City Council - Regular Meeting

Lord, we thank you for the privilege and the opportunity together today. We're so very appreciative to our first responders for their selflessness and their service in protecting our city and our community. And to all our city staff for the tireless work that they do to make our city and our community a better place. May we be good stewards with humble hearts who listen and act with both intention and with purpose. We pray in your name. Amen.

All right, I'll entertain a motion on the minutes from July 22nd.

Move to approve the minutes from July 22nd. Second.

I have a motion by Councilman Nichols and a second by Councilwoman Dark-Bays. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Minutes are approved. Ms. Cassandra E. Warren.

Good morning, Mayor and Council.

Good morning.

Cassandra Brager, City Clerk. I'm coming to you today requesting that the City Council consider adoption of an ordinance canceling the election for the City of Tyler City Council Member for District 1, scheduled for November 3rd, 2026, and declaring the unopposed candidate for the City of Tyler City Council Member for District 1 elected to office. The Texas Election Code allows for the cancellation of the election under certain circumstances and to declare each unopposed candidate elected to office. The current Tallahassee City Council election for District 1 meets these criteria for cancellation since the respective candidate whose name is to appear on the ballot is unopposed and no proposition is to appear on the ballot. I have prepared a certificate of unopposed status, and I will read that into the records. I, Cassandra Brader, City Clerk of the City of Tyler, Texas, hereby certify that when the deadline of 5 p.m. on August 17, 2026 passed, only the following unopposed candidate had filed an application for a place on the ballot, and no one filed a declaration of write-in candidacy for the Tyler City Council election scheduled to be held November 3, 2026. City Council District 1, David Long. This unopposed status and the fact that no proposition is scheduled to appear on the ballot for District 1 will permit the Taller City Council take advantage of a Texas Election Code, Section 2.051 through 053, which allows the City Council to counsel the election and declare the unopposed candidate elected to office. So the unopposed candidate will be sworn in, will not be sworn in until after the election day, which will be November 3rd. And at that time, the governing body will issue a certificate of election to the unopposed candidate, and he will be sworn into office in the same manner as provided for the candidate elected at an election. So I'm requesting that the city council consider adoption of an ordinance, cancel the election for the city of Tyler city council member for district one scheduled for November 3rd, 2026. and declare the unopposed candidate for the city of Tyler council member for district one elected to office.

Cassandra, will he be sworn in on the third or will he be sworn in at the council meeting in November?

We will do a special council meeting on November 10th.

10th, okay. All right, and I believe Mr. Long is, there he is, he's back there. Congratulations, Mr. Long. We look forward to having you as part of our council. All right, I'll entertain a motion to approve B1.

Move to approve E1.

I have a second. I second. I have a motion to approve E1 by Councilman Nichols and a second by Councilwoman Marsh. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

We'll see you in San Antonio there, Mr. Long.

Congratulations. P1, Cameron.

Good morning, Mayor, Council.

Good morning.

Cameron Williams, Director of Engineering Services. We have a presentation this morning on our 2026 pavement condition assessment. It's something that we do about every four years and report out to track how our pavement's doing. I don't want to go into too many details. I want to turn it over to Cody Bain, who's our project engineer, who oversees that program, and let him give that presentation to you.

Good morning, Mayor and Council. Good morning. I haven't met some of you. My name is Cody Bain. I'm the engineer with the engineering department, primarily responsible for our road maintenance, road improvement projects. Today we're going to be talking about our pavement condition index, which we hired ARA applied research associates in September of 2025 to drive every single one of our roads to give them a grade from zero to 100, just like in grade school. Whereas 100 is perfect grade and zero is a failed grade. They've done this and they presented us with the results and I'd like to go over some of those with you. The last time we did this was in 2021, where our network overall PCI was 72.2, so about a C grade. Back in 2021, we had 471 centerline miles of roadway. Today, our PCI has actually risen to 76.2, but our centerline miles has also risen to 553. So if you try to compare apples to apples, our PCI has really gone down by about a point to 71.5 if you take out all the new roads that have been built. Here is that explanation. In map view, it's a little hard to see what's going on on that map, but the important thing to see is that there's a lot of green and yellow on that map with some red and pink scattered around. We take the PCI and we categorize it in groups just to help visualize it a little bit better. So we categorize it good, satisfactory, fair, poor, very poor, serious, and failed. And then brick streets and not collected. Brick streets do get a grade, but it's not PCI. It's an equivalent type grade, but it doesn't directly correlate, so it's not presented in this data today. So looking at our network overall, most of our center line miles, as you can see, are in fair or better condition, which is good, but the issue is is that treatments for roads that are in poor or worse condition increase by two and a half to 23 times as expensive as treating roads that are in fair to satisfactory and good condition. Broken down further into arterials, collectors, and locals, you can see that the locals control really the overall PCI because there are many, many more centerline miles of local roads, which are mainly residential roads. But if removing lane miles from the equation, you can see it on that graph to the right. on this graph that our collectors overall are in better shape than the others and our arterials are kind of lagging behind and those are mainly due to a few rows that are dragging the arterials down. But none of this really means that much to the citizens. What they feel is what the road feels like when they're driving on it, which is what the IRI or the International Roughness Index is. And this is just a measurement of the ride quality based on inches of deflection per mile, as long as you're going over 15 miles an hour. Our roads... 75% of our rows are under 420. The lower the score, the better. 50% are under 300. And basically what that means is frequent to minor depressions and surface imperfections is kind of where we're hanging out. Here's that same data in a line graph. What this basically says is the Tyler roads as far as roughness are, I'd say, decent. Not great, but not terrible either. How we'll use this data is to when we have two roads that are similar PCIs or two groups of roads that are similar PCIs, we can use this data to help decide, okay, which ones should we redo this year? If they're rougher, then that'll have a greater impact on the citizens' quality of life. So as I alluded to earlier, the cost of the road improvements goes exponentially up as the PCI goes down. So there on the left hand side, you can see the PCI range. And then the second column, you can see the type of treatment. So a reconstruction is you basically digging out the road, rebuilding the entire thing from the soil all the way up through the pavement. a mill and overlay, you're just replacing the top layer of asphalt, and then everything under that is a type of surface treatment that we try to do. But in that fourth column there, you can see that These surface treatments are much cheaper than everything else and reconstructions are very, very expensive. So everything that we can do to keep our roads out of those poor to very poor serious failed categories is money well spent. So ARA, part of what their job was to do is to run some budget scenarios for us. They ran 10 scenarios. The first one being keeping our budget as is, and what does that do to our PCI going forward for the next five years? And then they ran several scenarios where we increased the budget a certain amount, and then one, to maintain our PCI as it currently is, and then a budget scenario to get us to a target of 80. And then they also do a do nothing and an unlimited just, those are more as kind of benchmark scenarios. Obviously, we're not, we don't have unlimited budget. I mean, do we? Just, I mean, I had to check. But there are two of these scenarios that I thought would be good to just quickly focus on. This funding scenario number one, which is where we don't change anything from our current budget. You can see that our PCI just kind of steadily goes down. And budget funding scenario number seven, which would be maintaining our current PCI and what that would cost. Now, there is a typo there. It says 4.5 million a year. That should be 8.5 million a year. So just so you're aware. Ultimately, these budget scenarios are good as a baseline or a reference for us, but they're a snapshot in time, and they are really just balancing numbers on a spreadsheet. There is a drawback to the way that our consultant is able to do it, and you can see that here in funding scenario seven. The good PCI roads just goes way up, but you can still see that the poor, very poor, serious and failed have increased, which that's not a decision that we would be making in reality, right? We would not let our roads fail, some roads fail while others are just fantastic. So these are good for baselines, but kind of limited in how useful they are. So what we're gonna do is take our new pavement management software, DOT, which has the ability to do a true optimization of our budgets, and we're gonna use the ARA budgets as a baseline and a reference, a ballpark figure for us, and optimize everything in DOT and we'll come to you at a future council meeting to make a formal recommendation on future budgets. As of right now, we have programmed into the half cent sales tax fund The typical amount that we have budgeted for in addition to an additional 1.5 million for street reconstructions, that'll help take care of some of those arterials that are in need of addressing a reconstruction.

Cody, on that crack seal forecasted funding, is that taking into consideration bringing that crew in-house now?

