Transcript

Event transcript
Oh, she's doing. 00:00:08
All right. Welcome everybody to our budget work session. 00:00:18
5:00 This is a work session, so. 00:00:22
There is not going to be a public comment portion of this unless council determines that it does want to. He wants to hear public 00:00:26
comment. This is a staff driven. 00:00:30
Session and as such. 00:00:34
It's going to be all about the fiscal year 2026 budget. We're grateful to our department heads and leaders. 00:00:37
For joining us in case Council has any questions for them. 00:00:43
But largely this will this will be driven by manager Dickerson. 00:00:46
I do think we before we get into fiscal year 26, it'd be a shame not to reflect on what a great year. 00:00:50
Last year was just a couple of our highlights. 00:00:56
First of all, we were in All America City last year. That's a testimony to a lot of great work. 00:01:00
From a lot of people in this room. 00:01:04
We began the rehabilitation of Harris Shoals Park by getting started on the Giordani Green. 00:01:07
Progress continues there and may be done before the end of this year. 00:01:14
We have rebuilt the pedestrian boardwalk. We opened Thomas Farm Preserve. 00:01:17
On December 14th, that might be one of the biggest. 00:01:22
Additional amenities to this community in the past 20 or 30 years based on what we're hearing. 00:01:27
The Simonton Bridge Rd. pedestrian connector we secured. 00:01:34
$1.5 million grant and $2.2 million. 00:01:37
Loan to work on that and that work is ongoing. 00:01:40
And we continue to do all the important things well that we traditionally have done. We keep the public safe. 00:01:44
We make sure that the trash is picked up, we make sure that our streets are clean, our infrastructure is well taken care of, and 00:01:51
our city is a beautiful and inspiring place so. 00:01:55
Staff, we're grateful to y'all for everything you do to help us achieve those goals and. 00:01:59
So important. So important for Watkinsville. 00:02:04
We also executed a bevy of special events with thousands of people in attendance of those. 00:02:06
And continue to have a healthy downtown. 00:02:12
So with that. 00:02:15
I'll just do a quick reminder of our. 00:02:16
Sharon of our vision. 00:02:19
I think it's always important to start these kind of meetings reminding ourselves of that we want to create Georgia's most 00:02:20
compelling community. 00:02:23
By honoring our history, building community, and creating opportunities for citizens to engage and do business with one another 00:02:26
every day. 00:02:29
Our values are efficiency, transparency, inclusivity. 00:02:32
Creativity, kindness, and connectivity. 00:02:35
I'm not going to read all this out. This is what we call the Watkinsville Way. We want to be a connected community. We want to 00:02:38
honor our history. 00:02:41
While welcoming innovation and accommodating change, and we want to provide opportunities for all. 00:02:44
And Sharon, with that, I will turn it over to you for our work session on the budget. 00:02:51
Thank you, Mayor. 00:02:56
Just a reminder, this is our. 00:02:59
Organizational chart We have 21 full-time equivalents, one part time. 00:03:00
Officer, we have currently have 4 vacancies. 00:03:05
2IN police and two in public works. 00:03:08
Just a reminder that this has been a process every year. It is a process. 00:03:17
Start off with your council retreat where you identify your strategic initiatives for the year we. 00:03:22
Try to work our budget around that. Build our budget around that. 0 based budgeting from bottom up. 00:03:27
We've had work sessions with the Independent, I'm sorry, we've had independent agency budget meeting where they presented that 00:03:33
would be our. 00:03:37
Fire department and the OCAF presents to the city their request and then those are wrapped into this budget. We'll talk about 00:03:42
those some. 00:03:46
During this process and then we had our first regular meeting, our first, our first meeting in the budget was the meeting to just 00:03:51
obtain input from the public on what they would like to see in the budget. 00:03:56
Then the budget, mayor and I work together and provided the budget to you all. And then that budget has tonight we will discuss 00:04:02
the budget and this is an opportunity for you all to have questions, to offer any insights or questions about the budget. And then 00:04:08
at 6:30, the public will have the opportunity to react to the budget. 00:04:14
For you all to hear and then at next month's meeting, hopefully there'll be a formal approval, There'll be another public hearing 00:04:21
at next month's meeting as well. 00:04:24
We also had today at 12:30 we had a special called meeting. 00:04:27
To look at the adoption of the 2025 mileage rate, which is part of the budget, we'll talk about that at length today. 00:04:31
If everything goes well about midway through, I'll probably suggest we cancel tomorrow night's work session, but if not, we can 00:04:36
have a work session tomorrow night, so we'll see how it goes. 00:04:40
We had a number of budget goals. I try to typically keep this to three, but we're we've got so many services that are really 00:04:46
highlighted in your strategic initiatives that I didn't want to. 00:04:51
You know, miss any of those. So obviously public safety garbages are almost. 00:04:56
Always the first thing you think of what the city, what they're providing is safety and public health, right collection of 00:04:59
garbage. 00:05:02
Continuing to look at preserving our green spaces, connecting people to those green spaces through the pedestrian connections, the 00:05:06
one the mayor mentioned a minute ago. 00:05:10
Simonton Bridge Rd. 00:05:14
Connector that will get. 00:05:16
1/4 of our population that currently doesn't have a way to get downtown, they'll be able to get downtown without having to get in 00:05:18
their car and drive downtown. 00:05:21
As well as people downtown being able to get to our new 100 acre green space at Thomas Farm. 00:05:25
Revitalization of the downtown, tourism, job creation, those things that are are continuing that not new, but continuing and 00:05:30
continuing to grow now that we have. 00:05:35
A DDA director and we're looking at strategic planning for that area. 00:05:39
Obviously, always at the top of our mind is to look at operational efficiency. Where can we collaborate? What? 00:05:43
Where do we not? We don't need to duplicate services. Let's figure out how to work together. 00:05:50
With our partners and or within our own departments not trying to do the same thing and be. 00:05:54
Advance and leverage those technology technological opportunities. 00:06:00
And then obviously, as I said earlier, trying to. 00:06:03
Implement your strategic initiatives that would have been prioritized this this budget year. 00:06:07
I'm sorry this is so small, hopefully y'all have your laptops or printouts but. 00:06:13
This is the recommended budget. We are not recommending a mileage increase although. 00:06:18
The amount of money collected will increase and we'll talk about that more in detail. 00:06:22
I do want to point out we. 00:06:27
Wanted to show provide some general point of reference as to where we were in the budget. So you'll notice we have the yellow. 00:06:30
Column says. 00:06:38
FY25 actual as of the end of March. 00:06:39
What I do want to point out is you may wonder why does it say fund balance contribution and the -600 and 61630? 00:06:42
What's important is if that's the money, as of the end of March, we have not spent. If we spend it, it will not be there. It will 00:06:49
be a 0, right? Well, and hopefully, hopefully there'll be some left. But if there's some left, it goes back into the fund balance. 00:06:54
So that's why we have to balance the budget for you. So we're just showing you how it's balanced. 00:06:59
And we are. 00:07:05
Signet, I would say significantly, we are under under budget right now, so. 00:07:07
But we are recommending a $3.349 million budget, which is about a $52,000 increase and we'll talk about that some as well. 00:07:11
But it is a balanced budget. 00:07:20
So executive summary on revenues. 00:07:24
So again, 3.3 million, I'll just say 3.35 increase of 1.6% over last year's approved an amended budget. 00:07:26
You'll see the big three pieces of the pie or local option sales tax at 32%, property taxes at 23% and our collectively our 00:07:34
franchise fees at a little bit more than $330,000. 00:07:40
So I think the one thing that I point out about this is. 00:07:48
There are a lot of revenue streams to the city. That's very fortunate. A lot of communities only have one that's property tax and 00:07:52
that hurts, especially with like House Bill 581 of those things come down because then then they have less control over it. We 00:07:56
were very fortunate. 00:08:00
We have a very wide range of resources at revenue sources. 00:08:04
For us, and I think that helps. 00:08:08
Diversify what we can do as well. 00:08:10
So let's talk through each one of the top three. We'll start with local option sales tax. 00:08:13
So. 00:08:20
Under the 10 year agreement which I believe began 2 years ago, go back and look, we get 7.77% of all the county. 00:08:21
Local option sales tax that are collected. Taxes that are collected. 00:08:29
We've seen an average growth rate of a little bit more than 9% over the last five years and this past fiscal year we saw a little 00:08:33
bit more than 6%. 00:08:36
I think I'm being very conservative and saying that we'll see a 5% growth. 00:08:40
Things cost more, so taxes are going to be higher. People are buying. People are feeling somewhat, you know, timid, but somewhat 00:08:45
economically, you know. 00:08:48
Confident. And so they're spending more money. So I think we can see, I think we're good at a 5% growth. It may be even more than 00:08:53
that. And I just tried to give you sort of a line chart so you could sort of see how it's growing. 00:08:58
Overtime, so we're actually going to top the $1,000,000 mark this year on local option sales tax. I feel pretty confident about 00:09:04
that. 00:09:07
Property taxes. 00:09:12
So. 00:09:13
We received the information from the tax assessor from the Tax Commissioner, which is based on tax assessors numbers. 00:09:15
Our net property digest for 25 is a little bit more than $274 million, that's a 12% increase or roughly thirty $30 million. 00:09:22
Of that, about 18,000, a little bit more than half of that growth is really new development or improvement, significant 00:09:31
improvements to the properties. So you can think about water parking, think about Trove, you can think about. 00:09:38
Even water swap, because all of this is determined on the first day of the calendar year, so January 1, whatever that value is, 00:09:44
that's how it's based. 00:09:48
We don't see that money though till the end of the year. So we're asked at, you know, we're putting in the budget in July, but we 00:09:52
won't see it. 00:09:55
Probably technically won't see it to the end of the fiscal year because there's some of those are still rolling in after appeals 00:09:58
and all that kind of stuff. 00:10:01
So again, what we're recommending is that we stay at our current mileage rate of 2.756, which is only a 0.122 mil increase higher, 00:10:05
sorry, higher. 00:10:11
More than the estimated rollback. 00:10:16
And the rollback is provided to us. 00:10:18
Based on the net, there's a whole. If anybody wants to see it, there's something called a PT 32.1 that we have to use. It's a form 00:10:20
that is prescribed by the state. 00:10:25
And the tax assessor provides that to us and that determines our rollback. So we don't get it go, oh, let's just figure out what a 00:10:29
rollback it. 00:10:32
And so based on the rollback, we are going to be, if we keep our mileage rate at 2.756, we will be just a slight higher than the 00:10:36
rollback and that will generate about $84,000 in revenues. 00:10:41
What I think is important to note. 00:10:48
Is. 00:10:50
We're not recommending that the mileage rate go up. And so technically, if you haven't done anything to your property, it hasn't 00:10:52
been assessed. And now that House Bill 581 has come through, it can't be assessed. I think over whatever the CPI is, it can't be 00:10:58
assessed this year. I believe next year it could go up whatever the consumer price index, the Department of Revenue says. 00:11:03
But it's controlled a little bit more. But if you didn't make any major changes to your house, you didn't buy a new house or you 00:11:10
didn't do anything to your business. 00:11:13
That would, you know, change the assessed value. You're not going to see a property tax increase in the city and I can't talk 00:11:17
about the county or the schools. 00:11:21
But from the city you would not see one. 00:11:24
I think it's also important to illustrate. I mentioned this today in our. 00:11:27
Public meeting. 00:11:31
That there there's a lot of value to the property taxes our citizens pay, mentioned earlier about all the revenue sources, but. 00:11:32
Technically, property tax is a second. 00:11:38
Revenue source second highest and it's not even, it's probably just a little bit less than half of what I'm expect or a little bit 00:11:42
more than half. 00:11:45
Of what we get with local option sales tax since we're getting that over the whole county. 00:11:48
But the value is is, you know, garbage and leaf and limb services this year we're going to be going to introducing a roll cart, a 00:11:53
90 gallon roll cart. And we did confirm it as a 90 gallon roll cart that will have our logo on it. It'll be rolled out. It'll be 00:11:58
look very uniform and and nice across, you know, across the community won't have somebody's open can or bag sitting at the curb 00:12:03
that could leak or get torn into. 00:12:09
And with that in the call and and keep in mind. 00:12:15
This was a five year contract we were on and they didn't ask for an increase. I don't think we asked. They asked for an increase 00:12:18
over the last five years. So now we're looking at $27.00 a month. So it's going up. 00:12:22
$4.00 a month. 00:12:27
Per household. So that's a value of $324 a year per household now. 00:12:29
And where I'm at, I have to pay about $32. I think there's some other fees for for just garbage. This is garbage and leaf and limb 00:12:33
