Mayor Reese here. Council member Austin here. Nelson here. Gilbertson here. Gardner here. Baggerly Davis. Butterfield here. Shoulders here. Two absent. [Music]
All right. Let's stand for the pledge. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Are you going to lead us through the uh I am not. You are not. Nope. I'm leaving it all up to Tom. Okay, stop. All right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council. Uh tonight there are uh two two main agenda items we'd like to go over. Uh the first would be 2025 capital
expenditures and the second would be looking forward to 2020 capital expenditures. Uh first off uh for 2025 remind you back to the budget season. We approved um five total projects along with two squad cars and
then an allocation for some public works equipment with a 2025 budget of $485,000. Um, in the meantime, the city has uh closed on the sale of some real property down in Redwood Falls, also known as like Corner Home Medical, used to be the Rice Home Medical Building. Uh, that the
city the proceeds from that sale were $941,000. Along with that, so there are a few urgent needs that we've identified as a conversation maybe to take direction or action sooner. The first would be the public works shop
roof. This is the main shop at the public works garage where they store a lot of their equipment. Uh a lot of their um just right behind their um office area. It's leaking water quite a bit. In this last rain event that we had, it displayed that it was leaking uh
quite a bit inside the building. So, the roof is in need of repair. The second would be the public works shop walls. This is going to be a little bit the building to the southeast of the main shop and on the corner towards the top the the bricks are actually separated
and um water would be able to get in the walls on that building and as the freeze thaw cycles happen as as we go through seasons that could potentially get worse. Um so it's as it's noted as a a problem today. The third would be the
Dorothy Olsson Aquatic Center. Upon starting the season this year, they have identified one of the three sand filters that there that circulate the water have failed. The state has approved the city to operate on two filters for the
season. With that, um, our our our water is circulated every 3 hours under normal circumstances going down to two of the three filters. We'll be able to get it in about 3 and 1/2 hours. in the state is okay with that. However, it would
need to be addressed at the end of the season. And then the the fourth item is the law enforcement center heat pumps. Kandai County did complete the work um for the cooling and heating. It's a geothermal system out at the law enforcement center. The city of Wilmer
is responsible for a portion of this invoice at 45% of the project or roughly $192,000. So, kind of our main question and and topic of conversation tonight, um we would like to see feedback from the council, what your wishes might be so we
could come back for potential action items at our May 19th uh meeting of the city council to either go out for bids or quotes or or not do anything would be another option. So, I just seek feedback from the council on maybe identifi um
going through with some of these highlighted projects or or not. Just had a question on the law enforcement center. Didn't did the city have a say in that or did the county just go ahead and do it and say um that so I was not working at the
city. I was actually working for the county at the time and I don't know if there was conversation at the time. Um, but we do have an invoice from them. They do have an engineer that goes through the portion of the law enforcement center that the police
department occupies and there's they portion out the building to what we occupy. So, it's an engineer's um allocation of the city's expenses, but I'm not sure of any previous conversations. That might be nice to know for future
because I think we've dealt with it before like that where I mean we have we have some sort of lease with them that indicates we will pay for improvements. However, it feels like we should have a say in when the improvements get done versus just a bill
when it is done. Yeah. So on that, we um partially due to this um administrative Elliot uh operations director Box and I met with the county administrator Baker as well as their facilities director, Mr. Thorson to go over future CIP needs
for shared buildings like the law enforcement center, the library is another major one. um there's something else that was highlighted but for those instances so we aren't taken by surprise and so we can also um future needs there are going to be
more needs but we won't know any figures until Julyish this year for those I think you also had or someone had made a comment about we only need to pay half of it and one we could wait to do the
other just curious if it makes sense to be the whole amount now or we also need to build our cash reserves back up. Where do these figure how do these figures come out with what should we do first?
So that's that pay half or split it over a couple years wasn't a um uh acknowledgement or an agreement between um both the administrators and the city and the county um to work it out because they they understand as well. You know it's it's it's a significant dollar
amount improvement. So that's something that we can work on. You know it's up to the council if you want to pay half or not. Mhm. But what do we get our reserves back up to the level that minimum level of cash? That's
another 700,000. So this will even if we paid half wouldn't solve that. Correct. 700,000 that's to get as to what mandates have to have an operating reserve or what is Yeah, that's a council policy um on our Yep. My
question is coming with the 2025 capital budget plan is a lot of what's listed up here budget but the first other three are in the 2026 plan for how much of the 2025 plan is
left quite a bit with that those get pulled forward toward 2026 some of these got moved if they were unfunded in 2025 5 if there was still a request they got moved forward to be requested in 2026 or
future years. Um, and that's we can get to it later on the the italicized version of the sheets I just handed out were pulled forward from previous years I believe right? No, I'm looking at I'm just looking at
the 2025 budget and I didn't know like a lot of the stuff we've already voted on and approved. Are the other items going to come forward this year or are they going to get punched in the 26? Yes. So, the the council approved there
are two um uh two projects at the airport that were funded. Two two uh the door and the wall at the civic center are technically two separate projects. Those are both funded. the IT uh security cameras at Civic Center in Robbins Island was
funded. The public works equipment um reserve, $137,000 was funded. And then the two squad cars that we just took delivery on. Everything else is still a request. It's on your 2026 sheets. This
item items number 2, 5, 6, 14, 18, 20 have been carried forward from the 2025 list. Everything else on 2025 is it was uh just the ones that Mr.
Rodens had just identified. Otherwise, um some have been moved in their entirety or moved to 27. Yeah, I was trying to figure that out. It's doing quick math cuz if you add the heat pumps and the other three projects, that's
$78,000, right? Performing heat pumps all in one year, which should that's essentially 75% of the revenue from Rifle Medical. And you can take the other 25% $233,000 and pump it into the reserves
to fund about a third of your reserve shortfall. Right. So to me that seems like a winner all way around. Funding something that was didn't know was coming down the pike, but you don't have to sacrifice as a result of it because of this windfall from the
shield. that is an option. I'm I'm good with that. But the one question that I have is since they're having trouble getting that project done out of the city center on that wall, are we what more will we be facing to I'm
worried that we need to get that wall done and I'm worried that it's going to take more than what's in the budget to do it. Yeah, it's with Bolton right now. We found some structural plans. So, they're going through there to see what we can do structurally with those pillars that are in there. Hopefully,
they're core filled. So, that's going to help us out. Um, I think the big issue is going to get that steel header out of the doors is where I think we're running into a lot with the contractors. They just don't want to mess with it. So, danger was off last Friday. So is that
because of the danger of the wall and how they're going to support it to get so they got that the steel beam up there and then the door frame. So if we recommend to do what council member Gardner said and we end up needing more
money for the civic center, can we take some can we move to just take some back out of reserves then? Could do that. Yes. Okay. And I would presume it'd be a contract award, so it' be maybe a change order if
there was more required. Um, on a on a tangent to that, um, Mr. Bombgard was able to get measurements for the pool filters and it's looking a lot better than maybe we had anticipated from last week as far as the door width and the
size of the filters themselves. So, that part isn't as much of a question mark anymore. See, did you put doors on? We may have to take the door out, but that's a couple more inches or whatever. Yes, it's just taking the door frame off, which is the wallpart. Yeah. Mhm.
