City Council - Regular Meeting

here. Council member Oz here. Gilbertson here. Gardner

here. Butterfield. shoulders here. There's no one there's no motions or anything. Thank you. It's going a while. Okay. Currently five.

Four absent. Four present. Five present. Four absent. Work session. Yes.

Pass something out. When we the city started the city administrator I was on the council at that time for you to consider administrator and uh James Miller was the executive director of the Lake of Minnesota cities and he came out with an article and this reflects some of the of what he said in that article and I would just like you to uh read it take it to I guess that's all I got to say about it. Speak for so Yes. That's

so I'll turn it over to our administrator. So,

so tonight you received updated uh capital improvement plan that uh staff has put together. Just a couple of uh housekeeping notes here, table contents, and if you have your uh when you have your screen up when you bring it into your um tablet or whatever on the table of contents, when you click on it on your screen, it will take you right to that page. Is that new? That wasn't in there earlier, was it? Just this afternoon there to this afternoon. So, as Tom presents the CIP information, he will also reference page numbers for the uh particular item that we're talking about. So you can also find them then in the book too or otherwise in your child you can also locate them just by clicking on the um particular item. So we'll start uh alphabetically is the way we're going to go through this process. We also have in your book an updated spreadsheet too with what um colorcoded and um green means the total is what the staff is recommending. Um and then the rest of anything in white is what the departments have talked about and are looking considering. And then blue is the waste or wastewater department. No, pink is the wastewater department and blue is the storm water. So if it's a new improvement for storm water, we

can use a local sales tax, but if it's not, it has to be uh taken out of the cash or the general fund and funded through uh tax processes. on the last on the page on the flip side is then the uh vehicles on the back side of the sheet. Anything else Kyle you want to include? Uh no, not at this time. Okay, then we will we'll continue and Tom will start his PowerPoint presentation. That's a good word question for clarification of staff recommendation like what's what's

Yeah. What's the process of that? Like I'm assuming anything that's on here has been recommended some we met with the directors on those. So directors we directors put all their information into the software system that we have and then we went through it line by line and went through with directors too and talk to the directors about what is their number one number two and number three choices. Looks like that's a joint decision. else director talked about.

Thank you for the clarification or if they want to add to it, but what we've recommended is a you want to just get down to the very bottom. It's just a total of $1.3 million with uh using the reserves. We're at 1.15.

What was the last 194 Thanks, Administrator, mayors, mayor, and members of the council. So tonight we're just going to go through our capital improvement plan for uh 27 through 2031. Um we're going to focus primarily on 2027's capital improvement plan as administrator Ali had mentioned. U first I want to go through a little bit of history. Starting in 2024 or 2023 and prior the city was deficit spending or we were spending more money than we had budgeted spending our fund balance down. So starting in 2024 that um changed and we incorporated the capital improvement plan started reintroducing that back into the general levy as operating of the city. So starting in 2024 we used $350,000 in cash plus we had one time uh infusion from the community investment fund of $752,000. So of that the civic center shop roof replacement and snow guards on the roof were installed. that Dorothy Olsen installed a new shed and there was also some umbrellas that were replaced at the pool. The sixth street pedestrian bridge that goes over the train tracks on the east side of uh the current first street bridge that was earmarked to be replaced uh that has since uh gone into our rail study that is currently underway. There

were downtown street lights that were installed. The fire station had indoor and outdoor lighting. Uh the indoor has been completed. The outdoor lighting upgrade is is uh um yet to come. Public works lighting upgrades and door replacements for the overhead and walkthrough doors. W Main Street had some Christmas decorations and downtown banners. And also for our fields, we had a field pro and a top dresser for our baseball softball fields, a public works roller, a pickup, and also four squad cars. Just want to highlight what has been done in the last couple years. So starting then so that was 350 2025 we went from 350 to 485,000 plus we were able to use the proceeds from the Rice Home medical Redwood Falls sale. Of that the airport hangar access road and runway 1331 edge lighting replacement were approved. the Civic Center east wall as we saw in our tour a couple weeks ago and the replacement that project is um underway. It's almost wrapped up. The IT security cameras for Robins Island, that project is complete. The public works shop roof office replacement and block repair that is currently underway on the roof. The block repair is yet to come, but that is also a contract has been approved. public works. Um $137,000 was set aside for a future uh we ended up using it in for a plow truck. Um the Dorothy Olsson had pool filters that we were uh well I guess they're going to be replaced here right this week. Two squad cars and then the law enforcement center had some upgrades to their heat pumps. Uh we we paid the county for the city's portion of that. So it went from 350 to 4.85. 85. Now, for 2026, it is $879,000

