Mr.

Gray, are you ready?

Yes, sir.

All right, council.

Let's get to work.

Uh need a motion to uh approve the agenda.

So moved by Mr.

Queel.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Seconded by Mr.

Tuesday.

Mr.

Crew.

I'm waiting on you.

Mr.

Tuesday, any discussion?

No.

Those opposed.

Motion carries.

Before we get to the policy agenda discussing the budget, we'll see if there's a mayor's report.

All right.

Any council reports.

No report.

No report.

Mr.

Marshall, none.

Or Mr.

Tisdale and Mr.

Schumacher, I have no report.

We'll move on to the citizens' comments.

Total 45 minutes.

You have three minutes to speak on any topic.

This portion is not question and answer.

So I'll start on my left.

Anybody on my left?

Yes, ma'am.

Please state your name and address for the record so the clerk can do record it.

Jimmy Richardson, 777.

Shannon's drive, Biloxi.

You can do great things for the city.

Um here today representing this for Biloxi National Cemetery.

Um, hoping that the city will again donate to the cause.

Um just a reminder by National Cemetery here in our backyard.

We were the top five in the country that manages to cover all those graves out there for our heroes.

So I have the pleasure of Mr.

Ryan Green last year and being part of that, and loved having you out there.

And I'm good to see all of you out there and coming out.

It's turned into a three-day event.

Um, you know, people that take their vacations during this time just to come lose on the live ones out there.

So again, um, any support that I can get from the city of Alexi will be greatly appreciated.

And thank y'all and have a good day.

Thank you.

Anyone else on my left?

Yes, ma'am.

Yep.

Second row.

Afternoon.

Uh Sarah Chrysler Rusky with the Harrison County Library System.

And I just wanted to take a couple of minutes because I I know that you are all facing difficult choices with your budget, and you will have to make cuts, and we of course understand that.

However, I would like to point out that if we were doing a like a percentage cut or something like that, that our position will be particularly affected because we talked about last time how in a category that we don't really belong in, we are in with donations and things like that, and we're really a service and a large service in the city.

And so you are our primary funder for the service, along with the county's money and some of our state funds.

Also, we are at zero percent growth for the last 20 years.

And so I know you've you've all talked about living within your means and and things like that, which is very important, but I think we are more than living within our means because we have we have had we are we are receiving this fiscal year less money than we did in 2005.

So a cut to us will be a huge cut because we are behind your other departments.

Your other departments have grown over that time, and that cut will hurt them certainly, but they have grown at a higher rate, like we haven't grown at all.

We had to do things like cut staff over the years before I got here.

Our book budget is maybe about 60 percent of what it was in 2005.

So we spend less money for services than we were able to then.

We also we sustained a large cut in 2021 where we couldn't buy books or very many books for the year, and that also penalized the other city patron, the it's the patrons of other cities because Biloxi patrons were using the resources from other cities because we weren't able to put book money in the Biloxi budget.

And I also just wanted to mention, I know you may be tired of hearing about our our pay rate, but as I mentioned last time, your your lowest paid employee makes $15 an hour plus longevity plus educational bonuses, and our staff makes $11 an hour is our base pay.

And a good portion of our 25 Biloxi employees are making under 13, with none making 19.

So we hope that you'll be able to figure things out in a positive way with minimal damage.

And I just wanted to explain those items so that you kind of understand how things could particularly affect library services if there is a significant cut.

And that would mean maybe no books or maybe a branch would be sacrificed.

So we thank you for all your efforts.

I know it's not easy.

Thank you again.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

My left, your right council.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to this council again this afternoon.

Um before you, I know you have a big decision to make before you today, and I wanted to speak a little bit about and in light of the fact that we have four new council members.

I believe in educating.

And transit um is something that is uh it's a specialized service, it is a service.

Uh, but more importantly, uh, as you make move forward today, making your decisions as to our subsidy request.

Um, transit is not only a service, it is it literally provides economic um stability and growth for the city of Biloxi.

Every every dollar that your subsidy provides gives us annually, we leverage amongst FTA grants.

So, in other words, let's say you move forward with an $80,000 reduction this year.

Um, that would result for us, that would impact us.

What that looks like is $400,000 because that's what we would lose on our end on a federal level.

And um that that's that's massive.

Um, being that there are seven routes in uh Coast Transit Authority here on the coast, that that's a big impact.

And I want all of you please to reconsider, and I realize the cuts have to be made, but the impact that it will have to your constituents and the impact that it will have on your economy and the businesses along these routes is it will be significant.

Um I will tell you that I'm I'm here.

We will regardless of what decisions you make, we will provide and I will share that with you once we sit down and have and uh you know make the necessary changes.

We will make sure that we send that out to y'all in email so that you know how what that will look like moving forward.

Okay.

Um another thing is we a little earlier today, we'll have in front of you the type of change.

The FTA's legal requirements, just so that again, I believe in educating under 49 USC 4307 transit agencies that receive FDA funds.

Um, due to a fair increase or a major reduction in transportation services, there are guidelines that we have to follow.

So, depending on your your decision today, we do have to follow these guidelines that I've placed in front of you highlighted under type of change, and that will require public hearings that will require public comment that will require um a very broad uh very uh specific target of um some areas.

For example, we will have public notices.

Sorry, your time has expired.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else on my left?

Good afternoon.

Um my name is Susan Kramer Jones, and I'm the director of the women's resource center.

And um, like your the last lady that was up here, um, I realized that a lot of the people here on the council are new, and so some of you might not be familiar with what we do, but we are a uh uh organization that provides free medical material and educational resources to women and men along the Mississippi Coast.

In fact, about 30% of our visits come from the City of Biloxi residents.

And what we do is we are really the first person that can give them that positive pregnancy test.

We connect them with Medicaid.

They can get wicked.

We cut down the wait time from 45 days to 10 days for that.

And then also what we do after that is we try to encourage them to come to our classes.

And because of the budget last year that you helped us with, we have been able to expand our classes to nighttime classes, which has been phenomenal.

Right now we have 23 men who come to our classes every single week.

And in these classes, this is where transformations are truly happening, where you have people that come there from the time that they're they find out they're pregnant, they stay in our program until their child is two years old.

And you would not believe the transformations that happen because we are there for them every single week.

We are consistent, and we have about 85 people that come every week.

So we connect with the health department with Mississippi State Extension.

We have a broad number of organizations that we connect these people to to just really holistically take care of them.

And so one thing that I we have found out over the last couple of years is that people are craving for in-person mentorship.

And we have there are 30 pregnancy help centers around the city, the state of Mississippi.

We by far have the largest education, parenting education.

And that's because of people and organizations like this that help and understand the value of what we do.

We don't get any federal funding, we don't get any state funding.

Every bit of our funding comes from individuals, cities, uh, the casinos, people that believe in what we do and see what we do firsthand.

So anything that you could give me, we would be very, very appreciative of it.

And we understand as well that you have to cut somewhere.

So we understand, but we appreciate you considering this again this year.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

On my left, your right.

Anyone on my right, your left would like to come up and speak?

Ms.

Hunt.

My name is Susan Hunt, and I'm with the coastal Mississippi Mardi Gras Museum.

And again, earlier today I said thanks to all of you for all that you do, and we're glad to have four new council people.

And you found out when I'm here, what do I bring, Mr.

Marshall?

What'd you get?

Thank you.

I just want to uh thank you for all you do for the Coastal Mississippi Mardi Ground Museum, and thank you for uh the request that we've made for this upcoming year.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ms.

Hart.

Anyone else on my right?

Your left.

Public comments are are now closed.

Uh we'll uh announce our public agenda in a minute.

I just want to predicate it on a couple of notes again.