So, we confirm the measurements. We've all had it, right? There's no room to move. There's no room to move. So, but that's a a big um question mark that was addressed and I think that's in a good way for the
size that could be expensive and a lot of work involved with those block core. You you got to have the support. Mhm.
when you when the structural engineer came out, he thought they were when we first inspected it. So, we want to make sure that the plans and Justin was able to dig deep and find some plans. So, they're with them right now. Somebody's going to have to come up with quite the
scheme to take that header out, put it how you support that above and that fast. I don't know if they Well, I'm just
thinking, do they put one set of doors in first and then try to get the beam in? I don't know. We got to support it somehow. It'll be interesting. [Music] So, that
is in a couple weeks. So, So, council be okay if we came with either requests for quotes or um requests for bids at our next meeting. Um and then should we include the full payment to the county in your account payable packet or for the the heat
pumps? 45%. Our portion is still 192,000 or yeah 5050 for spread it over two members the figure that's in here is half of it.
No that's the entire amount which is 192,000 that's all total that we would pay you 716 if my math was right. No, the total share was um No, I mean 50%.
Sorry. Yeah, I mean all four things is just over 700,000. Yes. What is the drawback of uh waiting to pay the county over the 2-year period? They charging us interest.
That's what would be the hurry. So, it's done, I guess. Um, true funding. How can you make money without money? Yeah, [Music]
it's up to you. You know, it we're good either way. [Music] Um, I know that um it's been done for a couple years, I believe, at the county already. So, I'm okay with doing half unless there's a reason to do them
all. Figure it out. Trust your judgment. Then you just have to plan that you're going to have $94,000 in CIP next year that you got to fund. We put that in the reserve today and
then we pull it out. We could do that unless something the next thing comes up. The idea is not to pull anything out of the reserve though once you put it in there. If we're trying to build back up our
reserve, the idea is not to do that. It's a conversation for 2026. I probably want to be there. I mean, it's an interest bearing account that it would put in. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Makes not specifically this
dollar amount, but it'd be with the rest of our money, right? So, I think point is that it makes us 4% hopefully 3%. getting rid of it makes us 0%. Okay. So half half this year, half next
year and then um requests for action for the other items then that be Yes. Okay. All right. We'll move on to that. Thank you guys. So the next would be our 2026 looking forward to our um capital
improvement plan. You all should have received um updated 2026 plan. I'll just run through them really quick here. And I guess at the end of the day, uh staff is just looking for a recommendation for what to
re what to include in our 2026 preliminary budget that we'll have at the end of the summer, early fall, or if you have identified projects to include in the preliminary budget um for um when the the mayor's budget is presented in September.
Uh the first we'll start at the airport is some airfield drainage improvements. Uh the city will be responsible for 2 and a.5% of the project for $12,500. The other two and a half would come from INDOT and 95% would come from the
FAA. So that would be a just the Wilmer portion of that project. And if we don't do that, do we lose the federal grant? Yep. Yep. The second would be the elevator at city hall. Um, this is a new
uh code change that would have to be completed by 2027 for 160,000. Along with that would be our fire alarm panel system in city hall for about 25. What's the consequences for not doing those? Probably no elevator and then you're not
ADA compliant. What's the fing for quite a while? Yeah, but we're going to if the plan is to demolish that building in a couple years, is it a couple years now? I don't know. There is no plan. If that's the plan, how do they go from
70 to 160? We were originally funding it over two years. We're going to get fined for not having an elevator. Could they shut us down? I don't know. Not sure what the repercussions are, but you'd have to look into that. Ask the
fire department. I don't know. I have no idea. We don't have elevator. We don't have an elevator. We're not ADA compliant for being That would be that would be the big thing if if we received a complaint by somebody or if inspector showed up and found us not to be ADA
compliant. I I think that um past history is cities have been fined. Um, and basically given the opportunity to take care of it within a short amount of time. OSHA compliance might not like it. More of an
OSHA thing than anything. And they're not very kind. [Music] How much do we have in the city hall fund that we've been putting away for past three or four or more years? Million. And we're levying another
um 587 this year. So 2 million up 2 million. Yes. 2 million plus 585. No. 2 million by the end of this year. A little over 2 million. Moving on to the civic center. Uh the
civic center roof on the blue line center. the um the seams and the like the is it the screw head the the screw heads are loose um leaking in quite a bit more as well as a storage shed. Um a lot of the equipment is stored outside
on the the same wall as we toured by the the shed that they have over the Aquatic Center. The zero depth pool slide or the frog slide as we saw it on our tour is at the end of its life. It's been replaced by some fiberglass um repair
shops, but I I do not believe it is it even repairable another time. It's it's gone too many times if that's a fair statement. The pool filters, as we just spoke about, that'll be taken care of. Uh the first street bridge maintenance, uh there are some rubber seals on the decking there that have
pulled away, so water is able to get in on that first street bridge. And then obviously the freeze thaw, it's going to um expedite some deterioration on that. So there would be some maintenance on the first street bridge that's requested. This is for
engineering, it says. Yeah. Those are not fixing it. It's just figuring out how to fix it. No, it's the engineering department. So this should be the This is actually fixing it the project. Yes. Yes. Why
won't that be a state or a federal being 71? It's our bridge. It's not their bridge. We've clarified that way back in 2021. The city owns that bridge. So, every maintenance or whatever is ours. Can we clarify the land? We never
clarified the land on the bridge. We've clarified the land. Then report that to us as part of this. You have a I'm sure cuz Okay, I'll send you the plaque. It is ours. How do we do about the fact
that we have someone else's fence and other property under the bridge when it comes to repairs? I mean, no, his it's it's off of it's on his property. I understand that. But his
property is under a ridge. Yes. And so there was something about that back at the county. So what happens if that bridge has to be torn down or redone or something major? It would have to be done on our property. So we would have
to move the bridge. They would be able to do the work over the bridge. Where the bridge is existing is where they would start. with what he's doing on the other side. Is there any reason for us to try to maintain more land there
somehow than just to sit here and wait for something to happen? There's no way we can retain obtain more land from him. You never do it in Maine or what are you recommending here? I I don't know. But it's pro to me it's a problem and how it was given back to
us. We were given a bridge that we don't own the land to under. We own the land under the bridge. Where the pillars are at, that is ours. There's no easement on it. It is ours. It's written in the plan. He has his fence under the bridge. That's where his
property line is. That's his property line is and then where the pillars are, that is actually our land. It's not an easement. It's our land. It's actually right away.
