Hi everyone, welcome to Facebook Live. I'm Mayor Elizabeth Fagan and I'm here with CFO City Administrator Tammy Baldwin. Um Tammy, fun fact about Tammy, her great greatgrandfather was the second mayor of Summit. And another fun
fact, uh she is uniquely positioned because she is both the CFO and the city administrator here in Summit. and that makes her overly qualified to answer all questions, budget and otherwise, and she has a really unique perspective about how things work in the city of Summit.
So, with that, I think we'll start. Would you like to say anything to introduce yourself? Thank you, mayor, very much. Um, yes, as the mayor stated, uh, my great great-grandfather was the, uh, second mayor of Summit, so it's pretty cool, um, ending up here my career. So, I'm
super happy about that. and I grew up here. So, um, my heart is here in Summit. Um, as well as my brain every day working on all things budget. Um, I probably should say that the budget is really a year- round process for those
of you who everybody has a budget at home, right? So, you budget your income and you budget your expenses um, in a much greater way. That's what we're doing here in the city of Summit. But, it does run all year long. So the process begins right now about a month
ago actually right after Labor Day. We send out uh the email to all the department heads to get ready and prepare your budgets for 2026. So they are in the process of doing that now and we will be putting that all together to
uh go into finance committee and to all of the committees. actually they first go to their own committees whether they're uh caps or public safety admin policies. So you'll go to your own committee with your budget and then it comes to finance and we go through all
of the budgets and put the whole big picture together of what we're looking at overall to determine where we're going to be with our tax rate, where we are with revenues coming in for the for the uh subsequent year. And that's based on what we took in the previous year.
That's a lot. So, are you saying that pretty much every day you eat, sleep, and breathe the budget? At least a little bit. At least a little bit. But I'm a budget nerd. I love it. I love it. We appreciate that. Um, before I forget,
uh, if you do have questions, if you're watching at home, pop them into the comment section. We have our communications officer monitoring for questions, and if we have time at the end, um, we will certainly get to those. So, um, so Tammy, um, common question
that I get from residents is where do my taxes go and what do they fund? So, that's a really big question and we could probably talk for an hour just about that. So, you're right, mayor, we could uh, it's interesting because I came out of corporate and went into government into
local government and I really did not understand until I got into local government where did my taxes go. Why do I pay taxes? I paid it with my mortgage as many people do until your mortgage is paid off. But I really never understood what it went to pay for. And I think a lot of people don't and that's that's
very common. Um here in Summit round about 49 to 50% 49 to 51% in any given year goes to the school budget. Uh as you know we don't control their budget. We do have members of council
and yourself on the board of school estimate and there's some guidance and there's some oversight but by no means is it controlled. Um then you have 21%ish
going to yeah roughly um going to the city and that's paying for everything. So, there is this handy little snapshot that goes out every year. I love this because um Jenny and I work on this together with also other department
heads and it gives you a real snapshot of everything that's in the budget and it breaks down the dollar. So, um I always say that you get the most bang for your buck at the municipal level because what you're getting at the
municipal level is your public safety. That's your police and your fire. You're getting your garbage and your recycling picked up and your roads taken care of by DPW and all of your parks and and so much more that they do and and then your general staff here at city hall taking
care of business. Oh, and not to forget DCP and all the great programming that they do. So, you really get a lot of services at the local level for the smallest piece of your taxes. So, wait. So, you're telling me that So
I pay $1 in taxes, half of that goes to the little mini board of ed and then only 20% of it runs the rest of the city and then you have I just want to be clear. Then you have the county, right? So, um,
and a lot of people do use services at the county, but you your more common everyday services that you use are right here at the municipal level. And we use 20% of that to do that to manage all of that. 21%.
