City Council - workshop

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

I pledge allegiance 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.

Positions and regulations? Any? Teacher Proulx best present it. Second. Second. Discussion? Roll call.

Council Member Gardner?

Aye.

Nelson? Aye. Davis? Aye. Childers? Aye. Haas?

Aye.

Butterfield? Aye. McFarland?

Aye.

Seven ayes, zero noes.

Motion carries. All right, I'll just turn it over to Kyle and Tom. Thank you, Mayor. Council. So tonight, I just wanted to first start out with an overview of what we'll be discussing tonight.

We've got a handful of slides that we'll be going through, but one start here with a overall message and setting expectations from a staff perspective. So again, the purpose of tonight's work session is to provide you, the City Council, with an overview of the preliminary 2027 budget, review the work completed to date, discuss the factors affecting the city's projected tax levy, and receive policy direction from the city council as staff continues to develop 2027 budget. The preliminary budget currently reflects several months of review by administration, finance, department directors, and the city council. The work session tonight is intended to shift the budget process from a development and staff review to a larger policy discussion on the appropriate balance among financial stability, sustainability, property taxation, city services, capital investment, and organizational capacity. So just a little back process to date. The 27 budget began with review of the city's capital and operating needs. Work completed to date has included staff review and prioritization of the CIP request, a CIP tour with staff and council to review the proposed projects and equipment needs, submission of the 2027 operating capital budget request by department directors, individual meetings with department directors to review their requests, priorities, and adjustments, and to date administrative and finance review of the preliminary budget and property tax levy. So as a part of the 27 budget process, department directors were also instructed to identify opportunities to reduce non-personnel operating expenditures by up to 2%. These reductions have been incorporated or are being evaluated as part of the preliminary budget. To date, the primary focus of these reductions has been on non-personnel experience. This approach has allowed staff to identify operational efficiencies while limiting immediate impacts to staffing and existing service levels. Included in your packet is a Be the Solution memo. Our budget process is being approached through a framework outlined in that memo. City's long-term financial sustainability is a shared responsibility. City staff is responsible for evaluating operations, identifying efficiencies, providing accurate financial information, and presenting reasonable alternatives. The council, as the city's elected policy-making body, is responsible for determining community priorities, appropriate service levels, and the financial resources necessary to support those priorities. The objective through all of this should therefore go beyond achieving a particular levy percentage. The goal was to develop a sustainable budget and appropriate balances, including services provided to our residents and businesses, personnel necessary to provide those services, maintenance and replacement of the city's infrastructure and assets, long-term capital and debt obligations, organizational capacity, and the financial impact on property taxpayers. The preliminary budget represents staff's current effort to balance these competing considerations. The next phase of the process requires the City Council's input on whether additional adjustments should be pursued and, if so, where they should refer. The preliminary 2027 general fund budget currently reflects an approximate 1.31% increase in expenditures from 2026 to 2027. Preliminary increases include personnel and non-personnel operating costs and reflects the departmental administrative reviews conducted to date. While additional adjustments remain possible, the current general fund position demonstrates that the growth in the city's overall levy is not attributable solely to the increased general fund operating expenditures. Other components of the city's financial plan, including capital investment, net service obligations, contribute to the overall levy requirement. The accompanying budget information in your binders and your packet provides additional detail regarding general fund revenues, expenditures, and major changes anticipated for next year. The city's property tax levy supports distinct financial obligations. For the purposes of 2027 budget discussion, the preliminary levy can generally be separated into the following components. The operating levy, capital improvement program, city hall debt service, and street debt When these components are combined, the 27 budget currently reflects an estimated 5.92% increase in the city's property tax levy compared to 2026. Because the city's tax capacity is also projected to grow, the levy increase does not translate directly into an equivalent increase in the city's property tax rate. Based on the current projections and preliminary budget, this would result in an estimated 1.67% increase across the city's tax rate. The distinction between the levy and the tax rate is important when evaluating the budget. The levy represents the total amount of property tax revenue collected by the city, while the tax rate reflects