weekly. So I think it's a huge value. And then if you were just to section off public safety law enforcement, that value is $598 a 00:12:40
year. So again, they're getting for their 325 if you have a $300,000 house. 00:12:47
You're getting a lot of value and you're not having, we're not having to dip into subsidized with all these other revenue sources. 00:12:53
You're literally, you know, getting. 00:12:57
A lot of value for that property tax. 00:13:01
Dollar. 00:13:03
This is your, this is you will. You will see the five year. You won't see all of it, but there will be an ad next week's paper. 00:13:05
Showing the tax digest history for the last five years. 00:13:11
And so you'll see there the gross digest about middle way on the on the Rose middle all the way across you'll say it says 287 00:13:15
million, 525, that's the gross. There are exemptions. There's a whole number of them, a whole number of them. If you're 00:13:20
interested, I can. 00:13:24
Pull those out for you, but after the exemptions, our net digest is a little bit more than 274,000,000. Again, that's about a 1212 00:13:30
1/2 percent increase over. 00:13:34
Last year's Net Digest. 00:13:38
Roughly works out to 30 million. 00:13:41
And then the mileage rate at 2.756, which is the same mileage rate that we're at this fiscal year, would bring in 756,000 and some 00:13:44
change. 00:13:49
Which is an increase of about $84,000 more. 00:13:54
And again, I'll stress that that is probably not likely coming from anybody that hasn't done anything to their home. This is 00:13:58
coming from new growth, which I think is is important to note. 00:14:02
Also point out. 00:14:06
If you look at our proposed mileage rate versus the rollback, if you were to use the rollback. 00:14:08
Home valued at with the Homestead home. 00:14:12
Fair market value 300,000 with a homestead. 00:14:16
Will workout to savings of $14.40 for a non homestead or commercial property valued at 500,000. 00:14:18
That would be $24.40. That's an annual amount. 00:14:26
So that's what you're looking at if you decide that you want to take the rollback and I would encourage you not to take the 00:14:30
rollback and we'll talk about why. 00:14:34
The third is our franchise fees. So when you use your phone or natural gas or electricity, those providers have to pay the city. 00:14:39
For use of our right of ways, basically to have the telephone poles or their lines going through our right away and there's a 00:14:47
bylaw. 00:14:51
Electric companies pay 4% of telecommunication 3% and natural gas 3%. And so that's where all those monies come in annually. 00:14:55
And those numbers are going up because those services are going up. So it's a percentage of. 00:15:03
The cost so again, so I think we're. 00:15:07
We got more this year from the electric than I anticipated, more than more from the. 00:15:11
Telecommunications than I expected. So I think I'm being fairly conservative with that number. I think we'll probably see a little 00:15:16
bit more than that. 00:15:19
Sharon does, yes. Does that include Charter and AT&T and telecom? 00:15:23
And Parker Fiber and. 00:15:28
What's the other one? Is there a way that we audit that or make sure that they're actually? 00:15:31
Some of those numbers seem a little bit low, like if you extrapolated how much people are paying. 00:15:35
Charter and others, I just would be curious. 00:15:39
Wait, yeah. And we can, we have, we have a, an agreement with a consulting firm that works with GMA and they can certainly do 00:15:42
that. We do, they did do you may recall they did that for our phone already. We haven't done it for lecture, but we can certainly 00:15:48
initiate that. And and the other telecommunications we can certainly do that as part of electric, you know, I mean, who knows, I 00:15:54
mean it's bigger in the wind, I guess. 00:16:00
I just think about how costs and maybe we should look at how much they've increased, but what people are paying for Internet. 00:16:06
Michael using charter or 8 I mean I just. 00:16:11
Would want to be sure that the level of increase. I know that. 00:16:14
Electric. 00:16:17
Amount has gone up pretty significantly, but the others I'd want to be sure that it's. 00:16:18
I don't know about y'all but I pay a lot more between Internet and. 00:16:22
I feel like I pay more for. 00:16:26
Telecom way more than I used to a couple years ago just to pay for high speed Internet. 00:16:27
So OK. 00:16:32
Well. 00:16:33
Yeah, I'm just wondering if. 00:16:36
You know, these are massive companies, like, I don't know how charter. 00:16:37
Or I mean. 00:16:41
Is the, I know there's gas marketers, but I'm assuming we would just work with whoever the gas wholesaler is and they would do a 00:16:42
percentage of that or? 00:16:45
Does everybody's gas market or write us a check? I think every gut buddy's gas marketer writes us a check. OK, so. 00:16:49
Anyway, I just would want to be. 00:16:55
Sure. If not this year that we have a systematic process for making sure we're getting what we're supposed to get on those 00:16:56
amounts. Absolutely and double checking on that. 00:16:59
Telephone we get quarterly. 00:17:08
Gas we get annually maybe, I don't know. 00:17:10
And electrical we get annually because we get one big check in like February. 00:17:14
From them normally January, February for them. So telecommunications we get quarterly, I know. 00:17:18
See those come in so And does that include high speed Internet or just telephone? 00:17:22
No, it's all community, telecom, any telecommunications, Internet so. 00:17:26
Yeah, and we can. We like said, we do have a relationship with. 00:17:30
The consulting firm The Orchard through GMA and SO. 00:17:34
Yeah. 00:17:38
We can certainly do that. We have, I know we we talked about we still have some. 00:17:39
Out some outstanding issues on some telecommunications that we talked about and just haven't. 00:17:43
Circle back around to it but. 00:17:48
Yeah, absolutely. And also it's just Trove and Wire Park. I mean, I think there should be a pretty. 00:17:49
I would think the increase in those fees would be tracking the lost. 00:17:54
Maybe not lost but it shouldn't be that far off honestly given the population growth and things so. 00:17:57
OK. We'll definitely pursue that. Yeah. Property tax is probably a fair, fair comparison. Yeah. 00:18:03
The tax digest, Yeah, OK. 00:18:09
So let's jump to the other side of the board. So expenses, so again 3.35 million, 1.6% increase 50, about $53,000. 00:18:12
Again, 21 full-time equivalents. Right now we have 4 vacancies working. 00:18:21
Diligently to fill those. 00:18:26
But it does take a lot of people. We'll talk about that in a minute when we get into the next couple of slides. But we do now. We 00:18:28
don't all, we don't all we, my people do not do all of that work. We do have contract. 00:18:34
Contracted services for some of those things, but. 00:18:40
You know, you see the list of building permits, alcohol permits, Co compliance, Municipal Court legal services, we talked about 00:18:43
garbage, leaf and limb, professional engineering services, our attorney. 00:18:48
Plans review all those kind of things that have to happen to make this government tick. 00:18:54
The 21 full time employees and our contracted service providers provide those. You'll see that the three top ones are public 00:18:59
works. 00:19:02
And police, they actually almost are almost the exact same. 00:19:06
And then general government and parks a close fourth there. 00:19:10
So we'll talk about the two largest and we, I mentioned this a minute ago, police and garbage those. 00:19:19
Very typical. The first things when you know governments want to create themselves, they have to deal with garbage and police. 00:19:23
So the. 00:19:30
Proposed 26 budget. 00:19:31
Is actually a little bit, it's about a 7% decrease and that is. 00:19:34
Due to the fact that Chief Arwood and I talked about with oversight with the mayor, reducing the administrative staff. 00:19:38
And shifting those resources to the Parks Department. 00:19:44
We had nine positions. We had at the time a chief and a Lieutenant or a major. 00:19:48
There's really not. We do have a Sergeant that's capable and has been doing some of the administrative things, but there's really 00:19:53
not a need to have two administrative people in the office. We need, you know, field officers is what we need. 00:19:59
And so we talked about that. I think we feel pretty confident right now that the 88 post certified that includes the chief, the 00:20:04
two sergeants and the five patrol officers will get us down the road a couple of years. We'll see how development have you know 00:20:09
with our park fully coming out on Trove and all that, how that changes, if that changes anything, I think we're very blessed to 00:20:14
have a very. 00:20:19
You know, safe community, everybody's, you know, anybody sees something, they say something and I think that that helps, you know, 00:20:24
keep. 00:20:28
Crime down to a minimum. 00:20:32
Garbage and leaf and limb. 00:20:34
I mentioned that earlier, it did increase this year about almost $68,000 because of the difference in the and that's not just the 00:20:36
roll carts, it's the cost of disposal of garbage transportation. You have to keep in mind they've got vehicles that have to be 00:20:40
serviced. 00:20:45
They have to put people in those vehicles. They have to put fuel in those vehicles, so. 00:20:49
We are, we currently don't, we're not right at 1416 customers. We have that many. 00:20:53
That. 00:20:59
Could potentially be online with Trove, but we also have additional ones that will come online. 00:21:00
We are not picking up. 00:21:05
I don't know. I'm going to say this and then I'm going to go back into question. I don't think we're picking up water park when 00:21:08
they do theirs water park. I think we said they have to do their own. I was trying to remember. 00:21:12
But Trove, we do. 00:21:16
So but. 00:21:18
Apartment. 00:21:21
No, no there wasn't the single family residential. They'll have to provide that with a single they'll be part of their HOA. 00:21:22
Yeah, that was part of the development agreement. 00:21:29
But we do think with all the other development, we'll see about maybe another 40 or 50 on this number next year, but I don't 00:21:31
anticipate this year they'll be that many yet, so. 00:21:36
And I'll double check that. I'm pretty sure I'm right about that. 00:21:41
So back to sort of what I was talking about is so when you're just looking at the city personnel, the 21 employees, you've got a 00:21:45
$1.6 million, that's benefits salary. 00:21:50
Pension, I mean all the other stuff that we've got built in, but when you add the contract labor, which would be like our engineer 00:21:56
or Bureau Veritas or attorney. 00:22:00
Or even our judges. 00:22:04
Then you add another 20%, so roughly a little less than 70%. So 70% of what this government does is. 00:22:06
People. 00:22:13
I mean, but people that have experience that can walk us through some of the things that have to be done. 00:22:14
I want to point out that the net budget increase is only just under 53,000, but there are some sort of big changes that I want to 00:22:22
talk about in the budget. 00:22:26
This year I'm recommending a flat $2500 cost of living increase per employee. 00:22:31
Oconee County's done that for the last couple of years. They didn't do a percentage. Part of that was to help those at the lower 00:22:38
end of the pay scale get a little bit. 00:22:41
A little bit bigger bump than those of us at the top end of it. 00:22:45
So the ranges for if you were to look at this as a COLA across all my employees, the range the cost of living increase would run 00:22:48
between 2.2 and 6.7%. 00:22:53
And it runs backwards, so 2.2 at the high to 6.7 at the lower end. 00:22:58
Because of the of the flat. 00:23:02
So that's what I'm recommending. That would be a little bit, a little bit more than $52,000 of the budget. 00:23:04
We also this year, this is something that Chief Arwood had brought and. 00:23:09
Julie and I looked at this. 00:23:14
Gosh, I think when did Mayor Davis here? About four years ago, we looked at doing a defined benefit retirement plan, not a defined 00:23:17
contribution. We have a defined contribution, which means. 00:23:22
That the city provides. 00:23:27
A match or up to a certain amount. A 3% match up to a certain amount. 00:23:29
If people. 00:23:34
Contribute to a retirement, an IRA basically. 00:23:35
What we're talking about and Chief Arwood had in Jefferson and highly recommend it's a great tool for recruitment is actually 00:23:39
defined benefit retirement plan. So the Georgia Municipal Association sort of like our. 00:23:45
Georgia. 00:23:50
Insurance risk management group, Gurma. 00:23:51
You know, we were in a pool with karma for so we share the risk right across a larger pool. 00:23:54
The defined benefit retirement program is similar. There's a whole bunch of governments that are our size, maybe a little, even a 00:23:59
little bit bigger. Jefferson hat. I believe Jefferson was a member of this as well. 00:24:04
Where you put a certain amount in and then they manage that, you know, and you have essentially you have a pension when you finish 00:24:09
if you get vested. 00:24:13
We have. We're asked. This is an estimate. I'll point this out. I hope I'm not going to be too far off. We asked again today. We 00:24:17
have not gotten the information back from the actuaries yet. 00:24:22
Because they had, we had to fill out all this paperwork, provide everything to them. 00:24:26
So I'm this is a guesstimate and like I said, I'm hoping that we're close. 00:24:30
The difference between what I believe it's going to cost, which is about 75,000 and some change and what we already put in the 00:24:34
budget last year is the difference is about a $40,000 increase. 00:24:39
Again, I will. 00:24:45
Mentioned that I really think this is a this would be not only a good recruitment tool, but a good retention tool. We've built a 00:24:48
really good staff. 00:24:51
I've got half of not quite a quarter of my employees have been here more than five years. 00:24:55
And I, you know, hoping that, you know, we're. 00:25:00
Creating a culture and an environment. People want to stay and want to continue to contribute this to the city. 00:25:03
And and so this is a way to say, hey, don't, don't leave us even though we can't pay you. 00:25:08