in cash alone. Of that, what was approved is the airport snow removal equipment where we were able to leverage the state and federal dollars to get some snow removal equipment out there. The Blue Line Arena roof replacement, the contract has been awarded uh for that. That'll be a combination of a new roof plus also some insulation to the Blue Line Arena traffic signal replacement. The fire department reserve towards a future purchases of $90,500. The police department was just giving a was given a vehicle allowance of $200,000. Part of that, as you recall, there's there are always squad cars that are uh necessary to be replaced. But also in the police department, CIPU is their um SWAT or mobile command, I think is a another term for it. Bus that needs to be replaced. This gives uh Chief Holm the latitude to maybe buy something as it comes up versus waiting a budget year to get that allocated. Uh public works plow truck using the previous year's reserves. And then also there's not quite enough to buy. It was originally earmarked for a snow go the big snowb blower attachment that the public works uses in the winter for snow removal in the downtown snow emergencies. Uh that will be going towards future use and that is also earmarked. And then also there's $69,000 unallocated for 2026 CIF and we can talk about that here in a little bit. So that's just a little history of the 24, 25, and 26 of what we have been able to approve and uh chip off some of our deferred maintenance while proving the the services still going to the residents of Wilmer. For now, what I what I'd like to do is go through each department has a slide

kind of highlight their requests for the year. First off, the airport sh I can take it. Sure. And you can help. Yep. Okay. Um, so we've got the hanger access road which goes to the lifelink hanger. Um, just build that up and that's part of part of the uh part of helping them out with access to their hanging. I don't know if that was prior arrangement, but um and then the runway 1331 reconstruction design for $18,750 um just for the we need to get the design going so that way when we need to reconstruct that uh runway, it's good to go. I'll add just a little bit on the access road. It's estimated about a $250,000 project. This would just be a cost share between the city and the state of Minnesota. Um, previous year CIP did allocate 60,000 of local dollars towards this project. Uh, so the 7030 split we're estimating at $75,000 cost. So that's why you see an additional $15,000 for this project. It is grant dependent. Um, and we do ex uh there is a very good chance that the total project cost will come down. Uh the city has already placed and established the base of the road that goes behind the Hansen the Dun um the Dunik hanger Hansen hanger and light links hanger. We do need to provide access. So that's we do believe it'll score scored high on the state's grant list the last two times I believe or the last time it just didn't score quite high enough. So again it's grant dependent. If we aren't awarded the grant, we do have upcoming uh profits at the airport that we would like to start allocating dollars for.

Whether we're funded for the senior access road or not, the dollars won't go unspent in future years when we come to the rehabilitation of runway 1331. It's expected in 282, which is a multi-million dollar project, and the city's cost would be about 5% of that. So, anything that we can start with the way for the airport would be beneficial. So again, it would have been in vain if we were not awarded this grant and the project if the project was funded, we were not awarded. Move on to parks and wreck.

All right. So, uh during the tour, uh we indicated that a storage shed is needed for us out at Civic Center location. Um, a lot of our equipment is sitting outside and it's pretty much dispersed around the facility. Um, in the grass area is where the desired location would be. So, it's on hard surfaces next to our other shop and a storage area. Um, we call it the brown shed. Um, the guys are actually working on that area um, this week. Um, there's a there's a mound there. Um, they're going to be removing that dirt this weekend at least get it to flat ground um, and put gravel there. So, it's it's the parking you can get closer and then we have cameras on our equipment as well. Um softball complex netting um that's been in the CIP for a couple of years now. This is a more of a a safety and a protectant um for the fans that are um watching the games. It's basically covers from the dugouts all the way around um into an X. Reached out to a couple of vendors. I got a quote back. Um I finally got back from the guy from Midwest uh construction out of Andover. They are part of the Source Wells group. Um he just hasn't given me a price yet. So I think that dollar amount hopefully would go down from what the projection of 185 is. But again, this is a safety feature that we have at the softball complex because the fields are so tight. Um and then we drove by Miller Tennis courts. Um you can see that the this needs to be resurfaced. It's we've got the age of it done in 2018 from a US grant. Um we're right at the end of that life spacing kind of work from the original paint. Is it too late to do that softball netting from local option sales tax money since that was a local option sales tax