So where his fence is is his [Music] property where the pillars are is our property. It's deed property. So we can't ever make that bridge wider. Can't deal with the narrow
walking path. I can't tell you that. We can't do a Well, that's that's that's I think part of the issue that I have is that we're stuck with it how that works. We can always make a street wider, right? I mean, why is a bridge any
different than making a street wider? Because we don't own the land, but we don't own the street when we [Music] street. Am I the only one worried about it? Right. We lived through some ugly times there
and I didn't think that we ever had the answer with how it got dated to us that way. Project for the rubber seals or that's for the engine for this? No, that's the um that would be project cost. Okay.
Y it would include replacing the rubber expansion gland, the railing rehab, and the deck improvements for 150. Yeah, estimated the uh I guess the other possible part is that is on a state aid road. So if we
wanted to potentially use some state aid dollars, but those those numbers are also limited for our roads allocations every year. Was that bridge given to the city by Turbeck? I don't know how it got why the city
accepted the bridge. The council just did and that we reviewed that documentation. Yes, you own the bridge. Can you just bring that documentation up again because we got a few, you
know, is all brand new. So, you will do that. Moving on to the fire department. Uh the the firefighter pagers that they wear daily, get called in on, those are up for replacement. Uh as well as some
wildland firefighting gear, parks and wreck, uh master park plan is being requested. Um the protective netting at the civic center complex, that's on the new uh four baseball softball fields out across the street from the Spre event center. uh
Swanson Field Fences, Swanson Field Lights. This is going to be a a three-year plan or request. Uh currently, this one is uh the green field, which would be the the western field closest to the railroad tracks. And then also a walking and bike
path, the DNR grant. So, it's it's nice to have some seed money so when grants do become available, the city match is already allocated. So they um uh the chances of receiving those funds are significantly higher.
Is the master park plan on the CIP and not just the normal budget? This is $90,000 a lot. We could put it under the operation. It seems like most of the things on this list leave us with some sort of physical
asset. Do we have to do the best part plans? Do we have to do it, Rob? Um, I say it's a yes or no answer. I know that's probably just not clarify. If we
want to be able to go out for more grants, we're going to have to have a new master park plan. Did that in 2015, correct? and with all the new amenities that we have and everything. That was the suggestion from Greater Minnesota Parks and Trails is not the plan. Is
that a lot of money? I mean, I don't I I feel like it was a little bit high because we said that with what we how our parks are classified now, what we with the community parks, neighborhood parks, and everything, we've done a good job as far as replacing the park equipment. Um, that's what we we got as
a quote. I think that it can be smaller than that because we can do some of the work in house with So what are we getting for 90,000? It's going to be more working on making sure that the ADA requirements are all intact with some of with our parks. Working on what our
community parks are going to be. So that's like we got some of Miller done. We don't got it completely done. We don't have nothing of Lincoln done, North Side Park. um you um touch Ramblewood Park about what can we do for those amenities and then what's the big
picture? Um so if we would want to go out for like an outdoor recreation grant from the DNR, where do we want to target that at? Let's just say it's at the DOWAC. So they be able to master plan the DOWAC area if we want to put pickle ball courts, basketball courts, those
type of things there. In order to get these grants, you're going to have a a park plan. And ours is 10 years old now. And we're way different than what we were when we established that plan. Not something that we can do in house.
I'm not I I can I can just say, "All right, I want a pickle ball court there." Yeah. And that type of stuff. And or will it fit and everything? I can do that, but to get the nuts and bolts, no. the pickle ball court another location.
Why aren't we moving it back having all the pickle ball courts out at Sperryville? That way if you had guys ever run a tournament, he's got it all in one place and you don't have to run people back and forth across town, it would make more sense. You know, that's where that's where he's got the majority of it and there's room out there for it.
Well, there's you can look at it two different ways. You can look at it that way or you can say that when you look at parks and everything, you quadrant your town out and so not one side of a your community always gets the amenities. Well, yeah, it's and it's in a and it's in a
non-residential area, too. So, that's, you know, because pickle ball gets to be a nuisance with the noise. So, you want to keep it away from the houses. So, there's two ways to look at it. Yeah. Well, you know, we've ran with Rice Park down there, you know, center of town for years and years and years and years and
years. You know, still busy. You know, that's in a neighborhood. You know, I I've just uh smarter have all all one one part of town. They they already know where it's at. Go there, you know. If
you go to Walmart, you know where you're going. You go to Target, you know where you're going. You go McDonald's, you know where you're going. Pickle ball. Okay. pickle balls and square bill. You know where you're going and I think it makes more sense to get tournaments going. You know, it's
going to be a huge huge cell. You know, that's an up and growing sport. I realize I'm fast forwarding and everything is something that needs to be done. Last year, how much did we spend on in
cash on CID? 400 or 2025. Yeah. 485 this year. Yep. 485. Yep. Chances are we don't have even that much to spend this year without raising taxes. Correct. Correct.
And our total here is 3,763,000. 4.5. Does that include acrewing for fire trucks, stuff like that, or is that just cash that went out the door? Cash allocated to projects with the exception of in the public works department $137,000 was is put into a fund for
future equipment purchases, pump truck or whatever. So that 45 purchase of the fire truck. No money for the purchase of the fire truck. We're trying to So, it's 200,000 that's in
here necessarily. That was not not funded from last year's. Um, Right. Correct. Correct. So, we we're trying to build that. Um 2024 was 350, 2025 was 485. So, we're trying to build that into
the levy or or somewhere to fund it. And every increase of how many dollars results in a 1% increase to the levy? 200,000 roughly. So the police department is requesting uh an indoor cold storage.
Um, this would also be a collaboration with the county because both both departments are in need of storage to keep their equipment inside and their trailers inside so they don't get um exposed to the elements as much. Um, moving on to public works, the uh the
shop, the roof replacement we just talked about in the last agenda item. The next would be the traffic signal repair. This would be an annual request until all the traffic signals in town are updated. Um I don't know how many
years that might be off the top of my head, but um just a goes all the way through 2030. And then the building repair, we also just on the traffic signal replacement, what
are the the repairs? What all would that entail? So that that would get you or get us a brand new cabinet with the computer, the brains of the traffic lights and either loops in the road or
the camera system above which both do the same thing. They detect the traffic one way or another. So it would be the the entire everything aside from the the poles themselves that includes cameras
done or is that a whole separate thing for police? I think the So currently the only intersection we have cameras at is first and trot right now. I believe the police can pull very limited info off
that. Their their purpose is just to detect what traffic is sitting at the lane. Um they they might be able to take a still shot and see not probably not what they're looking for. Sure. At least with this type that we
have out there. I just want to move back to that in indoor gold storage for the police 150. Is that our portion or is that the and county knows about this? Have we told the county we're looking at doing this?
