City Council - Regular Meeting

Our agenda items for this evening will be uh under new business audit report. Tay will have that for us this evening. And then new under new business item two approve a revised budget. She'll also have that. Item three grant permission for Dunham's athleisure corporation to sell firearms at 804896 US highway 231. And the fourth item would be a amend the date in resolution of 2026-3-2-1 from July 18th 2026 to July 17th, 2026 sales tax holiday. And then item five, permission to transition existing permit manager and Delta business license software to a secure cloud hosted platform. If y'all [clears throat] need me to explain that for you, I'll be more than happy to explain that for you. Okay. Then item six, permission to purchase turf tank painting robot for an annual subscription of $8,500 for the first year and $7,500 for years two and three. provides a capability to paint Hornberg football stadium and all grass soccer fields for youth league football, Ezekiel football, all diamond fields and the football stadium. Reggie here. Okay. Item seven, approve hotel feasibility study at a cost not to exceed $8,500. Same thing we had to do when we got this last hotel. So, trying to get ourselves in a position for our next hotel. Item eight, award the Wampa Municipal Airport grass cutting bid to the lowest bidder. Item nine, permission to enter into agreement with Woodwater Works and sew a board for the relocation of utility facilities on private or

public rightway work to be done by the state contractor. Um, item 10, permission for Abby Wland to host an Easter egg hunt to confirm the market on March 28th of 2026. Okay, mayor, could we get the date changed on item number four, July 18th needs to be 17th. July 17th needs to be 18th. Is that reverse? Okay, we've got it. Our resolution stated it would be on the 18th and we need to change it to what? Well, you have it from July the 18th to July the 17th. So, you going that

be going backward be going backwards. So, it needs to be from the 17th. Yeah, we just reversed 18th to the 18th. Sorry, on the first resolution it was July 18th. So, it's actually going to be July 17th to the 19th. So, I'm changing it from the 18th to the 17th. So it'll be on a Friday, right? I need to start on that Friday and go through Sunday 17th through the 19th. Correct. Friday, Saturday, Sunday instead of just You just had the wrong date on the original resolution. Okay, I got you.

Okay, those are our agenda items and we will make that correction. U call our council meeting to order. The invocation this evening be given by council where are you down there on the end. Robins. Yeah.

Yeah. Robins. Now pledge be given by council person Tucker. Great. Well, we thank you for uh this city and the people that gathered here tonight that worked so hard to make it a great place to live. We thank you for uh the protection from the weather last night and you kept us safe. God, we ask you be with our troops as they're out fighting. Uh please bring them all back home safely. Uh help us to go over these items and do everything in your name. In Christ's name, amen. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Roll call. Council member Robbins here. Council member Tucker here. Council member Justice here. Council member Gant here. Council member Brown here. Mayor Willis here. You received in your pack of the copy of the minutes for the council meeting held on March the 2nd of 2026. Are there any corrections to those minutes? Being no corrections, we'll entertain a motion for approval. Second. Okay, we have a motion. We have a second. All in favor? That'd be known by saying I. I. Anyone opposed? So, those minutes have been approved. No old business this evening. It's all new business. Audit report. Miss Tate.

Hey, good afternoon everyone. Um in front of you, you should have two documents from our audit um firm. First of all is a letter that's just stapled together. Um I wanted to run through that with you. Uh first of all, it just says that um the auditors were engaged to audit the financial statements of the city of Wumpka. It includes all the governmental activities, major funds and aggregate remaining fund information. Um that was as of September 30, 2025. Um they also perform the audit not only in accordance with auditing standards generally accepted in the United States of America but also government auditing standards. Um because we expend federal money. Uh first of all, significant audit findings. It's kind of a misnomer um but they talk about certain things that they are required to under um the auditing standards. First of all are qualitative aspects of accounting practices. Um that includes significant accounting policies which you will find in the note one to the financial statements. Uh note two to the financial statements. We changed a policy during the year related to compensated absences by adopting a new Gazsby statement uh 101. Uh that statement had no impact on our financial uh standing for the year. So it was a just an adoption of a standard with some note disclosures. Uh they did find that all significant transactions had been recognized in the financial statements in the proper period. Um accounting estimates are um integral parts of these financial statements. The most significant estimates um are accounts receivable, depreciation, postemployment cost other than pensions and annual pension costs. As you can imagine, if you've you know been around the city or any other state

