Board of Commissioners - Special Meeting

Sounds like we're hot, miked, and ready to go. All righty. See, finger up, finger goo. All right, sounds good. Good evening everybody. Welcome to this board of commissioner special meeting this May 5th, 2026 for the town of Waxaw. Um, let's see here. We have a very quick agenda, so I'd like to get a motion to adopt tonight's agenda. So moved. All in favor? I I

hearing no opposed, we'll go ahead and officially kick things off. This motion carries. The agenda has been approved and we will start it off. So Scott has a big long presentation. Um good. That's a right answer. He's passed that test. Um but I guess um maybe before we get started, I'll just do a round robin around the room. of anyone who had any ideas on how they want this to go and if there's anything in particular they want to see, order of operations, key presentations or numbers that need to be presented first or do we just want to kick this over to Scott and kind of let him drive at this point?

I say kick it over to Scott. I think kicking it over to Scott. Like pop quizzes. Yeah. And he's done more of these than we have. Exactly. Yeah. I think I think Scott can tee it us tee us up for here for us. Thank you. Very good. I think we'll go ahead and take that tacked at this point then just to make sure. I just want to make sure nobody had anything specific that they wanted to go over first. So, all righty. Take us away, Scott.

Okay. And uh no, I don't have a a long presentation, but as uh our practice right now, we're trying to make sure that things are up on the screen, thus on television, so people can see what you're looking at at the same time and maybe get a little bit better explanation on a a few key things uh that I'll say verbally. So, um I'm I'm going to just try to do an overview with you folks tonight. In front of you will be everything that's up on the board. We are taking a 20,000 foot view of the budget right now. We're still in draft, okay? And um we're hitting high topics, but these are real numbers right now. This is where we are right now in in in our mathematics and our accounting right now. So, uh I want to let you know that. Okay. So, um just as a quick reminder, uh nothing uh we'll go through this quickly. uh you've looked at the CIP and in front of you is a modified from your discussions um uh Excel sheet. We're going to get to that. Um I'm going to go through this a little quickly. Um let's see here. Okay, now that's hard to see for folks, but it is online and uh you can pull that up. But in front of you, you should have a black and white sheet says draft. So um couple things on the sheet. Uh we repp prioritized staff did some prioritizing in especially in the parks and recreation section which is where you folks spent most of your time um in prioritizing um u risk exposure issues um emergencies um musthaves you know that kind of thing that uh we need to be dealing with with operations. if you recall lights uh

lights in certain places uh ballards downtown uh just giving you um an overview of that. So uh on your sheets in red just to let you know those were TBD numbers. Remember they were TBDs before. They now have numbers next to them. And then they're reorganized in uh both from uh top to bottom on the list and then across in priority uh at least as you folks saw priorities. So uh there's not too much to say on that. I just wanted you to know that we heard what you said. They've reorganized that. If you see anything in this um let us know. Um Dena is here if she needs to answer any specific questions that you may have. Again, it's a plan adopted by resolution and the board will do it every year as a resolution plan and we'll modify accordingly, but it guides us in what we put together for you folks. So, I'm going to stop there for a second uh to just allow you to kind of look over it. Remember, we're meeting in work session again next week after your regular meeting. Um, I will also be sending these to you electronically. So, you'll you'll get that too. You'll get that opportunity to do that as well.

Scott, that meeting is the 12th. 12th. Yes, sir. Thank you. 6:30. 6:30 regular meeting starts and then following the regular meeting, we'll go back into work session. For the public that we we do have a special meeting as Scott said for May 12th at 6:30. No, the Okay, let me be clear. Your regular meeting starts at 6:30. At the conclusion of your regular meeting, you will go into a special meeting after recess. That will be the work session. Thank you for the clarification. You're welcome. So the numbers in red were the TBD numbers. TBD numbers. They were added there and for your review. Okay.

We did not differentiate the adjustments from park and wreck and in and any other we just shifted anything. Did is there any looked at years out and uh ranking, it's not a ranking, but we put up top what you felt was important. So, as you go down the list on the left and then where they are in the years, so the closer they are to this year, this year's upcoming budget, the more prioritized that you folks had them, the um less priority that you folks had on, they moved out to outer years and farther down the list. Perfect. Does that make sense? That does. I just wanted to add for clarification. Thank you. Y

So you will see this again next Tuesday, okay? As an attachment to the resolution. Uh so I would encourage you if you have questions between now and then, please let us know and we'll try to respond to everybody equally and let you all know. Okay.

Okay. The second agenda item you'll have uh next Tuesday, of course, uh you didn't modify or ask to be have anything changed. Uh and that is the ordinance for your reserve funds. So, um as an attachment to that, what you'll talk about the actions you'll take in that ordinance. First off, you will um explain why you're doing things. You have unassigned, assigned, committed, restricted um savings accounts. Um second thing you will do is move unassigned about 1.5 million into restricted or assigned areas uh for very specific projects that you've already signed contracts for. So um we'll do that and that is as a result of the end of last fiscal year. Uh so you had as the term of art that you folks use in business retained earnings you are going to move some of those into uh very specific projects. Um and uh you'll do that through that action and uh we'll add as uh attachments to it things like uh where your cash position is as of the date. So for historical reference, people will know why you moved it from here to there and where you moved it from. So and it follows the same logic as we've been presenting the finance reports to you folks. So I just want to let you know we're trying to stay consistent in that theme. So when you see dollars move across and they change all of a sudden, that's a good opportunity to say, why is this different? You know, so we're we're trying to keep everything in the same spots for you folks. Okay. So, that's that. Are there any questions I can answer right now?

Well, I guess um hate to even think about last year's budget meeting, but uh we went into it with uh some areas of concern. um felt that um event costs were higher than they needed to be, that we could we could get sponsorships and things like that, you know. Um that I forget what the total was of event costs, some something like 800,000. I don't think that

it was about a penny if I recall correctly. Oh, no mic. I think your mic check it's turned on. I think you're a little

careful put your shirt. But to your point, Richard, I I do agree. I I think the events might not was about a penny of expenditures if I recall correctly. um when when going through the entirety of the list,

I forget the exact number, but um our interim manager, Richard Hicks, uh did mention several times about and he's worked in many towns, you know, and um he did mention several times about um most of the towns that he's worked for um their event costs were very low because of things like sponsorships and uh that the town didn't necessarily pay, you know, for everything. They just found other ways of, you know, rebates from vendors, you know. Um

also, um you know, Mint Hill uses apparently the same vendor for when we didn't have them last year. So, but yeah, that vendor had said that he uh because they have so for clarity, they have a events 501c3. So, that's how they fund raise for events specifically. We don't have that. Could we use the friends of parks? their um their agreement is for trails and parks. So wouldn't really I mean they might want to help sponsor like maybe the skate park or something like that but not a Fourth of July parade or that's not really the purpose

right there's a C cip offset that yes function of the Waxaw friends friends of waxaw parks and trails the downtown waxaw association might be able to do some help with the downtown events but they also have a priority list on new on that board. So, I haven't I've only been to a couple meetings, but I know that they have a priority list. So, that's going to hamper our fundraising events unless we do another 501c3 for events, but then how many exactly how many pots can you create? I don't think I know that there were

I know that um in the budget there were modifications both in extent of days, so number of uh days and things like that. Um, there were some other things put in. We can put an accounting back for you and let you know where that's at so that that information comes back to you. Be happy to do that. Off the top of my head, I don't know what that number is though, right? But we can but we're happy to do that accounting so you can see it. Yeah. Also, when we compared the fees that Waxaw charges vendors, it was like a quarter of what some other towns were charging. So maybe we can, you know, get more than that. I feel like parks and wreck did raise some fees. I just don't know. Um, so we could ask Dina. Yeah.

For maybe a different I don't remember what it was, but I know they did raise them, but I just don't know. I think what would be good is if that's an issue, we'll make sure we highlight that. Make sure that we bring that to you. I think we have a chance we there's some time we have a chance to do some benchmarking against maybe other towns. I mean, we can employ our phone skills and call up some of our cohorts in other towns and and some towns don't have as many events, right? So, that's the other thing like Mint has Mintil madness and it's a few days.

Uh, but their costs are covered by the events um fundraising and I think the only thing they outlay is a specific thing that they do there that I don't even want to talk about because it's People get very upset when we don't do this particular thing. Oh yeah. Let's not mention it. Let's not Yeah.

But there's there's opportunities like if if we were to, you know, maybe there's an opportunity to raise vendor fees and go back to two days and use those fees. What we're doing then is using the events to supplement CIP on the parks and trails because that is going to be a a revenue the sponsorships will be a revenue generator for the the parks and rec or excuse me parks and trails CIP. Yeah. So that will take that off of this list

when when the fundrais and I don't know if it's going to be a total wash, but I think there's opportunities to save where we had and um you know stretch our stretch our marketing dollar.

Well, we'll uh we'll take a look at that. So we make sure we bring that specific piece of information back. I can tell you about the expenses and the and the revenues. I just don't I don't know that raising the vendor fees would cover that, you know, an autumn treasures cost. Um I know everybody likes it for two days, but also a side concern for me with staffing. I mean, when you're talking about these events from May to Christmas, you know, the staff is there a lot. And so when you're working Friday to set it up, Saturday for the event, Sunday for the event, then they're going maybe 10 to 14 days working almost straight. Yeah. I think the November December time period it's a very very very busy one.

It's very busy and you know for me family time is important and staff has you know they they should be home with their families too. And so uh that's another consideration. And how much did we save in overtime? I mean, I don't know what the total savings was, but that was, you know, my goal in looking at the in totality, what why don't we uh do a small accounting for that on one side so you guys can see it. Good. But back to CIP. So, we're done with CIP. All right. Yes, sir. Not quite yet. Not Not done with CIP quite yet. Okay. Good. That's what I needed to hear. Thank you.

