But we are starting the uh ways and means meeting of Wednesday, April 30th, 2025, 6:30 p.m. Do you have some budget discussion meetings? Um we uh I'll call this meeting to
order. This meeting is being recorded by the ways and means committee. If any other persons present are doing the same, you must notify this guy at this time. All right. Uh we'll do a roll call of members. Councelor Tranza, that's me.
Yep. Councelor Bottomley here. Councelor Master here. Councelor Brown here. Councelor Perry here. Perfect. We have full quorum uh full full council subcommittee. Um we have no approval of minutes this month.
and we will entertain public comment if anyone sign up on that. All right, riveting group. Uh, is anyone online want to raise their hand and say something of public comment? Going
once. Going twice. Sold to the man. Blue shoes. Yeah. So, we're here to discuss some budget Terry stuff. Uh we've invited Frank County Technical School here. There's some
scheduling mishaps, but we're welcoming to have you as always. And so, whatever you would like to present, take it away. Okay. I think someone needs to give me permission to share the screen. I believe so.
Yeah. Turn sharing on allow share. So that's what it says on that thing. [Laughter] [Music] right there. Oh, sure. Oops. I missed it. This right there. Just a note.
Oops. Oh, make a co-host. Not John. Oh, is it not John? Yeah, you have to make me the co-host. Martin. Yeah. Meeting's on you.
No. If John John has anything to share, he can do it now. So I am I am totally good on not taking on that responsibility. Thank you much. All right. So please enjoy.
Have to log back on. Now it's making me log back on. So I apologize. Okay. pants. Let me call them pants. Okay. And then I think someone allowed
Okay, here we go. Here we go. I'm back in now. I think I still guess. I have to still guess. Correct. This is why I never got glasses because then there's expectations like you know things.
Okay, now you're probably better. Sounds good. I'll try to mediate my way through. Okay, thank you very much. I'm Rick Martin. I'm school superintendent director at Franklin County Technical School. I'm going to give a brief overview on how our budget impacts the Greenfield assessment. So,
I'm going to mainly focus on Greenfield, not our other 19 member towns. Um, the budget book that we sent out to you, if you look at it through your computer or electronic device, it's much easier to navigate because it comes with a table
of contents. You just click on what you're looking for and it'll take you to whatever page that's on. So I'm going to start with the sources of funding um which is always um the best that's always the easiest part of it for us. So
uh sources of funding is how we get our money and we usually show a fiveyear trend and if I go through for green the per people expenditures I click on that link it will take me to green field. Prior to this meeting, I did highlight it in yellow. You had an opportunity to
take a look. Uh so we can dive right to it. I'll just shrink the screen. I know. Um if I can just move this. Yeah, there we go. Get that on my site. Um you'll see that from last year to this year, it increased by three students and your per pupil expenditures are
9,669, which is about 3,000 below our average, which you'll see down here in the bottom right hand corner at 12,489. You can see some towns pay upward of 19,000 per student. Um so that went up um based on the number of students uh
from three and I'm going to show you where we currently are with Franklin I mean with Greenfield. So the assessment for Greenfield would be this number right here that the town I that the city would be voting on the 1 million
345760. We also um when we look at this from Greenfield students at Franklin County Tech, this is an interesting little um shot. It shows you right here the 76 students coming from the Greenfield Middle High School and
everybody else. We have 135 students currently in the school and everyone else comes from different areas. So that's something a lot of people aren't usually aware of when they come from home school, they come from SHA schools, they come from other school choice venues like those students that never
set foot in the Greenfield Middle School, you know, they'll come to us through Frontier or Turners, where wherever they were the school choice. So we show where they came from. Um, so that's an important shot so
you get an idea. So from the middle high school we got 76 and everyone else is from there. Then it kind of breaks it down over here. And our current application pool we have um these are the green field students coming to us
next year. So right now we have 24 coming to us next year. Um so that will be down a little bit. Um 58 applied. We don't know how many wanted to confirm, but usually that seemed like a um a bad
ratio. Usually we have that a lot tighter. Um so we would had do a deep dive on that end of it because you have plenty of room in your quota to take those students. Um so we'll look into that. But that's 24 coming from
Greenfield. So I would imagine the assessment next year will dip back below the 135 number. So next year's assessment will probably be well it would be lower than the current school year. So we like to track kind of where they're coming from. And when we look at
the um I'm going to jump right to the the debt service here. Uh they got a lot of other fun charts if you can't sleep at night. Got plenty of charts for you to take a look at. Um I'm going to go right to the debt service. This is that old windows,
doors, um, paving and roofing project that we did about nine years ago through the MSBA. And that's the equalized valuation comes out every two years. It just came out. So there's green field for the 50,000. So on top of the 1.3
million, uh, there's another 50,000 goes towards the capital. So that's pretty standard. And um all our 19 member downs uh towns and cities are broken down on the right hand column based on the equalized valuation
formula. And so whenever on one of these charts when you're scrolling through the budget book online you just go back to whatever the either the table of contents or the sources of funding and you'll be able to get to where you need to go. This um I just did the debt service because I was already down in
that chart area. So the next one is chapter 78. Um there's a whole descriptor and uh every one of the places that you click you'll find a descriptor of what it is. Um the and then how it links up to what the state says it is and you can
do a lot of research on your own for even your own city or town. When I look at the cherry sheet now this is the most this is the important part here. This is what they give us and they update our cherry sheet from the department of ed
um right here that will tell us how much aid we're getting from chapter 70 or or from any town. And if you wanted to find your town or our town, I like to always be transparent in the budget in order for you to navigate and find out where we got these numbers from so you don't
think you just printed them out. This will take you right to the state's website, all regional schools. I scroll down to Frampen County Technical School. I click submit and the number I just showed you, the 6198 is right here. Our regional transportation when we
developed the budget and got it approved was $882,000 of a $1.3 million to be reimbursed. Doesn't sound to me like that's 90% like they promised. They did up it a little bit in the one that just came out to
916, but as you are well aware, the governor's final numbers don't come out to the end of July. So I don't know which way she'll vote on that when that happens. So that gives us a cherry sheet formula there when I want to look at
uh go back to our sources of funding. So that's where we get these numbers from. There's our 6198. There's our 882,000 for regional transportation. to make up a difference for our transportation and to help keep our overall assessments reasonable. We have
some students that come from up from non-member towns and they get charged a significantly higher rate than the 9,000 plus dollars from Greenfield. They get charged between 22 and 26,000 per student. We take that money, we apply it back to offset the next year's
assessment out of our tuition revolving. So that's our non-member towns. We have a whole paragraph on that in here and you have linkage to the department of ed to make sure that we're doing our job correctly with appropriate guidelines. I go back to the sources of
funding and we have our pre-employment program we pull $50,000 out of. We have more students this year. For the last three years, we weren't able to pull any money out of that program. It's a self-contained uh for intellectual
disabilities and those are tuition students from all over the place and we'll pull 50,000 to help offset other revenues for like surplus equipment. We are a vote tech school so equipment is always going in and out. We get rid of the surplus equipment as new equipment
comes in and we have excess in deficiencies to help offset the budget. I want to just show you real quickly. Take less than 30 seconds to show you that number of 657,000. Where do we get it from? So, we go on here, we click on we it should
take us um right to the the state website, which it did, and I click to 2025. And let's get a preview of what the jurisdiction is here. Franklin County
Tech. You can tell I've done this a few times. And there it is. So that 657 on the screen for 206. Okay, it's not on the screen. Maybe I can get it up through here. No, it's not on the screen. Okay, good point. But you see it here in the house. Um, don't know why it
didn't do that, but that's technology for you. So, so the 657, so that's a 16 million. Now, how do we spend the money? That's the next screen. And that's basically your budget, right? So, how we spent the money is the district leadership and um administration. She
jumped up a little bit usually through um we did hiring assistant principal as well and we kind of able to cut back on one, but we have more students. So, we needed some support there. Our biggest jump and it will be in any school district with increased enrollment is
going to be instructional services. We're an HR industry. We rely on our teachers to support our students. So, for example, instead of two electrical instructors, we needed three. Instead of uh two auto tech teachers, we needed three carpentry teachers. We have an
outside house that we build every year for the community. We needed a fourth carpentry instructor to help work on that. So, in all those cases, as our enrollment goes up, so does that. So, that's our instructional services. I'm
going to take you to uh there's our regional transportation right here. Um that's might come up a little bit, but we got to catch up to 1.2 1.3 million right now. You just saw the reimbursement 882,000. So, there's that
gap that we try to close within our budget. the biggest hit that surprised all our towns and it also surprised um anyone belonging to the Hampshire Insurance Group and you might have heard
so in so the Hampshire insurance group raised our insurance by um 20%. And that meant this figure right here. So when you look on the screen it went from 1.584 million to 1.775 million. So, it jumped over
$200,000, about $200,000. Um, and we weren't ready for that because we've been doing this a long, long time. Um, and our business manager has actually sat on that board and it, you know, it might go up 2% 3%,
we had 0%, we once had, you know, last year it was 8%, we thought that was the end of it and it went up 20%. So, did they say why? Yeah, they had a lot of different reasons, different kinds of formulas that kind of go out there. There's new medications on the market.