Uh we started early well, first of all, uh, to the council, to the new council, the existing council members since July 1st.

Uh we've been examining these uh budgets and the different departments, and we've we've been looking at them pretty thoroughly.

Uh obviously there's a shortfall uh this year.

And uh somebody said it was a two and a half million dollar deficit or or discrepancy, whatever you want to call it.

Uh but even more impactful is that ending fund balance.

Um you put the pencil to it, uh working with uh Mr.

Wheeler, and like I said earlier with notes from uh Paul and and notes from others.

Uh we just created this version today, and it got us, you know, in in a good position.

It's still a difficult position.

We trim 4.1 million dollars uh out of the budget that you had last week, more or less.

Um tough decisions.

We got tough decisions to make today.

It may be revise some, but we have to live within our means.

We'd like to give as much as we can.

But this is this is going to be a challenging year, but it's a uh I think a year uh that we have to approach without fear, be practical, and um make these tough decisions uh for fiscal responsibility.

I I believe that's what we've come up with today.

I'm sure there'll be uh more debate, looking forward to it.

Uh my hope is that we can arrive and put this thing to bed today.

If we can't, uh we'll continue on, but we're up against the deadline pretty shortly.

So with that, uh we'll go ahead and read the policy agenda.

If the clerk would read the description.

To discuss the fiscal year, 2526 municipal budget, non-departmental infrared purposes.

All right, Mayor, Rick, I'd like to give y'all open remarks.

Say, you know, through uh Diana and and Rick and some of the council people looking at some numbers and trying to uh get as close as we can to uh revenues equal expenses and uh and and use of some of the fund balance wisely.

I think these are numbers will reflect as as wise as we can be, and without really doing some drastic, drastic things that I don't think anyone bet, you know, over the last three years, some of the as I mentioned, most of the uh heavy lifting is in uh a personal service wages, salaries and personal services and things that support our employees.

That's pretty much reflected uh on the progress we made on some of the decisions we made to uh to reduce uh you know the budgeted uh uh numbers there, uh as well as capital uh items that are multi-year, and uh some of the things we're challenged, you know, the the expenses are are high because we've got a lot of things that you know have been accumulating, air conditioners, generators, uh uh equipments.

So it's a challenge.

They we all worked it out, and I think this is as good as we can get as and unless uh something you know pops out of the sky.

Uh but let me say uh, you know uh I'm not afraid of this budget.

We've been in in worse situations, and uh we're gonna uh this is not a situation that that's gonna keep me up at night.

We're just gonna work hard to make sure that we're we're on track every day of the year.

Rick, if you want you or Diana, y'all can add to if you like.

Nothing.

All right.

Uh I just like to say this the major components of this was a hiring freeze.

That that what that means is that any positions that are unfilled are basically frozen.

Um if any of those positions become open or require a budget amendment to be brought before this council to consider uh approving such expenditures in the future if if we have revenues that we didn't anticipate.

Uh it also includes uh looking instead of purchasing outright vehicles, certain vehicles, uh the suggestion was to lease uh vehicles, and that brings our annual expenses down.

Uh, you know, instead of buying uh you know cars and vehicles outright.

Doesn't mean the 100 percent we won't uh purchase, but uh the bulk of them we're looking at uh lease option.

And then we went into department by department and we looked at some of the overhead indiscriminately in all departments.

And we we made some some decisions uh to to be fair and across the board, basically in all departments, uh we looked at it practically indiscriminately, and we made some adjustments there to arrive at the final numbers.

And it was done so with input from everyone, from from the mayor's office, from the I'm sure from the directors and from everybody up here that you made recommendations, we tried to incorporate that into the version that we have today.

So Mayor, do you want to say something else?

We brought to mind a couple of points.

Uh as far as things that uh we are year after year after year.

We wind up with uh 60 or 70 uh vacancies at the end of the year, almost every year.

This time will be different.

We won't try to spread that into the budget, which increases your budget to budgeted revenues to budget expenses.

Sort of uh, you know, uh working our way through that and put the insurance if those are uh especially the key people that we need to uh fill, uh you know, if we we can adjust it as we as those opportunities, but year after year, we've always had a number of vacancies in each one of these departments, and I think that was uh the the source of uh the ability to to work into that figure about three million dollars.

Uh again, uh that always kind of made me scratch my head while we budgeted 70, 80 employees every year the same amount.

So that that was deal.

But you know, again, expenses like generators, expenses like roofs, expenses like you know, a fire truck that was paid $527,000 for, it's on the it's on the it's a pumper truck, not a lot of tractors.

So those are kinds of obstacles that we're facing that's catching up, you know, the last three years and and you know, with every kind of uh you know uh imaginable uh obstacle that we have to deal with.

And uh so that's just a couple of points that you reminded me of.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, Mayor.

What I'd like to do, council is to start with I'm gonna start with admin, go to executive, legislative, legal, community development, parks, police, fire, public works, engineering, and end with non-departmental.

Uh if y'all have any highlights or concerns or questions, I'd like to give the council fair uh a fair shot at all this.

So we're gonna begin with the admin uh and I'll start with Mr.

Shoemaker.

Uh do you have any questions on the admin budget as revised nothing?

Uh Mr.

Tisdale.

Uh yeah, very quickly, just to summarize this, because a lot of numbers here over the past several weeks.

Um supplies, service charges and contractuals going up 112,000 and 25 words or less.

Could you recap what that is?

It's going up.

The audit to be under the council's budget, and can you request it that it be removed and sent to admin?

That was the bulk of that right there.

And um debt debt services increase 456,000.

Uh that's for the capital finance purchase of the vehicles.

Okay.

That's new.

That's updated.

Should be all right.

Then uh under the legal department, supply service charges, contractual, uh, that's increased 90,000.

That brand new one that was in your box.

Okay, go ahead.

Okay.

Legal.

I'm sorry.

I'd like to stay on admin.

You're right.

I was on a roll.

What can I tell you?

Okay.

Thank you.

Finish with admin.

I'm done with admin.

Thank you.

Mr.

Crill, you have anything?

Nothing.

All right.

And now, Mr.

Marshall, anything in the admin budget?

Uh I reserve the right to come back to that.

All right, Mr.

Gray?

Nothing.

All right, Mr.

Marshall.

All right.

We'll move into executive.

I'll start with Mr.

Gray, and I'll I'll keep this going uh flip-flopping back and forth.

I have nothing.

All right, nothing in the executive.

Mr.

Marshall, or would you like for me to come back to you?

Back to Mayor.

All right, Mr.

Neil.

Uh nothing.

All right, Mr.

Crew.

So there was a uh increase in salary and wages.

Is that anyone in particular or just the mayor's salary?

Okay.

Oh, that was already gotcha.

Okay.

Thank you.

Mr.

Tisdale.

Nothing.

Mr.

Shoemaker.

All right.

Moving on to legislative, that's the council budget, Mr.

Shoemaker.

Mr.

Tisdale.

Nothing.

Mr.

Crew?

Nothing.

Uh I'd just like to note we reduce postage by 2500.

So any mail outs to notify uh of any kind of related council events will have to be a little bit more uh slim and and and kind of manage that a little bit to be fair to all the council members that do uh some mail outs or whatever.

Uh Mr.

Neil.

Uh nothing.

Mr.

Marshall.

I want to make sure I'm understanding.

This is not the final.

We can still make an adjustment after this.

No, this is it today.

We're trying to make our final our final run at it.

Okay.

The uh that's what we have.

As far as the legislative, there are some things that you know we can't cut because uh I'm sorry, what department?

Well, the legislative?

Yeah, what wasn't what department?

What department did you say?

Legislative.

Legislative, go ahead.

Okay.

That's what we are, right?

Okay.

Okay.

