Good evening. All right, hold up. Now you can do it. Good evening. Today is Tuesday, August 12, 2025. Time is 6:03 p.m. at the
Wilson City Council second budget book shop. At this time, we will have roll call by Miss Mayor Goodman absent. President Hines here. Vice President Cox here. Council member Martin here.
Council member Rikio here. Council member Jones here. City Manager Sod here. Attorney Kristen Belaloo absent. Finance director Steven Bloom. City Clerk Lricia Wright I am here. And
all other staff here. Thank you. We will have opening prayer and pledge of allegiance led by Chief. All right. Yeah, I'm used to the mayor having it. I turn it off. Go ahead.
All right. Let us pray. Dear Lord, uh as we come here today gathered for this uh second budget uh workshop, Lord, we ask that you guide and protect our leaders. give them wisdom and knowledge as they make tough decisions uh that affects our city. Lord, we ask that today be a
blessed day uh a day of peace and comfort among all of us and that as our leaders make decisions that these decisions are made for the betterment of our community and for the betterment of all. We ask all these blessings in your name. Amen. Amen.
I pledge allegiance of the stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. At this time we will have public participation.
You will be allotted five minutes to speak. Please state your name. Please state your name and where you're from. You can pick on anything that's not on Northwest 225. Um I just curious is the
city going to put anything in the budget for the roads uh to be repaired that's really necessary and u what is the how much money does the city make on the electric bill that
come in Will there be anyone else who like to speak? If not, we will move on to item three, review of revised budget 2025 2026 and budget related matters. Finance director
Okay, good evening. Welcome to the number two of your workshops. Um, the last time I covered a lot of slides. Um, this time through I'm really only going to cover kind of the differences. Uh, what changed? I know there's a lot of
numbers and and getting a second thick book like this to go back through is is um is challenging. So I wanted to cover the big picture items as as to what really changed. Uh a lot of these are items from your work from your first workshop. So it's not necessarily
anything new. A couple of them were ones that were already planned as we were trying to uh bridge a gap in the utility fund. Uh but obviously in terms of our goals, really want to kind of get into the changes and then really open it back up for questions now that you've had a
little bit more time to digest and maybe see what this next version is. Uh, so we go go right into it here. Um, oh, before before I forget, this is kind of the rest of the calendar. I still have highlighted in there. Again, you have one more workshop um, if needed.
Um, and then from there, the two uh, public hearings um, are in September. They have to be in September. Um, they have to be after five o'clock. They both we put them in at 6 p.m. And again, those are the requirements. And obviously we've got to advertise before
the second public hearing. Uh the first uh public hearing um uh is done through the uh trim notice. And what I'm realizing here that I want to remind everyone is you have a um fire assessment meeting on September 10th. Um
I think that I forget which meeting you guys were talking about that but did one I should have put on here. But that's that's an important one. Obviously, that's your first um going through on the fire assessment and want to make sure everybody's comfortable with that. So,
okay. So, from there, um again, right into some of the changes. Uh so uh you know when you look at your total citywide budget and you compare it to your current year budget I mean.3% increase is pretty much um nothing in terms of
that. Now a lot of that is a fluctuation in capital between different projects. So I always like to show the number without capital projects. Uh so it's about a 6.3% increase. Again we're talking about your your the second version of the budget.
Um all of the funds are balanced now this version and again obviously you know it's open to have more discussions make changes that's the whole part of this but right now you're going into it with a a fully balanced budget uh utility you know uh fiber airport CRA
general fund is all balanced even after all the changes that we talked about and made uh on terms of the wages now uh the the excuse me the 3% is in there. Um, but I did take out for open positions. We talked about that at the last uh
workshop. So, all of those are taken out. The police department has their 7% that we talked about, which is again was the three that was already there uh plus the four. And as as a reminder, that money is offset by the chief uh not
purchasing a vehicle um as well as additional revenue coming in uh through the um traffic cameras. Uh so that is kind of covering that um the millage rate. So we went into the last version with a 7.0
millig rate. Uh this version is back to um 6.75. Um and remember that's been the same millage rate uh that we've had for four or five years. It's just been flat. We reduced the permitting revenue down
to 150k. Um, on good news, the uh premiums that you guys uh approved at your last meeting, that's about a 5.1% uh reduction compared to what was in the budget and I think it was like $500 per person savings. So, you know, again,
that's already flowing through here. Um, and certainly helps um increase fireworks to 50k. Um, it was asked about the Cornelius project. Got 300,000 in there now. Again, that's funded by grants, so it's not like that there's any funding gap in
that wise. Um, the traffic fines, and again, slow me down if I'm going too fast. I want to give you guys plenty of time to ask other questions. Um, traffic fines, we increased it a little bit to 200K. Again, very conservative with this number. First year through, we'll have
to see how it goes. We're very hopeful um that it is better, but uh the general fund mostly through the um premiums being reduced, we were able to increase the um reserve and we've talked about the reserve needing to go
up. So, we increased it to 155. And again, that is obviously first time you're seeing that. So, certainly could have other discussions where that might be needed. But again, we're definitely making this push to keep trying to get
as much as we can uh into reserves. And then uh the utility as well, again, uh the reduction the premiums um we put that into the uh cash reserves and that's 315,000. Another some more good news, um we've
talked about before about the over reliance on the transfer from the utility fund. Um this particular version of the budget is now down. I say down, but it's it is a reduction to $1.39 U million dollars that's being transferred. Um your current year as it
so you can know is about 1.54. So again, it's similar to what we're always trying to do with managed expenses. This is one of those things that over time the goal needs to be to reduce that over reliance for for many
reasons. Um no cash reserves are being used in this budget uh anywhere. You know again important part of that um on the airport it was requested to switch uh one position from part-time to full-time. Airport covers itself. Uh so there is
revenue there to cover this change. Uh it's nothing that affects anybody else. uh in terms of your uh utility rates um did not make any changes in what was in the prior budget. There's still the you know whatever the proposed increases
from your rate consultants uh included you've already you know been told and discussed the solid waste rate increase in order so that the city is not losing money on that particular service there's increase in there as well. Uh again
slide number five. It's a continuation. I I'll just keep going. Um again, I put on there about uh the fire assessment. Just want to keep that in the front of your mind about that being in your budget. Um, and then since the last version, uh, the utility
department really went through and scrubbed every line, I mean, I mean, one by one for every service, uh, to try and squeeze as much out. Um, what whatever, you know, couple thousand here, a couple thousand there, they really spent the
time. Obviously, Donald, John and the team did that. Um so those are kind of the big picture. I mean obviously there were some other smaller things that were were requested. We moved uh the purchasing allocation of salaries a
little more to fire uh than it was before. There was a couple other allocation changes really doesn't affect the dollars but it was just requested and that was that was done. Go to the next one. Yeah. So, uh, you know, we talk about
yeartoear we look at budgets. Um, this kind of chart just shows you a little bit of a trend over time. It is what it is. I mean, it's not like you can go back, but you know, you look at your, for example, your personnel or personal services back in 2022, it was a little
bit under 4.5 million. That's just I mean, that's personnel obviously that's all the benefits, pension, premiums, workers comp, all that good stuff that's rolled into that line. your budget for next year is 7.1. Um, so again, you're asked, I'm sure, quite a bit, why is the
budget going up? And I wanted to show you, you know, some historical information to give you some context to that. Operating, you know, back then 5.7 and almost um a little bit over 9.8 debt service, it's easy to tell you
where the loans you have outstanding. uh capital goes from year to year. But those two lines when you see that um you know even year-over-year that's an increase of about 1.9 million. Some of that is really an adjustment in your fuel cost with power. But you know I
just wanted to have that bring that up because I know even at your last um council meeting it was asked about some of the increases in rates. I mean you know the animal shelter is new within the last couple years. There's not like there's a revenue source for that. So that has to be funded from somewhere. Um
you've had quite a few compliance, you know, come through and say, "Guys, you have to have x number of people in here maybe compared to where they were three or four years ago when, you know, Donald and the team go into that." And then obviously the rising cost, you know,
pension, I mean, insurance, premium, service costs. I just wanted to kind of, you know, give some some some, you know, conceptual history on on on where this is going. These things are driven by factors, you know, fuel that are outside of the city's control, you know,
nationwide concerns that you're facing the same like any city, whatever size, cost of material. Um, I forget which which council meeting is where you had to spend a couple hours talking about poles, how much do they cost, which kind, how are you going to fund them?
Um, again, that's stuff every city that has a utility goes through and it's not something that you can, you know, you know, say, "I'm just gonna not pay that amount." You have to get your pulse. So, I want to just provide a little bit of perspective, just some some food for thought. Certainly, you can go through in a lot more details than what you're
seeing there, but um, you know, it just kind of when I saw it and I looked at this over the years, it's like, wow, that's that's only five years, you know, and just so much in the economy as a whole. Um and certainly some growth is into that. Um but again it gives some
perspective. Uh we talked about the reserves. Um I I haven't changed anything on on the amounts. You know again you heard from the auditors something we haven't talked about before. Um they say 25%. That's it's really kind of a great
number. Not everybody's I mean few cities do that 25%. I think it's just a reminder to draw a line. You know, we're not going to spend any more out of reserves. Like I've told staff, we're not going to be putting infrastructure through our um cash reserves. It's just
in this day and time with, you know, issues like hurricane costs. You know, it's just better to finance these projects very similar to what you did with Willis and Fiverr where you're funding the ROI over 15, 20 years when everyone's going to be putting in to pay
off that loan versus using cash out. A little bit of a change in what you maybe would have done five years ago, what other cities would have done five years ago when maybe was more expensive to borrow. People more reluctant to build that up. Now you got to kind of you got to do it a little bit more balanced approach. Um, and so that's
really kind of why we're just going to constantly be making sure we're we're um looking in on our cash reserves. I mean, the city does a great job staff looking for grants. You know, every time I'm always impressed, just the volume for a city of your size that you're looking
for. You don't get them all, but that's always the first thing everyone's thinking about. Where can I get a grant? whatever it is safety policies or or anything but um beyond that obviously um building a cash reserve I mean the last
couple years just with the hurricanes you know um your auditor was talking about the general fund that's because of hurricanes for those hurricanes and that was what a couple hundred thousand plan you can't tax for that you just have to go with it
eventually comes through Stephen, I have a question for you. Sure. I know the auditor said they would like 25%. Yep. Where are we at? It depends on the fund. I think she said six. Some of she she includes some
longer term um things between the funds. I don't but you know I I'm my goal would be more on 10 and 15% for you. I'm not because you have a utility because you know some cities don't have that utility. They get their their most of
their uh money once a year. You know the taxes they don't really have the flexibility. When you have a utility where you're getting funds every month have a lot more flexibility. uh um you know based on you know kind of the contribution I would we would want to get you guys at least 10% closer to 15
as you go slow not like hey we're going to do this tomorrow we're not going to put that burden but we're going to you know draw the line in the sand we're not going to you like if you remember two or three years ago um use a vehicle in general fund and we would use a little bit of our cash reserves been kind of
like the slow drip of of oil change on a car you know um now we're just kind of we're button that up and say no, you know, and that's staff has been doing a great job of making sure, you know, they bring in additional revenue sources to to do that. Um, but yeah, it's and I
think what the auditors are trying to get you, anybody when they make this discussion, because I've seen them do it in many cities, is always be thinking about your cash reserves. 25% is great, but it's very few cities unless you've got, you know, super, you
know, commercial is going to have 25% and again for a utility probably don't want it, but you want to be closer to 10 to 15. Um, that's where I would feel comfortable and I'd be comfortable presenting to you that number. And that's why when you look at your budget
now, um, we've got those lines in there. We're going to be hard and fast on those lines. when you get um changes from staff, the answer, you know, normally used to be a words that come and find. I've heard you guys ask them over and over again. If now when they come to
you, they're going to have to be where are we cutting to buy this? Is they've got good budgets. They've got everything in here. They're going to buy this. Then what aren't they going to get? Is they're not touching that cash reserve line. It's a little bit different. They had a little more flexibility. So let
you know now staff already knows this. to um get grants, you get additional revenue, you know, in, you know, because there's still a lot of growth hope in the utility partners. Um, then you can use that. But otherwise, it's not going to be there's no, no one's going to bring with you a request to use cash
reserves. Uh, $1.5 million. That's your 25%. That's 25%. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And again, it's not like it's not something that you can get to. It's just got it's just like any any other savings account. It's got to be consistent
annual every year. You put a little bit in there, don't touch it, and you once you look around and go, "Wow, it's five," you know, versus the other way. That's all we want to do is you always want it to be going up. And unfortunately with with where you're at the hurricanes
and you know just as a reminder we talk about FEMA um coming through even when they do some of this money like we're hopefully about to get a little bit back. It's like three years ago you know that so you get interest on
that. So you're floating that for three years. So that's the other reason why hey we got to have maybe a little bit more in there to keep covered because You don't know what's going to come. You know, some years, many years, very fortunate. You know, there've been very
minimal, hey, we got to fuel up the generators, you know, get some supplies and that's been it. Um, but then you have a couple other years where you're, you know, down 100,000 15,000 you got to use, you got to have something.
