in relation to the cart path on the cove right the additional tree work the greens renovation bunker um and and the survey all if we re redo those greens. Um, and we're not we're not looking for approval for that right now. We want to have it on the radar and we may come back if timing works out. Um, but we probably will move that to the next fiscal year.

So that under future the cart path tree work path the top the top the top two top two are included. Correct. Yes. But if you do the top two, don't you need to do the third one? The additional tree work for the cove.

It's related to the greens. Yeah, we've have a lot of trees that are obviously the cove is just growing. The canopies are just and so part of rebuilding the greens. We'll need to take do a lot of tree work to open up the sunlight in order to grow grass, you know, appropriately, properly on the greens. So that'll be another round of tree work that'll be primarily solely focused on the greens renovation. Again, we we're comfortable all of this. You two equipment pieces and the two equipment pieces we're asking for approval as well. The John Deere Progator, which is the last two and the Toro 45.

We're asking approval for all those. And we we have proper amount of reserve set aside for it, you know, to cash fun it. and we'll be we'll be in good shape by doing. Uh, one quick follow up on the tennis court reservicing, whether it's resurface or replace. Is that work that you'd be looking at doing in this next budget year? No, we we feel we feel really good shape where the courts are fine for this budget year. Thank you. And we have in the budget another $2,500 if we need to continue to do crack repair, all those kind. So that's included in the

Any other questions for golf about tennis you guys? Is the you still feel the two paid to public is going well? Is that something you want to talk to Parks and Rec about at some point? We'll definitely want to have a conversation with parks and recck, you know, at some point moving forward. Okay. Yeah. The paid side is not generating much income at all. So it really Makes sense probably in the future to make them more public. Okay.

Anything else for golf and David? Cool, guys. Thank y'all. Thank you. We appreciate everything. Thank you. No, it's great. A lot of lot of good stuff going on. So, Ty Ty says the end of the week, I say 30 days. We're getting closer. It looks great. Looks great. Once once we know exactly when it's open, then we'll we'll coordinate with council to schedule room. Yes, we would like to do that for sure. Under your suggestion was Thank you. That's great. We definitely want to do that.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it'll be a work. We'll get stages of it open. Obviously, the golf probably does. So, we get everything in licenses. Brag moment. Yeah, it's awesome. Awesome. Thank you all so much.

All right, next on the list is the beach and swim center. Um, as Dustin's coming up and getting settled in, uh, uh, council, hopefully you've had a chance to to look through uh, the fee schedules. There were not any recommended changes on the beach and swim center from the membership fees and whatnot. Um again, you know, overall as a budget, you're seeing uh you know, beach and swim center still paying for itself um without any cash infusions needed from uh from general funds. So that's uh that's a good thing. So at this point, uh what questions do y'all have of Dustin uh on beach and swim center budget? questions, comments on Beach Club?

Nope. I appreciate the uh the tab that you or the spreadsheet that you put out there to justify and answer all the questions that I had. I had one question about pool management. I found my answer and I'm good with the with your budget as presented. Remind me again because I'm trying to find it. What was the the capital improvement plan budget for for this? because we had some big re ref reurfacing expenses that were coming. So this one um I don't have them on me right now because we weren't requesting any for this budget year but we would be looking at that was

that was about 300 300 that's what I was trying and then the pool resurfacing and that was a separate 200 the surface resurfacing the pool resurfacing would be 40 40,000 and that's the inside of the pool and then the pool deck was the 300,000. Okay.

828 covers their portion of the landscaping contract. Okay.

Just curious what the new IT expense is. It's not a lot of money, but just curious. Uh it's a new computer uh down at the And I will just make a note for y'all too. Um the pool maintenance agreement is going to be reid at the end of this year. So that's what that's an estimate with a potential increase just seeing what the trends are management companies. So we will see we will be remitting this out towards the end.

Any other questions for Dustin? Is is it's not really a question. I I guess it's more of um a commentary if you can give us a commentary on the the the model A relationship was because at some point we had some conversations about you know what who was responsible for maintaining the bathrooms who is you know how is that is that a pretty clear relationship at this point? Do you feel that that's Yeah, it absolutely should be. Um so whenever the pool is open and we have our attendance down there. They'd be responsible off hours. It would be their responsibility. Okay.

Not unless you have some something that you want to bring up as as something that we need to consider. We're good. I would say the only thing I'd say is if anyone hasn't purchased their region center membership, do it now. So, we open we open on Saturday. All right. Good deal. Thank you. Thanks, Austin. Thank you.

All right. Next is uh Antonio with TCUD. Um council, you probably saw that that uh fee schedule probably had the most changes. Uh most of the changes aren't going to impact residents uh as they're more related to contractors and whatnot. Uh but we are uh requesting a uh base rate increase on water, no volumetric increase on water. Uh and then a uh it's a 8% increase coming from Rock Hill. Uh that would be a pass through on sewer on both the base rate and the volumetric rate. The water volumetric rate we have not touched since uh FY1415 uh or maybe or 1516 I think it's 1516 uh when it was set and it hasn't changed since. Um and this will help us capture a lot of the inflationary costs that that we're getting from vendors and and and the like um to to bring us to a a a nice budget there. And again, the the sewer increase is u proposed is just a pass through increase that uh we've been notified by city of Rock Hill that we'll be getting. So, um I'll with that, I'm going to be quiet and let y'all uh ask whatever questions y'all may have uh on the teacup budget u either of Antonio or Bob and myself. So,

is the water rate still a pass through? So, the water rate is not a Rock Hill is not doing any increases, but we have not touched every year when Rockill has done uh increases. We've le left the base rate alone and just done the volumetric and we just can't anymore. We're trying to trying to help keep cost down for the rate payers, but it's just it's gone on long enough and with our cost continuing to rise, we're just we're just trying to catch that back up. The water meters have gone up tremendously. Yes. Cost of water meters, etc. Correct. But The sewer is a straight pass through that we're getting from Rock Hill. What's the What's the rate change?

Uh so right now on the on your water volumet metric, it's currently at 11.81. Uh proposing it to go to $19.14 per month. That's your base rate. If you don't use a drop of water, that's just the base rate. Um and then sewer uh would go from 831 uh per month to 8.97. And then on the Oh, I'm sorry. I was looking at volumetric. On the base rate for sewer, it would go from 1914 to 2067. And then on the volumetric rate, it's 831 to 8.97. I can zoom that in if you're looking for it on screen there. Whoa, that was too much. Too much. Way too much. It's a little bit easier to see the other rates that you're seeing that we're um requesting up top. Um the irrigation meter could hit um a resident. A lot of times builders are are buying those irrigation meters uh and installing them uh prior to the homeowner actually taking control of the house in that account. Uh but your 3/4 inch and 1 inch, 2 inch, those things uh on the uh domestic side, that's that's paid by the builder um during the construction process. So your residents, our residents aren't paying those. And same with the the sewer capacity uh fees, those are just paid by the builders as as they go. U modest increases there. Those fees have been the same for quite some time. Um and again, you know, when we're looking at how much meter costs are are going up on us and and and the like those um that it it can take a toll on the budget. So, just trying to capture those cost and uh and keep up. Uh you you'll also see that as we changed on the monthly uh on the base charges and uh um and then on the basin volume on sewer uh we hit the um out of city rate um which is just double

what the incity rate is on those. Uh so we've got what probably 10 out of customers. Um you've got Wisteria Meadows are all on our water sewer system that's outside the city. Um and then you've got um a good number of sewer only customers in um River Lakes um that are on wells. They're outside the city, but they're on our sewer. Uh so they have a flat rate on their sewer charge on that. But using utilizing those numbers is how we got to our revenue numbers um for the TCUP budget. um you'll see a transfer in on from the impact fees that we've collected that 250 that relates to the four portion of that 410 on the capital outlay. If you'll recall the first capital outlay uh request that were included in the budgets were two bypass bumps. Um and then the rest of that 410 is paying off um the portion of the uh 2526 lease that we're paying off in general fund to cut storm water. Uh that's their portion. So 250 to 410 would be two new bypass bonds paid strictly at impact fees.

So with that, I'm g I'm going to be quiet and let y'all ask Antonio uh any other specific questions you may have.

Tell me again which ones are paid off from impact fees. uh the bypass pump. So you've got two things uh I'll call it two things in capital outlay. of that 410 250 of that is for the new uh two bypass pumps and the remainder of that is its portion of the $883,000 lease that we took out for this fiscal year and paying it out.

Any what now?

They're on the personal capital. they they were on that one. Uh but since they weren't uh since they were being paid for strictly through impact fees, I moved them off of that list and stuck them in the uh where that 410 is. And then when after the general fund meeting um we up that number to include its lease purchase payment uh payoff, which Bob, do you know, do you have that exact amount of the 883? I t Should be about $160,000. What's the total per household that we're increasing

and from those fees that you you mentioned? The total Say it again. The total per household. You said that we're we're increasing the Oh, on the fee schedule. Yeah, on the fee schedule.

Okay. So, on water, you would go from 11.81 to 1914 per month. and then no increase on the water volumetric. So it would we're proposing that it remain at the 659 per thousand gallons. And then your um sewer volumetric rate is an 8% increase going from 1914 to 2067 per month. And then your uh volumetric rate on sewer would go from 831 to 8.97 per gallons. So, roughly around $10,

give or take. Yeah. And a lot of a lot on that sewer is going to just depend on how much water you're using, whether you know, if you have an irrigation uh meter or if it's just tied off your domestic it's if you're watering your lawn off of your domestic meter, you're paying sewer for water you're putting on your yard. Um we have to worry about a US. Yes, we have to have a uh was it 1 to1 1.2 to1 uh ratio uh for the uh the note with US bank where we acquired the system the old system

and I I understand the conversation the fact that we haven't had an an increase a true increase because if it's gone up it's been it's just been a pass through right so now we're looking at about a $10 roughly um per household increase depending on water usage etc. Is there a specific place that I can look at this budget and say this is where those funds are going to be used that we weren't using before? This is what we're improving. This is what we're adding. This is this is an explanation of how those funds are going to be used.