Um, like to draw your attention towards the bottom of CIP Emerson Park restrooms amphitheater. Let me know when y'all find that bullet point. Literally la second to last item. Yep. Yep.

Like to note a sequencing possibility. Uh Town Creek Park restroom. Uh there's a difference of one year. Uh, Town Creek Park restroom looks like it's sequenced at this time for FY30 while Emerson FY31. I clearly think that that's a 500k spend we can essentially find some form of alignment on between Emerson and and the contractors and maybe pushing that spend one more year plus one year. I don't think that's a bad thing in my mind. I'm sorry. Yeah. Well, for uh sequencing of the capital improvements, uh there's Town Creek Park restrooms for about

500,000 500,000 and then there's Emerson Park the next year for another 500,000. Can we draw any efficiencies from sequencing two projects of restroom restorations? And I'm not saying the parks don't need restroom support. I'm just asking, can we push one more year to have instead of one vendor one year bidding for a $500,000 project and then another vendor the next year in FY31 for the Emerson restroom project. So now we put those two projects together and it's a I understand what you're saying. Thank you. Um,

and I just wanted to ask if that was at all any possibility within the structure of this capital improvement because the Town Creek Park is a new restroom and then Emerson Park is a new restroom is also a new restroom. I would just argue that in the scheme of everything we're doing, our restrooms for me. It's a half. It's a h It's a half a penny. If we're not at all, if we're if we're looking If we're looking at timing and all we're talking about at this time, not for or against. Timing. Timing makes sense. I'm not asking if it's good or bad. I'm just asking timing. If you were to sequence lights together, sequence bathrooms together, that makes sense. I'm

I'm on the opinion, too. I'm really questioning is at least at this price point. I mean, Emerson Park, if and maybe I could be wrong, but people who live in Emerson Park will probably be at that open space area, right? They can go home to use the bathroom for $500,000. I mean, that's a penny in the tax. No, I'm asking I'm not asking about Emerson Park and an elimination. I'm just asking about sequencing. Oh, yeah. You can speed sequencing together. Yeah, that Can we Can we start there? We could. Yeah, I have no problem sequencing together. That makes sense. is just for me not a priority. Half a million's a lot for a bathroom. I know. I mean, does that come with a giant fountain or something?

Well, I'm sure Dena's going to help us here. Well, cuz they're municipal bathrooms. Sorry, Dina. Go ahead. Thank you, Dina.

It's all good. It's all good. Okay, so the Emerson Park is actually a dedicated park space where we will have an amphitheater and a small pocket park near that amphitheater. Um and that's reason why the restrooms are on our side um to put in the um the developer is putting in the amphitheater and the infrastructure of that area. Um and also putting the greenway in in Emerson Park. So they're responsible for that. Um our responsibility would be putting in uh the the family restrooms basically. Um,

now if you wanted to make an argument of that should have been scoped, I'm with you that because don't forget that Emerson project was 100% conditional. So this is a line item essentially that should have been called out, but we can't do anything about it now. No, but so we're going to make the best we can from the lemon. I mean, the one thing in regards to that is the Emerson Park is it's more of a pocket park with an amphitheater that's likely to have special events. If they're doing special events, they're likely to have a need for bathroom

sort of portable dropins because it'll be a larger event drawing a larger crowd that might exceed the capacity of any restroom you put in there. And then the need for the restroom. Again, I'm kind of of the mind of questioning the need for the restrooms at Emerson because it is just a pocket park. Yeah, it's not likely to be a place that you're going to spend all day. It's like the size of my Well, the point is there's no swing. There's no fountain. There's no attraction that's going to keep a parent there for a long period of time. You can hang out, throw the Frisbee or whatever. Maybe your table's finally ready and you can go to the restaurant, whatever that's there or continue with your shopping or something. But

just using our park as an example

just it is nice and as if during park activities it is nice to have a park nearby. Now you want to talk about the essentially the Emerson park scope. I agree. Now, if you don't mind though, can I double back and bring up the point of the Town Creek? On a minimum, we should. And if staff would to support us on this in in looking and pushing that back, I think let's start there. Now, if you want to talk about the spend on the Emerson Park, I think that's a subject of additional and I think that is 100% valid what the the mayor's brought up and and and evaluating is that even worthwhile pushing and because and In all honesty, the amphitheater, the way it's currently scoped from my memory, and this may change, of course, a as the developer sees fit, um, but the amphitheater was left off in its own center away from mainline activities.

So, it wasn't even separated from the uh retail. It was it was segregated for sure. I think we're going to agree, Daniel, that this is going to be a low priority and we can put it on the plan, but just so everybody's aware, and I think we're all in agreement, it its existence is tenuous. Correct. And I and I would agree with that. But with that said, the Town Creek Park though, its existence is not tenuous in my personal opinion. But at the same time, if there was to be a series of projects taking place to address new build restrooms, put them together, maximize your your time and moment.

I'm a bit dubious about building anything at Town Creek Park because it's in the flood plane. Um, you know, I'd hate to build some nice bathrooms there and then get flooded and wrecked. Town Creek Park though does serve some key key resources for what parks we do have at this time that are open and accessible. We don't have a lot. Well, it'll be a waterfront bathroom. Just as a reminder to folks, Papa Do even needs this is your plan. You don't spend it until you move it into an ordinance perspective. Correct. You can move it out and then

and priority things can change between now and then as well. So, um, as things get closer, things get clicked off list when it comes up, then it's the board can dive into a lot of concerns at that point in time. I think prioritizing it so you maximize ROI against a a contract though, that's probably not a bad idea. Thank you. Appreciate the support on that. Now, you mentioned Mike earlier about lights and bundling lights. Is there something is Were you getting into the idea of maybe just doing the lights in one fell swoop as well?

I think that's what the plan initially was because you get a better a better rate from contractors to do the lighting at the same time. I think that's what Dan was saying. Sequence the bathrooms like they were doing the lighting. That would make sense. Although I have reservations about the restrooms right now. Yeah. But I get it. I understand what you're saying. No, but from a lighting perspective, we're planning on just kind of getting all the lighting done like Nesbit park light lot lights and road lights, putting them together maximizing the field lights because the field lights are so tall that correct that's bringing out some specialy equipment that just getting it out there for a day is is a cost. That's that's rigging equipment normally. That that's not that's not just special equipment. That's rigging equipment with crane lift.

Exactly. That was a plan. That was a good plan to do that at one time. Yeah. all around. Awesome. Um so we had for field one, field four, six and seven to go ahead and do all the toppers um this coming up a year. Um and that seemed that was a priority for y'all at the last meeting. Um so that was the reason why they're the two top on the list on that. Can you think shed some light be because this is an FY27 and FY28? I know skate park is still TBD. Do we have any information forthcoming on that? Yes, sir.

So, we are in the final um going through all the RFPs right now. It's under staff review. My uh engineering and planning um friends are looking over those for technical right now. Um, I will have all those back by tomorrow afternoon and then negotiate with the top two um to TBD to bring to y'all actually next week if all the stars align. Thank you.

It's weird. Um, I was just digging through my notes and one of the things I had from last year, uh, was rates on inspections. So, building inspection rates hadn't gone up in quite some time. Did we raise them last year or have we raised them recently? I think there is a state for state Okay.

No, I just had a note that it hadn't been raised since 2016. So, I just want to make sure that we're not out of date significantly with with that particular fee structure because as we all know, things go up. as part of as part of the the total budget that'll be submitted, my recommended budget to you folks, we've asked everybody for all rate increases that they felt were either legal or necessary. So those those will be part of the budget. And and just to sorry Dina, I know you ran off. Um but would that include then I think to our private or previous discussion would that then include rates of all the various vendors and things that uh we collect for scope and for

yes uh scope and autumn treasures and we'll come back with an accounting on that so we can tell you what what's what's up with that and excellent uh highlight that in the budget for you. Okay. Okay. So um are we good on CIP plan? Okay. I think so. I think so.

Now, now I'll just move quickly into um we're taking again a 20,000 ft view of the budget and that's where I wanted to start with you folks. You now know what's in your savings accounts. Um what you're planning for CIPwise. So, let's talk about things from um um more generalized perspective and then next week we'll dive in more and then I'll present the budget and when you guys need further work sessions, we've we've planned for them for you folks. So, uh we'll be able to keep that conversation going. Um okay, so let's start off with a couple couple highlights so that you know. And so one, um, it's a tight year. We had about a 1.4% increase in taxable base and that's it. About 75 million. That doesn't sound like pocket change. Uh, but uh, against a 4.84.9 billion evaluation, that's a it's a very small amount. Um we've had this talk about um why we think that is it's uh we're really in between uh developments that are completed and ones that have yet to start m meaning uh going vertical that's that when the taxable side shows up. Um so we have a residential slow slowdown. We have nine building permits issued in five months uh since December. Um we have very modest tax base growth. Um some of that was with water and sewer connections. Uh we worked uh for the fall and got a lot of that corrected. Um uh and the commercial that was outstanding in the fall has now been connected. Uh so we know that but those things are already

in the calculations. Things like Lowe's and Chase Bank and some of those things uh are in that increase. So we had a very modest taxbased growth. We're in in the region comparatively we're in a bit of a lull but we're between things I think. Um and then you rely on your property taxes um as your primary tool and then you get a shape uh share of state shared revenues after that that are based through the county and through the state statutes um that make up about 37% of your budget. um tax uh your um property taxes are around 60 um 65% of your budget. So, we're going to talk a little bit about that, but that's a high overview. We don't have an extremely large amount of growth coming in to your revenue streams. So, that needs to be noted.

