City Council - Regular Meeting

afternoon. If I could have your attention, we will get our meeting called to order. Um it is 5:30 on a beautiful Monday in Tiffan, Georgia. So, um glad to have everyone here this evening so we can conduct the business of the city. Um the prayer and pledge will be offered tonight by Council Member Josh Reynolds. So Josh, I'll turn that over to you and thank you for um volunteering to do that. Sure. If gracious, Father Lord, we thank you for this day and we thank you for giving us a time to fellowship. Lord, we just ask for your your guidance and your wisdom as we handle the fifth of the city. Lord, it's thy gracious name we do pray. Amen. Amen. Please stand.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Josh. All right, gentlemen. You have the agenda before you. We do have just a couple of changes or just actually just one change. Um you'll notice under new business item number three on our agenda is the presentation of the 2025 audit uh by Justin Elliot with Malden and Jenkins. And Justin cannot be here tonight. He has the flu.

So we will postpone that and uh pick that up probably at our next meeting for him to present that. But other than that uh the agenda is before you. So I will take a motion concerning approval or any changes. Move approve. Okay. So, we have a motion. Second. So, motion and a second. Any further discussion? All in favor, please say, "I." I. Any opposed? And that does carry. All right. Uh, we have um the minutes from our January the 20th meeting and our February the 2nd meeting are in your packet. So, you've had a chance to review those and uh make sure everything looks accurate. It always does because Jessica does such a great job, Jessica and Morgan both, uh, and making sure our minutes are uh complete. Uh, but I'll take a motion concerning the approval of those minutes that are in your packet. Move to approve.

Okay. Second. So, we have a motion, a second. Any further discussion? All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? And that carries as well. And I'm going to assume we have no public comment. Would that be correct?

Okay. All right. Uh, gentlemen, we have the consent agenda. Uh, and as you know, we can take these items together. The first item on that agenda is uh regarding the abandonment of that portion of Sunny Brook Avenue and um for the school system and Jessica was informing me that um she has spoken with uh the representative and they are going to have that surveyed at their expense to create the legal description that will allow for that abandonment. But we can go ahead with your comfortable with this and go ahead and approve that um or not approve it if you'd rather not. But whatever we we we can add that legal description later. Is that accurate statement? Okay. And then the other item is um to award the RFP for auditing service to Maldin and Jenkins. So if you'd like to take them together, uh we'll take a motion concerning how you'd like to handle those.

Make a motion to take both of them together. Okay. Do you want to go ahead and include approving those? Yes. Okay. So we have a motion to take them together and to approve. Is there a second? We have a second. Any further discussion? All in favor, please say I. Any opposed? And that also carries. All right. Like I said, we moved uh item number three, the the 2025 audit presentation. We'll pick that up at our next meeting, but I'm going to call on our financial guru, Mr. Larry Lawrence, to present us with the financial report, and that is in your packet to follow along with.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Uh we're seven months through this fiscal year and everything is right on schedule. Uh looking at the general fund, total revenues through January is 11,762 320 total expenditures 11,367751 with net revenues over expenditures of 394,568. Uh we we did get in on the property taxes we had like 600,000 outstanding through December. We got in another 90,000 in January. So, we're probably down to about 500,000 outstanding now, but that'll continue to trickle in as they uh go through the appeal process and get those resolved. So,

okay. Hopefully, we'll see some more of that 500,000 that's outstanding. Uh we do have some other big revenue items coming in in this quarter. Uh the franchise taxes will be coming in and the occupational taxes. So, the com combination of those two is about 2 million which will help us finish out the year. So we we're in good shape. Our total expenditures are right in line with where we expected to be seven months into the year. So everything looks good in the general fund.

Uh looking at the enterprise funds, all those funds are looking also they're looking good. Uh the water fund total revenues 2,81624 total expenditures 2,08578 debt revenues over expenditures 731,046. The sewer fund also looking good. Total revenues 3,394713. Total expenditures 2,ion595300. And net revenues over expenditures 799,412. Gas fund total revenues 3,251769. Total expenditures 2,715309. Net revenues over expenditures 536,459. uh solid waste fund total revenues 2,760770 total expenditures 2,242923 with net revenues over expenditures 517,846 uh and next month on the uh solid waste fund Bob uh Bobby will probably tell you about but we're trying to get a joint resolution with the county and the city to go up on the tipping fees. Okay.