I just want to be clear.

All right, there's us.

Okay.

Uh there are some things that I um we need to figure out how we're gonna do the um like we have an invitation now to go as legislators to go to uh to uh Louisiana next month, things like that, in order to have to make decisions on bringing in uh economic development.

If you're cutting things, we uh I don't mind cutting, we come home for cutting, but anything that's to help bring in business, we need to make sure we don't cut to the point where we can't increase ourselves into um into Brexit as a whole okay.

So I would make sure we have you know a budget of uh some kind of a travel budget in there to help cover those expenses because we got a lot to bring in.

We can't just sit back and say we're gonna cut this, we're gonna cut that, but we have to bring in income.

And it takes the seven of us actually getting in and get in here and doing this.

And we go somewhere, we're gonna need this space is covered.

If we go somewhere, we're showing up, we're we're showing the we're showing them that we are very much interested, bring your business to Biloxi.

How much would such a visit cost to go visit Louisiana?

How much what would be the cost?

Can we talk about it and then come back to this point so we can add it to I want to be realistic?

I don't want to be under.

You said we need travel budget in there, so if we took it to the right, but you know, you walk in.

You're doing what we complained to the mayor.

We're doing right now.

What we complained to the mayor if they're doing to us how long bringing us this budget needs to make a decision right away.

So to be all with due respect, I've informed everyone that this would be in your box on Friday, or I'm sorry, in your email on Friday, and would be in your box on Monday to review so we could uh go over this budget.

Okay, and that's what we come prepared to this meeting.

And if you want to talk about travel, what is your estimate on on travel expenses?

That wouldn't be the only trip.

That's the one trip that came up.

Okay.

So I'm just saying we're gonna have other we're gonna try to get as medium as possible because we have to bring in economic development into this city.

Okay.

I I understood that point, but how much travel would you suggest that we would add to the budget?

Maybe what would you think would be a good amount?

I think uh Diana was recapping.

You you had initially 10 last year and actually used uh a number you only used five last year, and this this year's I think we reduced it to eight.

So you got three thousand more than what you used last year.

All right.

So there is money in the travel budget, and usually that was for MML or trips to Jackson, uh a couple of trips, but usually related to MML.

And and let me add too, on some of these, you know, uh like with the SMPDD and some of these other uh uh things, if there's some travel related to a project that we may have could you know a lot of that budget would be not a not out of our pocket, so to speak.

So some of the things that you you know we had kicked around and talked about, we may uh not be on the hook totally, but you do have you know about three thousand dollars in your move than you used last year in the budget.

Is that right, Diana?

I want to add you we had a discussion about economic development, okay, and uh economic development part part um department and trying to figure out a way.

Your statement is that everyone has been doing it, uh, which is like I said, I'm just addressing what's in the budget versus what you used last year.

Okay.

And again, um we're all on the same page.

We want to develop this.

This is a very specific uh question, so uh I I gave you the answer, I think.

Okay.

So right now is budget at how much?

Eight.

Yep.

Okay.

Let's raise it by let's raise it at least by five.

So we can we we have to go and look, we have to go and talk to people, we have to bring things in.

All right.

So this is how this will work.

Uh Mr.

Marshall is uh proposing that we amend this uh proposed budget uh by another five thousand dollars.

We need four votes uh to pass this amendment, otherwise it fails and we move on to the next subject.

So would you like to make that amendment?

Yes.

That's the motion that we added another five thousand tour.

All right, there's a motion to uh to amend or or to adjust this budget by five thousand dollars.

Is there a second?

So if I understand correctly, uh we've already budgeted eight thousand for travel.

This would be an additional five thousand for travel.

Uh so it would go from eight to thirteen.

Right.

Uh honestly, I if I go anywhere, it's on my dime.

Uh so I I don't see any reason to increase that that's just we'll see if we have a second for some more discussion on it.

Do we have a second to the motion?

Anybody want to move it for discussion uh and second it?

I'll second it for discussion.

I'll second it for discussion.

Um I I agree with Mr.

Tisdale.

Um if there's uh if we have some money in the budget and we want to uh not go to an MML event or or what uh is allocated per council member, I think that's fair.

Um otherwise it may have to come out of our pocket to make one of those trips, you know, uh until we can get to a point.

We gotta live within our means, and um so that I would that would be my opinion.

Question any other discussion?

Question So Mr.

Crew, you said we had we used five last year?

You use five out of yeah, five last year, okay.

So there's eight budget we use five, there's eight budget eight budget in the event we surpass eight.

Could we do the budget amendment similar to what we do for everything else?

Yeah.

So if we stay at eight, we could always come back and do a budget amendment, correct?

Thank you.

That's a good point.

Thank you for that.

Everybody understood that.

We could also during the year if we run out of travel expense in the budget, we can uh make a resolution uh for a uh budget amendment.

You know, we could we have that in our toolbox.

Okay, any other discussion on the proposal before we take a vote to increase it from eight to thirteen.

What if we just increase it from eight to ten?

That'd be a different amendment.

What's that?

That'd be a different amendment.

Make amendment to that would be a that would be a different proposal.

Right now the proposal is to increase it to five.

Right.

I'll just withdraw it and then go into 10.

What's that?

Five five.

Thirteen.

Yeah, five to thirteen.

Eight eight to thirteen.

So excuse me, if I could ask a question.

Diana, any any idea of where we're gonna land at the end of this fiscal year with the legislative budget.

Are we gonna have any funds that are unexpended?

Possibly.

So again, we can always amend the agenda.

We could move it from one category in the budget within the legislative budget.

Or amend it and then move money from the general fund.

So I I'd say leave it where it is, and if it's needed and be thinking about what you want to go to and what it's gonna cost, and then we can come back.

We can always amend the agenda.

Thank you.

Gentlemen, keep in mind we got three thousand dollars more than what we spent last year.

We have that in our toolbox, and then we can also during the year, if there's something impactful, we can say this is the reason I'm asking for a budget amendment.

But we have to live within our means.

That's why this budget was was tweaked like it was.

Oh, here we go.

But if it's if we get four people that want to increase it, then the majority rules are.

Let me say this also.

This adding to it and then a year, and and move the money from here is what we're really trying to stop.

I don't like when a million good.

So we're gonna set a budget, let's say it realistically, and we're only talking a few thousand miles.

It's not gonna kill us, but it will for every dollar that we and I spend, anyone in this council spend trying to bring business into the city, is it's multiplied thousands of times above.

We're gonna bring in serious business.

And for us to have to come into our pockets to do it, it's not nothing best.

And we're not asking to spend for parties.

We're asking to spend to invest to bring money into the city.

I would come I wouldn't come to you and say let's invest and take the money is just blowing.

We're asking to invest into bringing this city more business so that we won't have these shortfalls.

We have to do this.

This is not the moment where it's been done.

No, I'm not asking we use the budget to have let's say budget like this.

Um because that's how we've always done no, it's not been done that way.

So we're gonna do things a little differently.

We need to go out and we need to help bring in businesses, and that's gonna cost.

We're just limiting it to a few thousand dollars.

It's gonna cost more than that.

All right.

Any other comments?

Mr.

Neil, anything?

Any other comments?

Call for the question uh on the uh proposed increasing it from eight to thirteen.

All in favor opposed all right forward four to three.

So did I get that correctly?

Oh, I think we're seven or one six to one.

Six one opposed.

Sixty one opposed.

Okay, I just wanted to get that right.

All right, all right.

Uh we'll continue.

We're still on legislative.

Any other discussion on legislative?

All right, let's move on to legal.

Uh I'll start with Mr.

Gray.

I have nothing.

All right, Mr.

Shoemaker.

I have nothing.

All right.

Mr.

Marshall.