the levy relative to the city's overall taxable property base. As we go through the discussion tonight in September and through the end of the year, one of the considerations from the council is whether to establish a goal of maintaining a flat city tax rate in 2027. Based on current projections, achieving that flat tax rate would require an additional reduction of approximately $350,000 from the preliminary property tax level. Administration and department directors have reviewed additional opportunities that the city council could consider if it wishes to pursue further levy reductions. We will hand that out along with this memo of a menu of potential options that can be developed for council's consideration. It is important to distinguish that these additional options from the efficiencies and adjustments that have already been incorporated into our budget tonight. And at this stage of the process, additional reductions become more increasingly difficult to achieve solely through routine operational efficiencies. The council and the city needs to consider any further reductions of reducing or eliminating programs and services, changing service levels or service delivery expectations, deferring capital purchases or infrastructure investments, modifying staffing levels, filling vacancies differently, or restructuring responsibilities, or accepting additional operational or financial risk. So not every option presented should be interpreted as a staff recommendation. Rather, it's intended to illustrate the choices available to the city council and the corresponding impacts associated with achieving different levy targets. Where possible, staff will identify whether an option represents an ongoing structural reduction or a one-time budget adjustment. This distinction is important because one-time reductions may lower the 27th level, but may not improve the city's long-term position. Again, the approximate $350,000 flat tax rate scenario should not necessarily be viewed as an all-or-nothing decision. Council may determine that the preliminary budget represents an appropriate balance between taxation and services. Alternatively, the council may direct staff to pursue partial additional reductions without requiring the full amount needed to achieve a flat tax rate. Again, this is a policy question that is ultimately where the city council believes what the appropriate balance exists between the property tax impact, service level, staffing, capital investment, and long-term sustainability. As reductions become more significant, the decision increasingly shifts from identifying efficiencies to determining what services, programs, capital improvements, or organizational resources the city is willing to reduce or defer. Again, we staff have spent a considerable amount of time evaluating these options and their potential effects. We'll continue to provide those professional recommendations and clarify any consequences associated with each option. However, decisions that materially change city services or administrative priorities appropriately require policy direction from the city council. So we'd like to, from a staff perspective, there are three questions that we would like to provide to the council tonight that we're looking for direction from. The first question, and these will be repeated throughout. So does the city council believe the preliminary 5.92% levy increase, which is an estimated 1.67% tax rate increase, represents an acceptable starting point for the 2026 budget? Two, if any additional levy reductions should be pursued, what general reduction or tax rate target should staff use in preparing the next version of the budget? And three, are there any particular services, programs, personnel resources, or capital priorities that the city council believes should be protected from further reductions or alternatively examined more closely? In conclusion, Mr. Mayor and members of council, 27 budget reflects a substantial review and effort by staff to control operating costs while continuing existing city services and addressing the city's capital and financial obligations. The current proposal in front of you tonight is an approximate 1.3% growth in the general fund expenditures, a 5.92% increase in the total property tax levy, and an estimated 1.67% increase in the city's tax rate. Additional reductions remain possible. However, as the city moves beyond the efficiencies already identified, additional reductions will increasingly require choices regarding, again, service levels, programs, capital investment, and staffing. Mr. Mayor, the purpose of the work session is therefore not to simply identify additional cuts, but to establish the city council's policy direction regarding the appropriate balance between services the city provides and resources necessary to provide good services the financial impact to the community. I do have these memos that I had read tonight, and on the last page, the last page of that memo, page six, is attachment A. We can discuss these later on in the evening, but these will give you an idea of where staff have continued to identify additional non-personnel reductions in the city's budget. These have been touched on several different departments in the fall. We can talk about that a little bit later as well. From city council to elections to engineering, public works, arts and rec, the community center, the NOAP, city hall debt service levy, the library, and our overall capital improvement. So with that, Mr. Mayor, I will pause right there and we'll move into