Yes, so the crack seal, the streets department is working on bringing a crew in-house to take care of some crack seal and some of the base repairs that are needed on the asphalt enhancement and the surface treatment projects. So that ought to help a little bit with the half cent funds.

Does that also help increase the longevity of our lane miles and hopefully that PCI index number?

Yes, yes. So crack seals, basically what a crack seal does is it seals cracks in the road and why that's important is water gets down into those cracks and in the winter it can freeze, but in general it just degrades. It can wash out the base. It increases the pace at which the pavement degrades. So if we can seal those cracks, it can prolong the life of the pavement. Any other questions?

I have a question. On the chart with the treatment types, I'm kind of learning about some of this. So the crew that we're bringing in-house, is crack seal going to be the maximum level that they would be able to accomplish? Or could they do the chip seal or the ONYX treatments as well?

Right now they have the equipment to be able to do crack seals. They also have the equipment to be able to do base repairs for us, which for reference, our asphalt enhancement project, which is where we do most of our mill and overlay, requires base repairs, which are spot repairs in the street. So if we have a big pothole or a place where the street is rutted really bad, we've gotta repair that base down to a deeper level before we can mill an overlay. That took up this year about between $600,000 and $700,000 of our $3.7 million budget just in base repairs. So if we can do that in-house for a lower cost, that'll help stretch our dollars. So they will have the ability to do that crack seal and base repairs. At this time, they won't be able to do any of the other treatments.

And I guess one more question. I saw that the collector and the arterials were listed for the reconstruction and for the mill and overlay. Is it an option to do the crack seal and some of the other treatments to the arterials and the collectors, or are those mainly reserved for the locals?

Yes, we can do crack seal on any street. Onyx GSB 88, are not really great for higher traffic roads, but we can do the chip seal, fog seal, cake seal on any road and crack seal. Thank you.

Anybody else have any questions for Cody or Cameron? I jumped in when you were still giving your presentation. Was there any other slides?

That was actually the last slide. That's it for me.

All right. Thank you, Cody. Thank you, Cameron. That's a presentation, so it doesn't need a vote.

So we will move on to R1 again.

Leanne Robinette, Director of Parks and Recreation. Good morning, Mayor. Good morning, Council.

Good morning.

I'm here to request, consider adoption of a resolution. The Parks Department is going to apply for the Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership Grant, which is funded through the National Park Service. We plan on applying for $750,000. It is a 50% matching grant. The funds would be used to develop and renovate Woldert Park. So years ago, we renovated a portion of Woldert, but we didn't get to really finish that. And so if you go to Woldert now, the tennis courts and the basketball courts are still pretty dilapidated. And this grant has to be used on outdoor recreation. So we thought this would be a good opportunity. If picked, we will be adding two pickleball courts, dedicated pickleball courts, because that's pretty high still on our citizens list. and then we will renovate the tennis court and the basketball court and apply for shade and shading. To apply for this funding, a resolution authorizing the application must be approved by the governor and body of the applicant according to the grant application criteria. So the request is that the city council consider adoption of a resolution, authorize the filing of application with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department for an outdoor recreation legacy partnership grant for Woldert Park and authorizing the city manager to take all actions needed to receive and expend funds.

Thank you, Leanne. Kudos to you and your staff for looking at creative ways to fund our parks department. Always. Always. Anybody have any questions for Leanne?

How much is the grant again?

We are applying for $750,000.

And you said it's a matching grant?

Mm-hmm. Yes, ma'am.

Can you explain that?

So we would also have to put in $750,000. Okay. And that would be from half cent?

Because I think we're looking at kind of making sure that that's plugged in in front, or is that from...

no this this one won't be um even available until summer of 2027. so by then it is in our uh wilder park is part of one of the master one of the master plan pieces in our implementation schedule so it would be from the landfill dumping fee so from yeah and tell them that we also have another application out already that also has a matching piece to it um Yes. So we also applied for a Texas Parks and Wildlife grant for $750,000 for Golden Road Park. Golden Road Park obviously is on our to-do list in our master plan and has been for quite some time. It hasn't been touched. And so we will also be waiting on that as well. So we have a really great grant writer, Christy Baker is here with us today. She's been

doing her thing and getting all these grants and it's a great problem to have but we have been approved for quite a bit of them lately so you said the 750 match comes from were you asked if he comes from half cents or no it's all a waste tipping fee the landfill dumping fee for the capital parks improvement

Tipping sounds better than dumping.

If we end up getting both grants, we would just have to rearrange our implementation schedule.

Which as we will see in Ed's presentation, we're going up slightly on that fee to help. Yeah. Yeah, I remember.

Clint, did you have something?

Yeah, Leanne, is there ever a risk of applying for two grants on the same year? Do those often both work out, or is there ever a strategy to prioritize to make sure we have a better chance of getting one?

Yes, because this won't even be decided until 2027, the summer of 2027. It wouldn't be implemented until the following year. So the one that we are applying for in regards to Golden Road would be a little sooner, I believe. Thanks.

Anybody else have any questions for you?

Yeah. So when we receive a grant like from Texas parks and wildlife, did they give you a date window that these funds must be spent in this fiscal year or by this certain time? Or do we have the flexibility to, to massage it in?

They do give us a date, but it's a pretty big window. Okay. Yes.

So both of the 750 K grants, the match will come from typically for the other one.

As of right now. Yes, ma'am. And both of these grants line up with our current implementation schedule for our master plan.

and the reason that that's important you know i remember the conversation and i had just given the funding sources because you also have you have stewart park that's currently construction on that one uh and then there's always requests for improvements of other parks here and there but then the piece that we have to remember and man's always good at reminding us is just the kind of making sure that if we get these grants that we have the funding available to also do our matching piece on that before we get too far ahead of ourselves on improvements at other parks to go along with it. And so that's the piece, the kind of the connector tie that we wanna make sure the council understands that goes with that.

Yes, sir.

Can we answer any questions? So you said all that to say that that money's already allocated, just in case the grant is accepted?

Yeah, if the grant is accepted, then because of the fiscal year that that will hit, that'll be after, I think, really you're done with that. If you do get the grant for Golden Road, then you can still, you know, you'll allocate that funding for that next year out of your park improvement fund, then towards this one.

All right, with that, I'll entertain a motion on R1. I move to approve R1. Second. All right, I have a motion to approve R1 by Councilman Marsh and a second by Councilman Dark-Bays. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? R1 is approved. Thank you. Thanks, Leah. Thanks, Leah. All right, Mr. Ed and Mr. Kedron.