How do you do that, Tammy? It's amazing, isn't it? It's amazing. It I'll tell you what, it is a very It's a balancing act. It's a lot of difficult decisions. the common council and the mayor. I make recommendations um based on my experience and I've been doing
budgets that's why I started in municipal government. So I love the budget. I just think it's fun. Um it's like a math equation, you know. So and in New Jersey, interesting fact, not like the federal level where you can have a budget with a deficit. We can't have that. Your expenditures must equal
your revenues. So you are not getting a budget approved by the state for introduction or adoption. if your revenues and your expenditures don't match. So that's how they go into the budget. You can have situations where um
you anticipate revenues. They're based on you can't anticipate a revenue for more than you collected in the previous year unless you can justify it and they need supporting documentation for that. But for example, interest on investments, we were holding a lot more
money in um 24. So, our interest on investments was way up. Even though the rate is a little better than 25, we weren't holding as much money. So, it's a little bit below. I'm watching it really carefully. I'm waiting to see where it comes in. So, so there's things
like that that you have to watch. And I think one of the one of the real challenges is it's really difficult to find new streams of revenue. That's the that's the really challenging part. So, can you give some examples to
residents about kind of where where the 20% that you're sort of in charge of allocating, where does that go? Give me some examples of what what we use that for. Okay. So, that covers um all salaries for your um public safety for your
police, your fire, all of your DBW, all the salaries in the city. What's DPW? What's Department of Public Works? I'm sorry. Department of Public Works. What's DCP? DCP is your department of community programs. Most often people know it as
recreation programming. Um so the operating budget covers all salaries and all operating expenses. And those operating expenses consist of what the departments need. Um it might be uh contracts and purchases of police radios
and contracts for the services to run those radios. Uh there's a lot of things that go in. Another big factor is um our debt service for all of the capital projects that we undertake to the infrastructure of the city and the improvements that we make to parks and
to um our general infrastructure, vehicles, things like that. You know, fire apparatus, um safety equipment. So, debt service is included in that budget, repaying that. A lot of times you're repaying that over depending on the
useful life, 20 to 30 years. um insuranceances, liability, cyber, health insurance. Can we talk about the health insurance since that's Do we want to? I mean, it's a kind of a hot topic right now and it is educate the residents on
why that's a hot topic and what's happening in that world right now. Um it's a it's a tough world. Reading a book on it actually. And it's not it listen, it's a national problem. It is not just a Summit problem or a New Jersey problem. Um, but the
long and the short of it is that the employees here in the city of Summit uh as as many municipalities across New Jersey are in the state state health benefits plan um that plan has gone up
over the past three years almost 50% just about 50%. And it is um predicted with the new rates just coming out going up 37%. Which is just it's horrific when you're trying to put a budget together and you look at a 37%
increase. It's a 37% increase for the employees portion because employees here do pay into their healthcare. Um and it's a 37% increase to the city's expense for that. Um, so that's difficult to manage from a
from a city perspective, but also it's a real burden on on our employees, right? It is. It is. It's it's tough all it's tough all around. It's um it's going to be challenging. I think there's going to have to be some kind of in the future and hopefully in the near future some
some real relief. Something has to be done and it's bigger than um you know any one municipality can take on, right? it has to be some systematic change, you know, at a at a higher level. Um, you mentioned I want to go back to
um you mentioned sort of the board of education budget and I I get a lot of questions about this. So, I want to touch on it a little bit again. Um just that you know you're you as a CFO of the city h and the city administrator have no oversight really over the board of ed
budget and that budget is is sort of a separate entity. They're going through a similar budget process at the board of education. But who drives that? That is driven by that's driven the superintendent and the school administrator and the board of education. Uh it was interesting because
this year that came up a lot right because the increase was a little on the high side and um the question came up a lot and I said it's I don't I don't control that. I don't have any oversight over it. What I find out is where the levy is and so I can work that into my
equation for what the tax bill is going to look like. Can you explain that sort of in um dumb doctor terms? So um people terms the levy is is made up of each rate. So
what goes into we talked about 21% going to municipality right of that whole dollar um there's a tax levy rate and that is made up of your library of your county of your county open space of your municipal tax levy of the school um and
the school's debt service. So if if you looked at a tax levy s there's six or seven categories. Um the library is c it's a calculation. It's called a third of a mill. The state tells you this is what you're going to raise for the library this year. The school comes in and says this is what we need. Um the