You know what Clark County or Oconee or even Winder might pay you? You know. 00:25:13
We make the environment nice to come to work for people you know enjoy their work. 00:25:18
But here's another benefit that, if you stick around, you can take advantage of when you retire. 00:25:23
So yeah. 00:25:29
So, So what we asked for and again I don't have everything in front of it, what we asked for is for them to go ahead and it would 00:25:30
be a five year investment which is a lot of communities are doing five years not ten. 00:25:35
A5 year investment and and we would. 00:25:41
What we asked for is to give us a price. 00:25:44
If we vested everybody that had made it to 5 and so somebody's been here 3 and 2, they would only have to serve two more years. So 00:25:46
we're buying up the three-year, we're buying up whatever time people have been here already. 00:25:51
And so and that's and now again, I don't have the details. I'm sorry. I thought we'd have it last week and we didn't. So as soon 00:25:57
as I get that, I'll certainly distribute it to you all. But but the plan would be, you know, so somebody's been here maybe three 00:26:01
years if they stay another two years by. 00:26:05
As they're, as we're contributing the next two years, then they would become vested in the program, but we would buy the first 00:26:10
five years. 00:26:13
This increase is to buy those years or something? 00:26:17
That's that's what I'm hoping yes and we. 00:26:20
So this wouldn't be a necessarily an annual increase of this much if you're already buying. 00:26:23
Like. 00:26:29
Well. 00:26:32
I'm not sure. I don't know the answer to that question. Yeah, I don't know. I know. 00:26:34
That when we talked to when we talked to GMA S provider about it. 00:26:39
They told me. 00:26:45
Julie helped me. Was it between? Without that would be between 50 and 70 or. 00:26:46
60 and 90 or something like that or it was 60 to 90 and I thought. 00:26:51
Now let's go in the middle 70, you know for budget purposes because I have no idea and that was along the same lines of what I 00:26:55
talked about having the, you know, having a five year investment. 00:26:59
You know, looking at those. 00:27:04
Looking at buying it up to for the first fest up. I don't know the answer that question I know and when I get it, I will 00:27:06
certainly, you know, send it out. So I mean, I just don't know yet. So your question is how much next year acceleration is? 00:27:13
How much would then and the acceleration actually would wait? 00:27:22
It wouldn't only be this year. 00:27:26
It would be heaviest this year, but. 00:27:29
What sticks to your ribs? 00:27:30
And after that, once they have all of the accelerations done. 00:27:34
I mean I. 00:27:38
I'm not like the answers to these questions. You're not going to sway me. 00:27:39
Yeah, I mean, I think this is a good idea, but I'm just curious somehow. 00:27:44
And we're just buying five years. 00:27:47
OK. 00:27:52
Julie, have you been here for like? 00:27:52
28. 00:27:55
You. I just didn't know if we were going to. 00:27:57
Go back. We can't afford that. 00:27:59
That's what that's what I'm saying. I would not expect we're going to cap it at five years. You're vested, right? Well, the whole 00:28:01
point is to buy the vested period so that if she left, if something she needed to leave in two years, she could walk out the door 00:28:07
and she and then the and she would get the whatever the and again, I don't want to say 60% over salary or she'll get the benefits, 00:28:13
which is a huge, you know, right. 00:28:20
And I'm flying a little blind on that. 00:28:26
So yeah. Umm. 00:28:29
So. 00:28:30
So I will have more information on that. So I'm apologizing. I'm I'm hopeful that I'm close to that number that would look like 00:28:32
and I will find out the other information. Make sure y'all get it. 00:28:36
As soon as we can. We've been bugging them for last week. 00:28:41
So. 00:28:44
On the so Medical, dental, vision, I remind you all that we have an annual contract and our contract actually ends the end of 00:28:47
September, which means we only get 1/4 into the fiscal year and we have to go through a whole new, you know, annual. 00:28:53
Health benefit. 00:29:01
Process. 00:29:03
I've talked to our broker and she said anticipate. 00:29:04
She thought 15%, You know, we saw a huge increase last year. I don't know. You know, I think there's some reasons for that 00:29:10
increase last year. 00:29:13
I don't know we'll be able to. We had some bumpy roads transitioning to angle the which is a Cygnus subsidiary, but. 00:29:17
Not horrible, but it was a little challenging for the first couple of months. Umm. 00:29:24
But we'll see what the market looks like come, you know, probably July, August, we will be looking at I think Alfie Alethea or 00:29:29
whatever, the one that's over here. 00:29:34
That, umm. 00:29:39
Andy Bars, his group is doing health and we've contacted them, so we'll see if there's any opportunity there as well. 00:29:40
But we've got to go back out to market. So I'm trying to figure worst case scenario, 15% of medical, 5% dental, no increase in 00:29:47
vision. And what you see in the budget is, is estimating that. So first three months or as we are now and then nine months at this 00:29:53
increase. 00:29:58
And the one of the other benefits, I think that helps. 00:30:04
Keep and retain employees and maybe even attract employees as. 00:30:07
The city covers 75% of that premium cost for those services. 00:30:10
To our employees. 00:30:14
On legal and professional we've we've got a roughly about $15,000. 00:30:17
Budgeted again this year, we've continued to see. 00:30:22
An onslaught of. 00:30:27
Open records request. 00:30:28
And. 00:30:30
We every time, because of the litigious posture or nature of these, we've had to involve the attorney and that cost us money. 00:30:31
But, you know, safer. 00:30:40
To be, you know, make sure we have that oversight from the attorney. 00:30:42
Since we've had those changes, so we do reiterate, we do follow the law, we respond within three days. We provided a good faith 00:30:45
estimate on all those requests. 00:30:49
But sometimes those have to be reviewed by the attorney. And so we're estimating 15. I think we're over think since March, June of 00:30:54
21, I think we're at. 00:30:59
400 and something and change, and that includes not just open records, but demand letters. 00:31:03
Which, you know, we're not required to respond to so. 00:31:08
15,000. 00:31:13
Yeah, yeah. Open, open records and letters is over 400 since. 00:31:16
From one individual. 00:31:21
15,000 and budget I'm sorry parks for budget that covers you know we've got some additional evolving expenses at Thomas Farm. We 00:31:23
fortunately have some monies because of the extra money in SPLOST 3. We have some monies to renovate and create additional 00:31:29
bathrooms which. 00:31:35
Won't happen by Memorial Day, but will happen hopefully before the before July 4th. I hope for sure we'll have those ready. 00:31:41
And we'll split the new bathrooms will become there'll be 3 stalls those would be for the women and the stall that we, the current 00:31:47
stall that we have will have will add a. 00:31:52
Urinal and out become the men's restroom, so we'll have a little bit more capacity for all the visitors we have out there. 00:31:57
But umm. 00:32:03
Water, electricity, general maintenance of the trails, those kind of things, we've estimated about a $15,000 increase in those in 00:32:03
those expenses. 00:32:07
Point out our street lighting. We'll talk about street light policy in the council meeting tonight. 00:32:12
But we have 18 St. lights that are being added now. The cost of those streetlights, the initial cost of those is coming out of 00:32:16
the. 00:32:19
Money we got from the State Roads and Tollway Association. 00:32:23
And that's the the G tab, the Simonton Bridge Rd. pedestrian connector that the actual physical cost of those. 00:32:27
At, I don't know, $60,000 is coming out of that, but the maintenance of those will come out of. 00:32:33
Our operating budget, the good news is, is because we're buying them from Georgia Power, not on our own. If somebody nails one of 00:32:40
them, they have to replace it if anything happens to it. That's part of what we buy. 00:32:45
And we pay a monthly amount for those streetlights. So that's what you're going to see, just adding those 18 St. lamps. 00:32:50
The library. So remind everybody that we have a very complicated agreement with the library. 00:32:57
And it is sort of like a tad in some ways, although it's not officially a tad, but basically we tied our. 00:33:05
Contribution to the library to the value of the property taxes at Wire Park. So we have a. 00:33:11
Very detailed list if anybody wants to see it, the detailed list of all the different parcels there and how much taxes they are 00:33:18
being charged. And we we keep that each year. We get that from the tax assessor's office and we. 00:33:24
Figure up. 00:33:31
How much we owe in taxes. The council approved the 1st 30,000 that's collected in taxes. Property taxes on that development would 00:33:32
go to the library. 00:33:37
10% above that amount I want to get into the map, but 10% above that amount. 00:33:42
Also would go to them. 00:33:47
And then 5% above that 10%. 00:33:48
Of the remaining balance would go to capital I. So basically. 00:33:52
This year you're staying about 17 hundred 1707 increase in maintenance. I'm sorry. 00:33:56
Maintenance expenses we also share with the county for the library building and then we have. 00:34:03
Increase in insurance premium. 00:34:07
But the the overall cost of the library this year will be. 00:34:09
30,127 so you can go back and figure out, you know, we're a little bit more than 30,000 because of that extra 10% that we have to 00:34:12
give them. 00:34:16
I think the 5% in capital is like a couple $100, it's not even enough to put it on the spreadsheet yet, but next year if that goes 00:34:20
to 50, we're going to, you know, we'll start tracking it and then that. 00:34:24
That money will be set aside as a line item. 00:34:29
And if the library says, hey, our air conditioner went out or some capital, there's something needs to be fixed, that's a capital 00:34:32
item that they could come back and request that money, the the council could distribute that money to them. 00:34:37
So we're going to work this out as we go along. I think so. 00:34:44
And then the last couple of changes, tourism. 00:34:48
We did increase, we did add and I don't know that we'll need this, but we did budget about $5000. 00:34:52
For the American 250 celebration, which has already be underway, Jan Watson Grill, our downtown development director, is serving 00:34:57
on that committee with it's being led by the county. 00:35:01
Without giving too much away, there are going to be some activities in June that the Daughters of American Revolution are going to 00:35:07
do and sort of in. 00:35:11
Running up to July 4th. 00:35:15
And then the July 4th. 00:35:17
That which? 00:35:19
I believe we're going to be hosting, but we'll we'll wait until the final decisions are made, but. 00:35:21
There's gonna be a lot of exciting stuff around that, so we budget some money for that. 00:35:26
And then finally, finally, property and liability insurance. 00:35:30
Obviously because of lawsuits and just the cost of anytime there's an accident or anything like that. 00:35:33
It costs US money, our insurance. 00:35:39
For that has gone up. 00:35:41
About 5% increase. 00:35:43
Which is not as bad as last year was so. 00:35:44
Any questions on on expenses or revenues, I'm gonna talk. I'm gonna switch to capital in a minute. We can go deeper and dive on 00:35:47
any of this stuff too, if you want. We've got our Google Sheet up that we can dive into if anybody's interested. 00:35:53
OK. On the capital side, remind you that we typically value a capital item at 5000 or more. We put that on the capital 00:36:00
improvement. 00:36:04
Program. 00:36:08
It's scheduled. We do have a very detailed line on. You should have received that in your packet as well. 00:36:10
It's a tool to help us sort of look, I'll start dropping off the years proceeding as we move on. Right now, you'll probably see, I 00:36:14
think I've got 2 fiscal years ahead and then the current fiscal year. So you can sort of see where we come from, but. 00:36:20
Things like replacing our server or in our firewall, which have to be done every four or five years because our computers don't 00:36:26
operate or any of the technology the Police Department uses may have to be updated. 00:36:31
The obviously all of our vehicles. 00:36:37
We don't have any buildings on there that's going to be one of those that we haven't budgeted. We do have. 00:36:39
Some money in there for HVAC systems here, but most of it is big stuff. We also have monies set aside. 00:36:44
Or programmed a little bit of money for replacement of items at the playground, which we do have a buy a twice a year we have a 00:36:51
group that comes out and actually. 00:36:57
Checks the playground. I think we do it. 00:37:02
March and August or February and August. 00:37:04
And they come out and they actually tighten the screws. And if something's missing, if something's been damaged, that kind of 00:37:07
stuff, we address it at that time. 00:37:11
So those are the kind of things that are on the capital improvement. 00:37:15
Plan for the fiscal year 26, we're talking about replacing. 00:37:18
One of the older vehicles, the 2017 police vehicle for Interceptor and then a zero turn mower. We are going to recommend keeping 00:37:22
the other mower since we now have Thomas Farm, they'll give us a little bit more. 00:37:28
Flexibility if we need to, if we've got the other motors being used, we can use that mower at. 00:37:34
The park. The good news is, is that in fiscal year 24 council appropriated 50,000 of spouse funds, which we we planned. 00:37:38
To go towards the public safety and capital items and so that will offset. 00:37:46
The 67 five that we'll need and we'll only need to pull out of the capital fund about 17-5. So that's a general fund. Capital 00:37:51
fund. I, I keep it, the mayor and I talk about it a lot. I haven't, we haven't contributed to capital fund. We try to watch that 00:37:56
sometimes. 00:38:00
Yeah, right now I think we're at about 140,000. 00:38:05
