Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

Hi. It's a meeting in the quarter. Do you. Your name and address and you get three minutes.

Okay. Thank you. Lisa South, 434 Madison Street. There were two items that I would like to quickly address. One is in regards to the changes to the surplus property. It has shown in the amended version to remove fifteen point one point five, the record of disposition. But in the new amended, it doesn't describe how those records will be maintained. In the old one, it said such information shall be used by the finance department to maintain the city's fixed asset inventory. So I'm just wondering how we're going to be tracking what's disposed of and what how things are moved along. And then also, I would ask that you would look at striking, letter j.

That one kind of undoes what the rest of of it does. It says other permissible disposal items or personal or real property may be disposed of in any manner or by means other than those described in this policy, if doing so, would satisfy the intent of the general policy in subsection A in the discretion of the common counsel. I think that is just too broad and you went to all this detail on the other two pages, to have this in there and kind of could possibly void out, the order and, the ways that you had previously determined how to do that. And then in regards to the CIP, I'd like to question, it was on page 23, I believe, the North Street and, West Saint Paul Avenue two way conversion phase. I'm wondering if that's a typo.

West Saint Paul is on the other side unless you're talking the other side of Moorland because it loops. So I believe you're talking the intersection by Frank Harsh and not the one by Inio. So I was just wondering for a little clarification on that. And then also the numbers jumped over $3,000,000 It went from $1,200,000 to 4,900,000.0 and now it's at $4,600,000 And the only difference that I see is that it has additional asphalt pavement resurfacing. And here it says along East North Street and East South Saint Paul, to match the twenty twenty two limits, included within this report.

So that's over 3,000,000 $3,200,000 for asphalt repavement. Some of the budgets years for the entire city was that much, so I'm curious about that number. And then also, Construction Connect has, published in March 2025. It says site work and paving for a mixed use development, and it's for this same location, and it even uses the same verbiage. So I wanna make sure that the city taxpayers taxpayers aren't paying for a construction project, and that it's no type of kickback for any type of future development that would be going in there. So if we could get some clarification on that, that would be amazing. Thank you.

Great. Thank you, Lisa. Any other members of the public? John? Can you come up and state your name and address too, please? Right there is fine.

John Thomas, 134 Douglas. I've spoken to a couple of you earlier this evening. I spoke two weeks ago at a council meeting referencing the stripes, the lanes specified for bicycles bike lanes. Yes. I'll come up with it. Bike lanes and that they're fading away, and they need to be restriped and gone over. Over. The bad ones need to be gone over at least once a year. And since our last council meeting, there have been two accidents involving bicycles and motor vehicles, one of which was Avenue and East Southeast Avenue and East Roberta. East Avenue has got badly faded bike lanes.

At this point, I do not know if the bike was in the bike lane or not. It was an adult riding the bike, and he was found laying by the curb, I guess. So I'd like to see the bike lanes as an important item from the city budget and that they don't fade away so badly as they are now. And I thank you.

Thanks, John. Any other members of the public at this stage that wish to address the committee? All right. We'll move on to Item 4A, which is approval of our minutes for the August 12. Any changes to those items? Seeing none of these minutes are approved to unanimous consent. We do have three business items before we get to a review of the CIP and the show and tell. So we're going tackle those first and then we'll move into kind of the capital budget phase of the meeting this evening. Item number 5A is review and possible action on a proposed four year cardiac monitor maintenance agreement with Stryker.

Chief? Good evening. This is

the standard four year agreement for maintenance on our cardiac monitor. Chief Tims will come up and give you just a quick overview on what the contract entails.

Tim Klabbe, Assistant Chief of the Party Department.

Thank you. So a number of years, we've been

working with Stryker for a number of RUM's products, powerboat, cockp, power stair chairs, the Lucas chest compression devices. This year, we increased our inventory of our LifePacks from six to 10 and moved to LifePack 35 for technology, latest and greatest, obviously, important piece of our inventory. With that comes the ProCare contract. It allows us the sort of immediate repair and replacement as needed as we move through these and have an issue. So in the event of an issue, they bring us a replacement out, a temporary replacement, if you will, loaner, repair, replace it and bring it back. So obviously, there's an increase in cost moving our inventory from six to 10, so we're just looking to effectively keep this contract in place for the next four years.

Questions from the commissioner? All right. I'll entertain a motion

I'll move to approve four year cardiac monitor maintenance. Is there a second? I'll second.

Second by Alderson Helden Slavin. There's a motion and a second. We'll do voice vote. All those in favor sign aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you, Tim. Next item on our agenda, another fire department item is review and possible action on the proposed fire department training center contract permit other fire departments to use the Burn Tower And Training Center. Chief?

All right.

So this is the contract that covers all of our typical liabilities and concerns when we bring an So

the contract we drafted in cooperation with the city's attorney office kind of modeled it off of some other fire department training facilities as well. Kind of outlines the responsibilities of both us as an agency, anybody who's coming to utilize facility. And then it also outlines any of the liability agreement stuff along the way too. So if there were any injury or damaging of equipment, either on our part or on their part, when they come and use our facility, it outlines everything in there. And then it also allows do And then able to to

we'll also also help to

contribute do towards that. The ongoing maintenance of the building.

And I guess one question I had is just how is what we're charging comparable to WCTC or some other departments that have something like that?

So coincidentally, WCTC just revised their fee schedule at about the same time we were doing this. So we're right in the same ballpark as they are. We wanted to make sure that we didn't charge too much that our neighbors didn't want to train with us when we wanted them to train with us. So we kind of are right at about the same point as WCTC. The structures don't line up quite evenly because they just they're charging it a little bit differently in the structure wise than we are.

But they're pretty much the equivalent of cost. So like the other question I had is just the kind of the reimbursement for the materials, right? So drywall OSB, it says market costs. So is that can you just walk us through kind of what's that process Yes. Look

So we have props that use drywall. We have props that use OSB for roof ventilation props where we go off and cut holes simulating like if

you saw the pictures of

the fire yesterday where we go onto the roof and cut a hole on the roof. So we have a prop at the training facility, and it uses the sheets of plywood are used up in just a few evolutions. The price of the materials goes up and down with the market. And so rather than just setting tariffs or other embargoes or, you know, sub group driving the costs up beyond our ability to control it, we use that as a little bit more flexible cost that we'll use with either Woodford Home Depot and ours where we can get the best deal for the lumber.

I

noticed that in some of the details here on the cover sheet that the agreement will make sure that we are able we're that to to first sense then a later date decide to expand the number of agreements and make sure that we're still prioritizing the city of Waukesha over other folks using our ability?

Our initial plan is our media neighbors that we work with regularly. And then we're going to monitor the usage from there and whether we have the ability to expand. Our usage is pretty regular. It will continue to be pretty regular. In particular, I think the usage that we'll probably see the highest impact with is when we have new employees hiring both on our end and when our neighbors have new employees hiring, and we want to bring them through either they're coming in to do new employee training.

And those are usually kind of scheduled events that will be a little bit more predictable, and we'll be able to work together with those agencies to either time them up concurrently with when we're doing training or be able to predict when they are

gonna

have

a use need. I do think it's a close note. This is new to us a little bit too. So we'll be learning how to manage that schedule as we go. But at exactly the best point, we'll watch it and we'll make sure that our needs are prioritized first.

Perfect. Thank you very much.

Other questions for the fire department?

I'll entertain a motion for approval of the contract. Motion to approve fire department training center contract to permit other fire departments to use the Burn Tower and the training center.