Scott, I have a polite request. when when I was reviewing this and this was a little off topic, but I was if you don't mind touching on it when appropriate was going through the PAL bill side and and how we're essentially sequencing and and scheduling out our our road improvements and essentially the funds coming in from that. And I just noticed that it's been very minimal like in variance on the input that we get from the state

and and how much within that actually allows us to address these roads as we not only maintain and retrofit but address and and take care of the new ones that have already been approved. Well, fortunately the new ones that have been accepted into the system are new. So that gives us a good bit of time in order to get back to those. Um POW bill by itself has been an issue for all uh local governments in the state of North Carolina on its distribution back and its ability to um against cost especially uh to be able to achieve a lot of things that is set by the state. Um and as you have added roads um we have seen an uptick on that. Um, but what we can spend it on is very limited. In addition to the POW bill, uh, the town has a $25 per vehicle tax. It's called fund 385, small transportation fund. We supplement, um, our work in the write up way with that with smaller projects and the things POW bill will not fund. Powell doesn't fund trees. Palville doesn't fund sidewalks. Fi Palville doesn't fund certain things in that rideway. Um, one of the things that one of the things that staff noticed and called it out and that the gaps in between our pen paths, something that we've talked about and we've been working on with our safe streets for all initiative and those lily paths, those gaps in between that connect our communities. You know, that would be something that th that would be supportive of that fund.

Well, would that be? There are two different things with our small transportation. think of curb cuts and we did some storm water in the street down in downtown. That's an example of where we might pull either pow bill or small transportation. Uh we have done um smaller projects like that. Um so we do have those funds. Those are actually in a list here and those are in capital outlay and so we separate POW bill and 385 out for you folks so you see them.

Okay? So you see how many projects that we do and we do a lot of work in those things and a lot of it's that stuff that comes up. We plan for some things but a lot of it's just something has broken, something is wrong, we have to go back in and fix. So we we do that but we're doing it within the public rightway. Got it. So, so it's within the public right our public rightway our responsibility lane and then the PAL bill when when I was really repaving our major that that repaving that that aspect essentially that that surface coat.

So the board added some dollars to POW bill this year so that what we could do is do a uh combined budget year um between this year and next year. Um, so we go out to bid for two, you know, basically two years worth, so about a million dollars worth of PAL bill resurfacing that we have on our list of priorities. So we'll, um, combine those two years and that'll give us better rates of return hopefully. Of course, things are getting more expensive now, but um, what it really means it doesn't lower the million. What it lowers is the amount we can give possibly get done for that million. So

no, maximizing our deployment of dollars essentially and bundling them together to essentially get the best contractor probably at that time too then because now we have we're more competitive essentially when fighting for other contracts and and when looking at how we're competitive with other municipalities because they're also trying to repave and resurface their roads at the same time in our region. Everybody's trying to do it at the same exact time. It's paving season is paving. Paving season is paving seing and we all have similar pressure points with our within our neighbors and municipalities.

The larger our amount, the more competitive we are with the compet competition too. So that was some of the thinking with that. We are also saving POW bill dollars for future bridge replacements as well. So we have obligations towards accesses over u uh waterways around here and we have been we have buil been building a reserve fund on the side for that as well. So we've um it's it's not as big as we'd love it to be. It's about 3 million right now but we are building it and you see it in your you always see it in your monthly reports. It's it shows up as a as a reserve position for us. So we do those two things. Does that answer your questions?

Thank you. Yes, it does.

Okay. Um, so the K key takeaways to see as we estimated revenues for this year is that we have um, you know, a very flat uh, 29 cent per 100 value. I do not see increasing that, but I also do not see decreasing that. I just want to be very plain in my in my language about that because your lack of growth this year has been significant. I mean, uh, we just haven't had it. Your costs are also up, and that's just four or five years of cost increases, but we're going to talk a little bit about that historically, so you get a little bit better perspective on uh what you as a board, previous boards and staff have been doing over time on cost controls. So, property tax is your main property uh revenue source. Your PAL bill funds are based upon your street mileage. you have added them um as well as the sidewalks and the street trees and the street lights and all of those have cost uh structures to them especially trees and street lights uh electricity is up I think everybody knows that

yes 2025 uh we added about 1.4% 4% in base growth. Again, top top view here. And that again is like we discussed that the Millbridge and Lawson's are done and now we're waiting for others to come on the others that were approved to come on and it's just a matter of them going vertical.

Yeah. you think you folks since I've been here maybe have accepted um at two different times roads into the system in the last eight months. So um and those have been projects that have been years you know on before we would have accepted them. So, um, one of the things, uh, that we've done in looking at the numbers, we're going to do the numbers next. We've tried to give you a series of graphs that might be representative, um, for you folks to see where our revenue strength is. We've tried to do it over time as well. Um, so we're giving you a viewshed of that, but the real um, the story is on expenditures. So, um, uh, the areas that I've been, um, uh, engaged with staff on are a couple of things. Public safety investment. Um, there's a three-year plan on getting our, um, public safety positions up to, um, uh, criteria for a city our size and for the miles of street we patrol and the amount of visitors we have through and traffic counts and those kinds of things. So, year two has been uh budgeted in um recreation staff. And what we tried to do here is instead of adding billets, we tried to add part what are called part-time hours. And um we've set that at a control number to make sure you've got the learning center coming on and you've got the recck barn that needs more coverage more often. So, we asked uh parks and recck staff to come up with ways that they use their existing staff on those things as well as um uh instead of adding billets, we're adding part-time hours that we can control, see how it's going. Is it getting the coverage that that the citizens you folks want? So, we're trying to control it like that as opposed to adding billets. So, we're adding time. if they add 10 people who do two hours a week versus two people who do 20 hours a

week, you know, which one's the better savings? How can you get coverage and those kinds of things? Our coverages are often uh on off hours that are not normal hours. So, we're trying to make sure we we cover those things, but you have two things coming on with that. Uh so, we've tried to create a limit instead of billets. We've just tried to create hours so we can control the hours, see where we're at and plan for those and plan for uh use of existing staffing as well. Um we have in there a 2.5% uh cost of living raise and what I call a merit pool. We plan to come back to you at your next work session and talk to you about that. Uh uh Commissioner Dawn had asked for um how we would best approach that. So, we have a an approach we would like to talk to you about, but that amount of money is what I call the pool. So, it's been added into the budget and how we distribute it will become the next priority question for you folks. Um, benefit cost increases. This is where we were really seeing the majority of of big increases. Um, we had a 19% initial shot across the bow with Curran and we were able to negotiate it down to about eight, which I'm I'm really thankful for the staff that worked on that and the people on the other side that worked with us to get that and those are split costs. You know, the employees are paying for portions of those things. Um, we're paying for portions of those things. So, um, we tried to limit that. Uh, but eight around 8%. We also had increases required by retirement system

and so we've added those in as well. Um this cost to benefit line item you have here is that the town's responsibility slashcost saying that's that's our portion. So we're going to go see that go I'm just looking at the years. Yes. 2.4 2.8 3.3 3.5. So yeah, in two years it's gone up. Yeah. What would what would account for you know threequarters of a cent and property tax rate. So yeah, it's it's u and we're not the only ones. We're not the only municipality. We're not the only county. We're not the only not the only business having to deal with that.

We're all dealing with it post postco especially. I just point that out to highlight to the public in general that that that is a part of what's going on with the town and and that just that one line item cost of benefits over the last two years accounting for threequarters of a cent in your property tax rate is substantial. It is. I don't know a year that you know my husband's job hasn't looked for different rates and the insurance companies change every year because the costs go up and and it's really something that is out of our control. We've tried to negotiate back with existing ones so people didn't have to switch which becomes

an internal cultural u contention u as you can well imagine for those of you that work in your own organizations uh those are tough things to deal with but we've tried to contain the cost and so but increases they are um expenditures in operations in capital and the reason I put the term capital up there this is capital outlay so this is rolling building stock and other things that are going on that need are necessary for um general operating expenses. So, um couple things to highlight here. Uh again, just trying to give a high view before we get into the sheets themselves, but uh 26 26 uh 27 funds combined to do a more efficient project for repaving. Uh you folks had approved that actually that concept last year, so we're going to carry that out into this year. uh police vehicles and equipment um for uh new folks as well as replacement. So, we need to get on that cycle of replacement. uh next year will be the higher number uh on replacement and we're going we want to come up with a better control line about how we do that and so that we replace keep our costs down on maintenance and and upkeep and um uh make sure that we have um those things taken care of for both public services uh parks and wreck um and police. you know, those are the folks that really and inspections and we have some minor cars that we have for other things, but uh basically those are the folks that use a lot of equipment. Hey Scott, on the on the police equipment on the car acquisition side,

not trying to dive into the nuts and bolts, but from my understanding and is there any worthwhile evaluating the mechanics of what we needed, what we did last time to purchase the resources and acquire the new resources versus the mechanics of what we might best be served today. Yeah, we we are we're unpleased with the leasing operation that we put together. So that was with Enterprise. So we have ended that relationship. There are other ways for us to buy off a state contract, which is the cheapest way for us to do that. The question is just how you manage the debt service over time against the the cost of the vehicle. So we're doing that um and diving into both that and asset management this year. Those are two big things for us. scheduling that out uh longer. We we've been able to make our police cars, for example, last around eight years, which is pretty darn good.

But I know the buyout without lease hurts. I think even though it it it's temporary on the beginning, my experience in leases overall sometimes they were not happy with them. I can tell you that. Yeah, that was that's a carryover. So the objective is that we put an amount in and then we go out and figure out the best strategy moving forward to make sure that we're replacing those things correctly. Well, that addresses my question. I just wanted to say, can we double check the mechanics of of that those purchases? Yeah. Yeah. We're not happy with the old lease arrangement. So,

uh parks grant match. We have uh received money and this board accepted money for one half of the pedestrian bridge at Prescott Glenn on the 12mile creek and you have another match in there for that. Um that is a prior obligation. So we have to make sure that we fund our side of that over time. Debt service uh town hall uh public service campus has its debt service that's in there. We're in our third year I believe on debt service. And then the police building is in its last throws. We've tried to work that into the capital planning so that we can replace roof at the end of that term and then go back in for that. So we're we're planning that switch out at least for that year and then what we do after that will be about facilities.