That's what I'll say about that. And um they cost a lot more money. So that's kind of what they said. Um so I don't know if that's one big jump or if this going to be another big jump next year. So, we have really have to watch our budget going into this next year because
if it's another 20% increase, it's going to handicap not just us, but every town I've been out to that's having the same problem. Um, it's hitting the municipalities, the school districts, everybody. Uh, so then we have our typical insuranceances for retirees, non-emp employees. Um, and those will go
up accordingly. And then, um, non-employee insurance, rental lease equipment. Um, here's something to pay attention to. The rental lease equipment. These two line items right here. All right. You'll see these two line items tell a story. Our story is
that we had a seaman's project and um that we paid $5 million for for new HBAC boilers, roofs. I mean, new HBAC rooftop units, new boilers, and energy efficient
systems. 15. Well, now it's 17 years ago. Well, that was costing us $500,000 a year. And we also were in the process back a few years back of an MSBA application. So, he said, "Well, if we
can just um go out to our towns and our cities and our members and say, let's continue that 500,000, throw it into capital stabilization, and then we don't have to go out to the towns twice. one for a new project and one for a feasibility study. So, we went to all
our towns over the last several years and we moved the money from the $500,000 which now came zero because now we're done with that. We moved it into capital stabilization and we are just paying off the feasibility study. We are currently
in the design phase of a new project. We do not know what the estimated cost of that is yet because they're going to decide whether or not we take our existing building and renovate it or whether we renovate it and add on whether that's not worthy and they do a new building. Who knows? We're in that
kind of um process for the next year or so. I'm sure by this time next year we'll have a much better idea on what that would look like. So, but for this year, we're only taking 238,000 because we basically paid off the feasibility study. Now, we're moving into the
capital stabilization. I believe that may not be enough. Um, and we'll have to deal with that when that comes. And the reason why I'm saying that is because Sorry. And the reason why I'm saying
that is because we had um we have old um Federal Pacific switch gear, electrical switch gear, and our life been going on and off. So, we knew if one of those went off, and we didn't have a standby unit, we would be out of power until
they could manufacture a new one, which could take two months. So, we weren't going to risk it. So, we got together with our capital planning board and we purchased a new one, had it on standby, about $100,000. Two weeks later, it went
out. 24 hours later, we were back with full power. We would have been two months with no kids in school if it was anything else. We have 11 of those switch gear. So, we went out and got a few more just in case. And we sure enough about 3 months after that,
another one went. So, we're in this constant battle to try to maintain the in I mean the I think the building looks beautiful on the outside. It's just the internal structures are just caving on us. So, that money will probably go
quick. That 238,000 um how we spend the money and how that gets explained. If you just click on any of these columns, it takes you to the whole paragraph on how we spent the money, what's it used for, all the outside links, how we can use it, all
that stuff. So, that just gives you, again, if you can't sleep at night, you can always have fun with this book. Um, and then, um, the debt service, we explained earlier, school choice tuition. We had one student from a member town that's going to Monty Tech.
We have to pay the school choice tuition for that. Um, and then we have the OPED. So there it is. So we have 16.168 million and we have 16.168 million and that's how we receive our money. That's how we spend it. So that's
in the short that's a little synopsis. I thought it take 10 15 minutes but um I'll here to show you or answer any questions. I probably have the questions answered in my budget book so I can scroll to whatever you need to see. might convinced that they they had a 20%
increase in their health insurance. Surprise. Yeah, no surprise. Seems like you're covering it though. Okay. Are there any other are there any questions? Are there
any other questions? Find this comment. Thank you. Thank you. Always appreciate the the presentation. Oh, right there. You can research your stuff. That's the fun part about it. I actually like it. That's something wrong. Who designed that? I did. You did the
whole thing. Yeah, that's I told you there's something wrong. I'll stop the share. You actually have it in electronic form. Love to see that. That's it's very impressive. We send out a hard copy in the electronic.
Well, thank you very much. All right. I'm meat and potatoes of all this. Sorry, Minnesota, if I messed that one up, but Yeah. Mayor, would you like to present us with
your brief presentation? All right, Michael. Stephen and I got to do this together. What? Yeah, let me move over. We didn't invite him. [Laughter] Uh, not reasonably anticipated.
I'm sorry, co-host. Stephen made a a few slides. I'm just going to say that our budget increased for the same reason that Rick Martin did. It's a 67.9 million
67 million 67,925,000 budget. And um you know the biggest increases to it were health insurance, health insurance and retirement.
And you add a new employee. Now the city pays 80% of the health insurance. So for each new employee if they have a family plan, it's 28,400 a year that we're paying for that employee. In addition to the salary,
it's a plus one. It's um uh 20,500. So, it's a significant increase. So, but I'm going to speed in any questions.
We just have a few slides. Um we're not going to get too terribly in depth with this, but we will hit the highlights here. So, the low on the low. Yeah, exactly. So, so this is the budget overview. So what we're looking at here
is uh our total budget at the bottom 67.9 million and compare that to FY25 64.8 million. So you see our two major expenses right there retirement and health insurance. Uh that is the
retirement assessment that has gone up for by 462,000. Uh and health insurance has gone up by $1.8 million. Uh the operating budget only went up by $791,000. Uh plus departments have
reduced expenses by about $500,000. So everyone Yeah. So everyone worked very very hard to reduce their expenses in line items where they could had some discretion and were able to reduce in that area. Um, so the budget
only went up by about 4.7%. But you'll see that the 1.8 million plus the 462, that's 75% of our increase uh right there. Uh the rest of the increases
being cola as well as step increases associated with collective bargaining. Uh so that's kind of the snapshot of this is essentially that's where our money is going this year. Health insurance, retirement and collective
marketing. Um this is just a quick overview of the process. Um the mayor met with every single department head to discuss their budget priorities. department heads um were advised to budget
conservatively. Uh and then that was entered into Munis. Uh then myself and the mayor we review the budget uh and make adjustments uh where needed. Uh again the department budgets were reduced during this process and every
single uh entity in the state has said you need to budget conservatively and reduce costs where you can uh because a little bit later on we'll talk about 6 and beyond which is really the
uh crux here because that's something that we really worry about uh going forward. Um, so beyond FY26, uh, we already have eliminated brick, uh, building resilient infrastructure and communities, a
$100,000 hazard mitigation study. Uh, so that grant has been eliminated for us. The thing about that grant, it the mitigation study, the mitigation study is required to apply for other grants.