Is there a second? I'll second. Second by all the FERC and held in Slabin. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Seeing none, we'll do a voice vote. All those in favor sign aye. That item also passes unanimously.

Item

5C is review and possible action on amending the disposition of surplus property financial policy F-fifteen.

You bet. Go. So I guess even starting this off, this is coming to the finance committee based on a referral from Alderman Lundke. So if there is a desire to table that item until the next finance committee meeting when he might be here, that would be perfectly fine on our end. It doesn't impair or otherwise inhibit anything that we're doing. But I just want to put that out there before I do go into the policy.

I think I think that would be great.

I think that's a good question. If

there's no objection, we'll table this to our next meeting. No objection. All right.

Perfect. Thank you.

All right. So the main event. So we'll move into Item 5D, which is a kickoff of our 2026 budget season and a review of the twenty twenty six to two thousand and thirty community investment program and the viewing of the

fleet items to be

replaced. Gentlemen? So this capital

going give some highlights kind of on the five years, but we're definitely going be focusing on major subheading in 2026. Also, please note that our next meeting, we will go into a little more depth by departments, on their major purchases and projects. So this one is really more of a high level. And of course, the show and tell is what we're a lot of people are here for. So, but we wanted to make sure that we introduce introduce the topic. And so just kind of going in, what is our CIP? It's our five year planning tool for anything capital. And that can really entail anything that's infrastructure. Equipment. It can be sewer system.

It can be sewer plant. So basically, just maintaining our capital needs for buildings, infrastructure and equipment. And so that's really what this is. We know that, we have another quarter had

of of of the property impact tax levy? Sure. So

when we did our financial management plan, did we kind of talked about the buckets of funds. And the two bucket two of the three buckets that we really talk about the most were our general fund or our operating fund and then the capital fund. And so really, the difference there is that we talk about lending limits a lot, and we put stuff that restricts us from doing. The biggest restriction is on That's the where you all have the least amount of control for making a decision on your own. That's where the limit is really the hearts.

Where the exclusion is on our borrowing capacity, and that's really what is related to capital. So if you determine that we have several buildings and infrastructure that need to be replaced, you're able to make that decision. We do have a debt limit. That's 5% of our equalized value, which I don't have wish now I would have had that on my mind, but we're we're under 50% of what our debt limit is right now. We have a decent amount of outstanding debt.

So just saying we we have the capacity to do more, but we also have a decent amount of debt that we are trying to control. So but this just to kinda let you know, like, the the stuff we're talking about tonight, this is the stuff that we have control over, and we can we can approve if you deem that that's necessary to do these projects. So this is again, if you approve it, we are able to fund it. Okay?

Yes. I just wanted, Joe, to point that out because I think that's worth thinking about the city's overall financial capacity and some of the challenges we do have moving forward. Again, the operating lobby is a piece where we're constrained by net new construction. But on the debt service side, the debt service lobby, that's an area where you guys can make a decision about up to how much debt we want to issue.

And Joe will talk a little

bit about at least the target that internally we've set for what the year over year growth that we'd like to see to stabilize kind of the amount as we move through the years. But I just don't want you all to have the misperception that we need to, at an extreme, pull back all capital spending because we have financial challenges. One, it relates, but it's not directly related, again, to the operating levy portion where the issue is.

So orientation of the room isn't perfect for this. But if you wanted to, like, move or turn around, I do have a PowerPoint on the screen to you if you wanna do that. Finally, those slides. So we've talked about capital a number of years. The way we usually fund it is through general obligation debt, which relates to that tax levy that we were just talking about.

And that's the one thing that we're able to do as a city. We also funded through various other items like federal and state funding. There's some state related projects that we can issue specific debt for. And then on the utility side, specifically, we, have issued revenue bonds and clean water fund loans to the state, which are usually, low interest loans, when we need that funding. So that's kind of just a little summary of what we use to for cash flow.

And just this is a again, very high level for the whole five year CIP plan. In the major projects between governmental and enterprise, we have 100 and questions. Of questions. Of we have have a of questions. Are in the plan right now. And that's, again, that's for the whole five year period, not 2026 on itself. So deep breaths. All right. Just kind of jumping in, we're going to talk about governmental major capital projects first. And this kind of just gives you a flowchart of kind of what we have for this particular category.

The lowest that we have is $13,700,000 The highest there in 2029 is $19,300,000 Again, looking at this on its own isn't necessarily the full picture because, as I said, there's two other categories that we're trying to replace that we have for replacements. But this gives you an idea of those major projects, which usually is in our major buildings and infrastructure. And here's kind of just those high level projects, some of the major projects that you are in our twenty sixth year. We have minor streets for about $4,000,000 and that's covering some reconstruction on Prospect Avenue, Bidwell Avenue, Davidson Road and Williams Street. We have resurfacing projects.

Lot there's a lot of roads. I wasn't going to name those all today. So but all of them are listed on the sheet for about $2,600,000 overall. We have, stormwater pond rehabilitation. The two ponds that we're working on are Patrick Pond and Summit Woods Pond, and that's $1,900,000 We have, our muni garage, some significant improvements related to this building on the roof and on the HVAC system, about $1,000,000 The other two major projects related to kind of the parks area, our Mimiola Permanent Mimiola Restrooms And Pavilion for $2,400,000 with various funding sources, paying for that.

And then the last item there is a pedestrian and trail bridge design project. As you see there in the notes, it is a project to the USDOT raise grant program. It's covered 80% by that grant and 20% by the city. I believe it's about $279,000 would be the city portion of that design. And if

we could pause there just for a second. As we're going through and at the next meeting, that's a project that we'll want to take some time to talk about in terms of do we continue moving forward in the process accepting that grant and then doing the design? Because you may not recall this, it's two separate pedestrian bridges that go over the highway. Bypass, right? Bypass.

Yes. So

really it's a question of do we commit to doing that knowing that maybe the approach is once the design is complete, we actually construct it. If we receive grants to do the project or is that a project that we want to fund 100% at the city level? I think that's all conversations we should have before we get into the design work and accepting the grant.

All right. So that's the year. We'll have a couple of questions. Questions. And now, the lowest point is $6,600,000 in the out year and then just under $13,000,000 in 2026.

You can imagine the vast majority of the capital spending here is going to be at the clean water plant. And the kind of site kind of illustrate that for 2026, here are the two major the most major projects that have been getting clover. We're spending we're working on that phase of the facility to upgrade. We have been for a number of years. This is the last larger funding year that we have in the CIDP.

I believe there's still a little bit more, if Alex will correct me or not, but we have $6,900,000 that is planned for 2026. And then our general sanitary sewer rehab, which usually follows sewer lining and other rehab that usually is in cooperation with the streets projects that we have as well, 5,100,000.0 of sewer spending for those. And then one other area that I just kind of want to talk about is kind of our equipment and fleet area. You can see here with our governmental fleets, it kind of jumps up and down depending on what we our needs are and the way the replacement schedule works. You can see those two years that are about $5,700,000 in both of those years, we have a fire truck.

So you can imagine why that would spike. So that is a big reason. And as such, kind of giving you some of the major fleet and equipment projects for governmental, we have four, five- or six yard dump trucks in public works that are being replaced at 1,200,000.0 total. We have a number of squad cars and trucks that are being replaced, which we do have a replacement schedule, and this is pretty typical for the amount, but about $703,000 there. And then, like I said, the fire engine replacement, number 83 there, dollars 1,300,000.0.