Was that building purchased or refurbished? I don't purchased. It was purchased and then and then refurbished. And then refurbished. And that was how long ago? 15 15 years ago. 15 14. So, we're coming to the end of our borrowing cycle on that. Uh roof will be the next big thing for us. Uh but we did do inter interior work to that. Street lights that was like two or 300k a year. About 500,000 a year. 500 a year. Okay.

Did Did the roof Did any or were we still pending? Did that roof was it just the roof or did it include HVAC mechanicals? Um just the roof as far as I know, but we have anticipated the cost. We've put clocked that into our capital outlay. So um uh we have three years out and then we'll do roof. So yeah, we've we've planned for that.

Uh street lights have increased enormously around 20% in street light cost and uh electricity in general is costing us more now. Um and we're not the only ones. Uh our citizens are feeling it. Our businesses are feeling it, other folks are feeling that. So, us but the street lights, we try to st we have standardized street lights, but we have two different rates between Duke and Union Power. So, um that's a that's a nut yet to be cracked on that, but you know, we pay for a lot of street lights here and that's just something that we do. Which is our highest variable, Duke or or do you Duke?

Duke's the harder one. Duke Duke is our harder variable. Yeah. Thank you. garbage and recycling. The rate increase was driven last year um by a census. In other words, how many uh units we're picking up? Your your garbage is is is driving probably about 20% of your cost of your of your tax rate.

Yeah, I mean it's high. It's high. And I know that um there have been some questions in the past and about the you know we used to have that bulk free bulk pickup. Um it's not something we stopped right as as far as I'm concerned as far as I understand that they stopped doing it. Yeah. That they didn't feel like it was cost effective. Is that the bulk pickup? The free bulk pickup they just the company stopped doing. It's not a service we stopped. The companies stopped doing it. So we started that service free

but for the white like appliances and things like that. I know just people were questioning why we stopped it and I tried to explain stopped but they stopped. The one thing about garbage being in your tax rate is that some people pay more for garbage and some people pay less in a tax rate. And I think that's something for the board to start to consider as more come on. It's also not even. We don't pick up business. We only pick up residential in that rate.

So, I think it's something the board is going to have to grapple with as as especially as movements in Raleigh and with the legislature talk about caps and things like that. when they talk about things like that, they really limit your ability to um put everything into the tax rate, right? So, um everything in the tax rate as you grow becomes more crowded, more fighting for those dollars and that's that's a struggle unless you have growth and growth also comes with cost. So, it's a double-edged sword, right?

Growth requires more garbage bag. it I think it's a little more too. So my memory may be a little off so feel free. Um but it was the waste management provider that we were partnered with was acquired. Yes. By a larger regional partner and and then they so we they their programming essentially stopped the larger re regional partner after they purchased the smaller mom and pop. their programming essentially said we we no longer provide that list of services. So it wasn't a town. It it was essentially a corporatized aspect of it. But but with that said,

my question back to staff and then is our current system. We pick up only trash and then we cycle to recycle and then but there's a cost driver per unit when you're essentially getting down to the cost per to serve. So, is there essentially a se sequencing that we can do if there is there a way that we can have a less cost per unit on pickup? What I would say I've got I've got Matt up here. We're about 2569 per house. 25.69 per month per house. Fairly competitive in that price, right? About 185,000 a month is what we

And that's tra So every two weeks that's trash twice a week and recycle once a week. No, trash once a week. So So out out of two weeks you So out of out of a cycle you'll get your trash picked up and then your recycle and then your trash one one additional time. Garden waste every week. Yeah. And you get all three services. Yeah. Yeah. That rate is the trash rate breaks down to be $1812 per house a month for trash. $1.90 per house for yard waste whether or not they put it out or not. It's $1.90 per house, right? $567 per house per month for recycling.

Yep. $5.7. 67. Yep. which equals $2569 a month a month per home. So the the the rates the rates fairly good, but if you're paying by taxes, it's a percentage of your tax bill. So if you pay on a larger valued house with a higher tax bill, you pay more for trash, right?

And then if you have less, you pay less. So um there are there are they're a good service provider. They work well with us. We don't really have a lot of complaints and we handle them and they handle them uh pretty pretty consistently. But what I would say and it is a commoditized product in the public good space. There's competit compet competition in the marketplace. You can probably get a pretty good bid for a period of time. Those kinds of things. Uh but you also have the ability to do other things. You could take it out of your tax rate and consider things like franchising. So if people want to come in and uh pick up trash, then we would maybe charge a franchise fee and then we'd have to enforce to make sure everybody picks up their garbage. So it's not uniform. A lot of times what you want is knowing that the east side gets picked up on Monday and the southside gets picked up on Tuesday. And a lot of that is just about consistency back to the customer. And and um that's that's something you could do. But um that's our garbage and recycling in in a nutshell. Now uh this year I think they went up 4.3 5%. Yeah. About 4 4.8

percent this year. And so we've worked that price in and that is by contract. So that they have a kicker in there uh by contract. So do they have a any clause for uh diesel price per mile for current fuel search charge? I believe there is in their contract that they can go up at any given time any given time or there's normally with that increase. Yeah, I was going to say there's normally a threshold per dollar per for the national probably met that but we haven't you know as high as diesel. We haven't seen it yet but we haven't seen it. So that that price creeps out there and that would eat into again your tax rate. So the these are all expenditures mostly out of your tax rate.

Uh sidewalk and tree maintenance. Go ahead. Stay. Go ahead. Stay. Oh, please. No. No. You don't get I was going to say,

Matt, you're my protection up here for right now. So, uh, street and sidewalk maintenance. We have ongoing, uh, repair and upkeep of walkways and street trees. Street trees are expensive to maintain and we are um we can only do so many per year uh, with the crews we have, but we do that and we do sidewalk upkeep and repair. One thing I noticed, especially with some of the younger trees, and I and I think that the street trees, I know they're helpful long term, but I know when it comes to maintenance, is there any guidance that we can publish that the citizens might be able to reach because I know internally to preserve essentially our resources and to maximize essentially that we're we're not going to support essentially the younger trees getting trimmed at this point, but is are we publishing any guides that can be deployed to assist and say how to especially there's when when there's a replanting occurring are we leaving any literature at that point to say hey here's how to maintain your tree for the next 30 60 days

since we uh canled our tree trimming program I guess I've talked to most of the HOAs and they're asking what they can and can't do so we're encouraging them to trim their trees can I get give them an education class. We hadn't got there yet, but we are doing a lot of work in our future planning with the planning department in newer neighborhoods, spacing trees out a little further, you know, specific trees, right? Yep. We're switching some, you know,

there's been a lot of lot of lot of changes going on to help that infrastructure cost. might not need you to hold a class, but but maybe if we can work with a goal of supporting those replants specifically at 60-day guide, we'll keep your tree water at x amount. What especially today right now when we I'm sure we're going to be working on replants when there's not a drought. Well, and and so is like, hey, we get there's a drought, but we need to support that tree.

Well, and and again, I'm going to back up Matt here on this. The direction from the board last year is for the HOAs to maintain. So, uh, our conversations have been with the HOAs. Okay. Some individuals, but, um, the other thing I would caution the board on is if it's in the rideway and it's been planned there and it's public, we have a risk issue. Yeah.

So, we always have to manage that risk and, um, uh, deal with that. Um, as well as sidewalks. Apparently, people have a hard time walking over sidewalks sometimes. Um, and that's not meant to cut anyone, but they do. and we get a lot of filings and have to reject a lot of complaints when people do that. So, um, but they are risk. It's a riskmanagement issue for us in the rideway. All of our work is risk management out there with that. So, that's all we're doing is managing risk exposure. But, uh, yeah, our education has been through the HOA, right? And in our rightway, I mean, we're taking are we not taking care of those trees? Well, they're our trees, right? So,

but we're asking them to trim them. Now, we we do Uh anything sight issues fallen branches dam dying dead diseased trees we replace we we still have to maintain because they are town own trees so essent essentially dead dying and diseased falls back in but guides we're asking and we're asking the homeowner to essentially be our partner in that process that's kind of how we started the tree program because some homeowners were I call it butchering the trees which were causing them to die, which cost us money, which then it goes back to tree species and picking what trees and how they grow or which ones they like. Yes.

And there's that. It's a complicated issue and it's it's a big issue when you look at and see how many trees are in these neighborhoods. Kurin, for an example, I think we just did a tree survey. There's 1600 165 trees in Kuritan subdivision which the way I look forgotten them all. The way I look at it is there's there'll be 1,65 sidewalks that raise pretty much a guarantee that we'll have to replace. Sometime there's two panels. So you could say there'll be 3,000 sidewalks in that neighborhood alone that eventually the town will pay. Yeah. So, expensive and it's a it's a lot of work,

you know. It's we I think we did 24 this month. So, yeah, four by 4x6 for for a sidewalk. 4x5. A 4x5. Yep. So, framing them, getting them ready, graded, and doing them and dealing with irrigation and everything else and homeowners, you imagine. Yeah. Thank you, Matt. Appreciate that that support. Anything else for Matt? Can I keep him up here any longer for you? You can keep them up here all you want. Tell me. I'll take the mic from you.