So, it's the gatekeeper in order to apply apply for other grants. if they are available. Uh EPA uh is in the process of being uh greatly downsized. Uh so I'm not sure where that's going to go. Uh the elimination of the DOE uh
that will affect school grants um and the way that the ear marking is going right now that the uh federal government will have a lot of discretion on where they want to uh place the money and their priorities. And then our community
block grants have been cut by about 500,000. So we're looking at, you know, this is the beginning of the cuts in grants which will have an effect uh going forward. Bond rating. Uh bond rating is hugely important. Over the past uh two and a half, three years,
we've increased bonding by close to $25 million. Uh almost $30 million, which that's a lot of money for a town like this. Um over the next few years, we're we are going to have to convert uh long-term
debt and have that either refinanced or make that into long-term debt. Um currently our rates are at 4%. A 1% increase in the rate uh will cost an additional 100 to $200,000 per year in
interest expense. So 100 to 200 per year times 15 years. That's a that's a heck of a lot of money going forward. So we need to be careful about that and we need to pay close attention to our bond rating. Um this is a snapshot of the
bond rating um and how we are planning to deal with the bond rating. Uh we are we want to build up our stabilization funds. We want to limit new borrowing, pay off exist existing debt and control
overall operational budget increases uh going forward. Um, so that's uh what it says debt per capita is debt service per capita. So when you look at Green, Greenfield, Deerfield, Ammeris, Northampton, Eastampton, and North Adams, you'll see Greenfield uh on a per
capita basis is about $1,000 more than the uh nearest local uh debt service per capita. Uh about 7 and a half% of our budget goes to debt service. uh every
single year as compared to, you know, 3% three uh East Hampton at eight and 2.2 for North Adams. I chose North Adams because it's a similarly situated uh demographically uh city uh compared to Greenfield. And as you can see,
Greenfield has outstanding debt that's considerably more than any of those other uh communities. And um our bond rating is double A minus which is at the threshold of excellent to kind of middle of the road. So if we go down we we're
going down an entire category rather than just going down the excellent uh bond rating. Uh the other ones uh AA plus AAA a plus and a AA minus is actually better than AA+ uh believe it
or not. So go I don't know how they come up with this uh but that's that's the case. Uh and we we are continuing to embrace creative solutions and utilizing uh funding. Uh we use revolving funds for
two firefighters, 300,000 for the ladder trucks. So we have these balances. Uh we're going to need to use them. Uh, also we're looking at consolidating resources, shared services, shared staff, and most importantly, limit new
hires. Uh, like the mayor said, uh, a family plan uh, for the city costs $28,000. And, you know, if it goes up another 10, 15, 20% next year, it'll be even more uh, for that.
Um, and that's really it as far as the um budget goes. So, you know, we've hit the highlights, we've hit what is the budget, what are the drivers of the budget um and bond rating and what are we doing to uh try to conserve money in
the future. Uh so, you know, any questions welcome to it. Yeah. So I guess the that second column that says 2020 or second row is 2024 debt
percent budget. Yep. And we're us are much higher. What is that? That that's the debt percent to our total operating budget. Yeah. How how much we pay in debt service to our total operating budget. Right. And so we so what is so next to next door to us
Deerfield next city AA2 is that better that is a actually let me I have a uh I have a handy chart here if you want to see that. So Moody's
S&P and FIC so A2 is like an AA Yep. This is like so much more backwards than I mean if you're in like classes and you're in like the AAA class that's like lower than the double A class. Exactly. Like the fewer A's you have the
higher you know you just get an A or an A+. Um it it just seems in that comparison like I mean obviously we're we're carrying us in East Hampton are carrying a lot of debt. Yes. in comparison to our budget. Yes.
Does it is there any kind of breakdown? I know it's not on that chart, but is there any kind of breakdown to like what the the difference in those interest rates like in those percentages would be if we were to drop even like say one
step. I know it's going to be significant amount of money. Um but is it hard to is it fair across the board? Meaning we have what what you had five or six towns on. Yeah. Yeah. We can go back up for those. And
so I know that their percentage budget is due to their their thing. But like so if we're sitting at an A minus and ECM sitting at A+ and you're saying that A minus is actually better. We're are we we're paying presumably a lower interest
rate even though our debt per capita is higher. We're paying a lower interest rate on our 65 million than they're paying on their 41. Exactly. So, and that's actually a really good comparison because you're looking at East Hampton at 41 million dollars outstanding, but a
tier lower than us and the uh debt service as a percentage of budget is a little bit higher. So that kind of gives you a gauge at where we would be if uh you know I would say our debt service as a percentage of budget and this is just
me guessing. Uh if we were to go down that one tier uh we'd probably add 2% to that debt service as a percentage of budget and Northampton's is actually better because triple exactly that's the that's the upper echelon, right? Yeah.
Triple A is the best you can I mean they make you wait for three hours to change the tire but cool. Cool. And so that would be the next step up for us, correct? A minus goes to Alea A. Uh I believe a
AA a plus and then a double A. Yeah. So So and that that's my worry is that we're at the the cusp between highrade and upper medium grade. Okay. So that could have a fairly detrimental because we're going down a tier. So, East
Hampton is actually at a higher tier than we are, correct? Weren't they AA plus? I thought it was going like backwards. I'm sorry. It's Oh, yeah. Yeah. A They actually have a better interest rate than we do. Yeah. They have a little So, we got a couple
We got a couple steps we could move. Yep. There's too many letters. So yeah, we have not since I've been in, we have not borrowed for anything new other than the INI. I think this year it was just
500,000 for INI. In the past, even outside of the building projects, it was um I believe the kind of standard operating needed to borrow about four million a year at the time. 500. I thought it was 200 this year, right? No, we're going to go up. Maybe you might be
right. But there was almost nothing that we were borrowing for. We tried to pay for everything that we could because it really is we're really close and the more that we can put into regular stabilization, we may actually think even transferring
something from capital into stabilization because they really seem to look at what you have there. Well, you're you start you were talking about other than the building projects. Oh, yes. So that that annually we were borrowing 4 million a year or different
things different things that were that either people that people needed and they really are needs. They're not all things just that people want. There's every department needs new new vehicles, parts of new buildings or you know fire
alarms. Things happen. But um the the best thing that you can do and and many municipalities do that. They have a fund and they're trying to pay as you go other than for a building project. Of course, you're not going to
pay for a building outright. What's ini is theration. Inflow infiltration. Okay. Um, it's like what goes into our water pipes from the outside from them
deteriorating. I'm not mar but it's relatively bad. That's what what gets into the what you don't want to get into the system. I had to bring up the topic, but um you know, I've been very concerned
about the transportation end of public schools and I was curious to know if you had discovered anything or had anything to report regarding that.
Um I actually asked specifically information about um you know transportation who you are transporting these schools because we we do two things now. We have a firm that you know because mask is that we pay to transport our own children daily to
school. I actually was not wrapping my brain around that. Then we have an another we hire we bought buses and have bus drivers that drive many of the students to for out of district tuition to different schools. Usually they're um children with special needs and they're
going to other communities and we drive. So I asked for a breakdown of that because I'm just curious. I I don't have all the answers on that. I'll talk more about it later, but I think we transport about say 17 or 18 Greenfield students
to the schools that they're going to. And we transport 12 students from other cities and towns to their school. And then nine of our children with special needs are transported by
other services, by other other agencies, other agencies. So, um, whether or not that whole something is cost effective, I would say I don't know that because I
don't know what is charged for that. But I do know that we're paying because I see the warrants, we're paying a significant amount to transport some of our own students still. And I think that's something that definitely should be in my opinion, it's not my budget, but should be re-evaluated to make sure
that it's because we're still with all of that and I think you heard that and then we're paying for the 14 or 14 16 employees and all of their things and yet still we're doing this. So whether or not
that's cost effective any other questions? I have a question. So, we're not fully taxing to Proposition 2 and a half, right? And um does that like what was the thinking
for that? And then also does that mean next year the starting amount that we're taxing like it's lower so it impacts the future? Like so other than the past two years, if if you went through all of the budgets, we aren't always at the
ceiling. There's always room between you and the ceiling. the first year when I came in or you know or the last year when we were doing it, it was like at zero. There was like absolutely no room. This is not a good thing. Not zero. That's that's nothing to be proud of.