I believe the one in 2028 is about $2,000,000 maybe a little more. So that one any questions on any of the details? We do have a number of directors and representatives for departments here. Obviously, they'll be here next meeting to answer any questions as well, but anything off the top of your heads you wanna ask about.

Did we receive the last fire apparatus that we bought? They had, like, a four year I don't care if we're home. We have two other vehicles that are under contract but are not being built right now. That's one. And on schedule to be delivered in the time frame that we expect.

The most recent one we approved last year was for 2028.

Got you.

Anything else?

No. Thank you.

Okay. Thanks, Patrick.

All right. So just kind of the last bit of the presentation before we look into the show and tell. How does this capital plan affect the tax bill? And seeing few rate. We're seeing we're we're history over the last several years as well as kind of what this projection is doing.

Because I will say this, since I got to the city, the one goal that I've had is to make sure that we kind of have a consistent spending plan, a consistent borrowing plan for sure. We know that we're going to get other funding with grants or some other aids, but that's great because it allows us to maybe do a little bit more. But from a borrowing standpoint, that's what hits the tax bill with paying that debt back. So kind of want to kind of show this kind of just some history on this next slide. So this starts with the year 2021, and it goes through what we project project for for 02/2030.

And you can see, like, back in the early 2020s there, that's when we were really getting into the that's when interest rates were low. You've heard me probably say this a number of times. That's when we started borrowing for those big projects. City Hall, it started a little before this, but that's when the debt started being paid back. City Hall, the police department renovation, and Buckner Pool all impacted the upswing from

to

of we're And back back to to replacing what we had more so than adding. Right? So that's what we've been kind of trying to do. This projection shows essentially us trying flatten out that debt issue, that issuance by year. Just to give you an to illustrate like some numbers.

In 2026, we plan about $18,400,000 of issuance. And in 2030, we plan on under $20,000,000 So less than 1,000,000 point dollars between the five years and increase, which I believe we plan at about 2% increase per year. So we met with this plan, we've met those goals. But this does show you, like in those if you look at on the slide, you can see in the middle row there, it talks about increase from previous years. It's kind of hard.

I can there we go. Maybe a little bigger. So you can see in those first five years, we had 5% to 20% increase in debt levy for debt service related to capital projects depending on the year because we had to pay for those large projects. So what we're trying to do is kind of keep it at a 2% increase at Match. We're trying to keep it below 3%, really.

If you look at this, it's about 2.7% in the projection here. That's what we're trying to that's sort of our goal is to keep it below 3%. So as you can see here, we're still about we're pushing 30,000,032 million dollars by the end of this period for just debt service and capital needs. But we thought it was important that we show this. But on the other side of that is what does that do to the tax bill? It's great to see large the whole number, but what does it do to the actual bill itself? Yes.

If we're not doing these big projects anymore, I had anticipated it would literally go down.

And we have all this debt we issued before that has to be paid. So the only way to do that would be then to

Oh, finishing it up.

Got you. To To drop

off and that takes ten years, yes.

So the only way to do that right away would be then to peel back the 18,000,000 and $20,000,000 that we set for ourselves, which can be decided. But if you ask like Alex and Brandon and Park Rack about all of the things that Correct. Are in the ground They'll talk to you about road, you know, the the what is it? The PACER rating? Is that the rate? Did I say that right? PCI. PCI. Sorry. They they when they talk about the rating, they're talking about how that's starting to go down, but, like, decrease if we don't address the infrastructure more aggressively. Okay.

I like roads too. Okay. But either way, so

We did just get a great presentation of the the previous mayor's office, the most recent one. It went over the the road resurfacing and what the needs were. So it was

And that was that'll be, you know, that'll be part of the discussion, though. Right? You know, if we decide if the council decides to go the other direction from a borrowing standpoint, that will be part of the discussion what we're willing to accept over there and on any of our infrastructure and buildings. So just the last slide I have here is really, and I want to say this very clearly, and you can see at the bottom of the slide. These are early estimates. They're very much subject to change. So do not take these as long, okay? Because this is really these are we don't have all of the assessed values. No decision has been made on this yet, but I want you to that's why it'd be an underlying subject to change. All right.

Last slide, tax bill projection. So the existing debt levy that or the existing levy on the capital side, dollars 350,000 home paid $1,081 related to capital projects this last year. So that just kind of gives you an idea of where we are starting. By the end of 02/2030, that same home with some inflation to the numbers there, it paid about $11.34 dollars If everything stayed. If everything stayed.

We did put an inflationary amount of 3.5% overall in for that home. But again, we don't know exactly how those are going to fall. We acknowledge it's going to the value is going to go up. But is 3.5%

down for assessed value too?

Yes. The overall assessed value and then the then the average family home value. So, so, yeah, that's that was the assumption for twenty seventeen thirty. So, you know, that's I would say that's roughly it goes you can see it goes down a little bit in 2026 based on those assumptions and increase back up a little bit. But we're on purpose, we're trying to cap how much we increase the debt service levy. But we'll try to report this at counsel with the updates that we have through this process, but that's what we're looking at. Any questions?

I know we've got three members of the council here too, Dan, Mike, Eric. Do have any questions for Joe? I like your forecasting. I think it's

a good model to be

consistent based since you've been here and. I think it's flat numbers are better than

big increase. So thank for you your work this far.

Any other questions from the committee? Gentlemen, thank you. So that kicks us off. And like Joe and Tony said, once we get back together on the September 9, we just want to have an opportunity to go even meet the capital budget and ask questions here from the departments. This is kind of a good way to kick us off.

So what we'll do now is we're going to reconvene at the city garage for item number 5D, which is the view of the fleet items that are to be replaced. We'll do since we don't have any other action items and we're not voting on anything this evening, the rest is just basically a matter of report, a tour and the ability for us to ask questions, is we'll adjourn we'll take communications and referrals and we'll adjourn out in the garage. So we won't reconvene back here. You can leave your stuff here if you like. But what we'll do is we'll take about a five minute break.

Anthony and Patricia are going to get us set back up. When you guys go up to the garage, go all the way down to the golf cart. We're going to start with the golf cart and then work our way around the building. Guess it's to great. I one more comment here, if along way to the next couple of

weeks, you guys have questions about particular

Yep. And make sure to remember if you ask anybody Yes. Ma'am.

Are you

to do first to get the police department back on the road. Sergeant Wanner is going to go through the squad cars and then we'll get Dave back on the road. Hi,

good evening. I'm Dave Wanner. I'm a Sergeant in our Special Services Division. I help manage our fleet. So we're asking for patrol interceptor utilities like the vehicle you see there.

Of those nine, one is a replacement car for a canine fleet. One of the big asterisks with that particular fleet is the current vehicle didn't have rear air conditioning. As you can imagine, in the summers with the dog in the kennel in there without getting proper air conditioning, fortunately, we haven't lost a dog, but you are at risk for that happening. The newer fleets have a rear air, which can be tied into the kennel that the dog is in while they're in service. So the other eight fleets would just be pretty much a standard replacement for our marked patrol units.

There's one other additional fleet that we're requesting. It's for our narcotics and vice unit and undercover vehicle. It's important that we keep those cars on a regular rotation. As you can manage, we don't want any of our detectives or specialists that work in those roles to be compromised in the streets and trying to do surveillance, watching for drug dealers, those types of things. So keep those cars fresh and new and to try to prevent people from identifying who might be driving these cars is important to that unit.

