City Council - Regular Meeting

how things get paid and so no you asked very good questions. I I just you know and I normally would last it was been a while since then and the last time I was here I stuck up for the police department but um I was working then but now I'm retired and so I just was kind of I thought I'm just you know this is a learning process for me. Tim, did you have something you want to add?

Yeah, I just when you mentioned the phasing and and the pool is a great example of that because we've been looking at trying to do the pool for 10 years at least. Um, but because of other projects that we were doing in debt capacity, how it was hitting, we just didn't even even to go to the public to ask for the bond to do the pool. We didn't have the capacity in our budget to do the pool because we did the dam because we did the dry run, because we did Cedar River Park. Five years to buy that debt down far enough to make room for the pool.

So, so that's there. And even doing the pool, we've got we're looking at we've got Kids Kingdom needs to be redone. That's going to be a fun doing Memorial Park and and redoing that with the softball fields or any walking paths or anything we want to do along there has to wait right now to do that. We've got the bridge here that needs to be done. But we have to look at five, eight years down the road before we're going to be actually be able to do that before. So, we have and and that was one of the harder decisions I remember doing. I've been on the council now for a long time, but back 10 years ago when we were looking and saying the pool is leaking. We've got to we just didn't have the capacity. And to sit there and say, "Sorry, we can't do anything." And it ultimately ended up we pushed it down, pushed it back, and ultimately it ended up too far that we had to close it for a year. And that was that was hard because but we had to keep pushing it just because of the other projects and where we were on doing things. So we we really have taken a try to layer things in. The other side is the one thing that I've learned about this and I I hear people try to equate this to a business or to a family budget. Well, you can just set aside money and build up reserves. We can't. We really can't do that. Okay.

And it it'd be one thing to go to the public and say, "We're going to raise your taxes for the next, you know, five years. You're going to pay an extra, you know, $150 in taxes every year for the next five years, but we're going to spend it on something in five years from now." That's kind of what you're saying is we're planning on doing the pool in five years, so we're going to raise your taxes now that people just won't go well. One, we're not really allowed to do it in Iowa code. But two, to tell people, pay us a little extra. We're just going to set it aside. I don't think the public would trust us to to to have that money sitting.

Well, all our funds are capped in one way or another. You just can't go spend a bunch of money. You're capped. That's the max the max and there is no more after that. you're done. And so we have cuts to make. We made massive cuts years ago. Staffing and divisions were let go. The money simply wasn't there. And then you have to back off. You have only so much in reserves that you have to keep a per certain percentage to make sure you can make payroll when the taxes are coming in. So it's a lot more complicated than it appears. And like I said, I think it's best to just sit down and have that conversation. Yeah.

Your time here tonight. And it just there's there's things on here and you know you got to be a a rocket scientist or a lawyer to read a lot of that city stuff that I pulled up and uh so it it is very confusing especially when you don't work with it every day and we've got we've got Val who does a great job for us. Well, thank you.

So keeping us anyway I'll let I'll let you folks get back to what your your night's about and and thank you for your time and I'll hook up with you sometimes and we can get together and then I can have a better understanding. That's all. We might want to hang out for the next part because we're going to actually talk in more detail about the budget for the center. I just wanted to echo also appreciation for you coming in and and talking to us and you know being open to learning about this because um we all know that there's a lot of um strong opinions online sure

about these kinds of things and and understandably so but um I think we all probably would say our eyes have been open since we've been on council to learn how this works and the fact that

things come from different buckets. And you know, one of the things we've heard a lot about recently is, well, if there's water issues, why don't you fix the water issues instead of remodel the golf course um clubhouse? And there just isn't an understanding that it just doesn't work that way. And so, I appreciate you coming and and being open to learning about that. And a lot of people listen to you. I would I would love it if you could share what you learned with other people in the public as well cuz it is a hard thing to understand.

