Transcript

Event transcript
All right, we good. All right. This is the 2024 budget work session. 00:00:11
So we at our discretion may or may not allow the public to comment, but if the public shows up for this, but we will be sharing 00:00:18
and I put a fair bit of time sharing and her team put a lot of time into the budget. Then I reviewed it line by line and we work 00:00:25
together on some changes and things that we worked on and we're really excited to share it with you guys and get your feedback on 00:00:33
it. So with that I'll turn it over to you Sharon, if you have any. 00:00:40
Context that you want to walk everybody through and then we can have a conversation and and then wrap up before the council 00:00:48
meeting. Thank you, Mayor. 00:00:51
So just a reminder of the vision, the values that the Council dedicated themselves to at the retreat this year. 00:00:56
We use these, these are guides for us as we develop the budget, try to make sure that we're obviously very efficient and effective 00:01:05
in the use of the funds that have been entrusted to us. Again the Watkinsville way, these are things that are woven throughout the 00:01:11
budget and we'll talk about some of those today. But obviously being a very welcome and inclusive community is one of the the key 00:01:17
things that we focused on. This is our. 00:01:23
Police, city engineering and planning. I guess I consider the same. And then downtown development director. 00:02:02
We have one part time basically it's a part on non benefit position. So it's really a contract labor, but account the auditors 00:02:10
require we place it as an employee when we pay. So that's how it's listed. So we have technically 21 1/2 employees currently have 00:02:16
two vacancies, one in police, the patrol officer and one in public works. 00:02:22
So the budget goals provide new programs or expand services, we'll talk a little bit about that again and ensure continued 00:02:30
effective and efficient delivery of services and accurately identify ways to pay for all of these things that everybody wants to 00:02:36
do and those are prioritized in your strategic initiatives. 00:02:42
So the high level of the universe should have this on. It will be small under the screen, but everybody should have received this. 00:02:50
The high level view is that we have a roughly a 3.2, almost $5 million budget recommendation and we have balanced the budget 00:02:56
without any fund balance contribution. Really happy about that because we've had fund balance contributions in the past. 00:03:03
And I will say without a increase, in fact a rollback in the mileage rate. 00:03:10
This is the executive summary for the revenues again roughly 3.25 million increase of 11%, a lot of that. 00:03:16
Is you know just a result of the development that's happened in the community are and I'll talk about this in a minute on the next 00:03:25
slide. But basically you see the three biggest ones are there on the pie. So you've got property taxes, local option sales tax and 00:03:29
the insurance premium tax. 00:03:33
So local option sales tax that was just renegotiated in 2023 and it's typically it's based on population. The mayor spent a lot of 00:03:42
time trying to negotiate with the county and I think you know originally I think they were having this close to seven, we end up 00:03:48
closer to 8 which was good because we originally had been at 8.63%. 00:03:55
The good news is, is that we are estimating that to continue to increase, although it's not increasing a huge amount. 00:04:02
Historically it's increased 10% I think this year and I have to get back and look real quick, I think only increase to develop. 00:04:09
Hang on, I'll look. 00:04:16
Village. 00:04:22
No, I thought it hadn't. Hang on a SEC. One second. 00:04:26
Yeah, 1.41%, so it's really small. So we're only increasing 1.4% over what we have then. So 81,000 we, I think that's a good 00:04:36
number, maybe even more than that. But I try to be conservative in in estimating how much money we're going to get in on property 00:04:43
taxes. As I mentioned, the mayor challenged me and Lee to try to figure out a way to. 00:04:50
Reminder that property taxes are based on the value as of January 1. So a lot of the stuff that's being developed now wire park, 00:05:37
other projects that are you know the shovels get in the ground, things are starting to move on. Those will be reevaluated come 00:05:44
January 1 of next year and that will have some impact as well for for the next fiscal year, not for this fiscal year. 00:05:51
And then just a reminder that I think the value for what citizens pay and property taxes is extremely great. Residents pay, We pay 00:06:00
residents, I'm sorry, we pay for residential garbage pickup of $23 a month, which works out to about $276 a year. That also 00:06:07
includes leaf and limb collection at the curb every week and your taxes, when you look at the cost of the mileage rate on what a 00:06:15
citizen would pay, an average, let's say a $300,000 home. 00:06:22
They're paying about 325,000 based on the 2.7556, so they're barely cut, you know, they're barely covering the cost of garbage, 00:06:30
and there's so many other services that the city provides. 00:06:35
This is the mileage rate and again small, but you'll see that the. 00:06:44
For a $300,000 house at 2.7556, which would be the mileage rate that we're recommending, that would be a difference of a little 00:06:48
less than $20. And on the commercial status with Homestead and then on the commercial side, it's a little bit, little bit more 00:06:55
than $33 difference, not a lot, but cumulatively it works out to $40,000 so. 00:07:02
Point out also that the net digest did increase by 13 million. 00:07:11
This year and you can see that the trend I didn't try to estimate across there, but we had a big jump between 22 and 23 probably 00:07:16
about 40 million almost 40 million and then 13 million this year. So continue to increase And you know again the good news is we 00:07:23
don't a lot of our, our revenues are not, we don't depend on the property taxes as heavily as we do like local auction sales tax, 00:07:30
some communities like Athens Park County uses depends heavily on property taxes. 00:07:37
Compared comparing anyway, yeah, that's a good size. 00:08:17
And that's that's combined county. 00:08:25
Yeah, that's that's all of that right there. School, city and county. 00:08:30
Legal. We don't contract for that engineering contract for that plans review technically building inspections and stuff. We do 00:09:11
contract for that planes review. We use it. Obviously Mark and Mark Campbell, our city engineer and the attorney help us with 00:09:16
that. 00:09:20
So, but we do a lot with the people we have on staff. You'll see that the the three biggest areas are police, public works and 00:09:26
then the general government. 00:09:31
And of course that's by dollars, not necessarily by people. 00:09:36
And and then when you break it down and largest expenditures, the typical ones that you see in a lot of communities are police and 00:09:41
guards. I mean the first thing is a community does is they if if they're trying to create a city, the first thing to do is create 00:09:47
a Police Department and then garbage or some sort of service like that has to be provided as well. So 913,390 thousand for police 00:09:53
and garbage. 00:09:59
Respectively, in the FY25 budget, we've got about a $60,000 increase. 00:10:06
Some of that and Chief may talk about that if you want to know more about it, but some of that is some of the subscription 00:10:12
services we have to have for a lot of the the services we have. So we have record management system that manages our tickets. We 00:10:19
have to pay fees for that. We have Taser contracts. So when somebody gets tased, there's actually data collected and that has to 00:10:26
be stored and managed for certain period of time and that that's under a contract we have the. 00:10:32
Chief help me out. 00:10:41
I think it's always interesting to look at you know budget by personnel and you know how you're, you know government is typically 00:11:51
mostly people and you'll see that completely true in this in this diagram. So personnel straight up personnel that is the people 00:11:58
that are sitting here in this room and are doing the actual physical work here for the city is 50%. When we add on our contract 00:12:05
labor like the attorney, the engineer or court judge and what not, you get another 20%. So 70% of what the city does is people. 00:12:13
Doing the work and I think it's always interesting to look at that and. 00:12:21
Remember, a lot of people are doing the work. 00:12:25
Major changes, cost of living adjustment. We are asking for a 2 1/2 percent. I will point out. I think Clark County's asking for a 00:12:28
4%, but you guys did adjust the pay table last year and I felt like 2 1/2 percent was fair. I talked to a few other communities in 00:12:34
Atlanta there somewhere between 2:00 and 2 1/2 and five. And a lot of them are redoing, they're they're doing the same thing we 00:12:39
did last year. They had not looked at their their salary stuff, so they're doing salary studies and whatnot. 00:12:45
On the park side, that's the biggest piece. I think I told staff it's parks and police. It seems like this year 127,000 but 00:12:52
justified. So you guys approved that new position. 00:12:57
For the chief of funds was there. It's not just as long as we can service the debt, right? 00:13:37
And this is really small, but I want to put it on there. So one of the big changes we had is we had a nearly $16,000, just shy of 00:13:46
$16,000 increase in our property liability. The biggest piece of that has to do with you know the cost of defending ourselves 00:13:52
against lawsuits. Former Mayor Bob Smith has. I think we have two or three lawsuits outstanding with him in addition to the cost 00:13:58
of. 00:14:04
Other accidents and things that may happen with the city, but I believe it just under the. 00:14:12
The Georgia Insurance Risk Management Association that we work with has incurred just under a quarter $1,000,000 in legal expenses 00:14:18
