All right, good afternoon, everyone.

We're gonna get started with our budget and finance meeting for this evening.

Um we got a couple of just literally two items on the agenda, so we'll just kind of get it rolling and I'll uh pass it over to the director Patel, if you don't mind just starting us off with our uh general budget update and monthly reports.

Sure.

Good evening, council persons.

Um I'll be presenting end of May, May 31st, 2026 um financial report.

Um at the end of the month, uh general fund revenues net of estimated NIS that's the neighborhood improvement zone liability total to 86.6 million, uh represent representing 57% of the annual budget and performing in line with our projections for the year.

Now the estimated NIS liability is reflected as a reduction within the applicable revenue categories and is updated each month based on projected collections from the previous year.

The general fund expenditures total 55.1 million or 35% of the annual budget compared with the same period last year, expenditures are trailing about 13% lower, and primarily due to reduced spending in services and charges and materials and supplies.

The city's other operating funds include service fund, solid waste fund, strongwater fund, golf fund, rental unit fund, and building code fund are performing within expected ranges.

I have the grid for you, uh listing the revenues and expenditures and and the percentage uh based on the budgeted amount.

The collections for revenues range from 20% to 80 82 percent of the budgeted amount with expenditures uh tracking consistent spending patterns for this at this point in the fiscal year.

I would like to remind council the housing fund continues to receive 50% of the city's uh detransfer tax or the reality transfer tax revenues totaling as of end of May, uh approximately 875,000.

Next I have public safety premium pay premium pay expenditures remains within the budgeted expectations.

Uh police it is at 1.14 million, fire at 1.2 million, and EMS has a spend of 354,000 or 49%.

We will continue to monitor overtime closely throughout the year.

Um the investment next I have investments and cash position at the end of May.

The general fund cash uh balance total 71.3 million.

All this amount, 57.9 million is invested through the Pennsylvania Local Government Investment Trust or Pligate, and approximately 17.9 million is invested in prime and class account.

These accounts are like money market accounts, currently yielding um 3.71% APY.

50 million of uh 57 uh is invested in plight term that uh investments are earning between 3.72 to 3.90 for um APY providing competitive returns while maintaining liquidity through schedule maturities extending through May 2027.

Uh detailed maturity schedule is provided for your reference, and um it includes a maturity date, the return on investment, and initial invested amount.

Additional 13.4 million is maintained in a liquid uh investment that's for making vendor payments and and payroll payments with a TD bank and current current um they are providing us with a yield of 3% on annual EPY.

Overall, the city's investment continue to earn competitive returns while preserving liquidity.

Revenues are meeting expectations and expenditures remain below budget at this point at in the fiscal year.

I would like to let council know that before the end of the month, the uh city will make its second MMO payment, min minimum municipal obligation payment of 3.3 million.

And uh we continue to meet our pension obligations in accordance with the adopted budget, and the budgeted amount for MMO is 19 million.

And that's the uh monthly financial report.

I'll pause for any questions we may have for me.

Um just one quick one based off of the 13% kind of lower projection so far for this year on the general fund expenditures.

I know you kind of note that.

Can we say that was attributed to anything specific, or are we just thinking that well, I mean, I I won't say it's specific, but like more so like anything that we specifically did to reduce that, or is that just kind of a result of for whatever reason it's just coming out lower this year?

I think some of the spend comes um towards the end of the year.

So um, you know, the travel expenditures for employees who are doing certifications, or um, they have uh CE requirements, you see some of their uh coming um towards the second half of the year.

Um, and this is normal around this time of the year.

Yeah, so nothing in particular that department has done to reduce that, it's just that it's coming in at as a normal pace.

Okay.

Thank you.

Anyone else on the dias, any questions on the monthly report?

All right.

Um thank you, Dr.

Director Persell.

Uh at this point, we will jump over to our next giant agenda item for tonight, which is uh R80.

Um R80 authorizes the expenditure of council funds for an independent five-year and financial analysis and providing for the temporary deferral of certain capital projects pending completion of set analysis.

Thank you.