The rotation we've been going on is pretty much a standard three year rotation. I'd say this year is a very typical rotation cycle for us with the cars. We're always trying to avoid the real high mileage, getting cars out of warranty, curing high costs. As you guys can also imagine, squad cars are not driven like our typical our cars are. These cars are they're driven very hard and fast, slow, a lot of idle time.

They're running pretty much 20 fourseven, three sixty five. So even if mileage is low, the time on the engine and all the other components is very high. So we just want to avoid any of those catastrophic failures. We want to avoid situations where squads aren't available for the officers to respond to And 19. Quarter

quarter

The ones of that we are asking to be replaced? I

don't

right. We do auction off all the fleets. I wouldn't know that off the top of my head exactly. We do obviously keep he had asked if any of the fleets were asking to be replaced were involved in crashes as that could affect the value that we get for them at an auction. I don't know that off the top of my head. We do have a handful of fleets that have been involved in crashes and have been repaired. I'm not sure off the top of my head if any of the ones we're asking to be replaced are of those. Right. Yes, exactly. Yes.

Is that easier for you?

Yes, I

appreciate that. All right. So for the K9 vehicle that we already have that doesn't have the AC, is that coming out of rotation essentially on a normal schedule or are we pulling it early because it doesn't have that air conditioning?

Good question. The K9 fleet we're asking to be replaced is actually in its fourth year, so we kept it a little bit longer because it's not used twenty fourseventhree sixty five because that particular fleet is assigned to the handler. So we feel like in that situation, we're able to extend the life of that car a little bit longer. It's not being replaced early because of the AC. It just we replaced one of them this year on a normal four year rotation. And then the second one is due to be replaced next year.

Okay.

You're

welcome. All right.

So we'll let Dave is going to get out of here, but we'll move a little bit down the left. Cemetery, Karen? John is going to take care of it. So John, if you could why don't we just Anthony, why we just take

a little bit of a break

and let Dave get out? We're going to go to the cemetery.

We'll with the exciting stuff first. It all goes downhill. All right. I'm John Weinckhoff, And fleet with next next reflects being a higher value than just what a normal golf cart is. This vehicle here is an electric golf cart.

At this point, the batteries are shot and the electric motor is shorted out. So essentially, the batteries are about $1,500 same to we're sense discussions with the staff over there to try to get them into the correct type of vehicle for what they're utilizing them for. They have an 80 gallon water tank that goes in the back of them. Obviously, at that point, 80 gallons of water in the back of a golf cart is a little bit exceeding the capacity of a golf

then

with of

the the we'll

doing.

With load carrying capacity to handle the 80 gallons of water safely and be able to stop and maneuver all around the cemetery without doing any damage to the turf or obviously hitting any gravestones or anything of significance within the cemetery. This is the first of the four. Obviously, as you look in the five year plan, you'll see that we're doing one every year to get to that point. Once we get through this year, then we'll be able to streamline and then standardize our fleet across the board for all their units so that they're the same for operators standpoint, understanding and maneuverability, the whole nine yards. Trailer it, picked it up with a forklift.

So they actually dropped it off last week. Yes, it's pretty heavy. So needless to say, it's not very exciting to move around. Is there any questions on the exciting golf cart? Cool. Well, then you're going to have to listen to me for a little while. I actually talked to Brian, he said he wants to do it the end. So I tried to talk him into it, but he said no. He wants to stay in here for a while. So then behind you, the four yellow trucks, basically the explanation was for all of them are the same.

The first two are twenty fifteen and the second two are twenty sixteen. Similarly equipped, obviously for the show, make it easier, I don't put the plows and wings on them. Wings are hanging on these, but the plows right to to

get

the the there's two boxes underneath the right step. People The value of that box is about $25,000 We've had to replace two of them so far in the middle of snow season and they had a lead time of about two point five months. So that meant we were out without that unit for that time. As well as changing the equipment on them, we now part of the DNR mandate with the clean water plant, have to do pre wet. These trucks are not set up for pre wet application.

All the new trucks that we're doing all have the ability to have liquid on board on the trucks. If you guys walk around outside, you'll see the trucks that have the saddle tanks on the side of the boxes or on the side, that's what that's for. They'll apply brine to the road to reduce the salt usage is what the purpose of that is. We've standardized our fleet across the board with our plow trucks over the last years. Really what we're proposing to replace these with is really no different than we've done since 2018. It makes it very easy for the mechanics. The trucks are the same, the engines are the same. Fortunately, at this point, we're able to still buy the same engines that are in these trucks. There's an emission standard changing in 2026, which is going to have a significant increase in the cost of these trucks. But obviously, with everything going on right now with the EPA, that has not been finalized.

Originally, Cummins was talking about stopping building these engines this year in preparation for that emissions mandate. They have since paused that, which we were able to then buy next year's trucks without having the new emissions. It increases the cost approximately $15,000 per truck at this point, it's not been finalized yet. It adds a very extensive heater in the exhaust of the truck that heats up the exhaust so that it is cleaner when it enters the atmosphere. Obviously, as you add more electrical and more components in the exhaust on these trucks, complicates how we set up the trucks because they're such a short wheelbase and we add more exhaust to it, we're very limited on space.

So that will have an impact on what we're doing going forward. Unfortunately, at this point, we won't have to be impacted by it yet. Everything across the fleet. This engine that is in this truck is the same engine that's in a fire truck, same engine that's in a flusher truck, same engine in a clean any vehicles, a clean water plant, all of them. So it's across the board for our fleet.

We have not had to do one yet, knock on wood. His question was, we had to send a DPF out for cleaning. It's a process. There's two ways to do it. They can either do it out by burning out or they do a water version where they actually flush it out with water and that takes the ash load that is in that exhaust filter and cleans it out so you can reuse it.

It's a way of cheapening up the process of having to fix it. What our biggest problem with the DPFs on these is actually not that they plug up, it's that they rot off. They're stainless steel, but they're very low grade stainless steel and all the flanges fall apart. And we had one that actually fell off a truck when we were plowing because the flanges rotted off. Any other questions?

Cool. We can go on by the front end loader. This is a 2016 John Deere wheel loader. The wheel loaders for our fleet are very instrumental in our leaf operations, extremely instrumental in what we do in our downtown snow cleanup and our cul de sac snow plowing. This bucket is similar to what we use for leaf pickup.

We since changed the buckets. We did that two years ago now, went to a different style bucket. And that's significantly increased our efficiency in leaf pickup, allowing us to pick up more leaves in less amount of time with less trucks, cost savings all the way around. This is what we have seven of these wheel loaders during a snow plow operation. Every one of these vehicles are out during that, whether they're downtown clearing snow or once we get downtown done that we do cul de sacs and other tight areas within the city.

This loader here originally was set up with a plow and a wing. We have since switched on 2018, we switched to a different style plow, that's what's in the picture here. It's basically a box plow that allows us to do straight blade, angled box, you name it. It has significantly increased our efficiency when we do parking lots and downtown with our ability to grab the snow and then put it where we want it instead of just being at the mercy wherever it comes off the plow. We propose doing the same thing with this loader.

To be honest with you, our operators are the point that they actually fight over the three of them that we have because they're that much more user friendly and very efficient. For instance, when we do certain downtown lots, we used to send two wheel loaders to do those lots. We now can send one wheel loader to do that lot and we can do it in less time and then put the snow where we want it instead of having to take up more parking spots than we have to. So this loader here, obviously, the real reason for replacement on it right now, this is at eight thousand hours on it. The ten thousand hour threshold is where I try to keep them underneath.