just for Mr. Smith and his legal expenses. So. So we are continuing to defend ourselves against those and unfortunately you know 00:14:24
insurance companies want to get paid back for that. So our insurance rates have gone up significantly. We also point out we also 00:14:31
had about almost a $5000 cost of premium to cover the new library property and that's you know based on the value that properties 00:14:38
worth 2 1/2 million dollars so. 00:14:44
So they base the premium on that obviously the interior part that the Athens Regional Library system, the county have to pay for 00:14:52
that cost if anything inside the like rental insurance basically, but the the exterior property and stuff we have to insure so. 00:14:59
Housing development building inspector. So we do see an increase in 96,000. I'll remind you although that so we're estimating that 00:15:08
revenues are going to be somewhere in the. 00:15:13
Range of about 300,000. That's assuming certain projects. There's some outstanding projects that we expect will happen. 00:15:18
Plans, review fees and things like that because my engineer has gone up, my attorney has gone up and they take time to review 00:15:57
things and we've got some data now that we've had several projects come through, we can sort of determine is $150.00 for a site 00:16:01
plan, is that does that cover it? Probably not. But we also have to look at the local market and you know I don't want to say 00:16:06
$600.00 and you know that I'd be fair. So we'll, I'll be working on that in the next couple of months, probably bring that before 00:16:11
y'all. 00:16:15
The other. 00:16:22
Other changes. So this year we're recommending spending a little bit more money, about $1500 more, to make sure we have plenty of. 00:16:24
And then the library. You may recall that the library service agreement. 00:17:02
The city committed to providing up to 30,000, the 1st $30,000 that came off of the expand the development at Wire Park. Right now 00:17:06
Wire Park is not quite at, they're not quite at the 30,000. I think they're shy. I'll tell you the exact number minute I think 00:17:13
they're shy by. 00:17:20
You know if I'm a number. 00:17:29
About four or $5000. 00:17:31
And that may change with it as a development. 00:17:34
Culture. Culture. 00:17:40
Yeah, I. 00:17:43
Yeah, we're at. 00:17:47
We're at 27399. So again what we do is I and it's in your packet. Well actually it's not your packet that it I can certainly give 00:17:49
that to you. The mayor saw it. There's a spreadsheet. We keep track of the cost of each of those parcels as as far as how it's. 00:17:56
Out evaluated by the county and then we assess you know the the mileage rate and we determine you know the percentage of that. 00:18:04
At sorry the the rate of that it calculates up and if it reaches 30,000 then they get all 30,000, if they don't they get up to you 00:18:15
know whatever amount shows up. So right now we're at 27,000 or so I imagine by next year we'll we'll be pushing that after the 00:18:22
initial 30,000. I believe the the library service agreement says that we will give them an additional 10%. 00:18:28
I don't know if they did, Mayor. I'll have to go back and look. 00:19:06
I think they have a lot of. I don't remember exactly our terms, but I do know they had. 00:19:09
They have a lot of public art in the. 00:19:14
Yeah, I think there was supposed to be some outside art or something, yeah. 00:19:19
Pull up something real quick. Just make sure I had that right. 00:19:27
I'm going to do something that I probably. 00:19:39
Here we go. 00:19:43
So you'll see. 00:19:44
This is the spreadsheet that I use. So we list all of the parcels the owners. 00:19:46
Let's see if I can leave my. Sorry, I've got. 00:19:53
All sort of step over here. 00:19:55
And we listed out on on mileage right now. Obviously the I have to go back in there since we dropped the mileage rate. I'll go 00:20:01
back in and make the adjustment, but. 00:20:04
Yeah, I didn't think about that. I have to go back and make that adjustment. But anyway, we're at 27399 and the difference is 00:20:08
about $6000 more. 00:20:13
Making that about that and we need to go back and fix that. 00:20:19
I'll go back and calculate that after the meeting and see if there's any major. I think we'll we'll try to absorb any difference 00:20:27
that we've got in there. 00:20:30
Let's see. 00:20:36
My screen. 00:20:38
So we're trying to track all that as it comes. 00:20:39
It comes up OK. 00:20:43
And then? 00:20:44
I get my screen back up so I can see what I'm showing you. 00:20:46
So medical, dental, vision, obviously that continues to go. We are actually in a contract through the end of September. We renew 00:20:51
in October, which always makes it challenging to budget the stuff because then we got a budget on pay periods and all that. But we 00:20:56
were fortunate that I guess it was year before or maybe it was last year we got a 18 month deal. This year we only got this 00:21:01
current year, we only got a 1212 month deal, so. 00:21:07
Estimating what we feel like is, you know maybe a 5% increase in medical premises. Last year we thought we're going to have an 00:21:13
increase in our our broker was able to negotiate no increase which was incredible. So we'll just have to wait and see how that 00:21:19
plays out. But we are estimating an increase of 5% of medical, 4% in dental and no increase in vision for for the nine months. I 00:21:25
think it's 27 pay periods. 00:21:30
And then on the capital side, remind you guys we have a capital improvement program. Typically we fund it with monies from the 00:21:39
operating budget. So normally to depreciate we would have depreciation expenses shown in the operating budget and. 00:21:46
In the past we did it by department. A couple years ago we decided we had a fairly decent, you know, amount of money, roughly 00:21:55
about $300,000 at the time and we decided to just as a group you know contribute towards it. This year I decided not to contribute 00:22:02
anything, mainly because I want to keep the the cost, the operating cost down and because we have monies in the budget. The great 00:22:08
thing about capital improvement is we have other funds like the splice, the T splash that can can bear some of the brunt of that. 00:22:15
So like for instance. 00:22:21
Splice 3. We have money in there for public safety. So if you guys wanted to get another variable message on if you wanted to use 00:22:28
some funds, in fact we're recommending this year's budget that you buffer some of the costs for replacing a police vehicle and 00:22:34
even replacing a mower with some of those monies that you can use out of Floss 3. And so that reduces the need to actually dip 00:22:41
into your capital improvement fund. And this year we're asking for. 00:22:48
Two years ago and we didn't. So that's the other thing you'll find is we try to. 00:23:25
Broadcasting our meetings. It helps with making sure that everybody has access, quick access to the Internet and to the server. 00:24:33
But the server has to be updated to and so we're looking at about $25,000 to replace that. 00:24:39
That is it in a nutshell but I know there's a lot more. So anybody has any questions please ask. I have one question. I saw you're 00:24:47
talking about cutting grass and just popped in my head that we just acquired 100 acres of grass. Do we have a Bush hog to are we 00:24:53
going to contract that or what's the we we do have a Bush hog and we may do our our Bush hog may be used for the smaller area like 00:24:59
Trove that with the 10 or 11 acres we've got there because that's manageable the larger we've actually talked to the gentleman who 00:25:04
was Bushaga before. 00:25:10
And he gave us a really incredible price. I think he just likes to drive his tractor around and so we'll we'll we'll work that as 00:25:17
long as it's available. 00:25:20
And I think we budgeted for three, maybe 4 * a year to have it Bush hogged. 00:25:25
And we're also looking at for parts of those areas overtime doing a native Prairie restoration there which would have a totally 00:25:30
different cycle. So if we do start moving some of that out of your traditional hay, you know Bush hog and then we would do 00:25:35
something different there so. 00:25:39
So are there questions about the revenues or the expenses or any, I mean any I gave you, I gave you line item for all of the 00:25:48
departments? 00:25:53
It's really. 00:26:31
Some you know, I feel like we get a lot of juice out of the squeeze for what we what we spend here in Watkinsville. 00:27:02
But this is your time to. 00:27:10
Suggest question. 00:27:12
All the things on the budget. So I don't have any questions. I just want to thank Sharon and Lee and everybody else that works on 00:27:14
all of this and keeps us. 00:27:18
Informed. That's a lot to do. 00:27:25
And I like the fact that we're not going to dipping into our fund balance. We've balanced the budget and we won't have to get into 00:27:29
the savings. That's outstanding. It is amazing and I thank you all I think. 00:27:35
You guys. 00:27:41
Umm, I guess my question is. 00:27:44
And this may be more of a something we talked about in February of the next retreat than budget. 00:27:47
Is. 00:27:53
With as much as we do. 00:27:55
And umm. 00:27:58
Do do we need to start and again, not for this budget, but do we have enough employees to carry the workload of? 00:28:01
What all the city is doing? 00:28:11
I mean is that I don't again this may not be the moment to ask that, but it's just something not expecting you right now throw 00:28:13
that in here. But I just you know looking at the parks looking and we have a position that's unfilled that still needs to happen. 00:28:21
I so appreciate the number of hats that everybody wears and how hard all of you guys work and I. 00:28:29
I don't, and I am someone who's incredibly naturally frugal and I appreciate that and value that. But at the same time, as we move 00:28:38
forward, do we need to have another administrative assistant? Do we need to have another person in the products department? Do we 00:28:46