one thing I do for the school because we're a type one um school district and there's only a handful of those in New Jersey. I waited to to the latter part of my career to go work at a type one. It's pretty interesting. So uh but I do issue debt on behalf of the school. So they tell me what they need. The board
approves it. It's not like I have oversight there either, but I do issue debt on their behalf. So, I do handle that part of it for them. Great. Thank you. Sure. Um, all right. So, let's see. Let me see what else we've got here. Um, so the
budget, so let's talk about the timeline of the budget. You said that you kind of eat, sleep, and breathe the budget sort of year round every day. You you touch the budget some in some way, but can you kind of describe the process? So you mentioned, you know, sort of September
after um Labor Day, kind of sitting down with the department heads or asking them for their ideas or their feedback. Um so starting there, what what does the process look like from your perspective? So we have a we have a little calendar that goes out to help guide everybody. Uh we send that out on Labor Day, uh
right when we come back on the Tuesday after usually. And we ask that, for example, this year all uh budgets be entered into budget prep. That's our financial software and um so everybody gets it in there. We are kind of riding
it right now. Myself and our finance director, Jennifer Kabalisa, we're we're writing it and saying, "Hey, what's not in there yet?" And we can fill in some of the blanks, debt service and various other things. Um, we also take care of salaries because it's it's
um it's very specific and and not everybody knows what every person's salary should be or what it's going to change to based on a salary ordinance or on a on a contract, right? A union labor contract. So, we take care of the salaries for everybody. They take care
of their operating. Um, everybody has that. In a perfect world, we have it by the 15th by Thursday. Um, or sorry, Wednesday. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow's the 15th. Wow, that went fast. How does that feel? I feel like that's feels like we're slipping from a perfect
world into a really good world and we'll probably have it, I would say, by Monday. Um, but we shoot for, you know, the moon and land on the stars. Um, everybody's super busy here, so we try to accommodate, we try to help. So, we get that together. And then I think I mentioned you'll you'll talk to your
committees. Um, for example, community programs. uh Marcus Rosski will go and David Guida and they'll come in and they'll go to CPPS that's the committee that they're in and they'll talk about their budget so that their committee is either in support of or they say you
know their committee might have an idea we want to include this or you know what this year maybe we don't want to do this so there's a little wiggle room there um and then it comes to finance in January so I'm kind of skipping over capital for a moment just sticking with the operating budget um so So it comes to
finance in January. Um and then we meet every Thursday for finance committee as you well know you've been on that committee um and still are. So we meet every Thursday through January, February and into March to go through all of those budgets and and find out where we
are. The state provides a statutory dates. you have to so statates are introduced by February 28th and adopt by April it's usually 26 or 28th um they change them almost every year and they
extend it so it'll be like you know your last meeting your it'll be like March 30th or your first meeting thereafter so um sometimes you'll see us adopting a budget in May or June right they'll extend the dates yes they'll extend the
dates or this year it was just it was a big one and we were we were a little past the statuto date but you know nothing happens because of that. Um I like to get them done as soon as possible because it's easier to run
you know while you've got an adopted budget in there. Can you explain why that is? I don't so you know. Yes. So, so when the mayor says that I eat, sleep, and breathe a budget at at, you know, some part of the budget all year long, once we've adopted
a budget, we're already looking at our reports and we're running budget revenue reports and we're looking at where we are. Where are we with expenditures? Where are we with revenues? How much have we collected percentage- wise as compared to last year this time in this certain revenue? How much have we spent in this certain expenditure compared to
this year last time? So having the adopted numbers in there makes it easier for me to see what's really happening. Um and then it's also easier because you'll be going through this process if if anybody out there pays attention to
the resolutions on the meetings. You'll see like in January I do an original budget appropriation. It's a temporary budget appropriation and then they make you call it an emergency every time you have to add to that. It's not an emergency. They only let you put 26.25%
in your budget for temporary purposes, but a lot of times we have contracts and certain expenditures. They're right up front at the beginning of the year. So, I can't have 26%. So, I keep putting these resolutions before council saying temporary emergency, you know, emergency
to the temporary budget and I hate that they call it emergency because it's not an emergency. We planned it. We know it. This is what we need to do. But this is just the system and kind of the red tape of the budget rules that we state sort of dictates how the process there in. Okay. They do.