That's the point where we need to start getting into major engine and transmission rebuilds. We have had issues in the past where we had wheel orders break down in cul de sacs. And obviously, it's not good PR for anybody. So by keeping these units up to date and not having the problems allows us to get our jobs done and have all the constituents happy at the same time. Any questions on wheel loader?

So what makes it more user friendly? Because you kind of described some of the changes that you've done with the bucket and everything. What exactly about it has made it more user friendly? And is it user friendly enough that I could drive it?

That sounds like a challenge. I think you need to come down during snow plowing now. So the way the box works is with a wing that's on the front of it, you had a 12 foot wing of plow that was on the front and you could either straight or angle it. And then you had a wing that was mounted after the pivot point back here. So when you're getting into things, you have to be careful because when you turn to the right, the wing is actually getting closer to what you're doing.

And when you turn left, it's actually going away and flattening out. So it has its place, but when you're in tight areas and when you're in cul de sacs, you have a vision issue because you have that 12 foot wing that's hanging off the side of the loader. And when you're turning, it's either getting closer to things or hopefully getting farther away. That's an issue. The box plow, the biggest advantage to it is it scrapes, it has a spring loaded carbide cutting edge on it that scrapes the ground amazingly well, which reduces the amount of salt that we have to put down.

Not saying it eliminates it, but it does reduce it. Then by having that spring loaded cut edge, obviously we have the reduction of salt, plus it has the same spring loaded cutting edges on the wings. So when we can have it where question. Next can scoop it and then you can stack with the next snow to make more snow in a smaller area. So obviously visibility because everything is in front of you, you have nothing behind you, that's what makes it a lot easier on the operators.

Obviously, when you're in snow, things slide around. So when you've got everything else going on, you're trying to watch what's behind you, that's when accidents happen. I'm not going to lie, accidents do happen in wintertime. We've hit mailboxes, we've hit cars, it's happened. Some of it is the nature of we're operating this on slippery ground. We put different tires on all the wheel orders now that are specifically designed for winter grip and they have tremendously helped, but they don't it's still rubber on ice. It's not going to be 100% inevitable or preventable. You

mentioned that because of the nature of the scraping that you're able to do that we're using less salt. From a cost savings perspective, that's not only a cost savings on the salt itself that we're using less of, but then that's also good in terms of sending water back to Lake Michigan, I'm assuming as well.

Thank you.

It would be less salt that we have to remove that Zach has to remove from the water when we return it. The other trick is that obviously when we have a wheel loader out on a route and they're doing cul de sacs or doing downtown whatever it is, this doesn't have the ability to spread salt. So we have to have somebody else come behind them to spread salt, which we still do. We will have. It's just that when it's cleaner, it's less that they have to do or it's more time that we have that we can keep going and then they can come behind us instead of trying to be right behind the loader to follow-up with the salt.

Good questions. Anybody else? Exciting. Then we can go down to the flusher truck down here. So in layman's terms, can explain this very easily.

It's a huge pressure washer because that's really what this is. This creates 80 gallons per minute at 3,000 psi is what it does. The purpose of this truck, Joe's crew, they go out and they flush flush the sanitary and the storm sewers on a daily basis, and it's pulling debris through the sewer system to get to make sure that the sanitary and the storm sewer systems are flowing efficiently. Part of this is actually a requirement of the DNR of our permit for the clean water plants, we have to do it. And obviously, a lot of it is just making sure that nobody has any issues with sanitary backups or storm sewer, obviously, as we just went through here two weeks ago.

This truck is critical in that. What's different about this truck compared to the replacement truck? This here is a typical piston pump that's on this truck and we have gone to a single piston. It's basically a hydraulic cylinder that compresses the water. The amount of repairs that we've had to the other trucks that we have in our fleet are about a tenth of what we have in this truck.

This truck on a typical basis, when it's a frontline truck, for us to spend about $30,000 a year on repairs to this pump is not uncommon. Reciprocating pump that's spinning, you have water that gets into the oil as a natural byproduct of it leaking, things wear out and there's big dollars that are in that green pump that are right there. So we switch to a different style pump. We've made gains on what we've had for breakdowns. It actually does a better job of flushing them with this as well.

It's a lot easier for the operators to use. The truck itself, the killer to this one is not necessarily miles that are on the truck, but the hours. Every time that that pump is running, it's running the truck engine up there, no different than the replacement truck. We still use the front engine to power it. Years ago, twenty five years ago, there used to actually be a second engine that was up here that ran just the pump and then you didn't run it, obviously, at the cost of a engine at that point.

This is a much more efficient way of doing it. We have less issues with it as well with less moving parts. This whole system here is hydraulically driven off of the PTO and the new system is the same exact way. The biggest just the style of the pump and the way it's configured. It's actually made down in Guanajuato, Super Products is the company that builds them, so keep it local. Any?

We get the water from a fire hydrant somewhere?

No. Actually switched Joe switched to using affluent water from the clean water plant four years ago, I believe it was. So we are no longer using clean drinking water to flush the sewers. Obviously, you have drinking water and you're putting it down a sewer. Yes.

The downfall to doing that is the water that comes out there is pretty hard. So it is hard on the pump itself. It will actually put holes in the cast iron pump because that water is hard. Something that we've dealt with, but at the point of what we were spending, especially now with the water that we're getting from Milwaukee, the cost of what that is, the parts that we have to replace are much less than what we would be if we were paying to buy water out of hydrants. Now the front, this black part right here is an 1,800 gallon water tank.

So what they do is they flush and that it all depends how long the pull is that they're flushing and how long that but then they would come back to the clean water plant and fill up with water because obviously the only place that the effluent water is, is next door. So we have to come there. The only vehicles that we actually use clean water in the city are is when we sweep because we can't use the affluent water and be out on the streets. It has to be in sanitary confinement. So the sweepers still use hydrant water, but we have no choice on that we have to.

Anybody else? Cool. Red pickup trucks next. So this is a pickup truck for the clean water plant for Zach's crew next door. I'm going be 100% honest with you and letting you know that the truck that is in the picture, this is not the truck. The truck that is actually getting replaced is at the dealer getting recalls done right now and didn't make it back in time. So it's a representative truck. It's really just a pickup truck. It's used for around the Clean Water Plant. They use it for towing their generators around.

The biggest thing that we've changed with their pickup trucks, this is a diesel as with the other truck that it legitimately is replacing. We are switching to gas trucks instead of the diesels. Diesels are great for towing. They have their place. Diesel, diesel, yes. Diesel, no. They're putting around the clean water plant next door. We have issues. We've had all sorts of issues with emissions on both trucks just because of the nature of how they're using them. They're not working them hard enough to get the DPFs cleaned out.

It's a constant fight. By going to the gas motors, they still have the ability to do the towing they need to do, they have the power to move the generators around they need with a lot less issues of the emissions kind of stuff. So that'd be the main reason why we're getting rid the other truck, it's just the emissions are it's constant having issues with it. Similar truck, would be it's going to have a plow on it, regular cab, long walks pickup truck. They're using it for pulling generators, taking hoses to water issues at lift stations, lift station maintenance, all sorts of different operations that they do at clean water plant. Not very exciting, just a pickup truck. Any questions? Cool. I can just speak from this one right here. This is the locating truck engineering.