agency or or municipality, pension costs are huge um huge estimates that we have to deal with. Um I am pleased to report that there were no significant difficulties um in dealing with management during the audit. Um we did have a couple of uncorrected misstatements that we decided to pass on because they were not significant to the financial statements. Um there were no disagreements with management during the audit. We provided them with representation which were customary um in in audit um engagements um and the rest of it was pretty much boilerplate language. There were no other consultations with other auditors or um other audit findings or issues. So, um, in in kind of working through the audit and talking to the auditors, um, Kathy and Tiffany and all of the financial staff and personnel and everyone that was dealing with grants during the year, I mean, they did an amazing job on keeping things straight. um and is accounted for as best everybody could given the you know the turnover that we had in the finance department. Um and so the auditors recognized that um during the year and really worked with us to make sure that we had everything right at the end of the day. Um so in the audit you also have your there's a these are the financial statements and they're lengthy. If you have trouble sleeping, stick it under your pillow. Might help. Um the probably the biggest and most important thing is that we got an unqualified opinion um on the financial statements themselves and the notes to the financial statements. That's a clean opinion. Um in auditor speak um they looked at all the numbers. They evaluated estimates um the accounting

principles that we've adopted how we apply the government auditing standards um and the preparation of the financial statements and determine that the financial statements are materially correct um as it relates to um the activities and the finances of the city. One of the um one of the things that they also do is schedule of findings. Um, and this kind of goes back to that government auditing standards. If you're expending federal money, then you have a little bit of a stepped up audit or audit procedures. And so, they look at our internal controls and whether or not we're following those and and things in our daily activities as we're expending money. Um, we've got a few things that we'll work on in the upcoming year. um really writing some policies to shore up those um those things that we do on a day-to-day basis is the biggest part of that. So, I'm kind of looking forward to really jumping into that and getting um getting some policies and grant management stuff done. Any questions?

Speak now. [laughter] Okay.

The one item that's I've gone through 13 of these and the one item that's always on there hard for us to capture is the credit card documentation. And I know with so many different entities that we have that we order from. I know sometimes that's that's an issue, but that that it's been there every year. I'm sure it gets this year might be better the least problem that they had with it. So this year was this audit was better than the one before. Uh there's still some things there that TA is working on to help clean this up. Uh and she's she is demanding a little bit more from all of us that if we use a credit card, uh we better have a receiver attached to it or we're going to own that ourselves.

And u that's the way it's going to have to be. So I and and Jim credit and kudos to Jim for taking over the credit card reconciliation process during last year um in making sure that all the documentation was there. Um, and I think unfortunately when you're when you step in to do something that's not the thing that you do all the time, um, the time commitment becomes a little bit of a challenge to be the IT manager for the whole city of Wumpkin, all the things that we have and then also have something that's not in your normal day-to-day routine um, on your plate. And so I think I think the things that they found were in the beginning before we really got things going better. Um and then things seemed to be better and then they kind of fell off toward the end of the year. um when Jim and I talked and then I took responsibility for the credit card transactions um or the reconciliation of it at the end of the uh month, then I think I have two transactions that I don't have the documentation on for October through February.

Um so my goal is for that dang finding to go away. [laughter] Um, that's my goal this year for sure. Sure. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? Thank you, Tay. Can we just stay standing? Yes, ma'am.

Okay. [laughter] Um, this also may be a little bit of a new process, but as um I I came in and kind of got acclimated to to the budget uh for the fiscal year that we're in now, uh working with Tiffany and Kathy on whether or not it really reflects what seems to be trending for us for this fiscal year and really wanting [snorts] our department heads and directors to have a good working budget. budget that they can that they can use and be held accountable for. Um, we decided that about midway through the year, we probably needed to look at the budget and look at whether any revisions were needed. So, that's what that's what we're about to talk about. Um, big highle numbers for our total revenue. We had originally budgeted 24,253,000. We're proposing to reduce that by 1,148,000 which is about 5% of the budget um and go with a revised budget revenue of 23,14,500 in all those different line items. You'll see some go up, some go down. Um so we were trying to kind of true those up to to the way that they were trending in each of those line items. Um, on the expense side, we had originally budgeted expenses of 21,828,000. We're also proposing to reduce that by 1,48,000 or 409,000 down to 20,418. Um, still gives us a healthy, you know, excess revenues over expenses when you're talking just those kind of live items. Um and then to be able to invest

in those special projects and capital outlay items that you know we've that the city's been doing for many years and to continue um those improvements in our city. So we have a uh an increase in capital outlay and special projects of 981,000 which would bring us up to 3.4 million in that line item. It's so good. Just keep talking. I know, right?