Okay. So, the next thing is asset management expansion. This is something that we have just really started how to track it best in the areas. Um, we've had a series of incidents this year. So, we're prone to thinking about number one, we're managing new facilities. So we have a good maintenance building maintenance program. How do we best manage those expectations? During the retreat, you saw a good presentation about how we're doing that. We want a transition that into IT, public service equipment, a and other things. Uh I've just given some examples up there, but um we really want to do that because we know there it's a it's a cost containment system. It's a cost control system, and it's a um uh putting us in a better position to know when to replace things, when to do things, and to maintain our assets. So, we're we're really uh that's our really big thing right now. Hopefully we'll have some things to bring back to you folks about um you know where we're trying to get with that show you some results. So this is the other thing I wanted to do just to this is that really wonderful divide up the dollar um and what are the percentages um in the last year's budget and these are very similar to this year uh except I would say capital investments are probably at around 8% this year 8 to 9%. out of your uh out of a dollar, every dollar uh taxpayer pays, um about 27% is in public safety. And I put two things in there. It's not just police, it's emergency management and other safety things. So, we've put all of that under the one. Infrastructure operations, that's Matt was up here talking to you about public service, facility managements, engineering, all of those things. That's management of POW bill, management of that small transportation fund, planning for um uh various things

and keeping up and maintaining our assets as well as reviewing all things that come in. Uh general government uh have at about 12.7%. Now, I've put everything in there, board of commissioners, administration, finance, um tax, human resource, because we pay a a tax for the county. We pay a portion for the county to collect our taxes. Um that's also in that administration. It's it's me and Barbie and and others maintaining record request and all you know all the things that we do and then the front the front windows and the phones uh and managing those services. Um so you know if if you're coming from the private sector your overhead may be somewhere between seven and 10. So, we're a little bit higher than that because we have tax obligations and um uh some of those things, but we're around that 12.7. So, 13%. Parks and recreations about 10.2%. Garbage 9.4. So, there's that percentage of a dollar. Debt service about 8.5. So, that is this campus and the police building alto together. That's what we pay a year.

Those and those will go away eventually. Um, most likely if you're maintaining assets over time, you replace them with something. But that's a good control number for you there. Community development, that's your planning and zoning, your building inspections, your code enforcement, your business development, all of those things sit in there. It one of the things we do, just so you know, we put all it, everybody's it in one budget. So that number would be spread across and and mostly probably sit in uh general government, but it's uh we we put it all there so that again we wanted to make sure we're controlling it. We have a lot of licenses um and and and those kinds of things that we do. Uh and we want to look at a way to make that more efficient. So we've we've separated that all out. And in the proposed budget, I've got capital investments. That's money into your reserves outlay reserve and then uh capital outlay itself. So pay as you go around 4%. So that's just a that's a nice way of kind of showing it. It will change over time. I will present the budget. You folks will make final decisions on things. We will go back and modify these things accordingly. But I we also while we're going through this, we want to make sure that your constituents, our our citizens um get a good idea about where things are. Um Rosie, help me. 61% of our budget is property tax.

Yes.

Yes. Okay. The reason I want to say that is that our 61% has about a 1.4% growth rate and we're not seeing a lot of growth on the other side. sales tax, uh, franchise and some of those things. Our numbers are behind on that, and we don't know why other than there's a larger economy than us. So, um, but in the capital ordinance that I would propose to you folks, those monies that you've been reserving, those monies that are matching, you've been savings or we have money for will come down into that ordinance and complete a lot of projects. So, you folks will be seeing these projects move along as they go along. U, it does add police and so that's part of that three-year plan. So safe public safety increases um uh those quality of life elements, but the tax bill would stay the same. So um what I've tried to do in your packets that I've passed around, so now what we have up on the board are just as we're going through this uh but it's in front of you right here. So we're going to take a look right here um in salaries. Emily, Rosie, you guys mind coming up? The easier easier way for us to kind of show what we've tried to do is show a fiveyear trend so that you folks can see where things have been going. In this information are a couple of things. Number one, the cost per division. Secondly, the cost of benefits. We've tried to lay those out for you so you see those. Um the number of billets that we have. So I I'm sorry. I grew up on Quantico Marine Base. So we use the term billets.

So um it's a there you go. A lot of military fun. And I have with me up here right now in case I get lost or in case we have some additional questions. Emily learned who is HR and Rosie who is finance. So, um, Rosie Dodd. Um, so what you see down there are historical. So, we're going left to right. Fiscal year 22 23 23 24 25 26 and then next year I'm giving you my draft numbers as of today. So, when you look at that last column and see that, that is where we are today. Okay? And that is what I'm working with as I prepare the final budget. Um, our number of billets um increased in the current fiscal year and the number of billets next year actually, believe it or not, goes down um one. I am proposing that police billets go uh halfway through the year and that that we hire those full-times like we did this year. So, it's actually a year cycle um for that. So, one of the things you're seeing in your cost structure is that last year or this year, your current year, we hired four. They're all a cost now as we look at that. So, that cost is real. It's there and it's an addition. Um, just to give some explanation for you, we wanted to make sure we we like to use a control line uh without benefits because that's our personnel cost for us. That's people, that's the cost of employing them, that's the cost of cola, that's the cost of merit, you know, that's our control line.

Um, that's your first bottom line up there uh of where we're at. And you can see uh the increase of about uh 187,000 uh on that control line. But and you can also see the cost of benefits is up about 200. So that's those are your two main drivers right there in personnel less than they are billets. So um we've we've tried to give you some information at the bottom and I'm not sure if these are up Not. Let me Yes, it's this. This is my favorite control line right here. Um, we've been trending not in an increasing position. We had those years in the 23 to 25 years. Um, and as you can see, we're trying to uh stabilize that out against the orange line. The orange would be what I'm trying to regress the green and the red against. I mean, the green and the blue against and the orange. So the orange is our control and um we try to control against those and those are going in the correct direction for us. That's that's what we want to hold and maintain. My message to staff has been I want to hold and maintain for a couple of budget cycles.

Yes. Um because I don't know where my growth rate is right now. That's the first thing we wanted to do. So that's in here. Um, and what we've done, we show a a billet number, let me be really clear on that in PNR, but what we're doing is we're calculating that as a number of hours and a number and a fiscal number. That way, we have a better idea about how we control that. Now, whether we can recruit under those circumstances or not, we don't know yet. That's still to be seen. But we're trying to control it through a number as opposed to the number of billets. It just happens to equal a particular part-time number.

Um, but what I would encourage you to do is look at it as a number, a control number first. We do not outside of non-exempt. A lot of our folks are exempt. We do not pay a lot of overtime, I don't think. U matter of fact, we try to control for those lines. So So then police are requesting four. Yep. And I'm doing that halfway through the year. Okay. Is that something we expect all at once or are we thinking in six months we're going to start phasing in four or the way reality works for us? Drop four.

I I look at the X. But the way our reality works is this. I mean the control line for the police department of number of bullets is sometimes taunt. Right now we're trying to fill two. We're down two. So we're trying to control for those two, but the four that we hired won't even be coming on until June. So there's a lag experience in how we do that. We're trying to come up with better methodology to sign sooner so that they're ready at the control at that particular time. The other thing is, I hate to say this, I don't want to say it out loud because I don't want to jinx a darn thing, but the police department, you know, has moments where we have high hiring and we have higher losses. People will leave, the people will retire, do things like that, they'll move out. Um, so our line is really not straight in the police department. It it it we we always have a bit of slack in it. So, um, the chief and I were meeting today about how to best prepare for next year, and so we signed an extra one into BL because we we know that that will come down, um, against the numbers that that we have. So, um, it's my way of saying, knock on wood, I hope everybody stays, lives the rest of their life with us, and because we love our, uh, we love all our staff here, um, every one of them, but, uh, we hope they'll stay, but it just has that natural tendency in it. So, um, we'll start preparing to recruit them well before

and if we get them, great. This last year, I think we were able to capture four about four at one time, which was pretty darn good. But we were also recruiting for other vacancies, too. So, we had we had dips and and valleys in that particular case, but we'll try to plan it in advance of it. If they laterally transfer, we try to incentivize that. And uh we've been kind of victorious in that. Um uh much to the chagrin of some neighboring uh jurisdictions, but you know, we win. Wax all wins. Yay.

So, um, but we have done that. Those incentives that you folks put in place to allow us to to queue in lateral transfers with experience helps a ton. Then we don't have BL cost. We don't have the retraining cost. So, um, I think all the little the little tools that they have are working well. Um, HR and and the police work well together to recruit, to retain, to do all those kinds of things. So, um, Chief, did I do that? Okay. Did I do okay? Yes, sir. Okay, good. I I had a question.

Um, I had asked a while back and I think you looked into it and we couldn't do it when about giving the recruits in B a stipen rather than bringing them on as an employee. Now I know that I asked about that and there seems seems to be like I don't think we can do it but I know that well we do do something a little uh different rather than making them an employee because I mean experience sometimes the background check isn't completely done and then if you got to cut them loose then it's a problem. I I'll let Emily talk about the the stipen thing. I think we've discussed that in the past but I'll let her talk about that. But

what what we currently do is $20 an hour instead of them getting paid the regular rate as a police officer. So we we did we were able to reduce that down. The downside, we're still paying for insurance. We're still paying workers comp if they get hurt during B. We're still on the hook for a lot of things. Uh we do do their backgrounds before they go to BL. Now we do put them through uh FMLA or not FMLA. uh uh their background checks where they do the psychologicals. We make sure they're fit for duty prior to them going to BL. It cost us more upfront, but I would rather pay that more upfront than pay more for their training for BL and find out afterward that they're not fit for duty.

Uh so we do a lot on the front end now to to correct that. I would much rather do a stipen, but I'll let Emily speak to that. Yeah. Because then if they get hurt in BL now, which we had happen and then or they fail a portion of B and then whatever they failed isn't correct going to be given for another six months. Now they're sitting at a desk and they can't go out on patrol and now we're paying them. They're acrewing vacation and we and B is a fivemon process now. So it's it's a very long process. Then you have another 12 to 14 weeks of field training after that. So when we can take a lateral Well, we we definitely

unfortunately the sheriff tells me every time I see him quit taking my people to the other night. Yes. So, but we don't go looking for them. They come looking for us. So I I would never go poach somebody from his agency or any other agency for that matter. But when they come to us, we will gladly take them with their training. Yes. No, you want to get the other half.