need, even if it means next year we don't roll the mileage rate back or whatever? Because I don't want. 00:28:54
I guess I don't want y'all to get burnout. I mean, I just want what is realistic and I want to make sure that our. 00:29:03
You know, as we have the unfortunate umm. 00:29:10
I don't call it harassment. 00:29:16
Of former mayor, which takes a lot of energy and time of the city, you know is. 00:29:19
Is that going to need to affect our budget with another another part-time person or person which is absolutely ridiculous that 00:29:29
that even needs to be addressed, but that that's my thoughts. So it's all like praise and gratefulness, but I I just want to be 00:29:37
mindful of of the work that all of you guys do. Well, we appreciate that and I think the answer to that question is certainly 00:29:44
something we've talked about on on staff, I mean in the last three weeks I think we've. 00:29:52
And along those lines maybe another thing and you guys have been doing this like having Unicode having. 00:31:39
Like I know that we have done capital investments in some systems that help streamline things too. So that might be another thing, 00:31:48
you know that comes up again next budget or whatever. I just think that can we get a AI open records response? 00:31:56
Somebody will. Somebody will come up that maybe we should, maybe we should. 00:32:06
Well, you did approve this for this fiscal year, did approve for us to go to a new financial software called Govtech. 00:32:13
You know we have your Veritas as a contractor, so we really don't need that type of system for them. So we are, we are, we are 00:32:52
looking at those things. Justice One is the new record management system for the Police Department and that's they just got 00:32:58
training on that, that just happened. So again, yeah, we're trying to use all the tools we can and and learn all the efficiencies 00:33:04
of using those tools because obviously there's that that helps lift the load a little bit for us as well. 00:33:11
Another question that I have. 00:33:18
And I apologize that I did not dig enough, it may have been in what you provided. So with Rocket Field, we are paying for 00:33:21
maintenance and I know there was definitely hope for rental income to offset that. What are those numbers actually looking like at 00:33:27
this point? 00:33:33
Sharon, while Sharon digs it up, I did talk to Phil Roberts about that the other day. I don't know that we're, I don't know that 00:33:40
we're at break even on that in terms of the rental income, but. 00:33:45
Our contract I think says that we need to meet to discuss, discuss that and he's told we're meeting next week. I think, yeah, he 00:33:50
told me. He's been hesitant to push too hard on. 00:33:55
Push too hard on rentals while. 00:34:01
Because of some sensitivities with Little League, but I told him you know those revenues support DDA and offset our expenses. We 00:34:04
I'm not afraid to push a little harder. So I'm glad you're catching up with him and talking about that So but there you go. So 00:34:10
these are the April and May are estimates because I don't have those yet but we have had I mean I look at the calendar we have had 00:34:16
a fair number of. 00:34:22
Rentals outside of Mahoney's not paying anything right now, Mayor and I've talked about trying to make sure we memorialize how 00:34:29
that looks to. We'll be working on that. 00:34:33
He managed that, I mean we got you know the funds came in but he managed that anything outside of that area, the stage area, the 00:35:08
green space, whatever the the, you know we manage that. 00:35:14
And there hasn't been a whole bunch of that. I think there's a lot of opportunity. I think potentially there's opportunity, you 00:35:21
know, with the DBA to to have events or to encourage, you know, whatever. There's opportunities there that maybe make some money 00:35:24
and. 00:35:28
There's a framework for that we could use but. 00:35:33
But it is definitely helping the lift as far as public works because they maintain that, you know if we had to take that on, none 00:35:37
of our guys are, you know that's that's a sort of a specialty to maintain that infield and whatnot. 00:35:43
Our guys still handled the bathrooms, police make sure they're open and closed and kept an eye and we got cameras up, all that 00:35:50
kind of stuff that we're trying to use. But but I think there's I think it's still an asset that could be used a little bit more. 00:35:56
We just got to think about how best to to to use it and what is our cost a month to be that we're paying to maintain that. 00:36:02
And does it vary per season? I'm guessing it might. Or is it just the flat Can't remember? 00:36:12
Yeah, the department. 00:36:19
Actually, I'm on it. Hang on a second. I'm on my spreadsheet. 00:36:22
You know, a lot of times with PR people, you just pay for it every month to. 00:36:28
I can't remember if I put it on. I think I've been on contract labor. 00:36:44
Yeah, about 1700 a month. 00:36:46
So it's costing a little bit more, but it's also a public park and it's saving our guys from doing that. So I mean, it seems to me 00:36:50
like there's enough revenue coming in that it's not like it's this huge. 00:36:55
There's gonna be a lot of legal fees. At what point do open records? 00:37:32
I mean. 00:37:39
That would be that'd be a joke question. I mean, technically we are required by law to respond to requests for information. 00:37:41
And there isn't any relief really for us if if we got bombarded with them, I mean, which we have. 00:37:48
We just have to do, you know, the reality of it is your requirement is to respond within three days, not necessarily go do all the 00:37:56
work being especially in the situation that we're dealing with now, that person has to pay up front because they haven't in the 00:38:01
past and so. 00:38:06
The, you know, we're still responding within three days. When you get three or four in one day, that means you got to sort of look 00:38:13
at it. You got to estimate. We try not to spend a lot of time trying to estimate how much time is going to require, but you got to 00:38:18
give it a good estimate because you don't want to tell them. I mean we did refund Mr. Smith like $29.00 because we overestimated 00:38:23
on one of them not too long ago because he paid more than what it actually cost us. But you know, it's it's easier to do that than 00:38:28
it is to go back. 00:38:33
To the. 00:38:40
Probably 1/4 of an hour, everyone, because Joe has to look at him because the person who's sending him is so litigious and so so I 00:39:17
don't know what Joe's rate is but 1/4 of that so and then you multiply it times however many 100 open records request we get. You 00:39:24
know, but you can't risk given his posture, we can't risk not having an attorney touch those normally that's not part of the 00:39:31
process. Right. And we and we don't and we and we can't chart. We can't make any open records request. 00:39:38
That person asking for the opener express pay for our attorneys fees. They can only pay for the staff. You know the cost that it 00:39:46
takes for staff to get them. Can we negotiate with Joe A? 00:39:52
Slightly different rate. I mean, I read his responses and I a lot of them. 00:40:01
Our copy and paste take 3 seconds but are probably billed. I mean again, is this OK for me to be asking? I'm just trying to 00:40:07
brainstorm here about I don't, I don't think I think Joe, I mean in the beginning I think he was getting maybe more into the 00:40:13
weeds. Now he just sort of cursory looks at it, make sure there's anything if Julie has a question. 00:40:20
Back to any of the other stuff, any of the other cases, right or something that's tricky or they could you know 'cause we're 00:40:26
trying to, we don't want to create more of the other situations where he's but you know we're back to Germer or whatever. So it's 00:40:34
so why do we have the slide that showed the insurance premium charge which is a lot to do with litigation? What is the actual 00:40:41
legal fees? Is there a a about to line item on that one? 00:40:48
I'd like to see that. 00:40:57
That is some of that stuff. That one right there. 00:41:01
So we're estimating 10,000 to deal with the lawsuits. That includes our insurance deductibles we have to pay to have our attorneys 00:41:04
work on, have their council work on it. 00:41:09
And then 5000 for open records request and that's you know all this little back and forth with Joe trying to review things before 00:41:16
we send stuff out, so. 00:41:20
I know, Mayor, I know you've you've written some stuff before, but is that something that we can make? 00:41:25
Known to the public that. 00:41:31
With Julia spent the X amount of hours and. 00:41:33
We've had these many requests and. 00:41:37
I mean, we would go back. 00:41:41
The counter way to say that now we're harassing. 00:41:43
I mean. 00:41:46
I mean, I mean it's. I mean, I mean, I don't think. 00:41:49
You know, I don't know that I care to. 00:41:54
Make a big deal about it, but I do think it's very interesting that we've got almost the cost of a. 00:41:57
Especially if you factor in the time that our staff is spending, I mean we've got the hard cost of a staff person, you know, I 00:42:02
mean with these two numbers it's, it's easily $25,000 in hard cost plus you know. 00:42:08
10s of thousands more dollars in staff time we're we're spending. 00:42:16
If you read the emails and look at them and accept the city's expense. 00:42:21
Right. I mean it's, it's, I mean I think, I think what we really need to think about is asking our state legislators to take a 00:42:26
look at the issue and see when does, when does, when does, where's the open records that the sunshine shining in and when does 00:42:32
that become weaponized, you know, and turned into for a small government. We do not have the resources, you know, we do not have 00:42:39
the resources to. 00:42:45
Benefiting anybody, I mean anybody but one person. 00:43:55
And you know we have 2933 other people in the city and plus that we have to try to service them and tell me if this shouldn't be 00:43:59