project? Uh most likely yes. The dollars under local option sales tax were all put towards the outdoor ice rink. So any remaining funds will be if there's not a lot if any of it remaining.

Is the shed heated? Is there water in there?

No. It would be a storage unit. We would we'd want to get the shell up and the concrete then and everything like that. We would do the concrete ourselves. Um but then eventually we would like to get it tinned inside so it could be insulated so we can use it as well. Right now it' be a cold cold storage unit. 30 by 40 by 50. We're going to see what we can get. What's the best route for us to go if we go with a pre-engineered building or if it's better to do a stick building and then put the tin on the outside. My guess is that we would have quite a bit of people that would want to bid on it. So that 30 by 50 could maybe be a 30 by 55. It's an error in the book when it says 30 by 40.

Okay. Should be a 30 by 50 is what the code is. I think the year before that I think it was 342. Thank you. You probably give us five or six of these in the course here. Next time you use this, can you add the page numbers for every project? be nice to be able to audience much.

Yeah. Uh we we're utilizing a new software now. So we're trying to do a kind of a an easier merger between the spreadsheets going online project numbers to help navigate that. move on to fire department Frank. So the the projects that originally we had in for CIP for 2027 included pagers and um our county rescue to all. It was decided that the pagers um would be taken out and over a course of five or six years um we would add those into operations. So there wasn't such a big expense at one time. Um so the three projects that are left are the um turnout here washer extractor for $25,000. Um hoping and fingers crossed with our $10,000 grant. I'll drop that down to $15,000. That is basically the quotes. 23 to 25,000. That's the quotes that we've been getting for that. Um, our current washer, as I've said before, was purchased in 2004 and is used constantly, probably what multiple amount of times over the last couple of years just because of all the cancer awareness and the fact that we want to keep our turtle gear clean. Um, so firefighters don't have to deal

with carcinogens and that stuff in the gear. So um the next one is the wildland firefighting gear. A lot of our gear is 26 plus years old for that. Um the basic part of the wild gear is lighter weight. Working grass fires or wildland fires. This is extremely tough. And for example, today we had a grass fire and all of our guys except for one had to wear their full turnout gear for structure fire because they don't have wildland gear and even at 70° today it was it was a struggle for some people. So I think that that becomes a safety issue on that side of it too. Um so we would like to get you know the entire department and then that year typically will last us probably 15 years. So, um, and then the final thing would be the 2006 Ford pickup that we use. Um, most of you seen it last year. You can see a little bit in this picture. Quite a bit of rust on it. Um, starting to have some mechanical issues. Our maintenance man is a mechanic as well and he does quite a bit of work on it. So, it's it's time for that to move on down the road to 20 years of service. And it has a little over 120,000 miles on it, I believe. So, that's what we're looking That's what we're looking for. Move on to public works.

All right. Start with the automated gate system at the brush site. Uh we had a we reached out actually a separate city reached out to us talking to Tom I believe and uh let us know that they put this automat automated gate system at the brush site and they ended up seeing 150% return on their investment within the same calendar year investment. So the cost of install and then what you charge your customers, you get that money back. 100% would be the amount that you put into it and then the 50% would be we charge you to use the brush site. Not currently, but that would be the plan with the state systems. And it would also help um it would I mean we were asked earlier this year to find other sources of revenue and we thought this would be a good one. So then it would be accessible any time.