Yeah, we did a little bit of research back on that that stipened um situation. If you're going to staff them on staff or full-time, you have an obligation to provide those benefits to them. So, but we did control it with those uh drop in the $20 an hour uh pay. So, that does help control those costs a little bit more. Um but best practice is to if you're going to staff them, you've got to to provide those benefits. So, as opposed to a stipen, it's it's at least a way to let other police departments do that and it makes it easier if it doesn't work out. And if they get hurt, then you're not because you're paying benefits. They're claiming vacation. And then, you know,

in my experience, not here, but in other places, guys come in and then all of a sudden they got more vacation time than they just started. You know what I'm saying? So just for waxaw sake I was trying to you know kind of from do it a legal angle we've looked at that so we've asked that question from a from a legal standpoint and from the uh insurance side standpoint too and both the recommendation was to to provide provide those benefits um especially insurance at that point that if insurance is saying provide those benefits

yeah it's that that means, you know, guys get hurt at BL all the time and then they can't finish BL or they come out of BL and now they're sitting at a desk. Can you rewrite the contract then to where essentially there's a clause to where if you cycle out? Key words have contracts. Okay, this is a right to work statement. So, we don't do that with public employees. Yeah. So, I don't know. That was just my I was thinking cost savings and and getting people that are fit for duty when they graduate and not have them take up a spot because then they're also taking up a spot. We can't hire someone else. We're paying that salary and we can't use them. So, I don't know.

I will say this, our lateral transfers have been very successful this year. I think I've probably signed at least five of those. I mean, if you get that four or five Yeah, four or five. Yes. And we and we've tried that. We've been successful in getting Yeah, we've been successful in the lateral thing cuz we know we save money when we do that. And we get quality, you know. Yeah. You don't have to worry about retraining and the liability of putting season, but our BLT grads have been pretty darn good, too. So, we've been really pleased with the that our our upfront work to get quality. Um, and they like it here. So, we're really happy about that, too.

Oh, I know. I know. I mean, you do bake for them during snow snow events. They and the fire department. Yeah. Sue and the fire department and Christmas. Yeah. Is that why you never get a parking ticket? Well, that's I don't want to start any fights on the board, but but we we do see it, Sue, as being um worth that because we are mitigating that risk for ourselves. Uh we found every way we can to lower our cost, but it's been benefiting us because we've been getting quality and people who want to stay. So again, it's a cycle with the the police department, but I think it's under control. I really feel good about it. Chief or

we've done very well over the last year and a half, two years of maintaining the Yeah. So it's it's been nice. Uh the three that we hired in the three that we hired in January, they started BL right away. Uh like I said, they'll be done end of May. June 4th will be their graduation and we'll bring them on and start their FTO program and then we'll be full staffed as of don't even June 8th. So talk about not jinx I I definitely don't want to. So

we've done very well. Are we so would you agree that we're seeing more fruitful in this from essentially the our programming that we're doing to for lateral transfers or the transfers?

The the transfers are much better for us right now. We do have three very good candidates of BL, but we don't we don't know what we're getting beyond a board interview, interview with me, and a little bit of PT prior to going, some firearms training and drivers training prior to going. But we have a track record when we see somebody coming from another agency, I know what I'm getting from there, whether they're going to be productive for us or not. you you so there's you you can essentially there there's more fruitfulness in determining at this point where our where we need to deploy our resources correct

and we're gaining more value from from essentially finding more proficient operators for our smaller unit that we are as a municipal that be I would I would say you're correct I I think that when I can bring in a lateral transfer from another agency they can start right way as soon as the state approves their uh their certification and they go into FTO program. They take between two and eight weeks depending on how fast they catch onto our computer systems and what we do. On boarding is a little faster.

Well, a lot faster. So, you're talking instead of 11 months, I'm looking at eight weeks max. significant. Yeah. So, it's a big difference for my question then is it this is just as a board as a whole in this conversation making sure that in my mind I'd like to skew our resources towards that program and that pipeline that's essentially when deploying assets and into what is seems to be more fruitful for our police department and our chief. And so that's my mindset. I don't know. Well, no. I mean, I think they're doing a good job looking for those laterals, and I don't think

and I I think with the with the laterals we receive from other agencies, other people at those agencies talk to those laterals that have come over, I don't want to say what agencies those are, but whatever they may be, they speak to those officers that come over and find out what a great place this is, which in turn makes those other officers realize maybe this is a better place for me. So it's really helped a lot on just the environment we have at the police department. I know for me I speaking just for programming that that's a programming that I definitely support. Well, thank you for everything that you're doing in that and

we are one just as a general comment we're very blessed with very good employees all all through the organization. I have really great I you have the citizens have access to really great staff people all the way across all um the other thing I would say and we're in a very competitive spot. We are not the only town within driving distance, you know, and um so to be this competitive, to maintain what we've had, and to be able to recruit like that so far, I'm I'm pleased with. And uh uh otherwise, Emily would be five feet helping the police department um uh to try to to find those things. So, I think we're in a good spot. Yep.

Sorry. Got to do the suspicion thing. Just have to do it. So uh but we are blessed with good employees everywhere. We've been able to actually fill our billets uh in public services with good people, parks and recreation with good people. Um and I feel very very uh good about the quality of people that are coming in. So that's that's been a good thing. That that was essentially the snapshot of that I was driving home. Thank you, Chief. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. But they cost money. Yeah, exactly. We'll pay.

But I'm one of the reasons I wanted to put the chart down below again is I'm trying to control my cost over time. I wanted to show a historical reference. I wanted to show where it's trending um and it's trending in the right direction for me. We're we're containing that cost to the best of our ability considering we have been through 5 years of uh incredible um uh cost issues um insurance issues u you know one of the reasons we were able to lay off big price increases for periods of time during COVID was because nobody was raising them and then all of a sudden things began to spike. So good work on on um uh right here Emily and Rosie in in negotiating those that cost containment and still making sure we had viable benefits for people people those are important for people. So they're they're important for them.

Okay. So the next thing I want to hit is operations. That'll be your next sheet. I'm going to go to my next um The blue is is the uh proposed year um in some cost. And the reason for example inspections uh the board knows that we are maintaining our inspections um in in Waxaw um for upticks and for other things. Um so that's why that spike looks funny, but that's the only reason that spike looks funny. Otherwise, it's been fairly normalized in that. Um, then the other one would be in the town board expenses. You notice that in your your next year you look good. You're in a negative space. How's that? We paid Daniel less than we pay Sue. So, it's, you know, it's just one of those things that we try to control for. Um, John John came in and was nice to me and so he gets paid more than you, Daniel. So, um, you guys get a, uh, for the public. Uh, the board gets a recovering stipen, and that's really about all it is, uh, for the cost of doing the amount of time that you guys spend here. It's, uh, we we get a real bargain, uh, of your time. So um one of the things I wanted to show in the operational which I thought was significant operational also includes historically debt services in strange places as well as this building. Let me explain something. This building has a debt service but it also received bond proceeds and at the same time we received ARPA. when you see that really tall line back in those years, that's when you had that cash sitting in. So, it passed through

those systems.

Um, you know, if Rosie and I were in charge that time, you wouldn't see it here. You'd see it on another another sheet so we can control that line uh a little bit more. But, uh, overall, I think our departments do a really really super job of trying to manage their budgets. So when you go to the sheets and you look at that they're trying to as a matter of fact in the last two years uh they decreased it 1% 5% the year before that but that's coming off a 28% increase the year before that. So 23 24 you saw that but you also saw additional cash in the system that you wouldn't normally see. So um that's real important for Rosie and I. We're trying to get a handle on that control line where those monies are placed um so that it better reflects our ability to respond to emergencies, our cash flow. Uh we we know what we need for cash flow as well as our ability to handle um and contain costs moving forward. Now you see 10 in there. You see um big decreases. the big and one is in code enforcement. That's a percentage that skews, right? 162% when you do the dividing between all the numbers, that's going to skew you up a bit. Uh code enforcement is asking for some dollars to do some mitigation on some buildings that need to come down in in town. Uh the way it works in North Carolina, it's not it's not ideal, but the way it works is if we if the board agrees with some of these things um such as the old Mason Lodge off of Howie Mine, I think is the one. Is that the one we're talking about, Kevin?

Yeah. Yeah. Um if that if you folks were to want to do that, we would pay for it and we place a lean against the property, but we wouldn't collect until such time. So it sits sits as a liability on your books until you can collect it. They don't give you very many other options in this state. Um I've been in states where you could go and collect it right away. You could put a lean against salaries. You could do things like that. We don't do that here. They're very protective of that and they're very clear about that. But we have some buildings that do need to that are dangers. So we need to be moving. It's a cost on paper. It's not an actual

it's not it's cost on paper right now. We'll see how everything goes. But you know it's a fair thing to throw your way. you know, it is some of those things that's becoming a public hazard as opposed to a private hazard. So, you see some of those percentages. Um, you can see the operating cost in some things. I've uh rolled uh capital into that. So, outlay capital is sitting in those price increases as well as reserve positions uh for capital outlay. So, that's uh that that's where our numbers are. Um we're um adding some um outside consulting to make sure that our audits look clean and clear. U that's something Rosie and I are dedicated to making sure that we're addressing how the financials are prepared and how they're done. One of the reasons our auditor who is a good auditor is a little bit slow as he prepares the financials and then audits them which as a practical matter I have a problem with. But um outside of the practical matter, it'd be better for us to prepare our financials and do those adjusting journal entries before we're heading into audit. So that gives us a better control so then our liabilities are less during the audit. So uh trying to make sure we have some good financial controls in there. Um uh let's see. Uh one increase that we want to show it shows up under HR. It's all Emily's fault. Um but it's uh our workers comp has gone up.

It it it's it's just that exposure rate. Um and we sit on top of that stuff. We we try to monitor a lot of our risk, but our our workers comp went up as well as um anything else in that number professional development just for training. But that's not too much. Workers comp is really where the increases came from. So,

um, Scott, not a big shift for parks and wreck, uh, coming across the table here, uh, but 5% are we, is that more of just a essentially just cost driven on on procurement and the cost of materials and goods, gasoline, electricity, those kinds of things. We maintain parks with electric services. We have gas to get to them. You know, we have a centralized system now. So, that 5% was there. Um, so we're really after after our core adjustments in 25 26 we're looking at really maintaining as this as essentially a a control node. Yeah.