I and I again I I I appreciate all you guys do and and I am a golfer so I mean I just but I I just look at gosh what can we do that that we can help these people out in town. I'm okay but there's some people that just aren't and and that concerns me and everything goes up you know that. So, um, hopefully we can get things tabled a little bit better maybe. But, but thank you again for your time. I'll hook up with you, James something. Thanks for coming. Thank you. Yeah, hang out. Thank you. Any other comments?

Okay. At this point, council, I would take a motion to close the meeting to adjourn. Move to close public hearing. Second discussion. This is a voice vote. All in favor say I. I.

I. Opposed. No opposed. Good evening and welcome back for part two of our evening. This is a study session meeting of the city council of the city of Waverly, Iowa. It is Monday, March 23rd at 7:10 p.m. and we are called to order. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the

republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Council, do I have a motion to approve the agenda? Move approval of the agenda as presented. Second. Any discussion? Voice vote. All in favor say I. I.

Opposed. uh take a second and welcome back council person Angie Ellerbrook for here last night for your last night. We'll circle back around to the end and see if you have any final comments to leave with us. Um this is the time for public comments on items not on the agenda. Please limit your comments to 5 minutes unless additional time is granted by the presiding officer. All remarks shall be addressed to the council as a whole and not to any individual member. Does anybody rise for public comments? I see none. So, moving on, this is time for our study session calendar. This is a discussion of the budget for fiscal year 2027. So, part of why we put this on was kind of run you through where our final numbers are sitting before we go to hearing. Um, and also to allow you to have any other questions. There's anything you want to bring up again, anything you want to discuss further. Uh, we cannot increase this budget. You can go down if you choose, but to give you that opportunity one more time, we'll set the final hearing on the 6th and hold it on the 20th.

Okay? And that will be the end of the budget, so to speak, assuming it gets voted through. Um, so I know Val has uh basic numbers and kind of where we sit, where we don't sit. If you want to just walk through kind of the basis of where we ended, and we'll kind of go from there.

Sure. So, um, one of the bigger changes we did since our last budget discussion, we finally got our insurance numbers in. So, luckily it went down quite a bit. So, our final rate on that um for total for um was it's a 5% rate, but on our taxes we are looking at um 1.91634. So, it was quite a significant drop down. Um, the other ones we really didn't have too many other changes. So our final property tax rate we're looking at is 17.53876 be the rate we be looking at and like I said the majority of the list kind of push it like even what Mr. Sans said was he mentioned it was FICA diapers that was an increase and then also if you think last year because we had the growth and with evaluations and everything we were actually for 810 levy we were under that we were 7.999 this year we're actually at 810 with that we had a drop so that alone too gave us a little bit of slight increase in the taxes from last year

but that's something good to point out so we don't control all that the state sets that right now. They took that away from us years ago. In fact, we'll lose fiscal 29. So, this is fiscal 27. We're building fiscal 29. We lose about $100,000. They're going to pull away from us by eliminating another levy that we actually have for this building.

Um there's 20 of them that go away in fiscal 29. Uh a number of cities have voted these in. They're still taking them away. And it'll cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for some cities again to have to make up somewhere else in order just to get back to zero. Ours will be about 100,000 once it's all said and done. So as we look at the levy that I talked about, it's up 21 from where it was last year. Half of that is the state saying we now are going from 799 to 810. So again, we don't control that. We have to live that and that's what drives some of this. So I wish we could say we had all that control but so much of this comes from the state that we are so limited what we can and can't do either by dollar amount or by content. Every single fund we have is limited to even the debt. It's a certain percentage total valuation nothing above. Um so even with that levy increase of 2 because the roll back is so severe uh we did some calculations and as I said anything that went up in value under 5% is going to go down in taxes per 100,000. If you're flat to zero, it would be about $40 per 100,000 less. At 105.2, you break even at zero tax increase. And above that is when it starts to go up. So again, we can't predict valuation changes in people's property. We can't predict additions that are put on. All that stuff factors in that we don't control. All we control is what we spent and what we didn't spend. So, our entire increase in spending this year was just under $70,000 total. That's citywide. That is the amount that went up the entire budget. $67,000