Um and so speaking of the state, you mentioned um that you need the budget to be approved by the state. Can you explain what that how that works, what that means and as a municipality? Yes, I can. And uh we are suffering the
last few years. So, so the state allows you to do a self-exam on your budget if some things are not present. So, every third year they review your budget. We because of COVID, if if anybody recalls,
we had to take out um do a special emergency because we lost a lot of revenue at the train station, right? We we lost like around a million dollars, a little over a million dollars um in revenue and we rely on that revenue to run the city. It comes into the parking
utility. Part of that comes over to the general budget to help with everything. So um that was tough. We had to to do the special emergency and a special emergency has to be paid back over five years. And the whole time that you're in that repayment period, you're not allowed to do a self-exam. So the state
has to look at your budget. So, you send your budget and all your supporting documentation to the state and they go through it with a fine tooth comb. Um, I've never had them not come back to me for something. They just want they Yeah, they always want something. They want, you know, an additional supporting doc
for this or where's the paperwork for this grant. There's always there's always something some little thing that they get. So, but they do ask for a lot. So, it's quite a process and can delay the adoption of the budget. Well, you can you can you you know if you're like me, you you're the
squeaky wheel and you're emailing and saying, "Hey, just a reminder. Is there anything else you need?" Waiting on the approval. You know, trying to get ahead of it to make sure that that they approve it in time and and I'll put it on an agenda and I'm like, "Please,
please, please let them approve it." So, yes. Right. So, so um the there's a there's a a cap on property tax increase. So, can you speak a little bit to that and like why that
is, what that means and and how that sort of interacts with what you just talked about. So, there's two caps, right? And the one people don't talk about a lot, right? The 2% property tax levy cap. I think a lot everybody knows about that. Um, but that means that
you can't go up more than 2% on your property tax levy on the municipal portion. Everybody else, you know, county and I think the county might have something set, but I don't I don't see it. I don't know what that is. Um, the school, but we have a municipal property
tax cap at 2%. um within the budget we have a um it's called a cap um levy. So that means all of your appropriations inside the budget um that
are inside cap which is almost everything um that can't go up if you adopt a certain resolution. It can't go up by more than three and a half%. When when something an example of what might be outside of CAP is this year I
think for 2026 I I think the state is going to have to do something because they realize that when you increase health benefits by 37%. Sure how 2% is going to work right because not that it means it would go up
37% of course but you know 37% on tax on on health benefits is a lot like that's that's it's going to be a challenge. U so we work within those two caps, the the
appropriations cap and the property tax levy cap. An interesting thing about the appropriations cap though that people don't understand like when you say we came in under the cap bank, we came, you know, $600 and something,000 under the cap bank and people are like, "Woo, we
have extra money. How about we use that for taxes?" So the cap bank isn't really extra money. It really just lets you say your expenditures are 50 million and the the um the appropriations cap would let you go to 51 million but you only went
to 50 million five you have 500,000 of wiggle room but doesn't mean you have $500,000. I don't know if that makes sense to people but so you don't go get to spend $500 extra thousand willy-nilly. No, that's probably a good thing as a t as a
taxpayer. I think that's gen generally good. Um, so what happens if the budget, the sort of proposed budget or the asks sort of exceed what the what the city can afford? So, we didn't touch on cap capital budget um really yet, but you
know, I think that's probably a place where you make harder decisions sometimes or what. So tell me, take us through the process of how you make tough decisions. And it's obviously not just your decision, but what's the process around that when you're looking at a budget and you're like, we we can't
afford it. Like I can't buy the $17 billion house and whatever. So So what you have to look at, I mean, on the operating budget side, you you have to look at what your what your revenue streams are. Um, and let's say
you push it to, but you don't do that upfront, but I'm just using this as an example. Let's say you push it to a 2% tax levy cap and then you look at all your other revenues. Actually goes the opposite way. You look at all your revenues and then you see where you need to be based on your expenditures. If if you're not
in line, if your expenditures are more than your revenues, you revenues are hard to come by. Like there's nowhere else to really go for that. So now you're looking at your expenses and figuring out what are we going to cut out of here. Um
the capital budget, a little bit of the capital budget as you know is inside the operating budget and that's the 5% down payment. So that might be a place where you might say well you know what if we do a mill every
million dollar worth of capital improvement that we do is $50,000 down payment in the operating budget right? So, if we have, you know, 500 million, uh, I'm sorry, 5 million.