But this rate, we're looking at 10 years before we're compliant with that. Uh just being very conservative with it. Yeah. Uh you gota also keep in mind you know in your budget it's it's not I usually do a straight line approach. I mean I take your total budget divide it by 12
times three. There are line items in there for capital that if there was an issue you have just you know um push it out you know to help you manage your cash flow. So that's why it's really more about the process than it is about always trying to hey I'm gonna by 10
years I'm going to get to It's about Okay, what did you do this year? And just so you know, um two years ago, uh the general fund made about $75,000. Good, you know, very solid and then
hurricane, you know, and even this year, hurricane, you know, affected beginning um of your year to the tune of about 80 85,000 interest. You're referring to interest the $75,000 came. No, that was No, that was the bottom line in the general fund. Okay. Gotcha.
And and there have been many years where it's um you know it's made 10, it's made 15,000, it's not like it's been an upside down approach, but then when you get a year um with the hurricane, you know, like it had um
2024 and then started in 2025, it just it just reinforces the need um for your cash service. Oh, so anyways, that's uh um a top level. Um
certainly as as always I know there's topics that staff might want to cover. Um I have my old slides, I have old versions, I have the Excel file, whatever you know the pleasure of the council. So I have a question. Um on the
staffing plan that's the by department utilities have lineman A. They have the old I think the old employee Michael or is he still with us? Okay. So should that be put to zero
instead of left at 43? So put them Yeah, I'll switch it to open. I think you're talking about the increase. That was your Well, the increase, but you know, have the what is uh power is going to be.
Yeah, I I'll give it the staff to see what there I know there there's been a there's a tremendous pressure on that particular position um of all positions. That one has always had tremendous pressure in terms of
finding um candidates that price point, but I will certainly check in see what their plans are. Yeah. Utility line A. Yeah. Under utility service electric line A. That person no longer works
here. So it's the open position just like the line apprentice follow. probably started. Sure. I got a few questions already. Mine's towards the back.
On page four on the exam, we're talk about team count. I just think the team count for Willist Fiber should be three instead of two. And if not, tell me why. I mean, it shows three, but it says two.
is the second page of the decal. That's it right there because it says there's two currently you're adding one but then it says the budget has two. Is that partial and the net change is two? So I don't understand. Is that partial split out for the admin
system? No, I think I just need to zero that out. I think it's not it's not floating across. So when I zero that out, I think Yeah. Yeah. That's And that's all there. Only two. I just I'm looking for because there is only two. Yeah. That fixed version.
On the next page, um, under city administration, it's now showing the administrative assistant as full-time instead of part-time. Her hours are full are part-time still, but it's in the count. She's included as full-time.
So, if we're going to talk count, I'm just pointing that out. So, should it be six and a half instead of seven? What I'm saying? And if not, fine. I just noticed the discrepancy. Um, you're talking about the difference between the team count. Yes, sir.
I the um there's only one position in the city that I actually split because it's one person doing two places. Everybody else, whether part-time or fuller, one, just count them as a 185. Yeah. Because years ago, I used to do that and then there was 0.25 here and
0.5 here. It was driving people crazy. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Except for that one person who really literally does half the position in one and then half the other. Otherwise, there is no half of even if they are part-time. I just want to make sure I do have within the staffing plan,
I have that listed as parttime for total of 1660s. It was just the count that I didn't think was right. And under the animal control, it looks like we have taken away a cleaning person.
Move down into facilities. Moved. I did notice that. So, it's really just was requested to be moved to um so it's just basically that whole dollar amount uh the whole position just got moved down. There's no allocation. but also in the general
and in the police department. The police captain is really a major. Yeah, I know I'm being picky here, but No, this is the time to do this. And on the next page, is the public works administrator an administrator or
a supervisor? I don't know the real title. Um, everybody else's supervisor. That's why I'm asking that question. I believe and and um that it's public
works administrator, but ask HR to be able to give us that answer or be able to look it up for us anyway. In admins, he is listed as the administrator. Okay.
And that must have changed because he was that that I have no idea. Yeah. I don't know when it was was changed. It was just requested of me during our um department meetings that um this position was converted to public works administrator.
Who told you that? Unless I and again apologize if I misunderstood something. We did not change in other words we did not change Edmonds for anything. So I don't know that part of it that I guess Mr. Barbara am I way off on
this? I was your former city manager part of the uh change up for stuff staffing plans all that kind of stuff. Um, we have a field supervisor that the former city manager created and that field supervisor supervises the staff directly
and I have more administration. I handle the resolution, the ordinances, administrative tasks. So that was a change that I didn't make. Somebody else made. Who made it? I just said the former city manager. Okay. So when I asked for the hierarchy
of how things went, you were under supervisor. You were not administrator. I don't I don't produce those papers this time. You ask me a question, I'm giving you the answer. And I didn't know it either. That's why I asked. That's one of my You can call me whatever you'd like.
It's irrelevant. Yeah. No, it was on the budget last year. That's why I had I did make that change. I mean, the electric the electric supervisor is supervisor, not administrator. He does essentially the same thing. He's administrator. Terry, this is the change that Terry
made back in October just before you let him know that he changed the title. Well, when I asked Sue since she has been here to give it to me, he is listed as a supervisor. That is the hierarchy
of it. And then you have CH. So our question is if it's been changed, when was it was it changed? But if the supervisor I mean the director doesn't know the manager doesn't know. We're trying to figure out when
Well, if he didn't tell his person who relieved him for city manager position, then just saying that he's the one that did it and then for me to ask for the plan and it doesn't show him as an administrator
saying that he did And then Mr. Barber told him to change it, which is not what he should be doing. If it's going to come from anybody, it should come from the city manager. Do you want us to change it back to supervisor? I I would just say let's pull the
paperwork and see track the paperwork and see if it was changed on the paper that meant that um city manager did. If he did, then he did. He did. But we were unaware of And it it looks to me like Mr. Miller
was moved from gas to water. Is that a true statement? I mean, his his from just from the last last budget sheet to this budget sheet, he's been moved. Mr. that agreement. Uhhuh. The locator position for budgetary purposes was put into the gas
department. So he was uh interviewed and accepted the locator position that the council created. That position is being specifically placed in the gas department. So that's why you see the switch. He changed position except it's showing in water. That's why I'm asking that question. In the last
one we had two weeks ago, he was in gas. Now he's in water. Well, that's which is perfectly fine if that's where you want him. I I don't know the change beyond that. The previous budget he was put into that because of the locator if if and I'm okay with that. Stephen found if Stephen found a way to balance the water that may have been
something that was done on a financial that was specifically done just because when you look at your gas services budgetary issue. Yeah, it was really more about it was one of those um in between positions and um gas which we are really really trying to find ways
uh to get that service to stand on its own. That was the smaller way um to kind of move it. So we we had that discussion. So he got moved to water. He just got moved to water. Okay. And like I said, I'm fine with that. It was just the difference from last budget to this one. And that's why
I'm talking about it. Um I see that the electric department adjustments are entered here. Um I and I know it's a totally different issue on the 20 2023
dollars. I assume we're going to try to do that out of this budget that we're currently in instead of the one we're talking about tonight. Okay. Or is that not a subject for tonight? I just want to make sure we don't forget about it.
So just to follow up with that, there is money in our 2025 budget or 2024 2025 budget cover the back pay including because it's not just it we
talked ballpark 50 to 60,000 we've got that I think you will by year end because you got some more open conditions um you to do it. And again, it's one of those things where you unless you can split it
between two years, you're gonna have to take it at some point. And I never heard the dollar amount. I know Selena was working on it. Um but I never heard it. So I I come up with that. I did it.
I did it. Oh, you did it. I say, "Who's saying that?" Yeah. Who said that? I was looking straight at Selena and I knew she wasn't doing it. Yeah, I did it. Uh, the 50 to 60 covers a little bit more. Um, you want me to talk about it today,
Meredith? You want me to wait for it to come on the on the agenda? So, if we back pay, um, there is a spreadsheet. It's on the next agenda of everything where who has what searched, when they were signed, who they were signed by, when they were sent to um,
inform the ones that I could find. Um, I searched emails. It was an extensive extensive audit. Uh, and then whether they were updated in admins is also on there. But if we backpay a group of people back to 2023, when you look at
this spreadsheet of when the PAFs were dated, that's opening up a whole different can. And I was asked to give a rough estimate just based on what I had seen. um you know
looking at the dates of the searchs and then the dates of the PAS and the effective dates and everything that's opening up um how do I put it that's about the rough figure if we do it for one we do it for all type I mean, I don't have anything else on
that. Think that's what we want to hear. If it's on the next budget, that's on the next agenda. That's all we we can discuss it there. Uh Again, as we've discussed, I saw we added
in-house cleaning. I didn't add it. It just got moved. It got moved. Yeah. No new There's no additional dollars in there for in-house. Okay. All know. It's the same dollars, but it's not an outside service.
Um, that's why I'm saying it's inhouse. I This is an in-house employee, not a Right. That position was already in in the last version just under animal control. All right. It got moved from animal control to here.
Yeah. You had something you still have. It's the same. I didn't change the police. Yeah. I did not change the police. It's still still under the police department now, but it was that was the position that was always in two places.
It is the same man. the same man. If that's a man, maybe a woman. It's one of those things. So, what you're saying, Stephen, is that the cleaning allowance for the cleaning person for the BD is still in the BD budget.
Okay, great. Yes. It's just now also in facilities. And I see where you moved Benton's person from part-time to full-time. And again, you said you're not splitting the five there.
So you called it seven. That's all I have in that area. While we're on the staffing plan, can we talk about replacement for Bora? Good time to talk about that. So,
I put on the dis tonight um two pieces of paper that Laura and I have been working on and I'm also going to have Mr. McMillan's going to get up and talk for a minute as well um because they were just notified at the CRA board last night of Laura's departure. So, the
first page, this is just an option I'm giving you guys. Of course, we have several options on the table, but the first page shows Laura's current position as the community development manager. Shows her current responsibilities, planning, community development, zoning
and compliance, planning and zoning board meetings, permitting, grant writing, grant management, CRA director, and CRA board meetings. Then it also has her other duties that really aren't part of planning and zoning. code enforcement, site inspections, reports,
board meetings for code enforcement, animal control, which would be animal calls, and board meetings for code enforcement. Then, of course, we had a animal shelter manager who's no longer with us. Down at the bottom, it shows the current staff, and these are
at the wages that are coming out of the staffing plan. So, you've got the city manager pos, sorry, city plan position at $3241. She's exempt the planning assistant in $20.15. Permit tech $16.15,
shelter manager at $1688. We have two part-time techs that work at the animal shelter that make 1442. And then um code enforcement animal control, which is Christy, we just hired recently at $23.17.
So currently all in, of course, this is not benefits, but salary, we're spending 256 $214 on that. One option to replace Laura is to hire I'm calling it a community development
director, which would basically be she would be over here or she would be over the planning assistant and the permit tech. She keeps all of the duties that she currently has under basically planning.