Where we can shore up the the revenues on the solid waste fund. Sure. Because with the expansion of the landfill, we'll have a big construction phase, which is probably going to be 2 and 12 to $3 million. We already have 2 million set aside, but we're going to need some additional funds to finish out that expansion. So, that's what the tipping fee will be, plus shoring up some of the operations, too, to help on the operational side. So, it'll be about a 50/50 use on that increasing the tipping fee. Okay. All right. Any questions, gentlemen, from the information that we received with Ethan? Good. All right. Thank you, Larry. Appreciate that report.

Appreciate the work that your department does to uh watch those pennies. Um well, we have a our new city manager came back to work again today. I was so proud when I called and he answered the phone. Didn't run. Didn't run. Do you have anything you'd like to I know it's been a whirlwind. You may not. If you don't, that's fine because I know there's I know we Well, you know, it's been two days, so get my feet wet and I think I got up to my knees. So, there you go. Which that's okay. And the support that I've been receiving has been a blessing and really needed uh

to help me know that I made the right decision and um I'm definitely looking forward to the future. Um like you said, as far as our our finance department is amazing. I have sat down with Larry and Miss Lisa and they have schooled me quite well the last few days which is great. Yeah, it's great to have that. Um and as Mr. Larry said, I have reached out to the county and we're waiting to hear from them back. So

Okay, very good. Well, we are really excited and um I know we have all received texts and comments just like you have about um people being very thrilled that you're in this position and and um so we just have we're just going to move forward and continue on our path of excellence and uh do the best we can to work uh for the people of Tiffan. All right. Um Rob, is there any reason for executive session tonight? Anything we need to go over? Okay. All right. Well, we'll uh this may be a record meeting time. Eight minutes. Um business is good. Things are happening. Any count uh council comments y'all like to throw out there? Anything?

We can. Yeah. You want to talk about it? No, you don't. It's just a reminder.

I love that. Do you want to talk about it? Because I don't. No, just we do want to remind this is very very important. I just want to remind people that on Tuesday, uh January the 17th, we will have our um short and pock site at 6:00 pm. So, uh we need all the input that we can get uh for people to come out and share with us what your ideas are, what your thoughts are. Um there's a core group of people that have been working diligently on this. Abby, Morgan, Jessica, is there anything we need to add at this point other than the six o'clock meeting? What did I say? Oh, Lord.

It is February. It is 2026, right? I don't know why I said January. I don't know where I got you. I'm looking at February. Anyway, sorry about that. It's February. You had a funny look, Abby. That's what it was. Anything else we need to add besides the fact that it is February the 20 uh 17th, not the uh not January? Just be there at six. Be there at six with your ideas.

There you go. And um also we want to u Caroline has been working on ways to um make it easier for people to engage with the city if they want to contact us as council members or um if they have a question or a concern. Caroline, you want to talk real quick about the um the QR code and just, you know, so that people know what they need to do and and what we can what they can how they can engage with us and then the text messaging and everything that we've been talking about.

Sure. So, we've got a lot of outlets that residents can get in contact with our council that people may not know. All of y'all's information is wide open on our website, so I hope people will use that more often. There's your phone number, their um email address, so please utilize that. that we also have a mass notifications capability where you can sign up for notifications about events um sometimes emergency alerts um and and things like that that we can get to you. Um so be sure to sign up for that if you have any questions. You can reach out to me um and just come by city hall, stop by, I'll give you all the ends to it.

Perfect. Excellent. And that website is uh tiffan.net. So you can go there and uh it's pretty easy to navigate around and find that information. But if you if you run into a snag, um you can call Caroline and she'll be glad to help you. All right. Any any other anything, gentlemen, that you want to share? Dinner at Ro. No, that got his attention. All right. Well, um it's good to see all of you and um if there's no further business, we are adjourned. Thank you.