Mayor Haney and City Council, as we come to the end of this year's budget process, I want to spend less time reviewing individual line items and more time talking about how we got here. Our budget is a roadmap and one that reflects our values as a city. People first, proactive, passionate, and purposeful. It shows what services our communities continues to ask for investment in. And when a budget asks for more of Tyler families, we have responsibility to show what they receive in return. That responsibility starts with the budget process itself. Every year we sit down with our departments and go through their budgets. We look at personnel, equipment, contracts, technology, and operating costs. We ask what is necessary, what can wait, what can be absorbed, and whether there is another way to provide the same or better service. That is the same kind of fiscal discipline families practice around their kitchen tables, and it is something that the city has practiced for decades. In the prior two presentations, you've seen how this budget includes several examples of where we challenge the way we have traditionally done things. Instead of continuing to contract some street maintenance work, we are proposing an in-house crew for crack sealing and base repairs. We expect that crew to allow us to complete nearly eight additional lane miles of asphalt enhancement and almost 17 additional lane miles of sealcoat, while saving approximately $200,000 in the first year and approximately half a million dollars in subsequent years. We are taking a similar approach with mowing our parks. Bringing that work back in-house requires upfront investment in employees and equipment, but we expect savings to grow from approximately $65,000 in the first year to over a quarter of a million dollars by fiscal year 2029. We are also using technology to get more out of the resources we already have. Our in-fleet cameras already traveling our streets on city vehicles will help us identify potholes and pavement problems. New route software for solid waste will help us evaluate routes and make more informed operational decisions. These are not cuts simply for the sake of cutting. They are examples of asking whether we can deliver more service for the same dollar or provide the same service for fewer dollars. It's also important to put Tyler's property tax rate into historical context. In 1994, the city's property tax was 53.36 cents per $100 of value. By 2007, Tyler had reduced that rate to 19.9 cents, cutting it by more than half. Since then, the rate has moved both up and down as the city's needs and financial conditions have changed. Even with the proposed fiscal year 2027 rate of 24.2063 cents, Tyler's rate remains less than half of what it was in 1994. Keeping our property tax rate this low has also shaped the way we fund city services. Historically, Tyler has relied heavily on sales tax to support the general fund. Today, sales taxes remain our largest general fund revenue source. And it's important to understand how that sales tax is divided. For every taxable dollar spent in Tyler, 6.25 cents goes to the state of Texas. Based on local sales activity, that represents approximately $265 million each year that is collected on purchases made here but is not available for the city to invest directly back into Tyler's general fund as it is sent to the state of Texas. So when we talk about Tyler as a retail center and the strength of our sales tax base, that activity does not translate dollar to dollar into resources available for city services. We have historically had to make our local share of sales tax stretch as far as possible because we have intentionally maintained such a low property tax rate. The financial environment has also changed. In 2019, the state of Texas reduced the voter approval threshold from 8% to 3.5% for annual growth on operating property tax revenue. That provides important protection for taxpayers, but it also means cities have less ability to allow revenue to allow for growth with inflation and increasing service costs. Despite these pressures, Tyler continues to maintain the lowest property tax rate amongst Texas cities with populations greater than 14,000. You have also heard discussion about how much of our general fund goes to police and fire. That is an important discussion, but we have to look at both the percentage and the size of the fund those percentages come from. Tyler operates on an unusually small property tax base. Property taxes make up only about 32% of our general fund revenue, and property tax revenue by itself does not even cover the police department. Waco gives us a useful comparison. According to the latest census estimates, Waco has approximately 148,000 residents, compared with Tyler's 110,000 residents. So Waco's population is only about 30% larger than Tyler's. But Waco's proposed property tax rate is 75.5 cents per $100 value, more than three times Tyler's proposed rate. Its general fund is approximately $213.3 million, compared with Tyler's $104.8 million. In other words, Waco serves about 30% more people with a general fund that is roughly twice the size of ours. When another city has a much larger pot of general fund money, police and fire can represent a smaller percentage of the pot, even while that city is spending substantial dollars on public safety. Tyler's percentages are higher in part because we have historically operated with a much smaller pot of property tax revenue. So I would caution against judging priorities only by percentages. A smaller denominator changes the picture. And our commitment to fiscal discipline should not be measured by whether we spend the lowest percentage on a particular department. It should be measured by whether we provide high quality services, manage our resources responsibly, and can demonstrate results. That brings us to the most important question for the resident writing the check. What am I getting it for it? For most families, a home is the largest investment they will ever make. City services help protect that investment and the community around it. You see that in our streets. We recently completed our latest pavement condition index survey. In 2021, Tyler's overall pavement score was 72. In 2026, it increased to 76. After years of seeing pavement conditions trend in the wrong direction, that trend has begun to reverse. You see it in traffic. Five years ago, Broadway Avenue was among the 50 most congested roadways in Texas. By 2024, it dropped out of the top 100. In 2025, it improved again to 120th. That did not happen by accident. It followed years of investment in traffic signals and annual signal retirement. You also see it in our parks and public spaces. Over the last decade, we have invested in renovating or updating every one of our 28 parks and are adding Tyler's first new park in 20 years. These investments give residents more places to gather, play, exercise, and spend time in their community. And you see it in public safety. Crime totals in Tyler decreased by 21% from 2021 to 2025. That is an important measure of the results behind our continued investment in police, fire, and the systems that support a safe community. The Tyler Police Department maintains CALEA accreditation, a national standard achieved only by a small percentage of law enforcement agencies. Tyler Fire maintains an ISO Class 1 rating, the highest available classification, which can also benefit residential and commercial property insurance rates. Public safety is also more than a siren arriving after something has gone wrong. It is a street that is maintained, drainage that helps protect a home during heavy rain, traffic systems that help move people safely, and water and wastewater infrastructure that works when residents need it. Those are all investments represented in this budget. At the same time, some needs cannot be postponed simply because they are expensive, and not doing anything courts disaster. We have identified approximately $12.3 million in police and fire vehicles and equipment that must be replaced. That includes six fire engines and two ladder trucks, along with specialized police vehicles. This is not about adding equipment simply because we would like something newer. Half of the fire department's combined frontline and reserve engine fleet is now operating beyond its expected service life. Six of our 12 engines have more than 100,000 miles. Chief Coble has described situations where a front-line engine is out for repairs, the reserve engine assigned in its place also breaks down, and crews have to move to another backup engine. If an entire engine breaks down on the way to an emergency, another station has to respond. In an emergency where seconds matter to save lives, that is a risk we cannot ignore. The financial challenge is that the cost of this equipment has changed dramatically. A fire engine that cost approximately $600,000 only a few years ago now costs about $1 million. A ladder truck now goes upwards of $2 million. And even if we had the full cash amount today, delivery can take 30 to 40 months because of nationwide manufacturing backlogs. That is why we are considering longer term financing for these assets. Our annual operating budget cannot responsibly absorb $12.3 million in one year. Financing allows us to replace critical equipment when it needs to be replaced and spread over the cost over the years residents will receive service from it. That is not abandoning fiscal discipline. It is matching a long term asset with a long term funding strategy. We have applied that same willingness to look differently at how we fund our utility system. Our transition towards uniform volume rates is intended to create a more equitable structure that promotes conservation and positions Tyler for improved financing and grant opportunities through the Texas Water Development Board. Most residential customers will not be affected by the changes to the higher water use tiers. For customers inside the city, the consumption rate for the first 25,000 gallons remains $3.75 per 1,000 gallons. Most residential customers use less than that amount. Residential wastewater customers also continue to have their wastewater volume charges capped at 10,000 gallons. The larger rate changes are occurring at higher levels of use, primarily affecting commercial or industrial customers. By moving away from a declining rate structure, this is more equitable for our residents who are no longer subsidizing higher usage commercial and industrial customers. Stormwater is another area we are making changes to be more equitable for our residents. Today, the amount a customer pays for stormwater is based on the amount of water, sewer, and irrigation services they use. But water use does not cause stormwater runoff. Hard surfaces do. Roofs, parking lots, driveways, and other paved areas prevent rain from soaking into the ground and send that water into our drainage system. Beginning January 1st, we are proposing to base the stormwater fee on that hard surface instead. That is an issue of fairness. A single family home with a driveway and roof should not subsidize the stormwater impact of a larger commercial property with acres of rooftop and parking area simply because of the amount of water each customer happens to use. Under the new system, customers will pay based more closely on the demand their property places on the stormwater system. and those dollars matter. This budget includes approximately $768,000 for stormwater capital projects and another $5.8 million in half-cent funding for drainage. The regulatory compliance fee is different. This is not an optional project list that we can simply remove from the budget. As we all know in this room, going up on utility rates is not popular. For decades, the city has kept our utility rates artificially low, which resulted in significant underinvestment in both the water and wastewater systems. In 2017, Tyler entered into a federal consent decree after years of sanitary sewer overflows from an aging wastewater collection system. The consent decree requires Tyler to assess, repair, replace, and add capacity to that system. That work is a public health and public safety responsibility. Untreated wastewater does not stay neatly inside of a sewer system if there is a leak. An overflow can reach streets, drainage systems, creeks, and waterways. The regulatory compliance fee is specifically designed to help pay the debt issued to meet those unfunded mandated repairs. By law, it is not revenue that can be moved to another city program. The fee will increase by $5 in October and another $5 in January, reaching $36.17 per month. I understand that $10 is real money for a family, but the underlying work is not discretionary. The question before us is how we responsibly finance improvements we are legally required to complete and that our wastewater system needs. Former Mayor Hines challenged his council and future councils in 2016 to never pass the buck down to a future generation again. Since that time, outside of the federally mandated consent decree work, the city has invested more than $113.5 million in our water and wastewater systems. Most of that investment has been paid for in cash, with only $35 million being financed through bonds. The ratepayers of tomorrow will not subsidize the ratepayers of today, as they are subsidizing the ratepayers of yesterday. This budget proposes investing $13.6 million in cash-funded water and wastewater capital improvements, including aging equipment at Lake Tyler and improvements at both wastewater treatment plants. We are rebuilding and increasing capacity in a wastewater system that has already seen significant reductions in sanitary sewer overflows. The city approved another $18.5 million in consent decree projects this summer alone. We are improving street conditions. We are reducing traffic delays. And we are maintaining police and fire departments that meet some of the highest professional standards available. These are not competing definitions of public safety. They are all part of providing a safe, reliable community and protecting the investments of our residents. That brings me to the proposed property tax rate. The current rate is 23.6452 cents per $100 of taxable value. We are recommending 24.2063 cents. At that rate, the owner of an average homestead with a taxable value of $286,241 would pay approximately $48 more per year in city property taxes, or about $4 per month. I did not say only $4. $4 matters when families are seeing increases in groceries, electricity, insurance, housing, and other household expenses. This is exactly why responsibility is not simply to ask whether the city needs more money. We first have to ask whether we are using the money we have responsibly. That means scrutinizing contracts. It means bringing work in-house when doing so saves money. It means using technology to make our employees more efficient. It means changing fee structures when the old structure no longer fairly reflects the services being provided. And it means planning for equipment before a failure becomes an emergency. This budget is one that says our residents value fiscal discipline, our residents value reliable infrastructure, our residents value public safety in all of its forms, including drainage, streets, parks, and public spaces. That is the budget we are recommending to you today. We thank the Mayor and the City Council for their involvement and guidance through this budget process. To complete today's budget adoption process, Council will reconsider four formal actions. First, under agenda item 01, we will conduct a public hearing and consider adoption of the fiscal year 2026-2027 budget. Council will then consider ratifying the property tax increase reflected in that budget. Next, under agenda item 02, we will conduct a second public hearing and consider adoption of the property tax rate. Finally, under agenda item 03, we will conduct a third public hearing and consider adoption of the miscellaneous fee ordinance. With these actions, we will complete the fiscal year 2027 budget and tax rate adoption process. Are there any questions that the council has?