Yeah. I wish our problems would be over. Hold on a second. I haven't seen that much yet. If we had 5 million in capital, that'd be 250,000. So, let's say we wanted to cut a h 100,000 out of the operating budget. We might say, hey, you know what? Is there is there $2 million of
capital that we could can we push that? Is it is it a critical infrastructure need then then we can it's a priority right but is it something that can wait is it something that can be done in a couple phases maybe playground um was my next question is it okay so that was done in a couple
phases right we raised half the money and then the other half of the money so um there are there are creative ways to still do things um and and move around a little bit we can talk about the capital budget later I want to talk about maybe that's okay so let's talk about maybe because
um it has and it's been a conversation for a couple of years and you talked about phases and so can you take us through sort of why it took us so long to get here and we are excited. This is going to happen. Yeah. Know this is this is a great project. I think everybody in town is excited and should be. I mean this is
the first major inclusive park. I think this is going to be phenomenal. I can't wait to see it packed with people. It's going to be really exciting. Um, so what we did was we we raised part of the money in one, you know, just to take the
pressure off of the operating budget, we raised some of the money in one year. We raised additional monies in another year. We did fundraising and and had some donations also. Um, trying to think maybe you also had a grant.
I was going to say, so when you say raised money in one year, what do you mean by that? Oh, so so what I mean is we put it in capital. So I don't remember, don't hold me to the exact numbers. I have to look at my budget document because there's so many
parks and so many things going on. But let's I think one year we rate we put $250,000 in the capital budget and another year we put 300 or 350 to get there. Um so we just took the pressure off a little bit and it takes time, right, to also design all of these
projects and that it takes time with grants and to meet all the requirements of certain grants. You know, certain grants are a heavier lift than others in terms of what's required to be undertaken to get the grant. So, can you speak a little bit to that? So, grants are a place
where we, you know, that's a revenue that's a little bit more dynamic than a lot of the things we talk about, right? It's not really a revenue, but it's a way that we fund things. So, um some of the grants are 100% funded, right? and some of them we are in the hook for a
certain portion of them or like right can you speak to that a little bit? Yeah. So um grants are actually they go in the budget as a revenue and they go in the budget as an expense because every grant right is is specifically for something. This grant is for maybe
playground. This grant is for the installation of uh basketball court at this site or what have you. So, um, the grant has to be on both sides of the equation. Um, forgive me, I lost my I lost my train of thought.
I was just asking about, so some of the grants, depending on where you get the grant, um, some of it is, you know, kind of I'm going to call it free money. Yes. Like the money street that we talk about all the time. And sometimes we are on the for some portion, correct? So, can you speak to that?
So, yes. I'll give an example like the um the DOT grants for roads. Most of those are 75% funded and 25% by us when we get a grant through them. Uh the caveat to it is that we have to it's
a reimbursement grant. So we get reimbursed once we can prove we've paid out all of this money. So we will actually budget for the entire road. Let's say it costs um I I'm going to pick a road. Let's let's say Springfield Avenue. If we did like the entire
length, then probably I'm completely wrong on this one. I'm going to say, let's just call it a million dollars for these purposes. It probably would be much more. Um, but let's say we would get 750,000 from DOT and 250,000 would come from us. Problem is, I have to have
the whole million up front to pay for it. So, in the capital budget, I'm putting a million dollars. Eventually, I'll get that 750 back and I can I can cancel that 750. I can reappropriate it for a different road. There's all kinds
of ways that you can work with that. Thank you. Sure. Um let's talk about our bond rating. What does it mean and how does it affect the city finally? So, this is awesome and and I walked into this. Yeah, I I like bragging about
it, but I in all fairness, I walked into um a city that is wellrun for a long time in terms of the and the bond rating. I walked into a city where all three rating agencies uh rate us AAA which is really cool. So
how common is that? Oh, it's not very common. It's not very common. I think there was a handful. Now, now a lot of municipalities will go out for one rating. So they'll either go to movies or fits or standards. They won't go for all three. Um it is costs a