over over fiscal year 2026. Wow. And that doesn't even count raises. I mean, all that stuff is way beyond that. We broke down and factored out other items. We had more revenue. We cut things here and there. That's what got that down to $67,000. that has increased from last year's to this year's on the general fund the debt service everything you see on there that will be the difference what we've seen so as far as spending and then like I said the rate goes up 2 and then taxes fall where they do depending on the valuation your house is so that's where we kind of sit

so how do you explain to the just the average person what that 17.5387 how does that translate into their pocket uh just as we said it's it's an increase of 0.2 two on the rate. But again, depending your valuation, um, yeah,

because if you take the property, and it is about 10 minutes tonight, real quick before I went in. So, you have a $100,000 house, right? 44.5 is the amount of the roll back. So, you're only going to pay 44.5% taxes on that. So that means you're only being taxed at $44,535 after the roll back, not your entire house, just the $44,000 part. If you look at the 17.53876 levy, that generates $781. That's how your taxes go. So it's based on valuation as much as levy rate. And the levy rates determined by spending versus valuation. So last year, that same house, if it didn't increase, had a levy rate of 47.43. 43. So you had a higher taxed rate. You were taxed at 47,7003 or 47432. So you're paying or you're being taxed $3,000 less per 100,000 against that same levy. And that's why taxes go down unless you had an increase in valuation because that same tax rate would have been 8.22 last year with the rate we had then which is 17.32466. The difference is $41 per 100,000 unless your property went up. So taxes don't always go up. It depends on again you put a valuation on that a assessor come through and say your house is worth 50,000 more. I can't control that. You can't control that. That's one property versus $1.2 billion worth of property is in the entire city. So we try to factor in the best we can. So we focus on residential property. About 75% of our value is residential. The others are where they are. And since their value their fallbacks don't change, theirs go up, down, it just depends. Um, egg then again moved a lot this year, but we don't really have any egg property in the city limit, so we don't factor that in. So, we always focus on residential properties.

I think it's sort of amazing that we're only up $67,000. I mean, I think that has that has a lot to do with I think city staff, you know, and the and the budgets they bring us that are lean to start with and just pacing of things and well, your general fund went up about 36,000, your insurance went up about 6 to8,000, but your debt dropped 42,000. So, the net of the debt going down, even though we have additional bonds going on, it's less than what we're paying off. Debt actually went down. And it's that balance that then drops it down to 67,000 overall.

And that goes with the typically we're fairly aggressive paying back the debt 100%. So and overall our debt cap I mean we're we're at about 50%. Yeah. About half where we could be. Okay. So, we have plenty of room now, but it wasn't that many years ago.

We were at 80% which is our cap that we had self-established and there was no more. And so, it took a number of years to buy that down, buy that down, less projects and get that down. So, we could put in a pool or golf course if need be or the road improvements we're looking at or that's how you continue. And again, we're paying more off this year than we're actually putting on. It'll continue to drop as we go forward. We have plans 5 years out already. It's just what goes in this year, what doesn't go in this year. Other projects come about. Um, we're constantly talking to Justin and Garrett. Other things break, projects we need to do, but they're always put out there two or three years worth for you to then decide and dictate and prioritize what do you want to do, what do you not want to do. And we knew this year we had about 3 million coming off. We put out less than 3 million from general fund obligations. Water, it's a whole different animal. It's funded completely different as was said earlier. golf course water is they are completely separate. It doesn't matter. They don't affect each other whatsoever. They're whole different funding sources. One does not equate the other. So you'll find that out later as we talk about what's coming up in the agenda next. Um we use state revolving fund for water and sewer projects and they have their own fund, water fund, sewer fund. It has to come out of there. It doesn't come out of your taxes. It comes out of fees. So it's different and that's what you have to start to understand. Um, so that's that's I guess what we have for you. I know if there's any specific areas you want to talk about or any items that through the budget itself. Just want to give you one more chance to kind of bring this up before we actually set the hearing. Uh, next meeting on the 6th for April 20.