So they would come up with the other portion. Yep. They were the ones that started it. Okay. So the county knows about that. Correct. Y have a question then on the procedure aspect of that. I started to get into the weeds maybe a little bit,
but this is something that we're planning together, it sounds like, and they're waiting for both parties to approve purchase, but earlier they just went ahead with the heat props. Those are maintenance items.
Well, I just want to make sure we got this on ours. The county knows they're not. I said we build it and charge them half after it's all done. 55%. The uh storm water and wastewater, those would not be uh either sales tax bonds
with the local option sales tax or bonded through the wastewater treatment plant fund. We got um BNR design um plant upgrades, Eagle Lake panel upgrades. those if those projects were to move forward, those would be in a bonding um with next year's street
improvement bonds. Um I I don't know if you have an update of which projects if if Jason Mr. Lindol has gotten any updates on the BNR at all. So currently the BNR is a stands for
bionutrient reduction I believe is what it is. and they are working with the plant engineers to determine with our nitrogen levels and our phosphorus levels. This project will bring both of those down, but at a
certain point they have to choose which one they bring down, nitrogen or phosphorus. And so they're just trying to work through the details to make sure this is the exact system we want and it's going to do everything that we want it to do before we invest those kind of
dollars. So I long answer no I do not have the details what they're working on. So that's that's the um CIP projects. Now moving on to vehicles. Um the first would be at the fire station. Uh there's a 2006 Ford
F-150. Uh it's like a work truck, a runner vehicle that is um it's beyond its useful life. Uh, and then the the next would be a an allocation for a future pump uh
pumper truck. And I think I believe uh Chief Hansen would like to order that in 2027 for a 2028 2029 delivery. I say probably 2029 delivery. So, and that just update on that. We
just did find out that some of the seals and stuff on the pump of that truck are starting to see the useful life go away and it's we're going to try to whip it for the next couple years basically instead of spending 25,000 to get stuff
redone. uh parks and recreation, a Bobcat Toolkat that's used a lot out at the Civic Center Rec Center complex and I believe at the fields as well as a Ford F250 which is used to plow out at the
trucks or out at at that complex. Um so that it's just kind of had a um also beyond the its useful life for what it's used for. The police department is requesting four squad cars to keep up with their
fleet that they operate on as well as their um command swap bus. Uh that was here during the the tour. Um I don't know if anybody had a chance to jump on it, but that is also being asked or requested to be replaced. The public works department
has the remainder of the vehicles. Two Ford F350s without boxes. These are um these are used pretty heavily throughout the daily manual work that public works does. A loader. This was originally
scheduled to be replaced in 2023. Public works. Uh another plow truck. We have, I believe, 11 plow trucks in our fleet. And so roughly one per year to keep up with the replacement on that. a zeroturn
kabota moore that was also scheduled to be replaced in 2023. So, it's been it's been uh delayed. The snow go, which is a an attachment for the front of a loader that would be a big snowb blower that's going to be used primarily on large snow
events. It's going to be used during our downtown snow emergencies as well as it'll help out at the airport on um to get rid of some snow and some drifting out there. And the last would be a street sweeper for
$275,000. Once again, that is used as uh pretty much spring to fall uh to clean up the winter sand to uh clean up the leaves, clean up the streets. This helps with our MS4 um certification and just
keep our streets clean. Would that be a third one or a replacement? So, so yeah, to summarize, we we spent or allocated $350,000 in 24,485 in 2025. Also, in 2024, we did do an
equipment certificate. Uh we purchased the aerial fire truck that's on order right now, a plow truck as well as a a road grader uh for public works that was roughly is just under 2 million around
1.9. We the big ticket items on the vehicles are roughly 1.2. So that is an option for next year. Um how do the equipment certificates work? Is that just a payment plans in or? Yeah. So,
it's actually part of our bond. So, the the nice part about the equipment certificate is we can dictate the terms. So, our street improvement bonds are 15 years. The last equipment certificate we did, we just did 10-year repayment. So, we can we can have it
shorter than the 15-year bonds, you know, which um I wouldn't want to I wouldn't want to borrow for a vehicle any longer. Does that include the multi-year uh savings plan for the fire department's humper truck? Can that be put on an equipment certificate? No, you can't put
that on equipment certificate. You can't hold money. And then I just want to go back to the police cars. If I recall right, weren't we supposed to have six or eight this year? 2026 coming up. Is this reduced to all right again?
No, I do recall that. Yeah. Yeah, that was just a plan out. I just want to make sure that you know typically it's for I thought last year when we were looking at it was almost like the that was the
way it was on it but that was just a cuz I know they took the they helped us city out by reducing it for 2025 from 4 to two. So I want to make sure you know this is you know reduced from like 8 to
four so we don't reduce it anymore. Yeah. And I do know that Chief Home is um Frank can answer that because heads the committee for the vehicles. So typically every year we we shoot for four squad cars. Um if you look at the
vehicle replacement there may be like eight or 10 cars coming up. It's just very hard for them to know which cars are going to go until it's time for them to leave, you know. Um, so we shoot for four cars and it's been that way
for 15 year 15 20 years. How many cars do they have? Right. I think 16 22. Yeah. Right in the 20ish mark. They last five to six years.
They shoot for five um five six years mileage wise they get they're up there in the 120 20 125 130,000 miles which is really hard on a squad. Um they're a tough car
but now they're running into you can't find them anywhere getting a little bit better. Um, but they've been really hard and they're hard once they get them done. It's hard to get equipment changed in. There's such a backlog of that. So,
they're running squat. Sorry. Sorry. I know I interrupted you. Oh, they're just running squats until they're literally pushing them out the back lot. I mean, that's kind of where they're doing right now. So, they shoot for four. That's kind of where we're at.