This is the gentleman who goes around the city doing any locates for any utilities that are city owned utilities, sanitary, storm, electrical, that kind of stuff, city owned infrastructure, he goes out and marks. Don't look underneath that truck, with with with

I

he has to mark all the time and the truck is a challenge. So we're kind of limping it along as need be, but that's the main reason why that one. We've also standardized all of the vehicles in engineering and gone to little Ford Escapes, gives them the ability to carry what they need to carry, small vehicle and it's all wheel drive. So if they got to go on the job sites, they still are able to go on the job sites, don't have issues with small vehicles. Any questions on that? Okay. On that note, it's fire department's turn. Tim?

So good evening, Tim Fleming again, Assistant Chief of the CityWalk Shell Fire Department. Have about four vehicles that we'll go through here this evening. First one is our fire safety house. So this is what fire safety looked like in 1996. As you can see, this has had a number of years in service.

This has been a sort of an institution into the Waukesha School District and the city schools that are within our jurisdiction. Some of the improvements that you'll see with the replacement of this is ADA accessibility, some upgraded technology, and one of the biggest drivers is the fact that this takes a minimum of four people to operate and has two different levels on it. So you can understand some of the operational impact that, that has when we have to use on duty crews. One of the nice features of the other one outside of the accessibility issues is the ability to run this with two people then. So we can use our Fire Prevention Bureau personnel and eliminate some of the on duty staff that are pulled away to try to continue this great program.

If you want to step out, if anybody has any questions with the trailer fires, home safety, bedrooms, the importance of closed doors and the ability to introduce what is fake smoke, actuate a fire, smoke detector rather, simulate a phone call to 911. Some of those features are no longer working in this trailer. So we simulate that. Most importantly is that muscle memory of calling 911 and simulating a dispatcher no longer works inside there. And additionally, framework of it has repaired once before.

So the safety of it going up and down the road has certainly reached its end of life. We've a couple of folks in there, so we'll give them a moment to see if we get any questions. Sorry, can get to you. There's a step that may be this was the accessibility issue. Thank you.

Any questions? All right. Any other questions with the trailer? Perfect. Thank you. Next up is the continued process of our rechassis of our ambulances. So we've completed four of those. So in the CIP book, you'll see both the chassis purchase and then the, completion of the re chassis process where we take the existing box of these, send them out east, and it gets placed and rewired onto the new chassis. And again, this is a process we started a handful of years ago. Four of those are complete and this will be five and six.

And again, the effort of that is to find cost savings, get the full life expectancy of the box while replacing the chassis that truly gets the hours and the mileage on it. So no change with this future. Lot a

this is our engine that's scheduled

of for replacement in next year. The truck that's replacing it is already under contract. That was approved back in 2023. So due to the lead time of fire apparatus being three plus years, the purchase of the new vehicle was already approved back in 2023 and this is just executing out the end of the contract and for the replacement. This vehicle is a 2008, so it served frontline as Engine one when it was first delivered.

And then in 2020 when new Engine one was delivered, this moved to its reserve status. So it currently serves as our one of our reserve engines for either being placed in service when another vehicle is out of service for maintenance or if we have a major emergency and we do a callback of off duty personnel and we can stand this engine up as an extra engine in the city. Any questions? So standard replacement is fifteen to twenty years on our fire engines and this will be at about the eighteen year mark by the time we take delivery of the new fire engine. Believe it or not, it's 18 years old.

Say it again? It is not. Yes, currently three plus years. We are working right now, our apparatus committee is working to develop ways just to simplify some of our options on the engine to see if we can reduce that timeline as much as we can. But otherwise, it's still about three years out and it's not just in the Pierce manufacturing, it's across the industry. You've probably seen the headlines from the federal government where they're asking questions on why because there's major fire departments across the country struggling to keep their fleets in service because of the lead time of fire apparatus.

Correct.

It's included in the same purchase. Some of it carries over, but most of our equipment has about a ten year life span and so we try to rotate it with the vehicles and keep it in that same replacement cycle. For EMS, So these yes, so the question was how often are these vehicles used for EMS? And so we staff at each of our firehouses. We have one suppression apparatus and one ambulance staff there.

They work in tandem based upon the acuity of the call. So when you call 911, the dispatcher asks questions and the acuity of the call then chooses appropriate resources. And when you get to a higher level acuity call where more hands or perhaps this might be the actual the paramedic unit for that station or the closest paramedic unit, then the fire apparatus will respond with. So the standard lower level EMS calls would be like falls without injuries, traumatic injuries with just simple bleeding control, sick people with not real priority, high priority symptoms. Those will get single ambulance responses.

When you get into chest pains, seizures, cardiac arrest, then you start seeing the fire apparatus also responding to support the ambulance resources.

Have a percentage?

Not off the top my head.

Perfect. Thank you. All right. Last piece for us is another replacement of our staff vehicles. So this again is part of that ten year replacement of what we refer to as our staff vehicle. So you'll see these with our Chief Officers as well as our Fire Prevention Bureau. This particular car also doubles as our backup battalion chief vehicle, meaning that daily car that takes care of managing all emergencies, greater alarms in our city. So it's outfitted with a few more radios and a few more lights. One unique feature you'll see with this as we did, we're starting to move from the SUV to the F-one 150 chassis. The nice part of this is this is driven daily by our fire inspectors and our fire investigation folks.

So moving that to an F-one 150 with the cap on it then affords us to have that fire investigation equipment on the vehicle and ready with them. So there's not a delay. You'll see them on seen almost simultaneously with us now grabbing additional I'm sorry, initial images and video and then they go into interviews and write in the investigation process. So it's that continuation of process. So putting those tools on the road with our folks that are assigned those tasks and move into a vehicle that works a little bit better. So, the only difference you'll see is the exterior light bar, different than the other SUVs and staff cars that we replaced recently, and that's why you see those because they're outfitted with a little bit more emergency lighting,

for

that role of daily use should it be needed. If our current Battalion one vehicle is in for maintenance or if we have multiple alarms in the city that require. Any questions with staff? Perfect. Thanks for your time. We'll turn it over to Park Reich. You bet. You

can have them come get it. They were going to just leave it because they took my truck, talked to the boat trailer for

the night. We'll get it switched out.

But whatever you want to do, I don't care. If you're looking in the book, first want to apologize, I had them in order by the book and I made a mistake with this one here. So it's my mistake. This truck and the one that's on the end are basically sister trucks, explanations are very similar to them. Each one of them have their issues.

This one's having transmission issues and the other one is having high oil usage of the engine. These trucks are used multiple different crews around the park properties, whether it's pulling a stump grinder or a trailer, obviously plowing and salting in the wintertime or watering and such in the summertime. Obviously, as you can see, Wisconsin salt has played its toll on both of them as well as the box has taken a beating on them from pulling out the stump grinder and doing that around. They have proposed to switch the one vehicle to a one ton dump truck instead, instead of it being a pickup truck based upon the hauling needs of the forestry crew. Other than that, it's pretty just pretty much a pickup truck.

Obviously, the wintertime, it's used for plowing all around the different properties at the parks. Fire away?

The IBC container that's on the back of this one, I'm assuming is not included with the truck, right? That's just there because you use it with the truck. Got it.

Yes. That's part of the watering crew for watering. Correct. Yes. I think everybody was waiting for the question.