Okay. That you're like a little bit away from the ceiling. It's not something you think like, oh, that's great. Um and and if you did have room, it's not like you try to it's not like you try to spend everything to get that. We actually made an effort because I'm concerned about the
taxpayers to we put extra things into, you know, the final budget like as in using uh I forget what the figure was from pension stabilization. Is that like 200,000 or something from pension
stabilization that we put into the middle? We again took $350,000 from uh uh parking. receipts where they use a lower number before. You didn't have to do that, but the more that you put into it, it's going to
reduce the overall. Um, and then on the local receipts, the Department of Revenue, they they they do everything very conservatively, wouldn't you say? Very conservative. Yes. They'll they'll like, look at this, and you could be your local receipts could actually be
much higher, and it's they don't they wouldn't want you to. their suggestion would probably be 4% like to increase by 4% because you don't actually know what it's going to be and I looked we looked together the last couple years and I said we should go higher on that because
if we're going to take that in the taxpayers are going to and it's looking that way although we didn't bring that it it's looking that way because it's uh April 30th that we're better on our receipts so we estimated at um 8% on the
local receipts to put that into the middle which actually Sarah get council Brown gets you a little bit away from from the ceiling which is a good thing. Um so uh yeah I went back I I actually I think
that had come up before so I went back and I thought we're always like a couple meters in the way. Did I explain that? Yeah. Yeah. We're we're we're starting to create that gap between the ceiling and to what we're actually uh charging the taxpayers, which again it goes to the
bond rating because the bonding companies look at that and they uh they want to make sure you're not spending every single penny as fast as it comes in. And correct me if I'm wrong, that also leaves wiggle room. Yes. For the rest of
the year. I mean, we're projecting budget for whole year before we even get to it. So, if there are, you know, amended orders or whatever or requests that need to come in, we're already at the ceiling. Like, we we got nothing. We
can't do anything about it. So, we're screwed. So, it gives us wiggle room to not crest that that two and a half%. because there's no way you're getting like a special election override when you really need it. It's just like it's not going to be or and
that's going to cost money just to hold that special election, you know. And I cut that. Kathy said, "If we have that and I said yes, yes, we'll find it. We'll find it." Because I thought it's not planned for an extra one right now. So, let's take that whatever it was. I don't really remember what the figure was. Let's take that $10,000 out because
look like we're going to have an extra election. But just even tonight what Stephen was showing with the community block grant thing that was the first that I although I was supposed to review that thoroughly I admit that I missed that part throw myself under the bus.
The the community block meant that we were down 500,000. I'm like oh no I didn't know that we have a department you know our economic development that is funded by um community block grant funding. We have
three people there. Um, you know, one is fully funded by block grant funding. Um, one is, uh, you know, and and the other two are in part funded
by community block grant funding. That's horrifying because we really need those folks. So, um, you know, we are doing everything we can and tell the people if they have anything to do with the grant to ask as quickly as they can to get that here because it is a little bit of
a frightening time. And another question on the proposition two and a half like so that 2 and a half% increase so now for next fiscal year we're starting it's based on what we just did. Okay. It builds on top
of it. Yeah, it it does. And at the time when you estimate, there is some estimating that's done as well. Um because we don't actually know what our new growth is going to be for this year. It we don't know that until midn
November. That's when the tax rate is actually set. And I I didn't understand that as much the first year or so on the council. Um, you know, you look at this and we provide a budget and there's an estimate of what the tax rate might be, but it's actually all down, it's
fascinating. It's all down to the wire on November uh, it's around November 20th. It was before you were here and there this whole chart of things that they're looking at. And one of the things we're looking at very closely, they said that
was our enterprise funds. So, you'll probably, you don't actually need to come to council. This is kind of interesting because it's I don't know why um but I read it. We don't come to you for the water and sewer rate increases
if it's uh 10% or less. That's written somewhere in some law or in the code. I don't actually know where it is, but it's it's there. And that will probably you'll have to make a decision on that by July one because water and sewer
rates you need to give folks notice six months in advance. So they would you know but you that would be going up again because they would not certify our tax rates unless our enterprise funds were all uh meeting their revenue
expectations. So, um, yeah, but anyways, that was the answer between half and no really closer at November. Are we playing catch up on that? Water and saloon rates.
Yes. And this is another thing that this is fascinating to me. We do better with that when there's a drought. I don't know why that is. using a wash using more water when there's a drought. So Marlo had said I wouldn't worry about that. We're in a drought. So I guess I'm glad that we're in a drought
except because we're in a drought now. We're getting more brush fires, you know. So there's there's a there's a good and a bad side. I think the fire department was out today with that and had four of them the other day. So there
you go. But um we're keeping an eye on that and that's looking better. But they were they they're very firm. They're rather stern. So are the bond people. I've never I was never been on a bond call. They're quite stern. They
want all the information and um they don't have any wiggle room. We thought it might have been happening this year and then they're like we have a one in three chance. So I just want everybody to know those that's not a lot of fun. Maybe a dumb question. I've been here
four years. I should know this answer, but um so our water our enterprise funds always bounce out, right? We've already it's always balances out at zero. Like what they're going to take in, what they're going to expand, it bounce out at zero when we budget it.
Do surpluses from those stay in that enterprise? Correct. They never turn back. They don't turn back to retained earnings, right? um if they're actually doing and and you can correct me if I'm making any mistakes on
that, but they that's how they get retained earnings if they're having a good year. They had a bad year last year, right? And they went down significantly. Milo had done a great job on that, right? And um you know, he's he was up like around a million and then we
were down to 100,000 in one and a huge drop on the other. And um yes. So the reason I say that is like a lot of those those like dets it's the retained earnings that that come in a lot of those end up getting
expended capital wise a lot of times right that's a lot of the orders we'll see is oh we're going to pay for this out of you know the retained earnings from you know the ambulance fund or or you know the sewer water enterprise funds.
Um, so what if we didn't? I guess I know that we would have to take it if we wanted capital expenditures for those departments, it would then have to come out of, you know, general city funds, but where would that money
go? I guess what are the limitations of how you could use the retained earnings? Can you can an enterprise put that back into the general fund out of choice or can it is it locked in? It can only be used for that. It's locked in. It's the statutory structure enterprise fund and
they can't use it for I guess we want to say like operating of that department. It has to be used as almost like a special interest. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like a special interest fund. Uh you know, you may and I'm not sure about this. I'd
have to look into it. may be able to use it to reduce rates at some point, right? Uh but you know, it has to be for the benefit of of that fund, right? Okay. There's several people in water that are paid out of water and sewer and those
enterprise funds went up significantly because of um you know, insurance costs. Um, one person was added, one person was added in water that was under the water enterprise fund. And, uh, you know, you
can watch that as you as you're going along. He has a whole lot of expenses and some capital things that are under that. Uh, and and the rates are supposed to reflect what goes in there. So, well, that's the idea is like that's you're not like jacking rates to, you know,
It's kind of the way that I don't want the free cash, right? Like I don't want my sewer rates to go up so that there can be this whole crapload of retain earnings. I'd rather you charge me it when you need it. Yeah. And our water and sewer are significantly less. Yeah.
Than other municip right now. They are. Yeah, they are. Which is good because their taxes are so much higher. Well, that that is but actually this is how I feel about that. There's something that you can do with the water. Yeah.
Like you can use I mean it you can for the most part most people have some control over what you use for water. Mhm. Right. And your sewer is dependent upon what your water use. So it is something that you know if you have kids you can tell them you got a three minute
shower whatever it is. You know I came from a big family. Um, you know, many of the time we were told FHB, family hold back, right? Very good. Navy shower. Navy shower. Right. How many minutes is that?