Yes. Yep. Um yeah. So the idea this behind this system is uh customer would get a code when they paid for their um yearly subscription, monthly, what however we decide to do it. Um, and then they go to the breast site, they enter the code, they can come in any day, and then we can obviously have set hours, so nobody's going there after dark, getting into trouble, getting hurt. Um, and then yeah, so we wouldn't there would no longer be a well, is it open Tuesday? Is it Wednesday, do I have to call ahead? It would just be posted hours on the website and then we would just make sure access was maintained. Would you still have somebody out there then?

When when we talked about it, we figured it would have somebody out there a couple at least a couple days a week just to keep a presence and also pick up any stray trash or make sure the piles are organized. But we'd also have wastewater staff going out there with the loader and pushing up the brush or the brush piles just to make sure we weren't we were maintaining access. in any other city. Did they have an alternative like county that was free? Um, I don't know. I don't have the answer to that. As far as I know, we don't have a alternative site. The county landill won't take it. True. They will. They will.

Oh, do they charge? Not the grass. Okay. Well, they do. Yeah. Private taxes. Oh, gotcha. Okay, perfect. Still learning. Thank you. I'd be curious to see if if you still did that return or will people just shift to go to the county which

Yeah. Which for $50,000 I mean about 15 of that is to install the gate. Uh another 15 is for the end user interface. So, the keypad and then the software and then another 10 for cameras and estimated around 10 for electrical just to get it out there because they're getting power from the building out to the site could be expensive. And will that decrease our annual expense for half?

Yeah, I would see I would say so if if Well, okay, let me let me step back for a second. Maybe because it would be nice to use that other part-time position as Yeah. somewhere else it would free up a position at the very least. I think like the reduction in staff out there makes this project like if you're going to if you're not going to reduce the staff out there, this doesn't make sense to me. It doesn't it doesn't make sense to me unless you're going to reduce your staff presence out there. But now, if you want to shift it to use somewhere else, I think that's great. I'm just saying like, you know, if you're only going to have it open, you know, Monday, Wednesday, Saturday with staff out there and automated gate as we have right now, like then then what's the point? But if you're going to provide citizens an opportunity to get out there six days a week, seven days a week, that's a huge win in my opinion.

Yeah. Pay for that card. That's the goal is to give more access and more dependable access in terms of county does charge for the site and what county does not charge brush that's So the the brush dump is supposed to be city long resident. Correct. Mhm.

But there's no checking of that. Correct. So this could be a way to control that as well. Yeah, you could control it or you could charge more for outside of Wilmer users. Um and I you'll have to forgive me. I cannot remember what they were charging in that other city, but it was it was around $10, I believe, for the yard. Yeah. I'm just I don't know. I'm just personally always so annoyed when it's like, "Oh, I mow the yard on Tuesday." Ah, brush.

Break your grass and let your grass take advantage of it. You're more than happy to come over and ming time. Well, my son just got a new riding mower, so he's more than happy to drive down and mow your yard.

All right. Uh, all right. I'll move on to the traffic signals if there's no further questions. So, you guys approved this last year. Um, and we're using it to continue replacing our traffic signal systems within the city. On the back, uh, page or well, I guess maybe further down in your packet, there's the on the attachments, there's the list of the traffic simuls we have in the city. Um, and then I do have a kind of a priority list for the last or for the next eight years if you're interested in that. But that was a great a great thing and we're working on replacing uh one this year and uh we'd like to keep continuing that. Okay, next is the street sweeper. Um it's pictured there, the white vehicle in the bottom left corner. Well, bottom middle corner, not even a corner, I guess. But uh we are it's way past its end or its expected life. It was a 20 2013 model. Um and I just actually approved the towing bill to get it back to the shop. Uh so hoping to get that replaced. We we pick up a lot of sand and a lot of leaves throughout the year. So those suckers are always running spring and fall. And then we added our zeroturn mower from 2019. Expected lifespan on average is about four years. So it's on its seventh year and it's it's tired. So we'd like to uh get that replaced as

well. Is this the only street sweeper the city has?

No, it's one of two. That is our three-wheeler. And then we have a four-wheeler that's on a truck chassis. And they both run five days a week, summer or spring and fall. Okay. Next, we'll go on to wastewater. Uh so our skater server upgrades. It's it's time. I everybody knows how software as it gets older is less and less effective. So um software and hardware. So we need to update our components, update our server information and coding and just make sure that we've got good communication throughout the plant and to our lift stations.