Then we would hire a separate person to do community development management. So that person would be over the two kennel techs and then hiring a part-time assistant to help out. So basically that person would handle just the animal control and just animal shelter.
This route code enforcement chief roles has been talking about taking that back on. Apparently the police department had that back in the day. Um I just put that at $25 an hour. What this would give you is the ability to do proactive code enforcement rather than reactive. of
course are right now everything is just you make a complaint we respond to it but we don't drive around the city and try and site anybody had somebody full-time we could actually do proactive code enforcement I'm recommending we increase the salary for the community development
director so again this would be forest replacement to 70,000 and that would be an exempt position the planning assistant permit tech would remain the same the community development manager again would be an exempt position at 55 The kennel tech stays the same. We would do an assistant at say $15 an hour. If
we did this, it would be a net increase of about 57,000. Stephen and I talked about that. That of course could come out of some of the reserves that we just talked about in the slides. That's one option. The second option, of course, is, you know, we don't have to have the code
enforcement go over to the PD. We could keep it under this community development manager. Again, it would stay reactive, not proactive at that point. Couple different options. And I don't know how many how much you've been paying attention to planners these days, but Elatchua, city of Elatcha is looking
for a planner. The city of Newberry is looking for a planner. Leon County is looking for a planner. They are in pretty short demand right now. So, it's going to be pretty difficult to find a replacement for Laura. So, we may want to look at outsourcing that for a period
of time um to either like JD Pro could take it on like they did county um or in Bronson I use Safe Built. Safe Built actually uses company called Galvin Gordana who's out of Tampa. They did our um our planning, zoning, all that sort of thing. So, we've got options, but
this was just one I kind of wanted to put out there that Lauren and I had come up with. Um and like I said, I'd like Steve to actually talk about a couple options that he's put together in terms of the CRA as well. Hello, Steve McMillan. I'm here as the chair of the CRA board tonight. Um, last
night we got news under staff announcements that Laura was leaving and we threw around a bunch of ideas because the CRA is paying for 50% of Laura's salary and Nikki's salary and we think we might be pulling that and going
to a third party. We have an option to go to a third party person that just does CRA. Second option would be to wait and see. It doesn't have to be a city employee. um to wait and see if the city planner that you hire. If you sub out to JB Pro,
they're not going to have a CRA director that we can just grab. If you h sub out to Well, if you hire somebody, they may or may not want or have anything to do with the CRA, but plus we sunset in about four years naturally, so that money would be dissolved anyways. So,
this this might be the right time for let us take our money and go sub out to CRA.com or whatever we need to do to we haven't gotten that far yet. This is just last night. We threw around some ideas. They wanted me to come and just talk to you about the We didn't want it
to be a slap in the face. I met with Sue earlier today just to talk about the 50%. Mr. your opinion. Um, well, he's talking about the CRA suns setting in four years, which we think that the state is going to make us
do. We're probably not going to be able to continue. And, um, the CRA right now pays for half of your city planner. So, they would like to maybe go elsewhere and get either a part-time person because it is a it is a part-time job and either go to a consultant or a
part-time person and and just hire them directly. Sounds good. There's about 54 grand that y'all wouldn't have. That's why we didn't want to slap you in the face without letting you know.
Appreciate that. No problem. I have a question not really for apologies but should the CRA board head in a different direction what's the likelihood maybe this is more a question for Laura and
Sue that we will find a person who is willing to be a city planner and also manage animal shelter and code enforcement particularly given that they're in high demand at the moment So, you're asking about what are the
odds that we're going to hire Laura basically, right? Yeah. I mean, again, this is my personal opinion based on the fact that we have so many other municipalities around us looking for somebody who's just a planner and doesn't have to do all these other things. It's going to be very difficult
and I think it needs to be separated anyway. Laura did it because Laura loved it. I mean, she was an animal shelter or animal rescue person. Uh, and that's why she chose to do it. She She loved it and still does, I'm sure. Um, and hopefully
will be one of our volunteers. Um, but we'll never find anybody who'll do what she's doing because it's just two totally different things. They're they're almost at different odds. You're exactly right on that. Yeah. So, can we stay competitive with a
salary, you know, for a city planner, community development director, um competitive, if the CRA, that's I guess my question. If the CRA we lose that 50%
from the CRA, can we stay competitive with that salary? So, you're asking if we the CRA decides to take that portion with them. So then we lose that $54,000. Yeah, that that's my question. I guess maybe
more directed at Mr. Bloom. Um if if that $54,000 is no longer part of the salary like is how do we how do we get to the competitive salary? Well, and looking at this plan, I mean this net increase you're talking about would have to come out of the general
fund. So, I think that would be the missing piece that you would need. Again, it wouldn't be CRA because they they're going to use their funds somewhere else. So, that 57 would have to be used to keep it competitive. And it really then depends upon what the
rest of of this looks like because you're not going to be able to find somebody that does wears all these hats, right? That's just and we may have to go back to grant writing to Fred Fox, somebody who's actually a grant writer. It's hard to
find a grant writer, too, much less a combo like we've had before. So, that's another thing on top of that we're going to have to pay for in addition to competitive salary plus possibly hiring the grant writer. He's usually paid out of the admin the
administration of the grant is usually paid out of the grant itself. So, I mean, that's kind of a wash right there. Just have to contract with him to go and find something. Um, and he's really good at doing that. Just keep in mind with that, that
assumes you get the grants. A lot of these you're you're putting in. I mean, and again, that to Lauren, to the team's credit, um they're throwing a lot of stuff up against the wall, um basically back pennies on what they put
out there, right? Um so, yeah, you you could spend and and this has happened pre where the cities had put out some money for some facility plans and different things and w up basically not
So, I guess what I'm looking for tonight is some direction as to what you would prefer. Would you like us to just try and hire Allora or Allora that just does the planning side, the zoning and planning side, and separate out this other
position? What are what are your thoughts? So, Is the increase of is the increase of $75 along with the shelter CDM that increase as well? Yes. Well, it would be a new position right
now really that would kind of replace the shelter manager who we do not have one currently and the code enforcement animal control person. Kind of combining those two into one. I'm lumping animal control shelter. What
are we looking at? So, I put that on here as just $25 an hour to try to be competitive with your other officers. It's about the same probably. So, I'm looking at your list and you have code enforcement, but animal
control and code enforcement are two combined together. So, are you separating code enforcement from animal control? Yes, we have to do that, too. Are you going to send animal control and or are you asking me to take animal control and code enforcement?
No, he wouldn't take animal control because Christy really has been because again we haven't had animal shelter manager. She's been kind of doing both animal control and animal shelter. Those two things personally I think would be the the best things to combine. They're very
similar if you will. You're dealing with dogs and cats and that sort of thing. But code enforcement very separate. Yeah, if we want to bring that back to the PD to have you guys do proactive code enforcement, that would be all you that you would have to handle the whole thing. So, you'd have to handle the inspections, reports, going to board
meetings. This person would be full time, which which means that I would have to hire somebody or is Christie coming? I have to hire somebody. I honestly think animal control is better at the police department.
We could we could do that, too. It's just I guess As long as he's got a good animal shelter manager as they're running around picking out dogs and things half the time they have to call the police officer to come help them anyway. Did the PD have animal control before
when they had code enforcement together? We could do that. Yeah, an option. I I just didn't want to give you too much. You never said you want animal control. You only said code enforcement. I mean, I'm all about the city. So, whatever is
best for the city and wherever we can help, I'm I'm I'm with it. As long as long as we understand that if we take animal control and we take uh code enforcement, Christy comes with it.
She's already doing it now. So you would if I take animal control and code enforcement that takes one duty from your community development manager. Okay, which means you can go up to the next category as a city planner and move some
of those things from that job function down to your community development manager. Say for instance, if we take animal control and code enforcement, maybe you can move permitting, grant writing, and grant management down to your community development manager. And
it takes a lot of that load off the community community development director. You see what I'm saying? Sure. Yeah. You can actually draw a line on the page. Have this person there or this person somebody different, right? But it would all depend on you having a
really good shelter manager that you could count on. Well, I don't I'm not getting the animal shelter this animal control and animal code enforcement. The animal shelter would have its own manager. Well, not under under what I said. I
mean, we can obviously we can do that. That's not how I proposed it here. We just talked about adding an additional assistant to the animal shelter. Yeah, because what you have is community development manager and under that community development manager, you have animal shelter, right?
So, that community development manager that you're going to hire will be responsible for the shelter. Correct. We would be responsible for animal control and and code enforcement. So I wouldn't have the shelter, right? Okay, great. But if you drew a line right there, this
is the community developer and all this including the shelter code for animal control. You have to point that out. We're we're trying to that's the way it was before. Yeah, we're trying to come up with a plan here.
And it was awful. We had the the I call it the pound. It wasn't really a shelter. It was an awful place. The cats and dogs were taken by the code enforcement person. meaning they pick them up off the street. Well, honestly, like shelter,
if we're going to if we're going to have a proactive code enforcement, the code enforcement officer is not going to have enough time to write reports, go to board, meet, do site inspections, and run an animal shelter. That's why I said it depends on you
having a really good shelter manager. Yeah. So, you could do it if you had a good manager. Yes. So, I'm I'm okay with animal control and code enforcement. I do not want shelter. Thanks. Thanks for offering, but no
thanks. I think animal control needs to stay with the shelter just I know I don't have an opinion or but I just want to know is there option three? Yeah, the option three to keep Laura
Patricia I tried that. That's why I put this whole thing together was to try to get Can we hire you to do grants? What are we doing for What are we doing for shelter manager now that the shelter manager is no longer with us? Laura,
it's an open position. We need to hire. So, we have no shelter manager. Correct. Thank you. Christiey's filling in. Pardon? Christiey's filling in. Wow. Okay. Um, you guys forget that our shelter
manager was has been gone for about three months and and Kim and Tequia have been doing a great job holding that place down. Um, Christy came in and fit right in with them. So, those three ladies will be able to hold on for a little bit longer until you get that manager. As far as grants, I will write grants for the shelter in my free time
because I promised I would do that. But, um, other than that, you got to hire me. So, um, quick question about the shelter manager and animal control. It, and forgive my ignorance, but like is there enough time in a given week for animal
control officer to also manage the shelter or are those two separate very full-time jobs? Animal control is not a full-time job. The problem with animal control is that it's an on call job. So, you're often working nights and weekends, which is something we do need to resolve for that
person. Um, animal control and the shelter do work very well together. Um, when you pick up a dog, you're going to take it to the shelter. The shelter girls are going to put it on Facebook. They It's all It's a team. So, animal control, I mean, I thought that from
being in the field, animal shelter and animal control should be together. But if Chief wants animal control, I mean, that's that's fine. Is the animal code Does the animal shelter pickup person Christy does she do code enforcement also?
She was hired to be the code enforcement. That's what I thought. It's not just animal control that she does. She does code enforcement. Correct. But she hasn't gone to the code enforcement classes yet. She hasn't been fully trained in code enforcement yet. But that is the intention of her harm.
It was. Yes, sir. Thank I think either way it goes, you're going to have to because if you do code enforcement and you're paying $25 an hour and Stephen has to move that into the the law enforcement budget, you're
going to have to do the same thing as far as hiring somebody as a as a community development manager. So, we already have one person and and this is something that may chime in on. If if we take code enforcement
and we take animal control, we're going to have to split those two because there's there's not enough funding to hire another person from what I'm told. If we split code enforcement and animal control, my understanding that there's not enough revenue there
that if we do that do that, we're not going to have enough revenue to hire an animal control person. If you have one solid person for code enforcement, there is no revenue that essentially comes from a general fund. Exactly. So that's why I'm saying if we're going to take one, you have to
take the other one because the money's com is combined together. Correct. Animal control and code enforcement is combined together. There's that salary that you pay animal control officer and you pay code enforcement is combined together. Am I right, Stephen? Yes. In other words, there's one
position that's allocated to both. Currently, that's what it is. So, if that's the case, uh either we're going to have to increase budget and hire another person or we leave those two together. I mean, that's a decision
we have to make. probably for the last 15 to 20 years they've been together. Yes. But we never had an animal shelter. Yeah. So Mayor, your thoughts
when we as a city we decided that we were wanting an animal shelter. At that point, we were accepting the responsibility of that animal shelter. I agree with councelor Jones. We did not
have an animal shelter. What we had was an embarrassment. Now we have an animal shelter. That shelter needs its own manager, not code enforcement and animal control trying to do a third job. You're going
to have another Laura on your hands. And that would be my question to Laura. Or if we take these things away from the community development manager position, would you consider the top half of this list or you just walking away?