I mean, I would say specifically no other than just in your your expenses uh in your expense line items. I mean, um you know, your the insurance is going up. um you know, your uh your maintenance, your water meters, your um where's the line item? Uh your is it meters and supplies? Yeah, that that line item is going up by almost $40,000. Uh a lot of that is attributed to uh meter replacements, uh and the cost of what those meters are along with new meters, you know, that are being purchased by the builder to go into the ground. U but we've had um you know, your cost of chemicals, you know, treatment chemicals. Uh we were sitting doing our one-on-one budget meeting with Antonio and he got an email from our sludge hauler. Uh which I'm not going to get into the details of what that all is. Uh some of it's just eight, but I mean it's going up by what was it? Eight grand over the you know for for a course of the year. Um and those are those are you know a lot of things in utilities are soul source on a lot of things. Not everything but but a large number of things. Uh to where you know I mean they've been good to us but now they're cost increases and they're passing those through to us. Um I would say most you in talking with uh Rock Hills deputy manager um that oversees their operations and specifically their utilities. I mean when they first gave us what their game plan was on rate increases for water and sewer. It was realistically supposed to end I think in 2022 and that was because they were adding capacity. Yeah. That was being generated by customers like us, the town of Fort Mill, York County as a customer. Um but they continue to have to increase their fees to us because their cost um of operation continues to climb. The good thing is is we have a contract with them that says they can't charge us any more than what they charge their own local resident. So to increase us by 8% they're also increasing their own local

resident in Rock Hill by that same amount. One of the the biggest expense increases is on those water meters that you're you're replacing. And you and I had had a conversation about that. And the specific reason for that is as meter and I'm going to repeat what I heard. Go ahead. I was listening. So as meters age, the way that they they read is slower, but which means that their the water usage might be higher, but it's reading lower, which is not allowing you to really capture the actual use of that water, which means that the city on its own is having to pay for that difference. Is that pretty fair? That is exactly right. Yes, ma'am. Look at that. I got an A.

Spot on. Spot on. Yes, ma'am. Okay. And that's what I was looking for is an understanding of it's $10 more a month per household, but this is this is why that's happening. And it's it's not um it's not discretionary. It's react it's it's a reaction to something that is actually needed. I think people just need to to hear that so that they can understand what the reason for that is. We're responding to what what is what is coming in or lack thereof, if you will, in in the case of the meters. Yes, ma'am. That was going to be my question. When do when do the rate uh the fees go up and are we going to communicate that to to residents to let them know that you're going to get about a $10 increase?

Well, we the the fee schedules will become active July one. Um and we would do a notification um through our TCU billing that here's here's what the bills are going to uh obviously we'll we'll do our normal communication stuff as well, but for something like this, we would I mean typically this is the the water base rate is the the first time that we've actually increased rates where it wasn't just a pass through. Um, and it's just because of seeing those rising costs that we we're not able to to control those. No, it seems Yeah, it seems justified for sure. Just as people are give a heads up just as we will with whatever the new trash rate uh will be for this coming fiscal year. Yep.

Cool. Other questions y'all have for T cut Antonio here. Kept him after. Make him talk

mentioning the smart meters and I've had some conversations about those as well. What percent are we at in terms of making sure everybody has those compared to the old ones? because I know that has been driving part of the increase. Everyone has one at this point. Okay. So, we're we're caught up on the the upgrade side of that. We are. Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions for Antonio? Okay. Thanks, Antonio. Thank you, sir. Joey coming up. Uh Tim is out this week. Um Joey's going to cover storm water for him. Um no no forecasted rate increase on storm water for this fiscal year. Uh still keeping it at the $24 per eru. Uh so with that um questions for Joey on storm water.

I apologize for not wearing cargo pants in Tim's place today. I do have a fondness for trees all of a sudden. there was a um a large uh increase in my opinion of drainage maintenance materials and I don't know if you're going to know exactly what's going on when I looked at the um spreadsheet that was provided and I looked at that um that tab expenses for projects fabric rip wrap pipe junction box and the amount is $412,000 I just'd like to see sort of a break sort of a breakdown of what that all entails So essentially it's so it's the overage of whatever we have uh once those expenses uh uh throughout the rest of the uh budgets the balancing number to that and what's capturing that is all the ongoing projects that we have within the storm water department. So we have several outstanding projects that would be covered through that. So it's not an increase more so than it's just a higher balance number that we have after after the fees are collected and expenses are paid out.

Thank you sir. Welcome. And that's what you use to do the projects? Yes sir. Repair pipe replacement outfall repairs inlet repairs all that good stuff. Can we talk about

obviously honestly just just to caveat so like there's some years where vehicle maintenance gets extremely high and there's sometimes where it's going to head north of what was budgeted for as equipment breaks and breaks down and things like that. So then we'll scale back on how much we're using on that drainage maintenance material because we're seeing those those other cost you know like vehicle maintenance for instance where you repairing a leaf truck or you know front end loader went down or something like that. So, can we talk about the leaf truck? Sure. Sure.

Um, every year we we get that they're down for sometimes an extended period of time. And we've heard over and I know at least in the last this is my third budget season I've heard about these trucks that on their own they're fine but it's it's the components of all of the actual leaf vacuum part of it the rattling and and that that sets things off and that's why things break down and then it's it takes a long time to get parts back. It takes a long time to get them repaired and it seems to be that's regardless of their age. It's the function that allows for the for those those um tree those trucks to to be unusual for extended periods of time. So, one of the the suggestions that was brought forward was what if we instead of buying these, we let them be somebody else's problem and just lease them. And one of the responses that we got from you was that that might be a possibility if ours were down to to lease for a month or two months, however that is. But my question is if if we're buying them at $360,000 and then we're down one to two months of every season and then we're renting one or two months every season at at $15,000 a month, then we're How does that make sense? I I would like to see a better answer than spending $360,000 on a truck that we know has been proven to break down every season.

So I can share a little bit of perspective. So you know you're looking at about 15,000 I believe a month to rent those out. So over entire leaf season you're looking at about 60,000 if we were to do that. So, the problem with the potential rental of it is it's not nearly as efficient of an operation as as the existing leaf trucks. The volume's lower. It becomes a twoman operation now because it only works when it's stationary. So, you're having to put in park and the controls are actually outside the vehicle. So you're instead of that arm moving and picking up leaves as you're going down the street, you're parking at each pile, running the hose, then moving to a next to the next part. It It's one of those things where could it be done? Yes. Will the efficiencies go down significantly from volume and you know the time it takes? Absolutely. At that point, I think it would give stronger consideration and just go into bag leave collection. At that point,

I guess my my thought on that is the efficiency of what you just described is still better than zero, which is where we are one to two months out of the out of most leaf collection seasons. So, this past year we had better success. So, the newer truck, uh, it it had a I'll call it a glitch, uh, right at the very beginning when leaf collection was low, but then it ran the entire season, uh, and didn't give us any issues. The older one, we just can't get parts for it from 2013. Uh, where it when it was new, it wasn't giving us a lot of issues, but as it aged, it got more and more issues. Joey, what we figure it's about 10 years.

Yeah, life lifespan on it is typically 10 years, and that's a 2013. So we've we've drained it pretty good. So I think the envision and recommendation of uh of a you know additional vehicle is you're the one that's running now is currently a 2019. So just knowing that once we get into that phase, it you know that you're going to lose reliability on it and during peak season, you also do want to have the capability of running multiple trucks as well. So it I see value in it, but I can obviously understand y'all's stance as well is like, man, this is a huge investment into it. So, I guess another way to look at it is, you know, if you're carrying over a loan payment uh over four years, you're talking about, you know, probably roughly 90 something,000. Whereas, as we discussed, renting it over four months, that's 60,000 each year. After four years, you own the vehicle, whereas if you're renting it, you don't. So, just another perspective to consider in all that as well.

Yeah. It's got a life cycle of 10 years and again paid off in four. But it's how how much of that time are we actually using it and when we're balancing efficiency and those payments versus renting some or leasing something that is going to get us in and out. The thing that stinks is it's kind of the cost of doing business if we're going to do it. Like it's tough. Like I think if you asked all staff, we be like, "Okay, we can get rid of loose leaf collection." It It's tough. It's tough. If you rent the truck, you have to add another person to the truck, right?

Correct. But, you know, once again, if you're renting a piece of equipment, it's not to say that won't fail as well, you know. So, there's I understand it would be a massive commitment to it. I just sharing from staff's perspective that loose leaf collection is a challenge regardless. Um and there's no right answer because it's it's just one of those things that's cost of doing business. You understand that because of things out of your control with what is being put into the leaf piles and stuff. It's there's ticking time bombs that happen. If you know large sticks, things of that sort get into the propeller. there's unforeseen challenges that's going to come up every leaf season. We go with it the best that we can.