discussed here or not, but. 00:44:05
Are we asking to get refunded on legal fees like if they are like yeah, I think, I think, I think, yeah, I think their attorneys, 00:44:12
yeah, I wouldn't get into more of that. But yeah, I think the city, I mean the our representatives with Garmin, all them are are 00:44:18
certainly asking will ask for what they can get, right. I mean so but I mean really if you think about what government spending 00:44:24
versus what the increase is to us, it's I mean that money will go back to Girma. You know it's it's it's a it's a ridiculous 00:44:29
amount of money. 00:44:35
You know, so I'm honestly thankful that it's not more than that coming to us in the form of a premium increase, but if this 00:44:42
continues. 00:44:45
Umm, you know, it is a significant expense. It's it's really unfortunate because to Sharon's point, I'd argue it doesn't benefit 00:44:49
anyone. 00:44:53
You know so. 00:44:58
I was going to show one other since we've talked about it earlier and certainly find it. So our building inspections talked a 00:45:02
little bit about this earlier. So our plan review fees, those are fees that. 00:45:08
And then the fees are based off that. So like I said, if those projects don't happen, then we don't have that revenue, but that 00:45:52
also means we don't have that expense. 00:45:56
Either. So and we've got, we built in some trades and we estimated Toby now worked on this and you know there's there's a lot 00:46:01
that's not covered in there that comes up that you know somebody's doing a major renovation that's not covered in this. It could 00:46:07
be another small infill project that we don't have identified. We just identified the known projects that we have. So how do we 00:46:13
handle something like for instance if there's a project that comes before us and we spend a lot of time and legal fees and 00:46:19
engineering fees and then it doesn't happen. 00:46:25
They haven't. I guess there's initial initial fees. 00:46:31
Yeah, the initial, like if somebody submits like a rezone or something like that, yeah, there's, I mean in the case of rezone 00:46:37
application, I think it's like that's why I said I need to go back and look at the fees. I think it's like $150.00 for the 00:46:41
rezoning application. 00:46:45
I mean I guess the way I look at it is it's, it's an investment on the city. You know obviously when when somebody approaches you 00:47:25
and they want to bring a new development, it's it's an investment. So you invest some time, this will maybe a little bit more. We 00:47:30
try not to lean a lot on, on our city engineer or city attorney, but I mean they do have to be brought into the process. 00:47:36
It's sort of the cost to do business. You know obviously we get this in the same way the developers putting at risk his funds you 00:47:43
know with the expectation. I mean we do have a pretty significant you know for example you know the pipeline is pretty significant 00:47:49
property tax return you know you know that would you know. 00:47:55
Come back for a long time that would pay for things like that. I'm not worried about when a development comes to fruition. The 00:48:02
fees I'm thinking about things like. 00:48:07
If if something like the pipe plant doesn't end up happening and we have spent hours and resources like that's just kind of us the 00:48:13
cost of doing business just like the developer. That's how it is in my head. But I mean I'm happy, happy to discuss it. I've just 00:48:19
always, you know, I'm like well, I just never thought about it before, I mean. 00:48:25
I don't want to scare people off with range fees either, you know, But that that could be a strategy, you know, I mean, we could 00:48:32
talk about that. I don't know that tonight's the night, but if you know that could be when Sharon brings the fees back to us, we 00:48:37
could talk about that, Yeah. And we have, we have multiple. The mayor's got involved on a few just because I've needed some 00:48:43
insight and and he's provided a lot, but we'll have somebody come up with a great idea. They got this great idea. 00:48:48
They want to come do this great idea and they run it down the rabbit hole. We, you know, we'll spend time. We don't always bring 00:48:54
in the city attorney of the city engineer. We'll try to manage it so that we don't have to add expense because we do get a fair 00:49:01
number of those, you know, people want to do stuff and they want to try to put a square peg in a round hole and, you know, it 00:49:07
doesn't work. Yeah. So are there any other questions or show our lost? 00:49:13
I think my only thought or question for Toby primarily is, you know, I know that it's hard to keep up with all the mowing and 00:49:20
sometimes I feel like we can look a little rough around the edges when things really get going is there. 00:49:27
A need for anymore sort of contract support. You know, I know we got the contract support right on Main Street. 00:49:34
Or have you thought about, you know, instead of adding people is there a? Would there be a contract option in some? 00:49:40
You know some key places where we want those quarters just to consistently look good or not or do you feel like your guys can 00:49:48
really? 00:49:51
You know MO, like I know I want to have guys who have an expertise or knowledge to do certain things around the city. But you 00:49:55
don't have to have an awesome amount of knowledge to mow the grass you know and mow certain, but to keep the city looking pretty 00:49:59
soon. 00:50:03
So we are working on that. We just purchased an an additional landscaping trailer. The one that the guys are pulling around now is 00:50:09
a new one. We're retrofitting the old one with a toolbox. That's why we're asking for the money to purchase another mower for 00:50:15
parks. 00:50:21
And the plan will be then to have two MO teams so that we'll be able to cut the MO schedule down and cover it quicker in a week's 00:50:29
time frame and then be able to use those resources. It's kind of what Brett was asking about with the Bush hogging. Yes, we have a 00:50:36
Bush hogger, but if if we didn't contract that out. 00:50:43
A guy to be able to Bush hog 4 * a year over there on our Kubota tractor or even the Massey. The time expenditure is what we can't 00:50:51
gain back. So that's what we're doing now is, you know with the additional staff that we're adding, the person that's slated for 00:50:58
parks with part of it being public works until Thomas Farm comes on line full time, would be to be able to have two MO teams 00:51:06
working at two different sites in the city and being able to close that gap. 00:51:13
Whether it's weather related or other, we'd be able to get the most schedule done in a 2 to 2 1/2 day time period, which right now 00:51:21
we have the one trailer. So if it rains then it pushes the most schedule out because the most schedule takes about four days. The 00:51:29
other thing too, I put it up on the screen, we actually are paying a private contractor to maintain downtown along the main along 00:51:36
Main Street. We work with them and that's a cost of $650 a month. 00:51:43
And so that helps out a lot too. There. It's a very regimented schedule. It happens. If they come in, they you know. 00:51:51
We'd eat, mow and blow and they're out, you know, so. So that's helped out a lot. And I think, I mean, I've noticed a difference. 00:51:58
I mean, the guys did a great job. But you know, like Toby said, we've had some issues with personnel and then issues with 00:52:03
equipment or weather. And you know, these guys are, you know, better than the Postal Service. I hope so. Yeah, I know I should. 00:52:09
Maybe I want to get comparison. 00:52:14
I just want to be sure we have the resources, you know, I mean that's that's those are kind of all big first impression moments 00:52:21
and we're a high traffic community you know that we're able to keep up with, keep up with the. 00:52:25
Make sure our entries look great and the grass is cut and stuff like that, especially the more land we keep acquiring. Yeah, I 00:52:30
mean I think we've got a plan for the plan for the park. I'm not really worried about that long term, but you know we will have to 00:52:35
keep the part in front of the house. They're pretty tight. Looking good. You know, I'm just thinking, I mean we've got Trove that 00:52:41
what is that, 11 acres or whatever it is and then waters, waters walk that will have some land back there eventually. 00:52:47
In Hardin Hill, we got all that beautiful sidewalk got through there and there's there's just a lot of grass. So the so with 00:52:54
adding the Moat, the additional trailer and the additional mower and having the two mow teams. 00:53:00
We're trying to increase our efficiency footprint instead of our manpower, that's right. 00:53:07
I think that's smart. Just just don't be afraid to come back to us next year or through the budget process and think about that. I 00:53:12
think that's important to all, right. 00:53:17
OK. Because I mean, I know we've got, you know, for you too, Mark. I mean it's a, you know, you got a big, big left starting this 00:53:21
year. So what's that starting in November when we get that sucker open, you know, so. 00:53:27
Yeah. 00:53:34
All right. 00:53:37
We are almost to 6:00 and I know we need to eat a little bit before the meeting too. I think there's sandwiches here and stuff. So 00:53:39
any other questions for Sharon? 00:53:43
Well, thank you to thank you all of you for your work on this. It's a. 00:53:49
At least one person working hard to spread misinformation about this. So and all of this is online, accessible, whatever you've 00:54:24
got, and it's on our website, it's also in the agenda packet. So there's multiple ways for people. We put it in our newsletter 00:54:30
each week. We've got something going out this week to remind people about the mileage rate being set on the June 19th meeting and 00:54:36
also another opportunity for public input. So there's still plenty of time. 00:54:42
All right. All right. Thank you. We're adjourned. 00:54:49