That's going to be on site. Yep. Can't be in the club. You don't want in the club? Yeah, it's a cyber security nightmare. We have to have our own separate network basically. Has they been planning for that? Have they been planning for that? That's a big expenditure.

Uh yeah, it says that it was originally set for 2026, but they needed they were making room for other projects and so they this has been on the radar. So it was included in the most recent big study that wastewater had at the end of 24 this project. Thank you. Okay. Next is the H track upgrades um for the primary and secondary buildings of the headworks. um those are incredibly costic environments. They have a lot of um corrosive gases that they're constantly moving through the building. And so they're getting they're getting worn out and they're hitting the end of their life. And that's why um we're we're seeing more cost in repairs because the parts are getting harder to find and it's also taking longer for repairs because we have to get these specialized parts. And so this HVAC that we're replacing was installed with the plant when it built 2009 six. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. Was after I started my electric 2009 2010. Okay.

Airport was Thank you. Yep. Um, so just hoping to upgrade those, make them more efficient, less repairs, and then the Eagle Lake panel upgrades for two, five, and six, and then the addition of an access road to uh number two. This is um the final upgrades for the Eagle Lake panels. And currently with the number two, um, it's pretty sloppy to during bad weather, which is actually when you want to get there. So increasing access to that station would be beneficial. And this was planned as well. This is the final phase I think in three. Um, and then we have our 2016 F250. Uh, we use it religiously year round. Um, as you can see, it's got the plow. So, we use it for plowing and then we also use it during the summer for PlayStation maintenance and around the plant and just kind of an alluse vehicle. And the final item is the honey wagon or 120,000. That is what we use to uh inject the sludge into our plant. So that is critical for our uh waste disposal. And that was a 2016 model as well. So we're we're hitting the the end of life on it as well. 10 years is long as long

as one of those spreaders will go. Uh it it's I guarantee there's farmers out there that much older than 10 years doing the exact same thing. Yeah. Well, uh with the sludge that it's handling, I think it's just it's harder on it. Um probably and I'm sure they deal with pig slop and whatnot, but um that is just what has been recommended. I know this was uh up for replacement a little while ago and it got pushed back. How much money is in our wastewater fund right now? Just looking for it. Thank you. Where do we find that? We don't want to ask during the meeting. I'm looking for it.

Off the top of my head, I don't have a great answer right now. As Kyle mentioned earlier, we are working with our our municipal advisor that completed our rate study in 2024 because all of this was identifi or most of this was identified in the rate study and it was that's where the rates came from for our wastewater treatment plant and we're continuing to work with them to make sure any future CIP works within our rate study and that's how the rates were increased accordingly. Uh I can follow up with the Where where's our balance sheet?

All right, last but not least, storm water. Um, so we've got the MS4 maintenance repair. This is a new item. Um, we came back with our sport audit and it was notified to us that we need to have a maintenance plan in place for repairing and andor replacing um existing culberts that are considered out of compliance. Uh, outfalls. So currently 90% of our outfalls that's that's a pretty pretty good number um is they're all in need of maintenance. 90% of them we have about 200 outfalls within city limits. A lot of those a lot of the maintenance is mainly silt removal in and around those culverts. Um, and currently with uh the amount of work that needs done on that, it's just not feasible to expect public works staff to be uh able to keep up on that. And part of our MS4 compliance is making sure that we have a plan in place for these maintenance items. What part of your backlog can you get reduced with this $100,000? You're saying staff can't cover it?