little bit more money but it is impressive and when our bonds or our notes go out for sale I think it carries a lot of weight people we get good bids we get a lot of
um attractive biders we get good rates so basically having aa by three rating agencies allows us to borrow money cheaper than somebody else might be able Yeah, it is. It's so awesome. And you have to, you know, the thing is that I
don't know. It's not it's not easy. So, every year that you go out and you sell bonds, like I sold them for the school and um in 2026, if the conditions are favorable, I'll be selling them for the city. It's about every three years because you want to put together a
sizable portfolio. Um it's more attractive and the cost of issuing bonds are easy to spread over more money instead of small issue. Um, so you have to go through these calls with all three reading agencies and they'll send you a
list of some of the questions. They look at all your financials. They want all of your they want your AFS, they want your budget, um, they want your debt statements. They want it all. And then they have a million questions about everything from like your cyber security policies to your capital budget. They
want to see how you're managing your infrastructure and if you are taking care of your infrastructure. They want to what does your management look like? They want to know staffing. They want to know what that looks like. What's what's turnover even? I mean, they really go very very deep. Um they're I think
they're fun calls because like I never know what's going to come at me, what they're going to ask. They give you some ahead of time. Uh but I find it really interesting because you also learn what the trends are that they're looking at, you know. Interesting. Yeah, it is interesting. How does that inform decisions that you
make? How do those cause informative decisions that you make going forward? They they can sometimes so sometimes right something will come up about um the last couple of years I'd say two three years there's been a lot of talk of course about cyber security you know
it's something that like you know you go to bed like oh gosh you know praying that everything's going to you know nothing's going to happen and you do your best to to have your um it in check to have your training with your staff you do all that but so some of the questions that they ask you that kind of
lead you down a path said to, "Oh, you know what? I should have a policy about this." So, we have a fund balance policy. And that came out a years ago, a meeting with one of the rating agencies, and they were like, you know what? We like to see um you know, around, you
know, somewhere 20 to 30% in a fund balance. And I was like, I need to have a policy, right? And it works. It's great. So it does influence some of the things that you do and it's kind of like it's a good way to come up with new best practices,
yourself a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. Great. Um, all right. So, what do you think is the biggest challenge in managing the city's budget and meeting community needs? Um, and you can say that Summit is an
extraordinary town and there we have high standards here. So, have high standards. It's sometimes challenging. Um, no, I'll say it for you. We do have high standards, but I mean, just look at this. It's a beautiful place to live. It's a beautiful place to
work um and to visit. And um you want to you want to keep that you want to keep that character. You want to keep the level of services. um the taxpayers here, the residents, they pay a lot of money in taxes and they deserve
to have good service for that. And I think we're fortunate here. I think that the the all of the departments, that line staff, I mean, from the bottom to the top, I think everybody really cares about the the kind of work, the quality of work that they do, and they take
pride in their work here. And I think that shows when you're out and about. Um I couldn't have been more excited when I walked in all all mums are outside the corridor and by the train station they're beautiful, right? Um so you want to maintain the level of
service. I think that's really important. I think that's always a driving factor in the budget. Um and and you want to add to it where you can and where it's appropriate and where it's most needed if you you know if you're able to do that. Um this year it's going
to be a tough year. I've been thinking about it a lot since the I know you have. But I also keep saying it's gonna work out. We're It's going to work out. It's like a puzzle you put together. Mastermind. Listen, it's gonna work out. There's a team of people working on it and we will
figure it out. There's always challenges. This this year it happens to be health insurance. Okay. Excellent. Um and we sort of you we you sort of touched a little bit on capital um budget. Do you want to talk a little bit more about that?