Ed, thank you very much for your presentation. Our last two meetings and presentations, we really got into the details and the weeds, but today we discussed not only, again, the reasons why, but I appreciate you going into the proof and the evidence of being fiscally responsible and why results matter and why we do what we do, so I appreciate that. I won't rehash all my questions that I've asked previously because I think they've all been addressed, but I will let anybody else ask any questions that they have.

We didn't discuss the budget cuts, but I had a concern. I had brought it to Ed and Kedrick and the Mayor. And so it's about the budget cut for Net Health. And it has nothing to do with anybody else. It actually has something to do with me. I use Net Health. I went there last week to get my TB test. I go there annually unless my job offers for TB testing. I lost a key the other day and had to go in my safe to retrieve my extra one, and I ran across shop records that dated back to 1987 when I took my children, my first child, to get her immunizations there. We had insurance, but it was easier to get into Net Health than waiting on the PCP appointments when they needed to get into daycare or they had required immunizations to start school. And so I just had a concern based upon, again, my personal, you know, I use those services. I still use those services. So I did have a concern about that cut. And just as we talked about parks and trails and the reason why we, you know, contribute monies there for, you know, health and wellness, physical activity, public safety, and quality of life, I have that same concern for Net Health. And when you started your... I would say spill on the budget. One thing that you said is that we put people first. And so, I mean, I'm happy that we have a diverse council. I'm a nurse, she's a respiratory therapist and we have an attorney. So I think that that's a good balance. Y'all think differently than I do. I lead with empathy because I'm from healthcare. So I don't see people as numbers as you guys do. And it's no offense, but I just wanted to just say what I wanted to say about the cut that I do have issue with that.

And so with that, thank you Mayor Pro Tem, and we call it presentation rather than spill, but you know. With that, I think that's an important piece of note. Yes, so this budget does reflect $166,650 reduction in what we have paid to Net Health from years before. We have reduced our payment to Net Health in previous years as well. Part of that is we looked at this, just like we talked about, kind of sitting around the table as families do and looking at kind of where those available balances are and what is the other. Net health is a, you know, it's the dollars that we receive are essentially designated for city services. Net health is an outside agency. We look to as far as partner with it and work with them. They do an incredible asset or an incredible asset and do a great job in our community. But we looked at their fund balances and what the amount of funding that they had that was available to them for their continued operations and what those fund balances of the past were. had been as well and with that we saw essentially an organization that was going to be able to continue without our funding for this year because the other option is where do we then cut to reduce the services that the city other general fund services because this is paid for from the general fund with that With that, you know, one of the things we actually don't talk about a lot is this budget that we talk about and, you know, we kind of go through. It is not actually just one budget. It's about 30 different budgets. You have about 30 different funds that are providing services that are coming, having different revenue streams that are being able to provide for those different things. Leanne was a great example from a minute ago where we talked about just the parks improvement fund that we created from landfill revenue. We created that from landfill revenue because for decades we tried to pull it out of the general fund and the money was not there to be able to do that. So that's how parks continue to deteriorate. And we had to figure out where were there other revenue streams because this revenue stream wasn't creating funding to be able to provide for essentially the parks that our citizens were demanding. So thus, we had to create new revenue streams to be able to kind of help pay for that so that we could be able to meet the expectations of our residents in regards to the services that we are obligated to provide for them.

Ed, real quick on that example you're giving. That's not something that Tyler residents pay. That's something outside of Tyler residents pay.

That is an incredibly good point in that we also look to see where can we get, essentially because of assets that we have, such as the landfill, can we be able to utilize those that are using our asset and make sure that we are collecting funding from them to pay for services that may be able to kind of go beyond that, and so utilization of those enterprise funds. Most of your enterprise funds are able to pay for just their services, but some of them, utilities is one where we still have a little bit. In fact, we talked a bit about some of the other outside agencies that we pay toward, Business Education Council, Metro, the Hispanic Business Alliance. I was reminded about going through the budget that we actually pay for those from our economic development fund. which is actually as far as paid for and sponsored by Tyler Utilities that we have utility funds going to that. So Net Health is one of your last outside agencies that's kind of still on the general fund side of our budgets. And as we looked at the general fund, and that's where between changes in state law with what you can increase your property tax rate by, And then just also kind of a stagnant economy, which is what you're seeing with your sales tax piece. And then also continued costs and increases that you have for our own services, some of which we modified by bringing stuff in-house because of the continued increases we have on the contractual side of those. of just that we have to kind of start to narrow and cut that. And Net Health wasn't the only fund, or as far as only program, that ended up getting cut. I was going through legal, the difference between legal's budget from last year, and I don't mean to put Debra on the spot, she's not actually responsible for, her budget is smaller than it was in the previous year. And is that because as we went through and looked to see where can we have modifications, where can we make continued cuts or changes, a number of departments have come forward to figure out where they can make those cuts. Now, to then modify that and to put money back in, you know, it is a balanced budget. And so to keep it balanced to any changes then made to increase money back to a program or service such as Net Health means that something else is going to have to cut and be reduced in order to pay money towards that net health, or whatever it is you want to change in the budget. So that's kind of the yin and yang piece to remember when thinking about this in the SAT terms.

Thank you, Ed. Anybody else have any questions?

I'd just like to point out, I served on the Net Health Board for a few years with George and Terrence. As a matter of fact, Scott Williams here today, he took my place on that board. And we were slow to act over time on increasing end-user fees. So we like to see the end user pulling their weight, not being subsidized by other pieces of that organization. Great example was restaurant permit fees. I was a restaurateur, and we sure didn't want them to go up, but we could have maximized them over time and reaped a lot of money throughout the time, and it took a long time for that light click home. So this is just simply another example of where We're not moving quick enough in certain organizations on raising fees to compensate for inflation and everything else that goes into those permit fees and everything else.

Is George here? We'll open it up in a second.

Yeah, George is here. He's the white-haired guy. Six, three.

Yeah, I just have a couple questions.

Anybody else have any questions for Ed? All right, thank you, Ed. All right, so we will now open the floor for a public hearing on the city's proposed budget. Anyone that wants to come up and speak may come up to the podium, and you'll have three minutes to speak. I do have two people signed up already. If there are others here, you're more than welcome to speak as well. First one I have signed up to speak is Mr. Scott Williams. State your name and address, please, for the record. I know you're used to that on PNZ.