Do we get any kind of trade or say resale on them or about this much? You know, like I said, we're running basically into the ground and they're not they'll just kind of take
them off our hands as a courtesy so we don't have sitting around everywhere. Yep. Yep. I got it. But I just want to make sure that we're not going to short change the place again. You know, like I said, I I thought they requested six or eight for the shape of last year's
and I I do know that Chief Homeman is he's got a very good grasp of it. He used to do all the fleet. Uh maybe he still does, but and I know that they're frequently flyers at the public works garage um getting repairs. So, I do know that they take good care of them, but they're stretching them, I
think, as far as they can really go right now. So, um early indications out of St. for local government aid aren't great, right? There was a report last week that is in the Senate version of their budget bill to
reduce local government aid. It would have a roughly $200,000 negative impact to the city of that's a that's a percent increase. Yep. Then I'm assuming that we're probably looking at some kind of increase in the in the budget that the
mayor will propose to us. Yes. If I'm reading and doing my math right, the CIP if we greenlighted every single one of those projects, that's a 16% increase there. So that's the last it is, which kind of
boils back to the original question. It's just direction. What what would the council be comfortable with seeing for a proposed capital improvement portion of a preliminary budget? Or if there are identified projects that we must see, we
will build those in to the preliminary budget. 19% I'm assuming 45. Oh, it's going to take 516 out of it. Yeah. So, we just gained 2% there as a government. Yeah, that's a
2% cut, right? There you go. And I mean the problem is is like again everything on this list we need it. And if you kick it down the road like we have in the past, it just gets bigger next year. And I don't know how many of us want to vote for a 16
19% increase to the tax against CIPO. But if you don't, then it's a 30% increase you bring us next year. That's that's the overall goal is to to build in CIP funds over years. And I
think we all understand it's not realistic to to request or ask for and pass the council of a large $3.7 CIP list. Um we're all aware of that. That's the number that you are all
comfortable with. Yeah. So, I think like the largest number on this list often, you know, draws the most eyes when you're looking to make cuts. But I actually feel the strongest about like the the best financial move philosophy wise that I think we're making is starting to to pay into that fund for
the pumper truck for the fire department. And I'd hate to see that cut off of CIP. I think that we can do the city hall elevated fire alarm, which might put aside from city hall. always put money set money aside for
city hall already. We don't know where we're going to go. You know, there's different options been floating around out there. You know, if we end up just fixing it up, you know, we'll save a lot more money being there. You know, we all heard rumors and stuff like this
about this location, that location, everything falls through. So I just say we just keep tucking away on way in for the city hall and draw some funds right now and fix it up and that way we can reduce at least you know
185,000 right [Music] there money's already earned through city hall city hall that 5.5 millionffect in bonds affect levy at all does not affect You
got to buy 500 million here on the bond. Oh, yes. Yes. We're going to have to pay that money back. Yes. How does that affect levy? So, last year we closed at6ish million. I took a $335,000 effect this
year. 15ear assessment or 15-ear bond repayment terms. So that also does add, you know, we've we've added since 23 the levy of the streets to the tax instead of uh internal
funding. So that has been an ad as [Music] well. Yeah, roughly a million bucks a year so far. The 5.5 though also include doesn't that includes the total expected
project but we reduce that also by what MUC will pay us because they pay us for reconstruction. And then if there are any streets that are um or anything that we do that we can pay with our street funding that we get from the state that
would be a reduction. Um didn't want to forget about that part. I think and then some of that course bond is paid by back by assessments. I think council member Butterfield brings up an interesting point when it
comes to the city hall uh funds. At some point, do we like cuz every year we've been like taking a percentage, so we're we're we're setting aside a larger and larger amount of dollars every year. At some point, do we cap that and say, you know what, we're only going to be
setting aside 400,000. That's it, you know, and that opens up 85,000, right? I think what you need to look at though is what cost what would a bond cost us and are we getting enough
back to bond for in city hall are we already saving too are we already getting enough to cover until you get enough to cover for a bond payment is where you need to set the cap
so I don't know what that is at this point how much do we approve for city hall every year 3% of our tax rate this year is 587. So you're looking at less than a 6 month set back. Let's say we carved
185,000 Tom's proposing. You're looking at less than 6 months worth of revenue, right? That's how I way I do my budget home is way different than how we do our budget here. If I have if I have to spend $1,000 over
the course of a year and I have a $500 expense comes in, means I got to wait 6 months to spend my $1,000. Right. So the rate we're acrewing it's less than six less than a sixmon correct car that we're talking about. And current currently right now
our debt service it would it would fund a 10 to 11 million build. We wouldn't have to raise taxes for that. So that's current if you will, but that would be council's discretion if we wanted to decrease the city hall future city hall
levy. I'm not arguing that at all. Just trying to figure out what what the reality of what town can um the back to park the DNR grant that's a requirement right for us to get the 50,000 is what we need to
contribute, right? It's a placeholder so we can go out and get a bigger grant. Okay. So, it's not something we have yet, but the hope is to So, I'd like to go out with a bigger number so we can get a more of a trail done or something like that. I really
would like to see us um take a look at our local option sales tax and see what I mean some of these figures are in here probably fit into what we use the local option sales tax for. if we can go ask for an extension. I know that it's still
in the Twilight Zone at the legislature, but if they stop the moratorum and there was one um city that got some it through, but for us to be prepared to can they ask for an extension or to do a
second local option sales tax, do we have to do that? I just don't see us being able to do lights or, you know, I don't I just don't see us being able to do that. And they were actually projects that came through
there. So, would it make sense for us to try to do that? I think absolutely makes sense to try. I mean, why not? Worst they can do is say no. Yeah. Just to make the council aware, I believe both in the house and the senate
are proposing an extension of that moratorum until June 30th of 2026. But does not mean we can't plan, but most the coalition are lobbying to if you can't figure out what you want it to
do, then just please just remove the the moratorum until you make up your mind what you want the collection sex to be used for. I just think it should be ready. How do we have left on that? Eight, I
believe. Is it 31 or 2032? Yeah. I don't know how soon the legislators let you let to ask for an extension. There are some communities that have done it successfully and some that I think are actually waiting right now to
do that same thing. So, it's worth it, to me, it's worth checking it out and being ready and and actually talking to our legislators, too, about where we're at financially and what we need. So, again, we can start the
conversation. We can start the ask next year. Yeah. So, many years or is it based on how much money we collect? Does it end early? I think money you can write it that the current one is that way once we would
collect enough it would either or and then you know 20 years or however long it was or was 13 years or $30 million I believe but of that also it includes any
interest we pay on bonds too. So we get to collect revenue for the bond payments too. So until the bonds are paid off can continue to collect. I would imagine with inflation alone we must be
way ahead of schedule. Well we were trending up. Um it's funny you say that today we got a local option sales tax for March significantly less than February. So, I don't know if that's a just a sign or what, but we got
$40,000 less in February in a short month. Market drops in past years. We've seen fluctuations. Um, this one was pretty abrupt. So, I know at the convention and visitors bureau, those are slow months
for hotels and that is really down. And I think if you look at where people spend money in our community, that report that they get, which would be fun for us to hear sometime about the dollars that are being spent in our community, would probably reflect that same
thing. I forget what the program's called, but they get a monthly report that shows where people are spending their money and what communities they're coming from to spend. Isn't that for their cell phone tracking that they use?
Yeah. And and actually your debit cards and credit cards and all of that information. So I've never been through one of these before. Is do we go through each line item? We decide how much money you want to spend and then see how many line items can fit in that.