The balance sheet tonight that you're going to see at the council being is going to say 87,000. That's because this loss hasn't 00:38:08
paid the money back to the but it's about 140 hundred 50,000. 00:38:13
I feel like that's a good place to be. Every year we sort of look and I try not to have too much in that column. The replacement 00:38:18
we we talked the chief and I've talked about his vehicles. Toby and I talked about public works. 00:38:24
And we sort of try to get a sense of, OK, do we have to, do we really need to get rid of two or replace 2 police vehicles this 00:38:30
year? Can we just do one and maybe a mower or whatever, so. 00:38:35
We keep an eye on it. Obviously, if we contributed to the capital, to the capital improvement plan, we would have to increase our 00:38:40
operating budget because that money would have to be built into the budget. So then it could be transferred to that. So that's 00:38:44
another reason to keep it down is. 00:38:48
Is that sort of an artificial? You guys can do the exact same thing by going to your fund balance and going, let's just put 50,000 00:38:53
in the capital plan and you achieve the same thing without actually increasing the operating budget, so. 00:38:58
There's a couple ways to skin that cat, but I will just point out I think it's this is. 00:39:04
Y'all probably know this but this is a change we made. Share and lead the way and what this does allow us to do is. 00:39:08
Plan proactively and budget for these larger expenses. 00:39:13
You know, used to be. 00:39:17
Bruce Tax will come in and say hey, we need a fire truck in three years and we would just have to come out of our savings and pay 00:39:18
for a fire truck or you know, these sort of things. So it is a. 00:39:22
A much wiser way to account for expenses that we know are coming. And I know it's a little complicated, but I'm glad you handle it 00:39:26
that way. 00:39:29
One that's smart too, because it. 00:39:33
Causes those kinds of conversations that really. 00:39:35
Well, maintenance, I mean everybody, I mean everybody has their house they live in and you're like, oh, I got to replace the roof 00:39:40
in five years. You know, you start setting aside the money, putting it, you know, where you've got a, you know, a water heater 00:39:45
that's died or a washer dryer. You know, I mean, these are type of things we run into too as a city. 00:39:50
You know, maintaining our buildings and our infrastructure. And so we can't. 00:39:55
Wait till last minute go oops. You know, hey mom and dad or mayor council I need. 00:40:00
$50,000 yesterday, you know to fix so we you know I mean obviously there. 00:40:04
There could be those types of things that pop up we that are out of our control, but the things that we can control, we try to be 00:40:09
really intentional about. 00:40:12
Planning for those. 00:40:16
So, umm. 00:40:17
And that is the budget. So if you have any questions, I'm happy to entertain those. 00:40:19
I know there it's a little thing, but the. 00:40:28
I've noticed a lot of people are starting to rent Thomas Farm Preserve and I know that's not big numbers. We're going to look at 00:40:30
those numbers, but. 00:40:33
Does that go back into a line item? Is it specifically offset parks costs or does it just go back into the general fund and we 00:40:36
just account for that between Harris Shoals and Thomas Farm? 00:40:41
It will go back into the general fund as a revenue stream like miscellaneous revenue, just like when we get court fees and stuff, 00:40:47
those go back into the general fund, but we do budget for those to go to the attachment. 00:40:52
Yeah. So right. So right now we actually because we actually did not plan any money in revenues for Thomas Farm. 00:41:09
We know we're going to get them. We're already getting them, but we didn't play any money. We figured Rocket Field is averaging 00:41:17
about 7:00. 00:41:20
Or we figure they're going to be about 7000 with some things that are going on there with the rental of the ball field and all 00:41:24
that. And we figured about 1500 pair of Shoals, but all of those are increasing rapidly. 00:41:29
I because it's kind of hard to project what's going to happen and what kind of events we should budget anything. So it's just a, 00:41:34
it's a win win because we're going to see what we're going to see revenues. I mean, we, we've already got two. We had a wedding 00:41:40
out there, which actually Mark and I are learning. We're still trying to evolve on how we're going to manage this. But like we had 00:41:46
a wedding out there on a Friday. Luckily it was on a Friday, so we could be here and manage it and watch it. 00:41:52
And regroup and say, hey, you know, we need to have a conversation because they rented it. 00:41:58
For $50.00 and they rent it and they rented the pavilion. I mean they rented the Oval for $50.00. So 100 bucks they, and then 00:42:03
they, but they attach things to the, to the pavilion. We've decided that can't happen. Like we're, we're creating the OK, what, 00:42:09
what, what are we comfortable with? What are we not comfortable with at what point? I mean, a wedding we feel like is going to be 00:42:15
a special event. And so you guys will see tonight in the council. Hopefully you've already read your we put on there that. 00:42:21
And that's under consent is that it would be $250 if you're, if you're coming out to do a wedding or reception, a reunion, what 00:42:27
would be considered a special event and you're going to be required that's just 250 to rent a pavilion. And then you're going to 00:42:32
be required to fill out a special event permit, which is another $100 for us. 00:42:38
To have a site visit with you and talk about what are you gonna do about parking? We're gonna bet trash. What do you about 00:42:43
security? Are we? You're gonna need an officer to direct people in and out. How many people? You know if you have 100 people for a 00:42:47
wedding or a reunion. 00:42:51
We had to figure out where to park them, you know, how are we going to do it? So there's got to be a little bit organized, so. 00:42:55
We're sort of going to. 00:42:59
Oh, I'm sorry, I did estimate $3000. I didn't realize I did. I was looking at the wrong call. 00:43:03
For Thomas Farm but. 00:43:08
Wedding would be 250 + 100 dollars. Well it goes up more. 00:43:11
How much you've ranked? 00:43:16
Yeah, so so. 00:43:17
Yeah. 00:43:19
But I'm just, I'm thinking too like does that include like, hey, you're renting it, you're. 00:43:23
What if you are renting and? 00:43:30
Tables and chairs and like, there's going to be weird. 00:43:32
Grass and the turf and all of that, if that stuff is going in well. And what I will say is. 00:43:35
This is what we're recommending now. 00:43:42
As we get into these. 00:43:44
We may come back and say we're going to have to revise this. I mean, I just. 00:43:46
I think we don't want to. 00:43:49
We don't want to scare anybody off. We want people to use it, but we have to be intentional about, yeah, so, so for instance, if 00:43:51
somebody were to come in and do, let's say I'm going to have a wedding and I'm expecting 100 people, it's $250 to rent just the 00:43:56
pavilion if you rent. 00:44:01
I'm sorry, hang on a second. 00:44:06
It's $500. I didn't look at this 500 to rent the pavilion or the Oval if you rent both at 750, but then you have to fill out a 00:44:08
special event permit, which has additional fees. 00:44:13
Like you'd have to put up a sanitation bond. We might require you have one or two officers depending on, you know, that help 00:44:18
direct and they would have to pay for that, Yeah. 00:44:21
And so and the, you know, there would have to be agreements. Your caterer is going to take things off. There's no alcohol. You 00:44:26
know, there's all these other things we have to. 00:44:29
Figure out. So yeah, we just don't know what we don't know yet. And so as we're going through it, we're trying to develop it. And 00:44:34
I mean, Mark knows we're just going to be in sort of that limbo position. Let's do a couple of these events. Let's see how it 00:44:39
rolls and if if we feel like it's costing us a lot. 00:44:44
If because now we got to bring somebody on a Sunday, I mean you know, or Saturday to make sure things are clean or, or there's a 00:44:49
pot, you know, so and we can with a special event permit, we can actually. 00:44:54
Require that they give us a deposit, security deposit and and then and then yes, then. 00:45:00
Right. Yeah. And, and maybe that's not enough depending on what you know, but we also have officers that are on duty that can go 00:45:07
by. So I think we have an event this weekend or something. I think I've told Chief, I can't remember what it is now, but there's 00:45:12
something coming up or maybe anyway. 00:45:17
Anytime, yeah, anytime there's an event, we let the officers know so they can sort of run by and keep it on things. I mean, they 00:45:22
do that anyway, but maybe a higher presence just to keep an eye until we figure out what's going on. 00:45:27
So, and we do we have a number of church groups wanting to have events and. 00:45:31
You know the I think Marks and my fear is somebody, you know, we set the number at 50 and somebody goes, oh, I'm only gonna have 00:45:35
40, but they have 60. 00:45:39
And then what do we do? You know, like. 00:45:43
And, you know, we're not going to be able to counting them. But you know, I mean, people are gonna try to do that. So I think 00:45:45
that's why we tried to identify if you have a, a specific type of it, even if you're it's a wedding, it's gonna be a special 00:45:50
event. It's not, you don't get to say it's, you know, it's, it is a special event if it's a wedding, if you have 50 people or a 00:45:55
wedding reception or reunion, something like that. 00:46:00
To try to keep. 00:46:06
It's some control over that. 00:46:07
Certain events are automatically special, yes. 00:46:09
Regardless of the number, right road race, road race, something like that. Yeah, yeah, road race or something Sounds like mark 00:46:11
yeah, turn, turn the mic on and. 00:46:15
Yeah, I guess. 00:46:25
We're trying to figure out a balance. 00:46:26
Deal with the people that are coming and running those areas, but not punish them for being. 00:46:31
The other group of people who will just come and use the areas. 00:46:35
And not rent them at all. 00:46:39
So. 00:46:41
The possibility mean. 00:46:42
You do have the possibility, people. 00:46:43
Intentionally. Umm. 00:46:45
Sandbagging on how many people are going to have. 00:46:47
To cut down on fees and to get around things but. 00:46:50
Then there's another group of people who just won't rent anything. They'll just show up. 00:46:52
On a Saturday where we've got no presence out there, they'll bring 100 people. 00:46:56
Imagine someone would do that. Well, I mean. 00:47:01
Sure, sure, sure. 00:47:05
But to be like. 00:47:06
To roll the dice that someone hadn't actually rented it, or to roll the dice, yeah, there wasn't already something there for your 00:47:08
wedding. Perhaps for a wedding that's an exaggeration, but we're talking in a larger picture you know about. 00:47:14
Potlucks and reunions and all kinds of different things. But if we want to stop specifically about weddings, I mean, the first one 00:47:20
that we had, I was. 00:47:24
My eyes got really big. I didn't. 00:47:29
Anticipate. 00:47:31
Us using it as an event facility for weddings at all, just because I've worked at Ashford Manor and other places and I realized 00:47:33
that. 00:47:36
Emotions are up to here. Expectations are up to here. 00:47:40
And that it can get. 00:47:43
Carried away, so we sort of. 00:47:45
Looked. 00:47:47
Like Manager Dickerson said at this first one, that went through. 00:47:48
Already made a number of changes and. 00:47:53
We'll see what needs to be done further because it's. 00:47:56
I wonder if it would make sense. 00:47:59
Put something in there that if you state it's going to be 40 people. 00:48:01
But it actually is. 00:48:06
60 people. 00:48:07
That if you don't. 00:48:09
Organically pay the difference that there's like. 00:48:10
A ridiculous night. 00:48:13
It just has a. 00:48:15
Let's Yeah, yeah. What's circle back to budget? I think all that's good feedback and we're going to have a little time in between 00:48:16
meeting and others to do. 00:48:21
If you're done, other questions for staff? 00:48:26
We've got all our department heads too, and you guys are. 00:48:30
Assuming everybody's comfortable with their numbers here, nod your head, Shake your heads. If you got something we need to know, 00:48:32
let us know. 00:48:35
Questions for Sharon or any of the. 00:48:38
Thank you for all of the work I'll do and the level of detail. 00:48:42
Fantastic. 00:48:47
And not just a level of detail, but making it easily accessible to to the public, you know, if anybody wants to dig into these 00:48:48
numbers so they can. 00:48:52
Can I get them a Sheets or they have to get PDFs? Yeah. Well, so we have a, we have a notebook out in the city in front of City 00:48:56
Hall. We have it online. You can click and get every. Obviously it's in tonight's agenda, but it's also online if you go to our 00:49:00
budget pay, you know, budget page and our website. 00:49:05
You can get all this information very easily and. 00:49:10
We'll have ads, additional ads in the paper probably next week, have ad about the the mileage rate and also about the final budget 00:49:13
hearing. 00:49:17
And then is there a hearing before the June meeting as well or would that be cancelled or will there be a 5:00 and then a? 00:49:20
No, no, no. We have the work session tonight and we have the and that's our. 00:49:27
Opportunity for y'all to have input the second budget hearing and the and the. 00:49:32
Is. 00:49:37
And we had the mileage through the 1st mileage rate today. 00:49:38
And then we have public hearing tonight and then on the 18th we have another public hearing for the budget in the military. So all 00:49:41
that I just noticed it was like there were two meetings on the. 00:49:45
June 18th. 00:49:51
Is that I think, I think that's the one. I think that was the one that's supposed to be tomorrow night. 00:49:52
That if we need it and I'm imagining we'll probably cancel it. 00:49:56
All right. Any other questions? 00:50:00
All right. Not seeing anything from the audience with that. 00:50:03
Will it be adjourned? 00:50:07
Give me one minute. 00:50:09
Stop everything. 00:50:11