30 seconds. Yeah. You put the water on, turn it off, soap up, turn the water on, rinse off, and that's it. help. Thanks. Great. Yeah. There you go. I I think I
think we have to be thinking like that to survive. It's the I talked to to uh Senator Cmerford after the earth the Earth Day. So, and it's like the communities that are going to be successful are going to be h have to be
thinking about doing things in new and innovative ways. It's changing. You heard Rick Martin tonight with his going up 20%. If we continue to do everything exactly the same way that we are without
u consolidating services, seeing what we can do to get it inside our community or with another community, the people that are thinking ahead of the time, those communities are going to do better. Everybody's in trouble right now. And you know, we have had other
municipalities reach out to to us. Don't be afraid of those. These are good things or anything that we can consolidate and share services within departments that you could uh put together. That is a good thing. James is very difficult. But those of us who
don't change, they're going to be in trouble. Well to some extent uh when it comes to uh sports I think even some of the spring program we are uh regionalized
with other school districts as far as the sports teams go hockey teams six or eight schools combined you know there's no more green field turners football games one. Um, so
maybe we think about the academic end of that as well as far as regionalization goes because it's getting very expensive. Yeah, it's not looking. We have to just be slowly thinking and
talking. Any other questions? I did send to you I because I actually that for a call question I just wanted to I sent everybody something today. I don't know if Tammy sent it out. Did you get any I think so. Okay. Well, um I asked Mark Snow because I thought Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. You asked Mark Snow sent something. So, um I actually didn't understand that myself. And so those inspectors I I thought I thought I thought our inspector would be doing that. We have a
two electricians and a um a plumber who are all fabulous and but you can't inspect your own work which I didn't know that till today. That actually makes sense. Nobody should inspect their own work. And um they they do all the
inspections and although we pay about 100,000 which was somebody's question last year, we're we are even at the three quarter mark um we're ahead at pulling money in from those inspections. I didn't realize that forget inspections as well. I don't think I even knew that
somebody especially gas. I'm glad that they do. Um but um that we have a significant amount of revenue from that and it's betting them last year. It's going to be over the hundred,000 that we paid to the fur card. So I wanted to just answer that. Does that go back to the general fund?
Does that does that go to the general fund? Yes. So you spend 100,000 and then we're probably getting it 120. Yeah. So, um, yeah, that that's absolutely true. Graham
asks questions. We could have done 55 slides, but we thought was more brief. I know. Yeah. Sit over here for a second. All right. Well, thank you guys.
Thank you. Appreciate it. Um yeah, good times. Um so our our motions are obviously laid out there. We don't have to really go through the motions, so to speak. I guess maybe we do to talk about
it. So, I guess the first motion is to appropriate 67,925,100 for the FY2026 general fund budget. City Council vote to appropriate sum of 67,925,100 which is the full amount of 35th fiscal year 2026 general fund
budget July 1st 2025 to June 30th 2026 to meet said appropriation the following funding sources and amounts will be raised and transferred from parking meter receipts reserve 350 grand OPE stabilization 100 grand stabilization 200 grand free cash 100 grand and
appropriate 67,175,100 This is going to take a majority vote when we get there. Do I have Do I have a second? A second. All right. Uh, so this is the discussion portion. This is the big elephant in the
room. Um, I think the other three on there are pretty straightforward. I I don't I'll speak for you, but I don't foresee there's going to be a whole lot of discussion of those three enterprise items as they as we discussed kind of
take care of themselves. So, um some ways we've done this in the past is page by page. Is that what makes sense to folks? and and taking notes
upon each budget um on what we might think could be cost savings and then you know not taking necessarily a vote or a recommendation on each of those cost savings until you get to the end and then we can kind of
do an overview on what we've u thought of and then narrow those down. Does that sound like an enable I mean
the synopsises are start on on 44 wait 40 yeah 44 but that's I mean that's a a a short way of doing it because again we can only just to Remind folks, every department
here, we can only vote on the total of two items. Salary and wages total and expenses total. We can't we can pretend all we want. We can say, well, I don't think you need this person or I don't think you need these paper supplies. We don't get to decide how the departments
use the money. We have two items per budget and that's salary, wages, and expenses. Um it kind of in the way when we go to full council, some of these were able to rifle through pretty quick if there's no objections. There
hasn't been any um brought up thoughts on specifics. So that's that will be my other thing I'd posture you. Do we want to do we want to look at it in a summary form or do we want to look at it page by page and then have an opportunity to
break each one of these down or do we want to hit up the one like go through and if if something gets red flagged in your brain we can flip to that page and go to that like that one.
Yeah. That's 12 me looking through this which we've done or which we we've done the last three meetings. Sure. I don't see much more that can be cut. the mayor's uh done pretty much the work for us far
as I mean every department it seems as uh you know I suppose we can go in depth but I don't know how necessary that is. Yeah. Well, a general question would be did anybody have any any issues?
Anything? I think you kind of think there were no real issues except there's one department that's still dealing with their issues. So, we probably don't even talk about that tonight because there's still another meeting to go with them.
Well, I I well, you know, not to pursue it, but I don't know where they're going to go. I mean, there's no money to give them. So, um, I mean, I guess I'll reig on my my offer and maybe just we can just go through
real quick. Start it. 66 is city council. That's the first budget on here. The ones before that are revolving accounts. We don't really vote on those because that's just more of a report. Um, so there's nothing really to be like, we can be like, "Yay, they made
that much money." But we can't really be like, I wanted you make more um or less. Um so what I think I'll do is I'll just go like budget by budget and just kind of like we're probably like I said we're
going to end up doing hopefully even more condensed once we get to city council like full city council. We can just be like are there any thoughts on the first budget? Of course, city council. Yay. want to vote on her own. Um, but we have it broken up into
salaries and wages and then expenses. Um, you can see our number is going to drop because there's a vacancy for a couple months. So, technically, but won't be that much, but Right. We'll save a but I don't
think I don't think we should budget for the vacancies. No, no, no. We're not saying I hope you know what I mean. I hope they save that. Then we'll save some money. We'll we'll free cash this year from a couple of vacancies. Um so I mean that's pretty straightforward. I mean it's literally
the 13 counselors um salary for the administrator which is one full-time employee. I don't really know. And maybe a little bit of overtime is built in there. Um and that salary went up
10,000. it. Why isn't that in there next year? Where where you see that? I'm not seeing 25 summary. Oh, back in the full summary.
Where are you at? You're still on 66 down the bottom. Is that uh 44? Oh, so the Okay. The department went up right from 25 to 26 like 10 grand. Y don't know what that is that the city clerk I think I think it's the Yes, I
believe it's the clerk. I mean it's only showing one administrator and I don't imagine that that person made $10,000 less last year. I'm assuming they split some of the other costs with the other two people in the clerk's office. Maybe it was broken
out that way last year because you could you could argue that some of the other people in office do something also work when the administrator is not there and that sort of stuff, right? Oh, yeah. I see that now. Yeah. change.
Um that's up for discussion if you want if they're just noticing. Um obviously their their expenses budget got cut like a lot did. Um this came out of the legal of course again we don't tell them where they end up spending
their money but the idea is to pull it out of legal. They may not need it. I do know that you know it's A change from a few years ago was the utilization of the city
council to use city ter. Um we had wanted our own which we did get per se, but not everything that we need to necessarily bring up has to go through our council attorney. If we can already get if the city's already got a decision
on it, it's a legal opinion. Um, so I don't I don't know what the actuals are on that for this year. Uh, we don't have that as far as up until now. Um, I know that Kathy couldn't make it
last time and I told her that was fine. Um, if there were to be a question about that, then we could bring that up at the next meeting if anybody has any questions about that. As far as what's been spent up until that point, unless
to either Stephen or I don't expect has been used from our legal I can look to be sure it hasn't been because that would have been if you need to get your own attorney,
right, for a couple weird things. Yeah, the city attorney for all the questions had about opening laws. Ask the attorney about the zoning questions. Yep. Okay. So, I mean, I think that's a smart
I mean, that's a smart cut for me for now. And again, if we end up needing a supplement for some extreme circumstance, but I don't think getting rid of it entirely is smart. So, cutting it, you know, 60% down. Y pretty good.
Um, but yeah, I'll make a note that if if you guys want to inquire about that um increase in the salary portion, just to get clarification on to why that was, if they changed over where
partially it was funded or or whatnot. I'm also curious how much was spent from meetings and seminars. Um, since it's 500 per counselor, but if some people don't use it, maybe it could be changed so that it's like 1,000 max per person
or I don't know, right? I know I at my first year that I I used it. I did not use it this year. Um it's not used. Yeah. I mean, it's not to say there couldn't
be something in there that says don't budget for all 13, budget for half each year, because you're never really going to have well, in theory, you're not going to replace more than half at any one time. I don't know if that's a
suggestion, but it's not used, right? I mean, not used as a free cash, but Right. I think if you start taking it out of the budget though, then you're permanently right taking it out. So if you don't want to be able to attend meetings or seminars, Yeah. then you're
kind future councils like yin and yang. Right. So it's not very much money. No. Yeah. Or more. If it's not used, then who cares? Then that little bit goes back. I was thinking like if some people don't use their 500, then it could be up
to 1,000 for for somebody else. Yeah. I mean, I think ultimately I've never been told that like I've only got $500 for seminars. Like it's just I think around figure and that actual cost more. Yeah,
there was actual Yeah, you end up taking money out of your own pocket, but it's well spent. And the MMA conference wiped out my 500. Yeah. All right, then we can move on to the executive. Um, looks like there's a
decrease of 8% in the salaries, 5% increase in the expenses, um, which seemed to have ran higher a couple years ago, then dropped.