In the grand scheme of things, it's four months out of a out of a fiscal year, which is minute, one would think. During those four months, that is the number one complaint we get in the city, far more than anything else we do the rest of the year on a consistent basis, is when are my leaves getting picked up? When are my leaves getting picked up? um wasn't quite as bad this year uh because we did have the one truck running, especially through the height of the leaf season, but we still got them. I mean, right now with one truck uh and realistically with two, you're looking at once every two weeks of your leaves getting collected, one time every two weeks. Some people wait till the very end of the lease season when we announce, hey, we're only picking up loose leaves for two more weeks and then they put all their leaves out, right? But for the most part, everybody's putting out something every single week. And there's some people that chase the leaf truck down the road. They see it coming and let me hurry up getting my leaves out. It's um as Joy said, I mean, I would love for us to get rid of loose leaf collection. I know that is not possible. I know it's not plausible, if you will, especially in the uh older sections of town where you have a much heavier tree canopy. I mean, it would be next impossible for uh certain areas for them to physically bag those leaves. I mean, that's That's a tremendous ask. Um, you know, the other the other downfall to the rental piece is and as I explained to uh uh to the mayor and and to Mr. Heisler uh when when this idea came about is it's a much larger truck than what we currently have but with less load capacity. So, we'd have to empty it more frequently and with it being a bigger truck. I mean, the trucks we have now are pretty big. Um, but we we're able to get them up and down every road. have an even bigger truck. It It's definitely going to provide some challenges for sure. Um yeah, and then we've got to Yeah, we're not able to pick up as much before we have to go dump. So, it's just going to slow us down. Now, is slowing down better than not picking up? Absolutely. I think to a certain extent. Um I don't know that we would have to rent something for months

on in, but I think it's a good plan for as a backup. But if you know, we're starting to see like this past year, more and more time spent in Lacorage picking up leaves, more time spent in Serenity Point picking up leaves. It's not just a on the peninsula type type thing. You know, we're probably another year or so away from okay, Windhaven's going to start requiring a little bit more and a little bit more each year. Um, you know, yeah, just trying to keep up with what we've got out there and trying to provide that service at least on a bi-weekly basis, uh, is what we're trying to accomplish. Um, you know, and again with having that second new truck, yeah, it it potentially helps extend the life of the of the current one, but as Joey noted, it was we purchased it in 2019, so you're looking it's basically six years old at this point. Um, you know, so that's that's kind of what what the thought is behind that is one, keep it going, but two, try to not have any laps in coverage uh as as we provide that service because that is a service that we provide that we hear about every year. And I know y'all get calls and emails about it as well. How I know Joey mentioned something earlier. So the one truck was down a bunch last year. So how many months did we run one truck? the entire season. We did the whole season with one

truck yet saying we need a second one even though we got it done with second one be faster but it would seem to me we rented one for one or two months in peak season and the great thing about renting it if it breaks they bring you a new one I mean you don't have to wait back I don't know I I just if we got it done with We had a second one. It might not fit every road, but it fits the majority of the roads and it's only 15 or 30 grand and that's 10 years 12 years not including the interest. Um the uh uh I guess and there may that was just again when we first started talking about this I did a quick search, found a place in Rock Hill, called them, and uh that's just one place. There may be other options available potentially rent kind of truck that we're using now.

I I do know that when I think it was two leaf seasons ago, it was kind of Armageddon. Like both leaf trucks went down for a significant amount of time. And I do know that Tim tried to uncover each passing, you know, each each possibility. It's one of those things where telling you today, do we do we need the truck? I would probably say no. But I can't answer that in November or December. It goes down. We're renting a renting a vehicle. We're not able to keep up with the demand. And it's just one of those things where we're planning to try to avoid those lapses in coverage, but I understand the commitment that would take. So it I understand each side of it. So if y'all decide, hey, let's hold off. Let's go this route. No, you know, I I understand it. Just we may be coming in December with, hey, we have these challenges just to make everyone aware. So it's tough. I get it.

So when these trucks go down to try and understand, I know that we always have to go off and and find replacement parts. Are they typically the same type of parts? And would there be value in ordering parts in advance? We do stockpile parts. So we can repair it more efficiently and quickly.

So the difference between the truck that's out of commission now compared to the 2019 truck is that is basically solely handled by the vendor that not the one that we purchased it from, but it was bought by another company. that that company basically handles the service of it if it were to break. So, one of the challenges that we've had in the past with the 2019 is that we're at their mercy and at their schedule. So, not not only that, but when the parts come in.

So, you know, that that's just part of the hurdles that we're dealing with as part of it is the challenges are unforeseen and they will come at the worst time. I mean, as far as like the impellers,

we'll order an extra impeller to keep it on the keep it on the shelf. Our mechanics can change that out. There's a lot of electronics involved that we can't fix. They have to take it off site and and do their electronic stuff with it and replace those components. Uh the physical mechanical parts of it, um our mechanics, they get the parts that typically wear out, wear and tear and things like that. So, they've got them on standby. Um, it's been our luck that uh, you know, okay, last season we had a real bad problem with impellers, so let's get an extra impeller. And we don't have any problems with impellers. It's something completely different that we have a problem with that least season. So, um, I will say um, you know, the company we're getting the old Leaf truck we had to get from um, out of V, Northern Virginia, get parts and everything from now with the new Leaf truck, I think there's going to morville, I think, is where it's at.

So, a little bit closer by. Um, but again, as Joey stated, it's still we're at their mercy, if you will, as far as how quickly they can get to something, get us parts and that kind of thing. And going back to your point, that is one of the biggest um complaints that we hear from residents. It's one of the biggest things that they feel from the city as the city needs to pick up our leaves or whatnot, which is very difficult problem to hear. But, um, you have water, you sewer, stuff like that, but the leak collection, if it's not happening, then people start getting messed up. So, I want to make sure that the residents are their their value from the city towards them with their taxpayer dollars coming in and going off and funding a new truck just in case.

And I just want to clarify, reiterate, I'm not I'm not trying to paint a doomsday scenario, you know, to like hard sell this. I'm just saying it's it's a potential issue that we've identified and if it if the funding exists, it's possible, awesome. If not, we will we will do our best. It's not necessarily a doomsday scenario because it happened, you know, this past um year, but the year before both of them went down and we went try to look for rental trucks to go off and do it, but you're in the middle of the season and other locations or municipalities are renting those trucks and we can't get them.

This particular company that Tom found, uh, and appreciate you finding that because two years ago when we looked at it when both of them were down, they didn't have anything. They said, "No, we don't we don't carry a truck like that." Um, Tim followed back up with them, Tom, after you sent us that lead. Um, they do carry it. uh gave Tim all the particulars on it. Um so would it work in a pinch? I think it would. Absolutely. You if our truck goes down and it's going to be down for a couple weeks or whatnot. Sure. It definitely makes sense if we don't have that backup to rent it for a month. The fear is how much longer will the 2019 continue to run at an optimal level before it's going down repeatedly. So we're trying to just stay ahead of that curve. But um yeah, at a minimum, yeah, it doesn't make sense to keep the 2019 or excuse me, the 2013 in the condition that it's in. Uh we'd like to go ahead and convert that one. Um to where we can actually use it and get rid of the truck that's gone inoperable. Um you that was the one truck that we could use to haul uh our big excavator uh to use for projects and things like that. We don't have the ability to move that around anymore, so it just stays out at the wood chipping pile. Um you know, so uh It gives it gives us some flexibility there and to haul larger loads than what we currently can as far as rip wrap, dirt, uh pipe, that kind of thing. Um, right now it's doing us no good with the vac body on it.

The thing that stinks is it's got 23,000 miles on it. So, the truck is great. It's just the vacuuming components that are unfixable. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it's it's it's council's call. Uh obviously like like everything is you know this it's not just council's call unique to this but um that that's what we're looking at our recommendations we move forward with it but uh if council wants to hold off another year uh and look at it the following fiscal year then that's that's what it is and we'll we'll make the best of it and um do our best to keep up with the demand. Gotcha. Um Council Member Jones has something to say.

Hi. Uh so I'm in favor of going ahead with the new truck uh for two reasons. The first is uh I think we've touched on this is a resident service and one that can have a pretty big impact on not just the quality and the experience of the residents when things are down in an Armageddon as it's been called situation. Um but clog storm water drains there's a there's a multitude of things it impacts. I think also we've talked a lot about getting our fleet on a replacement schedule before things break down completely and this if we're trying to stick with that for what we're doing overall, the leaf truck is part of that and right now it sounds like we're debating letting this one break down before we act and I don't feel that fits in that overall scheme for fleets. Um, so this feels like it's the time to make that replacement if we're moving towards that for all the vehicles the city cares for. And that's my thought on that.

Thank you, ma'am.