the packet that you have been provided to tonight.

And just to clarify the materials that could be in hand tonight in that working within your packets are online, except for the memo that you were just handed out to me. must continue to be worked on for May.

And that will be uploaded to the website.

All right, so the first part, which is very general fund overview, as Mr. Box had alluded to or explained, it's a 1.31% increase over the 2026 adopted budget. So on page three, we'll show our revenues that are allocated Just to highlight a few, there was a slight increase in the LDA appropriation for next year of $39,000. And then our admin services was up about $25,000. And that's going to be the building services provided to our three cities in the county. Just to highlight a couple of the decrease, the large ones are the permit fees, as we don't know of any large building projects coming next year. our task force reimbursement for our C6 task force as their financial structure changed a little bit last year and our fines and our miscellaneous income, which would be primarily some grant revenue. The next page on page four would be our department level expenses are compared from the 2026 adopted budget and a 2027 proposed budget. You'll see once again, the 1.31% increase. I guess, first of all, I wanted to show that it's a balanced budget being proposed again this year. So what we do is we take all of our revenues that we're expected to receive and all of our expenses that have been requested from departments, the balance of that is our tax levy for our general fund. So I just want to show that it's another balanced budget being presented tonight. Page five shows it by function. So it's just another way to look at it. The personnel line item, that's going to be everything that is staff related. That's going to be salaries, part-time, overtime, insurance, payroll taxes. The non-personnel will be really everything else to operate the city. That would be our insurance, our fuel, our utilities, our supplies, our maintenance budgets. The CIP would be just that, the capital improvement plan. divide them amongst the departments, and then our debt service, that's going to be two separate pieces. There are 2018 bond, which is our refrigeration Pacific Center, and then our 2024 equipment certificate, which we use to finance the fire truck and a couple pieces of equipment at the public works department. That's just a really brief overview. Page six is gonna be our proposed 2027 CIP. This does differ a little bit from our work session and our tour that we had this spring. And just to highlight a few, the parks and rec decreased. So overall the CIP was a decrease of $73,500. Parks and rec, the softball netting decreased 135,000 down to 50. Director Baumgarten was able to get a significantly better quote from a different company than originally anticipated. The fire department was successful in being awarded a grant for their washer extractor. And then the library, which would be the city portion of a county project for an air handling unit. at the library itself. So a net decrease from our work section of 73,500. Then going on to page seven, which is going to be the landscape blue table. It's also going to be on the TV up front. Once again, it shows as Mr. Bach said, it's four main pillars of our tax levy. The first being our operations or just our general fund levy. It's a 0.086% increase or $8,052. Our capital improvement plan is a 23% increase over last year, $203,000. City Hall, we went back to the original 2022 levels of 3% of the tax rate just for the budgeting starting point. That is something we can certainly talk about. That's a 26.9% increase or $134,500. and our street debt is up 28% or $369,800. That is the addition of the 2026B bond series for our 2026 street improvement projects. You add all of that up, it's a 5.92% increase over the adopted 2026 budget and tax levy for $715,661. Just want to remind council staff members of the public. For the purposes of the preliminary tax levy, this is our high bar. It can only remain at that level or decrease. We cannot increase it. And just to put it in a frame of reference of where we were last year at this point, the 2026 preliminary budget was adopted at about a 15% increase or $1.6 million. Our 2026 final adopted budget was an 8.57% increase for 954,000. So I do feel that we have a good starting point this year for our 2027 budget and tax levy. And just to put it in a reference for a $200,000 house, if we were to keep this 5.92% with the 1.67% tax levy, rate increase, it'd be about a $34 increase on the city taxes for a $200,000 home. So back to the three questions Mr. Box had posed in his memo. The first being, does the city council believe the preliminary 5.92% levy increase and the estimated 1.67 tax rate increase represent an acceptable starting point for the 27 budget? Number two, if additional levy reduction should be pursued, what general reduction or tax break target should staff be preparing for the next version of the budget? And three, are there particular services programs, personnel resources, or capital priorities that the city council believes should be protected from further reductions or alternatively examined more closely? So that, we will stand for any questions. The directors are here with their, there's any um specific questions and then just for your information behind behind uh starting on page nine and three is going to be a line by line item of every department this is going to be by object code so all the salaries for every department all the overtimes etc all the way through and then on page 24 is going to be your yellow pieces of paper that's going to be each department line by line by department. So you'll start off with all the revenues and you'll get into admin, mayor, council, et cetera. So just if you wanted, I did not plan on going through those by line tonight, but if there are questions on any line, individual questions, feel free to call or email us if you want a clarification or explanation on any of these. Staff will stand for questions now, if there are any.

prepared remarks I guess you could say and we're open for discussion for questions.

I know last year we kind of played around with your money you know to balance the budget. Are we Totally. I'll fill up with all our positions at the police department yet. Are we still looking for one? We right now currently have 33 officers.

The 34th is a conditional offer. He takes his final test on that tomorrow. So that would be 34 and we're 35 is what our total roster.

You authorized us to be at us 35. So we're one short right now. If this other one we're getting. So then we'll still need one, you know, in the budget. Well, it's budgeted for 35. Okay.

Thank you. No, Steve's good. Oh, okay, Steve.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Director Owens, the street levy, do you think it's a grab?

Yes. Do we know where that is? It's a great question, and that's something we're very conscious and cognizant of.