So just new guy asking the question here. Sure. actual 2025 is what we actually spent or allowed to on. I'm looking at the this would be page nine. Okay. So, reading from the far right actual 2025 that is what was actually spent in the 2025 fiscal year. Correct. Correct. Correct. Those are audited numbers. Okay. Reestimated 2026. That's this year. That's what we think this year will come in. Not what we budgeted necessarily. Some is up, some are down. It's what we think it'll come in at the end of June 30.

Okay. So, yeah. Yeah. So, it's like we're guessing that come June 30th, that's what's going to be there. And then the budget is what we're talking about now. Correct. Yeah. At any point in time in the fall, we're literally balancing three budgets. You're auditing last year, you're dealing with this year, possibly an amendment, and then you have next year's your building. So, it's a lot to track, a lot to split out, and it just takes a while to get that done. Just want to make sure I was reading that correctly. Absolutely.

Not that this has an impact, but just for perspective, I feel like it merits a comment that um we went through the flood and many years afterwards of recovering from that. We went through CO that was very painful. We've had some pretty painful years of things coming down from the state and having to make some really tough tough decisions. Um it's it feels good to have a budget come together like this that feels like this is this is a good healthy budget, but we're also able to accomplish some things that need to get done. And I appreciate everybody's hard work that's made that possible.

Yeah. The main driver in any budget we talk about and again you come out and spend 8 hours on a Saturday twice a year with us. It's debt is what drives it. That's what moves the needle. You look back 5 8 10 years ago where a levy was. It's the debt that has made the difference. The projects come to that debt that is what caused this to go up. It is not the 810 levy. 810 is all you get. That's it. No matter what your values are, $810 per thousand is all you have to work with.

And insurance once it's in there, that's it. You don't put a police car in the insurance fund. You can't do that. Insurance is insurance. The bill is a bill. So again, we are capped in every single fund we have going forward. When you hear these reports of rampant spending, I'd love to know where that's coming from. I'd like to be rampant once in a while and spend like that. You can't do that. It doesn't work that way. It legally isn't possible. Benefits are about the only thing that does not have a limit that or insurance. And our benefits came down this year thankfully. Uh initial thoughts from the averages were going to be much much higher. So they came back in line, got us back to where we wanted to be. And that's what brought us in. So, um, there is nothing in here that we can't show you that again, it's either capped or it's limited. We have what we have and there is no more. And so, unless you want to pull it out of reserves, which you have limits to, you just don't do it or you have to make the cuts to make it happen. And that's part of what we did this year.

I think that's so different from what people see on the news, right, with federal spending and things out of control and and just um going into debt without any accountability. And that's just not how city government is run, which is frustrating and beautiful at the same time. It wouldn't last very long if we took that approach. So, anything else? All right. Thank you. So, it's all we have, ma'am, unless there's any other questions, any concerns, anything you want to talk about. It's where to be said.

Anything else? No. All right. Moving on to regular business. Resolution 26-73, a resolution approving task order number two from Bolton and M, Inc. for preparation of a preliminary engineering report, PER, for a new well and water treatment facility. Do I have a motion? I'll move the approval of resolution 26-73, a resolution approving task order number two from Bolton Bank Incorporated for preparation of a preliminary engineering report for a new well and water treatment facility for a lump sum of $53,600. Second second

discussion. So, normally we don't have items of action on study sessions unless there's a timing issue. And I think Justin would agree this is a lengthy process. Has to be done by June 1st in order for us to have a chance at any kind of funding coming through. Um, is it June 1st? Is that so what's going to take a long time got to be done a short time and so we wanted to get this on as soon as possible to give them a chance to get this moving so we have an opportunity to try and go after a certain amount of funding. Uh Mon, if you don't have any comments on what we're doing here, what it looks like.