Um, and then so now it's almost like one of those things where like I said before, if you you're not really getting an increase because you're kind of getting part of what used to be spent back. Um, and it's still about even if it looks like it is on, you know,
numbers on paper, it's a 9% increase from last year. It's a but it's a you know 1% increase from last year. It's a confusing thing where it's 9% on expenses. Yeah, but it's 1% on the page
67 like and it's going from 14,000 to 15,000. It's like listed I think there's an error the way it's listed on 44. Yep. Unfortunately, I think there's a few errors like that. It's okay. Yeah,
it's think it's a decimal point probably, right? Just moved over. 14 to 15 30. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Um, and it's definitely more like what
a 10% increase almost a nine 9% rate. Is that what the other one said? 9%. Yeah. So, from No, no. I'm saying the 1.1 is definitely wrong. The nine is like a 9% increase for the expenses budget. Oh,
okay. Yeah. From 14 to 15 is almost 10. Yeah. Um but again like I mentioned the considerably less considerably less than few every year prior. show.
Um, and I know we hate SE Pro, you probably sent to us an email, too, didn't you? um or maybe next year when the the state um pushes us forward is the three quarter mark getting the three quarter actuals.
Right. I know we don't have those because we're not ahead of Right. Yeah. Are we at like 50 like going by what is that be like a 50% or I'm assuming you do a quarterly, right? Quarterly updates and you're not going
to we're not going to have three quarter numbers because it's literally just today closing. Yeah, exactly. Right. So, if we had I mean I because I really I honestly I don't want you guys but I think we're gonna have to um just with
what we're facing um whether it's our regular just keep our regular council meeting. I was hoping to skip that one like we were able to last year um in the middle of May, but I think we'll probably need it. But I think those would be those would be very
helpful even if it's the 50% mark. Whatever we could get off of these budgets. Um because what we're you know we can look back at what the last years were. We can look back at what 24 was, 23 was, but we
can't see what we've already spent to have kind of a comparison for it because as we've seen the volatility even when we do and I'm glad you guys did a wonderful job giving us the like four-year look back, which we've been asking for for a number of years and
we'd only get like a one-year look back, which wasn't very helpful. Um but we can see the volatility and especially um in the prior years some of what would happen is you got the um the yins and yangs of of what
happened because of COVID dollars. But now that we're a few years out from that in normal budgeting again um even though some things like ARPA money and ESRE funds and things like that that were from that were are going away. We can see what a more normalized
budget and usage is. So, I don't know if that's something that we could get in the next two, three weeks for for the for as many departments as possible. Just that I think that that would be helpful. At least it would be for me. If you guys don't want them, I don't care.
But I mean, we don't have to. No, if you think it's helpful, why not? It's not going to be that hard for you. No, it's it's all in the computer. It's just getting it out of the computer in a format that makes sense, right? Um, and I that's just why I think like
when we're if we're trying to pair down whatever we can, not that I I I agree um with statements earlier that this has been paired down really well and I think a lot of a lot of this has been spread
out throughout a lot of the budgets to try to get us to where we can exist. Um but you're thinking major expense numbers would help us would get you know some of them and and again if if if things need to
be requested at the end of the year you know nine months out of the year and we got to do like a small increase request. That's one thing. Um I'm just you know it's tight. It's
it's tight across the board and everyone's feeling it. Um, so I I I don't know that we're going to come up with any magical solution from looking at these. Um, I appreciate your your willingness to um throw the the extra time into
that. Um, but I don't know. I don't know. We might find something. I would be surprised with the cuts and the expense lines that we would find. I mean, based on what we heard from the department heads, yeah, people didn't seem exactly thrilled or that that would
be easy to do the cuts that were already made. So, I I just would be really surprised that we would see departments showing under spent and and for to see their salaries. I don't know. I just would be surprised if we I would too. And that's why I was kind
of waffling on whether or not to bother spend having you guys spend the time or us spend the time is if we could cut what what are we going to get 50 two two grand off the budget. I mean is that
really going to make difference? We're looking to try to find 50 grand which we know we're not going to do. So is it is it worth the time and the effort to try to find pets? Sure. We're looking for D. We're looking for 50 cent pieces,
right? That is very true as well. Um, well then before I make that formal request, do you even bother doing that? How about we go through the rest of the lunch and see if we think that it's anywhere fruitful? How about that? Does that make sense? Uh, we've got the chief
of staff line next. essentially the salary, not a whole lot of expenses. And then economic development like whole lot to write home about and uh knowing that a significant
portion of that may be cut from feds not always great. I said knowing that some of that money is is possibly or will be cut from the feds is not something we look
forward to. Well, yeah. Well, we want to go there. It's the way we've had it structured. Yeah. It's also the discrepancy. The one on page 44 is the right one that
changed 69. Yeah. You see like the 73 chart is the percent change is not the right one. The one on page 44 page. Yeah.
So that's not the one you'll get. The one4 is the one that's one right. That mean that the 1% as opposed to the minus 10%. Is that what you're looking at? It's 5 514. The one says 610
4. Yeah. Correct. They're already taking a hit on the fences. extent that everybody's taking a hit off us. [Music] We've got the assessor's office first. I don't know
why we have an accounting and audit that skips here somewhere. Oh, it's just next. All right. So, we skipped to assessors. that just one page off. But there well those two m those match
up. Oh goodness. I mean, we we got to explain to us kind of the the theory behind decrease in expenses. Um, but still it's a it's big cut when others are talking about it. Oh, that's
that's because we're going to be using left of outside. Exactly. Exactly. It's a great cost savings. You could insource a business manager. Save a lot of money.
Hey, what? Kind of ironic the assessors have been doing the most work as far as getting some revenue going. Yeah, there's sticking a big head for the work. Thank you. You know, but that's the ironic part of this, you know.
Yeah. Again, the percentages for accounting aren't they're pretty good. We good with the assessor? Yeah, I don't even It's close. But
as long as the actual number is being asked for. Huh, that's chang. That's not quite the same. the percentages in the little boxes, the accurate ones, I believe, as
opposed to the ones the summaries. Why? Because you want to trust them later on on the end. Some of them are some of them are backwards. Some of the ones in the the beginning are actually percent.
Well, it's helpful to know. So, Do we have any questions on these? Oh, we know we both right. Right. Yeah, that's why I said I don't know if this is productive like line by line when we're I we need to do line by line,
right? It's like hopefully people have flagged it if we went we went through the whole discussion if there's right there's anything I don't this I I don't I mean I you know it's we we've talked about
these a little bit um when you see something that pops up like treasure collector right you see something like a 30% But what people don't see, it could be very easy to be like, "Well, they got 30% increase." Yeah. But look back.
Exactly. Look back at where it was in 24 or 25. It's nearly half of what it had been previously and it's only grown up, you know, 25% from there.
I mean I mean more more or less the balancing act that comes along with it, right? It's some over inflated budgets and some underinflated. Oh, tax looks like just leave it at that. Yeah. Legal, labor, and
city. Again, these are these might be, you know, we've asked for this in the past. These might be a couple of the departments where we'd be like, well, what did we actually use? Right? We've asked we've asked for that. We obviously had a very, very high
legal line um 10 years ago. But that would be good to see. Yeah. Do you without having to have you go through that where I'll stop your head. Maybe it's just a one question. You don't have to dig
in. I guess it's not 126,000. You're not working. said actual for 2024 totaled between the two we're looking at like $378,000 plus can't imagine right
Fully expended. We expend. What? It's fully expended. The the 95,000 that was budgeted. Y for labor. How about for city? 150 grand.