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Transcript

Event transcript
Oh, she's doing. 00:00:08
All right. Welcome everybody to our budget work session. 00:00:18
5:00 This is a work session, so. 00:00:22
There is not going to be a public comment portion of this unless council determines that it does want to. He wants to hear public 00:00:26
comment. This is a staff driven. 00:00:30
Session and as such. 00:00:34
It's going to be all about the fiscal year 2026 budget. We're grateful to our department heads and leaders. 00:00:37
For joining us in case Council has any questions for them. 00:00:43
But largely this will this will be driven by manager Dickerson. 00:00:46
I do think we before we get into fiscal year 26, it'd be a shame not to reflect on what a great year. 00:00:50
Last year was just a couple of our highlights. 00:00:56
First of all, we were in All America City last year. That's a testimony to a lot of great work. 00:01:00
From a lot of people in this room. 00:01:04
We began the rehabilitation of Harris Shoals Park by getting started on the Giordani Green. 00:01:07
Progress continues there and may be done before the end of this year. 00:01:14
We have rebuilt the pedestrian boardwalk. We opened Thomas Farm Preserve. 00:01:17
On December 14th, that might be one of the biggest. 00:01:22
Additional amenities to this community in the past 20 or 30 years based on what we're hearing. 00:01:27
The Simonton Bridge Rd. pedestrian connector we secured. 00:01:34
$1.5 million grant and $2.2 million. 00:01:37
Loan to work on that and that work is ongoing. 00:01:40
And we continue to do all the important things well that we traditionally have done. We keep the public safe. 00:01:44
We make sure that the trash is picked up, we make sure that our streets are clean, our infrastructure is well taken care of, and 00:01:51
our city is a beautiful and inspiring place so. 00:01:55
Staff, we're grateful to y'all for everything you do to help us achieve those goals and. 00:01:59
So important. So important for Watkinsville. 00:02:04
We also executed a bevy of special events with thousands of people in attendance of those. 00:02:06
And continue to have a healthy downtown. 00:02:12
So with that. 00:02:15
I'll just do a quick reminder of our. 00:02:16
Sharon of our vision. 00:02:19
I think it's always important to start these kind of meetings reminding ourselves of that we want to create Georgia's most 00:02:20
compelling community. 00:02:23
By honoring our history, building community, and creating opportunities for citizens to engage and do business with one another 00:02:26
every day. 00:02:29
Our values are efficiency, transparency, inclusivity. 00:02:32
Creativity, kindness, and connectivity. 00:02:35
I'm not going to read all this out. This is what we call the Watkinsville Way. We want to be a connected community. We want to 00:02:38
honor our history. 00:02:41
While welcoming innovation and accommodating change, and we want to provide opportunities for all. 00:02:44
And Sharon, with that, I will turn it over to you for our work session on the budget. 00:02:51
Thank you, Mayor. 00:02:56
Just a reminder, this is our. 00:02:59
Organizational chart We have 21 full-time equivalents, one part time. 00:03:00
Officer, we have currently have 4 vacancies. 00:03:05
2IN police and two in public works. 00:03:08
Just a reminder that this has been a process every year. It is a process. 00:03:17
Start off with your council retreat where you identify your strategic initiatives for the year we. 00:03:22
Try to work our budget around that. Build our budget around that. 0 based budgeting from bottom up. 00:03:27
We've had work sessions with the Independent, I'm sorry, we've had independent agency budget meeting where they presented that 00:03:33
would be our. 00:03:37
Fire department and the OCAF presents to the city their request and then those are wrapped into this budget. We'll talk about 00:03:42
those some. 00:03:46
During this process and then we had our first regular meeting, our first, our first meeting in the budget was the meeting to just 00:03:51
obtain input from the public on what they would like to see in the budget. 00:03:56
Then the budget, mayor and I work together and provided the budget to you all. And then that budget has tonight we will discuss 00:04:02
the budget and this is an opportunity for you all to have questions, to offer any insights or questions about the budget. And then 00:04:08
at 6:30, the public will have the opportunity to react to the budget. 00:04:14
For you all to hear and then at next month's meeting, hopefully there'll be a formal approval, There'll be another public hearing 00:04:21
at next month's meeting as well. 00:04:24
We also had today at 12:30 we had a special called meeting. 00:04:27
To look at the adoption of the 2025 mileage rate, which is part of the budget, we'll talk about that at length today. 00:04:31
If everything goes well about midway through, I'll probably suggest we cancel tomorrow night's work session, but if not, we can 00:04:36
have a work session tomorrow night, so we'll see how it goes. 00:04:40
We had a number of budget goals. I try to typically keep this to three, but we're we've got so many services that are really 00:04:46
highlighted in your strategic initiatives that I didn't want to. 00:04:51
You know, miss any of those. So obviously public safety garbages are almost. 00:04:56
Always the first thing you think of what the city, what they're providing is safety and public health, right collection of 00:04:59
garbage. 00:05:02
Continuing to look at preserving our green spaces, connecting people to those green spaces through the pedestrian connections, the 00:05:06
one the mayor mentioned a minute ago. 00:05:10
Simonton Bridge Rd. 00:05:14
Connector that will get. 00:05:16
1/4 of our population that currently doesn't have a way to get downtown, they'll be able to get downtown without having to get in 00:05:18
their car and drive downtown. 00:05:21
As well as people downtown being able to get to our new 100 acre green space at Thomas Farm. 00:05:25
Revitalization of the downtown, tourism, job creation, those things that are are continuing that not new, but continuing and 00:05:30
continuing to grow now that we have. 00:05:35
A DDA director and we're looking at strategic planning for that area. 00:05:39
Obviously, always at the top of our mind is to look at operational efficiency. Where can we collaborate? What? 00:05:43
Where do we not? We don't need to duplicate services. Let's figure out how to work together. 00:05:50
With our partners and or within our own departments not trying to do the same thing and be. 00:05:54
Advance and leverage those technology technological opportunities. 00:06:00
And then obviously, as I said earlier, trying to. 00:06:03
Implement your strategic initiatives that would have been prioritized this this budget year. 00:06:07
I'm sorry this is so small, hopefully y'all have your laptops or printouts but. 00:06:13
This is the recommended budget. We are not recommending a mileage increase although. 00:06:18
The amount of money collected will increase and we'll talk about that more in detail. 00:06:22
I do want to point out we. 00:06:27
Wanted to show provide some general point of reference as to where we were in the budget. So you'll notice we have the yellow. 00:06:30
Column says. 00:06:38
FY25 actual as of the end of March. 00:06:39
What I do want to point out is you may wonder why does it say fund balance contribution and the -600 and 61630? 00:06:42
What's important is if that's the money, as of the end of March, we have not spent. If we spend it, it will not be there. It will 00:06:49
be a 0, right? Well, and hopefully, hopefully there'll be some left. But if there's some left, it goes back into the fund balance. 00:06:54
So that's why we have to balance the budget for you. So we're just showing you how it's balanced. 00:06:59
And we are. 00:07:05
Signet, I would say significantly, we are under under budget right now, so. 00:07:07
But we are recommending a $3.349 million budget, which is about a $52,000 increase and we'll talk about that some as well. 00:07:11
But it is a balanced budget. 00:07:20
So executive summary on revenues. 00:07:24
So again, 3.3 million, I'll just say 3.35 increase of 1.6% over last year's approved an amended budget. 00:07:26
You'll see the big three pieces of the pie or local option sales tax at 32%, property taxes at 23% and our collectively our 00:07:34
franchise fees at a little bit more than $330,000. 00:07:40
So I think the one thing that I point out about this is. 00:07:48
There are a lot of revenue streams to the city. That's very fortunate. A lot of communities only have one that's property tax and 00:07:52
that hurts, especially with like House Bill 581 of those things come down because then then they have less control over it. We 00:07:56
were very fortunate. 00:08:00
We have a very wide range of resources at revenue sources. 00:08:04
For us, and I think that helps. 00:08:08
Diversify what we can do as well. 00:08:10
So let's talk through each one of the top three. We'll start with local option sales tax. 00:08:13
So. 00:08:20
Under the 10 year agreement which I believe began 2 years ago, go back and look, we get 7.77% of all the county. 00:08:21
Local option sales tax that are collected. Taxes that are collected. 00:08:29
We've seen an average growth rate of a little bit more than 9% over the last five years and this past fiscal year we saw a little 00:08:33
bit more than 6%. 00:08:36
I think I'm being very conservative and saying that we'll see a 5% growth. 00:08:40
Things cost more, so taxes are going to be higher. People are buying. People are feeling somewhat, you know, timid, but somewhat 00:08:45
economically, you know. 00:08:48
Confident. And so they're spending more money. So I think we can see, I think we're good at a 5% growth. It may be even more than 00:08:53
that. And I just tried to give you sort of a line chart so you could sort of see how it's growing. 00:08:58
Overtime, so we're actually going to top the $1,000,000 mark this year on local option sales tax. I feel pretty confident about 00:09:04
that. 00:09:07
Property taxes. 00:09:12
So. 00:09:13
We received the information from the tax assessor from the Tax Commissioner, which is based on tax assessors numbers. 00:09:15
Our net property digest for 25 is a little bit more than $274 million, that's a 12% increase or roughly thirty $30 million. 00:09:22
Of that, about 18,000, a little bit more than half of that growth is really new development or improvement, significant 00:09:31
improvements to the properties. So you can think about water parking, think about Trove, you can think about. 00:09:38
Even water swap, because all of this is determined on the first day of the calendar year, so January 1, whatever that value is, 00:09:44
that's how it's based. 00:09:48
We don't see that money though till the end of the year. So we're asked at, you know, we're putting in the budget in July, but we 00:09:52
won't see it. 00:09:55
Probably technically won't see it to the end of the fiscal year because there's some of those are still rolling in after appeals 00:09:58
and all that kind of stuff. 00:10:01
So again, what we're recommending is that we stay at our current mileage rate of 2.756, which is only a 0.122 mil increase higher, 00:10:05
sorry, higher. 00:10:11
More than the estimated rollback. 00:10:16
And the rollback is provided to us. 00:10:18
Based on the net, there's a whole. If anybody wants to see it, there's something called a PT 32.1 that we have to use. It's a form 00:10:20
that is prescribed by the state. 00:10:25
And the tax assessor provides that to us and that determines our rollback. So we don't get it go, oh, let's just figure out what a 00:10:29
rollback it. 00:10:32
And so based on the rollback, we are going to be, if we keep our mileage rate at 2.756, we will be just a slight higher than the 00:10:36
rollback and that will generate about $84,000 in revenues. 00:10:41
What I think is important to note. 00:10:48
Is. 00:10:50
We're not recommending that the mileage rate go up. And so technically, if you haven't done anything to your property, it hasn't 00:10:52
been assessed. And now that House Bill 581 has come through, it can't be assessed. I think over whatever the CPI is, it can't be 00:10:58
assessed this year. I believe next year it could go up whatever the consumer price index, the Department of Revenue says. 00:11:03
But it's controlled a little bit more. But if you didn't make any major changes to your house, you didn't buy a new house or you 00:11:10
didn't do anything to your business. 00:11:13
That would, you know, change the assessed value. You're not going to see a property tax increase in the city and I can't talk 00:11:17
about the county or the schools. 00:11:21
But from the city you would not see one. 00:11:24
I think it's also important to illustrate. I mentioned this today in our. 00:11:27
Public meeting. 00:11:31
That there there's a lot of value to the property taxes our citizens pay, mentioned earlier about all the revenue sources, but. 00:11:32
Technically, property tax is a second. 00:11:38
Revenue source second highest and it's not even, it's probably just a little bit less than half of what I'm expect or a little bit 00:11:42
more than half. 00:11:45
Of what we get with local option sales tax since we're getting that over the whole county. 00:11:48
But the value is is, you know, garbage and leaf and limb services this year we're going to be going to introducing a roll cart, a 00:11:53
90 gallon roll cart. And we did confirm it as a 90 gallon roll cart that will have our logo on it. It'll be rolled out. It'll be 00:11:58
look very uniform and and nice across, you know, across the community won't have somebody's open can or bag sitting at the curb 00:12:03
that could leak or get torn into. 00:12:09
And with that in the call and and keep in mind. 00:12:15
This was a five year contract we were on and they didn't ask for an increase. I don't think we asked. They asked for an increase 00:12:18
over the last five years. So now we're looking at $27.00 a month. So it's going up. 00:12:22
$4.00 a month. 00:12:27
Per household. So that's a value of $324 a year per household now. 00:12:29
And where I'm at, I have to pay about $32. I think there's some other fees for for just garbage. This is garbage and leaf and limb 00:12:33