I'll just give my two cents that we can try if they want, but it seems to me that it would be much more efficient to lease to rent a truck for two or three months, see how it goes. like all the police cars because if it works it's a significant savings to the city significant savings budget. We got a lot of storm water issues. Um, and if we find it, you know, it worked, but it wasn't as efficient as we wanted. You know, and get some more information from the the company that rents them. What's the what's the turnaround? If one breaks, do they bring you a new one right away? We don't have all the info, so we don't know if it's the brakes. We're just stuck with it two months. No different truck we bought. The same situation. Um but uh you know again I just keep buying these trucks and seem to always be down these leaves up. Maybe it's time to look at a different tough one. I mean, I think we're all in agreement that it's a it's a priority in terms of, you know, resident quality of of of life and it's a service that, you know, when it's working, you know, it's it's fine. We're not hearing anything, but when it goes down, we're hearing all kinds of complaints. Uh I I I understand the argument of both sides. Um in a perfect world, yes, we'd have two operating trucks at all times, highly efficient, residents are happy. Um, you know, is this one of those things if we're placing this as a high priority, do we need to look at other areas and we can, you know, cut some expenses to to

justify it to say, hey, this is something we agree that needs to be purchased. You know, the lease option, you know, I I I want to look at that as a possibility as well, but I understand that the efficiencies that uh inefficiencies that that you inherit with that, you needing additional staff. Um, I don't know. This is a tough one. you know, $360,000 is, you know, in the grand scheme of our budget. Uh it's it's, you know, a small percentage, but it's one that I think we have to as a council, if we're being good stewards of our of our taxpayer money, we have to take a hard look at this. I don't have the final answer. You I but I would I think we need to have some other some additional conversations. Um and you know looking at the pros and cons of both and ultimately making that tough choice again if we're going to do this can we cut spending in other departments to at least

well other departments because this is all strictly in storm water nothing else would be funded but storm water so so cutting in other departments wouldn't have any impact here okay yeah Um

one other thing and it may and it may be minor. Um I I'd have to let Bob speak to this but um right now what we're going to be asking council based on our last workshop and so far this workshop for for the lease purchase which would have no fiscal impact on this coming fiscal year. First payment would be a year in a rears. You're looking at 975,100 uh $493,100 in general fund, 122,000 in TUD and 360,000 in storm water. If you eliminate the storm water, now you're borrowing, we be doing a borrow of 615,100. This for this current fiscal year, we borrowed $8.83 and are looking to pay that off in the coming fiscal year. So, it it will impact uh interest rate on on a borrowing. um you know, the less we borrow and the banks have told us that routinely. Um some banks won't won't even give us a quote under 750. Um so just something to keep in mind. Um I get it. Uh you've also got a lease purchase. Uh you've got this year and next year two payments, right, Bob? Two more payments on a lease purchase on storm

water grapple truck will come off completely and they'll there'll be nothing there. Um, so I mean, and and I get I get what you're saying as far as as far as renting one. Um, let maybe we could So this I say we we hold off on our lease purchase stuff until we can uh bring something uh back or make a decision on this with council because we we'd have to bring you a resolution for that lease purchase anyway. That's required by the lenders, right? So even if you say in a budget workshop, budget meetings, yes, we approve this, that's good. We still have to bring council resolution to approve at the time that we're going to do the borrow. Let's see if we can get this rent see if we can get um the company out of Rock Hill to bring what up this rental piece so we can demo just versus going off of the specs they gave us. Even though yes, I know there's not leaves out there and things like that. Once we can get that brought in, would love to invite uh council uh to spend a little time with us seeing what we have versus what we'd be renting. So y'all can visually see the differences there. And then we could look to possibly make that uh bring that to council for a a decision and then subsequent bid resolution and whatnot. Uh which we would typically do based on July fiscal year. We'd probably be looking to bring you a resolution in July. I don't think it's going to kill us if we bring you the resolution in August to where we've got time to see if we can demo the piece of equipment, show council the differences between the two and then have that have a follow-up conversation either at your May or probably your June regular council meeting since none of none of those items um would have a uh a fiscal impact on the coming on the coming year.

Um just as an idea, Joey, what did which truck did you say had 23,000 miles? the the 2013 Freightlininer that we had talked about doing the conversion to be able to haul the excavator and all that good stuff. So, we have a 2013 truck that we've paid 306 Is that about the same? Give or take. Give or take. We have a 2013 truck that has 23,000 miles that we paid $360,000 for that now we're going to use as a regular truck as as a large scale dump and haul truck. Yes, ma'am.

Okay. to continue to get I mean because the the truck itself is in good condition. It would just be converting the the bed and removing the vac part and converting that to a to a dump bed uh and have hall capabilities for large and the cost to do that conversion about 75,000. Okay. So to give you an idea a new truck and what we're basically getting out of it you're looking anywhere between two to $300,000. So that that would be the thought behind doing that. Okay, that that's a good reference point on what this truck would be if it wasn't a dump truck or leaf truck. Correct.

Yeah, it sounds like we have to Yeah, that 2013 the truck itself is in great shape. Since we're sort of at an impass right now, we'll have to move forward with that and see what happens and all of us come down and see what happens at least. At the end of the day, if the decision is, hey, yeah, go go go ahead and do the other ones, but we're not replacing the leaf, want to hold off a year, then that's that's where we're at. I think I'm I'm not at a at a give a direction point at this point. Completely understand.

I think the big thing to articulate is that completely understand if we, you know, hold a year. I I will ask to give consideration that I I think in order to continue offering a quality service eventually a new truck will be purchased. I would struggle to say renting would be the long-term option once the 2019 goes out. So that that's the only other point I'd like to make. All right.

Any other conversations, discussions on storm water? Well, if we're talking about what we're spending, um the $11,000 for and it's I I realize it's minimal, but the $11,000 on the snow plow, right? We had one one ice storm, one snowstorm in 10 years. What's going to happen to that? Say that it's another five years before we have one. I I see it as kind of an insurance policy.

Okay. to to give you an idea like using the equipment that we used to clear the last time. It essentially just piles up the snow. It's not really clearing it from the road. We're having to clear it into other places where a snow plow actually shoots it off the road. So, I get it. It sounds crazy. We're in South Carolina snowplow, but it's one of those things that would have been fantastic to have. I guess my question is if we don't use it for x amount of years, it would it would sit in the shop. It's an attachment piece. Yeah. So, it doesn't have a lifespan that it's going to rust out. It's going to

keep it we we would keep it in the shop or under the uh the new uh covered building uh where we've got equipment. So, it' be out of the weather. The thing that affects those life is the use. You know, the more you use it, the more it wears out. um you know, so if we don't use it for five years, it's going to last us for quite some time. The positive is we're envisioning this as an attachment to the new dump trucks we just got this this past fiscal year. So,

all right. Thank you. Thanks, Joey. He's off. Try to be my best. All right. Dustin's gonna join us back up at the table again and we'll cover events and hacks. Um, and we can start with events once Dustin gets settled in. So, before we get started, as I'm settling in, I want everyone to please look at that beautiful poster. I don't know if you noticed it at all. I know. I I didn't notice it. Oh, yeah. It's good. It's good stuff. Love it.

Um just real quick as Dustin's getting set, um your salaries here um is a combination of our event manager salary plus our salaries for uh public works, uh partial, PD, and fire for uh time spent uh working on those events. we're able to cover capture that in um in in this other budget versus in the general fund um with funding from HAX. So, and with that uh be glad to entertain any questions council has on events and I will note too if anyone has looked through the on the tabs for the event budget, Caroline did a really really good job of breaking it down as best as she possibly could for each questions from council.

Nope, I reviewed it. Nothing looks um crazy out of the ordinary. Um I like it. It's align with what's happened before in the past. Um nothing crazy out there. So, thank you. And Charlie, I think I I asked whatever day that was, Wednesday, the uh additional marketing was something. Yes, sir. So, um if you look at the marketing now, that's down in HAX.

Okay. Yeah, that marketing is in HAX, and that is strictly related to uh you got about $20,000 in website. you've got about a almost a $5,000 uh required upgrade that we have to do to the website for ADA uh accessibility on the website um pertaining to I guess a uh federal law that was passed a year ago maybe two years ago uh but implementations for this coming fiscal year uh and then the remainder of that um again that's an hax would be uh replacement and addition of the street banners that we have on the light poles uh throughout the city and that's That's all that's in that marketing area

from a percentage standpoint. Um, year-over-year, and I know that we we can't really do the year-over-year with the nine-month budget, etc., but even looking back at 2425, what's your percentage increase for events that you have? So I would say you can't look at percentages because not only are we looking at it that way, it's a completely different setup in terms of the budget. So the challenge that we have with preparing it percentage wise is you're going to collect some events and parts of some events. So I can't give you a we're going to increase a certain percentage because it's not apples to apples unfortunately.

Okay. So then let's break it down on event per event. what's the percentage increase for your event cost year-over-year because it's the same event, right? So,

so that's going to that's going to also dictate a lot of times in terms of vendors. Um, so for example, some of the increases that you are going to see specifically July 4th that stage is significantly or not significantly, but it is more expensive than our normal stages just because of Fourth of July. They didn't have the stages that we normally have. So, we had purchase a different stage and it does cost um some of the things that you're going to see are also be port. So as much as I want to give you an answer um it will entirely dictate be dictated based on vendors um differences in entertainment um that are adjusted here and there. So we if you're comparing your 2425 you're not seeing a large increase in terms of percentage wise but As much as I want to give you an answer, you're going to be comparing apples to oranges some years. Um, but

well, I'll say in most cases it it is the same though. Um, you know, like uh we'll stay on fall festival. Um, you've got 25,000. We came in under budget in 2425, but it was a $25,000 budget. You know, but we spent 23,705 two years ago. concerts. We went a little over budget that year, but it was, you know, concert budgets been $25,000 for number of years. Um, you know, we do, as Dustin said, we do have costs that are going up, but you know, I would say the the biggest increase and it's not a huge increase is really in Fourth of July. Uh, because that one I believe has been about a $40,000 number for a number of years and now it's 44. You know, we're forecasting 44570 for this coming fiscal year. But again, it's going to dictate vendors because fireworks are another thing. We saw an increase last year, but not this year.

So, we'll see increases. We just I can't give you a very specific number as to what those numbers.