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Transcript

Event transcript
All right, we good. All right. This is the 2024 budget work session. 00:00:11
So we at our discretion may or may not allow the public to comment, but if the public shows up for this, but we will be sharing 00:00:18
and I put a fair bit of time sharing and her team put a lot of time into the budget. Then I reviewed it line by line and we work 00:00:25
together on some changes and things that we worked on and we're really excited to share it with you guys and get your feedback on 00:00:33
it. So with that I'll turn it over to you Sharon, if you have any. 00:00:40
Context that you want to walk everybody through and then we can have a conversation and and then wrap up before the council 00:00:48
meeting. Thank you, Mayor. 00:00:51
So just a reminder of the vision, the values that the Council dedicated themselves to at the retreat this year. 00:00:56
We use these, these are guides for us as we develop the budget, try to make sure that we're obviously very efficient and effective 00:01:05
in the use of the funds that have been entrusted to us. Again the Watkinsville way, these are things that are woven throughout the 00:01:11
budget and we'll talk about some of those today. But obviously being a very welcome and inclusive community is one of the the key 00:01:17
things that we focused on. This is our. 00:01:23
Police, city engineering and planning. I guess I consider the same. And then downtown development director. 00:02:02
We have one part time basically it's a part on non benefit position. So it's really a contract labor, but account the auditors 00:02:10
require we place it as an employee when we pay. So that's how it's listed. So we have technically 21 1/2 employees currently have 00:02:16
two vacancies, one in police, the patrol officer and one in public works. 00:02:22
So the budget goals provide new programs or expand services, we'll talk a little bit about that again and ensure continued 00:02:30
effective and efficient delivery of services and accurately identify ways to pay for all of these things that everybody wants to 00:02:36
do and those are prioritized in your strategic initiatives. 00:02:42
So the high level of the universe should have this on. It will be small under the screen, but everybody should have received this. 00:02:50
The high level view is that we have a roughly a 3.2, almost $5 million budget recommendation and we have balanced the budget 00:02:56
without any fund balance contribution. Really happy about that because we've had fund balance contributions in the past. 00:03:03
And I will say without a increase, in fact a rollback in the mileage rate. 00:03:10
This is the executive summary for the revenues again roughly 3.25 million increase of 11%, a lot of that. 00:03:16
Is you know just a result of the development that's happened in the community are and I'll talk about this in a minute on the next 00:03:25
slide. But basically you see the three biggest ones are there on the pie. So you've got property taxes, local option sales tax and 00:03:29
the insurance premium tax. 00:03:33
So local option sales tax that was just renegotiated in 2023 and it's typically it's based on population. The mayor spent a lot of 00:03:42
time trying to negotiate with the county and I think you know originally I think they were having this close to seven, we end up 00:03:48
closer to 8 which was good because we originally had been at 8.63%. 00:03:55
The good news is, is that we are estimating that to continue to increase, although it's not increasing a huge amount. 00:04:02
Historically it's increased 10% I think this year and I have to get back and look real quick, I think only increase to develop. 00:04:09
Hang on, I'll look. 00:04:16
Village. 00:04:22
No, I thought it hadn't. Hang on a SEC. One second. 00:04:26
Yeah, 1.41%, so it's really small. So we're only increasing 1.4% over what we have then. So 81,000 we, I think that's a good 00:04:36
number, maybe even more than that. But I try to be conservative in in estimating how much money we're going to get in on property 00:04:43
taxes. As I mentioned, the mayor challenged me and Lee to try to figure out a way to. 00:04:50
Reminder that property taxes are based on the value as of January 1. So a lot of the stuff that's being developed now wire park, 00:05:37
other projects that are you know the shovels get in the ground, things are starting to move on. Those will be reevaluated come 00:05:44
January 1 of next year and that will have some impact as well for for the next fiscal year, not for this fiscal year. 00:05:51
And then just a reminder that I think the value for what citizens pay and property taxes is extremely great. Residents pay, We pay 00:06:00
residents, I'm sorry, we pay for residential garbage pickup of $23 a month, which works out to about $276 a year. That also 00:06:07
includes leaf and limb collection at the curb every week and your taxes, when you look at the cost of the mileage rate on what a 00:06:15
citizen would pay, an average, let's say a $300,000 home. 00:06:22
They're paying about 325,000 based on the 2.7556, so they're barely cut, you know, they're barely covering the cost of garbage, 00:06:30
and there's so many other services that the city provides. 00:06:35
This is the mileage rate and again small, but you'll see that the. 00:06:44
For a $300,000 house at 2.7556, which would be the mileage rate that we're recommending, that would be a difference of a little 00:06:48
less than $20. And on the commercial status with Homestead and then on the commercial side, it's a little bit, little bit more 00:06:55
than $33 difference, not a lot, but cumulatively it works out to $40,000 so. 00:07:02
Point out also that the net digest did increase by 13 million. 00:07:11
This year and you can see that the trend I didn't try to estimate across there, but we had a big jump between 22 and 23 probably 00:07:16
about 40 million almost 40 million and then 13 million this year. So continue to increase And you know again the good news is we 00:07:23
don't a lot of our, our revenues are not, we don't depend on the property taxes as heavily as we do like local auction sales tax, 00:07:30
some communities like Athens Park County uses depends heavily on property taxes. 00:07:37
Compared comparing anyway, yeah, that's a good size. 00:08:17
And that's that's combined county. 00:08:25
Yeah, that's that's all of that right there. School, city and county. 00:08:30
Legal. We don't contract for that engineering contract for that plans review technically building inspections and stuff. We do 00:09:11
contract for that planes review. We use it. Obviously Mark and Mark Campbell, our city engineer and the attorney help us with 00:09:16
that. 00:09:20
So, but we do a lot with the people we have on staff. You'll see that the the three biggest areas are police, public works and 00:09:26
then the general government. 00:09:31
And of course that's by dollars, not necessarily by people. 00:09:36
And and then when you break it down and largest expenditures, the typical ones that you see in a lot of communities are police and 00:09:41
guards. I mean the first thing is a community does is they if if they're trying to create a city, the first thing to do is create 00:09:47
a Police Department and then garbage or some sort of service like that has to be provided as well. So 913,390 thousand for police 00:09:53
and garbage. 00:09:59
Respectively, in the FY25 budget, we've got about a $60,000 increase. 00:10:06
Some of that and Chief may talk about that if you want to know more about it, but some of that is some of the subscription 00:10:12
services we have to have for a lot of the the services we have. So we have record management system that manages our tickets. We 00:10:19
have to pay fees for that. We have Taser contracts. So when somebody gets tased, there's actually data collected and that has to 00:10:26
be stored and managed for certain period of time and that that's under a contract we have the. 00:10:32
Chief help me out. 00:10:41
I think it's always interesting to look at you know budget by personnel and you know how you're, you know government is typically 00:11:51
mostly people and you'll see that completely true in this in this diagram. So personnel straight up personnel that is the people 00:11:58
that are sitting here in this room and are doing the actual physical work here for the city is 50%. When we add on our contract 00:12:05
labor like the attorney, the engineer or court judge and what not, you get another 20%. So 70% of what the city does is people. 00:12:13
Doing the work and I think it's always interesting to look at that and. 00:12:21
Remember, a lot of people are doing the work. 00:12:25
Major changes, cost of living adjustment. We are asking for a 2 1/2 percent. I will point out. I think Clark County's asking for a 00:12:28
4%, but you guys did adjust the pay table last year and I felt like 2 1/2 percent was fair. I talked to a few other communities in 00:12:34
Atlanta there somewhere between 2:00 and 2 1/2 and five. And a lot of them are redoing, they're they're doing the same thing we 00:12:39
did last year. They had not looked at their their salary stuff, so they're doing salary studies and whatnot. 00:12:45
On the park side, that's the biggest piece. I think I told staff it's parks and police. It seems like this year 127,000 but 00:12:52
justified. So you guys approved that new position. 00:12:57
For the chief of funds was there. It's not just as long as we can service the debt, right? 00:13:37
And this is really small, but I want to put it on there. So one of the big changes we had is we had a nearly $16,000, just shy of 00:13:46
$16,000 increase in our property liability. The biggest piece of that has to do with you know the cost of defending ourselves 00:13:52
against lawsuits. Former Mayor Bob Smith has. I think we have two or three lawsuits outstanding with him in addition to the cost 00:13:58
of. 00:14:04
Other accidents and things that may happen with the city, but I believe it just under the. 00:14:12
The Georgia Insurance Risk Management Association that we work with has incurred just under a quarter $1,000,000 in legal expenses 00:14:18