Scott Williams, 1848 Sentinel Way. Good morning, Mayor and members of Tyler City Council.

Good morning.

First, I want to thank you each for your service to Tyler. I know many of you personally, and I know you're working hard to make the best decisions for our city. And I'm sure you're enjoying this stuff, budget stuff. I'm here today because I'm concerned about the proposed reduction in the City of Tyler's annual funding for Net Health from approximately $200,000 to only $50,000. That represents a 75% reduction in funding for an organization that performs essential public health services for our community. Net Health is responsible for critical services such as restaurant inspections, public water testing, swimming pool inspections, disease prevention, emergency preparedness, and many other protections that residents often take for granted. To put Tyler's proposed contribution into perspective, Longview contributes approximately $523,000 annually toward public health, while Bryan and College Station each contribute approximately $578,000. I'm not aware of another comparable Texas city attempting to fund these responsibilities for only $50,000 a year. Net Health may have reserves available today, but reserves are not recurring revenue. They can help bridge a gap, but they cannot replace dependable annual funding. Using reserves to cover ongoing operations simply postpones the problems. I'm also concerned that this reduction could ultimately shift more of the financial burden onto local restaurants and other businesses through higher permanent inspection fees. Restaurants already operate on an extremely narrow margin. They should not be expected to make up for a major reduction in municipal public health funding. I respectfully ask the council to reconsider this proposed cut and potentially restore Tyler's annual contribution because public health is a core responsibility of local government and dependable funding is necessary to protect our residents, visitors, and businesses. Again, I appreciate each of you and the time and effort you put into serving Tyler. I know these budget decisions are difficult and I'm grateful for your willingness to listen and reconsider this important issue. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Williams. Anybody have any questions for Mr. Williams?

I do.

Oh, go ahead. As a point of note, I think Brian's tax rate, I know you mentioned Brian College Station, is like 60 cents, a little bit higher than that. College Station, I think, runs in about 50 to 40. So just perspective.

And does that, with that higher rate and the higher funding that Brian College Station gives their health department, does that make them harder organizations to work with because they have more funding?

if you're running to the barricades or barriers and didn't say a restaurant open brian college station because of tough health department st but uh... now i mean it potentially but i know they also raised their potentially raising a hundred thousand dollars uh... from each system in and i know there's challenges for you you have to have a balanced budget and i believe in that I just think you should re-look at this one and just see what the right number is or what the plan is going for, because I know $50,000 will not be able to be a long-term plan.

What are your current fees that you paid on NADL?

I might need some help. I pay several of them, but I probably should know that.

That's okay.

I believe. $736. $736. Yeah. $736. Annually.

And do you, with that, do you pay for inspection fees if they come to inspect your restaurant?

Not currently.

But you're allowed to, Net Health is allowed to charge for inspection fees, correct? I would leave that.

We're checking into that. Hey, George, hold on.

If you're going to speak, come up to the podium.

somebody stronger or we're better.

George Roberts, Net Health. We're looking into that right now. The state regulations, they cap us on fees. And they have increased to Lloyd's comments earlier. They've raised that cap over time. But we're investigating right now, can we charge inspection fees? And how does that end? The state has been very unclear about the answer to that. So we're trying to figure that out right now.

The answer we have is yes, you can and we haven't.

Well, no, but if it makes a difference, you can only charge up to a certain amount. And we aren't sure of that. We're already pretty much maxed on the inspection. I mean, the permit fees right now, we're not sure we can charge up to the, how much we can charge for inspections on that.

Yeah, that's my question, if you were capped on the permit fees.

Yeah, we are capped on permit fees.

On permit fees, but not inspection fees.

We don't know the answer to the inspection. I don't know if the inspection is part of that permit fee or not. It's not. Okay, thank you.

Yep.

Thank you, Scott. Hey, thank you. Thanks, Scott.

Does anybody, does Terrance or anybody have that information from? Oh, I'm sorry.

In College Station's tax rate is 51.1872 cents. So, you know, they're talking about as far as they receive funding from College Station for their, and so just to kind of, again, put it in perspective, you know, that's more than twice what we, for our property tax rate, much less what probably was brought in for, as far as revenues.

All right, next person I have signed up is Terrence. Mr. Terrence H., would that help?

Hello. Hello.

Morning, Terrence. I was here two weeks ago, and Mayor, you said I'd like to talk. Say that? Yeah. Could I have five minutes instead of three minutes?

Three minutes. Three minutes? Three minutes. OK.

Challenge accepted.

Ms. Cassandra, I didn't see the timer when Scott was speaking. He was under three minutes, but just so I could verify Terrance's three minutes challenge.

90% of Neff Health Services are fully supported by grants, such as at the Center for Healthy Living, where we provide many free services that are actually not supported by grants. Portions of these grants pay the $1,500 monthly rent to the city for our use of the center, which is $18,000 of my department's grant dollars. Yet the city's proposed budget is decreasing those funds to the center by $16,500. So we have to pay to use a facility with funds that can't fully support the free services that we provide to your residents. But then your annual funding is being decreased. It feels like I've picked up a thorn bush that happens to have roses on it and not the other way around. But I should know. At 15, my first job was as a day laborer in the Tyler Rose Garden. I was horrible at it. But eventually I loved that job because I felt then the way that I feel now, that doing the little things that most people do not see really does matter. Just like our regional laboratory, where you don't see the tireless work of how they analyze over 100 water samples from the city of Tyler every month, plus samples from 250 other cities across East Texas to make sure tap water is safe to use in addition to testing all dairy products that are sold in stores throughout Tyler, and our lab being one of the only six certified testing laboratories in the entire state. Ten years ago, Net Health had five sanitarians in our Environmental Health Department, and there were 800 registered food establishments. This includes every fast food, full-service restaurant, food truck, grocery store, and more. a ratio of 160 to 1. Ten years later, we still only have five inspectors, but now there are over 1,000, a ratio of 200 to 1. And that does not include all the child daycares, assisted living facilities, public pools, foster homes, and splash pads. Your earmarked 75% decrease from a $287 million budget equals 0.00069, not 1%, not even 0.1%, but 0.69% at $200,000. $50,000 equals 0.00017 of a $287 million budget. So I take it that we are valued less than 0.02% to be your local public health department. And I have three minutes.

Good job. Hey, Terrence, a couple questions for you. You mentioned 250 cities. How many counties do y'all serve?

We have East Texas is defined as 35 counties.

Out of those 35 counties, how many pay you to support your budget?

Counties, zero.

How many cities out of those 250 pay you?

Cities, just one.

Exactly.

Good answer, George. But this does not relate just to our laboratory only.

It's not my question, Terrance. I know. You serve 250 cities, and you want one city to fund your budget.

But that is just one singular service that you're pinpointing on. Anybody else have a question for Terrance?

Yeah, so don't we also provide two buildings to Net Health? Does that count it when you're doing the numbers?

I mentioned one, the Center for Healthy Living, where we pay for rent, and then we have our main location at 815 North Broadway, where we do not pay rent.

So there is a provision still from the city, correct, we need to account for?

In that respect, you are correct.

Right, right. Now when you talk about the number of sanitarians, when I got here in 2000, we actually had six. But for the growth from 2026 substantial, and then back to what I touched on earlier, not accounting for permit fees to go up at the maximum amount on an annual basis, inflation is now what's taking that toll. And this is something that we advocated for before COVID, during COVID, and after COVID. So now you're going to have to because we didn't take those steps throughout. So I'd just like to point out sometimes government, we make the tough decisions when the money disappears. But when the money's on hands, we don't make those tough decisions. And I think this is a great example of it.

That is a great example. And it's also one specific service of the Environmental Health Department.

Right, and that's true, but according to George, y'all subsidize the health inspections constantly because they don't have enough revenue. So, I mean, if you're subsidizing within your organization because you don't have enough revenue, that particular department isn't rising, taking their costs up with inflation, with time, as they should be. It should be an annual review, and those costs should go up.

But even when we're legislatively and regulatorily capped to where we cannot increase.