This is essentially well, it's the second step in this process. First step was the well sighting. We've identified some possible locations throughout town for a new well. Um we did that started last fall. Took a little longer than expected. Everything takes a little longer than expected. And uh you got to do your due diligence on making sure everything's done correctly. Um, but this is the fir second step in first step in the SRF process to be submitted. Once you get in the IUP, that's your intended use plan. We did just did that with uh recently with the other projects we have going SRF as well. Um, basically those are submitted and that's saying that's what you plan on doing. Then you get the time frame after that. But you submit June 1st. That's spending in for the money for 26 yet. So we had to get it done by the end of 26. So that's the last submission date we can have to have it for 26 calendar year 26 to clarify. So we're really excited. Um I had initial meeting with Bolton and Mink. That's why it was a little delayed because it took a while to gather this information. It's quite lengthy process. Basically they go through all the data all the information from our water usage or all our testing results. Then we look at possible, you know, different solutions or different alter alternative treatment options. Excuse me. There's not one set treatment option. There's multiple ones you can look at depending on what you want for flow. And there's all these variables and um I think that's why we're a little bit delayed on getting this here, but I think it's important to get it moving.

This will be a treatment facility for the entire city. Correct. And this will be something that will augment the current water treatment plant then or how will it this is uh this is will completely separate from WPC. Okay. Yeah. This this will actually be a separate entity itself location we're not exactly sure like I mentioned. Um I think some of the it depends on where we can get it between the different wells if we try to utilize the other wells also. So, are you thinking this is going to you're you're talking about replacing well number seven, correct? And where is well number seven? That's on the east side of town.

Okay. And so the this proposed new treatment facility would just target that problematic area of town or it's going to do the whole city. It'll be relocated. Um the sighting that's not the best location for well that's not a great producing well anyways. M um so we're looking at a higher producing well and in in areas like that you're in the southeast or southwest areas of town. And so are you talking about like a massive reverse osmosis system basically

that's been discussed that's usually um the top tier or the one of the better options. You know you have anion exchange there's other uh newer technology out there as well that we can look at. Um, I know we're going to look at all options, but in the end, everyone always kind of looks back at RO. So, so this, if I'm understanding correctly, is not just going to be a new well that will replace well number seven. This will be a new well plus treatment that could help water quality throughout the city. Correct.

Correct. So you're looking at uh nitrates, are you looking at like microlastics, that sort of thing also? Well, and RORO does remove uh all those you're talking about. Um one of the things about this is um we are looking at some possible funding through BIO legislation. Um and that P nitrate benefits are a plus of POS removal is the way we got to look at this because the funding is for POS and emerging contaminants and not just nitrates as well. We are under our light nitrate limits. I will say that again. Mhm. And we no other state or municipality has lower their limits against federal 10.0 milligrams per liter.

Right. So we are under our limits right now. Some of them are kind of high but we are under limits currently. So nitrate is an additional benefit or removal is additional benefit for us. Okay. And so there's funding there and then with the revolving fund too is would be our sources for this. We we've got the PA settlement money as well that and that's still not done. We're we're through the first phase of four I think or something. Yeah. So that's going to be going on for a while and trickles down to us. Yeah. This this BIL funding is actually forgivable loans is what it is and that's federal. Yes. So it would be a combination of SRF plus the federal

SRF would probably be balance would be my guess. I have had people ask me about whether Waverly can hook on to the rural water. Did they have a reverse osmosis system? their nitrates, their RORO is uh only running when they need to with the nitrates. So people don't realize their nitrate levels are about similar to what Denver or Wley is. Uhu. Uh their wells run anywhere from 8.5 to 9 something. So when it gets too high, they run it, bring it back down, and that's all they're doing. They're not doing it all the time like this will be doing. Yeah. It's completely different. But yes, we do have a emergency connection in the southeast area of town. Oh,

with that system. Yep. And so that'll it'll kick in for that when it Well, it would be something we'd have to initiate. I see. Okay. It's an agreement that was struck years ago. Okay. How many wells do we use now? We use currently use four and we're going to replace one, but all four wells will go through this new treatment.