just for Mr. Smith and his legal expenses. So. So we are continuing to defend ourselves against those and unfortunately you know 00:14:24
insurance companies want to get paid back for that. So our insurance rates have gone up significantly. We also point out we also 00:14:31
had about almost a $5000 cost of premium to cover the new library property and that's you know based on the value that properties 00:14:38
worth 2 1/2 million dollars so. 00:14:44
So they base the premium on that obviously the interior part that the Athens Regional Library system, the county have to pay for 00:14:52
that cost if anything inside the like rental insurance basically, but the the exterior property and stuff we have to insure so. 00:14:59
Housing development building inspector. So we do see an increase in 96,000. I'll remind you although that so we're estimating that 00:15:08
revenues are going to be somewhere in the. 00:15:13
Range of about 300,000. That's assuming certain projects. There's some outstanding projects that we expect will happen. 00:15:18
Plans, review fees and things like that because my engineer has gone up, my attorney has gone up and they take time to review 00:15:57
things and we've got some data now that we've had several projects come through, we can sort of determine is $150.00 for a site 00:16:01
plan, is that does that cover it? Probably not. But we also have to look at the local market and you know I don't want to say 00:16:06
$600.00 and you know that I'd be fair. So we'll, I'll be working on that in the next couple of months, probably bring that before 00:16:11
y'all. 00:16:15
The other. 00:16:22
Other changes. So this year we're recommending spending a little bit more money, about $1500 more, to make sure we have plenty of. 00:16:24
And then the library. You may recall that the library service agreement. 00:17:02
The city committed to providing up to 30,000, the 1st $30,000 that came off of the expand the development at Wire Park. Right now 00:17:06
Wire Park is not quite at, they're not quite at the 30,000. I think they're shy. I'll tell you the exact number minute I think 00:17:13
they're shy by. 00:17:20
You know if I'm a number. 00:17:29
About four or $5000. 00:17:31
And that may change with it as a development. 00:17:34
Culture. Culture. 00:17:40
Yeah, I. 00:17:43
Yeah, we're at. 00:17:47
We're at 27399. So again what we do is I and it's in your packet. Well actually it's not your packet that it I can certainly give 00:17:49
that to you. The mayor saw it. There's a spreadsheet. We keep track of the cost of each of those parcels as as far as how it's. 00:17:56
Out evaluated by the county and then we assess you know the the mileage rate and we determine you know the percentage of that. 00:18:04
At sorry the the rate of that it calculates up and if it reaches 30,000 then they get all 30,000, if they don't they get up to you 00:18:15
know whatever amount shows up. So right now we're at 27,000 or so I imagine by next year we'll we'll be pushing that after the 00:18:22
initial 30,000. I believe the the library service agreement says that we will give them an additional 10%. 00:18:28
I don't know if they did, Mayor. I'll have to go back and look. 00:19:06
I think they have a lot of. I don't remember exactly our terms, but I do know they had. 00:19:09
They have a lot of public art in the. 00:19:14
Yeah, I think there was supposed to be some outside art or something, yeah. 00:19:19
Pull up something real quick. Just make sure I had that right. 00:19:27
I'm going to do something that I probably. 00:19:39
Here we go. 00:19:43
So you'll see. 00:19:44
This is the spreadsheet that I use. So we list all of the parcels the owners. 00:19:46
Let's see if I can leave my. Sorry, I've got. 00:19:53
All sort of step over here. 00:19:55
And we listed out on on mileage right now. Obviously the I have to go back in there since we dropped the mileage rate. I'll go 00:20:01
back in and make the adjustment, but. 00:20:04
Yeah, I didn't think about that. I have to go back and make that adjustment. But anyway, we're at 27399 and the difference is 00:20:08
about $6000 more. 00:20:13
Making that about that and we need to go back and fix that. 00:20:19
I'll go back and calculate that after the meeting and see if there's any major. I think we'll we'll try to absorb any difference 00:20:27
that we've got in there. 00:20:30
Let's see. 00:20:36
My screen. 00:20:38
So we're trying to track all that as it comes. 00:20:39
It comes up OK. 00:20:43
And then? 00:20:44
I get my screen back up so I can see what I'm showing you. 00:20:46
So medical, dental, vision, obviously that continues to go. We are actually in a contract through the end of September. We renew 00:20:51
in October, which always makes it challenging to budget the stuff because then we got a budget on pay periods and all that. But we 00:20:56
were fortunate that I guess it was year before or maybe it was last year we got a 18 month deal. This year we only got this 00:21:01
current year, we only got a 1212 month deal, so. 00:21:07
Estimating what we feel like is, you know maybe a 5% increase in medical premises. Last year we thought we're going to have an 00:21:13
increase in our our broker was able to negotiate no increase which was incredible. So we'll just have to wait and see how that 00:21:19
plays out. But we are estimating an increase of 5% of medical, 4% in dental and no increase in vision for for the nine months. I 00:21:25
think it's 27 pay periods. 00:21:30
And then on the capital side, remind you guys we have a capital improvement program. Typically we fund it with monies from the 00:21:39
operating budget. So normally to depreciate we would have depreciation expenses shown in the operating budget and. 00:21:46
In the past we did it by department. A couple years ago we decided we had a fairly decent, you know, amount of money, roughly 00:21:55
about $300,000 at the time and we decided to just as a group you know contribute towards it. This year I decided not to contribute 00:22:02
anything, mainly because I want to keep the the cost, the operating cost down and because we have monies in the budget. The great 00:22:08
thing about capital improvement is we have other funds like the splice, the T splash that can can bear some of the brunt of that. 00:22:15
So like for instance. 00:22:21
Splice 3. We have money in there for public safety. So if you guys wanted to get another variable message on if you wanted to use 00:22:28
some funds, in fact we're recommending this year's budget that you buffer some of the costs for replacing a police vehicle and 00:22:34
even replacing a mower with some of those monies that you can use out of Floss 3. And so that reduces the need to actually dip 00:22:41
into your capital improvement fund. And this year we're asking for. 00:22:48
Two years ago and we didn't. So that's the other thing you'll find is we try to. 00:23:25
Broadcasting our meetings. It helps with making sure that everybody has access, quick access to the Internet and to the server. 00:24:33
But the server has to be updated to and so we're looking at about $25,000 to replace that. 00:24:39
That is it in a nutshell but I know there's a lot more. So anybody has any questions please ask. I have one question. I saw you're 00:24:47
talking about cutting grass and just popped in my head that we just acquired 100 acres of grass. Do we have a Bush hog to are we 00:24:53
going to contract that or what's the we we do have a Bush hog and we may do our our Bush hog may be used for the smaller area like 00:24:59
Trove that with the 10 or 11 acres we've got there because that's manageable the larger we've actually talked to the gentleman who 00:25:04
was Bushaga before. 00:25:10
And he gave us a really incredible price. I think he just likes to drive his tractor around and so we'll we'll we'll work that as 00:25:17
long as it's available. 00:25:20
And I think we budgeted for three, maybe 4 * a year to have it Bush hogged. 00:25:25
And we're also looking at for parts of those areas overtime doing a native Prairie restoration there which would have a totally 00:25:30
different cycle. So if we do start moving some of that out of your traditional hay, you know Bush hog and then we would do 00:25:35
something different there so. 00:25:39
So are there questions about the revenues or the expenses or any, I mean any I gave you, I gave you line item for all of the 00:25:48
departments? 00:25:53
It's really. 00:26:31
Some you know, I feel like we get a lot of juice out of the squeeze for what we what we spend here in Watkinsville. 00:27:02
But this is your time to. 00:27:10
Suggest question. 00:27:12
All the things on the budget. So I don't have any questions. I just want to thank Sharon and Lee and everybody else that works on 00:27:14
all of this and keeps us. 00:27:18
Informed. That's a lot to do. 00:27:25
And I like the fact that we're not going to dipping into our fund balance. We've balanced the budget and we won't have to get into 00:27:29
the savings. That's outstanding. It is amazing and I thank you all I think. 00:27:35
You guys. 00:27:41
Umm, I guess my question is. 00:27:44
And this may be more of a something we talked about in February of the next retreat than budget. 00:27:47
Is. 00:27:53
With as much as we do. 00:27:55
And umm. 00:27:58
Do do we need to start and again, not for this budget, but do we have enough employees to carry the workload of? 00:28:01
What all the city is doing? 00:28:11
I mean is that I don't again this may not be the moment to ask that, but it's just something not expecting you right now throw 00:28:13
that in here. But I just you know looking at the parks looking and we have a position that's unfilled that still needs to happen. 00:28:21
I so appreciate the number of hats that everybody wears and how hard all of you guys work and I. 00:28:29
I don't, and I am someone who's incredibly naturally frugal and I appreciate that and value that. But at the same time, as we move 00:28:38
forward, do we need to have another administrative assistant? Do we need to have another person in the products department? Do we 00:28:46