Appropriation 150,000 spent 13467. There's a lawsuit covered that part or is that separate? So, we've been paying for that right along out of that. Okay. And I think a lot of that's paid, but we
have 15, 323 to go, right? I talked more than a couple of times. So, we're not doesn't let that be over. I'm not feeling like that going to be this year. It's going to be close.
So, I'm presuming that the labor being fully expended this year, I know there were multiple contracts, threeear contracts done. So, that's that's going to be something that fluctuates anyway, right?
We had three we had three um we did police, fire, and dispatch. We did bring attorneys aren't always brought in to be here for all of the negotiations every week, but they were
there full time for two of those. So, it was a little bit. So, I can see why that I don't know which ones are up next year. Yeah. And so where does the majority just for people's sake um where does the
majority of the rest of the legal labor expenses go to when you're not personel issues? Yeah. Contracts. Um is there any questions? We do a lot of done several
MLAs Mus with with people and keys over everything. Um and yeah, anything personality pool was for hours for
hours. I mean, you know, those are expenses. Be careful. Does anybody else need consolidation sources on CIR? salary. on the salaries. That's probably normal. Way down the
expenses 3,000 3,000 selling expenses, right? They're pretty much like Yeah, like 24% by the way. I got to be honest with you folks. There's I think as you guys alluded to
earlier, it's going to be real hard to find anything anything of substance. Right. Right. You know. Yeah. And when you got a 69 million, $67 million budget. Yes. You know, cutting a drain
or two, it's not going to save anybody. From which and from which I'm having a hard time finding that. Yeah. I mean, the big cuts are
expenses and it's like, you know, Yeah. use your scrap paper right on the other side, you know. I'm just I'm just wondering if we're just going to spin our wheels because the rest of the evening I mean
there's so many of these anyway and I didn't know if any of you were going to come in as miracle workers but uh you know a lot of the like we said a lot of almost every department's cut. Yeah.
in one sh way way way shape or form. They may get an increase because of contractual salary increases but they're cut off employees and then you added one and it correct or you cut it. No, we add the
person in the operating budget person. Okay. So that's a plus two. There is a person but that is not under um but still and that's on account of
the uh new person in water is is the we can't afford to lose any folks in water and in sewer and so they're old prize for extra assistance there and Um, that's what we
needed. So, that was something and then licensing is something that very well done. Right. Right. uh planning department salary went up 10% but that's also that
well planning is my opinion under staff anyway. Right. Yeah. So, correct me if I'm wrong. You shaved essentially 3 million off of
the departmental ask. Correct? department to ask before the mayor got the other fire just the percentage change. Well, you know, if everyone got what they wanted, a lot more people would uh would not
like it because their taxes would go up so high. People were I had no idea. people really really they don't have enough I can't say say enough about how much
effort I mean the cost of everything alto together I think has to be recognized you know and and said that when we're talking our operating budget in 2022 is 55 million And now we're looking
at with cuts 67 million. It's 12 million. I mean that's probably what 20 20% increase in four years, three years really close to that short, right? So it's like what do you do? You know, I
mean you sit out there, you can you can pitch a fail. I'm not I don't like it. My tax bill goes up every year. Even if my assessment went up and I was like woohoo and then the taxes went down, I was like great. But my assessment went up to cover it like you know it's it's
in that way a little bit of a shell game but like when both have to go up you know you feel it and everyone feels it but to operate a city we just said how do you get $12 million four
years you They're trying to practice but it's the reality of things. I mean, we might be hitting harder stretches later, but what department head um budget cuts that
I've been talking with with my counterparts in the town have been very difficult um and very challenging. And I will say from my department, mayor has done everything in her power um to make sure that the minim minimizing the the
impacts to the to the department fundings are are are kept small. But you know, nobody holds uh nobody holds it against the administration or or or anything because uh you know, it's what we have to do. There's just so much
money. Um, and so although we may not be happy about it, we, you know, mayor can rest assured nobody, none of the department hasn't taken it personal, uh, from the mayor. I just want to say that because I think she she conversations behind the closed
doors are, you know, they're pointed sometimes. These are, you know, we've got to make some difficult decisions, but at the end of the day, she's doing everything she can to make sure that every department is taken care of. and I will go out in public to say that. So,
thank you. Thanks. No, appreciate it. I I think it's important for for folks to hear that it's not, you know, hear the like hyperbolic statements of like, well, what do you value in your society and what's more important? It's like, well,
again, we got to go back to this kind of like the reduce, reuse, recycle circle, right? like it's a it's a ven diagram of things. It's you can't just, you know, I made very clear that I'm very pro school from the very beginning and I fought
hard for for the school budgets that are there, but this one I can't see happening. It's just not going to happen. And though I would love it to, what I'm not willing to sacrifice personally is giving up the rest of our infrastructure that makes it so that schools can function in our district.
You can't have schools without roads. You can't have roads without police, can't have, you know, without fire. You can't have without DPW, like without and even the the smaller departments that some people might be like, well, you could come from them. Well, then what kind of city do we live in? We live in a boring ass city of like people just
bouncing balls up and down like a wrinkle in time. Like, that's that's robots. Why should we exist? Like we can't have anything that makes us individuals and and and part of a society where we can, you know, have things like cleanup days where we have people volunteer. We can have people
come in to city council and volunteer for lack of a better word. Like if we don't have any of the other things going on, then then what's the point? We're going to be if we spend all of our money in one one pocket, then we're going to what? Sorry
about unpopular opinion. We're going to raise a bunch of educated people to be boring and have nothing to do is what we're going to do. So, yay. Sounds like a awesome sad gray beige 22nd century for for the rest of
us. But, you know, I don't know. That's just me. I, you know, nobody's happy about it. Let's put it that way. Nobody is. We've also seen, I think, pretty responsible use of all the other revolving funds. Yeah, I mean there's not huge pots of
money sitting around in any other department revolving fund to take from either. Those balances are just not kept that high. Yeah. Um but to not as we're just seeing here like
quarter of the way through like this is just honestly I feel like it's just be labor in a process that we're not going to be able to find really I mean we're going to be able to find pittance forward really responsible budgets and the mayor has
double triple quadruple checked with the finance department uh it's got a A lot of eyes have gone into this over the past. A lot of questions asked and we've also gotten threeear histories which is a kind of a loophole because it's cool
on a lot of this stuff. So we, you know, going back and trying to make the best educated choices on these funds. I was racking my brain looking at this and and you know, I couldn't come up with anything
that was of substance at all. And I was hoping that maybe, like I said, there was a miracle worker that would be like, "Hey, well, when I saw this, X, Y, and Z came to my brain and be like, that's great." Um, it's it's not it's not
appearing that way. Um, and I don't want to be the doom and gloom guy, but the realist that I was going to say it's not doom, it's just being real. Yeah, it's going to be a tough month coming up, but I think as she said, we
can know in our hearts and in our minds that this is what it is and we don't have to second guess ourselves and that sort of stuff or feel like, you know, we're doing something wrong because, you know, it's just there's nothing left, right? And I don't I don't want to have
like, yeah, could we make drastic cuts to one place or another? Sure, we could make up for the shortfalls, but we've done that in the past. And look where that got us. That got us into a pit. And it was And maybe to be frank to the
history of folks in this city, had we not done that and been a little bit, you know, I mean, I'm I'm talking this goes back decade anyway. Well, the $65 million bonds is, you know, says
something. Bonds are big. Bonds are big. Yeah. But I will no offense. I would say that uh you know I would say that there were some some poor decisions made some years ago
um to try to appease one thing or another. And it was a different time then, but it was it it did I remember watching it unfold where it it did become a very big pitting one department against another. And that was not
helpful in the long run. And I think we're now having to backfill essentially try to try to backfill what was lost. Um and we've seen that both in capital and in
operating. Uh so trying to make up for misuse of of funds in the past is is not easy. Mhm. Um and as bad as this is as everyone warning us be no picnic next year either. That's correct. So you know
right it's a good lack of you know so and we're not the only ones. Correct. I think that's important to note as well. and it's Massachusetts and that could be an issue this particular administration in
Washington. Um, so I would posture that I'm going to say we skip the rest of the line stuff. I don't think it's going to be worth our while. [Music] Um, we do have a meeting on the 20th
scheduled. If in the next, let's say, where do I have to cancel that by? If we were to cancel it out somewhere like the 13th, let's just say by or the 9th is next Friday, right? So, if you end up having questions or
thoughts for the next meeting is on the the 20th. 20th. Yeah. So, if by the 9th you don't have anything that sticks out to you as What about that Monday? It's the 12th.