We try to stay very close to the the budgets that we've had in previous years. Um I don't think you're going to see 100% increase on hopefully any of these budgets or these specific events. Caroline and I might have to have a very serious conversation. I've I have said in the past and in a number ofa occasions that our community events define our community, right? We we bring our people together and and I think Caroline, I've I've told you um in past conversations that I see your job sort of as the culture keeper of our city because that is where we come together and we try to to be that community, you know, have have that sense of we're we're we're here doing this together. My questions are not so much from a from a challenging standpoint, but really from a more from an understanding because there there wasn't a comparison. Um, and while I love the sense of community that our events bring, one of the the um reoccurring comments from from our residents is that they're not really wanting it to be a big regional where we're drawing people that are, you know, outside of of our community in in large scale. They're they're looking at it to continue to be community events. So while we're as we're planning and looking at this, you know, that that is part of the the the thought process that, you know, are we're we're keeping it to where it it is serving our community.

It is not necessarily serving the region.

Absolutely. And I think the way that we look at it and Caroline would would probably agree is we want to have a nice balance among both of those. Um our two festivals, we look at those as our signature events that are on the map. We we look at those as those are ways to potentially make have economic drivers as as we continue to build out the city with the road and things of that sort. People that have never been to TK, they're coming down, they say, "Oh, I didn't know that this area was over here." So, we look at it as those are going to be our signatures events that we put TK on the map and then our concerts and our, you know, pumpkin poo and things of those ones are going to be entirely geared towards We don't want to lose sight of that because I agree with you 100%, mayor, is that a lot of what we do and a lot of what Caroline does is bring the community together. So, we want to make sure we're balancing those as much as we possibly can to not only benefit the community, but also the city as well. So, that's how we look at it and we want to really make sure that we're we're hitting on both of those from our perspective.

Appreciate that. Thank you. Any other questions on events? Okay. Um, thank you, Dustin. Y and go ahead. Nest Food Festival May 9th.

Be square. Uh, hospitality tax. Um, we're we're forecasting $425,000. Um, could it be more? Yes. Will it probably be more? Yes. um until we get some some history uh with the garrison. Um really don't know how much more, you know, um if they're hitting the the same or better h tax numbers over the next few months uh as what we're experiencing with the prior tenant, then yes, this number is absolutely going to be a lot higher. Uh then you'll have the yes, the the added age tax that'll be coming in from the golf course once they're open. Um but that's um you know that that number could be you know 450 um you know by by the time it's all said and done. But this is this is what we're conservatively forecasting now. Um and you can see we've we've already talked on the marketing piece. Uh again that's website the ADA upgrade and the street banners. Um the transfer K to Kataba Park you can see has grown from 83883 to 174810 uh transferring over to uh Katava Park. Um and then we've got a transfer of H tax to 27 almost $28,000 um to help support uh the events. So that's that's your H tax bud budget. And again there could be another 15 20 $25,000 in revenue that could come to fruition. Uh we just really don't know yet. I mean, Garrison's doing a great job, but they're not even fully open yet, right? Um yeah, and this is the time of the year where we really start seeing an uptick in all the H tax is, you know, so when we get May's payment for um you that'll be for April's Hax, that's usually when we start seeing that bump, you know, all the way out until it gets really hot till, you know, August and then kind of tapers back off a

little bit. But uh you know September and October are always good months as well. So um time time will tell. Uh but you know as I think we I think it's fair to say we all think that the garrison's going to knock it out of the park and their hax is going to be at least what the prior tenant was. Uh I suspect it's going to be even higher. So um you know with that I think I think we're going to see some some better hax money. Um and if we are seeing that realization um you know Bob does that transfer over to general fund for the Kaba Park at the end of the fisc you know towards the tail end of the fiscal year we can come back to council as we see that we're going to be over that and look to transfer more than just the 174810 over to general fund to support that that Kataba Park bond

and we don't even have Macy's included in here yet um Macy's on the tavern Okay. No, I don't don't have anything on them at this point. So, no, this Yeah, we we went with just a very conservative number on this just because of some of those unknowns that we think are going to be positive unknowns just I don't I don't want to budget for it and not show up, you know. So, uh that's why we we we just did a slight uptick from what we had in 2425. Uh but Bob, correct me if I'm wrong. Right now, we're forecasting exceeding the 300,000 for this fiscal year. So Hax is definitely trending in the right direction

approach until we have actual numbers to back it up and hopefully fingers crossed we'll see a nice extra kitaba payment. Gotcha.

Any other questions on or any questions on HX conversation or anything on that? No. Okay. Um, Mayor and Tom, there were some conversations uh little bit this afternoon on general fund. Um, since we're still fairly early in the evening, I would like to circle back everything on general fund. And if we can um just go to the personnel capital request uh because we do need to send our legal notice to the paper um probably by Wednesday of this week so it can be advertised by Sunday in time for uh scheduled public hearing in May. Um just to make sure we're all on the same page. Um the things included in the budget uh would be under that project list and the things not highlighted. Uh so just the things in white uh so the comp study, the parks rack action plan, the median uh power uh in Stone Crest, the upgrades um at the pickle ball courts, the hearth room remodel, and the monument renovation. those items uh as I told you after Wednesday and then upload it to you on Thursday. I've put those items into the general fund. Um specifically, and I'll start at the bottom because I know exactly where that one's at. Bulk of the rest of it's in parks rep, but if you go down to non-EP departmental, we put the hearth room repair into the maintenance repair clubhouse uh line item. So, that was at 40,000 and we bumped that to 70,000. Um and I'll just control up through the budget because the next one is parks and wreck under its capital outlay. You see that at the 323 that includes those parks and wreck related projects I just mentioned plus uh the payoff of the uh lease uh that was taken out uh for items acquired this fiscal year and paying its

portion of that I think it was like $54,000 in general fund of that 883. So that's paying off the parks and w portion of it. Um, scrolling on up in fire department um their uh capital outlay of 88,200. Again, that's not acquiring anything new in fire department. That's paying off its portion of that capital lease. Same as with PD and its capital outlay, paying off uh its portion um of that capital lease. And then in public works, uh the same the 100,000 paying off its portion of the capital lease. So that's That's what's in the budget. So, back down at the bottom, uh just an update and hopefully I tried to simplify the notes to where uh and I had several people look at it uh to make sure that they they could follow it. So, um your your bottom lines here. So, uh we're paying off the existing capital lease that we took out uh for this current fiscal year um plus the new projects uh that are shown under the personnel capital thing. Um, you've got total revenues uh over expenditures of $639,914 uh transferring 300,000 of that uh to start a new capital project fund uh as discussed previously, leaving us with an operational contingency of $339,914. with doing the uh slight borrowing from the uh general fund reserves to help pay off that capital lease. Uh you've you're only uh net reducing your general fund reserves by $160,86. So leaving you uh with 7.489 million in your general fund reserves.

I had one suggestion I'd like to make. Sure. Every year at the end of the year like here we're projecting No, 339,914. I'd like to suggest that instead of all that going to reserves, we start putting like half of it into that capital project fund because amount of capital. Okay. So, budget for 300, but then take 50% of whatever left year in Okay. Add to that. Sure. Set aside money. Absolutely. It it earns us the same interest. So, that totally fine. Absolutely. I could like that. And I wanted to follow up talking to the mayor today about the compensation study.

Okay.

The uh has ever been explored. I know when we did the last one and you know I reviewed it in detail, you know, they went out 10 different around the area. Um have you ever considered has ever been discussed between the municipal managers, county manager instead of every town doing one of these every five years collecting the same data 10 other towns and it cost 60 I'm sure the county price is 100 grand working together where either through the cog or together yourselves doing this just comparing the information of the five towns and the county to give us an idea if we're losing people that's realistically where they're going

to to a certain extent I would say So, a lot of times, yeah, and this is where a compensation study gets difficult. If if if I can, um, we're not losing a ton of people to town of Fort Mill, if anybody, you know, uh, we're not losing people to York County. We're not losing people to Rock Hill, right? When we lose people, it's generally to the private sector, and it's going to be I don't know that public sector should ever try to keep up with private sector. I don't know that we can, right? Um, yeah. So, generally when we lose staff, um, not because we've told them we're no longer a good fit for them, they've decided that, hey, I need to move on to other things. Generally, we lose them to the private sector. Now, where we're competing against those other entities, right? Especially the county Rockill Fort Mill is when we're trying to fill positions, right? So, they're they're looking, you know, they've decided they want to come to this area and that's really the the main entities that they're going to be looking if they're want to be. Yeah. So whether it's uh public safety from a police or fire standpoint, you know, public works, especially in the maintenance field, you know, if they're looking to get into that public sector, that's who that's when the competition starts. It's it's not as much of from what I've seen a competition from, I'm going to leave TK and I'm going to York go to York County. That used to be the case years ago, especially in law enforcement, you know, um the folks that we that we lose to I'll say I'll call it competing agencies now is because they want to be a different kind of cop, right? They want they want to you be door kickers and things like that. Uh we we've lost a couple of firefighters over the years. Uh not many. I can think of two that that went to Charlotte Fire. They're young guys. Yeah. And they weren't they weren't having to fight a lot of fires here in TK, right? That's what they want. Um you know, maintenance maintenance staff. We're you know, Tut staff, things like that. I mean, we're losing them to, you know, your your private contractors, your plumbers, and things like that where they're just

going to make more money, you know, in that private world. Uh, have we ever thought about doing one collectively? I would I would say I mean, since I've been city manager, it hasn't been discussed. I think it'd be difficult. U considering budget sizes, service territory differences, and things of that nature. I mean, what a park maintenance guy in TK does is just what a park maintenance person does in Rock Hill, right? It's just a volume thing. Just like a cop in in TK is doing the same things cops in Rock Hill, Fort Mill, and York County are doing. It's just on a different volume, right? But it's still you're still dealing with the same stuff, right? Um so that's that's where, you know, doing doing a a joint compens we we share compensation studies with each other and we we look at each other's compensation studies. You I talked to Fort Mills manager and they haven't finalized theirs yet. they've gotten it back, but it hasn't gone through counsel and everything. But he says as soon as it does, he'll he'll send it over to us. Doris talked to their HR and yeah, we'll send it to we don't have a problem with sharing them with one another and and you know, and at that level, but I don't know that a Fort Mill compensation study should match a TK compensation study because it's a much bigger budget. It's more employees, but at the same time, and I think y'all heard even Chief Crosby last year talking about we we need to try to stay close though because that's who we're competing against whenever we have open positions. And that's that's where it gets hard is from that recruitment standpoint. I mean, if you can come here and do the same job, but it's for two, three bucks less an hour, you're going to go to the other place. I mean, every single one of them will if they're not leaving for other governmental agencies. Why are we preparing? I'm trying to understand the need to do this every five years. If the people we lose are going public sector, but we're not comparing the conversation doesn't conversation study doesn't take any compl. I I don't know that they can't. I just know that the last one we did did not. it was it was just comparative on the now I've been a part of one down in Rock