Sure. Um, capital there's capital workshop. I think it's December 10th this year. Ninth or 10th? I don't remember off the top of my head. I don't remember either, but stay tuned. December. Um, I think it's I think it's a really interesting workshop. Public is
allowed and should come and participate. Um, last year we tried something different with my presentation. I didn't love the way that went, so we're going to go back. It was hard for people to see. Um, I think the presentation portion was fine, but I think just the the graphics
um with the software I was trying didn't present as well. Yeah. So, we're trying to figure So, I was trying to figure that out. Um, so I think going back to Canva, it's just more graphically um appealing to the eye to be able to see there. The level of detail was like it's fun to
play with. So it was try this is a more digestible sort of public facing correct conversation to sort of explain where the capital improvements are what what the sort of capital allocations are. Is that correct? Correct. And so um
and that's a that those are proposed capital capital not that that still won't have been voted on and that's something that you know is sort of a discussion. Right. So, as soon as the as soon as the department heads finish putting their operating budgets in those
requests, they're working on capital and what their needs are and that is also going to committee and that is also coming to finance. Uh if you recall last year, um we prioritized everything in terms of capital and had
every department had say like in order of priority what's the most important to you? Um, listen, there's some there are some critical infrastructure needs that we have and and you can't, you know, can't run away from them for too long. They show themselves eventually. So, um,
we did have a a fairly large, you know, 10 million and change in capital. That's a decent size, but we had some things that we couldn't ignore that needed to be addressed and dealt with. Um, so we're dealing with those and we'll see
what they bring forth this year. we talk about it. The interesting thing that we also do always is we look at um we project out the debt service. So here's today's debt service, what we already have on the books, here's what the department heads are proposing, and
here's what this would look like if we did all of this. So you kind of get a sense of where does that take us, right? Um so it's interesting and then you have to play around with that and see, as I said earlier, 5% of that as a down payment goes in the budget. So, you have to see where you're at. I mean, maybe
this year it's a little bit lighter and and you wait and maybe the following year it's a little bit more just depending on how all the moving parts, all the cogs of the wheel kind of fit together. Great. Do we have other questions coming
in? No. What else um do you think the public should know about the budget process? the way that um you interact as a as a C in in your CFO role um with department heads or is there anything else that you you want to share with the public about any of that?
Um well, I think I think it's important to know that uh people have all kinds of different ideas. You hear all these these uh swanky terms, you know, zerobased budgeting or this other term for budgeting. Um the department heads here, they really go through their
budgets and and I've been telling them this is going to be a tight year. So I think you say that every year, every every day when I see you, but it works. But it works, right? Um so they're watching it. Um you know, of
course they have ways in which they're trying to figure out how to make their departments better, different technologies maybe or different um contract services that will help them in the jobs that they do. Um, whatever it may be. So, you have to balance all of
that. Um, but they're not coming in and saying like, "Hey, here's my pie in the sky. Last year I had, you know, 60,000 in operating budget and this year I need 260." That doesn't happen, you know. So, because you would be like, "Take it
back, try again, come back a little bit later with something better than that." Um but but I think in a way people often say that term to me that's zerobased budgeting. It really kind of is because you're looking at your budget and you're saying
okay well I have these few contracts maybe that I need to have um and I have these maintenance expenses that I need to have and now here's this new initiative that we're
working on. So you're not blowing it up. you're really looking at what do you need to have and I'll look at what they spent last year. Right. Right. So I'll look at, you know, I'll get a look at a operating budget comes in. Let's say let's pick on let's pick on Chief Peters for a minute just for
fun. So So let's say he he submits his operating budget and it's up, you know, $100,000. This has not happened. This is a just, you know, scenario. This is just a scenario. Um, but he might say to me, well, that's because we have an
initiative where we need to I know one of the things you've been talking about is more cameras, right? We need to get more cameras in certain places. That's important that we might need to do. I'm not saying that's the $100,000, but whatever it might be. He may have a very good reason for asking for an increase. And then we just have
to decide how that fits in with everything else that we're doing. Um, in some cases, I'll look at something. If there's not a particular initiative like that, I'll say, you know, can you go back and just look at this because you asked for 80,000 in this line last year,
but you only spent 45. So, do you really need the 80 like or can we get that down to 60, you know? So, there's a lot of back and forth. I'm just going to That was exactly the word I was going to use. So, the back and forth happens from sort of September to really January, right?