But as of now, this is all any new debt would be added to the tax levy. We don't have anything else falling off that would affect us until another 10 years.

So throughout our conversation, we're very cognizant of that. But right now, it's directed back to the tax base. Right. I get that. If we went from 1.1 to 1.6 in two years, where's that 1.6 ultimately come from?

And I would say at this rate, if we can, if we continue with the amount of projects, we were doing times that number like three so that starts to fall off existing street projects. Just not sustained, so I think the staff perspective needs to take a much more refined approach on projects that will be recommending to the Council looking for. best way to fund those projects. They're not going to basically price us out or tax us out of being able to complete these projects. So, and they make a difference. Each project makes a difference from street reconstructions to mill and overlays to county state to county roads have a direct impact on the number of the debt obligation, the bond number that we take to the projects for sale.

And for example, this year was a large increase to our debt service in that line item. Forestry was our main big project, and that is not a state aid road. The city receives roughly a million dollars, a little over a million dollars annually for state aid. That was not part of this year's bond, so that's not part of this year's construction. So obviously next year, the intent would be we'll have almost two years worth of state aid to use, and we'll be, once again, using those funding mechanisms to try it. maximize our dollars. So I believe 16th Street. I don't know that off the top of my head, but I believe that would be a state eligible project. So the bridge maintenance for this year, roughly 200,000 is. So that's why it won't be the full two years. We're using about 200,000 this year. We'll have close to 2 million next year too.

So that's how we're going to start. Yes. Thank you for asking questions. Well, I was fortunate to sit in with Director Owens in the administrative box.

He's acting at the time. I sat in with all of the department heads for two, three days of budget. So I've been through this thing with everyone in this room at a pretty fine-tooth level. I feel pretty good that they have squeezed the juice out of this thing that they can squeeze. And that's page six. the additional reductions. I think this was . And say, okay, what is, if we do these things, what are we gonna lose? What happens if we put this thing further? And so I don't want, I won't promise not to dominate the conversation, but I thought it'd be important if you guys heard from me and said that I have sat with, I think we sat there for a total of about 10 hours going through this thing. And I think they've squeezed a lot of juice out of this thing. So I am pretty happy where it's at. Not saying we can't do better, but if we do better, people will likely feel it and notice it.

That's all I would say. I sat with them also. You did? Yeah. I told them this morning that Just a quick question on uptown mall.

If the UDC does buy it, they lose a couple of acres. How is that going to affect the city of Wilmington?

Well, we have to help make those loan payments.

Council Member Butterfield, no. The City of Wilmer's financials are not tied to the decisions made by the KCED. It is a significant tax base for Wilmer.

So I think that's where we would feel it if we lose tax revenue.

Financial obligations are not tied.

But what's going to happen, though, is if they start making payments, they're going to come to the city and say, hey, increase your budget for us.

KCED's budget is separate from, we don't provide additional funding, any funding to KCED. It's all through their own separate entity for collecting taxes, no different than the county or the city or the school district. So we provide some in-kind services. We work pretty well together, but it's not a financial obligation of the city.

So we won't have to worry about that.

Not from a funding perspective, no.

So RAC 8, how is that being funded?

Council Member Fagerly, RAC 8 is primarily funded through our franchise agreement with charter or spectrum. All of that funding comes into the general fund, but predominantly offset with franchise revenue. The last three, two to three years, as people are cutting the cord, moving away from cable, that funding is going down. In your packets, you will notice a increase in that budget. The main part of that increase is timer here. The main reason for the $15,000 increase in professional services is contract negotiations that we need to enter into for restructuring that franchise agreement with the charter. That is a rough approximate quote of what the attorney would charge us to do that work.

Again, predominantly funded by franchise developers.

So originally they charged franchise if they had a phone, TV. I don't know if they're still paying a franchise fee.

The only franchise fee we receive is in its own portion of their bill. This is how.

So if I know fiber comes in, a lot of people are using.

Yes, if they cut their cable portion, yes, but. Yeah, they cut all together.

Could be reducing that.

Yeah, it gets more even more nuanced than that. Happy to have a additional conversation. Not necessarily prepared to go into all the details of that. I'd much rather wait until we're further along in the franchise agreements with Charter. But it's already happening in other communities, whether they have their own internet or not, based off of how they're restructuring, how they're providing their services.

I know it's very vague, and I apologize, but I'll leave it at that for now.