weekly. So I think it's a huge value. And then if you were just to section off public safety law enforcement, that value is $598 a 00:12:40
year. So again, they're getting for their 325 if you have a $300,000 house. 00:12:47
You're getting a lot of value and you're not having, we're not having to dip into subsidized with all these other revenue sources. 00:12:53
You're literally, you know, getting. 00:12:57
A lot of value for that property tax. 00:13:01
Dollar. 00:13:03
This is your, this is you will. You will see the five year. You won't see all of it, but there will be an ad next week's paper. 00:13:05
Showing the tax digest history for the last five years. 00:13:11
And so you'll see there the gross digest about middle way on the on the Rose middle all the way across you'll say it says 287 00:13:15
million, 525, that's the gross. There are exemptions. There's a whole number of them, a whole number of them. If you're 00:13:20
interested, I can. 00:13:24
Pull those out for you, but after the exemptions, our net digest is a little bit more than 274,000,000. Again, that's about a 1212 00:13:30
1/2 percent increase over. 00:13:34
Last year's Net Digest. 00:13:38
Roughly works out to 30 million. 00:13:41
And then the mileage rate at 2.756, which is the same mileage rate that we're at this fiscal year, would bring in 756,000 and some 00:13:44
change. 00:13:49
Which is an increase of about $84,000 more. 00:13:54
And again, I'll stress that that is probably not likely coming from anybody that hasn't done anything to their home. This is 00:13:58
coming from new growth, which I think is is important to note. 00:14:02
Also point out. 00:14:06
If you look at our proposed mileage rate versus the rollback, if you were to use the rollback. 00:14:08
Home valued at with the Homestead home. 00:14:12
Fair market value 300,000 with a homestead. 00:14:16
Will workout to savings of $14.40 for a non homestead or commercial property valued at 500,000. 00:14:18
That would be $24.40. That's an annual amount. 00:14:26
So that's what you're looking at if you decide that you want to take the rollback and I would encourage you not to take the 00:14:30
rollback and we'll talk about why. 00:14:34
The third is our franchise fees. So when you use your phone or natural gas or electricity, those providers have to pay the city. 00:14:39
For use of our right of ways, basically to have the telephone poles or their lines going through our right away and there's a 00:14:47
bylaw. 00:14:51
Electric companies pay 4% of telecommunication 3% and natural gas 3%. And so that's where all those monies come in annually. 00:14:55
And those numbers are going up because those services are going up. So it's a percentage of. 00:15:03
The cost so again, so I think we're. 00:15:07
We got more this year from the electric than I anticipated, more than more from the. 00:15:11
Telecommunications than I expected. So I think I'm being fairly conservative with that number. I think we'll probably see a little 00:15:16
bit more than that. 00:15:19
Sharon does, yes. Does that include Charter and AT&T and telecom? 00:15:23
And Parker Fiber and. 00:15:28
What's the other one? Is there a way that we audit that or make sure that they're actually? 00:15:31
Some of those numbers seem a little bit low, like if you extrapolated how much people are paying. 00:15:35
Charter and others, I just would be curious. 00:15:39
Wait, yeah. And we can, we have, we have a, an agreement with a consulting firm that works with GMA and they can certainly do 00:15:42
that. We do, they did do you may recall they did that for our phone already. We haven't done it for lecture, but we can certainly 00:15:48
initiate that. And and the other telecommunications we can certainly do that as part of electric, you know, I mean, who knows, I 00:15:54
mean it's bigger in the wind, I guess. 00:16:00
I just think about how costs and maybe we should look at how much they've increased, but what people are paying for Internet. 00:16:06
Michael using charter or 8 I mean I just. 00:16:11
Would want to be sure that the level of increase. I know that. 00:16:14
Electric. 00:16:17
Amount has gone up pretty significantly, but the others I'd want to be sure that it's. 00:16:18
I don't know about y'all but I pay a lot more between Internet and. 00:16:22
I feel like I pay more for. 00:16:26
Telecom way more than I used to a couple years ago just to pay for high speed Internet. 00:16:27
So OK. 00:16:32
Well. 00:16:33
Yeah, I'm just wondering if. 00:16:36
You know, these are massive companies, like, I don't know how charter. 00:16:37
Or I mean. 00:16:41
Is the, I know there's gas marketers, but I'm assuming we would just work with whoever the gas wholesaler is and they would do a 00:16:42
percentage of that or? 00:16:45
Does everybody's gas market or write us a check? I think every gut buddy's gas marketer writes us a check. OK, so. 00:16:49
Anyway, I just would want to be. 00:16:55
Sure. If not this year that we have a systematic process for making sure we're getting what we're supposed to get on those 00:16:56
amounts. Absolutely and double checking on that. 00:16:59
Telephone we get quarterly. 00:17:08
Gas we get annually maybe, I don't know. 00:17:10
And electrical we get annually because we get one big check in like February. 00:17:14
From them normally January, February for them. So telecommunications we get quarterly, I know. 00:17:18
See those come in so And does that include high speed Internet or just telephone? 00:17:22
No, it's all community, telecom, any telecommunications, Internet so. 00:17:26
Yeah, and we can. We like said, we do have a relationship with. 00:17:30
The consulting firm The Orchard through GMA and SO. 00:17:34
Yeah. 00:17:38
We can certainly do that. We have, I know we we talked about we still have some. 00:17:39
Out some outstanding issues on some telecommunications that we talked about and just haven't. 00:17:43
Circle back around to it but. 00:17:48
Yeah, absolutely. And also it's just Trove and Wire Park. I mean, I think there should be a pretty. 00:17:49
I would think the increase in those fees would be tracking the lost. 00:17:54
Maybe not lost but it shouldn't be that far off honestly given the population growth and things so. 00:17:57
OK. We'll definitely pursue that. Yeah. Property tax is probably a fair, fair comparison. Yeah. 00:18:03
The tax digest, Yeah, OK. 00:18:09
So let's jump to the other side of the board. So expenses, so again 3.35 million, 1.6% increase 50, about $53,000. 00:18:12
Again, 21 full-time equivalents. Right now we have 4 vacancies working. 00:18:21
Diligently to fill those. 00:18:26
But it does take a lot of people. We'll talk about that in a minute when we get into the next couple of slides. But we do now. We 00:18:28
don't all, we don't all we, my people do not do all of that work. We do have contract. 00:18:34
Contracted services for some of those things, but. 00:18:40
You know, you see the list of building permits, alcohol permits, Co compliance, Municipal Court legal services, we talked about 00:18:43
garbage, leaf and limb, professional engineering services, our attorney. 00:18:48
Plans review all those kind of things that have to happen to make this government tick. 00:18:54
The 21 full time employees and our contracted service providers provide those. You'll see that the three top ones are public 00:18:59
works. 00:19:02
And police, they actually almost are almost the exact same. 00:19:06
And then general government and parks a close fourth there. 00:19:10
So we'll talk about the two largest and we, I mentioned this a minute ago, police and garbage those. 00:19:19
Very typical. The first things when you know governments want to create themselves, they have to deal with garbage and police. 00:19:23
So the. 00:19:30
Proposed 26 budget. 00:19:31
Is actually a little bit, it's about a 7% decrease and that is. 00:19:34
Due to the fact that Chief Arwood and I talked about with oversight with the mayor, reducing the administrative staff. 00:19:38
And shifting those resources to the Parks Department. 00:19:44
We had nine positions. We had at the time a chief and a Lieutenant or a major. 00:19:48
There's really not. We do have a Sergeant that's capable and has been doing some of the administrative things, but there's really 00:19:53
not a need to have two administrative people in the office. We need, you know, field officers is what we need. 00:19:59
And so we talked about that. I think we feel pretty confident right now that the 88 post certified that includes the chief, the 00:20:04
two sergeants and the five patrol officers will get us down the road a couple of years. We'll see how development have you know 00:20:09
with our park fully coming out on Trove and all that, how that changes, if that changes anything, I think we're very blessed to 00:20:14
have a very. 00:20:19
You know, safe community, everybody's, you know, anybody sees something, they say something and I think that that helps, you know, 00:20:24
keep. 00:20:28
Crime down to a minimum. 00:20:32
Garbage and leaf and limb. 00:20:34
I mentioned that earlier, it did increase this year about almost $68,000 because of the difference in the and that's not just the 00:20:36
roll carts, it's the cost of disposal of garbage transportation. You have to keep in mind they've got vehicles that have to be 00:20:40
serviced. 00:20:45
They have to put people in those vehicles. They have to put fuel in those vehicles, so. 00:20:49
We are, we currently don't, we're not right at 1416 customers. We have that many. 00:20:53
That. 00:20:59
Could potentially be online with Trove, but we also have additional ones that will come online. 00:21:00
We are not picking up. 00:21:05
I don't know. I'm going to say this and then I'm going to go back into question. I don't think we're picking up water park when 00:21:08
they do theirs water park. I think we said they have to do their own. I was trying to remember. 00:21:12
But Trove, we do. 00:21:16
So but. 00:21:18
Apartment. 00:21:21
No, no there wasn't the single family residential. They'll have to provide that with a single they'll be part of their HOA. 00:21:22
Yeah, that was part of the development agreement. 00:21:29
But we do think with all the other development, we'll see about maybe another 40 or 50 on this number next year, but I don't 00:21:31
anticipate this year they'll be that many yet, so. 00:21:36
And I'll double check that. I'm pretty sure I'm right about that. 00:21:41
So back to sort of what I was talking about is so when you're just looking at the city personnel, the 21 employees, you've got a 00:21:45
$1.6 million, that's benefits salary. 00:21:50
Pension, I mean all the other stuff that we've got built in, but when you add the contract labor, which would be like our engineer 00:21:56
or Bureau Veritas or attorney. 00:22:00
Or even our judges. 00:22:04
Then you add another 20%, so roughly a little less than 70%. So 70% of what this government does is. 00:22:06
People. 00:22:13
I mean, but people that have experience that can walk us through some of the things that have to be done. 00:22:14
I want to point out that the net budget increase is only just under 53,000, but there are some sort of big changes that I want to 00:22:22
talk about in the budget. 00:22:26
This year I'm recommending a flat $2500 cost of living increase per employee. 00:22:31
Oconee County's done that for the last couple of years. They didn't do a percentage. Part of that was to help those at the lower 00:22:38
end of the pay scale get a little bit. 00:22:41
A little bit bigger bump than those of us at the top end of it. 00:22:45
So the ranges for if you were to look at this as a COLA across all my employees, the range the cost of living increase would run 00:22:48
between 2.2 and 6.7%. 00:22:53
And it runs backwards, so 2.2 at the high to 6.7 at the lower end. 00:22:58
Because of the of the flat. 00:23:02
So that's what I'm recommending. That would be a little bit, a little bit more than $52,000 of the budget. 00:23:04
We also this year, this is something that Chief Arwood had brought and. 00:23:09
Julie and I looked at this. 00:23:14
Gosh, I think when did Mayor Davis here? About four years ago, we looked at doing a defined benefit retirement plan, not a defined 00:23:17
contribution. We have a defined contribution, which means. 00:23:22
That the city provides. 00:23:27
A match or up to a certain amount. A 3% match up to a certain amount. 00:23:29
If people. 00:23:34
Contribute to a retirement, an IRA basically. 00:23:35
What we're talking about and Chief Arwood had in Jefferson and highly recommend it's a great tool for recruitment is actually 00:23:39
defined benefit retirement plan. So the Georgia Municipal Association sort of like our. 00:23:45
Georgia. 00:23:50
Insurance risk management group, Gurma. 00:23:51
You know, we were in a pool with karma for so we share the risk right across a larger pool. 00:23:54
The defined benefit retirement program is similar. There's a whole bunch of governments that are our size, maybe a little, even a 00:23:59
little bit bigger. Jefferson hat. I believe Jefferson was a member of this as well. 00:24:04
Where you put a certain amount in and then they manage that, you know, and you have essentially you have a pension when you finish 00:24:09
if you get vested. 00:24:13
We have. We're asked. This is an estimate. I'll point this out. I hope I'm not going to be too far off. We asked again today. We 00:24:17
have not gotten the information back from the actuaries yet. 00:24:22
Because they had, we had to fill out all this paperwork, provide everything to them. 00:24:26
So I'm this is a guesstimate and like I said, I'm hoping that we're close. 00:24:30
The difference between what I believe it's going to cost, which is about 75,000 and some change and what we already put in the 00:24:34
budget last year is the difference is about a $40,000 increase. 00:24:39
Again, I will. 00:24:45
Mentioned that I really think this is a this would be not only a good recruitment tool, but a good retention tool. We've built a 00:24:48
really good staff. 00:24:51
I've got half of not quite a quarter of my employees have been here more than five years. 00:24:55
And I, you know, hoping that, you know, we're. 00:25:00
Creating a culture and an environment. People want to stay and want to continue to contribute this to the city. 00:25:03
And and so this is a way to say, hey, don't, don't leave us even though we can't pay you. 00:25:08