What's the protocol probably do this? Either way, we're open to either way. If you want us to you want to say, you know, increase the budget cuz we're our budget was $400 some,000 this last year. So increase the budget another 200,000.
So $685,000 is what you can spend. We will fit whatever 685,000 about 3.7. Well, we only had $485,000 last year. We could do a little more than the 485 last
year, right? Uh we started at 350 or 450. So it seems like we have to cut at least half to take I mean I my suggestion right now be to send this back to staff with the idea of come back to us once
you've gotten this reduced to like what about half of this is for your priorities and then know we can wrestle with it from there. half a lot of this like problem like prioritizing for you just but half of it is defense
I know I personally want to see the four squad cars left in though I personally do you know the police department went up to us last year and went up from 4 to two and I like I said if I recall right I thought their
budget for 2006 2008 was up to 6 or eight for 2026 and they got it down before. But I think public works stuff is just as important. I think we just got to look at the whole thing and say, you know, if we have to wait one more year, how do we do this? We got a
dangerous situation with public works in park with city center and and the public works garage. That's a serious problem. Well, we're solving the one. Yeah. Which
fix that. Those those are taken care of. take care. Would the council be interested in seeing? So I just as an example that's what a potential if the council wanted to do another equipment
certificate and roughly 1.2 million over under a bond or an equipment certificate. It does reduce the total CIP but again it's a it's still an increase to the budget over the defined period of time 10 years
as we the idea then that we're going to continue to do that year after year because that's going to catch up with us like to it would be nice to be able to pay cash for our needs but it's a crutch in the interim.
Well, I have an agreement. I think we hand this back to staff and let them battle it out and uh you know, kind of something that uh we don't have to work so hard about and and doing everything. Look, I just want to remember last year
we did this, but then we sat and staff did do that and you came back and said we don't want to raise taxes. So I think what we're saying is are we acknowledging tonight that in order to do what we need to do with CIB, we have to raise
taxes and what is that going to be versus last year we said don't raise taxes and we you know where else can we cut and maybe we need to lobby hard to not have our LGA. I think that's going on right now too.
200,000 is a lot of money. I think the school board is having a discussion if they're going to be laying off people, you know. Is that something we have to start looking at doing too? I mean, we're getting out there, you know, we've been up 15, 10, 9%, you know, in the past 3 4 years and
now 16 20%. With the way inflation's going, can our residents handle it? I'm not getting a 40 50% pay raise every every year to cover inflation. you know, school board, you know, they're sitting in the same
boat. They're actually talking about layoffs. The city need to start doing that. Okay. Yeah. Um I guess from each department especially when we look at the police force, the public works, park and
recreck, fire, um I would be open to doing the certificate if the payments to come out of those certificates can be through operations reduction. So if you feel that you have such a need for this
equipment that it'll make your operations that much more smooth um are you able to reduce your operations budget by that same dollar amount be open to the certificate in that case um to wash the the payments
out of our budget. I don't want to have to be dealing with this in 5 years and another council and and so forth to to pay for these things. So, um if if the departments feel that it's critical that we spend $2.2 million
um and the certificate's now going to cost us uh an extra $300,000, we'll have to reduce those operations by that amount. And then we'll write the check for you this year. But if can't reduce the operations by that amount, then may
not be able to get all the shiny new vehicles. [Music] Thank you, Mary. What part of our operations budget are salaries and benefits?
23. 230. Rough rough 2/3. Okay. Our public works is not overstaffed for the things that we ask them to do. Police department and fire department. Um, it's great to say that,
but where if we think we're overstaffed, where would that be? And what would we not do if we had to do reductions in staff? Back to less police officers, less public works staff. So, we asked
them to do less. but our our community engagement and the things that we asked to do, they're already struggling to get it done. So, I I I hear what you're saying, but um we did that a few years ago. We sent back
and said, "Take 10% out of your budget." I mean, I don't think it hurts to ask departments to do that, but if the majority of it is salaries, where are we over staffed? I think, you know, it was like a third
of our budget's the police department. Is that accurate? A third? Yep. Yeah. You know, and I think to that point when we had this conversation last year, it got real uncomfortable when I asked questions for me at least about like, hey, we're trying to hire four officers.
What if we tried to hire two instead of four? Especially with the, you know, the the school resource officers no longer being needed. I mean, kind of the staff seemed to be reduced by four and it got real uncomfortable. And I think you joined in asking some of those questions and and we got labeled in some social
media about defunding the police. And if it wasn't for former council member Osmus also asking the questions, I think that would have got a lot more uncomfortable for you and I. It's hard to label Julie as a defund the police. Uh, you know,
um, yeah, I I mean, it seems to me that this community does not have much of an appetite for fewer police officers, and that's got to I mean, it'd be interesting to know what the percentage of the budget for, you know, um, salary and benefits just for officers is, but it's got to be a pretty large section of
the budget. You guys, you're already working on it. Um, we haven't sent the departments. That'll be at the end of the month. So, they won't have that back until July for operating budget requests.
I know there's probably not huge appetite for this, but just throwing it out there. We pay bold and m enormous amount of money since we got rid of our engineering department. Could we hire a couple engineers and save
money that way? Hiring an engineer is very difficult. Mano has been trying. Hutchinson has been trying. I just had a conversation with an engineer today. He named off three cities that three to four cities that have been trying to hire engineers
for the last two years. And I know Bolton does an outstanding job for us. So that's not a win. Yeah. chastisement of them at all. When we had an engineering department, the department itself was over $700 and some thousand
dollars and that was back in 2021. So now I would think your engineering department would be close to 1.2 maybe and we'd need new software and we you know right I mean basically we Yeah. Is
it normal for the design of a project to be 20% of the total project cost? Is that normal? Mhm. Yeah. That seems exorbitant to me. Understand? Well, then you also got to look too, you
know, the general contractors, you know, they're going to pack on like 10% of whatever the work. I understand how construction works, but just the design. We we do a when it comes to us, they say, "Here's here's we give them money for design and then they go for bid and then we come back and we approve the
asbid budget, right? As bid budget is whatever the public opening was plus whatever they're charging us for design." And almost every single job, it's 20% of the total product value is designed. They're running off their margins like, you know, Walmart.
off their margins. I understand how companies work. Did we spend $1.2 million last year for Bolton and Mink? I couldn't tell you. I think though what we've also learned is that if we would have an engineering department spend 1.2, you'd still need
Bolton and MIG to come in and subsidize because our our uh our appetite for road construction exceeds our capacity. Well, it's not just that. Um H Bolton Mink does our wastewater department of course that's paid out of
wastewater rates um and so there are specialties our airport is done by Boltland Mink and that's a specialty you know so we need those and so there are still things even just under general uh street design like
Mr. Osc said that uh they do did have Bolton and Mink in the past do also Sure. So there's still things that they have to do be that big a savings, right? Yeah. It might not be that, you know, there'd be some savings, but not a lot
to say. Is there another company out there that we could enter into a relationship other than Golden Bank that's 15% for any seems like engineering department? Otherwise, every project you go to, you would do an RFP for every
project. some members for the police department council me um 84% of their budget is salaries and benefits and then of the total general fund or the levy it's just their
salaries are 27% of the total levy at the police department so that's salaries benefits over time for you math nerds that are smarter than I am if we were to say we wanted a 10% across the board cut. How many officers do we lose?