Nothing.

Mr.

Tisdale.

Yeah, thank you, Diane.

I'm like my previous question.

I'm sorry through your curve.

Um 25 words of us increase in supply services contractual.

Is there anything that stands out?

One position for a judge moved from and it's gonna be contracted.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

That's all welcome.

Mr.

Neil?

Mr.

Crew?

Nothing.

I have none.

Move on to community development.

We'll start with Mr.

Shoemaker.

I have nothing.

Mr.

Tisdale.

Um capital outlay.

I'm assuming I recall there was a vehicle last for.

Is that the bulk of that?

The bulk of it's the AV equipment at the visitor center for the gotcha.

Okay, that's all.

Thank you.

Mr.

Creel.

The sign increase uh 60 by 20, 20,000.

That's 60, what's 624?

Are you on the prior detail given?

I thought I was updated here.

Let's see.

Because we didn't send out the individual pages.

We only sent out this piece.

But but that sign was reduced.

Okay, yes.

Perfect.

Thank you.

It's down to 5,080.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Is that it?

All right.

Mr.

Neil.

Uh no cutting.

Mr.

Marshall.

I'm great.

Nothing.

Mr.

Gray.

Okay.

Uh move on to parks and recreation.

Mr.

Gray.

Well, let's cut.

I mean, is this I know we got a lot of um playground equipment stuff we're gonna be buying?

Is that going to cut a lot of this playground equipment out that we have?

I think we're doing a lot of it in capital as well, too.

So a lot of it in capital.

And we're getting a second bid on currently right now, Jamie go.

Mr.

Martin.

So yes, that's where we're at right now.

We're not gonna be able to purchase as much as we would like, but we are still purchasing some through capital.

Okay.

That's all.

All right.

Mr.

Shoemaker.

I have nothing.

Mr.

Marshall.

Mr.

Tisdale.

Nothing.

Mr.

Neal.

Um we're gonna start uh we're gonna be doing some in-house repairs, you said, maybe.

Yes, sir.

We're looking to do everything in which we can go in and fix from ourselves, and then being able to utilize what funding that we have to do those as well.

And uh you and I have discussed the parks in many times, me and Mr.

Gray, all of them, of course, Mr.

Marshall as well.

How can we go in?

And we're also looking to partner with the community as well on some of these, and how can we utilize that?

So you know the friends of Hillary Park and friends and John Henry Bake Park.

How are we able to utilize that?

Because our community has a significant amount of craftsmen in there.

And how can we tie that back in to maybe the city can help provide some of the lumber or something, and then we get the neighborhoods to help come in and must do that.

And he puts a little more pride back in it as well, too.

7 30 in the morning, sir.

Mr.

Creel.

Nothing.

I have nothing.

Uh pretty big one.

Uh police department.

Start with Mr.

Shoemaker.

No, I have nothing.

Mr.

Tisdale.

Yes, uh, just to be sure I read this correctly.

The the bulk of the cuts, um deal and personnel services, and these are positions basically that we've been unable to fill, mostly in the air, not entirely, but mostly in the area of sworn officers and so forth.

So that's part of the freeze, then that's money that we're not expending on salaries.

A lot of that's gonna still be trying back in to that capital lease from if we're gonna be able to utilize it instead of just buying it with one book.

We're gonna be able to buy those.

HVACs from there as well.

And exactly what President Gladwin was talking about.

As we go through these throughout the year, if we see a need, then we'll come back to the council and request certain percentages of these freeze that we've had to be able to lift those.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

That's it, Mr.

Glavin.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr.

Creel?

Nothing.

Anything else?

Mr.

Neil, Mr.

Marshall?

Mr.

Gray.

I got something.

On the police department and the fire department, we're cutting our budget by 1.9 million.

So other people, everybody's taking a hit.

Our most important departments is taking a big hit at 1.9 million.

So y'all just think about that as y'all, you know, up here.

Everybody's trying to get as much as they can, but our main department is taking a big hit.

That's all I have.

All right.

Move on to the fire department.

Mr.

Gray, you have to line unless you those comments covered it.

I have nothing.

Mr.

Marshall.

We're good.

Mr.

Neil.

I'm good.

Mr.

Creel.

So we're actually increasing fire, correct?

Am I reading that right?

Yep.

Okay.

That's what I thought.

Okay.

Capital outlaw.

Right.

1.7 million.

Okay, thank you.

Is that it?

Mr.

Tisdale?

Yeah, Diana Recap and the Fire Department Capital Outlay 1.7 million.

That's correct.

That it that includes the two engines and the ladder truck.

Okay.

But they're budgeted but won't be received as fiscal year.

And it has an offsetting note, correct?

Gotcha.

Okay, thank you.

So that's basically for fire trucks, which all right.

Thank you.

That's all.

All right.

We'll move on to uh public works.

Mr.

Schumacher.

I have nothing.

Mr.

Mr.

Gray?

Nothing.

Mr.

Tisder.

Nothing.

All right.

Mr.

Marshall.

Mr.

Neil.

Mr.

Creel.

So personnel services of 315,000.

That's is that in just a police?

Oh.

And that doesn't include the director, correct?

The director position is still being allocated.

Currently.

No.

I still got that hat currently, yes, sir.

Oh, no.

I was just saying if if the salary for that position is frozen as well, or is it still open?

That position is frozen, and whenever get with the mayor, get with y'all, that may be a position in which then we move forward on with the budget amendment.

But we when we froze these, we froze everything as was.

Okay, so not to backtrack, but with on that analogy with the vacant proposals, that's another hit, or the major hit with the police department was employee vacancies salaries as well.

Correct.

Thank you.

All right.

Anyone else have anything with our public works department?

I got one.

All right.

Mr.

Nell.

I'll put those in the uh public work department and park and recreations get gas and deal gas station or they fuel man.

So price-wise, if I'm and correct me if I'm wrong, fuel man, you go out and bid that price, so it's the same no matter what, unless they change that process.

Anyone else have anything for public works that I might have missed?

Nothing.

Okay, we'll move on to engineering.

I think the only thing we cut in engineering was convention training.

Is that correct?

Yeah, it was a very small salary on that one.

I didn't have a whole lot to cut from Christie.

So anybody anyone want to talk about engineering?

Yeah, I got some for Christy.

We got 21 streets that need to be paved in the city of Bloxy through all seven wards.

Is these budget cuts going to affect that?

I know we we try to allow on some capital projects, but some of these roads were so small, you know.

No, this is just our operating budget, so paving doesn't come out of this at all.

That usually comes out of either um our um tax the internet use tax money or out of a capital project.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's all.

All right.

Anyone else have anything for engineering?

All right, we'll move on to non-departmental.

Uh we'll start with Mr.

Gray and we'll come on down the line.

So, Mr.

Gray, anything for non-departmental.

Come back to me, Kenny.

I'll come back to you, Mr.

Marshall.

Yeah, on the non-departmental, I have uh serious problem.

Uh two things.

Uh the Salvation Army.

The agreement with the Salvation Army is uh they're running we don't have a recreation center in East Beloxy.

They're taking up that point.

And that funds their scholarships to the students to give them out these trees to know that they uh they have a place to go.

They can't afford it, but they can't, and the sales money has to.

I know the numbers are out there, they've got all of us money, but they have to operate within a budget like we operate within the budget also.

And the reason is that they're gonna be doing the scholarships for the students to get them for our children because we don't have a rec center.

So the amount that you take is gonna eliminate that many children, and they already don't have enough.

So we're not I'm not asking for an increase, but we need to increase it, but we have to give them something.

And they they can do a good job.

The kids can go there, it's safe, there's a find security, they got structured programs for them, everything that's needed, and it doesn't cost if we have the recenter up right now, the East Black Recreation Center, imagine if the thousands of million dollars above that we would be spending.