Is that too late to to to send this in or to cancel it? Uh, and we could do the 12th. That's still another weekend to look at this. All right, let's do the 12th. if by the 12th, you know, I mean, you send in
whatever you got for questions, um, suggestions, maybe you find something staggering. Like I said, doubt doubt it's going to happen, but give you a little extra time to if you want to really overly scrutinize what's going on
and try to find, you know, 20 grand um, in a reasonable way. um then we can have our continued discussion on that um on the 20th. Otherwise, I would
say I don't know how I do this formally because it's always weird to me because these are subcommittees, but like I would say other than that would be at this time. Uh I don't I think we're supposed to put
a recommendation here even though it's just a motion. Would we put a recommendation that we approve that number contingent on contingent on if we end up holding like so we're approving it now but we leave it open to
uh putting on our May 20th agenda if we need to have it that we could I mean because again it's just a recommendation so we could change a recommendation right I don't think there's any you know 48 hours something unforeseen happens
with that right right this next week. Correct. You know, that could Yeah. take care of a lot of things um in certain ways. But so that would be my idea is to have that as our motion for the general budget
uh as presented. And unless we come up with something by May 12th. I don't I didn't even I It's not really a motion. It's just suggestion.
All right. So, it's your suggestion. All right. So, we'll put that down as a as a as a positive recommendation pending. And then none of this should be coming up at next week's meeting. That is specific seven items. I know. But Oh, no. our our next next meeting. It's not on the
agenda. We can't discuss this. It's not No, I'm talking about he he was mentioning next week's meeting. That's just I thought you were meaningless school. That's what I was talking about. I was trying to be I was trying to be stout without, you know, you know, it's not really as environment
as it is. So, I'm trying not to stay as, you know. Yeah. Right. Um All right. So we can go to the water fund, sewer fund, gadet enterprise funds. We need to vote on the first one or are we all in agreement? I think we kind of
just did. We just did. Okay. All right. Yeah. Is that I favor. In favor. Well, again, it's it's hard because they're just the recommendations essentially, but
uh 25 14 get to that one. 14. Yeah. Um uh city council upon recognition mayor an appropriate sum of 2.8489 84089 million for the FY26 water
enterprise fund. move that it be ordered that the sum of $2,177,19 be appropriated for the FY26 operations of the water enterprise and further appropriate the sum of $662,980 to be transferred to the general fund for indirect costs for a total appropriation to the water
enterprise fund of $2,840,89 to be raised from water user rate receipts for the fiscal year starting July 1, 2025 ending June 30, 20 Second. Is there discussion on the use of our
water funds? I think the mayor pretty much talked about it earlier and kind of said it as it was. The again, these are enterprise funds. They balance out at nothing right when they're all said and done.
Um, so all those in favor of the act. I uh see council upon recommendation of mayor that to appropriate the sum of $3,895,664 for the FY26 sewer enterprise fund. Move that it be ordered that the sum of 3,187,199 be appropriated for the FY26
operation of sewer enterprise and further appropriate sum of 78,465 to be transferred to the general fund for indirect costs for a total appropriation of the sewer enterprise fund of $3,895,664 to be raised from sewer user
rate receipts for the fiscal year starting July 1st 25 ending June 26. Um this too did we? Yeah, may sound like a weird question, but I just want to ask this because the way this is written, um, what's wrong with that? You okay
with the last one? It was 14. You said, right? All right. So, I know these things have to be parsed out with um indirect costs and such, right? Were you talking like
fringe here? The friction. Yeah, it all comes from a safe place, right? So, if we were paying the fringe for this $78,000, it would go on our tax bill essentially. Yes. But we're paying the
$78,000 out of our sewer bill. So, we're paying it through a sewer bill anyway. So, doesn't this seem silly? Right. Just want to make sure I was getting that like completely straight. like we're paying for it either way. It's not like, you know, Bitcoin of
Right. Finance. Okay. I just wanted to make that clear. I wasn't missing something. U anyway, is there any other discussion on that one? All those in favor? I I would like my taxes and my rate to go
down. Thank you. Um, city council upon recommendation the mayor to appropriate the sum of 2,390,826 for the FY26 GET enterprise fund. moved that it be ordered that the sum of 2,225,826 be appropriated for the FY26
operations of the GA Enterprise and further appropriate sum of $165,000 to be transferred to the general fund for indirect cost for a total appropriation to the GSA Enterprise Fund of 2,390,826 to be raised from GATE user rate receipts for the fiscal year
starting July 1st, 2025 and ending June 30, 2026. Second. All right, discussion on this one. I do appreciate while I will add to what I just said before that while the taxes are not userbased, the the the
the rates on sewer water like Jenny was talking about earlier, you can control a little bit. So, all right, maybe I don't hate that. light just came on, you know, I just like rather than pay the indirect
cost of my taxes. But um Oh, wait. I didn't say all those in favor of that one. And then we have uh to see council upon recommendation of the mayor to establish budgets for revolving funds pursuant to MGL chapter
44 section 53E and a half. Our favorite moves that it be ordered to authorize the revolving funds budgets in accordance with MGL chapter 44 section 53E and a half for the fiscal year 2026. Receipts received but not expended in fiscal year 2026 shall be carried over
to fiscal year 2027 unless otherwise prescribed in MGL. Okay. Thank you. Any discussion on this um thing we have to do over here? All right. All those in favor?
I I said it before, I'll say it again. Thank you, Crown Heads, the city hall for all. I mean, this is a good product. I know people aren't happy. I know there's a lot of It's a good project. It's a good product. You know, you put a lot of work
into it. I know the entire staff here did. So it's it it makes our job easier when it's all right there in front of us and there's no questions you know to wondering and that sort of stuff. So thank you father for the good
do even if we don't always agree. It definitely is a lot easier when it's you know I don't want people to think that it's just like a rubber stamp at this point or anything like that. Like it's the work's been done right. It's really great actually to not have to put
in that much scrutiny when like we used to find really obvious things and that was that was kind of sad cuz if you it's it it's like at at one point you're like do we need to have this board essentially look it back over and it's like well yeah sometimes you do
but if you've got you know a good um responsible start you don't you don't have to worry about that so Oh yeah, there's no public comment. No, that long done.
Um but uh yeah, so our next meeting will be May 20th, 2025, 6 p.m. City Hall meeting room right here, second floor and Zoom hybrid unless otherwise posted to continue these deliberations and recommendations if needed. Um as I said, we talked
about May 12th. um see what's up and if uh perfect timing if if May 12th, you know, there's nothing blaring that, you know, you guys have come up with. Um then we will probably cancel that
meeting and just use the recommendations we had tonight to go to full council on the 21st. um if for some reason something comes up again at next week's meeting um or uh or in the meantime that we need to deliberate about then we can
have that meeting but we will I'll let you all know on the 12th say one more thing I'm sorry I'm sorry public comments overhead paper that you could pass around because I have one of it on Mark Snow's expenses
Somebody asked about that took one copy to his extensive the last couple of years. You know who somebody was? I can make a photo. Somebody I think Michael asked Michael asked about it. So yeah, I can
make a photo copy. It'll take make five. Oh, here's another extra. We have two make four. Paper's expensive. No, no, that got cut. You're no longer buying by the ring. You should buy by the sheets.
Have to reuse that paper somewhere else, too. Thank you. All right, with that, I'd take a motion to adjurnn. Took so long. I don't know. I second so I didn't want to All right. Uh, all those in favor I I
and our meetings adjourn at 8:34 p.m. That's amazing. [Music]