There's what? 30 38 right now. No, they don't have that many hired. Lose about eight. We lose eight officers on a 10%. Yeah, we have 80 officers. But they don't have that. No, but it makes up, you know,
the you'd be asking the police department to cut the equivalent of that if you just said everybody's their budget. So basically what you'd be saying is right now they don't have 38 officers. They have 30 right at 30 one's retiring next
32 retiring right? So you don't you don't replace any of the officers that you have open right now and you don't replace any that are retiring. You terminate two on top of that it sounds like. So you reduce by attrition and don't replace. Right. That's how a lot of private companies do it. Right. Right.
people that are smarter running cities than I am, what does a healthy city allocate every year percentage-wise for capital improvements in the budget? A healthy city, not us, cuz clearly we're not healthy. You guys have peers you talked
to when you went to school about how to operate a city. I only finished half of my public administration degree. So, what do you think of a healthy percentage of your overall budget for capital improvements? Just thinking of other comparables. I'd say they're a million to million and a
half. I'm not looking for a dollar. I'm looking for percent. Cuz there's nothing in here that we won't eventually do. It's either going to break, fall apart, stop working, hurt somebody. There's nothing in here we're
not going to do. I don't think there's any well the only thing in here well there might be a couple in here that you're like nah that's not happening but most part the vehicle side we're going to do those it's just a matter of when and you can only punt that football so
far down the road between five and 10% okay so our budget's $20 million $22 million right so if we said between five and 10% round number two would
3.2 one and a half is 6. That doesn't get us anywhere close to what we need for the 5year plan. This year is 3.7 years there more years and errors less. So let's say average.
So to get us to 5 2.2 that means we have to increase the levy by 1.7 since we already have 4.85 make the buy right up to $500,000. So, what's 1.7, Justin? At 1% every $200,000.
It's 7%. No, it's 9%. Right. So, if we said a 9% increase and that sets us on trajectory, so we don't have to have this stupid conversation every year. We
can say every year we get $2.2 million in capital improvement money. You can come to us with more, but that's we're going to bake that into the budget pie. That seems to make sense to me. Now, that means all of us falling on our
swords and saying, "Congratulations, taxpayer. Everything I just ran on, I'm throwing out the window because we are broken as a city right now from a budget perspective." I will tell you that capital impremature was
depressing, right? every piece of we got rains rain on the electoral panel of public works. I don't think there's a roof in the city that doesn't leak from what I saw. I know we only solve them first, right? But just from a we have to buy four squad cars a year. We have to
buy a third of a fire truck every year to keep your trucks less than 25 years old, right? We have to buy a snow plow every year to keep your snow plows less than 11 years old. to do all of that math. If it's 2.2 million
bucks and we can say, okay, managers wanted 3.7, congratulations, you're not getting 1.5. So you guys can leg wrestle. You can do whatever you got to do. Or we can say you're not getting it.
But I am entirely open to saying let's bake this thing into the pie and not have this discussion because you can't continue to punt $3.5 million in capital improvements every single year. Can't sorry that was a long rant
and I apologize. What did we end up raising last year? What was it last year? We were right at 10, right? The levy increase was 10% last year. Yep. The tax rate increase
was probably not. Yeah. Overall levy that includes, you know, the street levy, the operations, those are the two two main cogs. The street adding in bond every year. Um 2%
roughly. I hate to say this, there's a lot of cities that are we're going through the same thing that a lot most cities are. Yeah, because we're all aging, right? Well, no, but but um money what we're being
asked to do. If you think of people will pay taxes for things they want, but I think that's more than police cars and fire trucks. It's not sexy to go build your building to do those kinds of things. But um at the
same time, you can't if if the state gives us less money, we're going to turn around and unless I mean that's the same thing that's happening with the school and the same thing that's happening with the county. We don't like state taxes, but the
county and the school and the city will all raise their taxes to offset with they're not quite you guys. You guys that I lost them that fiber project comes to town and you start making money hand over fist on that can offset some
of this. Correct. Sure. Yes. Thanks. It's 100% not true. But eventually you do have that influx of cash. You can start to maybe
reduce when that happens if not or you can maintain the levy at zero worst case or then we got to go back and ask for more money because I think it's going to fail. That's a whole other topic, right? But that's the idea. We don't we don't have
you know there's only one way that right now the city generates revenues it's taxes and you know our our cable our cable company you know rack they generate revenues that just is in the
general fund and that's going down every year general fund no our cable franchise feed is going down you know We now have a gas franchise fee which is part of the revenues now too and you know and we get
the electric franchise fee. So those are all taken into account of the tax to reduce the le you know so you know our revenues there are other communities
that are doing things like park districts that's yeah sorry following up on house member gardeners with uh you know reuse and everything we started out funding for the city hall we're at $500,000 a
Next year we brought it up. Next year we brought it out. I think we should just go back to the $500,000 every year. You know, that's going to help lower over lower some of the money there. Not too much, you know, almost the price of a a squad car. And we
use current money we already got funded in there to fix up uh for the elevator and fire alarm system. We'll still be on pace to do the bonding and do whatever else. you know, all worse comes to worse and we just remodel the the current city
hall, fix up whatever little problems and and just keep funding for later on. I think that will help us out too. Plus, we're reducing a little bit instead of increasing what we're funding city hall
for every back flat $500,000 a year. I was going to say there are cities that are looking at doing like park districts where they have one park between the county and the city and you know where
you have a different kind and they fund it differently. So you have you have different kinds of things but I mean so that's effort kind of thing. Yes. But yes, similar to you've all heard park
district. Yeah. Did we do that with the school district and we split up the parks and racks and I'm talking about the actual physical parks and the talking about the land and the programs and those types of things. Put them in a separate fund. Yeah. It wasn't it wasn't
just staff. It this is talking about you like a met council. Yeah. You know, Alexandria has one. I can think of a few other places. There's, you know, that kind of thing. Um, but that means that you work together with, you know, you
give up some of the decision making that's done in your in your city and you you down district, but they also have some pretty nice things going on. They become a taxing authority. Yeah. And then that takes that portion out of your general fund and you transfer everything
to the park district. So the county would transfer their parks into that district and then create the taxing authority that way and then they would tax just for their operations.