So we're not saving anybody by cutting them at all.

They're offering a true service to the city, and they're saving us three employees, four employees, and it's only 20,000 hours.

And we we've cut them by 3500.

That means how many scholarships that they were right now, they have more requests for scholarships than the funds, and they're they're eating it up this value and the loss.

So I don't want to cut them, I don't think that's fair, knowing that we don't have the money to build a wicked in there right at this time.

So that's not a cut to help.

That's a cut that's gonna hurt.

Those are students gonna be out there on the streets without that structure for that, especially for that summertime when it really and truly needed.

The uh next thing is that the uh the workforce development.

When Mr.

Garns was here, he spareheaded with them to go into Henry Beck Park.

And all those structures that were dilapidated, right now need to be planted.

This organization went there as a training in order to fix those, which means that the city of Lexington did not have to pay anybody to go do it.

When you cut someone like that to save $3,500, $3,800, you're gonna have to, I'm gonna be calling you.

Because I already talked to them, they're gonna go back out there.

Some of the things that I've had to be fixed, I've shown them also, and they'll say they're gonna work on that with us, not just for that part, but other parts.

When you cut them, you you're $380, you're you can get more phone calls for me.

You know, so we have an understanding with them already to save us more than that.

So save yourself a little trouble, save all of us a little trouble.

Those two welfare, they have a direct impact.

Those are our volunteer groups.

The other is the groups that are going out there with paid rushes.

Those are the groups that go out there with nails and saws.

When you cut the uh the the kids that we're calling by the park, they have an academic building at the at the clock center.

They have security at the clock center, they have rules and structure.

We need our children there.

Don't cut the children trying to save a few dollars, and then we end up paying more because they're locked up in your jail, and we're paying three, four, ten times the one where we go wrong.

That's that to me makes no sense at all.

I know we need to say, but you got you must save when you cut on the children.

You may save them when you cut on someone that's gonna go with there and fix your parts for you.

Then you turn around you pay somebody else to do it.

Those are the two things.

Any others?

Is that it?

Is that that's it?

Okay.

Mr.

Gray.

I know I see we we cut in the uh coast transit a good bit.

I mean, that's gonna affect our seniors trying to get to hospital, try to get to the doctor's appointments to get groceries and stuff.

I mean that's a good bit for them.

I mean, uh I just think that we should bring them up a little more than what they are, because I mean that's a that's a big cut, somebody that uses that's only transportation.

So I would like to try to at least bring them back up, maybe to where they was last year.

You know, I mean that's their only transportation, so we gotta help the seniors because they have a lot of them don't have family.

Yeah, well, some of them is the only way to get to work, you know.

So I mean that that's that's what I got in and same as Mr.

Marshall.

Mr.

Gray, would you mind if I go back to Mr.

Marshall's points first and maybe we can all address his his uh concerns to see if we what the political will is there.

Mr.

Marshall uh made a comment that he thinks those cuts are are not necessary.

Uh can I ask for the council is there a consensus?

Uh does anybody want to comment on his what he said?

Sure.

Uh I'll come in.

I I think uh his comments on the Crocs Center were spot on.

There's no facility in East Biloxi.

They do a wonderful job there at the Crock Center.

Uh I have no problem funding that.

Peter Claver with the workforce development is 20,000 last year.

24, they didn't request anything, probably missed the deadline, I think.

And then in 23 it was 10,000.

Uh that they're asking for, I believe 20,000.

I can go fifth.

Um I'm good with 15,000.

That would be my only comment.

Thank you.

Fifteen 15,000 for which one, Paul, I'm making notes over here.

If you went down, man, come on now.

Yeah.

Uh oh no, it'll be appropriate if this time to take this calculator.

Excuse me, Mr.

Marshall.

You have the floor.

We all respectful of what our opinions are, and I'll come back to you in a minute.

But uh so Mr.

That's Mr.

Tuesday's opinion.

Anyone else have any suggestions before we start opening it up for what our opinions are on these two items?

So would it be appropriate at this time to make an amendment to increase it?

Not yet.

Let's just have a discussion.

But Mr.

Tuesday says 15 and 20.

Mr.

Marshall says 20 and 20.

I'm I'm fine with the 20 and 20.

You're fine with the 20 and 20, Mr.

Nell.

You're fine with the 20 and 20.

I'm fine with 20 and 20, because the uh workforce is as a good thing for the young people.

That to me says we'll have at least four votes for 20 and 20.

So we'll uh we'll make that adjustment, bring those two up to 20 and 20.

All right.

And uh go ahead, Mr.

Sheemaker.

I know we have the four votes, but my eye.

Yes.

Just go ahead and agree with I was good with the 20 and 20 as well.

All right.

And I I'll run what they heard on this.

No, that that's fine.

That's what this is for.

So I I don't want to kind of get into if we don't let's just see where the political will is and try to look at this.

I know it's emotional.

I get it.

I've been there, you know, but I'm just trying to make sure that we can run this meeting as civilly as we can.

Um all right, now Mr.

Gray, uh you're talking about CTA.

Um you said that you wouldn't mind bringing it up because you think it hurt certain seniors or or or whatever.

I just like to note at the last meeting, I did ask if we gave you a budget, could you work uh you know, within a budget if we reduced it?

And uh the comment was yes, you would work, they would work with any budget that we give them.

I realize it may affect services, and I appreciate the new information that they distributed today.

Uh so I'd like to do the same thing.

Uh Mr.

Gray wants uh to keep it where it was last year.

Yes.

Okay.

Uh Mr.

Marshall, you have any opinion on it.

You don't have to say if you don't, but if you want to, you're you're you have the floor.

Okay.

My understanding when in um the young lady made the um the uh addressed us.

Um the more rivership they have the um the more they get funding.

Um my comments are still the same as it was last the last meeting.

We know that the people in East Balexi are the ones that really truly need a ridership, but that bus isn't running there.

I don't know if we want to cut them, but I do know that we need to increase that some type of way to to get the uh routes into the place, but the people don't have cars.

Mr.

Nell.

Uh we'll keep it the same.

Mr.

Crew.

So decreasing the money obviously decreases the frequency of routes, I'm assuming, which then in turn would decrease the ridership, which is a trickle effect where it decreases her federal funding.

Um if it's not a complete burden, uh I would I can't support the 413,000 that she requested, however, the budget on the uh 3927 I could support.

Mr.

Tuesday.

Yeah, just bear in mind what was what was stated earlier here, the the money that we provide to CTA is used for local match, all right, for federal grants and so forth.

So for every dollar you give them, that's gonna generate an additional four to five, I believe they said it was five dollars in grant matches.

That's a chunk.

The other thing is because this has come up to you know, maybe modifying the routes, CTA will sit down and work with the city for whatever routes they want.

You just have to pay for what they want.

If you're gonna reduce their funding significantly, don't be surprised if it if it impacts the routes that you have.

Uh with what you could receive in federal grants with the increase that that they're asking for, which is about $21,000, which equates to about a five percent increase, roughly, I think, if I'm doing the math on the fly correctly.

So I think it would behoove us all to include excuse me to increase that amount as much as we're able to do, or what we all have the will to do.

Even if if it was 8,000 to 400,000, they're asking 413.

413, roughly, uh 413,000 equates to about a little over half a mill.

I tend to look at some of these things now in terms of the millage uh whatever.

And uh I would think it would be even more beneficial if we could tie what whatever we're going to allocate annually to a certain percentage of a mill.

That way we wouldn't go through all this discussion and everything every year as the tax base increases as everybody's cost increases.

Anyone who's tied to a mill, what their what their allocation would be would increase as well.