But you weren't 10 years ago, 9 years ago, 8 years ago, 7 years ago. I was on the board. Y'all weren't capped. We didn't go to the maximum. So we need to go to the maximum. This is FY27. Okay.

Can you answer the question that was asked earlier about the inspection fees? Can you charge those simultaneously or no? Do you know the answer to that?

I do not have that information right now, but I can get that information to you later today.

And we've been asking that question for 30 days. I don't have that answer, but you can. Yes, I can.

And do you know the cap? You said your cap. What is that? What is the cap per state?

I will have to get those specific numbers to you from our CFO.

But you're for sure that you're capped?

Yes, ma'am. There is an African proverb. When a fish gets out of the water to complain about the water, you should probably listen to the fish. I'm usually a quiet, reserved person and I am here for specific reasons because of how bad our next fiscal year is. I can talk until I'm blue in the face about numbers and stats and trying to justify why we shouldn't be cut. I was hired 14 years ago because of a grant that was federally funded that was defunded two years later. Things change over time that we can't control.

Hey Terrance, do y'all operate with a surplus in your budget?

That surplus that is our rainy day fund, which is like the city's rainy day fund, where we can't tap into it for usual business operations.

What can you use it for?

We can use it. Oh, let me see. That's the part that I skipped that I didn't want to go into.

How much do you have in that rainy day fund?

So we have close to six million.

Anybody else have any questions for Terrance?

But you can't use that for everyday operations, right?

We can use it for emergency situations. We can use it when our grants become defunded. We can use it for natural and man-made disasters. We can only tap into that funding during an open public meeting at our board of directors. Just like a rain day fund, you can only access and use during a call city council meeting. It's not a savings account. It's not a profit revenue. We're not hoarding money to the side to make a profit. It is if things go absolutely bad. Last year, we and other health departments got doged. Other health departments had to lay off staff because they did not have a rainy day fund.

So do y'all have or have you been working on other revenue funds, like to try to raise money or try to make up for this, because this is coming at some point. Have you all been thinking about that, trying to come up with other ways where we can raise funds?

We have thought about it. We have talked about it. But we don't have time.

Hey, did you want to say something?

Yeah, they have almost a year in reserve as far as compared to their operating costs. And so I guess the question I would have, though, is just as you mentioned, is that state law in relationship to the use of that, to what you have in reserve, or is that a board policy that's been created?

It's a board policy that was sent to the city of Tyler by our CFO in 2016. Right. Ten years ago.

Which means it could be modified.

Right. So rainy day funds are generally utilized when an umbrella suddenly is not there. And so that umbrella disappeared in this case. It was time to tap into the rainy day funds. That's just the way we see it. We're having to do the same.

So if all of the grants within my Department of Community Wellness get totally defunded,

These are things that we need to look at all the time. We came out of COVID on that board saying, hey, these grants won't last forever. They're showering money on us. We were on that board. We spoke of it then. That was five years ago, four years ago, three years ago. We've seen it coming, and it's here. So we have to plan just like we have to plan. Y'all need to plan for these type of events. Thank you.

All right, I don't have any other cards for people that have signed up to speak, but is there anybody else here that would like, yes ma'am, to speak on the budget? Please come up to the podium, state your name and address, and you have three minutes.

Ashley Bryant, County Road 113, and Tyler. The only thing that I had to say about the budget is if we're gonna increase the budget, and have it similar to Waco. I just feel like any construction or procurements need to be able to be public for all contractors and not just using direct buys or co-ops. I feel like there should be a healthy competition for all vendors and contractors to be able to do projects in the city. Like if we're going to have different purchases and different buys, then we shouldn't be using people out of state to come do work in our in our city and then take the money and go back to different states, I mean, to their own home. I feel like there should be local people that should be able to be in competition with these contracts as well. And so that's all I have to say about that. Thank you. Thank you.

And I'll let you address how we handle that. And before you do, I want to say we are not doing what Waco is doing with their budget or their tax rate. I want to make that clear. That's how that question started. So I want to say we're not... doing what the Waco is doing with their budget or their tax rate. Thank you for that clarification.

The Waco comparison was in relationship to how much more they pay or essentially charge for tax rate. So thus, as far as how small your tax rate is here at Tyler. and thus people may say well they don't spend as much in Waco percentage wise on this service or that service and maybe spend more money on things like net health or parks or things of that nature and that's because we have a smaller amount of revenue that we bring in because our property tax rate is so much smaller than Waco even though we're only what 30 percent smaller than they are they have a tax rate twice In relationship to your question regarding as far as procurement of services, the procurement of services is governed by the state of Texas. And so we follow the laws as the state of Texas provides. And so with that, as far as bidding of services and with contract ability to be on buy boards, we look to see then ultimately the state in its laws states that you have to make sure that you are being competitive in the bidding process. the notifications as per dictated by the state, as well as then that you are going with the lowest best price with that bidding process. So that is the city of Tyler's policy, is to match that that the state of Texas has provided, or mandates, and so just FYI on that.

Yeah, I totally understand that, but I'm just saying, like, you're using, like, 20 different co-ops. I don't think, like, contractors can be able to go to all 20 of them, especially some of them are Oklahoma cooperative purchases, Virginia. I don't think we need to go that far to when there's people in Tyler or East Texas period that can be able to do the work but don't know about it because... you're using just co-ops instead of actually using, like, having a healthy competition for all vendors to be able to see it. Can you give a specific example? It's going to come up in the budget today, so, but I'm saying as far as, like, any, like, they're having the parks that's being updated, only using um, co-op like direct buys. It's not coming out as a kind of like saying to the whole city, like this is what we're doing. Do anybody want to bid on it? It's just going, we're just going to go online, find the people that can be able to do it with the direct buy, which is legal, but I mean, which you can be able to do that. But I feel like with Tyler growing, it just needed to be a different change or at least first seat. If the city or anybody in East Texas, in East Texas that can be able to do it instead of just, um, picking somebody online that could be able to do it. That's all I'm saying.

For many of the specialty purchases that we do, it is one of which you go to the cooperatives that have those different services and be able to look at. If there are firms in Tyler that are building playground equipment, and especially of the type that you have for parks, they can go be part of those co-ops and join up with those in order to be able to make sure that we're getting a healthy competitive price on that purchase.

But it's 17 different co-ops that is used. And some of them you have to pay for. So now these same people that he's talking about will have to, first they have to go to each different department in City of Tyler to sign up to be a vendor. But you're not only using that, you're using the co-op. So now there's 17 different ones that they have to go through, and they don't even know about the ones that you're actually using. I just actually found that out from the purchasing manager, which ones you're using. and it was saying but not limited to so you're using all these so they have to go to these different 20 just sign up to these 20 different ones pay for these 20 different ones to be able to be even be looked at entirely so they have to sign up for virginia and oklahoma just to be looked at for a project entirely

Depending on the type of service and the one-level competitors that the business wants to have, those are considerations the business has to have.

Right, but then you have other ones like the Smith County. Who are you advocating for?

Who are you advocating for?

I'm advocating for small business owners. I'm advocating for the contractors, the vendors, the ones who are getting underbid by these private companies and just want to be able to go into the government contract side, but they have no idea how to get into it. So I've been, like I said, I've been doing this for three years. I've been learning this. I've done federal, state, all that.

So you're promoting your business? Are you promoting your business? You were here two weeks ago.

Yeah, I was here two weeks ago. I'm sorry?

You said small business owners, right? Yes. Like me, like you. Absolutely. I can speak for the council.

We're all small business owners. We're all for small business. Right.

Absolutely. So it's not me. I'm not trying to promote my business because none of this I'm getting. pay for i'm just going to be able to help small businesses to learn how to do work to have another source of income and learn how to do work with their government and be able to work with their with their government with the city that's all i'm trying to do appreciate that thank you thank you hey kedra i see you coming up here did you want to add something

I would just like to reach out to you maybe after the meeting if we can talk. Your opinion and your concerns matter. And if there's any way that we can help you legally, we will do that. We do use purchasing co-ops. They do satisfy the state bidding requirements. But you can shop multiple co-ops or you can put bids out. And if there's some particular concern that you have on particular jobs maybe that you didn't get to bid on, we'll be more than glad to sit down and visit with you about it.