Mr. Mayor, our intention is to, if there are no suggested changes or direction from consensus from the council on any changes, this is the material that we'll be presenting on September 8th. We'll have another PowerPoint that we'll go through for the council that evening, but I'm looking for an action to set the preliminary levy at about 5.92%.

We can collect consensus or if we're comfortable doing that, fine tune this.

At this point, I know we're a week away. I don't anticipate any significant changes between now and then, but if there are, those would be explicitly communicated to council after or before that meeting on the next Tuesday.

Excuse me. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I think Steve, who got to sit in, I think I was joining you for six hours of that process, but you were there for quite a bit longer than I was. You can summarize it pretty well. I think over the last few years, the folks at this table, staff, the council have done a great job, you know, squeezing every bit of discretionary spending out of this budget. The streets continue to drive us up, just natural. Inflation continues to drop this out. I would still like to see us get to that flat, no increase point. And I think if we don't find a way to do that in ways, I mean, the decisions that I think we've made up to this point are just like solving it from a year to year, you know, output, which leaves us right back to next year. It's the same, the same thing. And looking at, you know, another, percent increase if we don't make cuts that are harder, but that have an impact for future budgets as well as this year. And I think in my mind, the only place we're going to see that is personnel. The six years that I've been on council, I've seen us, you know, when I got here, the administration kind of top level department was a city administrator. I'm a city administrator, operations director, and a full-time HR person.

So that's snowballing.

I'm sure that all of the staff, I'm wondering what to do with all their extra time. So I know those are conversations, but when it comes to policy conversations that this city council is responsible for,

Just squeezing the discretionary.

Samara Councilman, that's an excellent point.

I think as we move through these following months leading up to December. No, I don't anticipate at this time bringing back an operations director in the full capacity that I previously was in. if the council chooses to accept the employment agreement on Monday or next Tuesday. But I think there, so what the budget reflects is the previous city administrator salary is currently in the 2027 budget, as well as the operations director position. So as we move through now and the end of the year, considering some restructuring, reassignments, adding additional to some staff, either while staying within the budget or across our fingers to reduce that number as well so those that would be one of the areas you know that we could see potentially a slight reduction to 12. using i said using existing staff restructuring achieve and handle the capacity that's in front of us i would also add that city administration has become increasingly more complex. Not to your comment about how we snowballed or have grown as a city. I think the expectations from council, from staff, from the community and residents that we serve have also grown. We do our best to adapt and respond to those changes and expectations as well. It requires new equipment, new software, new people to achieve those goals. I'm very cognizant of that and want to make sure that

I can effectively explain the decisions we're making from a staffing perspective through the council to provide that information. Anybody else?

Yes, if I might.

One of the areas that's been pretty substantial in the last two years is the pension contribution, whereas salaries are clearly in line with cost-related adjustments and things like that.

Is there been significant changes in pension that would cause a 30% increase? Or is it just the fact that they have employees maybe that are getting closer to that retirement age and that higher high five of their career? But I'm just curious, or has there ever been a pension report that is causing us to pay in a higher amount? Is that?

There has not been any pension reform, no. So this is going to be, pension's going to be, obviously, the PERA, P-E-R-A. If you're looking at the actuals, I do know that for one department, our largest department, the police department, has been understaffed. So their request next year is $150,000, almost $150,000 larger than the 2025 actuals. If we were full staff, we would have spent close to that, so that 30%. We were operating shorthanded. That's not all of it, obviously, but that is a piece of it. And then as salaries go up, the pension will also increase. Part-time staff that we hire, that also is, you know, for all the payroll taxes. And if they're para-eligible, there was a slight change in our PERA that we're looking for. We hired staff that we're looking, this is coming down at us now. a retired staff who was on PRA who turns into an annuitant, the city would still be responsible for the employer portion of the PRA.

So that's not going to be a large dollar amount, but it's a small change. And we'll have to account for that. The other piece that was large was we are, we re,

If you recall, our fire department, in the fire department, their retirement plan is done. The city receives fire state aid and the city also pays into the fire department pension fund. The city never actually receives the money. It just goes from state aid straight over to PRA. We have to book that now. We started booking it in our county. So that is a change starting last year. So we will see the difference. That's another large piece of... Up top, I had another $180,000. So $280,000 between those two. So that's a... So I'd say anything is... Yeah, that'd be an explanation. Thank you. And it's not a... It isn't a cash... We booked the revenue also. So it doesn't really affect anything.