Yeah. So, I don't have a very solid because it really depends upon which items we pick. Some of them are just uh 18inch culverts that need flushed out and dug around the outsides. Some of them, like on one of them on foot lake, it's it's actually tipping up instead of tipping into the lake, so it's holding water back. Um, so that would be significantly more cost than just cleaning out and around a culprit. I could probably get hard I can definitely get harder numbers if the placeholder. It's it's it's a good start and I think that reasonably uh starting with 100,000 I mentioned in here as well starting with 100,000 to get caught up and then over time as we get caught up we can reduce that greatly once we're just maintaining instead of just trying to catch up. Yeah. So, what's not the one was omitted by So the one that we had uh council did a CIP tour last year, we looked at the hydro dynamic separator location that was intersection of business 71 and Ella Avenue. All that this was identified in the 10 year in 2025 within the 10 year CIP and was scheduled for 2027. So what this is is it's a structure

that's installed to keep sediment out of the storm sewer system. Keeping the downstream lines clear of of the structure clear of sediment to help maintain capacity in the storm water system. So it's not on your screen but it is in your spreadsheet and in your packet. What page? That is page number 247. You know how much money is left in that fund for these type of projects? originally allocated 7 million I want to say close or that's what can't be used correct yet for new improvements but yes

there's still quite using it this is new improvements right yes yes would qualify for that this would qualify maintenance line ite would not

right the two in blue here that's what I'm asking about the two blue correct Yeah. And so that leaves the Voss Park storm water collection. Um there's significant amount of flooding in that area. It gets all the way up to the park. Um so updating this would improve the drainage and then both the aesthetics and as well as the aesthetics of the park and the surrounding area. And that would be used with lost funds as well because it is just history on Touching that you may not be aware on this. This would tie into the Gorton Avenue project that was done a couple of years ago. So that's be a direct tie into that increased capacity there. the amazing boss of whatever they win. Is that the hot creek or the hot creek go directly creek here? I guess that really matters. It's true.

I thought it's loading from the I know. So it would flow from Boss Gordon to the east and ultimately would be going southirect. Yes. which well I mean that doesn't really matter but close to where there's a bridge right on board right there it's circling back real quick that MS4 maintenance um that speaking of capacity that would help with our capacity due to the increasing cohorts based as the most though. So, and that would make sure that the drainage is going the way it's supposed to be. So, we should have less retention in the city. And we would uh part of our plan is to kind of pick up or downstream and work our way upstream because that would increase our capacity in a systematic way. And then also hit trouble. Has there been any block at lost part to making a permanent retention bond there by No.

No, I don't believe so. It was it was um engineers coming to bring it right into Gordon Avenue. First, we got the three squads, the two that areated that we're looking at getting rid of. We kind of retrofitted one of our old K9 cars um into a CSO vehicle just to get the last of the life out of it. We have another CSO vehicle that has higher miles and then another squad is coming up. We've been trying to move kind of the different plan as we go forward for treated service officers because we in the past will buy a brand new car and kind of assign it to them and they're very young drivers. It's better in our eyes to um maybe move a detective unit that has nine nine years on it with lower miles and make it a community squad or something like that. So guess in the wrong K9 probably has 17,000 hours or more on it really. Up next is planning and development. This is a 2014 vehicle and is scheduled to be replaced um with the undertaking of our neighboring cities and their building department services. These are driven more and also out of the limits. Um this is this is scheduled to be replaced. Uh there are two other vehicles in this department that are also coming up in the following two years I believe. So uh this is just to

maintain our uh vehicle fleet um for planning and development.

The only thing I guess I could add more is that it has already been pushed off for two years now. all this stuff. One of our inspectors.

So to wrap it up, we go back that one real quick. Yes. Does it have to be a pickup? That's my question. Does it inspector drive it? Yes. Does it have to be a pickup?

I think that's a better question for the vehicle committee. I um committee as the chair of the vehicle committee. Um in the past we have we had a believe was a forest. Um that proved to be kind of too small for the some of the equipment and stuff that they do carry. Um I I don't know that is I didn't know they carried equipment so that might answer part of

some just some very basic stuff they do carry like collapsible ladders because they have to get off the ground. Um a few safety equipment type things. Um nothing nothing huge. But I I think you know a pickup is good to maintain because we can also use it in other aspects if we need it for something. Um, so and this one is a two wheel drive pickup. We would like to get away from that, especially with our winters. So, and then going out in the in the county more. This one's the This is a This is a 4x4. Yeah. Yeah. The chairman doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm not committing.

Well, sedan isn't practical. That's what you're saying. Not really. Not for what they do.