I think that'd be better for planning purposes, cut and dried, and that's I believe we'll talk about the library a little later.

But uh if you went with little over half a mill, point five two mills, that's going to generate the lower four hundred and twelve thousand.

That's where I am.

I think we should honor their request, and we'll see what happens.

I'm sure other folks have comments.

Thank you.

All right.

You won an award from CTA, didn't you?

I'll tune.

Anyway.

I do.

But let me let me tell you why I I didn't ask for that award.

Go ahead, you have the floor.

All right.

And the reason is the reason is because I support CTA.

Okay.

All right, because I realize the importance of the services they offer for seniors for other services they provide in the events of medical issues or medical concerns when seniors or other folks, disabled folks, don't have the transportation to get from point A to point B.

And during times when we have natural disasters, they provide those service.

I mean, they're pick they're they're eating the cost for the city's not eating the cost for arranging to pick up people and move them north to get them out of flood zones and everything.

That's a good point.

Uh that's a county program, I believe, that uh does that.

The county foots the bill for that.

But that's a good point.

Right.

We we all pay a portion that gives them the operating funds to provide those services at little or if at no charge.

But again, they'll put together a route for whatever area you want to serve.

You want something in Wallmark it, they'll tell you what it'll cost.

You want something north of the bay, they'll tell you what it'll cost.

So having said that, thank you.

David, I'll be very brief.

I think it's well needed, and I do echo everything that councilman Tisdale said.

All right.

So you support 400?

I would support the full amount, the 413.

All right.

So that can I can I would support I would support the 400.

So I want to clarify something.

Can I can I do that?

Yes.

Okay.

Uh I think I can't remember her name.

Okay.

Let me ask you, can you come forward?

I want to ask you a question.

I want to be clear.

Okay.

We are lost the routes that set up an East Belexi.

We need to get better routes.

With the if if we're supporting, if I support the full amount that you requested, could you by chance without asking us for more money?

Figure out a way to move out something to get that main state division straight.

We're waiting for this day.

We'll work with that immediately.

And we will submit.

Present it to our board, submit it uh to this council, and we're open to discussions if you like it and what changes in addition, what additional changes you would like to see.

That is absolutely we're we're happy to do it.

Okay.

Okay, well make it sure without asking us for more money.

Correct.

Okay.

I understand Mr.

Tizda, I understand what you guys are saying that no matter what amount, what well or out we want, long as we pay for it, that is life.

You know, anything you want, long as you're paying for it.

But right now we don't have it.

So we need to work with it and we need to offer that service to those who don't have cars.

And obviously, that's the section that don't have the car, don't have that transportation.

And we want to make sure they get it.

If that's the case, I'm you rocking with it, but we good.

Thank you, Councilman Marshall.

Anything else, Mr.

Marshall?

That's it.

I just want to be clear because the again, the comment on the seniors, that is a county program that is paid for by the county.

That is not paid for by the city, the large portion of that.

That's a county program that uh is designed to assist seniors uh if they need to go to the doctor, if they need to go to the pharmacy, if they need to get to uh even a recreation center.

Dialysis.

Dialysis.

That's great.

It's a great, great program.

I spent a lot of times with the supervisors talking about that portion of CTA.

It's a wonderful thing, and that is covered by that portion.

I I don't have a problem adjusting this to uh what it was last year, the 392.

We are all trying to bear the burden of this budget.

We worked on this with your input uh on a lot of a lot of stuff, but it's gonna be majority rules on this.

So I heard 400, I've heard 392.

I'm just trying to get these numbers right.

So a straw vote on on keeping it at the 392 level of last year and uh asking CTA to redesign some of these routes uh to pick up in some areas that we think are are more beneficial.

I'll start with Mr.

Gray.

392, 400.

The the 412, like Miss Tisdale.

The 412.

Yeah, that's what Mr.

Tiscrew is.

All right, let me record these down real quick.

Because we've got a uh uh reunion look at it too, is it's not just the seniors, it's the hotel workers trying to get to work.

They understood the food people, you understood everybody, not just the seniors.

All right, Mr.

Marshall, 413 or the 392.

Oh, 413.

Our agreement is there.

We we give you what you ask.

Don't ask us for any more, but put yeah, we're good.

All right, Robert?

Uh 13.

Mr.

Cruz?

392 392.

Mr.

Tisdale.

Sure, I apologize for the confusion earlier if the counties plan for the those services that I mentioned earlier.

I think I think you're accurate, Mr.

Glav, and I apologize for the fine, Mr.

Anyway.

Yeah, I'll I'll go with their full request at 41350.

Thank you, Mr.

Shoemaker.

413 as well.

All right, 413 is the consensus if they if you'd make a note of that.

All right.

Thank you, Council.

You're welcome.

Any other questions on any other items?

Uh, where do I leave off?

Uh I think it's Mr.

Nails up.

Do you have any questions on any items on non-departmental Jamie?

Any questions?

Let's see where we are.

Um, Kenny.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

Mr.

Creer, you got the floor, you want to give it up for Mr.

Gray?

You can come back to it.

All right, Mr.

Gray, you have the floor.

The cost.

I I think we need to leave it at 20.

Because I mean they that's our only defense for the kids.

I mean, I know we're trying to cut the budget, but I mean again.

I told you we were indiscriminate, that's why we're in this process now.

You know, it was nothing to attack anybody personally, it was just to try to do it indiscriminately to get it.

My opinion may need more money, but I mean, I'm good with 20.

All right.

And that's that's just my Mr.

Gray.

Uh it's currently at 162.

162.

Mr.

Gray recommends 20.

Mr.

Marshall.

Casa.

Uh tell me again, what does the Casa do?

I understand.

Uh like child services for foster children.

She's here if she's Casa stands for court appointed special advocate.

Our volunteers were appointed through youth court here that occurs in Biloxi to advocate for children who are innocent victims of child abuse and neglect.

The children range in age from newborn babies drug addicted to the age of 20.

And the service that we provide is connecting the community to become advocates for those children in court proceedings.

And today there are 248 children in foster care in Harrison County alone.

With the second largest percentage of child victims second to Gulfport here in the Biloxi City.

70% of the children are under the age of 12, and over 70% of the cases involve parental substance abuse.

And these are cases which CPS is intervening.

And your youth court judge has requested that we serve every child.

And unfortunately, due to the lack of funding and lack of volunteers, we're currently serving 59% of the children.

The funds that we would use with this allocation that we've been very grateful to get in the past have helped us to support the recruitment training and ongoing support of these volunteers because we're taking lay people like all of us and putting them in in the middle of complex overburdened child welfare system work in youth court and in in the social services arena when most of my volunteers are not lawyers or social workers, but they're independent people who stand in the gap for these children.

Let me ask you a question.

Yes, sir.

My mother.

She had nine children.

She had about 35, 30, well, 30 grandchildren and grandchildren, great grand great grandchildren and grandchildren.

She was very strong Christian, loved the Lord, did anything she could for children, anything for the community.

If she was sitting here in this state where I'm sitting, how would you think she would vote?

Chief, don't leave.

Chief.

How do you think how would you think that that she would vote?

How would she feel?

How would she feel about your organization when she cut you or bless you more?

I think the only way we exist is without the community support.

And safe families are the goal for every child that we serve.

And it would it would be my open prayer that she would see this deemed worthy of a cause to support.

Because what I know about innocent child victims who are little is that when they grow up, if they don't have permanency and they don't have a family, they unfortunately repeat the cycle of generational child abuse.

Okay.

Chief, I got a question too.

What her program do?

Does that help your department and communication and community services?

Thank you.

I'm good.

Thank you.

You good?

20.

Mr.

New?

I'm good for the 20.

All right.

Mr.