You know what Clark County or Oconee or even Winder might pay you? You know. 00:25:13
We make the environment nice to come to work for people you know enjoy their work. 00:25:18
But here's another benefit that, if you stick around, you can take advantage of when you retire. 00:25:23
So yeah. 00:25:29
So, So what we asked for and again I don't have everything in front of it, what we asked for is for them to go ahead and it would 00:25:30
be a five year investment which is a lot of communities are doing five years not ten. 00:25:35
A5 year investment and and we would. 00:25:41
What we asked for is to give us a price. 00:25:44
If we vested everybody that had made it to 5 and so somebody's been here 3 and 2, they would only have to serve two more years. So 00:25:46
we're buying up the three-year, we're buying up whatever time people have been here already. 00:25:51
And so and that's and now again, I don't have the details. I'm sorry. I thought we'd have it last week and we didn't. So as soon 00:25:57
as I get that, I'll certainly distribute it to you all. But but the plan would be, you know, so somebody's been here maybe three 00:26:01
years if they stay another two years by. 00:26:05
As they're, as we're contributing the next two years, then they would become vested in the program, but we would buy the first 00:26:10
five years. 00:26:13
This increase is to buy those years or something? 00:26:17
That's that's what I'm hoping yes and we. 00:26:20
So this wouldn't be a necessarily an annual increase of this much if you're already buying. 00:26:23
Like. 00:26:29
Well. 00:26:32
I'm not sure. I don't know the answer to that question. Yeah, I don't know. I know. 00:26:34
That when we talked to when we talked to GMA S provider about it. 00:26:39
They told me. 00:26:45
Julie helped me. Was it between? Without that would be between 50 and 70 or. 00:26:46
60 and 90 or something like that or it was 60 to 90 and I thought. 00:26:51
Now let's go in the middle 70, you know for budget purposes because I have no idea and that was along the same lines of what I 00:26:55
talked about having the, you know, having a five year investment. 00:26:59
You know, looking at those. 00:27:04
Looking at buying it up to for the first fest up. I don't know the answer that question I know and when I get it, I will 00:27:06
certainly, you know, send it out. So I mean, I just don't know yet. So your question is how much next year acceleration is? 00:27:13
How much would then and the acceleration actually would wait? 00:27:22
It wouldn't only be this year. 00:27:26
It would be heaviest this year, but. 00:27:29
What sticks to your ribs? 00:27:30
And after that, once they have all of the accelerations done. 00:27:34
I mean I. 00:27:38
I'm not like the answers to these questions. You're not going to sway me. 00:27:39
Yeah, I mean, I think this is a good idea, but I'm just curious somehow. 00:27:44
And we're just buying five years. 00:27:47
OK. 00:27:52
Julie, have you been here for like? 00:27:52
28. 00:27:55
You. I just didn't know if we were going to. 00:27:57
Go back. We can't afford that. 00:27:59
That's what that's what I'm saying. I would not expect we're going to cap it at five years. You're vested, right? Well, the whole 00:28:01
point is to buy the vested period so that if she left, if something she needed to leave in two years, she could walk out the door 00:28:07
and she and then the and she would get the whatever the and again, I don't want to say 60% over salary or she'll get the benefits, 00:28:13
which is a huge, you know, right. 00:28:20
And I'm flying a little blind on that. 00:28:26
So yeah. Umm. 00:28:29
So. 00:28:30
So I will have more information on that. So I'm apologizing. I'm I'm hopeful that I'm close to that number that would look like 00:28:32
and I will find out the other information. Make sure y'all get it. 00:28:36
As soon as we can. We've been bugging them for last week. 00:28:41
So. 00:28:44
On the so Medical, dental, vision, I remind you all that we have an annual contract and our contract actually ends the end of 00:28:47
September, which means we only get 1/4 into the fiscal year and we have to go through a whole new, you know, annual. 00:28:53
Health benefit. 00:29:01
Process. 00:29:03
I've talked to our broker and she said anticipate. 00:29:04
She thought 15%, You know, we saw a huge increase last year. I don't know. You know, I think there's some reasons for that 00:29:10
increase last year. 00:29:13
I don't know we'll be able to. We had some bumpy roads transitioning to angle the which is a Cygnus subsidiary, but. 00:29:17
Not horrible, but it was a little challenging for the first couple of months. Umm. 00:29:24
But we'll see what the market looks like come, you know, probably July, August, we will be looking at I think Alfie Alethea or 00:29:29
whatever, the one that's over here. 00:29:34
That, umm. 00:29:39
Andy Bars, his group is doing health and we've contacted them, so we'll see if there's any opportunity there as well. 00:29:40
But we've got to go back out to market. So I'm trying to figure worst case scenario, 15% of medical, 5% dental, no increase in 00:29:47
vision. And what you see in the budget is, is estimating that. So first three months or as we are now and then nine months at this 00:29:53
increase. 00:29:58
And the one of the other benefits, I think that helps. 00:30:04
Keep and retain employees and maybe even attract employees as. 00:30:07
The city covers 75% of that premium cost for those services. 00:30:10
To our employees. 00:30:14
On legal and professional we've we've got a roughly about $15,000. 00:30:17
Budgeted again this year, we've continued to see. 00:30:22
An onslaught of. 00:30:27
Open records request. 00:30:28
And. 00:30:30
We every time, because of the litigious posture or nature of these, we've had to involve the attorney and that cost us money. 00:30:31
But, you know, safer. 00:30:40
To be, you know, make sure we have that oversight from the attorney. 00:30:42
Since we've had those changes, so we do reiterate, we do follow the law, we respond within three days. We provided a good faith 00:30:45
estimate on all those requests. 00:30:49
But sometimes those have to be reviewed by the attorney. And so we're estimating 15. I think we're over think since March, June of 00:30:54
21, I think we're at. 00:30:59
400 and something and change, and that includes not just open records, but demand letters. 00:31:03
Which, you know, we're not required to respond to so. 00:31:08
15,000. 00:31:13
Yeah, yeah. Open, open records and letters is over 400 since. 00:31:16
From one individual. 00:31:21
15,000 and budget I'm sorry parks for budget that covers you know we've got some additional evolving expenses at Thomas Farm. We 00:31:23
fortunately have some monies because of the extra money in SPLOST 3. We have some monies to renovate and create additional 00:31:29
bathrooms which. 00:31:35
Won't happen by Memorial Day, but will happen hopefully before the before July 4th. I hope for sure we'll have those ready. 00:31:41
And we'll split the new bathrooms will become there'll be 3 stalls those would be for the women and the stall that we, the current 00:31:47
stall that we have will have will add a. 00:31:52
Urinal and out become the men's restroom, so we'll have a little bit more capacity for all the visitors we have out there. 00:31:57
But umm. 00:32:03
Water, electricity, general maintenance of the trails, those kind of things, we've estimated about a $15,000 increase in those in 00:32:03
those expenses. 00:32:07
Point out our street lighting. We'll talk about street light policy in the council meeting tonight. 00:32:12
But we have 18 St. lights that are being added now. The cost of those streetlights, the initial cost of those is coming out of 00:32:16
the. 00:32:19
Money we got from the State Roads and Tollway Association. 00:32:23
And that's the the G tab, the Simonton Bridge Rd. pedestrian connector that the actual physical cost of those. 00:32:27
At, I don't know, $60,000 is coming out of that, but the maintenance of those will come out of. 00:32:33
Our operating budget, the good news is, is because we're buying them from Georgia Power, not on our own. If somebody nails one of 00:32:40
them, they have to replace it if anything happens to it. That's part of what we buy. 00:32:45
And we pay a monthly amount for those streetlights. So that's what you're going to see, just adding those 18 St. lamps. 00:32:50
The library. So remind everybody that we have a very complicated agreement with the library. 00:32:57
And it is sort of like a tad in some ways, although it's not officially a tad, but basically we tied our. 00:33:05
Contribution to the library to the value of the property taxes at Wire Park. So we have a. 00:33:11
Very detailed list if anybody wants to see it, the detailed list of all the different parcels there and how much taxes they are 00:33:18
being charged. And we we keep that each year. We get that from the tax assessor's office and we. 00:33:24
Figure up. 00:33:31
How much we owe in taxes. The council approved the 1st 30,000 that's collected in taxes. Property taxes on that development would 00:33:32
go to the library. 00:33:37
10% above that amount I want to get into the map, but 10% above that amount. 00:33:42
Also would go to them. 00:33:47
And then 5% above that 10%. 00:33:48
Of the remaining balance would go to capital I. So basically. 00:33:52
This year you're staying about 17 hundred 1707 increase in maintenance. I'm sorry. 00:33:56
Maintenance expenses we also share with the county for the library building and then we have. 00:34:03
Increase in insurance premium. 00:34:07
But the the overall cost of the library this year will be. 00:34:09
30,127 so you can go back and figure out, you know, we're a little bit more than 30,000 because of that extra 10% that we have to 00:34:12
give them. 00:34:16
I think the 5% in capital is like a couple $100, it's not even enough to put it on the spreadsheet yet, but next year if that goes 00:34:20
to 50, we're going to, you know, we'll start tracking it and then that. 00:34:24
That money will be set aside as a line item. 00:34:29
And if the library says, hey, our air conditioner went out or some capital, there's something needs to be fixed, that's a capital 00:34:32
item that they could come back and request that money, the the council could distribute that money to them. 00:34:37
So we're going to work this out as we go along. I think so. 00:34:44
And then the last couple of changes, tourism. 00:34:48
We did increase, we did add and I don't know that we'll need this, but we did budget about $5000. 00:34:52
For the American 250 celebration, which has already be underway, Jan Watson Grill, our downtown development director, is serving 00:34:57
on that committee with it's being led by the county. 00:35:01
Without giving too much away, there are going to be some activities in June that the Daughters of American Revolution are going to 00:35:07
do and sort of in. 00:35:11
Running up to July 4th. 00:35:15
And then the July 4th. 00:35:17
That which? 00:35:19
I believe we're going to be hosting, but we'll we'll wait until the final decisions are made, but. 00:35:21
There's gonna be a lot of exciting stuff around that, so we budget some money for that. 00:35:26
And then finally, finally, property and liability insurance. 00:35:30
Obviously because of lawsuits and just the cost of anytime there's an accident or anything like that. 00:35:33
It costs US money, our insurance. 00:35:39
For that has gone up. 00:35:41
About 5% increase. 00:35:43
Which is not as bad as last year was so. 00:35:44
Any questions on on expenses or revenues, I'm gonna talk. I'm gonna switch to capital in a minute. We can go deeper and dive on 00:35:47
any of this stuff too, if you want. We've got our Google Sheet up that we can dive into if anybody's interested. 00:35:53
OK. On the capital side, remind you that we typically value a capital item at 5000 or more. We put that on the capital 00:36:00
improvement. 00:36:04
Program. 00:36:08
It's scheduled. We do have a very detailed line on. You should have received that in your packet as well. 00:36:10
It's a tool to help us sort of look, I'll start dropping off the years proceeding as we move on. Right now, you'll probably see, I 00:36:14
think I've got 2 fiscal years ahead and then the current fiscal year. So you can sort of see where we come from, but. 00:36:20
Things like replacing our server or in our firewall, which have to be done every four or five years because our computers don't 00:36:26
operate or any of the technology the Police Department uses may have to be updated. 00:36:31
The obviously all of our vehicles. 00:36:37
We don't have any buildings on there that's going to be one of those that we haven't budgeted. We do have. 00:36:39
Some money in there for HVAC systems here, but most of it is big stuff. We also have monies set aside. 00:36:44
Or programmed a little bit of money for replacement of items at the playground, which we do have a buy a twice a year we have a 00:36:51
group that comes out and actually. 00:36:57
Checks the playground. I think we do it. 00:37:02
March and August or February and August. 00:37:04
And they come out and they actually tighten the screws. And if something's missing, if something's been damaged, that kind of 00:37:07
stuff, we address it at that time. 00:37:11
So those are the kind of things that are on the capital improvement. 00:37:15
Plan for the fiscal year 26, we're talking about replacing. 00:37:18
One of the older vehicles, the 2017 police vehicle for Interceptor and then a zero turn mower. We are going to recommend keeping 00:37:22
the other mower since we now have Thomas Farm, they'll give us a little bit more. 00:37:28
Flexibility if we need to, if we've got the other motors being used, we can use that mower at. 00:37:34
The park. The good news is, is that in fiscal year 24 council appropriated 50,000 of spouse funds, which we we planned. 00:37:38
To go towards the public safety and capital items and so that will offset. 00:37:46
The 67 five that we'll need and we'll only need to pull out of the capital fund about 17-5. So that's a general fund. Capital 00:37:51
fund. I, I keep it, the mayor and I talk about it a lot. I haven't, we haven't contributed to capital fund. We try to watch that 00:37:56
sometimes. 00:38:00
Yeah, right now I think we're at about 140,000. 00:38:05