Hill where it did compare to the public to the public sector or to the private sector. Um you know so it's just it it's making sure that we're that our salary grades and what the way we're compensating our our public our our people. We're we're doing it based on market value for comparable size cities and things like that. The last one we asked, we were losing folks. So, we asked them to to look, you know, ordinarily they wouldn't put Rock Hill in our study. You know, it's it's apples and palm trees, right? Uh but we asked them to include Rock Hill. We asked them to include York County because that's where our struggles were uh with losing folks. You know, I will say that we've done a very good job uh with our compensation. A lot of that, all of that is thank you to council for being able to afford us those opportunities because it has allowed us to retain staff. Um, you know, anytime we can retain staff, I'm sure y'all can attest to this in in your own jobs, you become exponentially more efficient, you know, and it costs us a heck of a lot less money, you know, to to be able to operate and things like that. I mean, hiring a new person, uh, you know, by the time we lose somebody and get somebody hired, it's about two months, and that's that's moving pretty quick, right? And then when do they become fully efficient for us? It's another 8 to 10 months. And that's just in maintenance side of things. If they're law enforcement, now you got to send them to the academy and, you know, a lot of times and things like that. So, it could be even longer before they're fully okay, then they got the lay of the land, they know what they're doing, and they can they can go do being told to go do you know so um yeah it is best management practices uh in the HR industry um Dora can attest to that through her her affiliation with Sherm uh I've talked to um labor attorneys I've talked to other HR professionals all of them seem to indicate that that that f you need to try to update every five years uh to make sure that you're

staying in that fair market value with how you're compensating your employees I I don't necessarily have an issue with understanding and doing what we need to understand a market value and compensation stud a compensation threshold etc. I guess where I'm where I'm asking you you had just you just said that getting the getting copies of compensation studies that Fort Mill has done or other other municipalities around us have done really doesn't give us any information. But yet if we do a compensation study that is exactly the information that we're going to be paying $60,000 to get.

No, it gives it gives us information but I don't know that Yeah. If if let's say city of Rock Hill is paying a uh an employee that's a I'll just making up numbers, but a grade 15 and that employee is supposed to be making $60,000. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that somebody of that same pay grade in TK should also be at $60,000, right? But I also can't tell you what they should be in TGK either. You know, I could tell I can go and look and see, okay, what employees do we have at a grade 15? and based on number of years here they you know they're at X but is that where they should be now again funding the study that's that's part of it getting the information back from the study and then determine what to do with that is a completely different thing you know because as y'all are aware you know your salaries are midpoint uh minimum mid max right and that that midpoint is usually at seven years in that position we've got a lot of employees that should be at or over the midpoint that aren't, you know, they've been here 10 plus years in that position. You know, they're as high as they can go without transferring completely to a whole another department, but yet they haven't been able to they're not above that midpoint, right? Um we did a good job after the last one. Uh with the last one, we had to do some funding to get people up to the minimum. You know, when they when they came back with the scales, we had a number of employees that were below just the minimum salary point. So council afford us the opportunity, let's get those folks up to the minimum, right? What that does though, without moving everybody else, starts to create that compression, you know, and we've done a pretty good job of managing that through through the budgets year after year and analyzing it with each department to make sure that we we're trying to keep that that um that compression out of it. And I I don't think that we have a compression issue at this point. Um, yeah, there's there's going there's definitely

concerns uh especially I'll say in the maintenance and in fire um with just some of the fire studies I've put into to Dropbox some some information that Glenn's been able to ascertain. The hard part with that though is we're also competing against volunteer fire departments like Flint Hill. Flint Hill is a very I'll call it a very lucrative volunteer fire department, you know, but when you've got Carowinds in your attack space, it helps a lot, right? But their volunteer fire department firefighters are paid. You know, I I think I think the term volunteer when it comes to fire department firefighters, it's not as much volunteer as what it once used to be, right? because they're they're having to cover that that 247, you know, uh type thing. But, you know, we're we're we're below what even, you know, just on some of our starting stuff, what even volunteer departments are, you know, so it's now should a firefighter in TK be making is, you know, starting firefighter to with EMT. Should they be making what a first year follower to EMT and Rock Hill should be? You know, on the surface level, I would say no because it's not comparative. you know, Rockills is massive city. You know, you number you know, calls run and things like that, budget size, people served, that kind of thing. It may not be comparable, but you know, for me to say that, I'll also admit that's probably pretty arbitrary on my part. You know, to to make that assumption, you know, getting the study is going to show us. I mean, the study may show us you're exactly where you need to be. You don't need to change anything. It may show us that we need to make big changes that we got to look at and be like, we can't afford all those changes, you know, so maybe we maybe we only need to do some of those changes and figure that out. But where we're at, where we need to be, I I'm going to have a hard time just with us as staff just trying to figure it out, if you will. You know, um there, you comparable cities. I mean, at one point, Bluton was a comparable city. I would not say Bluton is a comparable

city to TK. Bluff is probably the fastest growing city in South Carolina right now. Yeah. Um now it it's not in the top five, but it's it's growing exponentially. Yeah. But probably a similar cost of living is what we have here, you know. So it you know, there there's a lot of things that go into it that that a professional consultant is going to be able to identify, but as far as the things that they're looking at and and the things they're comparing it to, that's something we can dictate. Um, you know, once once we're able to make that selection, um, you know, there's there's things that we want to dictate we want to ask for in the RFPs that we haven't asked for before. You know, one thing that comes up from time to time um during the budget process is why do you need more employees? You know, we're not recommending anymore right now. You know, but that's something a consultant can look at as part of other compensation study that okay, based on cost, yeah, let's say in PD because everybody always says you have too many officers until your car is the one that's broken into or your house is the one that got robbed and where all the cops at, right? But it, you know, it can demonstrate to us based on calls for service, number of employees, square mileage of the city, this is how many officers you you should have, right? This is how many maintenance guys you should have, you know, and things like that. we can get that information and take some of that well we just know we're busy and we're not able to get to everything and that's why we need to hire add somebody you know it takes a lot of that out of it and gives us something more in black and white to look at uh in addition to you know are we are we at the right rates you know are our scales at the right level you know are our scales too low or heck they may even come back and say well your scales are actually a little bit too high your scales should be down to here not saying that okay we need to adjust the scales that but then thats to a different type of conversation. So that's that's why I think it's important that we do it just so we can stay up to date. Doesn't mean that anything comes from it, but it definitely will give us I would think very hard data be to be able to look at and have conversations on for sure.

Council member Jones has something to say.

Hi, thank you for that uh thorough explanation, Charlie. Um, I see where the stance of trying to see if there's an option to data share came from and I appreciate that. Uh, just to echo though, we've talked a lot about making data driven decisions as a council. So, I just feel and Charlie gave a really thorough explanation of all the exact reasons why doing our own study is important, but I just think it's important to emphasize if we're going to claim that, then we need to support collecting the data. And that is going to cost us something to do it as accurately for our city as possible and we are different. And I trust the professionals and I trust if our HR people are telling us they need this to make a informed decision and informed recommendations from our department heads that I I see the value of that money coming back to us and the return on investment. Um we didn't approve any of the personnel. It got redlined for the personnel requests that had initially been brought to us this year. You know what difference would that study make on that? I I think this is something that isn't worth being uh pennywise poor pound on in terms of if we're saying we want to work with the best data possible, let's make sure we're working with the best data possible, which means hiring the professionals to get our city's specific image for us. And that's just my thought on that.

Thank you, Charlie. When was the last one? 2019. It was on 2019. That's the date of the last study. Sure.

Positive. We got it back 21. I'm sorry, 2022. I apologize. It wasn't 2019. It was 2022. So, yeah, we're uh we are four years going into our fifth year without

I'm sorry. I was confusing dates compensation dates. Yes. 2022.