And and as essentially a good baseline

I think so against the cost of uh goods and services and delivery out there. I think we're maintaining as well as we could. We're probably making up for a little bit of decrease and catching back up again. Um but one of the things we're we are we do have here is we have lots of new things and staff is very well aware of that and wants to maintain those things well um and is dedicated to maintaining those operating costs but they don't control the price of gasoline. They don't control the price of uh when we bring on lights and services and some of those things. though. Um, but I think they they're doing a pretty good job of controlling for those costs. I Michael, I don't know what you're facing all the time. I'm sure gasoline's killing you right now and some other things and people were lucky to buy out.

Yeah. And we don't do that. Um, I'd ask Matt if we do that. We don't do that as a practical matter. Um, however, it is something we're monitoring. Richard, you and I had that talk previously about watching. So far we've we've had pretty good tank fulls of things. Um but we're going to continue to watch it. So we're just watching that consumption rate. Yeah. And those cost again for fuel. Thank you. And um as I'm looking at emergency management, what does that cover about 77?

Uh emergency management is um our fire marshall cost uh fire department contribution to theirs uh to them. um as well as uh doing our emergency SOP say working on some of those things and manages our SOPs on that. Uh we we have that partnership with the county and disaster response programming. Uh if I recall correctly, we just did last year uh a large event sequencing where I believe Waxaw was we we demonstrated Waxaw what would happen if an accident occurred at the crossing. Yeah.

At Broom Street. So Kevin manages those things for us. Um as well as um you know we had a really good response on cyber attacks. So um uh our crew was in the middle of that because I was in emergency management you know the ability to communicate with each other ability dispatch you know all the things that we needed to do. And if it wasn't for our partnerships with the state and the county and our fellow jurisdictions around us as well as our fire department that's here in town, uh, all fantastic. We get along with them well. Um, our folks do a great job of maintaining good relationships with those folks. So, we trade off a lot of things. We try to help each other out and get through the year because you never know when a Helen's going to show up. You're not going to sure when a cyber attack's going to show up. You just don't know. Well, speaking of cyber attack, thankful that we've line item IT support individually because in moving forward, it needs its own allocation of resources. It is going to become even more pivotable and and there's always a life cycle to those systems that are in place.

And I'm going through it myself right now that there's an end of year three, five, and seven. and and normally if you've reached a five there you're at a a catalyst point of hardware and so sometimes you have to evaluate when your hardware inputs are going to be in it and so having those individually called out is helpful.

I think it has been doing a good job of trying to uh look forward on some of those. So we've put some of those costs into next year for as protection measures. Um, as I have explained to Richard before, when he tried to ask me some IT questions, I looked at him blankly, blank blinked a lot and stared at him for a while and he finally figured out I had no idea what the heck he was talking about. But what what I can say though is that we're putting it under one roof. We also manage our own fiber lines around here for our own connectivity. Um, we do those things for public safety purposes and for safety reasons. Um and I think a lot of the effort right now is in storage both cloud here. How do we evaluate every software program that we have? So where are where is important information stored? What are we containing? What do we we found that um I don't want to say this too much out loud so maybe I won't. We found some good protective measures um as a result of it. So um um I think we were working through that very well and again with the help of other people uh the state's u national guard are the folks their forensics unit were the ones who really showed up and and really um and the county and then the other IT professionals around the state Nick um were really fantastic. They they showed up. They spent a lot of time with us. So we're real appreciative of that. So we did put some money into that in our in our operations. All right. So, our trend line is going back up though. Uh, and I think most of that is due to inflation. I would probably put inflation in there on cost. Probably somewhere around six 7% in there um on a stacked basis um against it. So, uh I think our control lines probably really around three and a half four and a half% somewhere in there. Um we aren't adding a lot of new materials. We're not buying new and different kinds of things on an operating basis. So,

we're trying to maintain that control, but they cost more. Yeah.

So, trying to be conscious of that. Uh we've actually uh stalled spending sooner uh than the end of the year this year to make sure that we're maintaining that control out of the current operating year. So, we are doing that. So, let's go. Okay. No questions. Good. So, um, uh, the last sheet that you have in front of you are revenues. If that's not in this, I'm sorry. Uh, all of this will be available so people can read and do that, uh, kind of thing as you guys prepare for the next work session and I prepare to give you the final budget then. But your revenues, um, one of the things I want to focus on is 2526. Um, you guys get a monthly report. You'll get one next week. So, you'll see your financials. I would ask you to pay close attention to your funds and your cash in the bank. They always equal each other, but just see where we're maintaining our our balance. We think we'll have a fairly decent year on um from a revenue perspective on investments. They're very conservative investments. Uh but those things are always in flux and the timing of them and when the cash comes in and when we're able to move around. But um I would say Ros's done a great job of maximizing about a cent and a half worth of tax rate just in investments. So she's been very conscious of that. So look at that bank statement when you get when you guys look at those bank lines. Uh the way she's been moving that money around and uh the return on investment has been positive. But the my only concern is as you can see in the last the two years previous to that um we were able to net into unassigned fund balance 6% then 3%. The trend right now is about negative

5%. I don't like that. Um we think that will close. We believe that will close. We have confidence that will close. But I can't guarantee you today whether it will close at or above par. Um so I feel confident with that. We're at about 85% of budget received to date and our expenditures are around 75%. So we're still maintaining that margin and trying to control those cost um so that the taxpayers um know that they're getting value. Um but again that negative 5% compared to this time last year still concerns me a bit. It's it's a little down. Sales tax has not been as robust as um and we were very conservative and in next year I'm really maintaining very conservative numbers.

This is the year let me explain something about sales tax so everybody understands something about sales tax. We have what's called an ad valorum system in Union County. You can pick several different types of ways to gain um sales tax for the jurisdictions that are within a county. Our county uses what's called the advalorum system. So it's your tax rate and the amount of taxes you receive. So we are the second highest in in Union County. Monroe is first. I think Indian Trail is third. Yes. Yeah. And then then after that it's stallings and and the others.

Um but it's because of your advorum rate. This year we believe we should be better off but I'm not seeing it in this year in the current fiscal year. Um while an economist by training and education, one thing I learned is never to predict. And I just I I just don't know how to do that. But if if I read what I'm reading, so if you want to know what I read, it's Financial Times, Barons, and then Wall Street Journal. So, uh, when I watch those three, I think spending is down. It It's more expensive for people, but I think spending in quantity is down in so much that I'm not seeing the sales tax. We ma and the second thing I want to be really clear about we probably make and earn most of our sales tax for that area between Monroe and Indian Trail

because that's where the majority of big big boxy um dealerships dealerships uh all those things are on that stretch. They've been that way since I've been in North Carolina. It's been that way forever. We get the benefit of that return by the way we set up our adorum this year. We should do well. I do I'm not confident enough to predict any growth in that 37% balance of our of our revenues, sales tax, franchise tax, um

alcohol, beverages. Uh people are not drinking as much. They need to drink more. You know, I think it's really because Dex and the crowd are just out there. They're just on top of it. So, I just don't think they're doing that, you know. Yeah. You never thought I'd be saying drink more wine. Yeah. Okay. Risk mitigation. Risk mitigation. But when you do it,

stay at home. So, anyways, um but our taxes are are those taxes that we don't control are not coming in at levels that I'm confident at right now. We did we did collect basically 100% of property tax. So our rateayers pay they pay their taxes. They're good folks about that. That's a good sign. That's not always the case everywhere, but they people pay their taxes probably because a lot have mortgages and they get paid automatically. So

um but regardless of that, credit to the citizens for paying that. The um but I'm not confident in those numbers. So the way I'll present the budget is I will draw down from unassigned, overestimate my expenditures, and then hope that gap closes on on those on those increases in property tax and the rest of the tax structure. I don't think I'm seeing much in property tax. I might see another 1.4% next year. Maybe. Yeah, maybe.

I I think we got the growth kicked this year. And I think that's what you got. I don't think you get it next year. If we get it, it's just very little. If we do 75 million again, that great, but it's not a big number compared to 4.9 billion, right?

So, for your valuation, um sales tax will improve if people spend more. And you know, I'm I'm not one to go out and encourage people to do things. You know, uh we might see some increases, especially on franchise and some of those things um just because of the increased cost of electricity, but boy, I hate to wish that on everybody. So that's that's not something I want to wish on everybody. So um anyways, that's where we are. any uh things we do in uh things like event cost, some of our rate structures uh will be at the margins. Uh they'll really be more about covering event cost uh more than anything if we can get that down to some basic thing that you folks are comfortable with. That is something we'll take a look hard look at. Um rates for inspections were at about high, but then you need to multiply that by the number of inspections. So those have been low this year. So um that is where we are from a 20,000 foot view. So what I will do u so you know is I will then send this and I will send a uh a deeper detailed dive and draft of budget um for your next work session and then I will I have to submit the budget by charter and by law. Uh I will do that. Um but I wanted to be very clear about where I think things are. Um, so we'll stop and see if I can answer any questions. Rosie's sitting here with me and Emily as well, um, in case I flub.

So, I'm just looking at the the numbers from 2223 to now. And I guess the last reval was in in that year. Is that the reval before this last one was in 22 23, right? Right. No. So, I'm just saying that I'm looking at it was 20%, you know, we went from 17 million to 20 uh million and that's because we had that rebal and the tax rate stayed the same. Tax stayed the same at 382 at 38.5 cents. So, that's where that big bump came in because yeah, we had the rebal, kept the rate the same.