Have you made up your mind? No pressure, Laura. We love you, Laura. I appreciate it. I really do. I love you guys, too. Um, that's something Sue and I I guess we can talk about um in more
more depth. I if we made it the the community development manager job that you want to do rather than all this other stuff that's in the way that needs to be done, but that you can't concentrate on the one you want to
do because of No. No, if you look at my desk, it's all animal shelter stuff. Yeah. There's no planning on it right now. Yeah. Because that's what takes all of my time, right? And that's it shouldn't be that way, right? And I know you'd rather be a planner right now. You got the shelter up and
running, but I know you're ready to be a planner again. And and I think that would be if she's willing to even consider that, let's try to do that with her two people that she's got that
are helping her now. I think maybe she would be happier and then these other the animal shelter as well as code force and animal control find somebody else. You only can find one person who's over all that who's and
it may be Christy if you know maybe Christie and she has a really good manager that manages the shelter and she's over them. Um if you're taking codes enforcement chief
that's putting the animal shelter under you. It essentially is it. It's always been that way. Why don't you want this? If you get a good person, it'll be fine. I barely have enough manpower to run the
police department. So, that's I mean, and I know cuz I've talked to Laura, the shelter requires a lot of time and we just don't have that manpower to But if we're hiring somebody, you have to hire someone whose heart is there.
Yeah. It takes a heart for it. It really does. deal with what the animals are and it's mostly the adoption of these and that sort of thing. I mean, it's it's a lot more than we realize it is. They're out there on Saturdays and weekends and at festivals trying to get these dogs and cats adopted.
It's all that, too. Not just being a dog. It's a lot. I mean, Laura doesn't tell you guys everything she does, but Laura will, you know, text me or call me at 8 o'clock on a Saturday morning because there's a fight or there's a fight between dogs. I mean, it it it's like Laura said, it's 247.
And that's not you. That's the animal control person. I've never lived some place where the police dealt with the animal shelter. I'm sorry. Lived in a lot of small towns. Never lived anywhere. The police department also managed the animal shelter. That was always separate.
But that pipe she's talking about, it needs cops. That's kind of how it happened. doesn't mean that the police department should be filling in for a staffing voice at the animal shelter. Yeah, the shelter has its own voice. He's just over them.
Okay. So So hypothetically Oh boy. I'll say it. I'll say I mean we're have we're struggling to stay competitive to hire police officers because it's hard right now. So now if the police
department is over the animal shelter and we cannot find people to take care of the animals, the police officers are going to end up being down there dealing with this all the time, which makes our job even less desirable because I'm pretty sure most of these police officers didn't sign up to take care of dogs. They signed up to be police
officers. I don't think we should hamstring chief roles in getting good police officers hired. I think that we should spend the money and we should get somebody who takes care of the animal shelter and however the animal control in the police and code enforcement shake
out. But the animal shelter in my personal opinion should not be under the purview of the police department or the fire department in case that suggest I can comment on this for the fire department. Chief Steagle doesn't have the heart for cats and dogs.
You got to have a heart for it. You really do. I mean, we call you when they're cats and trees. So, it's You never seen a cat skeleton in a tree. Cody and Kurt, their buck is taller. I just think we're already in a position where we are running off good employees because we are asking them to do things
that are not inside of what they are good at doing, trained to do, and qualified to do. And now we're just going to go and and do that same thing over in the police department. I never made any suggestion that the police officers run out. You just want us You're suggesting the chief to be over the
You want us to be over the person that's running it? But when he doesn't have that person, when there's a void in that employee position, who is going to fill it? The manager is responsible for what they are given
to manage. If my chief goes over the animal shelter, it takes away from his ability as a police officer and he is not going to let those animals starve to death. It is an un it's an unholy alliance to do that to the police
department. Uh it's just never was considered. I don't know what the council was thinking when we started that animal shelter, but of course you've got to staff it. And I think that the most of the people that have been there, I was sorry to see the last one
go because in spite of her other problem, she had a heart for the animals. Uh, and it is not easy to find someone with a heart for the animal. So, I I just want to make sure I understand before I make my decision here or or put
it out there that if the animal shelter comes under the police department, we're going to hire a manager who will be solely responsible for the animal shelter, but will report to me
and there will be additional staff that if that manager is not there to cover for that staff and Mr. Steven Bloom. That budget will be then transferred to the police department
for animal shelter, code enforcement, and animal control. Yeah. It's going to be still be its own department. It just be something a budget that I will have to oversee, right? Okay. Yeah. And I don't think I don't think it's something you can decide tonight.
Yeah. Can I can I can I can I think about talk about it? Yes. Let me ask you this. So, you're going to have the community development manager who has two penn
and one assistant part and their partner. If that if the manager out which of these are we development manager is not even in the picture anymore. It's totally different jobs.
So now it's the shelter manager. Oh, you're on the second page. I'm still on the first page. I just drew my lines. Yeah. See, here's the lines right there. That's them right there. That's the job description I'm looking at. I'm looking at.
So if that person is out, there is nobody to cover. That's why you go back over here because you have the two you have the two assistants. You have two kettle techs. You have a
manager. If the manager's out, you've got the two kennel tech, but they're part time. That's because they work alternating days. And when one of them is sick, the other one picks up.
Well, the manager is usually there every day. So, this is a little bit has to have the vacation and you can have sick time. Well, that's why we asked for the third, if you look on there, the third part-time person. Um, because yes, PJ, Nikki, and I have cleaned many a kennel.
We've had somebody out on vacation, somebody sick, somebody on an animal call, and we go and clean. And I understand that chief wouldn't want to do that. Um, so that's why we asked for the third person in case out of four people, they should be able to cover. If they can't, then you just come to city hall and cry and somebody will go clean those dogs.
Who's at the Okay, maybe I'm not seeing it, but where's Go to the staffing? Well, if you go to the in the staffing in the future staff, we ask for another part time. It's over here. Um just in case that does happen where everybody's out, but um somebody's
got to be there to cover at that point. Yeah. See, there's an item. So, Mr. McMill, what would you like to see from the CRA? Um, the board, we discussed it last night. I can't say what they want obviously, but
um I didn't know if it would help if we go to a if we pull our money out and we go to a third party CRA director. That also eliminates makes a planner more of a planner. You take away the dogs and the CRA and the cleaning and whatever else that they have to do. It would be
more competitive to get a new planner in the route that we're going. But since we're suns setting in four years, naturally if the legislators don't kill us in between. Every year we get threatened that they're going to cancel us. We would just hit an annual services
contract with somebody and you know they would know that at the end of four years we're done instead of pulling our money in four years from y'all. Anyways, that's what we discussed yesterday. Now, if y'all hire a planner and they come on board and they're cleaning stalls and
they're wanting to do CRA stuff, I guess we can always cancel our annual services contract at that point. Last night it seemed that my board wanted to do a third party routine. Yeah, good luck finding someone. I mean, really, like you said, it's
essentially the same type of person. And I'd say the city's plan would be to go to the CRA and beg them and take their money. Say that again. Repeat it. Okay, you start at the top. The top is I don't think you'll be able
to find a contracted developer. Um, you might, that's a possibility, but what caliber of person would you get? You might end up with Lara. I mean, she may be willing to do it as a contract. Um, but then again,
I think the the city's number one thing to be doing would be to go to CRA and ask them not to pull their money because we need them. That would be my suggestion is to go ask CRA not to take not to take their 54,000. Second Monday 5:30.
If I may, I think that uh the CRA's um worried about if you don't fill this position, they still have a lot of projects going on currently. Um they do have Nikki and Nikki is involved in all those projects, but they're worried that if you don't fill that planner position
that there will be nobody there to to be their director. That's where their nerves are really coming. We have about 14 projects I think we're balancing and voting on and out to bid and looking at this and sidewalks and
marquee signs and light bulbs and all types of stuff going on that I don't want to lose a month or two months. But you're right, we could go I don't even know how to go out to bid. I'll grab her in the next two weeks. But if we go out to bid for a CRA director,
are they 200 grand a year? I don't know. I don't have a clue. And and what credentials do they have? But it's also a catch 22 because our C our little our little CRA, we're busy. There's a lot of projects going. But a person that's doing eight other things, if we're doing 50% of the
salary, but we're getting, you know, 10% of the time kind of needs to balance out. That's why I said, let's restructure her job and offer it to her. I think that's the thing we should do. restructure the job that she she originally came for that she loved when she came and offer
it back to her and she either takes it or she doesn't. Let me ask this question. So why did we not do that in the first place and have her say she's leaving before anybody thinks about a lot of us been bug her trying to guilt
her in the same I mean as far out I mean as far as taking things away from her like what we're doing now we're we're separating things and then saying well you take this take that would you stay why did no
one say anything about that in the beginning before she made a decision to leave. I don't think I didn't know about it. I can tell you I had no idea she was on burge. I don't think anybody knew. I mean, I think I never went tell anybody. I mean, we can't do it. I told some of my staff friends, but I
didn't tell the management that I was burned out. When am I going to do that? I mean, and I can understand why you are. I mean, you got same reason and way everybody else is doing, but I get it. I'll say let her restructure the job she
wants and then offer it to her and ask her. I think that's offered it. What I'm hearing is hire somebody else to do this. I never heard offer it back to her. Laura and I discussed it. It's on my
board. We went through all this together and then she asked for the weekend to think about it and she came back on Monday. She Okay. Well, we all I typed this up and this is basically based on what she and I talked about
that. May I ask why the animal shelter manager doesn't report to the city manager just like all the other managers do? Most of the managers report to a director of their department
and they report to the city manager. If they're a director, they do, but a a city a supervisor of an animal shelter. That's a department head, not necessarily. You're changing the word. We're talking about a manager of the shelter. Now
you've got to a supervisor of the shelter. There's a substantial difference in those manager right here. That's what I'm what I'm saying. Animal shelter manager. So the manager would be a department head. So the department heads report to the
city manager. So I put my offer out again. I will for the benefit of the city and to save Laura because I like Laura. Thanks. Stop guilt tripping her. I will I will take code enforcement. I will take code enforcement in animal
control. No matter code enforcement and animal control like Miss Meredith say the animal shelter should report to the city manager and I will take animal control and code enforcement which will then give you a community development the ma manager
only one thing to take care of is animal shelter and whatever other duties you want to put up top then why would we not put animal control under the shelter manager you can do that too if we're going to do that. That's what I would do. Well, then you're putting code
enforcement under the shelter, too. I would separate. Code enforcement is more of a land development thing. If I may, um, I know we're little, but most places, animal control and code enforcement are not the same person, right? They are complet, in fact,
Christy has no code enforcement experience, but she has 25 years animal control. So, they can be two separate jobs. In most places, they are. And you know, we wear a lot of hats and I understand that, but if you're if you want to make big decisions like that, that's one thing you need to consider.
So, she's not even trained yet for um code enforcement. So, chief could go get himself a very highly qualified, trained code enforcement officer. I'm good with that. And I spoke with her today briefly and she's uh okay with animal control and
code enforcement. That's all I can tell you. whatever works. Well, there's no reason that we can't structure it with animal control and encroach enforcement being under for years, two years with the recognition that we may
need to revisit this as the city grows or as our needs change going forward. I like it so far. Keep going. Keep going. I'm just I'm just saying like we don't, you know, This can be something that okay for two
years we give this a go but given what happened right even a year we should probably revisit um and make sure that it's working for everybody um from a burden standpoint hours number of hours I mean that's the
challenge the thing like the animal shelter and the police department and the fire department are and I mean are 247 they have to be have to be available 24%. So it does make some sense, but when we get to the point where we've either outgrown or we
don't change it, but you're talking about one person doing both. Yes. Yes, we can make that work. Not the shelter. Not the shelter. No, no, no. Not shelter. Not the shelter. Just animal control and code enforcement.