Um so I do believe council person bender, you're a little bit more in tune with this one.

Do you mind just kind of giving a quick overview of what the intent is and show you the idea behind it?

Thank you.

So, yeah, the intent of this resolution is really to say that I know we we have a lot of moving pieces that are happening in the city right now as of late, and I think trying to make decisions with respect to uh all of those financial items.

Council really needs to be a little bit more equipped in what that five-year plan looks like.

Uh this resolution is really trying to find um and I think needs to be narrowly scoped in looking what uh the information that we're looking at.

Um, I do understand that we are dealing with a timeline of budget season coming up.

We need to make sure that we have this information before that happens.

Um, one of the things I do want to outline that is before we were to vote on something like this, um, I do want to have a budget range what the cost is for this.

We are meeting with uh one of the vendors that we use now just to get a rough range of what that would look like.

I know there was some interest on other council members to potentially use it a different third party to do that, but the the real goal in this is just to be able to present council with what is a five-year plan, understanding both the capital uh and operational expenses, seeing where we are from health perspective, and then allowing us to make um wise decisions with uh with resources um for a project going forward.

All right, thank you.

Um any questions from the DIES, any comments specifically related to this one.

Um Director Patel, do you have any particular thoughts, any questions, any recommendations as we kind of navigate this?

Um thank you.

So I I believe this is a great idea.

I I do um agree that we we provide the operational um five-year plan with the budget, and council uh adopts that every year.

It it includes the payments that um are transferred from the general fund to the capital fund or debt service fund, equipment fund, etc.

Uh so this will be um in light of additional um uh it lists that uh you know with the uh stress from the stormwater fee um and also the pension fund, uh which is um you know great idea.

Uh and uh as I said at the last council meeting that we you council does procure services of Mauro Dussel currently, who uh provides us with the financial statements.

They are working on our current uh 2025 financial statements, and they would be a great starting point to uh discuss this with, and then based on that um and another great point is that we you do want to know this before the budget is presented to you, and we have budget season begins at the end of the month, and we are you know in the um towards the end of the month, and uh the email from me will go out to the department heads uh next week.

Um, so based on our procurement process, any expenditure that outside firm that you seek is less than uh $4,000 will require one quote and so on as two quotes for um services that's gonna cost us uh between 4,000 and 10,000.

Um so it's a great idea to meet with our current um uh auditors and uh get an understanding, and then we can help you with the procurement process based on what they uh recommend or their cost is going to be.

And then if you'd like to procure anyone outside of Mara Dusso, we can guide you on that.

Thank you.

Um I know we we've had some conversations just trying to understand, you know, because of the timeline, how do we move forward with this?

And I think it's important that we get like a meeting in the books for us to kind of review that scope and say, okay, what do we want to see?

Because I know the administration you guys have prepared based off of the capital clan potential estimated uh costs over the life of some of these projects as they start.

Um, and I think you know, comparing that, looking at the projected revenues over five years and seeing what the impacts are to the capital, you know, operating capital budget and the operating budget.

So the difference between those two.

Um again, we're in an unfortunate kind of time crunch where we kind of need to have these answers sooner rather than later.

So I guess the the biggest thing, and I and I'll I'll I'll probably organize an email where we can get the the folks who are interested in this in a meeting so we could sit down with Director Patel and kind of narrow down the scope a little bit.

So I mean I think the biggest thing is we want to know how much we're spending annually and what that is compared to our operating budget and how ultimately that's gonna impact how much the city's paying for some of these different things and the city budgets as we move forward over the next couple years.

Any other thoughts or things you want to make sure we get addressed in there?

I would just say that I think one of my primary things is just understanding what the capital outlay is on all the projects that we're doing and what that's gonna look like.

So um taking in this new information and then being able to make wise decisions going forward.

So I think that's that's one of the largest or most more salient points of of this resolution that I'm looking at.

So I don't know if you have anything else.

All right.

Okay, well, if there's no other comment, anything from the diet.

Anything from the public?

All right.

Well, if not, we will adjourn this meeting.

Uh, and thank you all for being here.

Thank you.