The balance sheet tonight that you're going to see at the council being is going to say 87,000. That's because this loss hasn't 00:38:08
paid the money back to the but it's about 140 hundred 50,000. 00:38:13
I feel like that's a good place to be. Every year we sort of look and I try not to have too much in that column. The replacement 00:38:18
we we talked the chief and I've talked about his vehicles. Toby and I talked about public works. 00:38:24
And we sort of try to get a sense of, OK, do we have to, do we really need to get rid of two or replace 2 police vehicles this 00:38:30
year? Can we just do one and maybe a mower or whatever, so. 00:38:35
We keep an eye on it. Obviously, if we contributed to the capital, to the capital improvement plan, we would have to increase our 00:38:40
operating budget because that money would have to be built into the budget. So then it could be transferred to that. So that's 00:38:44
another reason to keep it down is. 00:38:48
Is that sort of an artificial? You guys can do the exact same thing by going to your fund balance and going, let's just put 50,000 00:38:53
in the capital plan and you achieve the same thing without actually increasing the operating budget, so. 00:38:58
There's a couple ways to skin that cat, but I will just point out I think it's this is. 00:39:04
Y'all probably know this but this is a change we made. Share and lead the way and what this does allow us to do is. 00:39:08
Plan proactively and budget for these larger expenses. 00:39:13
You know, used to be. 00:39:17
Bruce Tax will come in and say hey, we need a fire truck in three years and we would just have to come out of our savings and pay 00:39:18
for a fire truck or you know, these sort of things. So it is a. 00:39:22
A much wiser way to account for expenses that we know are coming. And I know it's a little complicated, but I'm glad you handle it 00:39:26
that way. 00:39:29
One that's smart too, because it. 00:39:33
Causes those kinds of conversations that really. 00:39:35
Well, maintenance, I mean everybody, I mean everybody has their house they live in and you're like, oh, I got to replace the roof 00:39:40
in five years. You know, you start setting aside the money, putting it, you know, where you've got a, you know, a water heater 00:39:45
that's died or a washer dryer. You know, I mean, these are type of things we run into too as a city. 00:39:50
You know, maintaining our buildings and our infrastructure. And so we can't. 00:39:55
Wait till last minute go oops. You know, hey mom and dad or mayor council I need. 00:40:00
$50,000 yesterday, you know to fix so we you know I mean obviously there. 00:40:04
There could be those types of things that pop up we that are out of our control, but the things that we can control, we try to be 00:40:09
really intentional about. 00:40:12
Planning for those. 00:40:16
So, umm. 00:40:17
And that is the budget. So if you have any questions, I'm happy to entertain those. 00:40:19
I know there it's a little thing, but the. 00:40:28
I've noticed a lot of people are starting to rent Thomas Farm Preserve and I know that's not big numbers. We're going to look at 00:40:30
those numbers, but. 00:40:33
Does that go back into a line item? Is it specifically offset parks costs or does it just go back into the general fund and we 00:40:36
just account for that between Harris Shoals and Thomas Farm? 00:40:41
It will go back into the general fund as a revenue stream like miscellaneous revenue, just like when we get court fees and stuff, 00:40:47
those go back into the general fund, but we do budget for those to go to the attachment. 00:40:52
Yeah. So right. So right now we actually because we actually did not plan any money in revenues for Thomas Farm. 00:41:09
We know we're going to get them. We're already getting them, but we didn't play any money. We figured Rocket Field is averaging 00:41:17
about 7:00. 00:41:20
Or we figure they're going to be about 7000 with some things that are going on there with the rental of the ball field and all 00:41:24
that. And we figured about 1500 pair of Shoals, but all of those are increasing rapidly. 00:41:29
I because it's kind of hard to project what's going to happen and what kind of events we should budget anything. So it's just a, 00:41:34
it's a win win because we're going to see what we're going to see revenues. I mean, we, we've already got two. We had a wedding 00:41:40
out there, which actually Mark and I are learning. We're still trying to evolve on how we're going to manage this. But like we had 00:41:46
a wedding out there on a Friday. Luckily it was on a Friday, so we could be here and manage it and watch it. 00:41:52
And regroup and say, hey, you know, we need to have a conversation because they rented it. 00:41:58
For $50.00 and they rent it and they rented the pavilion. I mean they rented the Oval for $50.00. So 100 bucks they, and then 00:42:03
they, but they attach things to the, to the pavilion. We've decided that can't happen. Like we're, we're creating the OK, what, 00:42:09
what, what are we comfortable with? What are we not comfortable with at what point? I mean, a wedding we feel like is going to be 00:42:15
a special event. And so you guys will see tonight in the council. Hopefully you've already read your we put on there that. 00:42:21
And that's under consent is that it would be $250 if you're, if you're coming out to do a wedding or reception, a reunion, what 00:42:27
would be considered a special event and you're going to be required that's just 250 to rent a pavilion. And then you're going to 00:42:32
be required to fill out a special event permit, which is another $100 for us. 00:42:38
To have a site visit with you and talk about what are you gonna do about parking? We're gonna bet trash. What do you about 00:42:43
security? Are we? You're gonna need an officer to direct people in and out. How many people? You know if you have 100 people for a 00:42:47
wedding or a reunion. 00:42:51
We had to figure out where to park them, you know, how are we going to do it? So there's got to be a little bit organized, so. 00:42:55
We're sort of going to. 00:42:59
Oh, I'm sorry, I did estimate $3000. I didn't realize I did. I was looking at the wrong call. 00:43:03
For Thomas Farm but. 00:43:08
Wedding would be 250 + 100 dollars. Well it goes up more. 00:43:11
How much you've ranked? 00:43:16
Yeah, so so. 00:43:17
Yeah. 00:43:19
But I'm just, I'm thinking too like does that include like, hey, you're renting it, you're. 00:43:23
What if you are renting and? 00:43:30
Tables and chairs and like, there's going to be weird. 00:43:32
Grass and the turf and all of that, if that stuff is going in well. And what I will say is. 00:43:35
This is what we're recommending now. 00:43:42
As we get into these. 00:43:44
We may come back and say we're going to have to revise this. I mean, I just. 00:43:46
I think we don't want to. 00:43:49
We don't want to scare anybody off. We want people to use it, but we have to be intentional about, yeah, so, so for instance, if 00:43:51
somebody were to come in and do, let's say I'm going to have a wedding and I'm expecting 100 people, it's $250 to rent just the 00:43:56
pavilion if you rent. 00:44:01
I'm sorry, hang on a second. 00:44:06
It's $500. I didn't look at this 500 to rent the pavilion or the Oval if you rent both at 750, but then you have to fill out a 00:44:08
special event permit, which has additional fees. 00:44:13
Like you'd have to put up a sanitation bond. We might require you have one or two officers depending on, you know, that help 00:44:18
direct and they would have to pay for that, Yeah. 00:44:21
And so and the, you know, there would have to be agreements. Your caterer is going to take things off. There's no alcohol. You 00:44:26
know, there's all these other things we have to. 00:44:29
Figure out. So yeah, we just don't know what we don't know yet. And so as we're going through it, we're trying to develop it. And 00:44:34
I mean, Mark knows we're just going to be in sort of that limbo position. Let's do a couple of these events. Let's see how it 00:44:39
rolls and if if we feel like it's costing us a lot. 00:44:44
If because now we got to bring somebody on a Sunday, I mean you know, or Saturday to make sure things are clean or, or there's a 00:44:49
pot, you know, so and we can with a special event permit, we can actually. 00:44:54
Require that they give us a deposit, security deposit and and then and then yes, then. 00:45:00
Right. Yeah. And, and maybe that's not enough depending on what you know, but we also have officers that are on duty that can go 00:45:07
by. So I think we have an event this weekend or something. I think I've told Chief, I can't remember what it is now, but there's 00:45:12
something coming up or maybe anyway. 00:45:17
Anytime, yeah, anytime there's an event, we let the officers know so they can sort of run by and keep it on things. I mean, they 00:45:22
do that anyway, but maybe a higher presence just to keep an eye until we figure out what's going on. 00:45:27
So, and we do we have a number of church groups wanting to have events and. 00:45:31
You know the I think Marks and my fear is somebody, you know, we set the number at 50 and somebody goes, oh, I'm only gonna have 00:45:35
40, but they have 60. 00:45:39
And then what do we do? You know, like. 00:45:43
And, you know, we're not going to be able to counting them. But you know, I mean, people are gonna try to do that. So I think 00:45:45
that's why we tried to identify if you have a, a specific type of it, even if you're it's a wedding, it's gonna be a special 00:45:50
event. It's not, you don't get to say it's, you know, it's, it is a special event if it's a wedding, if you have 50 people or a 00:45:55
wedding reception or reunion, something like that. 00:46:00
To try to keep. 00:46:06
It's some control over that. 00:46:07
Certain events are automatically special, yes. 00:46:09
Regardless of the number, right road race, road race, something like that. Yeah, yeah, road race or something Sounds like mark 00:46:11
yeah, turn, turn the mic on and. 00:46:15
Yeah, I guess. 00:46:25
We're trying to figure out a balance. 00:46:26
Deal with the people that are coming and running those areas, but not punish them for being. 00:46:31
The other group of people who will just come and use the areas. 00:46:35
And not rent them at all. 00:46:39
So. 00:46:41
The possibility mean. 00:46:42
You do have the possibility, people. 00:46:43
Intentionally. Umm. 00:46:45
Sandbagging on how many people are going to have. 00:46:47
To cut down on fees and to get around things but. 00:46:50
Then there's another group of people who just won't rent anything. They'll just show up. 00:46:52
On a Saturday where we've got no presence out there, they'll bring 100 people. 00:46:56
Imagine someone would do that. Well, I mean. 00:47:01
Sure, sure, sure. 00:47:05
But to be like. 00:47:06
To roll the dice that someone hadn't actually rented it, or to roll the dice, yeah, there wasn't already something there for your 00:47:08
wedding. Perhaps for a wedding that's an exaggeration, but we're talking in a larger picture you know about. 00:47:14
Potlucks and reunions and all kinds of different things. But if we want to stop specifically about weddings, I mean, the first one 00:47:20
that we had, I was. 00:47:24
My eyes got really big. I didn't. 00:47:29
Anticipate. 00:47:31
Us using it as an event facility for weddings at all, just because I've worked at Ashford Manor and other places and I realized 00:47:33
that. 00:47:36
Emotions are up to here. Expectations are up to here. 00:47:40
And that it can get. 00:47:43
Carried away, so we sort of. 00:47:45
Looked. 00:47:47
Like Manager Dickerson said at this first one, that went through. 00:47:48
Already made a number of changes and. 00:47:53
We'll see what needs to be done further because it's. 00:47:56
I wonder if it would make sense. 00:47:59
Put something in there that if you state it's going to be 40 people. 00:48:01
But it actually is. 00:48:06
60 people. 00:48:07
That if you don't. 00:48:09
Organically pay the difference that there's like. 00:48:10
A ridiculous night. 00:48:13
It just has a. 00:48:15
Let's Yeah, yeah. What's circle back to budget? I think all that's good feedback and we're going to have a little time in between 00:48:16
meeting and others to do. 00:48:21
If you're done, other questions for staff? 00:48:26
We've got all our department heads too, and you guys are. 00:48:30
Assuming everybody's comfortable with their numbers here, nod your head, Shake your heads. If you got something we need to know, 00:48:32
let us know. 00:48:35
Questions for Sharon or any of the. 00:48:38
Thank you for all of the work I'll do and the level of detail. 00:48:42
Fantastic. 00:48:47
And not just a level of detail, but making it easily accessible to to the public, you know, if anybody wants to dig into these 00:48:48
numbers so they can. 00:48:52
Can I get them a Sheets or they have to get PDFs? Yeah. Well, so we have a, we have a notebook out in the city in front of City 00:48:56
Hall. We have it online. You can click and get every. Obviously it's in tonight's agenda, but it's also online if you go to our 00:49:00
budget pay, you know, budget page and our website. 00:49:05
You can get all this information very easily and. 00:49:10
We'll have ads, additional ads in the paper probably next week, have ad about the the mileage rate and also about the final budget 00:49:13
hearing. 00:49:17
And then is there a hearing before the June meeting as well or would that be cancelled or will there be a 5:00 and then a? 00:49:20
No, no, no. We have the work session tonight and we have the and that's our. 00:49:27
Opportunity for y'all to have input the second budget hearing and the and the. 00:49:32
Is. 00:49:37
And we had the mileage through the 1st mileage rate today. 00:49:38
And then we have public hearing tonight and then on the 18th we have another public hearing for the budget in the military. So all 00:49:41
that I just noticed it was like there were two meetings on the. 00:49:45
June 18th. 00:49:51
Is that I think, I think that's the one. I think that was the one that's supposed to be tomorrow night. 00:49:52
That if we need it and I'm imagining we'll probably cancel it. 00:49:56
All right. Any other questions? 00:50:00
All right. Not seeing anything from the audience with that. 00:50:03
Will it be adjourned? 00:50:07
Give me one minute. 00:50:09
Stop everything. 00:50:11