The next vehicle is the garbage packer. This is actually one of two garbage packers that we have within the city. We have one and Park Rec has one. We actually have two completely different garbage routes that they do. The biggest struggle we have with this one is because it's an Isuzu chassis, the ability for us to do any electronic work on the engine, we don't have the software for it is the only Isuzu that the city owns at this point. So we would be standardizing to a Ford F600 pickup truck. The cab would look similar to that pickup truck over there. The back end of it would look very similar. The only difference is Melissa's team asked to do a eight yard packer in the back of it instead of a six yard. Obviously, garbage route is pretty large, goes around all the different parks and different sites around the city as well as downtown.

With the six yard garbage packer, they actually have to empty it twice during the day in order to make their route complete. By going to the eight yard packer, we should be able to eliminate that and do everything in one run at that point, which obviously is a big cost savings. They have to come back down here to the drop center, to the dumpster is where we dump both the garbage trucks at. And obviously, they're unique because we have two of them within the city. We have a route that Joe's crew does and then Melissa's team has the route that they run for their different parks, obviously at the park locations, Melissa's team picks it up and then some stuff that's downtown.

And it's kind of a joint, there's some stuff we do and some stuff they do. And the reason some of it is split up is because to do all of the routes with one truck, you would for one time wise never get done and capacity wise, you'd probably have to take four trips in order to do it. So in a day, you wouldn't ever get through all of those. So that's part of Joe's Carriers are a different rotation than what Parks does for their stuff. And obviously, they have more sites than we pick up. And we will do work back and forth. If something goes down, they use ours. We've used this one in the past when ours broke down. It is a pretty critical piece of equipment for the parks if you want garbage cans that are empty overflowing, making a mess all over. Any questions on the garbage truck?

Pretty exciting. Almost exciting is a pressure washer truck. I would say the next truck is probably a little self explanatory. It's a bucket truck. It's one of four bucket trucks that Park Rec has in their fleet.

This is assigned to the forestry crew. The uniqueness to this truck compared to the other two trucks that forestry has signed directly to them is that it's a smaller chassis, allows them to get into smaller areas and has similar reach capacities, but the difference is with the bigger trucks, there's more off the side farther out capacity that they can get to that these trucks because they don't have the weight of the chassis itself, they're not able to do. But there are certain areas driving into parks when they have to do tree trimming. This truck obviously has much less impact on the ground and the park restoration stuff afterwards, doesn't make a mess. So that's where they'll use this truck for certain things versus others with the bigger trucks.

It all depends on the job and what it is. It's used by the forestry crew. This truck here, the it actually has a steel box on it and steel subframe that's underneath it that is extremely rotten to the point that it's getting to the point it won't pass certification anymore. What we do when we rebuild these trucks is we actually will be putting a fiberglass body underneath them with aluminum sub structure. Obviously, still corrodes, but we have a lot less failure rate is what we have in the cabinets. If you look on both sides behind the wheels, you can actually see where the cabinet is actually starting to blister into the compartment. And that's the structure. The aerial itself able of get back back

more a year.

Going to be be able using fiberglass and aluminum as opposed to a steel cage from a because you said it was kind of a counterweight, is that going to affect the counterweight ability because aluminum and fiberglass, I'm assuming, are going to be lighter than steel?

So when they build the body, they actually have counterweights that they put into the chassis to accommodate for that capability. The truck that we actually have down the City Garage, similar in size and configuration of this truck has a fiberglass body on it. What the industry wide has done with the ability of these smaller vehicles is just amazing. Years ago, to say you could get a 40 foot truck, which this is, that was about what you could get. You can actually now get to the point you can get 57 feet out of one of these trucks.

So it's pretty impressive what they can get out of a small package. But again, with that 57 feet, there's restrictions within how far off it can go to the sides. So straight up is one thing, but then moving off. Any other questions? Park Rack has four and then we have one that is assigned to the science and guides crew.

Anybody

This is a cargo van that is primarily assigned to the building maintenance crew, specifically actually the city plumber for doing plumbing repairs to all the city buildings around the city, no matter what, whether it's park rec, city hall, police, fire, you name it, they go around and take care of a lot of plumbing stuff for us at all the different buildings. Right now, there's a little bit of an issue of capacity with it. When it gets fully loaded with all its components, it is overweight. Obviously, the braking system at that point then becomes not quite enough for it. So that's the challenge we're facing with when it comes to this vehicle here.

Obviously, condition wise, it's not in bad condition. Solid as rock can go on that. It's just the ability to the configuration of the inside of it, very limited on what they can haul the capacity of it. They do make different vans that have different capacities. It's just that this one was purchased and it had the lower weight capacity to it.

Questions, comments, concerns? Okay. Now we get to move on to something a little different. We got mowers now. So this is one of six mowers, I believe, Melissa.

Okay. So six mowers that Park Rec has to mow multiple different park properties around the city and different things. Obviously, this would be considered a medium mower. They have larger mowers that cut more area than what this one does. They each have their place. They each have their purpose. It's great to have a big mower, but when you get a big mower in a little area, it's really not very efficient. So that's why there are differences between the large and the small mowers. The mower that would be replaced, the only difference would be compared to this one is it would have a cab on it. It allows them to mow more year round with it.

Obviously, fall, spring can get tricky with that. But the actual mower itself, across the board, our fleet to Toro Mower. Toro was very good in the industry, has a very good reputation. They are a great piece of equipment. We're supported very well by the dealer and parts and service are very readily available for us. This is pretty standard for them. I guess it's nothing really out of the ordinary for what they do for mowing. Any questions on more?

Okay.

These are two John Ear Gators. They're utilized at two different park facilities. One is at Saratoga and the other one is actually at Frame Park. But obviously, during snow plowing and different stuff, they'll go to different sites. They're not only limited just to staying there. That's their primary focus when it comes to summertime assignments. They do have plows on the front of them. They have salters in the back of them for doing park sidewalks, trails, etcetera. Smaller areas that you can get in with a pickup truck. Main reason why you want to get in with one of these versus like pickup truck, you get into a small area, obviously hitting objects is one thing, puts visibility of these as much higher.

As you can see, you're surrounded by glass, you can see everything get into tight areas, a lot less property damage, still happens. Obviously, you come off the edge of the sidewalk, you're going to have sidewalk damage and whatnot, but a lot less with this first putting a pickup truck on that. Years ago, they had Jeeps that they would use to do a lot of that kind of going away from that. They have a mix of some Colorados for the larger stuff. And then these obviously have changed dramatically how their abilities of them and what how efficient they that you can use them in more places than before.

Some of the struggles we're having with these units here, the corrosion of them is the salt obviously is just taking a toll on the frames on them. They are pretty tough. And then the ability with the way these in the earlier days of putting Boss plows in the front of these, they put a lot of weight on the front of the suspension. There is now as years have gone by, there has been options to change the front suspension to allow us to have better carrying capacity in the front, so the front doesn't get as low. When they jump curbs, obviously doing sidewalks, they have to jump curbs.

The front framework on it does get really close to the ground and can cause issues with breakage of the framework. So that would be the biggest change. Proposed replacement will be very similar, small compact utility vehicle or to that nature and very, very similar in size and configuration. Any questions on the Gators? Go ahead.

Maybe a question for Tony and Park Rec too. So if we're looking I know the talk is to maybe take a peek at contracting some snow removal out for like parking lots and sidewalks and stuff. So if we go down that road, do we still need equipment like this? Or do we need something different?

Melissa Lipska, Parks and Forestry Operations Manager. So yes, we had a meeting earlier today about snow plowing and the possibility of contracting out snow plowing services. The extent of what we plow in the city, we would not be able to contract out entirely. So a lot of our primary routes possibly may be contracted out, but secondary, tertiary routes excuse me, cleanup after the storms, we would still need both the gators and the track buses.