We can make it work. Just what she was hired to do. Yeah. And then maybe instead of calling it She was Christy was hired animal. She just hasn't been to school yet. Would it help if we renamed the
community developer managers to call that animal shelter animal shelter on page two? I don't know it matters but just in the sense of the math of having to have the extra the net increase math in front of
us. Yeah. the community development manager and the kennel techs and the part-time assistant have absolutely nothing to do with with animal control. Right? If we take if we take animal that's why I wasn't looking at that page.
If this is just you know animal shelter and it's animal shelter manager and they have penalty and code enforcement and animal control down here under code enforcement. But you have one person that's going to do both.
Yeah. What happens when that person goes home with you? Is the other two or what? They're already there. The two assistant, they're with the sh, right? Yeah. So what uh Wayne used to do is he
would call the county when he went on vacation and they would cover animal control um emergencies only and code enforcement just wouldn't have anybody when they were on vacation. That's why the shelter and animal control. Yeah. I mean you can have it
but that's what they used to do. They just called the county to fill in for them trying to help. Was there a fee associated with it or was it I don't think there was a fee associated. Um because you already pay taxes to the county for their animal control and animal shelter. So I think
I'm pretty sure we paid somebody. I remember signing tax. Did you pay for Nathan? Yeah. I mean we paid the county. You paid the county. It wasn't a lot though, right? You paid the county because I remember signing the check. So I think maybe every call was it that he came out or? Yeah. It was a It was usually the
weekend. Okay. Like when we cover weekends what he was doing. You go out weekends and we pay him cover. You used to have a weekend person. Remember that that and and that will be a management decision. Whoever takes it,
that would be the management decision as to plan and prepare for if that person goes on vacation or gets sick, who would be the backup? That's a that's I don't think that's a council decision to make. I think that's whoever ends up with this
uh under them will be the person that will have to figure out what do we do if we if our code enforcement or animal control officer goes on vacation or goes safe. That manager has to have a plan in place to say this is how we'll continue
to cover it. So I'll put it out. I mean it's up to you all what you want to do. I agree with that. But we also have to make sure that you have or they have the staff to cover. You put it out there and you have but yet you really don't have enough staff
to cover. Well, well, here's the thing, Miss Hines, is you know, we have uh I really didn't want to go into all this, but I will. Uh we have reserve officers and reserve people that that we could
probably utilize or train to be a backup if need be. Okay. Uh, so we are willing to do it. Yes. A couple of months. He's still not talking shelter. I'm not talking shelter. I'm just
talking animal control. I'm not talking shelter either. All right. I'm separate. Yeah. We're all on the same and then I'm just saying I don't I don't want you coming back in three months saying I Well, we said we're going to revisit it in a year. Okay.
Be good. So, I'll hold on. Well, President Hines, you guys also asked us to train some at least a couple other people on animal control. Um because the city, right? That that work at the city. Okay. Um because animal control officer cannot
be on call 24 hours a day. Exactly. So, that's something that you guys could still implement and then that person could cover for Christy when or whoever she has when she's on the Okay. I'm just trying to make sure we're covered. I mean, it's a tough job.
That's why I enjoy it. That's why you appreciate you. All right. So, what do we got here? I say shelter.
Everybody else, anybody else? Any other thoughts? And I think we'll just wait for the CR the CRA board to get back to us and what they're going to do to determine what what we need to bring,
right? How who who we are hiring. Well, I think they're contingent upon whether we hire somebody or not. We don't have anybody there. How much time we got? Well, unfortunately, our meeting was last night, so we don't have another one for a month by then.
Can you do a special meeting or something? I was probably could put together something, but I don't I would need time to research cra.com. I don't know where to find this person. I can dump it on Laura. I got two weeks. So
to find a director and I guess we need some time maybe to figure out if we can even do that for the money that we have in our budget. So your next budget meeting is the third one is my birthday. Yeah.
If we don't get through this now the 26th. So So did we make a decision? So I don't know what what I need to plan for. I've only heard me. Oh, I'm sorry. Say it. So it needs to be restated. Yeah.
No, just restate what you want to do. So, I think what we're coming to the conclusion of is that the whatever we're calling Bora's new position, community film and director, would just have that top portion that we talked about, we would be hiring a replacement for our
animal shelter manager and then Christy Lewis, who is our current code enforcement/anal control, would go under the purview of the police department. Summarize that. would not be under cheap,
but everything at the top is what a planner does anyway, right? Correct. which is what Laura did before Wayne moved over here from the police department because it was originally at police department and he got moved over here and so she
took him on and then they started a shelter. That's correct. So it just kind of grew from there like like and he was moved over because Chief Stro did not want to do Right. That's correct. And I actually thought Wayne was going to be the animal shelter manager and then he retired on me.
Right. So it all fell back on the bunch of things we all thought about that he was going to retire from what he was doing and be able to talk about money. Yeah,
we just gave direction. We gave Stephen to rearrange the budget. So, are we gonna talk about Yeah, I mean that's another question is, you know, I I put again whatever that title is for Laura's position at 70,000,
which is roughly a $4,000 raise over what she's making currently. I I wouldn't want to go lower than that. You're not going to be competitive. And the others already have established salaries. interviews.
Oh, you're gonna let Laura interrupt and give her a raise. If we cannot talk Laura into saying yes, we would advertise it internally like we do for five days I believe it is and then we would look other planners on staff. May I ask? So, so you will
are you offering per $70,000? We did not. You have not said you have but kind of out there without saying that was just my suggestion. We did that. So, you're going to hire
internally after she has left the building. Nope. Start right away. Assuming we can't. Oh, I'm just saying assuming we cannot.
That is everybody's everybody's hope is still that. But in the event that we cannot, yes, we can start advertising it. If we can get the additional salary, then we would just advertise. Yes. Just those duties and then at the 70,000 if you agree to
I think we should at a crossroads. We've got a lot of growth coming advertising, you know, perificable. Yes. So, just so I have it correct in my head,
we're going to up the $7,000 advertise in with the hope that will really advertise. I know she's not there. Yes. A city planner usually makes between
79,000 and $85,000. Thank you. We're not offering that, but we appreciate it. Anybody else in the audience? All right, we good. I have a question. Anybody?
Okay. Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay. Um I just have a question about the travel and pdium um for the city councilors um and training and seminars. We've got like 30,000 you did for uh traveling for DM and
training and seminars and I mean sounds great. I'm just not sure how responsible it is. I just would like a clarification of where this Okay. Under city council, we have $20,000 budgeted for travel and
pdeium and $10,000 budgeted for training. We have $30,000 budgeted for us. So that's $6,000 a year per council member. It seems like a lot. Maybe there's a really
good logical reason. I just don't know it. I can answer that question. Um, our council has became become more involved in going to training and seminars and I also pay the mayor when he goes to his
conferences out of the budget. So, I had to include him as well. So, that's why I upped it. Well, I asked to up it to that amount because before I had not factored the mirror into his seminars and everything coming out of the council's budget.
And I'll just add that there are three or four of us, maybe even four or five of us, who have been lucky enough to be appointed uh by the Florida League of Cities President to serve on legislative committees uh for
the Florida League of Cities and that requires travel. We we are really good about not staying. We leave at 7 o'clock in the morning so we can get there by 9:00 uh and go to the meeting and turn around and come right back home. So we don't pay for a hotel and they they feed
us breakfast and sometimes lunch usually not. We usually try to grab something on the way home. Um but it it does and we go to the Florida League of Cities conferences which we are doing on Thursday of this week. Um, and it's
mainly to keep our name out there to to learn the things we need to learn how to run the city. They do do a lot of training and classes. I know the mayor is gotten certified in a lot of those things. So, D and Mike, um, and
just like we're the members of this river, the cities, uh, we pay dues to them. Everything else to them if you pay dues is essentially free. When we go to Tallahassee to lobby on behalf of the city and our projects, usually the Florida League pays for us to go there.
Some of the conferences that we go to in Tallahassee, they pay for the room, they pay the board, they pay the meals. Uh sometimes we have to pay. It depends on what the particular one is. Uh but they've offered us a free one every year
for the last I think two to three years through Jenny Anderson who's part of the funny river city. So we I think we get I know it's a lot of money and I can tell you I looked at it too um but it's also I think we get a lot
back out of it. Education is what we get. No, and having been I mean and I have been appointed appointed to the board of directors of the Florida no and I don't disagree with the
education and all that. I just it's a big number to just to residents and I just want to know I just want to be able to justify it. Thank you for bringing it up. I had it circled as well. No, you're good. Uh, I just want to add
those committees that Miss Deborah is talking about that we go to that we're appointed by the Florida League of Cities. Miss Meredith has signed up to be on one of those committ. All right. All right. And so did I. I got the email today that I'm on the legislative committee.
I'm sorry. And our city manager suitic. I got noticed today. Yes. I haven't looked. I need to go look. Wow. Yeah. Well, I can tell you it it is an honor to be appointed. It is an honor to be appointed and be a part of it for the whole state of
Florida. Um it's just like the home rule hero thing. How we get that most people have everybody in town has been saying, "How did you get that?" And well, it's because you go to Tallahassee, because you go to those legislative meetings, you learn and you they the legislative
committees, they discuss the issues that we actually discuss what we think the topics are important that the Florida League ought to lobby for or advocate for is the word they like to use. And until you go and discuss it with cities big and small, you don't really
understand it. But like sovereign immunity and mobility fees and all this kind of stuff that I've I've learned about, I would not know any of that stuff if I had not been those. And that's that's where I learned most of what I learned.
What page we going to next? 19. Just a refresher. 19. 19. Yes, sir. Just a refresher. Uhhuh. Uh debt service repayment to utility fund.
What was that for? That covers the uh general fund city hall. Okay. There's also a small piece just another refresher. Um vehicles one or only one one vehicle. Um again, uh several years
ago there was a grant uh that covered 50% of about a $400,000 bill. Um and then the other half of that is being repaid through the fire department. Um can I jump on to page 20? Sorry, same question. Sure. um just because I need
to be able to so HR we have between per DM travel and PDM dues and subscriptions training and seminars um $12,500 aotted and then there's an additional $2,500 employee incentives assuming that's not to incentivize our HR person
but to incentivize other employees. But I would just like just a breakdown of that. So for the um where the employee sent us is to incentivize
our employees. We started uh making certificates of appreciation stuff like that. We started kicking off an employees incentive program and that is going for the employees not for me. Uh what was the other one you asked
about? It's just the same. is the cumulative amount of the travel and perdm. Um it's, you know, we've got a 300% increase. I mean, which obviously there was nothing in 2025. So, but I mean, it's just we've
got 10,000 the $7,000 views and subscriptions, $3,000 traveling for DM, $2,500 training schools and seminars. It's it's not it's just a lot of money cumulatively. I just would like
so uh for the dues and subscriptions EAP comes out of that. Um, also I added on a thousand cuz if you do, we are starting, we want to do training like leadership training where you purchase the webinars and I did the math and if we purchase a
subscription to one of them, it drops down that price and the training schools and seminars would help cover that. uh the sub subscription or the drop in price is the $1,000 and then the the training schools and seminars would be
helping to pay for those classes for the entire like directors, supervisors, um stuff that we we lack. So this is not like this is for all employees, not just for HR training.
No, ma'am. Brilliant. Okay, that's all I needed to know. Drug screening seems a little high. 4,000 when they spent 1,200 12 6500 and 26
I guess. So the price for one drug screen that comes in has jumped up to like $90 a person. Okay. And we have currently spent um from what it looks like projected 26.81 81 and I just got a bill for I
think there was six or seven of them added on plus uh one of the departments have to do annual drug screenings and it comes out of my budget. Okay. That actually was removed out of the gas
budget. If you go to your gas budget, your your um what she's talking about, your drug screening came out of that budget, went to hers because she's has to be the one to oversee it. And so that's even though it's a gain there, you'll notice that it's a drop in the other one.