And can you kind of talk a bit about it? Because we don't require them to fill out 20 different applications. You just need to fill out one to be a vendor for the city of Tyler, correct?

Yeah. I mean, there's some questionnaires and conflict of interest things that you've got forms that you have to fill out. But it's pretty straightforward. And I would love to sit down and visit with you. So just catch me after the meeting and I'll walk through everything.

Well, I have the assistant city manager, Kendall, up here with us. Yeah. But there is a lot of the services that you end up buying, especially with a lot of the stuff on the water and wastewater side, is very specialized type of equipment. If there were the vendors that we are able to have locally that can be able to address some of this, that's fine. But even your local vendors will tell you, I can't do that size of work in relationship to water or wastewater, everything from the plants down to the lines to the treatment centers. And so a lot of big dollar stuff does go outside of Tyler related to the wastewater stuff. because we don't have vendors here. When we do, especially when we've been able to have, just as far as that we have been able to develop good relationships with and we know, they kind of know what their specialty is. Streets is a great example. A lot of your streets work is actually done by local contractors. because they are familiar with the work, they know what's going to need to be done, and are able to provide for that. Playground equipment is also another one, where it is a very specialized type of equipment, and you don't necessarily maybe have that in the Tyler area, where they kind of manufacture it. Some of the people who may work with companies, we know that they live here in the area, and they kind of approach us and let us know that hey, the business isn't necessarily based here in Tyler. And that's always a difficult thing when kind of working on procurement laws is there's only a certain amount of that, and a certain style that you can be able to do, give any advantage to local business. The state of Texas doesn't really seem to care about that issue. The state of Texas wants you to make sure that the dollar you get using is going to the cheapest price that you can get. But as far as, it does become an issue then of, And also the business, as far as where it's domiciled and that type of thing, becomes an issue as well sometimes in that.

And we do have a lot of annual price agreements that we do, like for copy paper, office supplies, just various types of services. And I'm not sure what services you're providing, but there may be an opportunity there. And we do bid those out. So they go through a bidding process. Not knowing the details, we just need to talk and I can help you out.

Thank you, Keacher. Anybody else wish to speak during the public comment section of the budget process?

I'm thankful we don't manufacture playground equipment anymore because oil field pipe and hot chains and tire straps to swing in and piano slides that burn you. That's the East Texas way.

That was good living.

That was good living. Anyway. You're too young for that, Stuart.

All right.

At this time, I will close the public hearing, and I will entertain a motion for the first part of 01.

I move to adopt the proposed fiscal year 2026-27 annual budget and authorize a city manager to execute particular outside agency contracts budgeted for fiscal year 2026 and 2027. Do I have a second?

I'll second. Thank you, Clint. That was a cliffhanger.

That was a cliffhanger.

I have a motion by Councilman Nichols and a second by Councilman Childs. At this time, we will take a roll call record vote. Madam Clerk.

Mayor Pro Tem Hawkins? Nay. Councilmember Morse?

Nay.

Councilmember Childs?

Aye.

Councilmember Nichols?

Aye.

Councilmember Darkbase? Aye. Mayor Haney?

Aye. All right, it is a four to two vote. Is that a? That is, I think. Yeah, I think y'all passed the vote. Okay.

Does it have to be two-thirds?

Yes, super majority.

We need to have at least five. We need to have five. And so this budget does not pass.

It's a 60% requirement under the code, and four of six is 66%.

Okay.

So it does. So the math works.

So I don't need a second.

Okay. So then the ayes have it, and the motion to approve the budget is carried. Thank you. This time we'll move to the second part of 01. Is there a motion to ratify the tax increase reflected in the budget?

I move to ratify the property tax increase reflected in the fiscal year 2026-2027 budget.

Is there a second?

I'll second.

I have a motion to ratify the property tax increase reflected in the fiscal year 26-27 budget by Councilman Nichols and a second by Councilwoman Hawkins. We will now take a record vote.

Mayor Pro Tem Hawkins? Yes. Councilmember Marsh? Yes. Councilmember Charles?

Aye.

Councilmember Nichols? Aye. Councilmember Dahl-Bays?

Aye.

Mayor Haney?

Aye. Ayes have it. The motion is carried. All right, 02. To request to adopt the property tax rate ordinance. And so we will now open the floor for a public hearing on the city's request to adopt the proposed property tax rate. Anyone who wants to come and speak on our proposed property tax rate may come up to the podium and you have three minutes to speak. Is there anybody here that wishes to speak on the proposed property tax rate? Seeing none. Public comment section is closed. Do I have a motion?

I move that the property tax rate be increased by the adoption of the tax rate of 0.242063, which is effectively a 3.5% increase in the tax rate.

Is there a second? I second. I have a motion by Councilman Nichols and a second by Councilwoman Marsh. I'll take a record vote. Madam Clerk?

May I approach Team Hawkins? Aye. Councilmember Marsh?

Aye.

Aye.

Council member Charles. Aye. Council member Nichols. Aye. Council member Doug Bays.

Aye.

Mayor Haney.

Aye. The ayes have it. The motion is carried. to request an ordinance admitting the updating fees and other applicable adjustments as presented in the budget. So we will now open the floor for a public hearing on the city's proposed fee amendments, updates, and adjustments. Is there anybody here that wishes to speak on 03? Seeing none, the public comment section is closed. Do I have a motion on 03?

Move to approve O3 as presented.

Is there a second? Second. Motion by Councilman Nichols, second by Councilman Dark-Bays. All of those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Ayes have it. O3 is carried. That takes care of 01 through 03 in the proposed budget. Thank you very much, Ed, Kedrick, Lauren, your departments, to all the staff and department heads. Thank you, Blake, also to you as well. Thank you all for working through this for the past several months and having us a budget for 2026, 2027. All right, B1, Madam Cassandra, Madam Clerk. Judge Franklin's leaving the house. That's how you do it, Judge, right there. Judge got it.

Austin, take no.

That's Austin Luce, not Austin, Texas. I'm sorry. Let me clarify. We don't want to say anything about Austin. Texas. Texas.

Good morning again, Cassandra Brager, city clerk. So pursuant to city code section one 20 C the city has solicited applicants for board membership and our board applications were submitted to city council, which conducted a preliminary preliminary review and discussion at a city council boards and commission training work session held on Wednesday, August the 26th, 2026 at city hall recommendations were provided to the city council by the board liaisons. And after our board qualifications have been reviewed for each applicant, the following city boards are now being submitted for the city council's final approval. Per city code section one 20 C the city council retains final discretion and authority to appoint or reappoint any city board member. So what I would do now is just go through the list of, uh, what was recommended at the August 26th work session. And, uh, we'll take a, uh, vote. Of all those that, unless there's any changes, this is what we'll recommend or council can make the final approval. So the airport advisory board, we had two vacancies. So as you can see, anything that's highlighted in yellow is someone that would like to return on the board. They're already on the board. And then the one in green is what was recommended at the work session. So those two positions will be filled by Brad Mattis and Devin Churchill. Animal Care Advisory Board, we had three vacancies. We had Landon, Mary, Ann, and Marjorie that would like to return, so they would be reappointed. Zoning Board of Adjustments, we had five vacancies. We had four that would like to come back, highlighting yellow, and Steve Simmons will be appointed, or was recommended. Civil Service Commission, we had one vacancy. Patrick Woods would like to continue on that board, so he will continue on the board for civil service. Construction Board of Adjustments and Appeals, we had no vacancies at that time. Disabilities Issues Review Board, there's no vacancies. Historical Preservation Board, we had three vacancies. Chad Humphries will come back, and Jesse Riel and Cooper Adam will be appointed to that board. Library board we had two vacancies. We also needed a chair So Tony Farrell is the current chair Recommended for her to come back and John Sanders will be appointed to that board Keep Tyler beautiful boy. We had four vacancies Holly towns would like to come back and the three that are highlighted Sherry Kiana and William will be appointed Main Street board had no vacancies The Neighborhood Revaluation Board had three vacancies. Jamie Mims is the current chair, would like to come back. He was recommended to be reappointed. And Carolyn Brown and Eddie Arts will be appointed. Parks Board, we had two vacancies. Alicia Miles and Juan Baron will be appointed to the Parks Board. Planning and zoning, we had three vacancies, Roy Martinez and James Nguyen will come back. It was recommended for Michael Carmichael to be the chair and Patrick Cooper to be appointed. Northeast Texas Public Health District, Jeremy Butler will be reappointed and Vernora Jones will be appointed. Traffic Safety Board. We had five vacancies. It was recommended for John Matthews to be the chair. James Ledet and Cody Baker will come back. Eric Acker, Steve Wick, and Ashley Wilson will be appointed to that board.

and that is all that i have for today so if i can get a uh just just okay and merit council again these are recommendations that were from your prior uh open session meeting where you had discussions so the recommendation their recommendations and so of course if you want to change them you can but We just want to make that clear that the recommendations were based off of your last open session meeting where you had information from the board liaisons.