Any other questions on the gators? You should just probably get through your own.

So you said that you're using these year round. So even if in some crazy universe we could contract everything out, we would still need these in the summertime as well. Thank you.

The next piece of equipment is a loader backhoe. This is again assigned to the forestry crew. Obviously, other crews do use it for loading topsoil and other materials, but the primary purpose of it is for the forestry crew. So last year, we actually had a project where we were proposing to replace the grapple on this machine. We have since put that project on hold due to the replacement of this unit itself.

The integration of the grapple into the back itself is very extensive and would require a lot of changes to this unit itself. The grapple, if you look on the back of it, which it's kind of closed up right now, essentially what it is when they have trees that are down, they'll log it down to where it's just a log itself where it's say eight feet long ish. They'll grab that log and then they'll put it in the back of they have dump trucks or they'll use ours, whatever it would be to haul that away. This grapple right now, the way it is, it just free hangs. So as my hand hangs like this, that's how that clam is trying to grab something.

So when I'm trying to reach out to grab something, the farther I do this, the more it does this. So the grapple that we'd be replacing it was actually a fixed grapple, it's hydraulic, where it would be able to be positioned exactly where you need to grab So then when you're loading into trucks, you can grab it and then twist it, it rotates and then you can set the log in the back of the truck. A lot more components that go into the loader itself. This one here is hydraulic, which is just runoff hydraulics. It's very simple, basic We're

We're We're

's crews as well as us because obviously we've to fix it in the middle of a job and they got hydraulic oil all over. So part of the replacement of this unit is to integrate what we approved last year, replacing that grapple in with this unit and then buying the two of them at the benefits of the of of a the business. Any questions on lower tobacco? And Here, hold on. Let's grab this.

So there's a number in the CIP book for $180,000 Is that so the money that was approved for the grapple last year, that's in addition to that? Okay.

Yes. Was 140,000 last year allocated towards the grapples. We're putting one on one of our machines so that they have a backup and then putting one on this machine. So basically split it in half, dollars 70,000 will go towards the grapple and the replacement of this is what it will do. Basically, we're going to be doing is we're probably spending about 30,000 to 40,000 thousand dollars to outfit the grapple on this when next year it's going be going away.

That's not efficient use of money. So that's why we put the brakes on it, integrated in, we buy the unit, then we have a seamless integration with it. It actually be a better product for the crew that's using it, be a lot more user friendly in the controls than it would be if we're doing an aftermarket add on system to it. So there's obviously a lot that goes on within the hydraulic side that they have to change in order to have all those functionality to do all that different stuff. Yes, I mean, her question was, is there a staff savings in getting the other side of the good going do that.

Question. Of the logs when you're putting them in the truck or the trailer or whatever you're doing, in some cases, that's they can grab that and they can feed it into the chipper. When it's just free hanging, you can't do that. Having full control of that is much safer for everybody and more efficient because you're not damaging everything else. Year, we replaced their dump truck. If you look at the dump truck, the headache wrap on it, everything is all bent up and a lot of it is because of when you're loading the logs. And it's not the guys fault that are running equipment, it's just the nature of when you got something that's free hanging, you have no control over it. A log is heavier on one side than it is on the other, so it doesn't balance perfect and that's what causes headaches. So that answer your question? Yes.

Cool. Anything else? Perfect. The pickup truck on the end obviously kind of explained what I did in the end, very similar situation. This truck, it's a little different.

It doesn't use for plowing purposes. It's used by the building's crew. They use it for checking on crews, taking supplies, materials, pulling trailers, whatever needs to be taken to the different park sites around the city. This truck here, so far we actually the transmission issues are addressed with it, knock on wood. We have had some struggles with that as well as the underside of the box is getting pretty bad. The cross members are getting pretty rotted out on it. Obviously, welcome to Wisconsin. So that's basically the main deficiency with it. But unique, this one compared to the other ones, this one does not have a plow on it, it does not plow. So it's just used for the crews and the supervisors checking on crews at the different park sites and different stuff that they have going on around the city.

Else? Cool. Well, don't have to listen to me now. Now you get to listen to Brian.

Hello, Brian Engelking, Transit Manager for Citi. That is one of our twenty fifteen buses that we're looking to replace. We actually have eight twenty fifteen buses. They'll reach their useful life in 2027. This isn't in the budget book for 2026 because there is just a long lead time, not as bad as fire trucks, but the lead time for this bus will be eighteen to twenty months.

If we went with the other manufacturer that's approved for Buy America, it would be three years. So there's a long lead time. As I said, it reaches useful life, or it will in 2027. One of the questions might be, well can you hold off on purchasing some of those? We actually have eight buses that are 2015, three additional ones in 2028 and six additional ones in the next three years.

So we have 17 buses over a five year period that will need to be replaced. We want to keep a systematic replacement schedule. It will be 100% paid by federal dollars, 80% from the normal funding, and then we take city operating funds and reimburse those using federal relief dollars. So no cost for the city. I'm trying to think of anything else.

We do have issues with these. John has talked about salts. The big issue we have is our wheelchair ramps. When they're deployed in the wintertime, they get a lot of salt, a lot corrosion, and our maintenance spends a lot of time, especially on these older buses, making sure that they're compliant with ADA. And to replace them at this point is not cost effective.

Some of the other things too are these buses in particular, we have three of these that we got at the 2015. They were used extensively because a decade ago our fleet was in terrible shape and we overdrove them. And just like a car, if you put a lot of miles on early, you put premature aging. So these buses, they can be used on certain routes, but the longer routes like we don't take this bus out to freighter, any of those three, can't be used, they're just not that reliable. So pretty much where we're at with the fleet.

Like I said, it's 100% paid for federal dollars. And one of the other things, if this is authorized by the September, we would have some additional savings because we can get on year two of the WSDOT contract instead of year three, so we don't have to pay producer price index, which is 6%, that's a savings of about $40,000 a bus, total savings of $120,000 I just got the quote last week, so that's something that we'll be bringing forth. With that, I'll turn it back over to Alderman Piper or John.

Thanks, Brian. John, are you done? All right. So that brings us to the end. Before we kind of wrap up, does anybody have any other final questions for John or any member of staff? All right. Well, very good. I'm very happy to see that we've got a number of Aldermen here over and above the Finance Committee. So gentlemen, thank you for coming tonight. I also want to thank John, all the directors and his team for pulling all this together because all this stuff comes from other parts of the city, and this is quite a little enterprise to pull together for us tonight.

But I think it's a great opportunity for all of us to see what this stuff does, what this stuff is, and literally kick the tires. So I'm glad that we could all make it here tonight. I'm going to steal Joe Shiro's thunder for announcements and let everyone know that our next meeting where we're going to dive even deeper into capital budget is the September 9, that's a Tuesday at City Hall at 06:00. So I look forward to seeing the finance committee and all you there. The other thing I'd mention, and Tony would want me to mention this, that if you have questions, whether you're a member of the public, certainly reach out to your Alderman.

And for the Alderman and the finance committee that are here, if you have questions on the budget, please reach out to Joe and Tony and see if we can get some questions answered in between meetings. With that, I'll ask the Finance Committee, is there any referrals? Joe, do I have all your announcements? Tony, are we good? All good. All right. Seeing that, we are seeing no objection. We are adjourned. Thank you all for coming, have a great evening.