2022. I I do think it's valuable to have the data to um analyze where the positions are and where everything um aligns. I think it's valuable for our city staff and our employees that do such a wonderful job for our city day in and day out that we sit there and congratulate all the time and say thank you. We need to sit there and if there's potentially an opportunity for them to make more money or stay exactly or justify where their salary ranges are, I think we need to do that and something that we really need to look at. Um It's just it's beneficial and hopefully we can look at that and and they'll understand that we are looking forward we're looking to them and making sure that they are getting the salary and the compensation especially with the economy the way it is, the inflation that's risen and the gas price and all that kind of stuff that they don't just stay where they are but they could potentially rise or the study like I said will justify where they're at and keep it that way. I would like to see the compensation study um funded

and council in full transparency. I I'll tell y'all the same thing I've told some department heads. Just because we do a compensation study doesn't mean that people are all a sudden going to start getting races either. Yeah. And I I told be very clear with your staff on that. Just because we do a study doesn't mean things are going to absolutely change. Um I don't know how much they will change if they change at all. uh and it may be recommended changes coming in that we've got to figure out, you know, if we can even do anything with it. You know, council has has done a a fantastic job and is very much appreciative um with staff salaries. Um I'll say for sure over the last six or seven years. For sure. Absolutely. Um, you know, and again with with even going into into this projected fiscal year of a 3% goal and up to a 1% U merit increase, you know, based on annual reviews, I mean, yeah, there there are still cities out in South Carolina that, you know, they're not doing raises, can't do raises, you know, I mean, and that's just fact of the matter of where they're at economically. Um, you we've always tried to attract the best, most qualified people we can to come in. Um, and I think for the most part, we've been able to do that thanks to where council has allowed us to to adjust salaries, you know, year-over-year and things like that, but we've still got some, especially in our maintenance departments where it's it's hard to even get resumes in, get applications in. You know, we had two part maintenance and I I'll just use those as as an example because it's the most recent where Dustin went six, eight months with no application whatsoever, you know, and finally got one or two in and was able to to fill position. But it's, you know, now you're just interviewing just because, well, I got open spots and I need somebody to interview and you're not being able to select from the best. You're selecting from what's just available. Um, you know, police department went through that where, you

know, they they were down big time. Couldn't get an application in. Yeah. Council made that adjustment and it has been phenomenal with the adjustment the council did a couple years ago. Um, to where we're able to be selective. We're able to choose and get that best fit, you know, and not just, well, I got an open position. I really need to cut back on overtime, so this one will do. you know, you're you're able to get in a good quality officer or per person for that position. And that's ultimately that's that's what we want to strive to do. You know, the better the people we can get and keep, you know, the better we we're going to be able to serve serve the community. So, um that's that's my spiel. I I know that was a very long way of answering a very brief question. Sorry about that. But

I I don't um I don't begrudge wanting to and compensating for the good people that we have. I think that, you know, if if if what we're hearing is that a compensation study is going to give us the right type of information to make those decisions, I'm also going by what I heard you say, which is that looking at compensation studies that other communities around us have done doesn't really tell us what we need to know, but yet that's the data that we're going to get. Um, you've also said that we're not really competing against the municipalities that are close to us, but yet that's the data that's going to be used in order to set our compensation study. I don't have a problem with having a compensation study. I just want to make sure that what we're getting from it is is is information that is actually going to

give us the data that we need to make these decisions and not just information. And I think we're in a different position now than we were with the last one because as I said in the last one we were losing people and and when I say losing people, you know, I Dora Dora did some analysis to where our biggest month where we would lose people last last year was May. It was five people, you know, so we're not losing tons of people across the board, you know. Um, and and again, I will say it's not a matter of us losing them to the other local agencies around us, but when we're trying to attract the new candidates, you know, they've got openings, we've got openings, and being competitive to be able to attract those people and get get that seat at the table, if you will. That's where the competition comes in more so than losing somebody from here to to there, if that makes sense. is being able to battle against them, compete against them to be able to get those those employees or get a chance of those.

Dora, your name has been brought up several times in this conversation and we've heard from other department heads. I would love to hear from you to give us the HR perspective of what this does. And while Door is walking up, I just had a question she might or Charlie might be able to answer. We did the compensation study before. Was that updated every time we gave raises?

The scales have been. Yeah. Yes, sir. I've I've adjusted the scales every year uh based on what the cola was. Y that's why that's why I don't know that the scales are going to get adjusted very much through a compensation study. Uh but they could. Yeah. But we we've been keeping up with the scales and that was something I started back in 2013. Uh well, no, 2015 with that because we did one in 2015, right, Dora? U. So that's something that we've been doing is every year through the budget with with the salary schedules is adjusting those scales based on whatever the the cola percentages.

Well, when we did do the U compensation study in 2022, we did find out that we were not competitive, that the market had changed and it presented a 8% increase at that time. So what we want to do is we want to make sure that our salaries are competitive and what we have done now we have a document that we've done in 2022 and as all of you know we have had the public safety to come in and make comparison to other entities and we have moved their salaries on the grades but everyone else that's a part of the city of work here We have not had our salaries compared since 2022. So now we in a unstable market. We just need to know where we are.

Make sure the grades are still where they need to be. Make sure we pay excuse paying our employees what they are worth. And the grades are the mid, the maximum, the minimum, the mid, the maximum, and it gives you a different grade 16 to we got one through 75. So this is just going to give us a nonbias report and it's going to give us something that we can say to the employees. They say, well, how did you put this person this way? How did you come up with that? So it takes us out. Those are questions we do get.

We do get. So that just takes us out of we have these consultants that give us this document. This is I guide this is what we go by to make sure that we are paying people. So it goes beyond the dollar amounts. It it gives you very specific criteria on moving as as that criteria has changed over the last five years on how each employee moves and progresses through through their their their their scales with specific skills and certifications etc that are needed to move and that could have changed as well in in that time frame

and that's what I was looking for what are we going to get by paying this that we wouldn't get by asking Fort Mill what do you pay your guy right right yes and they have this booklet there's a little booklet that the consultants ask each and every employee to complete and they ask questions and then they're also going to sit down talk to them to make sure they do understand their we have job description for every position that we have. So they are reviewed you know I guess in the next job descriptions do change and we do have other and we do not know how to be fair

and we don't want and I don't want someone to come in and say hey Dana's making this talk about money no matter what. So we want to be fair to all of them and then we want to make sure that they are being paid competitive too since we have not went out and checking and brought to you all. Dana is the procurement person and bring it to you all to make a decision on giving the rest of a chance to have their

Yeah. So, I think um yeah, the the 60,000 it just seems like a large amount. However, um if the data that you get helps informs your decisions, then I'll trust that. Um I see it as an investment in our people and making sure that we're treating our our employees the way that they deserve to be treated. So in for me psychologically, if I just say, well, if we break that into five years, it's $12,000 a year to guarantee that we're making the best data driven decisions for our folks. I can I can justify that. So if you're telling me that that's the data that you need, then then I trust that that's the data we need. a lot easier. I I like that it standardizes the positions.

Um you're you're able to to across it's not just about the dollars. Correct. It's about skill set certifications. U you know it's it's standardizing and I appreciate you answering that because that's what I was trying to figure out in my head. If if we're not doing it because of the dollars and the information that we get from other municipalities is not because of the dollar doesn't matter the dollars then why is it? But that explains the thought process behind needing that. Thank you. And I have a little information I can email you guys. Thanks

to the qu questions uh or things that we need to discuss on general fund as we work to wrap up our final budget workshop.

I'm good. general fund. But going back to the key T cut discussion, te cut discussion. Uh yeah, totally understand. And when it comes to the the leaf truck, um I know that we can't shift funds to that. Uh but I think again being good stewards of of of our total budget, you know, I want to look for ways that if we are spending that money, looking for areas in other budgets where we can recoup some of that or creative thinking outside the box. So hopefully, you know, H tax revenue, you know, comes in at in a higher number. I can't I can't pay for a relief back with H tax. I know that.

No, no, no. I'm just saying as a total budget. I know I'm not talking about budget, but for the residents of TK, we are being good stewards of tax dollar money. And so that's how I'm approaching that. Understood. Mayor Tom,

I think I have more of a question for you in in in understanding all of this there. there. This year you're every department provided so much more detail on what the what you were spending your money on, how it was allocated. Um and and that was really really helpful overall. I can follow and track. Um as a council person, I can look at the the total numbers and say, "Yeah, it it seems reasonable. It's not outside of of what would seem reasonable.

But I guess where I want to rely on you uh specifically as as the city manager, as someone that is in in those departments day-to-day, understands their expenses, understands their budgets, understands the way that they process their accountability for those budgets.

My question is, are you okay with every line item as it's been presented? Are you comfortable that what they're asking for is reasonable and necessary? Are you comfortable telling us as your council, I have looked at all of this. I have looked at the line items. I have looked at the year-over-year um increases. I've looked at where the adjustments have been made and I am solid that this is the best budget that we can present to you. or do you feel that there's a place that you might be able to go to and say, you know what, there's two or three, four, five items here that I think that can be possibly adjusted.