Gray, you had a three?

Thank you.

Um looking at your previous request.

Uh it looks like in I guess in 2024, 2023, and I believe 2022, the the request will for 10,000, and looks like in 2025 it increased to 20.

Um, you had made some and and please, I'm not against this organization.

Uh you can't be and be you know a Christian.

So my question is is um you mentioned Harrison.

How many how many kids were in Harrison County, and then you mentioned half or a significant number of them in Gov Port.

I didn't get a figure on how many in Biloxi, and this money is used specific for Biloxi, correct?

Yes.

Any any that we receive can be specifically restracted to the particular city that we serve.

Um at this point, the largest percentage of children that we serve are coming from Gulfport.

Biloxi is second.

Biloxi is about a third of the population that we currently serve.

Okay.

Um I think you spoke to the increase.

Right, so it was three years of 10,000, and then all of a sudden went to 20, and it's at the subsequent year for 20 as well.

Uh, is that because you had more children, more training, more volunteers?

Yeah, I can speak to that.

A little institutional history, just to part with y'all, is that about a year and a half ago, the CASA program that was in serving in Harrison and Stone um reached out to the program that I was currently serving in Hancock County, and they were on unfortunately a place where they were gonna have to dissolve as an entity.

So the state of the city of Biloxi had been serving and supporting that CASA program that sought to be able to have us become regionalized, um, partly because I have 25 years of child welfare experience, and we were serving all the children in Hancock County.

So last year, which was the first full year that we were a regional program, Casa of South Mississippi, um, I actually proposed a standstill of the 10,000.

And during a budget workshop like this, um city council member Dixie Newman spoke up for CASA as well as the Women's Resource Center, the Center for Nonviolence, and really applauded the work that we were doing.

And in that conversation, she advocated for these community resource agencies like us to get more consideration.

So I was asked if we would if we needed more than 10,000, and I definitely responded we did.

Right.

But it was not the idea to ever be greedy and to ever expect that local governments were going to contribute to the bulk of our our budget.

Our current budget, um, eight percent of that is funded through local and city government.

Okay, so is Gov Port equal with the request that we have without Gulfport's request uh is currently at $10,000.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

What amount?

Jamie, do you support?

Uh I'm seeing.

All right.

Sixteen.

Mr.

Tuesday comments, and what amount would you support?

Well, uh I'll go with the 16 as well, and and I appreciate the director's candor and explaining how we got to where we are financially.

Thank you.

Mr.

Shoemaker, uh by the way, I'll I'll support 16.

Mr.

Shoemaker, deciding vote.

It all on me.

All that pressure.

But I have my decision made.

I'm gonna go ahead and support the 20,000.

All right.

20,000.

All right.

Uh Mr.

Neil, did you have any other Mr.

Crewts?

Do you have the floor?

Any other non-departmental you want to talk about?

I'm good, thank you.

All right, Mr.

Tisgale, any non-departmental you want to discuss changing?

Uh again, the Harrison County Library, uh, you may recall library commission.

You may recall that uh uh made the comment it would be nice if we could have a gentleman's agreement to uh link the funding to a millage and uh not that it be an ordinance per se, but just a gentleman's agreement.

I'd really prefer an ordinance that would allow us just to uh tie the support to the value of one mill, which again would increase as the as the tax base increases.

And I and I think Ms.

Roskey said that she would be agreeable to that.

Uh again, a mill this year generates 793,000 dollars.

And if I understood correctly, correct me if I'm wrong, you could live with that this year, provided that in future years it was always tied to that one mill.

You can come up, sure.

Come on.

If Mr.

Glavin doesn't want you to come up, he'll hit me with the gavel, not you.

Taking that.

Go ahead.

But did did I understand correctly?

I mean I I did, I hope you won't mind.

I wanted the opportunity to add after listening to the discussion and seeing that we potentially are going to be the only entity actually cut rather than affected by freezes, or you know, the some of the cuts are smaller.

What would another thing would happen at our state level?

We are required by the state to what they call a maintenance of effort.

Right.

So if we are cut and other entities aren't, we stand to lose our state grant standing.

And uh we we came in danger of that in 2021 because we we had a cut that year that wasn't applied across divisions, and so that's an additional piece of because I didn't I wasn't sure how you were applying your formula, but now after listening to this discussion, it does sound like we we would sustain uh a cut, whereas others have freezes, which in the legal ease isn't the same thing.

Um it's it is uh it is an effective cut, but it's not uh it's not exactly equivalent if that makes sense.

Yeah.

Yes, ma'am.

No, uh that there's maintenance of effort that's a common feature, and you know that the state is willing to work to support you as long as you're willing to work hard with the local maintenance of effort.

Um but to be clear, yes, on your question, yes.

Yes, on your question, yes.

You could live with a m with a mill this year, which is several thousand less than what you're asking.

We would cut probably cut our book budget uh covered that amount would be but then on the other hand, I wouldn't expect you to do that uh unless you were gonna do that at least for the remainder of this term that we're in office a full four-year period.

Diana, how much typically does it I know it's hard to gauge, but how much is the increase?

How much of an increase does one mill generate roughly in in terms of growth?

And I know it's gonna vary from year to year, but you'd have a fund development.

This year we went up about sixty thousand.

So we went from about seven thirty-six to seven ninety-three.

Right, seven thirty-six to seven ninety-three.

And so a a mill might well generate eight hundred thousand or eight hundred and fifteen thousand next year just to pull a number.

I mean, none of this is an exact science, but that being the case, we wouldn't be up here quibbling over all of this, but I just need folks to understand what I'm asking here, and that is for the remainder of our terms, this current council, we would link the funding to the library uh based on one mill, whatever that generates, and Diane could tell us every year in bingo, and my guess is we probably might not see you again.

I would come to say thank you.

Yeah.

So anyway, that that's where I am, and that's that's what I would suggest if everybody understood that.

Thank you, Mr.

Tuesday.

I'm gonna um in addition to Mr.

Tuesday's suggesting 793.

I'm just gonna say I I would support an increase from the revised version of 652 to 700, and I think that's fair.

So 700 or 793, and let's start with shoemaker so I don't end with him and put him on the spot.

But before we get there, uh Mr.

Creel wants to chime in.

Just a quick question.

So okay.

You the major part of your increase was for a pay raise for your employees?

Part of it was for pay raise, part of it was for just increased costs because book costs have gone up, all insurance, all those things have gone up.

And also for um for you know the little bit of PERS and um yes, those were the main.

So there were twenty twenty-five employees if I remember correctly.

Yes.

And what so long is tenured employee you have?

I think twenty twenty plus, maybe twenty-five years.

Okay, perfect, thank you.

Making under 15 an hour.

Okay.

Let me get this right now.

Between Harrison County, they give you what 1.78 million?

Yes.

And Gulfport gives you 516?

Yes, we don't have we we haven't had our hearing with them, so we're not sure.

And where what do you get in grants?

Um there aren't a lot of grants for libraries that are that are substantial.

We get small grants for things like programming like for summer reading, or to buy books for you know, our outreach vehicle, but that depends from year to year, and our major source of grants is the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and that agency may cease to exist in the next year.

So that um that was usually around eight to ten thousand, and we probably will lose that.

And the city of Bloxy owns four buildings of your library.

Yes.

How much should we pay in maintenance fees and insurance?

Does anybody know on these four buildings?

I guess what's a guess we want to hold you to it.

Uh well, I mean, under the pro under the property insurance, it covers all these buildings, so you can't break it down individually.

That's sure there is a cost, but the person who might answer that best in here be the insurance folks.

Roundabout, nobody knows.

So we're not only hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Right.

Added on top of the let's say seven hundred thousand they want to give you.

