So that's how we set that policy and a lot of our policy, most all of our policies really go through common council for approval.

Yeah.

So I brought some stats with me.

This is great because I was asked last year and I didn't know these numbers.

Um citywide.

Our expenditures for purchase services, supplies, and materials account for 29% of our budget.

And that's across all departments, all funds.

Follow that up, personnel salary infringed, 38%.

Each department will vary, but the money never a stupid question.

Where do we get our money from?

So we have lots of different places.

Each department might be very a little bit.

So property tax is one of them.

That's about 33% of the citywide revenue that comes in is through the property tax.

Um charges for services.

So Valley Transit has the charges for riding the bus, the water utility, wastewater, there's the the charges for those services.

Um an alcohol license, you go to the clerk's office, you need to pay for that.

So a lot of our services have charges associated with it.

Another another big um bucket is intergovernmental revenues.

So we get funding from federal government, state government, um, even the county.

So maybe sales tax, the county sales tax, we get a piece of that.

So there's different funding from different places like that.

Yeah.

What are we doing?

Longevity.

So our department, I think I heard the mayor talk about retirements and attrition.

Our department, I started in May of 2018.

Yep.

Yep.

She asked about longevity of staff.

So in our department, I started in May of 2018.

There are currently two staff members who were here when I started.

Most of our turnover is because of retirement.

So we had a lot of staff who were here for a very long time.

So we're working on replacing learning new positions.

We have, I want to say there's a handful who are in the five to eight year range.

Um, and then everybody else is less than five years.

Um, it's honestly not something that's uncommon for municipalities and local governments right now where it's even hard to find anyone applying for the jobs right now because there's just that silver tsunami where we've just had so many retirements in the finance departments that this is one of the places we're struggling with.

Trends as far as staffing.

Okay, trends in finance.

Um revenue really hasn't, I don't want to, it really hasn't changed that much.

Local governments have their their property taxes and they have their state and federal aids and grant programs.

Um, where it is coming in is maybe getting a little more creative with how we do things.

So our revenues are staying flat, as with everything else, our costs are going up.

Gas prices, utility prices, um, our vendors' costs are going up.

So all of our costs are going up.

So, how do we keep up with that?

Um, one thing that we try not to do is cut service.

We want everybody to maintain where we're at.

So getting creative.

Uh one of the the bigger moves that we had more recently in the last few years since I became finance director was moving our forestry expenses from the general fund and into the utility because it really is what those those trees do out on the streets is really a stormwater function.

So kind of matching the usefulness or the purpose with where that funding is coming from.

We've had to do a lot more of that.

Um our health insurance costs are going up.

So how do you keep up with that and those types of things?

So it's we talk to other municipalities.

Hey, what are you guys doing?

How are you addressing this?

And work together to try to come up with a way to keep balancing the budget year after year.

I just want to whine a little bit.