That's to be determined how many we can get there. Um, our system is fairly dynamic. It's set up in two zones. So, we have a higher pressure and a lower pressure system. And to get water from a higher to low, um, it's going to take some other, um, items, some PRVs, and some other items to get it to work correctly. Engineers going to make their money this quite all linked together. The distance, the piping. I mean, it's not going to be simple, but that's

Yeah, I think there was a very interesting presentation at the library. Okay. Justin was there. Julie was there um by the gentleman who ran the environmental science program at UNIR. Yeah. Very interesting. And I think it's important to remember that the nitrate issue at least um it's a it's an upstream problem. So we are going to spend a lot of money to solve you know a pollution problem basically. Yeah. We'll continue to treat things that are not our problem and didn't cause

input. Yeah. And so I think people need to remember that and the people you need to talk to are your legislators and your congressmen about um farming practices, you know. So, but I think I think it's good that we're going to explore this. Any other comments or discussion? And this is not the same pot of money that you renovate a golf clubhouse with. No. So currently we don't uh all the wells are separate on their cleaning or they're filtering

there. There's really no filters. We pump we uh treat and we fluoridate. So we got chlorine and chloride addition. Um basically pump into into the system per demand for the if the towers are going to um two of the walls on one side on the high zone, two are on the low zone. Um, so then they're not interconnected, but they do mix. So that's some of the issues we've had too with our numbers is all the wells are different numbers for either nitrates or some don't have PAS, some do. So those do mix in the system. They're just not they're spaced around town where you cannot predict the mixing. Mhm. Yeah.

So, you can try to mix it advantageously if you're have a level that's up to dilute it, but it's not You're saying it's not predictable necessarily. It's not predict predict, excuse me, predictable enough because of the locations of wells in town and where they pump through the power. Mhm.

Very interesting. Anything else? All right. Roll call vote, please. Carmen, yes. Jones, yes. Kangas, yes. Mackey, yes. Myers, yes. Rafie, yes. Council, do you have any discussion on the reports from boards and commissions? That brings us to staff updates. I do have one. Uh, due to Good Friday, April 3rd, recycling and garbage pickup for Friday's route will be Thursday, April 2nd. That's all we have tonight, man. City Council comments. Council person Rocky, did the yardway site open today, Justin? The

yard way site open as well. It's officially spring on what day? It opened today. Oh, awesome. That would be my question. Yeah, that's all for me. Council Kangas, I was going to follow along those lines looking at large item pickup. You usually have that in the spring. Is that we have a date set for a week? I cannot remember right off hand. I got It's in the last newsletter that came last week. Okay. Okay.

And then the only other thing was I'm coming up on high school soccer season, so I'm going to be quite busy for that. Uh we have a lot several more teams and not as many refs this year. So, if anybody is got some knowledge of soccer and some extra time and want to get out and earn a little extra money and get some exercise in, we could use you. I don't want to voluntarily go get yelled at. Do this. Council person Harmon, nothing tonight. Council person Jones, nothing tonight. Council person Meer,

nothing. Council person Mackie, I'll be at the Brewery ears on and the Wartberg Orchestra is doing kind of a cool thing this week. They're partnering with the string section of the Cedar Falls High School and we're going to go down and play Peter and the Wolf. Oh, fun. So, they're they're rehearsing right now. And um then Thursday afternoon and then Thursday night, the concert down in their brand new high school auditorium. So, free concert. Neat thing that Rebecca got going. She's a go-getter out there at the college. So, pretty pretty neat experience for a kids. Yes. Council person Ellerbrook. Just thank you for the opportunity to to see kind of this up close. I appreciate it.

Yeah. And I just want to say thank you to people who come show up and ask questions, keep conversations going, um help spread information and intentionally engage in um productive conversations. I appreciate the time of those people who show up and ask questions and have these discussions. So, thank you to those who do that. Um, with that, I will take a motion to adjurnn. I move we adjourn. Second. All in favor say I. I oppose. We are adjourned.