need, even if it means next year we don't roll the mileage rate back or whatever? Because I don't want. 00:28:54
I guess I don't want y'all to get burnout. I mean, I just want what is realistic and I want to make sure that our. 00:29:03
You know, as we have the unfortunate umm. 00:29:10
I don't call it harassment. 00:29:16
Of former mayor, which takes a lot of energy and time of the city, you know is. 00:29:19
Is that going to need to affect our budget with another another part-time person or person which is absolutely ridiculous that 00:29:29
that even needs to be addressed, but that that's my thoughts. So it's all like praise and gratefulness, but I I just want to be 00:29:37
mindful of of the work that all of you guys do. Well, we appreciate that and I think the answer to that question is certainly 00:29:44
something we've talked about on on staff, I mean in the last three weeks I think we've. 00:29:52
And along those lines maybe another thing and you guys have been doing this like having Unicode having. 00:31:39
Like I know that we have done capital investments in some systems that help streamline things too. So that might be another thing, 00:31:48
you know that comes up again next budget or whatever. I just think that can we get a AI open records response? 00:31:56
Somebody will. Somebody will come up that maybe we should, maybe we should. 00:32:06
Well, you did approve this for this fiscal year, did approve for us to go to a new financial software called Govtech. 00:32:13
You know we have your Veritas as a contractor, so we really don't need that type of system for them. So we are, we are, we are 00:32:52
looking at those things. Justice One is the new record management system for the Police Department and that's they just got 00:32:58
training on that, that just happened. So again, yeah, we're trying to use all the tools we can and and learn all the efficiencies 00:33:04
of using those tools because obviously there's that that helps lift the load a little bit for us as well. 00:33:11
Another question that I have. 00:33:18
And I apologize that I did not dig enough, it may have been in what you provided. So with Rocket Field, we are paying for 00:33:21
maintenance and I know there was definitely hope for rental income to offset that. What are those numbers actually looking like at 00:33:27
this point? 00:33:33
Sharon, while Sharon digs it up, I did talk to Phil Roberts about that the other day. I don't know that we're, I don't know that 00:33:40
we're at break even on that in terms of the rental income, but. 00:33:45
Our contract I think says that we need to meet to discuss, discuss that and he's told we're meeting next week. I think, yeah, he 00:33:50
told me. He's been hesitant to push too hard on. 00:33:55
Push too hard on rentals while. 00:34:01
Because of some sensitivities with Little League, but I told him you know those revenues support DDA and offset our expenses. We 00:34:04
I'm not afraid to push a little harder. So I'm glad you're catching up with him and talking about that So but there you go. So 00:34:10
these are the April and May are estimates because I don't have those yet but we have had I mean I look at the calendar we have had 00:34:16
a fair number of. 00:34:22
Rentals outside of Mahoney's not paying anything right now, Mayor and I've talked about trying to make sure we memorialize how 00:34:29
that looks to. We'll be working on that. 00:34:33
He managed that, I mean we got you know the funds came in but he managed that anything outside of that area, the stage area, the 00:35:08
green space, whatever the the, you know we manage that. 00:35:14
And there hasn't been a whole bunch of that. I think there's a lot of opportunity. I think potentially there's opportunity, you 00:35:21
know, with the DBA to to have events or to encourage, you know, whatever. There's opportunities there that maybe make some money 00:35:24
and. 00:35:28
There's a framework for that we could use but. 00:35:33
But it is definitely helping the lift as far as public works because they maintain that, you know if we had to take that on, none 00:35:37
of our guys are, you know that's that's a sort of a specialty to maintain that infield and whatnot. 00:35:43
Our guys still handled the bathrooms, police make sure they're open and closed and kept an eye and we got cameras up, all that 00:35:50
kind of stuff that we're trying to use. But but I think there's I think it's still an asset that could be used a little bit more. 00:35:56
We just got to think about how best to to to use it and what is our cost a month to be that we're paying to maintain that. 00:36:02
And does it vary per season? I'm guessing it might. Or is it just the flat Can't remember? 00:36:12
Yeah, the department. 00:36:19
Actually, I'm on it. Hang on a second. I'm on my spreadsheet. 00:36:22
You know, a lot of times with PR people, you just pay for it every month to. 00:36:28
I can't remember if I put it on. I think I've been on contract labor. 00:36:44
Yeah, about 1700 a month. 00:36:46
So it's costing a little bit more, but it's also a public park and it's saving our guys from doing that. So I mean, it seems to me 00:36:50
like there's enough revenue coming in that it's not like it's this huge. 00:36:55
There's gonna be a lot of legal fees. At what point do open records? 00:37:32
I mean. 00:37:39
That would be that'd be a joke question. I mean, technically we are required by law to respond to requests for information. 00:37:41
And there isn't any relief really for us if if we got bombarded with them, I mean, which we have. 00:37:48
We just have to do, you know, the reality of it is your requirement is to respond within three days, not necessarily go do all the 00:37:56
work being especially in the situation that we're dealing with now, that person has to pay up front because they haven't in the 00:38:01
past and so. 00:38:06
The, you know, we're still responding within three days. When you get three or four in one day, that means you got to sort of look 00:38:13
at it. You got to estimate. We try not to spend a lot of time trying to estimate how much time is going to require, but you got to 00:38:18
give it a good estimate because you don't want to tell them. I mean we did refund Mr. Smith like $29.00 because we overestimated 00:38:23
on one of them not too long ago because he paid more than what it actually cost us. But you know, it's it's easier to do that than 00:38:28
it is to go back. 00:38:33
To the. 00:38:40
Probably 1/4 of an hour, everyone, because Joe has to look at him because the person who's sending him is so litigious and so so I 00:39:17
don't know what Joe's rate is but 1/4 of that so and then you multiply it times however many 100 open records request we get. You 00:39:24
know, but you can't risk given his posture, we can't risk not having an attorney touch those normally that's not part of the 00:39:31
process. Right. And we and we don't and we and we can't chart. We can't make any open records request. 00:39:38
That person asking for the opener express pay for our attorneys fees. They can only pay for the staff. You know the cost that it 00:39:46
takes for staff to get them. Can we negotiate with Joe A? 00:39:52
Slightly different rate. I mean, I read his responses and I a lot of them. 00:40:01
Our copy and paste take 3 seconds but are probably billed. I mean again, is this OK for me to be asking? I'm just trying to 00:40:07
brainstorm here about I don't, I don't think I think Joe, I mean in the beginning I think he was getting maybe more into the 00:40:13
weeds. Now he just sort of cursory looks at it, make sure there's anything if Julie has a question. 00:40:20
Back to any of the other stuff, any of the other cases, right or something that's tricky or they could you know 'cause we're 00:40:26
trying to, we don't want to create more of the other situations where he's but you know we're back to Germer or whatever. So it's 00:40:34
so why do we have the slide that showed the insurance premium charge which is a lot to do with litigation? What is the actual 00:40:41
legal fees? Is there a a about to line item on that one? 00:40:48
I'd like to see that. 00:40:57
That is some of that stuff. That one right there. 00:41:01
So we're estimating 10,000 to deal with the lawsuits. That includes our insurance deductibles we have to pay to have our attorneys 00:41:04
work on, have their council work on it. 00:41:09
And then 5000 for open records request and that's you know all this little back and forth with Joe trying to review things before 00:41:16
we send stuff out, so. 00:41:20
I know, Mayor, I know you've you've written some stuff before, but is that something that we can make? 00:41:25
Known to the public that. 00:41:31
With Julia spent the X amount of hours and. 00:41:33
We've had these many requests and. 00:41:37
I mean, we would go back. 00:41:41
The counter way to say that now we're harassing. 00:41:43
I mean. 00:41:46
I mean, I mean it's. I mean, I mean, I don't think. 00:41:49
You know, I don't know that I care to. 00:41:54
Make a big deal about it, but I do think it's very interesting that we've got almost the cost of a. 00:41:57
Especially if you factor in the time that our staff is spending, I mean we've got the hard cost of a staff person, you know, I 00:42:02
mean with these two numbers it's, it's easily $25,000 in hard cost plus you know. 00:42:08
10s of thousands more dollars in staff time we're we're spending. 00:42:16
If you read the emails and look at them and accept the city's expense. 00:42:21
Right. I mean it's, it's, I mean I think, I think what we really need to think about is asking our state legislators to take a 00:42:26
look at the issue and see when does, when does, when does, where's the open records that the sunshine shining in and when does 00:42:32
that become weaponized, you know, and turned into for a small government. We do not have the resources, you know, we do not have 00:42:39
the resources to. 00:42:45
Benefiting anybody, I mean anybody but one person. 00:43:55
And you know we have 2933 other people in the city and plus that we have to try to service them and tell me if this shouldn't be 00:43:59