Perfect. Thank you. I got 31 if anybody's got anything beforehand. 31 for Chief Steel. Loan the loan payment for the fire doors. When will those be paid off? I thought they were
We uh fire department only took if I remember correctly about 35 to 38,000 of that loan and uh if you look at the last two years last we budgeted this county this year we've already paid that amount back.
So I'm not sure did we not turn the rest of that unused loan back in? Uh no we did not. That part I can answer. I'll check on the the payment. It was a um uh you're talking about the $100,000.
Yeah. No, that that was 100% of that. We go back to the history and see the the spending on that. The description may be wrong. May not need to say fire doors. Maybe something else.
Yeah, I'll make another check on that. Uh yes, Mike had it was spoke. We had talked about doing some of the stuff upstairs with the other part of it. We never did anything over there at PD. Yes, I looked it upstairs and for the amount that we had to do things would
have been just throwing the money away. could not possibly get that upstairs to the position that it needed to be with that amount of money. And I went for chief and I said, "Don't do it. Don't throw bad money."
Yeah. So, if there's anything left over, I'll account for it. Get back to um brush truck 72 replacement. Are we putting money away for that. Is that why the uh under
the budget for this coming year is 240,000? No, that would be that would require a loan. Okay. So, that's the um the vehicle loan there you see in the debt service was increased uh to account for that.
Okay. Y then so basically real quickly in in the general fund you've got two loan potentials there. You've got this as well as um I know the chief is working hard on his consoles but depending upon how that shakes down there's 300,000
um under police communication which is a couple pages down 32 Generator maintenance. Which generators are these? It's part of your contract with the FDOT. It's for the red lights. Uh well,
the traffic lights. Okay. So, it's your just your yearly maintenance for when any batteries or oil changes or things of that nature. Do you spread that over multiple? This is in parks. Yeah. Parks handles parks handles that budget exclusive. That's all of it.
Yes, ma'am. I believe that's that's that's one of the line items in your uh contract. Uh you'll see that they they put that in there and then Stephen has separated it out based historically on what's the average. Some years are higher, some years are lower. I mean obviously if
there's something over 1500 it has to be fixed but we adjust for that. That's the park improvements. I see those there on that same page. I have the same question on page 33 that
I had earlier. Sorry, broken record about the training schools and seminars only because I mean a it's parks um and roads. Uh, so I would just like a little clarification on what training is there and that we only spent $92 in 2025, but
we've doubled our budget for 2026. So just explain that. So the explanation for that is is that you have an electric, you have water, you have sewer, you have gas, all those departments, you have clear objectives on how someone increases their knowledge
skills. Uh the new incoming supervisor can talk to you about he's working on programs and pricing out programs for mosquito control, pest control, things that are related to those fields in particular and how the staff can go out and get licenses
through the state. And that's not anything we pursued. And we've been having historically a recruitment problem in that department because people view it as a dead-end department. They either transfer out of it or leave. And so it's part of employee retention to get them licensed and certified for
things that they can take pride in and they can move forward and do more with their skills. The mosquitoes, doesn't the county spray for the city? They do in some parts, but there are places like our parks and certain areas like our DRAAS that are highly neglected
a lot of times because the DRAs are hard to get to. So when you have residents in Camille Plantation around the southwest side or the southeast side or the big pit behind the na the the mayor street uh they can't get back into those areas. So it would be areas like that that we
would be able to do some control age 35. And you know me I love my fireworks but this is crazy. Well, it's our 250. I know it's our 250th anniversary, but that is a big Then we could go back to normal next
year. I still think like 25 would be better than 50. 35 sounds better. 50 is a lot. And I hate Nobody likes fireworks. Fourth of July. You ask me what my favorite holiday is, that's what I'm
going to tell you. Uh, but that's a lot of money. And and as Meredith said, I just can't justify $50,000 for fireworks. Just can't do it. I I I will not vote for that.
You said what? 35. You said not 50. What I said? Well, I just figured since it's I mean it was 195 last year and we have spent 18.
So I really think 25 30 max would be plenty. Got to do it up big this year. I know we do, but that's I can't justify another $30,000. That's a whole
position. can't do it as a citizen. What do the rest of y'all think? You don't want to ask me. I have to ask. I'm only one voice that I hear Mr. C. So, I don't like fireworks at all because of the animals. So, I'm the wrong person to
ask. So, yeah, I would say and I don't go to them. Well, it's everything and it's, you know, and it's for our residents as much as anything, but and it's in celebration of fourth, you know, of our independence. Yeah. No, I just $50,000.
I don't 30. I'm Let's do 30 because I think that's that's the most I could do. I mean, that's another 20,000 we can put in reserves or add to the
add to this this add to our planner that's decided to stay because she's dancing back there. Just just to that point, by the way, I want to make sure you guys are clear on that decision. I'm increasing it to 70, but that doesn't change the CRA piece
because you're not going to have that joint position. So the entire money and I've done it already and it works here. I've got it set. But that entire money that was allocated to CRA is going back to the general fund. But the only reason they're even talking about taking because she's leaving.
So the point is to try to keep her to stay and they won't take their 54,000. And like I said, if all if all else fails, you go to the CRA, you beg them not to take their money. And I'm not above doing that.
And on 36, those are those hurricanes, those three hurricanes that we've got. That's the FEMA money you see sitting right there. Can I can I go back to 35 real quick and just Yes, ma'am. throw out an option and and I know stop me if this doesn't work. Um,
can with the fireworks, can we budget what we've what we normally budget and then we see we've been responsible over the course of the year because we have until when that we have to book the
Oh, darn. Never mind. I was hoping we had more time. Scratch that. Yeah, they and they want 50% down in order to order them. Never mind. If not, they get stop stuck on a slow boat from China.
They won't talk tariffs, right? It may it may just be a 53% increase because of tariffs. Who knows? Like I said, on 36, there's those three hurricanes. If you add all those those three numbers together, that's money
we're missing from our budget this year that got carried over. I mean, that's a lot of money. And to be clear, we're still waiting. We have Laura and I have been working on this the entire time I've been here.
Every time that um FDM asks for something, we get, you know, give them what they're asking for. But again, this is at the state right now, and they're trying to decide whether or not we even have the ability to put in our late damage inventory and then if we're given that ability then we still have to wait
for the money. So we're we're still we're basically ground zero. We keep trying but there's no guarantee at this money. I mean that's almost $80,000 we could put in the reserves too. Wouldn't that be nice? Yeah, we talked to everybody under the
sun. I want to add something real quick. Noah just updated the hurricane is still heading straight for us. has not turned north yet. Don't even say that. I'm just saying that's what it just put out. Just letting youall know. Keep that in your mind. Get way out there. Way. I'm not even
going to look at it till Monday. See what it says. I'll be hold my money and I will look at it then. And by the way, the two-year total on those lines is 176,000. So, I have the 2024 number there, too. Oh, that's true. I forgot to have the
2024 number. We'd have a lot of fireworks effect. Oh, no. That's past the reserve. Not going far. Build up those reserves. Last thing we do. You mean you don't want to do another
laser show? Maybe can do both. We don't want them crashing on people killing people. That's the drones. They did. That's the drones. No, no, it was the drones that crashed. You're right. Thank you for correcting
me. You're right. Thank you. All right. I got 48. Started to say I'm all the way through the CRA and I'm through the airport. 48. Oh, I got all kinds of questions over
here. Yep. Okay. What you got? Fire hydrants. 10,000. Are they on here? Oh, I see them. And I think they're somewhere else also
on the in the budget. That's 10 10,000. Are we replacing valves or replacing fire hydrants themselves? Um,
we would probably need about 20 times that amount to meet the needs of our hydrant repairs. So, we just put in something that we thought was your sole emergency issues, like um last year when the gentleman hit the one in front of PD
and ripped it completely out of the ground and the water mane blew up. So, that 10,000 is only in there for dire emergencies. It's not actually for infrastructure repair or capitalization. And how much is an average hydrant? Uh
it's uh the hydrant, the hydrant setup, all of that can run anywhere between three and 4,000. So those are basically three hydrants. We historically usually have three every year that have major issues that have to be replaced. The
other big problem we walk into is that um most of the ones we go to don't have any valves. We have like 68 hydrants that don't have any emergency shut off valve. They're live. So when they're broken, if the hydrant itself doesn't seal. So what I'm saying is when we go
to replace, we have to install a valve. So usually when you add the valves and all that in there, they're between 3 and 4,000. Okay. And I would just comment since we're on page 47 and 48, if Mr. Eert were still
here, we could answer the questions he asked at the beginning of the meeting because here's the answer on these two pages. It's how much we pay for the services we give. In other words, how much we pay for the electricity, how much we pay for the gas, how much we pay
for solid waste, how much we pay for everything. And then at the bottom of the next page is total of the expenditures and what the bottom line is. So you can see we lose money on a lot of those, but there are a couple
that we make money on. So there's the bottom line. If he were here, I would tell him to look there. And that's why we didn't answer him. I'm sure he thought we just didn't answer him, but we were going to discuss the answers to his questions in this meeting. And there they are right there.
Yeah, that's a great page for you to see kind of the ledger on each Yeah. utility. Now, to the staff's credit, I do want to point this out, the significant improvement in water and sewer over the years. Um uh and then you know obviously gas is the one we talked
about earlier. That's the one that's being target is not the right word but that's where a lot of the energy is being put in now uh to try and get that one cleared away just to get better. Um but yeah really a lot of good effort put
into those other two services. Um and then storm water is one that's going to need to be developed as you already know. Um, you know, so that one is is starting and there's hopefully some solid grant programs that they're working on for that one. But that one, this is really a good breakdown. The only thing I would say if anyone does
ask you that question is that admin and customer service is separate, but really everybody's paying a piece of that. Um, so it's not completely individual, but you certainly want each of those columns with the exception of the first two uh to be zero or better,
right? And obviously some of them don't make revenue. Solid waste is always planned to be zero. That's right. You know, that's just the way it is. And we talked about the fact it's got a CPI and it's going up, but it's going up 55 cents per c per per residence. More
than that for commercial, but 55 cents per per resident. And hopefully it'll be less than that. I know y'all were gonna talk to them about the 3.75 and whether they could actually agree that it was really 2.75 or 2.5.
Kevin Smith, the general manager for GFL, is actually coming to the meeting next week to discuss. We'll look it up by then. We can argue with it. Does the contract Did we look at the contract and see if it said the IRS I
mean the how does it list the CPI? Bureau of Labor Statistics. Thank you very much. But but what they're contending is is that they're looking at it within No, they're looking at it in the solid waste CPI produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics
rather than the whole overall. Rather than the whole overall and that's where they're getting their number. Um is there such a thing? I I've asked around if you'll ask our engineers and you'll ask some of our consultants that work in that field. you would ask your actuary the pension
boards. I'm understanding that a lot of people in the Bureau of Labor Statistics do look at the industry. So, for example, we talked with FGU, we had a big meeting about gas and trying to get some options on that that you know, we looked up the fuel is 7.5%.
Wow. CPI. Wow. So, yes, each industry like groceries and things like that. The interesting part is is the overall that they publish which is the the 2.75 this year um does not include
energy and groceries for some reason they eliminate those out of CPIs right but I'm just letting you all know so they they do tend to go industrybased um it it doesn't but if if they'll cut
it down to 3.5 it's actually a good deal because it's 4.23 23 on solid waste alone and I think that they're talking about giving us lower than the 3.75 which soon negotiated. Perfect. Thank you.