Oh, yeah. And then again even further until it's the budget is introduced. Um and t talk about the process for you mentioned it a little bit but um when the budget gets introduced at a council meeting and then what's sort of the
there's a period of time that has to elapse. There's like some things that have to happen between that and when the budget is actually adopted. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yes. Yes. So um as you know it's not just me saying hey what can you do right when it gets to your committee and then when it gets to the finance committee
there's further discussions around that um and and finance committee is looking at that and within the committees um the other committees they're looking at that so there there can be a lot of change over that January and February right so I'm working to get something that I can
introduce that's solid right so so that I don't have to amend it because that's a whole process and could could trigger a whole another readvertisement um based on certain factors and it's complicated. So I won't like dig you know deep into that right now. Um but in terms of the
the budget introduction you have to have um 28 days minimally 28 days between introduction and adoption. Um so there's a hearing. So that's Yeah. So, so the introduction comes, we um usually get
this lovely snapshot out uh before the hearing so that residents can see. Um budget documents are huge. I love them because they're a little, you know, putting it all together. I think it's neat. Not everybody loves that. Not everybody's budget nerd, but um this is
awesome because it it just points out the the highlights of the whole budget. you can, you know, for the for most folks, you can look at this and know what you need to know about it. Um, and those actually go to everybody's mailbox, but they also are available in
city hall and in the library um and online as well. And online. Yep. So, you can um you can take a look at this. But the reason they do that is um the state law requires it so that the budget is introduced and people have time to digest it. And then
when you have at the adoption is your public hearing. So that's where um I will do a presentation like I did this past year and kind of go deep into the budget. There was a lot of people here for this one. Very popular. It was a very very It was my most
crowded budget presentation hearing ever. Um I loved it. Um so it just gives time for people to digest it to come up with any questions they might have. And I get there are residents who who are super engaged in this. Um, and they're from introduction to adoption, they're
communicating with me. They might throw me ideas. They've looked at the introduced version of the budget and they might throw me some ideas or ask if they can have a meeting, come in and talk to me. And I'm always open to hearing. You never know when some idea works. Sure. Right. So, I say throw it
all at the wall and see what sticks. See what sticks. Yeah. Excellent. Um, house. Anything else we should know about the budget or your as your role as CFO? Or if not, then we can play a little game and I can ask you to talk
about your city administrator uh role. Um yeah, I think I think listen I quiz by the way. Yeah, let's talk. Um so I think I would say I think I've said a lot about the budget. Um if I've missed something and anybody out there watches this, you
know, I know you can watch it after the fact, right? It's recorded. So, please feel free to, you know, email or call if you have questions. I'd be happy to answer them. Uh, we have a great finance team. Um, it's coming back together. We've had some attorney less. We got all kinds of new babies in finance. It's
awesome. Um, so fun. Um, I don't I don't know if I've really missed anything in in kind of an overview of all of it. Um, I like I will say that I like finance is my thing. I was an accounting major in school. I
thought, you know, that I was going to go that route and I kind of did go that route, but I left the the corporate Ernstston Young for local government at some stage of the game. And I've been here 25 years now in local government. And I've I've done the CFO role and I've
done um the administrator role and now I'm doing both at the same time. So, it's many people that can do both. Well, so we're very lucky to have you. Thank you. It's It's a lot. It's uh but it's fun
and I think it gives me um a pretty unique perspective for sure, right? Because you know, you're not only putting together the budget, but I I have people that are helping me in finance obviously. Um and
but but you know, policywise where you want to go with it, right? So, so we've had the joke before where um when it gets pretty busy for me, like December, January, February is is really super super busy. Um and so I'll I'll walk
into a like a public safety committee meeting and I'll say, "Hey, um city administrator wants to know if the CFO can be excused." Right? That's like my tagline. Can I excuse myself from a meeting? I got to work on the budget. Um but there's a great team of people. So,
I couldn't do it without and the department heads, too. I mean, they they all know what they're doing, you know, those who are seasoned, those who are new at it. They're all really really good. And um everybody together really helps
make it work. Um so, okay. You might So, we don't have any questions. No question. All right. Well, thank you. This was very informative and um thank you for all of the amazing work you do Tammy
because we're really again I think we're really lucky to have you in both of those roles um and as a leader of our our city. So thank you and thank you for being here tonight. Appreciate Thank you mayor. I appreciate being here.