Correct. Thank you very much. I commend y'all's work on this. We did have a long work session on this where everybody from all departments, or not everybody, but the department heads came and spoke and gave recommendations and we all had our input and recommendations from everybody on council. I think this is work from an exhaustive list narrowed down to some good candidates. I see Mr. Carmichael back there, who's gonna be the new chair, hopefully, of PNZ, so I appreciate your work. And Scott, you too, on PNZ. And Juan Barron, right behind Scott. Congratulations. So with that, I will entertain a motion to approve

Move to approve B1 as presented.

I second. I have a motion to approve B1 from Councilman Nichols and a second by Councilwoman Marsh. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? B1 is approved. And I would also like to thank everybody that signed up to be active with the city, serve on a board, serve on a commission. That's something that we have been pushing for probably the last six or so months. just because in years past that interest has not been there. So thank you all for stepping up and having an interest in serving alongside us for the betterment of our city. That hasn't happened in years past, so I appreciate that. All right, with that, we'll go to the consent agendas. Anything need to be pulled, or do we approve as presented?

I'll move to approve the consent agenda as presented.

Second.

I have a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented by Council Member Dark-Bays. I have a second by Council Member Nichols. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Consent agenda is approved as presented. City Manager's Report.

Mayor and council. The first item I have is a little lengthy, so bear with me. It deals about as far as our consent decree and our downtown work. The group two capacity implementation sewer series improvement project is now substantially complete after more than just one year of construction. This was the first of two major Group 2 capacity projects. Line A alone consisted of approximately 18,000 linear feet of sanitary sewer ranging from 8 inches to 42 inches in diameter. Installation included complex and challenging segments some over 20 feet deep through critical locations such as downtown streets, railroad crossings, and adjacent to aging storm drains. Multiple engineering solutions were implemented along the way when unexpected conditions surfaced, including additional isolation valves and strategic decisions to bore under conflicts rather than open cut. In areas where conflicts could not be avoided, drainage culverts were rebuilt. The project included also multiple roadway bores and two Union Pacific Railroad bores. One of the boards was especially challenging with 490 linear feet of 60 inch casing approximately 40 feet deep below 10 active tracks requiring continuous observation from rail pros. Extensive coordination with public facilities including the library, schools, and local businesses required throughout the construction. But the true success of this project lies in the extraordinary teamwork that made it possible. KSA, our design engineer, consistently anticipated challenges and provided quick, thoughtful solutions in the field. Their responsiveness and willingness to pivot allowed construction to continue safely and efficiently even when surprises arose. Belt construction brought a high level of focus and commitment to the project. Their team stayed laser focused on keeping pipe installation moving, consistently prioritizing progress, even the most challenging sections of the alignment. They communicated frequently and reliably with the project team and on numerous occasions adjusted project sequencing to maintain momentum. VELT also went above and beyond by rebuilding storm infrastructure where conflicts arose and thoughtfully staggering their construction activities to accommodate traffic needs, school operations, and downtown access. And within Tyler Water Utilities, we want to give a special shout out to Tiffany and Sam, who work closely with all departments to keep information flowing, provide timely decisions, and support the contractor in the field. This ongoing coordination allowed issues to be resolved quickly and kept the project moving at an impressive pace. Despite the extensive challenges, Bell completed the project six months ahead of schedule, a remarkable achievement for a project of this scale and complexity. This is a win not just for Tyler Water Utilities, but for the entire city team, our consultants, contractor, and the community we serve. Another point I want to kind of note is you may see the new signs that were installed in several parks and along trails in Tyler tell people recognize bikes and scooters that are and are not allowed per city of Tyler ordinance. Recently the ordinances were updated to allow class one e-bikes. These e-bikes do not have a throttle and primarily provide pedal assistance for those with mobility impairments. Highly powered e-bikes such as class two and three as well as other unauthorized motor vehicles including motor scooters are not allowed in parks and trails for pedestrian safety and the integrity of the park grounds. And then we also have for animal services. During the summer, Animal Shelter offered waived adoption fees for donations to three different causes. During June, box fans were collected for PASS, Beat the Heat campaign, with over 100 donated. During July, the Pet Food Bank was restocked with canned food and cat food as hundreds of pounds of food were donated. And during August, DVDs, colored pencils, crayons, and coloring books were collected for Breckenridge Village. The shelter is participating in the East Texas Food Bank Spread the Love Peanut Butter Drive and is adding its numbers to the Tyler total during the September contest. 10 jars of peanut butter waives the adoption fee for a dog or cat throughout September. So remember that as you're at the grocery store. There is the Spread the Love Peanut Butter Drive that the mayor may mention of after I get done, just to remind us about the importance of that. And then finally, I want to say thank y'all to the council who showed up and those who also always support our concert in the park that was hosted by the East Texas Symphony Orchestra on Saturday night. We had an incredible tournament with the as far as the weather kind of being inclement as well as just the With all the football games and everything going on we expected the crowd perhaps to be smaller in size But this year would look to be the same as not larger than we've had in previous years So we appreciate the support that was given for the community for that

Yeah, it was a great turnout. And yeah, weather was perfect. We dialed up upper 80s just in time for everybody to come out. So it was enjoyable. A little breeze. Sunset was beautiful. So that was a great event. And then, yes, for those of you that are living under a rock and don't know, we are challenging the city of Longview to a peanut butter drive with the East Texas Food Bank. Sad to say we are not in the lead after the first report, so we need to step up our game and donate peanut butter to the East Texas Food Bank. Even if you don't want to adopt a pet, still donate peanut butter because we cannot lose the long game.

So how exactly? Where in the stores would people go to donate their peanut butter?

So you can obviously go to Brookshire's Fresh, Super One Foods, and there is a designated area. I don't know where each store has it, but there is a designated drop-off area in each store. There are also businesses around town that have stepped up to volunteer as drop-off locations. One recently is Yosemite Roofing. They're a drop-off location. So there are plenty of places around town to drop off your peanut butter. Or you could go online to the East Texas Food Bank and make a monetary contribution, which equals a certain dollar amount weight of peanut butter, but just make a notation that it's on behalf of the city of Tyler's. I guess tally so it doesn't go to the city of Longview.

Got it.

Anybody else have any questions for Ed?

No questions, but I'd like to point out that this Friday, 9-11, University of Texas at Tyler along with Camp V are hosting a stadium climb. It's in the UT Harrington Center, air conditioning. One side of the stadium will be running up and down. The other will be walking, and the challenge is to do the equivalent of the steps that were in the Twin Towers prior to their destruction. But it's a great opportunity. They're providing protein drinks and T-shirts, and it's from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., Come out in teams. Come out by yourself. Get your walking in and steps in that day. Enjoy a great facility. You'll do a bunch of steps just getting there because parking at UT has gotten a little bit more congested as they've expanded. But if you come out in the late afternoon, all the college kids have gone home. So it would be a good time for all. It would be a great way to honor the first responders from 9-11 and everyone else that was involved.

On that note, and I see Chief Coble back there, At 10 a.m. during that window, I will be doing the stair climb with the recent academy class 22 graduates in the fire department, I believe. Engine 10, is that correct, Chief? Engine 10 will be there as well. And so if you want to time it where you show up at 10 a.m., I'll be there with the fire department doing it.

And where are you doing it at?

UT Tyler's Gymnasium.

Oh, thank you for graciousness.

Oh, in your district? That does not have a park? We got YouTube. All right. Anybody else have anything for the city manager? All right. With that, I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

Move to approve. Oh, move to adjourn. We are adjourned.