Still on 48. Still on 48. Okay. Lift station pump replacement. Thought we just replaced a bunch of those. Uh if we go back and watch those meetings, uh the engineer,
the pulp uh pump consultant, your sewer operator, and your lift station operators, which Jason's here, talked about. That was simply to put us where we should be in operating at the time. That had nothing to do with getting us ahead of the game or putting any
inventory or stock available. So, we weren't right back in the same place that we were. So, we could take that out and then we may just be down the road looking at another hundred plus thousand dollar purchase to get caught up again. Um, so that's that's the answer to that
question. Well, that's true. But we were doing we were doing all right prior. I'm not saying totally the li down 30,000. I mean, we just spent station was. It cost us an arm and a leg
and it was about quit. I mean, we're having a fun from it. If we had a replacement to put in it, we might have been better off. But I think we ended up buying two or three for that particular two. Thank you
for that particular one alone. We spent the money to buy all these other ones. Now we're spending money to buy more. Got a bunch of lift stations. and they're all all over the hill. So, I I'm glad to have it there um so
that we could put something away even if we don't spend it. Generators, sorry. No, I just was in in agreement that that I think it'd be better to have it in the budget if there are no fails and you know suic gods are with us, then
we can uh you know, hopefully not have to spend it. But it doesn't make sense to be paying trucks to come in and pump it and drive it to the pump generators. We have generators. They were purchased
for previous city manager level for the purpose of putting at the lift stations. I realize we want to get natural gas generators and this and that. Um we do
have generators that will do that. I think 10,000. You can put switches, switch stations or uh automatic switch things on it. It's going to cost a lot
more than 10 grand, I would assume. I don't know. Do we have enough generators for all of the stations? 15 were purchased. How many stations there are? So, there's a lot of there's 21 lift stations, and they'll be by the end of this year, they'll be a
22nd. Um, and then the new FBO has it's not a lift station, but it's it's a it's a a grinder pump, a very large commercial. They consider it a lift station, so technically that would make it 2030 um
by by the end of year. Uh we do not have generators for all of them. Um the issue is not diesel versus natural gas. The issue is is that most pump failures occur during emergencies. And because we do not have SCADA, by the time that we
get to the station to put a generator on it, we've already had a spill. Um, so if you had SCADA and you had an alarm go off when things reached a certain level, then yes, you could theoretically not worry about the the
the generator automatically turning on. Uh, obviously 10,000, Mr. Cox, you're correct. Does not afford 23 stations that have transfer switches. Actually, I'm sorry. 40,000. Well, you're talking about different departments. Now, you're talking about wells and some, which are water. You're
talking about lift stations. And then you're talking about the sewer plant. Those are three separate things. So, that's why you see generator money in each one of those. We have a generator for the digtor in part of the plant that's already currently down that hasn't been fixed in years. Half the plant is on a generator. The other half
isn't. We have a generator that was purchased through surplus for $300. It is the generator that ran Kennedy Space Center when they launched the SpaceX and all of those that we got on a government service auction. It's a 500
KW. Some of that money is going to go to add a transfer switch this year and get work done on it so that it can run the entire well at the top or the barn and that whole complex. So, it we're not trying to fix all of this issue. We're trying to do a little bit each year so
we can get caught up on it. Um the other problem is is with not having transfer switches and not having natural gas. Even if your skated did have existence at a at a lift station and even if you did know you were about to have a spill,
you can't send people out when the wind is above a certain level. So if you don't automatically have the station turn on and you don't automatically have a switch, you're going to have a spill. And the whole point of the generator is to prevent a spill. So again, this isn't my recommendation. You guys want to bring in Wright Pierce, ask them what
the standard is at GRU. Ask them what the standard is at Newberry. Ask them what the standard is at Chief. Ask them what the standard is in Marian County. That's that's the standard. You don't want generators that don't have the ability to function on their own. Otherwise, you're you're not negating
the issue. True. But also, we do have generators at the traffic lights at the intersections. Uh, Jeep, you your deputies take care of those? When you say when you say take care of
them, what do you mean? Well, going and turning them on and firing them up when we lose power for the intersections, traffic lights. Uh, the Donald people usually take care of turning on gener. Most some of them come on by themselves, don't they,
Donald? Yes, sir. Yeah. And and again, if it's during a storm and people are told to shelter in place, the lights are just out. I mean, so during an emergency have a light, right? Correct. I mean, if you still have a light. Yeah.
We just we have generators that we purchased for that. Because I had a conversation with Terry. I actually invited Sue to call Terry and to talk to him about the generators that were purchased and such.
Next would be fencing and security. We have wells and we have um lift stations that either have fences that are in heavy need of repair or we have lift stations that are completely not fenced in. They're completely open. And
um over the long run when we have FMIT go through, Latricia's been part of that. One of the things that we've consistently been flagged on in the last couple of years that FMIT Insurance has asked us to deal with was to get the lift stations completely locked out from the public. We can't do all of them
again. Sue asked that I budget for to do one or two or three, however many we could squeeze out of a small amount, and we would plan on putting that out for bid or if we can find a cheaper way to do it and the staff's able to do it, we would put up the fences oursel. But
that's just an attempt to meet compliance with the standard for our insurance carrier. So, how much do you think that it would cost to fence in let's just say you to put up a new fence? You get already fenced in, but um if if
we bring up uh Dixie Lily on fifth place, um your standard is that you usually want a 10-ft fence. Now, legally, we could get away with a six foot fence if we put some razor wire on the top of it. But if you're talking a chain link, you're talking probably
anywhere between five and $7,500 to put up around that lift station because again, it can't just be such a small area. You have to bring the crane in. You have to have a double gate so that personnel can come in. Um, so you're probably looking at anywhere. We
just had fencing replaced at the barn well. There was a small section of it that was done and it was $3,800. Okay. We also have some drainage areas that need to be bent better than they are. Yes, ma'am. We have a lot of drainage
areas. That wasn't even addressing that, but Yes, ma'am. 10,000 for tool replacement. Um, page 48 still. Water. Okay. Uh, so you have replacements of like your tap die sets to do water taps.
Uh, that's anywhere between two and 4,000. That goes bad every couple of years. Um, you've got um your um I mean I mean there's a whole host of tools that we use that are specialized. I mean, there's there's wrenches and there's screwdrivers and, you know, when
you're working on a water leak underground and you're working on a live leak, you lose a tool and it gets buried and you can never find it again. Uh, then you have your pump that hooks up DC power to the battery of the trucks. And that's so that they can try and pump the water out enough to even see what
they're dealing with. Those pumps are usually around anywhere between $1,200 and $1,800 just for one of them. They don't have a long lifespan. They got beaten up pretty bad. They're in a hole with an exploded man name. So, I mean, it's it's a small amount. There was a
lot more in there before we tried to cut that. Okay. Um, do you know have they ordered the new pipes for the blue um water pump? The last um
water break, they didn't work right. There was two of them that had X's on We did an inventory and there actually ended up being more. We're trying not to pay for those. We're trying to get the manufacturer to replace them. Um the same thing happened when we ordered the bypass pumps, the
two bypass pumps, one for the sewer plant and one for fugit. And same thing happened. The hoses came in. They've gone in and they've done an inventory and I think there's three are there three there's two or three of those that are defective as well. We're trying not
to pay for those. We would like the manufacturer to replace them. Okay. Um, this would be for city manager and I've talked about it in the past. Still have customers ask.
We spent a lot of money this past year. Why did we purchase five vehicles? So, the way it was explained to me from Terry was that Danny would bring
vehicles that came off of the GSA contract to me. Um, and we would decide whether or not we wanted to bid on the vehicle. So, of course, it was never, you know, 100% we were going to get it. Um, so they would bring vehicles to me. We would talk, you
know, Danny and I or whoever was in my office at the time would talk about the vehicles and then I would sign off saying that yes, it was okay to bid on it. So there was probably more than the five vehicles that we actually bid on. We only received obviously the ones that you saw on there was actually six cuz one of them
Mr. Bvard and he was here brought in that's the truck I think Tom's doing. But that was 60 pull the paper about $68,000. That's a lot of money. And I know that he has spoken
uh it was on his board in the office when he left. Um that not a car lot, no more no more vehicles. I mean, we have citizens asking they'll come in to where I work.
Why is it seems like everybody's in a vehicle? Understand? And we did need some vehicles like we talked about with the last meeting about you know the fiber tech vehicle and you know but I have said to everybody there is no more vehicle not more vehicles. I mean,
come on. I know that in the p I know you have a $25,000 thing. We can't be spending that kind of money this year. If if we do, then I'm going to recommend that we cut the amount that you're able
to do and it has to come to the council. That was one of the things that Mr. Bvard did when he was he would always come to the council and say, "Hey, this is when I'm going to go buy." We always knew he didn't know that there was
five trucks that purchased. Sure. So, imagine when we do buy now, it's just not a don't like to be blindsided. And I don't think, correct me if I'm wrong, Did we even put
any money in for vehicles in this budget this year? U please turn off. Um no. Okay. Because I know like on still on 48 um capital outlay project vehicles
$212547. I think that's the square truck. That's a square truck and the money's there. Yeah. I'm going to recommend to consolidate all that, like I said, into a loan because that's again, it's the same thing. You're you're going to have that vehicle for a long time. You might
as well like we do with fire. You know, it just makes sense. You could if you wanted to, but why? We ordered it so long ago. We've been sitting here waiting on it forever. Yeah. Yeah. And then the sink in funds I noticed in the utility there's
four or five maybe. So you you're looking at 2025. The game plan is still to to to fill those. But the scing fund for 2026 is all combined. that 315 I mean it basically you know it's to get
to the 315 and then from there it can still be allocated across that the goal is just to keep building. Uh so it does not mean that the syncing fund program um is no longer. It just means that for the sake of this budget, we're really focusing on get to that 315. Hold the
line at the 3:15 and then you know then we'll you know get with um staff and say okay we got to 315 what's allocated. Okay. Um, one other thing about my
co-workers, I'll sit over. Um, looking at last year's budget in the contingency, there was 459,000 for election and I noticed, maybe I just didn't understand it, but I
noticed for the contingency in this year's budget was nothing. Was that just a miss? Well, and that was the thing. The the the goal with that contingency in 2025 was to hopefully use it to fund reserve
and that, you know, you mentioned the pumps and some other things. So, we're not I'm not calling it a contingency anymore because it seems to get used because that's just the nature of utilities. It's not like, hey, you know, they're tently doing that. The idea with
this budget is is, you know, you've got X amount of money. If you have to use a contingency. We're going to have to cut something, you know, and I I know that they're, you know, creative enough to to do that. Maybe push a little bit here back. It's not comfortable to do it this
way. And again, as we get to the the back end of this process, that might be a little bit more we can start to put into contingency. I have a question about that $459,000. Is there a way I know not right now, but is there a way you can bring us a list
of what Those things were spent on Yeah. pumps. All the whole 450. No, not the whole 400, but but a good chunk of it was on pumps that I can bring the rest because there there is I would love to see that because it just sort of
and I know we did fit a lot of and they did bring a special request for pumps and we did agree to them and we needed them. There was no doubt about it. We had to have them. Yeah. It was going to function. I think we also spent a lot of money on the pools if I'm not seeing. money on poles. Yes. From fiber project. We had to replace a
lot of poles, but I don't know that it was supposed to come out of there. Well, it couldn't come out of the Yeah. No, it could not come out. So, why was it not? It's a fiber project.
That's kind of part of my question. That's why I want to see it. So, in your proposal back from performance services, it was not within your budget because it was an electrical upgrade. the the poles needed to be switched out. It had nothing to do with the fiber going in. It's just that the
fiber precipitated. It's time to update the stuff. So, you have two different enterprise funds and the enterprise fund that you're talking about was electric. They had had a lot of needs there and that's why the money was used out of the contingency. That predates Sue that
that's into Terry. That's into the presentation. That's you can go back and look at all the stuff that PSI performance services showed you guys. There was no place in there in that loan that was calculating uh polls because then there would had to been a profit
share and Stephen can answer this more when you make fiber money back and then the electric makes it back. You would have had to divvy up where that money went back to. So the loan and the fiber was completely separate on the development of that and your your ROI, your return on investment on knowing how
many users that you get and how quickly that subscriber list pays back the loan. If you put in pole upgrades and you put in all that other stuff that's required as part of the electric system, then you're converging the two and they're not the same. That doesn't give you your
ROI. And then you we probably would not have been able to get a loan for the amount of money included in that. You could also bring in Mr. Justin Head and talk to him about what Kristen and their attorneys decided and what they talked about which was legal and all those things. I think it was, but I think everybody
talked about it but us. I understand that's where I'm coming from. I don't have an issue with a question. It was a decision that was made by multiple people, but we were not informed. I do remember discussing this when CF we were discussing whether we
would go with CF and it was brought to our attention that we would have to included in the and the CF deal had that been partaken includ would have come out of the electric budget because there wouldn't have been a fiber loan. So it it would have come
out the same place as it did if we had gone in as partners with CF or Open Infra, whoever whoever you all had decided to go. Again, there are certain parameters for what Cammy's spent by certain people without council approval.