Kept the rate the same. So, we took in all that money and then over the years, if you look at it, it's gone down because then the tax rate stayed the same for a couple years and then last year we dropped it to make up for the big rebound. So, that's what about four years ago? Well, might have been 212. Well, it took effect 22 23. Yeah. So, I'm that's I guess what accounts for that. Yes. So, that's just an observation. So it's not that you had also during that year if I if you wanted to have some fun I'm sure Richard will have some fun with regression analysis um

which I which I love Beijian Beijian statistics are always my favorite as well but if I showed you that you would also see a very very high number of building permits both commercial and residential. Um you also saw an unprecedented increase in the value of assets the like that we haven't seen right

in a very long time maybe post World War II 51 52 53 54 somewhere in that you would have seen that big of a bump when lots of homes were going up in Long Island and Buffalo and Cleveland and all the places that the the war vets were coming back from. Um my mother benefited from that, dad benefited from that. Um but we haven't seen a price increase the the value of the assets. Well, also we're don't forget COVID and so migration. Yeah. You know, down here. That's right. So So demand was driving a lot of the underlying value of the asset

was finished by then. Milbridge had just finished getting built out. So you're talking about a lot of things converging at once to bring in all that money plus the tax rate not being lowered that year. So, kind of makes sense that yeah, it's decreased over the list. It It is. And it's also why you have savings. Yeah. Because a lot of that money just went into that restricted CIP fund. So, it's kind of um I don't want to use the word trust fund, but it it it it helps.

It's a safety net and you have it for these projects. And these projects um take a long time to come to fruition. I mean, highway projects and street projects and some of the work that we've been doing. You folks know some of these things have been on the books for six, seven, eight, nine years. So, I mean, it's a long time to get some of these things all the way to to the finish line. But now we're at a point where we're going to start spending down. So, your cash position will change next year. Um, I think between this year and next year, you'll probably see a total of about eight to nine million decrease in total cash position be because you'll be spending it. You'll be spending it on stuff on worthwhile things.

Yeah. All all worthwhile things. Not I'm not complaining about it, but it's it's what you will do. So, but yeah, that is that is why it is. Now, um, as as I said at the beginning, I'm not recommending an increase, but I'm not recommending a decrease either. If I had more growth, we I would feel more comfortable having a conversation with you folks about that. Uh, but I don't have a lot of confidence in the numbers we don't control, right? No, no. I mean, things have gone up and, you know, our water bill is probably going to go up because it looks like we're going into a stage two drill. Yeah, it looks like we are. So, that's right. Can't wait for that. Oh, it's going to be exciting. Yeah. You know, uh those from California,

and I lived in Oregon for a while, brown grass in the summer is a awesome thing. It's just the color of summer. We get used to it. And then desertcape. It's desertcape. And then come October, the rain starts again. So, you know, it's it's nice. It's a it's a nice contrast. The cacti in June and setting out the buffalo skull. The buffalo skull. You do that. We're going full tempe Arizona here. You know, it's 35% humidity, so you know, you don't have to wear a t-shirt underneath your shirt. It's good. Palmetto plant will be the number one selling planet your your local hardware store. That's right. It's drought tolerant. Can I answer any questions that are on the tip of your tongue? Just to clarify,

the police station has one more mortgage payment. Is it two or three? I think it's three mortgage payments. So that's three more years of payments on the police station. Okay. And then in that fourth year, we're going to be paying for HVAC. No, roof. Roof. A roof. Roof. Okay. If we just No, wait a second. You need to go one more. So we'd say the roof is on fire. I mean, come on. Do this roof. The roof is on. Yes. Hback's still hanging out there. possibly following the roof or or or with the roof to to be evaluated.

Yeah, we'll evaluate that clearly at that point. Cool. I'll just correct my notes here. Is there a penalty for paying early? No, I'm not sure because they did they did after the first seven years they refinanced. They did. Yeah. Okay. So, and that would be the same option that we have here at the at the town campus at seven years. Then we could look at refinancing. Gotcha. Okay. All right. So, those are bench years for us as well. Um, and we are aware of them.

And for those that might be interested, we did talk about refinancing the note on this town campus, but if you look at the year this was financed, those rates those rates are long gone and they're never coming back. Those were lovely rates. So that refinancing anything at this point is just not an option to to save anything. So yeah, the only thing you can consider is recasting and other methodologies, but really you really your uh bond financial u contract structures were set at seven years. So um banks get a little funny before seven um on long-term contracts like that. So they do have kickers in them. Sounds good.

Is there anything the board in particular would like to see at our next meeting that we have not yet seen or what what is it we're looking to to know that hasn't been presented tonight? I think I'm going to digest this and then yes, maybe send an email if there's anything else I can think of because a lot. Yep. Yeah, of course.

I think uh holistically I'm in the same boat making sure that we all I take some time to go through this, digest it, um give any feedback to staff. But I will say staff has laid out a great framework for us to understand essentially what we're going to be working our way through and essentially given us great guide to how they see the path laid out at this time. Does not mean it's the ultimate path. They're just saying here's essentially how we see it through our objective lens and and what they're evaluating. So, thank you to staff.

And then last year, Commissioner Don, I know you were very fond of our long detailed Excel spreadsheet. Is uh is that something you're going to want to see again this year? How are we feeling about that? Well, I kind of had to um do some manual work to put it together myself because the spreadsheet I was given was in all these different tabs. But it's nice to have a really flat file of uh just everything rowby row so that you can filter it on each uh whatever category you feel like filtering. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's what I was doing with it last year as well. Kind of playing with it and filtering it and trying to see where money's kind of going and and what it's all getting spent on. Yeah,

it was interesting how much every every department seemed to have its own postage line item. So just wondering what could be done to consolidate that. I think that's something we talked about last year. Control F find like items. Sorry, I'm technically challenged. It always takes a second to turn off. So the little things like that is because we centralize it and everyone uses it. So then we distribute. Yeah. Then so it it just it you know spreads the cost out so that no one department absorbs bears that burden. Yeah. Yeah. Which makes perfect sense. So,

I think one of the items we were talking about trying to centralize were the lights and correct me for the downtown lighting because it's coming out of the downtown budget if I remember correctly, but it's really it's not really downtown's budget. They're lighting the trees for Christmas or whatever. So, it's it looks like their costs are up here, but really it's should be spread. And and then we were talking about, well, are we able to keep track of what's fading in and out? And are is it an efficient way if it's spread out like that? Are we doing double work to to keep too many journal lights on

too many journal entry points essentially between the lights the parks of the event the the core of the meaning of that event is geared towards would it be better to put all the we're beginning to centralize some things especially as we talk about asset management so lights um debt structures um the the old thinking and I've been in it and out of um was to charge those departments that caused it.

Um but I can tell you public services doesn't cause police cars and he has all that debt structure in there. So getting those things out into different kinds of debt structure lights the buildings are now building maintenance. We're starting to put more and more of our physical assets into there so that we can manage that system. It we're doing the same thing. So we're working towards that. Uh so we can centralize some things, understand where it is, and then figure out how to charge back. We don't have a centralized um indirect fee, uh which you might have if you had a utility because we don't have a utility. Yeah.

Um and that's more common in that setup, but I I think to a great degree, Rosie knows where the expenditures are coming from in various things for various things that we do. Um so we are trying to capture that. So, you know, if admin's using a lot of printer, you know, they're paying for a lot of printer, right? Right. Right. No, that makes sense. Yeah. And I was I think there was also a question about the McDonald's house because it's under parks and wreck, but really it's downtown. So, is that something Parks and Wreck should be maintaining or with those with those lights? Those are the specialized lights that they use during the holidays. That's

right. And so there were there is a contract with the same individual and part of it was being paid out of the downtown business development budget because he's putting the lights around the businesses and around and the other part is for the um parks the parks and wreck and the Christmas tree and so they get kind of divided it that way so that we could see if we were paying the full amount between the two. Gotcha. Okay.

Well, sorry. Go ahead. I was say so essentially it sounds like it's a singular PO release for that contractor doing that event for lack of better words. Uh but then internally we're journaling. Is that about right Rosie? Right. So what happens is when we enter the purchase orders we can

at that time designate to the different department expenditure codes and that's what we do with a lot of things with the utilities and everything. So it does give us a better tracking so it and that it flows into the correct department. So it gives us a truer operational department by department, but it does not silo costs essentially at this time into is that about right? Right. Thank you.

One of the things I've been thinking about and I think this has come up once or twice is the idea of pulling the parking out of the downtown administration or downtown budget and making its own line item. Um, I mean that's that's going to be one of those things that's only going to get I don't want to say worse, but it's only going to increase and as we try to get more parking downtown, um, I think it it would be nice to have that as a a more visible item. I I I think um one of the things I would we're going to challenge the board with um staff's been doing work on goals and objectives and strategies for you folks based upon your uh vision and mission and uh overall where you want us to be. Uh we will probably be coming back with some strategies about u how to deal with that as well as diversifying your revenue source and your expenditure asset management. I keep using that term asset management. I know many of you use that as a normal uh base of business. Because we don't have a utility, we don't always use it, but since we've centralize the building, we now see the benefit to how do we really have a good program in there. In addition, um where else is it that we're spending money

that could be more centralized? Is it getting the rate of return that you need on your investments? Um, so, uh, I think a lot of good conversation is going to come out of this. I really do. Anything else from the board? Just one one thing. Um,

Mr. Mayor, like private sector, corporate cost to do business is 12 to 15% or most right now. and to be able to hold steady at 10%. I'm going to still dive through the lines, but that that's a pretty favorable number considering what private and corporate sector is doing. So good good initial number. I will say detail your next round you're going to get a lot more detail beyond this. So perfect. It's a draft form still, but it'll be detailed. Great. Hope this has been helpful trying to take it in this direction.

Yes. No, I think this is a good way to look at it. Sort of start broad and then start focusing and it's a good approach and all righty without further ado then can I get a motion to adjurnn? Motion to move. All in favor? I. Any opposed? We are now adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Good meeting. 7:30 7:30 7:30. Yeah. Yeah.