So to bring it all back together, uh this this sheet um would be departmental uh the allocation or request for the 2027 CIP. uh the department directors that had spoken tonight. The total of those asks would be $1.324 million. Um on the right hand side, you'll notice there is a a reserve balance in the public works, the fire, and then also some unallocated dollars from the 2026 CIP. The public works we put towards the requests uh towards a public works uh equipment that is proposed. the fire department. Um that originally in 2026 was allocated towards a a new future fire truck. Uh is it a pumper?

A pumper truck. Um

obviously the price tag will be significantly higher than that. Uh but it'd be a good start. So that is not in this presentation being recommended to use. Uh just to keep that towards a down payment for a future fire truck. And then the $69,000 we would allocate towards 2027 CIP. So the total 2027 cash allocation be 1.155750 and that is up from 879 in 2026 or roughly 1 and a half% of tax rate. And then the um on the bottom right the uh storm water the local option sales tax eligible piece we would want to add back in uh that does not include the hydrodnamic separator. So that we will update that also with the wastewater requests that were in there. That would be once again we're working with that to make sure everything fits within our rate study on those projects. So that would be our recommendation of the there are also all the other requests in your book for 2027 as well as through 2031.

Does the pump have a page color? Yes, it does. So going back to the vehicles real quick, I believe all of the city vehicles are forwards. Do we have a contract with Ford we bid out or is that just what we have? We do have some Chevy. Okay. All the floors are due to replace.

We do utilize the state contract for buying of those. Um Jeep home has used that for squad cars as well. Just so happens I think Ford has been the interceptor model. Uh but yeah, we have a lot of other brands.

We did do like five Dodges that we have couple towels. Chevy's not holding up very well. go forever. In the past, the state contractor at water for usually run that repeat everybody else in state contract pick up for $60,000 that we talked in the past about trying to to plan ahead for some of the large items. Especially when we're talking about fire departments like pump trucks, what we started with 90,000 last year, it's a major expense when that hits. Was there any conversation at the staff level about continuing to put money towards that truck for the future?

Yes, great qu. Great point. That was requested for this year. Also, um our thought was another hopefully large down payment would be the sale of the current ladder tower that is um in the process of being decommissioned or being replaced by the new tower 9. Um but yes, that was a conversation. There were other needs that need done place sooner like the as the street sweeper is a large ticket item things like that that are on the end of their useful life and what's the estimated sale price for the truck. We don't really have a solid number right now waiting for a company to get back me on an appraisal. Um I've been told anywhere from a 100,000 maybe up to 350,000. I'm hoping for the 350 side, but I don't know until I get a number back because there is

so 1999 lifespan is 25 years used to be 20 years. We stretched to 25 and it's been sold this up. So I guess Justin to push that a little further. Is 1.15 the right number or should it be higher for those future things? Very cheap pants on that. I didn't know if it'll be Oh. Oh god. I thought I check the truck. I'm sorry. Not specifically that one, but I'm just thinking

that way like this year we had $169,000 in reserves that we can use. That's because it stuff came in lower, I guess. Do we need to plan for it to be higher this year? So then we it doesn't hurt as much in 2029. So that is the that's why I wanted to walk us through starting 24 at 350 building it up to where we're at because I think ultimately our goal to stay status quo is about three million to replace all of our roofs, all of our equipment, all of our annually to make sure we have enough money for that. We're very cognizant of our tax impact also. So, we we thought this is a a nice place to start for increasing our capital improvement plan without turning that number up so high so fast. Open for discussion. If we want to increase that, we could look at other projects or or equipment. Um, we just thought this might be a nice place to start building into our overall 2027 budget. I will say we've done a good job. When I look at the real numbers, we were up 38% from 24 to 25, 81% between 25 and 26, and again 30% again 26 and 27. So I mean,

so I want tackling it hard. So I commend you.