Sure. And I'm not real sure. Now, I guess we peacemeal it or it was peacemeal so that it didn't go over that amount. Are you talking about the polls and all that? Yeah. Well, I mean, some some of your stuff is ongoing contracts. So, like when you talk about Gresco and other
things, if your purchasing agent was here, he would tell you that there are certain amounts for reorders and things. You already have agreements in place to do, not I understand that. I'm just giving an example. You have, it's like water boxes. We order $9,000 of water boxes
about every three months. It's not that we're forgoing the limit. It's that by the time we know that we have to wait the five months for the boxes to come in, we ordered a limit that doesn't also procrastinate that process because the money already is a budgeted line item and you didn't and the polls were not
divvied up over quarters. Well, actually, it's been it's been a while. It's it's been a couple of quarters. I still want to see it. Sure. I understand. I'm not obviously I'm just trying to answer your question, Miss Jones, as to if you go back and you review the videos of the fiber presentations, there was never any talk
about in the fiber loan addressing the changes to the electrical system in order to make fiber possible. 49 and maybe I misunderstood what 49 49. Okay. AMI.
Oh, see that? Yeah. And it was on last year's. Is are we just starting to put money away for that for down the road? You're talking about for this year? Yes. There's nothing in there for next
year. Um and and I think at the time they were thinking of starting it, but no, that won't be used this year. Okay. But we should great idea. We need to transition. Every other city around us is that have AMI and we need to get
there because that's the fastest way that we can give our citizens security about their electric and their water bills. But we keep cutting rates and all that kind of stuff. We're never going to get there. So put my plug in for AMI in the future.
You haven't cut any rates? Not yet, but it's out there. I'd be glad to. I have brought it up before. I know. It's because I talk to people every day and they're hurt. But if they could predict what their
bills are going to be as high as they are, I'll send them to your house. sitting there fast. And I am speaking to people just to clarify a lot of people and every time I
talk to them about AMI, they're beyond excited and would be happy to have that be part of our cost. Millions of dollars. I would be happy with it, too. Yeah. Just it only takes money. Yep. Well, in full disclosure, I will
let the council know that I had a twohour and 15 minute conversation today with um Miss Church. She was the one who um went to TV20 and started the online petition and um I did speak with her at length about AMI, which she is, as you
said, very excited about and um plans to get kind of a ground swell out there in the community to come before the council and to really request that. So, I think they would much rather have their street lights. That too. That too. And CL.
Yeah. Oh yeah. We got to do something about that. But those are not mutually exclusive because if we work with PSI like we did with the fiber and I'm not saying that these, you know, happen tomorrow, but they're not mutually exclusive. We'll have to talk to Hector and see. We
can just isolate that area. questions on 59. I have to figure out what they are. Um, I don't know if I know. It's something about I have a I have a note that says different people. If I look at last time's budget, I'll
have to do that page 59 from last time. And I look at page 59 from this time. It's a whole lot different. Like it went up like $50,000. This is where the GIS, remember you asked earlier about the GIS that was in
gas. Uhhuh. This is where you've moved to. It's now in water. Yes. Okay. That explains that. 55,000 to be exact. Yeah. There you go. And the water technician crew leader. Is that the correct name? Is that the
correct title? No, ma'am. So, what is what should it be? Is by what supervisor? I know it's Alex, but that's your field supervisor. Okay. So, we need to get that one right, too.
It's It's right on the staffing plan. It just isn't here. Okay. Yeah. I will take care of it. Thank you. I knew it was him because it's in the admin budget, so I knew it had to be Alex. What page you want? Uh 59. Okay.
And that's where the like you said, the locator GIS specialist got moved to out of one out of the water and into the out of the gas and into the water. And that answers my question there. I just saw the difference in the amount of money. I was trying to figure out what
it was. on 60. On 60. Um, what? Okay. Let me make sure I understand the question. Well, that says retirement and Oh, no. That that that section there is
all just salaries. I thought so. It says salaries and wages. And he's under where my little note says. Yeah. And this is the the water technician crew leader, right?
and he's under utilities public works administration on page seven where you'll find him. Yeah, you'll see the whole benefit package there. And I will say, well, that is So it also says water technician crew
leader over here. Yeah, it does. I I have it in it's either right in both places or wrong in both places. Say it sounds like it's wrong. Yeah. And Major Courtney's wrong in a couple places, too. Yes.
We still think it's because he has the additional licenses in I don't mean I don't think his overtime is included. included in that? Yes, overtime's not included in that.
No, it's not. Go to your staffing plan and look at your hours, Miss Jones. I did. Okay. How many hours does it show? 280 or 2,280? 280. They all say 280. Not all of them. If you go down, there's a lot that say different.
Oh, you're right. I see that. But he's not one of them. I understand. I was just asking because he's salary. The crew leader is not salary. That supervisor is not salary. Why not?
That is a question for your former city manager. That position was created by Terry. That salary was created by Terry. I I didn't have anything to do with it. I didn't sign PA up. That would be Jonathan and Terry that signed PA up. Does he not report to you? Yes, ma'am.
I thought he did. Yes, ma'am. I know he does. I'm I'm asking the question I know the answer to. I mean, the answer is licenses. You guys have within your CBA and prior to him even becoming in that position, I already told her that. I knew that. You have licenses and those licenses are state licenses. They're not fivehour
classes or eight hour classes. They're licenses. And all his licenses have to do with the jobs he's currently doing. He is actively a field supervisor over the collection system, the wastewater system, the storm water, the water, and the gas.
He field supervises staff in all of those different I knew he does water and gas. I didn't realize he was Yes, ma'am. A matter of fact, he is part of the apprenticeship program that Terry uh signed the contract through the US Department of Labor and he's one of your apprentices and he's getting his
wastewater license and and the US Department of Labor, but he doesn't have it yet. The US Department of Labor requires within that two-year program, which we're in the last six months of, to have raises at increments. And that contract was signed a year and a half ago that
they required in order for us to participate in a journeyman license program, the city had to contractually agree with the US Department of Labor to do increments of salary increases at a specific rate. Water say another one of those things we don't know about
your two waste water that I again that's above me. Your two wastewater operators are in the program. Uh an admin admin assistant Christy is getting that license because she does the reporting for it. Um, Alex is in there because he's over the stuff and I've almost
completed my wastewater stuff. So, a lot of us are at the tail end of it. page 60. Just to me it just seems like a 60 6 um to me it just stands out. $10,000
fuel just seems like a like a lot. Not much different than any other department. I know. Still seems like across the board. Yeah.
I assume they spin it this year. Yeah. I mean, it's projected. They're over that projection right now. So, That's another driving around in the little suit, but I'm sure they do it
on 64, but that's where we are. Just before we jump over there, I'm just going to say like if you look at the airport fund, they've got $12,000 for fuel and you know the airport they're not driving
around I mean correct me if I'm wrong but they're not driving around like utility workers are down on the street. I guess I don't understand just across the board. It's a lot. 12,500 for the airports way up there.
Yeah. So, um thought you were asleep back there a bit. No. Um, so yeah, the airport uses a lot in uh in in mowing operations. You know, we have a lot of grass. A lot of grass
about that. Um, so 400 grass. Yeah, it's way more than 400. 400 of them. Yeah, the whole airport's about 2,000 and over a thousand of it is mobile and we we have to keep and maintain that. Um there there's a lot of standards that go
there, but yeah, we use that. Um you know, we help the fire department out with 90 wreck uh that they use on their brush trucks and like there's there's a lot of uses that our fuel goes to. So yeah, 10,000 for them. I'm surprised it's not higher.
Sorry, I didn't mean to throw you under the bus. I was just trying to do a comparison. No, absolutely. What's that? I just said we're going to grant that to buy new generators. We need to put the existing ones in a secure place out of the
weather. We don't right, the ones that were purchased for the lift stations. If we're going to go with the other ones, you know, with the natural gas and all that, we need to do something with
those. Just not have them sit out. Cover them. probably on the mics. He doesn't even have an office. Don't start that. He's lucky. He doesn't have an office period. He has a corner.
Oh, okay. Much less a place to put his stuff. We don't really have no place to put them right now. We need to build build a pole barn sometimes. I've been needing that for years. I know you have. You need a barn for
your poles. We'll talk about that too, right? A rack to put your poles on. A rack to put your poles on so they won't be on the ground and a place to store your generators. Air sign would be nice down there. Oh yeah. Would that be something? Yeah.
Didn't it just sell this month or sell sign? Let's put it that way. They bought it for 1.5 or so and they're going to flip it for like 3 million and I begged your previous city manager to bring it to you guys at 1.5 and he
would. So maybe we could offer them 1.6. She said no. It's a great That's a great warehouse. It's for us though. It's not for sale. It's for storage. No, it's it would be for us. It would be
for us, not for to sell property. And you know, it'd be a perfect thing. I'm not for rental property is what I'm not for. You're going to make it. I'll be right here all day saying. No, you can just take your one thing and Wouldn't that be a great place to store all that stuff?
I've been in there. That's a great building. Beautiful building. Yeah. Big enough for a blimp, huh? All right. Where we at? We're to ask Mara again if she decided she's staying. I saw her leave and come back. I'm hoping she made a Don't answer that.
Yes, I just wanted to talk to Mr. Eard and remind him about the cat colony um meeting that we're having next week. He's not here. Where is he? He was outside and then of course he he and Mr. Penny were together and so they talked a lot. Oh, great.
I thought you were out there making up your mind. All right, Stephen. So, we're at a point where we don't have to find any money anywhere else. Everything is good. I think we actually save some more. We saved some money.
I'm going to leave the CRA loan for now. That helps. But I do have a plan. We have to reverse our ground on that. Everything else got some action items, do some research, get some information, but otherwise budget is really more
about making some kind of correction. So, you're gonna divide these departments up um or is that what you're saying? Yes. Well, yeah, the the yeah, animal uh animal shelter and animal control goes to police
um and code enforcement. That would be no. So, no, I I I will take that basically that there's a separate department. I'll have make sure it's it's completely separate um for that move that position down um so it's
closer to police and then again there's a couple of titles I've got it correct for other positions. Yes, ma'am. I was just going to say that um you know we Miss Sue has department head managers meetings pretty regularly.
We could uh we can brainstorm some ideas for this problem because that's kind of what you pay us for. I think we got it figured out. Maybe not. public participation or is it a budget question? Oh, good.
And I might have heard wrong at the very beginning. Are are we going to seven mills or are we staying at 6.75? 6.75. So then I maybe I might on page 14 there. Yeah, I already caught that. That needs
to be there's a what he's saying. Sorry to cut you off. Um the on very first revenue line I had I didn't have that linked on page 14. Everything else is fine. It's already in there, but I usually put a little bracket
seven. I've already changed that in our version. Is it calculated based on seven or 6.7 in that area? It's the very first page very first line. Sorry, I mean I mean the property tax where the
where the mill is. It just noted as the old seven but everything's calculated under 6.7. Perfect. All right. Oh, yeah. I see. I see that.
Sue, was it you telling me that the county set their military? They must make it hard. I mean, they would been required to set their trim. I say somebody sent me something. I thought it was you.
I have not. You sent me the dollars. Yeah. Curious to see what they do with it. And the fire assistant that All right. So, we're going to go to item four, public participation.
time that you would have the opportunity to speak for five minutes. Is there anyone at this time? All right. If we have no one, we will go to item five, agenda.
I will second it. Okay. I have a motion and a second. All in favor say I. I. I. All oppose say nay. Eyes have it. Four to zero. Have a good night at 8:50. All was done.