discussed here or not, but. 00:44:05
Are we asking to get refunded on legal fees like if they are like yeah, I think, I think, I think, yeah, I think their attorneys, 00:44:12
yeah, I wouldn't get into more of that. But yeah, I think the city, I mean the our representatives with Garmin, all them are are 00:44:18
certainly asking will ask for what they can get, right. I mean so but I mean really if you think about what government spending 00:44:24
versus what the increase is to us, it's I mean that money will go back to Girma. You know it's it's it's a it's a ridiculous 00:44:29
amount of money. 00:44:35
You know, so I'm honestly thankful that it's not more than that coming to us in the form of a premium increase, but if this 00:44:42
continues. 00:44:45
Umm, you know, it is a significant expense. It's it's really unfortunate because to Sharon's point, I'd argue it doesn't benefit 00:44:49
anyone. 00:44:53
You know so. 00:44:58
I was going to show one other since we've talked about it earlier and certainly find it. So our building inspections talked a 00:45:02
little bit about this earlier. So our plan review fees, those are fees that. 00:45:08
And then the fees are based off that. So like I said, if those projects don't happen, then we don't have that revenue, but that 00:45:52
also means we don't have that expense. 00:45:56
Either. So and we've got, we built in some trades and we estimated Toby now worked on this and you know there's there's a lot 00:46:01
that's not covered in there that comes up that you know somebody's doing a major renovation that's not covered in this. It could 00:46:07
be another small infill project that we don't have identified. We just identified the known projects that we have. So how do we 00:46:13
handle something like for instance if there's a project that comes before us and we spend a lot of time and legal fees and 00:46:19
engineering fees and then it doesn't happen. 00:46:25
They haven't. I guess there's initial initial fees. 00:46:31
Yeah, the initial, like if somebody submits like a rezone or something like that, yeah, there's, I mean in the case of rezone 00:46:37
application, I think it's like that's why I said I need to go back and look at the fees. I think it's like $150.00 for the 00:46:41
rezoning application. 00:46:45
I mean I guess the way I look at it is it's, it's an investment on the city. You know obviously when when somebody approaches you 00:47:25
and they want to bring a new development, it's it's an investment. So you invest some time, this will maybe a little bit more. We 00:47:30
try not to lean a lot on, on our city engineer or city attorney, but I mean they do have to be brought into the process. 00:47:36
It's sort of the cost to do business. You know obviously we get this in the same way the developers putting at risk his funds you 00:47:43
know with the expectation. I mean we do have a pretty significant you know for example you know the pipeline is pretty significant 00:47:49
property tax return you know you know that would you know. 00:47:55
Come back for a long time that would pay for things like that. I'm not worried about when a development comes to fruition. The 00:48:02
fees I'm thinking about things like. 00:48:07
If if something like the pipe plant doesn't end up happening and we have spent hours and resources like that's just kind of us the 00:48:13
cost of doing business just like the developer. That's how it is in my head. But I mean I'm happy, happy to discuss it. I've just 00:48:19
always, you know, I'm like well, I just never thought about it before, I mean. 00:48:25
I don't want to scare people off with range fees either, you know, But that that could be a strategy, you know, I mean, we could 00:48:32
talk about that. I don't know that tonight's the night, but if you know that could be when Sharon brings the fees back to us, we 00:48:37
could talk about that, Yeah. And we have, we have multiple. The mayor's got involved on a few just because I've needed some 00:48:43
insight and and he's provided a lot, but we'll have somebody come up with a great idea. They got this great idea. 00:48:48
They want to come do this great idea and they run it down the rabbit hole. We, you know, we'll spend time. We don't always bring 00:48:54
in the city attorney of the city engineer. We'll try to manage it so that we don't have to add expense because we do get a fair 00:49:01
number of those, you know, people want to do stuff and they want to try to put a square peg in a round hole and, you know, it 00:49:07
doesn't work. Yeah. So are there any other questions or show our lost? 00:49:13
I think my only thought or question for Toby primarily is, you know, I know that it's hard to keep up with all the mowing and 00:49:20
sometimes I feel like we can look a little rough around the edges when things really get going is there. 00:49:27
A need for anymore sort of contract support. You know, I know we got the contract support right on Main Street. 00:49:34
Or have you thought about, you know, instead of adding people is there a? Would there be a contract option in some? 00:49:40
You know some key places where we want those quarters just to consistently look good or not or do you feel like your guys can 00:49:48
really? 00:49:51
You know MO, like I know I want to have guys who have an expertise or knowledge to do certain things around the city. But you 00:49:55
don't have to have an awesome amount of knowledge to mow the grass you know and mow certain, but to keep the city looking pretty 00:49:59
soon. 00:50:03
So we are working on that. We just purchased an an additional landscaping trailer. The one that the guys are pulling around now is 00:50:09
a new one. We're retrofitting the old one with a toolbox. That's why we're asking for the money to purchase another mower for 00:50:15
parks. 00:50:21
And the plan will be then to have two MO teams so that we'll be able to cut the MO schedule down and cover it quicker in a week's 00:50:29
time frame and then be able to use those resources. It's kind of what Brett was asking about with the Bush hogging. Yes, we have a 00:50:36
Bush hogger, but if if we didn't contract that out. 00:50:43
A guy to be able to Bush hog 4 * a year over there on our Kubota tractor or even the Massey. The time expenditure is what we can't 00:50:51
gain back. So that's what we're doing now is, you know with the additional staff that we're adding, the person that's slated for 00:50:58
parks with part of it being public works until Thomas Farm comes on line full time, would be to be able to have two MO teams 00:51:06
working at two different sites in the city and being able to close that gap. 00:51:13
Whether it's weather related or other, we'd be able to get the most schedule done in a 2 to 2 1/2 day time period, which right now 00:51:21
we have the one trailer. So if it rains then it pushes the most schedule out because the most schedule takes about four days. The 00:51:29
other thing too, I put it up on the screen, we actually are paying a private contractor to maintain downtown along the main along 00:51:36
Main Street. We work with them and that's a cost of $650 a month. 00:51:43
And so that helps out a lot too. There. It's a very regimented schedule. It happens. If they come in, they you know. 00:51:51
We'd eat, mow and blow and they're out, you know, so. So that's helped out a lot. And I think, I mean, I've noticed a difference. 00:51:58
I mean, the guys did a great job. But you know, like Toby said, we've had some issues with personnel and then issues with 00:52:03
equipment or weather. And you know, these guys are, you know, better than the Postal Service. I hope so. Yeah, I know I should. 00:52:09
Maybe I want to get comparison. 00:52:14
I just want to be sure we have the resources, you know, I mean that's that's those are kind of all big first impression moments 00:52:21
and we're a high traffic community you know that we're able to keep up with, keep up with the. 00:52:25
Make sure our entries look great and the grass is cut and stuff like that, especially the more land we keep acquiring. Yeah, I 00:52:30
mean I think we've got a plan for the plan for the park. I'm not really worried about that long term, but you know we will have to 00:52:35
keep the part in front of the house. They're pretty tight. Looking good. You know, I'm just thinking, I mean we've got Trove that 00:52:41
what is that, 11 acres or whatever it is and then waters, waters walk that will have some land back there eventually. 00:52:47
In Hardin Hill, we got all that beautiful sidewalk got through there and there's there's just a lot of grass. So the so with 00:52:54
adding the Moat, the additional trailer and the additional mower and having the two mow teams. 00:53:00
We're trying to increase our efficiency footprint instead of our manpower, that's right. 00:53:07
I think that's smart. Just just don't be afraid to come back to us next year or through the budget process and think about that. I 00:53:12
think that's important to all, right. 00:53:17
OK. Because I mean, I know we've got, you know, for you too, Mark. I mean it's a, you know, you got a big, big left starting this 00:53:21
year. So what's that starting in November when we get that sucker open, you know, so. 00:53:27
Yeah. 00:53:34
All right. 00:53:37
We are almost to 6:00 and I know we need to eat a little bit before the meeting too. I think there's sandwiches here and stuff. So 00:53:39
any other questions for Sharon? 00:53:43
Well, thank you to thank you all of you for your work on this. It's a. 00:53:49
At least one person working hard to spread misinformation about this. So and all of this is online, accessible, whatever you've 00:54:24
got, and it's on our website, it's also in the agenda packet. So there's multiple ways for people. We put it in our newsletter 00:54:30
each week. We've got something going out this week to remind people about the mileage rate being set on the June 19th meeting and 00:54:36
also another opportunity for public input. So there's still plenty of time. 00:54:42
All right. All right. Thank you. We're adjourned. 00:54:49