So that's that's where we want very once again, we're very cognizant of the taxpayer because that's it's a real number of debt to pay. 330% for 2024 some like for me this is the easy part of the conversation my guess is but you bring us projects that you've already open every project sound great so we get to the budget like we can throw the number that we around until we get a larger because part of me is like John let's So 1.5, then I'm going to want to sele back from the operation. And that's painful. We have thrown around the idea also that the at the end of the year when the council sees where the where the actual expenses have come in if any of the departments that have large capacity CIP needs and things like that that that those would then be transferred into a CIP. So like the nearest $100,000 the nearest $1,000 whatever the balance is of that department in the budget would then be transferred over to CIP because it has the taxes that you collected that year if you would instead of putting in just into general fund you would just put it into the CIP for those specific departments that were able to maintain

government does that in August and September was that the federal government does that in August August and September they call it payback. That's when everybody gets all their fun projects. That's why you see the federal government awarding contracts like crazy in September because the fiscal year ends in September 30th.

Put into instead of just putting into the general fund which is what happens right now. It goes into our general fund reserve just continue investment. But you would take whatever that budget was for that particular department and put it in CIP so that you have carryover and increasing the CIP dollars for that department. You'd have to resist the urge to overbudget from overbudgeting though, right?

Hard. At the same time, if you can figure out a way to cut your budget for the year, it's going to help you the next year. Think of the pickle ball courts. You were the general contractor on it, weren't you, Rob? And you were basically doing it all yourself. You made a I don't know how much it was. You cut it down by half by doing your magic. And so if we can encourage you all to cut where you can cut and figure out the best way to do it, it'll be important for being as efficient as possible. Also, they'll worry about like the does it create silos in our departments where we're not able to prioritize the city's highest need because maybe fire and police need something urgently, but Rob's got all the money because he's been general contracting things and

and that can be at the recommendation of the council to you know if we have a call it a pain point in a certain department, you know, take a take a feel of what's necessary at the time and that can be a conversation we have down the road. So, when we see

at the end of the month, we'll release the uh operations. So, the department directors pretty much the month of June will be entering in their operations for next year. Uh we'll have I think the last day of May is when I'll release that out to them. That'll close the first week or so of July. Um then we'll mid July. Um admin will be looking through that. End of July we'll have a pretty decent feel of where we're really at. Um at that time we'll have our uh we'll have a lot of the pieces in place. our 2026 street bond will be we'll have a harder or um should be sold by then we'll have our our all of our contracts union contracts are approved for uh two more years so that those health insurance questions and cost of living uh will not be a variable this year we'll have better numbers for that this budget season and then um our capital improvement plan would be the other uh leg um to come in so I would say end of July would probably the best of the full picture. What guidance are you putting out for what the budget should be?

So the the message to staff so far um we've briefly talked about director meetings and we'll reiterate this to them. uh third uh requests to obviously the the best and lowest number, but then also what would your budget look like? Should there be a one one and a half 2% cut? What services will be hindered? What services will not be done or uh what things might be slower uh etc. How will that impact your operations as a department? So that messaging um they will be prepared to answer should that request

say just plan on for 2% reduction like I say one and a half to two one or two one one or one to two but what what happens like will the the people of Rome feel the 2% reduction what do they lose if if they say right we're going to lower the budget by 2% what impact is that Does that have does that mean, you know, it it takes one of their parks doesn't get mowed as frequently or the parks don't get or all of the parks get mowed less? You know, does the we have less police officers on the street? Do we have, you know, does it take an extra hour to m to snowplow? Whatever it is, I think that's important to put things in context, not just say, you know, I'm not going to sit here like other people and say just cut, cut, cut, cuz that makes no sense. What's what's the context of that cut? You know,

it's a downstream effect, right? Recognizing that 65% of our budget is people in the form of salaries, benefits, and pensions. Is that an accurate number? It was based on last year's budget. Okay. I trust you. I just don't trust you. So you're Reagan.

That's right. You get my job. I've been called. The worst thing I ever was around another point of for um be able to be at the next city council and you were talking about having the continuation of the review. I would appreciate it being first to check. I was given guidance. So I'm just trying to follow the guidance from a parliamentary standpoint. I think we'll have to make that motion at the meeting,

right? Because it was already voted on. Yeah. So it'll have to be amended at the next meeting just from the So be on the agenda but then on paper that's so we can't make any decisions today because we don't thank you. Thank you. the mask because it can't be a swing