Um, so I'll say as we sit here on April the 27th, I feel like this is a fantastic budget. um on March the 27th, I did not feel like this was going to be a great budget to be quite honest. You know, but the the further we can get into a into a year, especially when we're relying on data from other entities, i.e. York County or the state or things like that, you know, Bob got an assessment port report in March and I was like, I don't know how we're gonna make this budget work. This does not make sense. And then we got the updated assessment report in April. It's like, oh, okay, this budget really works. Because my my mindset always going into the budget is what have I been hearing from council, you know, either directly or just indirectly through things I've heard from the deis or in just general conversations, right? One thing that I've heard loud and clear, um, and I'll go all the way back to last year, right, is we're not looking for new, but we want to keep the old things new. You know, we want to reinvest in the things that we have. We're not looking to grow. You know, if I go back to um former Mayor O'Neal's council, you know, it was we needed new, you know, there there were certain items that we absolutely needed like a new police station. Um if you don't believe we needed a new one, walk through the current operations building that was the old police station, right? Uh we needed Kataba Park. There was a time period where I thought Kataba Park was just going to be this big revenue driver for the city with hosting all these tournaments, things like that. By the time we got around to being able to build the thing, we needed for our own local programs, you know, because we're bursting at the seams, you know. Um I thought I did a good job as a parks recreation director and then I brought Joey in and he tripled the number of people, you know, and then we brought Dustin in and it went even went even further, right? And it's we we got to have that, you know. So So the focus, you know, so I I'll go back to former Mayor Shepard. It was we got to build up

a reserve fund because we don't have a reserve fund. That was the focus. And then under former mayor O'Neal, it was okay, now we got to catch up on things that we held off on. U now we're getting to a part where, okay, now we need to maintain. We're always going to need replacement vehicles, replacement equipment, always. Um, you know, the cost of doing business is going to go up every single year. Yeah. Dana and I were joking today. I said, I wish I could buy a ream of paper for, you know, today what I could have five years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Those those are costs that we can't control. But now what I will say is uh it I'll go back to on April 27th we are forecasting out basically 15 months. Yeah because we're going all the way to June 30th of next year. I think this is a very very solid budget and I feel extremely comfortable with it. Um I also know that I've got a lot of faith in my department heads and I know that every single one of them they're g they're going to pinch pennies everywhere they can. You know I mean time in and time out. Um my chiefs like to a different way. Who gave money back? Well, you didn't have the money to begin with. It's all in one pie. You can give it back. But yeah, that they they they the they look and try to find ways to to save where they can without sacrificing the operation, the the the the efficiencies and the service that we're we're we're delivering. Uh so I I know that going into this we're going to have revenues that are going to come in higher than what we're projecting in in some areas, right? U we're we're definitely going to find ways to save monies. Um you our department heads do. Um you know, but this is this is a forecast. Yeah. I mean, ultimately that's what budgets are. They're they're a forecast. Here's what we think sitting right here today is going to happen over the course of from July 1 to June 30th of next year. Um you know, and as things happen that are beyond our control, the uh unexpected things, I've always had a good team here where I everybody stop. If it's not mission critical, I need you to stop. We're

going to pause that project right now because this revenue didn't materialize. You know, I'll go back to um 2019. We had just started our budget year or no, we had just gotten second read on the budget and get a call from the county and said, "Oh, we messed up on your tax projections, huh? By half a million dollars." Excuse me. What What are you talking about? I didn't come back to council and ask, you know, to to change budgets. I sat down with my department heads. I said, "Okay, here's how much we we're going to trim off and set to the side. You know, we're not going to spend these. So, you identify where in your budgets you can make those cuts without sacrificing the services uh that that were delivered, you know, and they did that. Now, come to find out we had CO that it's like, okay, everybody stopped doing everything at this point, but we survived CO glowingly." uh you know, comparatively speaking, but I know that based on the team that we've got, um this is a fantastic budget. Um you know, Bob, you've said it multiple times to me over the last couple weeks. This is a great budget. Um you I think we've accomplished the the tasks that have been

it is, but I think we've accomplished through this budget uh key things that I've heard from council. Um you know, setting up a capital reserve fund. Um, yeah, that's a big thing. Uh, it's something Bob and I have talked about it on and off over the years, but just never had the funds to do it. Other things were taking priorities and this year we made it a priority. Let's get this done. And, you know, 300,000 isn't isn't, you know, I mean, that's game changing money.

It's 300,000 plus whatever plus plus a half of whatever uh revenues over expenditures, which is a great idea. Um, you know, and that's that's something that that we're going to continue to monitor, continue to watch, and as you as those tax holes come in, you know, especially by February, you know, of next year. Okay, now we know what our taxes are really looking like on this fiscal year. And maybe it is the 9.4, maybe it's 9.5. You know, the auto tax revenue, I think right there, that in and of itself is a low number what we've got budgeted. Yeah, we we take our our revenues and factor them in very very conservatively and then we work to make the expenses fit, you know. So, um yeah, there there are certain things that that you know, some some were staff requests, some were conversations with council, and we're going to hold off on these things right now, you know. Uh doesn't mean that they're not needed, but we can we can wait a minute and let's let's let's find let's see what we can do on those things. Um, you know, the same same even with golf. You know, hey, you know, David Taylor and I had a conversation just today about the uh the the nine the greens on the cove about the need to replace those. I was like, you're already shutting down the cove for a period of time with redoing the the cart path and the tree work and things like that. We need to kick that a year. Is it going to kill the golf course for us to kick it one year? No. No, it's not. But when we do, we can start driving more revenue from golf because we can charge on the code what we charge on the pines. you know what we charge on Grand View. So now we can bring in more revenue to recoup that cost. Um but yeah, long story short, which I know that's too late at this point, as your city manager, yes, I believe this is a fantastic budget and I think it accomplishes a lot of if not all of the goals that council set forth.

Thank you. Um Yes, ma'am. I also wanted to say that the the goals that each department the written goals that each department has presented I don't think that that's something that you guys have have done correct um before that is correct

it was very meaningful to be able to kind of read and see your visions for each of your departments and see where you thought your um you know your priorities were because then that gives us an idea of where where that accountability comes comes in. So, I would love to see those published because I think that our residents would also like to see what it is that each one of you is taking accountability for and what direction you want to take your departments in for this um for this year. I think it's important for for people to understand and know not just where the money's being spent or how much money is being spent, but what exactly is it that you're you envision for it. So, thank you for doing that. I know that was all extra work and a lot a lot that went into this whole process, not just in in all of the spreadsheets, but in the thought process of of why you were putting in those requests. So, thank you.

Absolutely. Anything else? Yeah, I'll just say thanks to staff. I know, and I apologize. I know I ask a lot of questions. is not that I don't trust you or believe you, but I I ask it so I understand it and so anybody that watches this understands it um and justifies these needs. But you guys do a wonderful job. Thank your staff. Um and I will end with my annual impact fees are ending. So we already saw $100,000 drop this year. So again, and that's one of the reasons I always push back like the comp study. I'm not saying it's not needed. It was I saw it. I said it's a big number. Maybe there's alternative,

right? There isn't. Fine. Um, I'm good with that. Uh, but, uh, uh, you know, this capital plan, I'm hoping we can get in front of this over the next four to five years. Yes. Once the Grove's done, there ain't no room in that. So, um, and we got, as we saw with your capital request, we got a lot of, so hopefully we can get a lot of this taken care of. But just thank you all so much. Thank your staff for me. Um, I know they gave a lot of input to this. So, thank you so much. Absolutely. The only real question for me is just I think it's basically the leaf truck. I'm I'm just I don't know what what answer you were looking for with when all of this started.

So for for all of those uh the capital lease requests that we have which would include the leaf truck, we're going to hang tight right now on those because those don't have a budgetary impact to begin with for for uh for 26 27. We're going to get the uh we're going to we're going to call the company and see if we can get a demo set up with that truck. Um, and once we know when that'll be, uh, I'll push a message out to council so y'all can see. That way it helps y'all with an informed decision, um, you know, it may lead you to, you know, reinforce it. Yes, this is absolutely the way to go. Then that's the way we'll go. Uh, or it may bring you to a to an opinion or understanding that, oh, this this ain't going to work for us. This is not a good backup. And yeah, at least at least we can all see it, feel it, and and understand it completely as compared to what we have now and what we're looking for. And then we can uh you know, and then when it's time to do that resolution and bring it back to council, uh it will either uh at that point, you know, y'all will have made that decision and and given that direction and it'll either include the Leafac truck or it won't. And then we'll have that conversation um next fiscal year. Um, I'd like to basically say some of the same things. You know, we we're asking questions, you know, for my part to to to better understand. Um, you know, I don't I don't have the institutional knowledge, you know, working in the departments and understanding your budgets. I absolutely do do trust that our department heads uh are are going into this with a fiscal conservative mindset, being the best stewards of our taxpayer dollars that you can. And I know you guys, you know, execute phenomenally on on lean budgets. We see it month over month. And so if we challenge things, um it's from um from our sense of responsibility too to make sure that we're financially sustainable. It's not challenging or questioning your decision-m. It's to help us understand and then see where can we need to cut back a little bit so we can spend, you

know, pay for some of the capital improvement things as an example. So um we we trust that you guys put forward the best budget. Thank you for the detailed explanation. This has really been helpful for me. Um, you know, I'm excited for the, you know, the direction we're headed as a city. I think we're making some good solid judgments and yes, I would definitely like to see where this leaf truck thing goes to. That's just not a sticking point. And we're going to do the best thing for the city at the end of the day. We absolutely will make sure we're providing the services, the amenities that the that our residents, you know, deserve. So, that's, you know, basically where I'm coming at this, you know, in terms of my question. But thank you everybody for your support. Really appreciate it.

I think we've gotten through council comments without me calling for them. I was just talking general fund at this point, but I think the only person we haven't heard from is uh council council member Jones. Council member Jones,

thank you. Uh sorry I couldn't be there tonight in person. I appreciate you letting me call in. Um I will just echo. Thank you so much to the staff, Charlie. You guys put a lot of work into this and the details were phenomenal. Um, it made a lot of this very easy to understand, very transparent for our residents. You know, it it's also I want to thank the rest of council. We all bring our perspectives to this on behalf of the residents and of ourselves. And it's always good to have those discussions and for the residents to hear us having those discussions to know that the considerations are being made. Um, you know, I appreciate some of the conversations about personnel and the comp studies and uh I'm hopeful that some of the decisions we've made will help to allow us to fund more of this stuff moving forward because it is a juggling act and kudos to everybody who's put the work into getting this budget together. Um as Bob said 15 months is a ambitious projection. So thank you. That's that's all I've got tonight.

Thank you. So I think that this brings us to the end of our second budget workshop and I would like to have a motion to adjurnn. Please second. All those in favor I we are ajourned.