Yeah, it's only a little bit expensive. So that's...

Personally, just looking at the list of options, I think it's a leap of $200,000 out of here. Looking at special election, that's entirely at our discretion. Assuming council member asked his elected mayor, it's our discretion whether we hold an election or not. And so we have the option to appoint. We have the option to hold a special election. Special elections, they cost $24,000. So to me, why should we hold the taxpayers not more free?

So that's an easy one to cut out.

$30,000 for mosquito spray.

That's a dubious number that doesn't even count. And if we take a little bit back to the square, I'm not even going to go back and forth.

Drive the city all back to $500,000 and still is a half a million dollars per piece of all that $4,000. And then holding the library to to what the state statute is. That 14,900 second to bottom line. They've asked for increase to 511,000. We are statutory obligated by 26.

She's been done more than we're statutory obligated to provide.

So. Just one clarification. Yep.

So statutory obligated for 383. We nuanced that. That's based off of the 2011 number. So I know it was in 25. 24, 25 weeks, the city council elected to keep that increase flat. So it stayed at the number prior to that.

So we did not, the council did not include a 3% increase, I believe it was in 25. So we can conceivably cut our proposed budget by almost $15,000 and still feel pretty good that we're providing $113,000 more than we're statutory probably. That adds up to roughly $200,000.

Just to follow up on that on the city hall, last year I brought up, bring it down to 500,000 where the original was at. I think the consensus was we're going to keep on wanting that for a while at the 500,000 mark for the city hall.

Yes. For the purposes of tonight's discussion, we just wanted to set that high bar. I think it's also important, and it's probably not necessarily for tonight's conversation, for the full detail, but depending on what the city council does want to decide on for a future city hall building, if it's going to be $10 million or more, that levy, that $500,000 would need to, if we're putting away or setting aside, we need to increase.

Well, yeah, it may or might not, but regular inflation is killing everybody, so we need to get this settled. Absolutely, yeah.

I think that is one that we had easily and early identified early on that could be used. I just want to set that high bar for the council. Steve was talking about here. Justin, is there policy in place that says that if it's over, Yes, I think, Renee, if you want to touch on that.

Yeah, so our charter says that if he serves at least two years of his term, the council can elect or can choose to appoint a replacement for him. And if Council Member Osk is elected mayor, his two-year term or two years into his term would be the end of December or January 1st. 7th or whatever it is where he took the oath as a council member. So he'd be at his two-year mark when he would be appointed mayor. So that the council could choose to appoint a replacement for his ward rather than have a special election. You can also choose to have a special election. Did you not have someone to appoint? You need to have someone to appoint in order to appoint a person. You can't just take nominations or take applications. You have to have somebody in mind to appoint.

I don't remember how we did.

I had a conversation with, um,

Barbara Scott about this, and I think he probably has two dates and one he just heard you say, because it's very similar to what he suggested. And he said that it would not come, like most appointments that we see is an appointment from the mayor, it's then ratified by the council, confirmed by the council. This would not be stated.

So the council would have to make a motion. Seconded. And stated that other jurisdictions will put out like a,

So I'll have like a period of time where resumes can be turned in, some interested vetting process, or it could just be one of the eight, which is at least four of us here, maybe five of us that wouldn't be a part of it. Theoretically, I guess part of us locked in, but Mickey Mouse campaigns, man, they're strong. So in some ways it's, I mean, it's in here because even this council really couldn't say full authority what we're going to do.

I think that specific line is a perfect example. We want to keep that number in there until we know the results of the November election and direction.

Because we don't certify the vote until after the November election. Save $24,000 by voting for Michael.

Don't let that get.

What's that? Justin.

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, you know what? Number of people.

Well, said they're going to reach out a little over.

Also. You can't.

It happened because he said he wouldn't come. Yeah, that's right.

That was a bleak. It was a bleak. Give me some seconds.

Okay.

He quit because the consulate used to get adult interest. Yeah. The consulate. I'll accept he quit.

So, I guess I have a question on, and I've never heard it discussed, I guess, in my time on council here.

The amount that we pay our lawyers, the legal, how is that budgeted, determined? Where is that money from? I know we have to protect ourselves. Encourage your lawyer friends while they look it up.

Encourage your lawyer friends to respond to the RFP.

Saying that right? Because you're guys expensive.

On page 13, the green on the bottom, it will show the object folks are legal.