I think council member Gardner's right on the the path forward needs to be I don't know if we get there this year it all once but I that's the only way forward and I think it's going to be a year that's real tough because again with the instability in DC and St. Paul,
like exactly what you said, they're going to they're going to pass this tax burden on to the county and to the in the city and the countyy's going to raise everybody's taxes and we're going to add on to it and people are going to see that in the mail and school district's going to do it too. Absolutely. I don't know if they have
unfunded mandates coming out of their Yeah, it's going to be It won't necessarily be our fault, but the difference is ours aren't necessarily mandates like the school district and the county are running into. Ours are just slowly falling apart. If there's
not a fire truck, you put out the fire. Makes it difficult, doesn't it? If the goal is to make our community that we want to grow and prosper and that people want to come and live and work and play here, then what should we?
I would think again I don't think we can do like a we're going to cut up the operating budget by 10% but I think you know we will carefully at that in the whole different well you can say if we're going to raise
if we're going to bake a CIP portion a large CIP portion of the budget then where can we find a proportional maybe not an equal proportional part of the operating to offset it a little
And I I think we're probably looking at personnel at some point when that comes up too, right? This is such a huge proportion of the budget. If you're going to reduce the budget a proportional amount, that's probably a reality. Contract negotiations start this year.
All unions. Unions are going to be wanting less money, right? For sure. Well, back in 2008 2009 when we had that recession company I was working for corporation we started a 10% payoff for over 6
months it was mandated move on and take 10%. The school has more than once given us 0%. Nobody was happy. Nobody [Music] was. Do you feel like you have a what
you wanted out of this conversation? I really like the discussion. I I I know that I know that we have it's it's you know it's hard to turn the Titanic overnight, you know, so we we've tried hard to build the CIP bake it in, you know. So I I I do like
the strives of getting there, but like you said, I don't know that we could get there in 26. So what if we go 56? Sticker shock. If we did a million, you see what it looks like. 2.2 is a healthy number. What if we go to 1.1? Right. That's a $600,000 increase over this year, give
or take. Yep. So 3%. We could come with that at the preliminary and then when we get our we'll have an answer on our LGA cuts potentially. We'll have a an answer on paid family medical leave that paid family medical leave act or uh
uh insurance. So we'll have an answer on that. So we can come back preliminary mayor's um proposed in September to see what it looks like. Once again subject to change you know at that time if if we and the council were to adopt a preliminary budget it can only go down.
It cannot go up after that point. So that's the the only limitation as at that time. So I felt like it came a little late for me last time. It's my own personal feeling. I wish I would have had that information earlier. Which part? Well, it's the mayor's
budget. It came a little late. This we're ahead of the game though. Yes, this is ahead of Yeah, we're trying to our goal I mean so our goal is to try and because this was the last thing we really finalized last year at work
session the week before the final adoption of the budget TNTs. So this is a huge conversation just to have now to give us a direction to get on to operating. So I think like maybe the philosophy in the past has been and maybe this is what other cities do and
will be the philosophy in the future and I used to always struggle with it. It's like vote for this in September because it doesn't really matter and then we're fix it in the next couple months and I'd rather have it be more want it set in stone in September. I
don't want it set in stone in September but I'd like it to be more realistic. I know we can't go out. Yeah, but I agree, right? Like and I think like that's what we spent all last year doing. Like I don't I personally was not comfortable with what we voted for in September. I wanted it
to be lower and then we we never got there. Um so I don't I'll just say this. I don't know that I personally am going to be as willing to just vote for it now because we can fix it later. If we don't have time to have those conversation, make some cuts before September that
when that vote happens, that's where I'll be at. I'm appreciative of the fact that we have the tour and that we have this discussion tonight. It's very helpful. Yes. Before I don't know how close yet
finishing that for those of you who have connections to our legislators, I'd encourage you to go home and give us a call and say don't cut LGA. We just sat and looked at we're already looking at what we're going to have to do to raise taxes to even do something. You know,
you know their position on it. They spent too much money elsewhere. The Senate, but they haven't voted and they haven't position. No, I don't. But he needs to hear it. I talked to I I talked to him
last week about the housing thing, which makes no sense at all. And all they are is math, you know, with it. And um where did that settle? It's not done yet. Well, the Senate voted it down, but they they still have the opportunity to do
some, but basically they're mad. They're trying to put it in the on bill. So then you won't see it. And you know, what they're proposing is not going to make housing costs go down and that was very much acknowledged by
Senator Lang also, you know. So this this affects when we're 1% 250,000 give or take. Is it 1% across every city or are some going to get hit much harder and
some% statewide counties better off than most? No, it's a 3% reduction in LGA. Wilmer is it's going to affect our tax rate 1%. So everybody saw the same reduction proportionately.
Okay. So, dollar amount, but not per capita necessarily. It's a pretty big formula that goes into it. Many factors. So, one of the reasons why we have a um preliminary levy is typically to help
get health insurance, which is a big line item for our budget. [Music] Um providers are not required to provide anything any numbers to us until the end of September. Correct. Beginning of October which is unfortunately past the
deadline where we have to have a preliminary budget. So we always guess high and this year it was high which played a factor into the final budget as well and I do remember that factor now. Thank you for the reminder. What would happen if we
selfunded? not just be suicide. Last year we had uh looked at multiple options. We typically go out for quotes um this last round we so we're insured by which is the public
employers through the state program and we are committed for four years four years starting at 25 yeah Pete changed their commitment it used to be two-year commitment and then
they went to a fouryear commitment some of the reason is to bring stabilization to the Rob on the ice that's going out. Do you think that's going to come in with any leftover money from that lost yet
with the tariff charges for the the boards coming in? That's that's my biggest concern. concerned that that's going to push us over now or I don't know it till we get to see it because it won't it it's getting built
and it won't be shipped till the fall. So hopefully it goes down. That's why we're crossing our fingers that there's no change orders coming up with it. There shouldn't be, but it's on the quote. I'll do if you'll have to just we're playing the
90-day game right now. So, you just time it. So, yeah, that's because it's coming from Canada. That's where I'm concerned about. But if that does, you know, off the ter we would have nothing to recover or we're going to be having come up with some more
money. I can't give an honest answer on it. Sorry. Should we pay him anything? That's it. [Music] Probably pay just much for a new set of boards as the
play the game that way. Well, just don't have boards. We don't have boards though. Yeah, that's Didn't cost him any more to produce this. Anything else? We're going to shoot for your $2.2
million budget for CA. Well, we'll do we'll have us in your package Monday for you have to remember too. We don't have might not even run again. Yeah.
All right. We have a motion to journ. Thank you. Yeah, that's also