The original um budget, what did you do? Inflated um from last year and then because we're just in the second quarter. So you're now you're anticipating the the the the kind the items that are going down, you're anticipating them to to not to not go where you had it instead. So So part of it um on the revenue side, part of it was an expectation that more of the Rivertown Center developments would be online and producing sales tax revenue in this fiscal year. um was part of it and part of was other developments throughout the city that were expected that would also be generating sales tax revenue by now. Um and that has not that hasn't been the trend. So we felt like we needed to to pull that down to what was more realistic at this point in time. Um on the expense side, really a re a re uh classification of some excess funding that we would typically use for special projects was a line item in the expense section and wanted to bring that down to where it was clear that those were capital outlay and special project costs that were not routine ongoing um items. like salaries and benefits and utility costs and things like that.

Right. Okay. I just noticed that and I'm just wondering from last year was it you know was it like an increase of 5% or whatever now you're you're breaking you at this in the second quarter you're revising it down. Um, so I don't want us to come toward the, you know, the other way, then we have to, you know, raise it back up.

It's not unusual to do this. It's uh it's been done numerous times over the years, but u maybe we got a little excited about what all was happening and what was coming and we were looking at that tech tax base that it was going to create and it's it's a little slower getting here. Not that it's not going to come, it's going to happen. Uh because it has a cut off date on it has to happen. So it's it's not unusual to do this. So I think it's uh it's good management

in order to do this. When I first came on, the budget that was given to us to operate was a $10 million budget and we had to adjust it back to 7.8 million to begin with because there's no way we could make that budget. But Lord, look at the difference from where we were then and where we are now. you you back to a $20 million budget 20 with a $23 million projection. So,

and there was a few a few line items if you go through all the details where we knew like although some were trending downward if we looked at the previous five months, some were also trending upward like in the revenues which was encouraging. So it could be that we just had, you know, we maybe overexected on one line item and underexpected on another. But I I totally agree that looking at the budget midyear is it's a normal process and because what it does is so yes, we are so just in a few days we'll be in month seven [clears throat] of our fiscal year. So, we're halfway through our fiscal year. We want to be able to give our department heads a way to manage their expenses for the rest of the year and stay on budget.

Any other questions? Thank you, Jay. Very well done.

Yeah, we got to adopt this. So we need we need a motion to move forward to this approval acceptance. So move and a second second. Any further questions? All in favor? It'd be known to say I. I. Anyone opposed? So that two is granted. Item three, grant permission for Dunham's Athleisure Corporation Incorporated to sell firearms at 4896 US Highway 231. We need a motion to move forward with that. Mayor, I'd like to make that motion.

We'll take your motion. Do we have a second? Second. We'll take that. All in favor say I. I. Anyone opposed? So that two has been granted. Item four, amend the date in the resolution to July 17th through 19th sales tax holiday. We need a motion. So move and a second. Second. [snorts] That's a weak second. Second.

Have a motion. We have a second. Any discussion on that? All in favor? It'd be no by saying I. I. Anyone opposed? So that two has been granted. And then item five would be permission to transition existing permit manager and Delta business license software to a secure cloud hosted platform. Okay, we can entertain a motion.

That's the first time. Yep. We'll carry that over. Item six, permission to purchase turf tank painting robot for an annual subscription of 8,500 for the first year and 7500 for years two and three provide the capability to paint Henberg football stadium all grass soccer fields for youth league football Ezekiel football all diamond fields and the football stadium this first time also. So we'll carry that over. Item seven, approve hotel feasibility study of the cost not to exceed $8,500. That's the first time, so we'll carry that over. Item eight, award the WA municipal airport grass cutting bid to the lowest bidder. I think we can move forward with that. Uh motion second. Okay, have a motion. Have a second. All in favor to say I.

I. So that two has been awarded. Item nine, permission to agreement with jump water works and sew board for relocation of utility facilities on private or public right away work to be done by state contractors. Okay. Motion for that permission. Some move. Have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. Again.

I'm going to move to be a little more separated. [laughter] Okay, we have a motion. We have a second. Permission to enter into this agreement with waterworks. All in favor say I. I. Anyone opposed? So that two has been granted. And then item 10, permission for Abby Weldon to host a niche state hunt at farmers market on March the 28th, 2026. Motion, mayor, I'd like to make that motion.

We'd like to accept it. So that's we've got the motion. We need a second. Uh oh, don't Dennis going to die for lack of second. [clears throat] They have these sto I anyone oppose.

Okay, we'll entertain the motion to adjourn. So move. Okay, Brandon. Good job.