So there are three main departments who utilize the legal. The first meeting, the mayor council, that's going to cover our Flaherty hood, Mr. Robert Scott, who attends our general, we'll call it general legal council for the city. That's the mayor council meetings. They do a lot of our just general legal stuff. The next item down would be 807, which would be our planning and development. That's going to come into play right now. They're working on their... zoning rewrite and they have new ordinances that they're proposing that the council would consider. That's where the legal counsel would help draft that, or they would, uh, review, uh, maybe a large, especially with our, um, a large undertaking this year, um, could be part of that, uh, with our zoning. The next one would be a 20, which is our, uh, police department. That's going to be, uh, Anderson law office. That was the RFP as council member Gardner alluded to. That was RFP that is increased for just monthly and it's an escalator in the contract as a three-year contract. So the three main pieces that use the legal, so he's Flaherty and Hood and then Sabah.

So one of those ones come up for good. It's a three-year contract.

It's the final. Yeah, it's the release next 27. It's the final one.

Indicated contract with Charity.

Yeah, so yes, that's correct. So like a developer comes into town, there'd be an escrow that would be received and that would be for some costs that are incurred on the development side, whether it be some plan review on maybe engineering or other incurred costs in the city to try and help.

the developer have their just being a specific city expense. Thank you.

I guess the one area that I would like to see kept in the budget would be the city health ed service level. I'd like us to make a decision.

And so by continually decreasing that or making that the liberal rule, it allows us to continue to just not make a decision because that's a little such fun to use and stuff. I mean, people there and everywhere. Ultimately, if we can make it complete to hurt the budget and we actually make a decision, I prefer us to get it done versus you need to just use that one.

So I would disagree with you.

And just for information I I'm using for the tax capacity at 3% tax capacity increase. I do not have numbers from Android County on our tax capacity or tax base. I will know more after the preliminary budget and shooting taxation statements are sent out to people. I'll get a harder number. So that number, the 3% increase could be up or down. I was basing it off of the Board of Equalization data that the county assessor supplied to council at that time. So this is an estimate still. And that 3% is just an estimate of that. So the 634 that's included tonight. So thank you for that input. It's a bigger question, obviously, than the one line item of what is the decision for City Hall.

I guess.

Just to add on to that, I think the cost of living is set to be 6 next year. And so the roads are going to cost 3.6% more, but everything is going to cost 3.6%. Yeah.

Yeah, but I don't say no. I know.

Oh yeah.

I hope on post tax payment with some of the contractors that put up, you know, they were supposed to have a certain amount of people under the poverty level living in there. If we double check, make sure it was in the car, the receivables that gave himself. Yes, tax income financing. Like Hertzog, you know, said they were going to have like, I don't recall what percent was, they were going to have, you know, lower income people coming from them. They had to have a certain percent of, I think it was five apartments. Percentage of the number of units. Yeah, Bill, yes. They have low income people in there. Have we done any follow-up, gotten any information back, see where all these took

I believe they're supposed to be done. I don't know what the past practice was, but Director Owens and I have been working to kind of solidify our TIF process. This is a little open-ended, but that is one thing we have already talked about is putting in a process, auditing those projects to make sure they are having to acquire affordable income amounts.

I thought they were supposed to TIF get back to us once a year, but we've never been updated on them. I don't recall. They have to send us invoices for their TIF payments.

So that's one way that we've been thinking of. They have to send in a report along with those.

Somewhere proving that they are maintaining those levels. Along with how they want to do some sort of inspection. That is definitely something we have already talked about. We're both cognizant of as well.

making sure that is built into the process. Because I just, from what I've been hearing there, partners are going to call $1,300 a month, and I can't see how a low-income person is paying that much money.

Mr. Mayor, this is what was our material that we have prepared for tonight. If there's no other questions or consensus, this is the number approximately that we'll be bringing to the council next Tuesday for consideration adopting the preliminary. Just to kind of foreshadow beyond that or forecast beyond that, the council desires and the budget calendar that was adopted in February of this year, I believe we are scheduled for another work session in October. If the council desires to have that, I do find it beneficial. Just as a big touch base. And then we kind of would like to use that October work session should have October 12th would be the tentative work session date. essentially finalize the budget leading into December. That they can change, but that would be the next potential council meeting, work session on the budget, and then final budget adoption would be brought to the council in the first meeting in December, which I believe is December 7th.

Well, there's that.

We have a motion to adjourn.