I mean, that's that's over a million dollars that Bloxy would donate or give to you.

Um I I can't support the seven hundred.

I I would go with the what's on here to six hundred something.

The six amount of whatever.

Wait, wait, but we're gonna end with you.

You might do the deciding vote, you know.

So I don't want to put that pressure on Mr.

Schumacher.

And that would entail most likely a a loss of a branch for sure.

Um to cut it from 780 to 650, that we would have to close a branch and probably not purchase any books for the year.

Yep.

So Richard getting over three million dollars.

Y'all can't keep all the branches open?

The three million was for all nine, we have nine branches in the county.

I thought you only had six.

Two and nine.

Where where's your branches are at?

Uh Pass Christian, D'Iborville to in Gulfport, Socher, and in the four in Bloxy.

Okay, I thought you only had two in Gulfport and two in Black four in Bloxy.

Yeah.

Six.

And one in Pass Christian, one in Diaborville, and one in Socher.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

Mr.

Marshall, anything on the library?

On the library.

I'm not closing the library.

Okay.

Mr.

Neil?

No.

All right.

I'm going to start on this end.

Uh we actually got three proposals.

This the current six hundred and fifty-two, seven hundred or seven ninety-three, Mr.

Shoemaker, which one do you prefer?

I'm sorry, I've we've got two, right?

793 and the six.

Three.

I'm so confused.

652, 700, and 793.

You want to see how this goes?

I'm gonna go though.

I I think in the mill.

Yes, okay.

I'm sorry.

I that was okay.

Thank you.

This was on my list to bring up when when it came my turn anyway.

I think the libraries are needed in the community.

That's my opinion, and I think that we need to support them.

I understand that's a lot of money, and I guess it gets spread out amongst the whole county, but I think it's it's if we can do it, I think we need to go with the 793.

All right.

Mr.

Tisdale?

Yeah, I'm good with the equivalent of again.

The equivalent of one mill for our term.

That's a four-year term.

All right.

Mr.

Crew.

So are we going with the mill or are we going with the 793?

652, 700, or 793.

So I was on the fence until I got somewhere that's worked for the county for 25 plus years of making eleven dollars an hour.

So I'm gonna go with the uh 793.

Mr.

Neil.

700.

Mr.

Marshall.

793.

That's four votes.

Four votes.

Okay.

793.

And and in no way I'm against the library.

Not at all.

But I mean, as much money as the city is spending on all the buildings, that's just uh a lot to look at.

I just want to point out we we try to make some cuts in this uh non-departmental where it looks like we're right back where we are.

You know, if we're gonna make change and and uh you know, it just just to me it's it's puzzling.

Um we're in a we're we only have a certain amount of funds.

So Kenny and we're getting getting back to where we are.

Anyway, I I digress.

Um hold on, just to uh elaborate on your comment.

You're exact.

No, you're exactly right.

And and as you mentioned, we could sit here all day and go back and forth.

However, keep in mind the 793 is a decrease from what she did request.

Her initial request was 805.

So to in order to be fair, she did get decreased.

I stand corrected.

All right.

Anybody else have anything else on non-departmental, Mr.

Shoemaker?

Saving the best for last.

Yep.

I'll make it quick.

And I know we're here to cut budget, I mean cut expenses, and I know we haven't done a great job in non-departmental.

However, my opinion, what we have done, and a lot of those were on my list to bring up when it came to me anyway.

The organizations and the agencies we voted on in given the money, my personal opinion, I think they're all needed.

They're really doing the Lord's work anyway, and I've got three more to add that y'all don't want to hear.

Um, and I don't want to diminish any other organization that hadn't been brought up because I just think the ones we voted on in these three really need um to be looked at, and I think they need to be funded because of what they're doing.

The last that the only other three other than the ones we've discussed, Gulf Coast Women's Center, Family Justice, Domestic Violence, and the Women's Resource Center.

I know we've cut all each one of them down $3,800.

Um, and again, I think what they're doing is tremendous in the community, and uh, you know, it's only $3,800, but uh um someone spoke a few minutes ago, and any money they can get is gonna help them.

If it's a thousand dollars and not 38, anything we can do to give them more.

We've given them 20 the last three years each, and now we've got them um getting sixteen thousand two hundred, which is still good.

I just think if we can give them any more, every cent they can get is gonna help them tremendously to help these people in the community.

All right.

So what are you saying?

Well, I'll start if I if I'm gonna bring something, I'll say I'll start them all three at 20,000 apiece, like they were last year.

All right, Mr.

Tuesdale, just keep it the same or I'll go along with that.

All right, Mr.

Crew.

Well as you said, it's uh we we could debate this all year, but if you go back to their request in 2022, one was 15,000, one was 5,000 one zero 2023, 20,000, 10,000, 10,000.

They went escalated in 2024 due to uh a former council person, which and not advocating against it.

I'm just advocating against the monetary value of it.

I know they do good work and I know that um they're needed in the community.

I'm not saying that at all.

I think that they work well within their means as we should work well within our means.

So I would support the 16.

Uh two.

Mr.

Nell.

All right.

I'm gonna support the 16, Mr.

Marshall.

Five to twenty.

All right, what are we doing at sixteen or sixteen or twenty?

I support the sixteen.

All right.

Sixteen uh is the consensus.

May I comment just to that last, just real quick?

Yes, sir.

And I understand what Councilman Creel is saying.

However, I will bring up that in the last two, three, four years.

Everything has gone up, whether they ask for it or not.

I mean, everybody on this list will probably take more.

I'm confident if we offer them more.

I think they need it and I understand where everybody is, and that's fine.

That's why we're here to vote.

But let me just say everything gas, food, groceries, rent, mortgage, everything's gone up.

So even though they didn't specifically ask for it until last year, they still need it.

But that's all I have.

Thank you, Councilman.

I know this is tough.

This is tough.

Tough decisions, tough to talk about.

Uh and I as I stated in my opening remarks, we'd like to do more.

I'm sure there's 50 other organizations that would like uh us to donate to that do tremendous, tremendous work for our communities.

That nobody is disputing that.

Um I appreciate the council's hard work on debating this and discussing it very, very much from the bottom of my heart, and I'm sure everybody out here does as well.

Mr.

Crew, I know everybody's looking at the clock.

One thing that wasn't brought up uh and it's just for my own question would be facade grant.

Okay.

Because it takes on that and use that is that the women's group has rent.

245.

Okay, is that right?

Is that uh we can't hear you?

We can't hear you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Rachel.

Version we talked about two different versions of that.

Yeah, there's two facades, one main street, one is uh this is the community development in D 406.

Yes.

These are the agreements.

We currently have three of them.

How it works is we take it's actually a formula.

However much sales tax they pay, we get 18.5, right?

18.5 percent of all sales tax that they pay.

Uh I remember when this is take a multiplier based on the which facade grant is this for?

Talking about it's three of them that we do this way.

It's desport, the Bella, and Michael.

Which one is this through Main Street?

This one through Main Street, or is this through the street does administer it?

All right.

So this is the main, we have two on here, two facade uh uh non non-departmental.

There's two of them on here.

You're talking about Main Street or both of them?

About the ND406.

Okay, just the one listed for the side.

This is the one that's funded by a sales tax.

It's not correct.

Okay.

And that is the same on I I believe the other one that speaking of it is the House's one, it's funded the same way.

Okay.

So so the the Main Street is is that not the same as it generates uh sales, because they had a they were cut from 50,000 to 40,005.

Is that not?

It's not main street.

That's not the same.

Okay.

All right.

Come on up, you gotta speak into the microphones.

Uh please.

Yeah, that's uh the due.

I know um, it says Main Street is like you're giving money to Main Street to uh, but we are strictly the nonprofit facilitator.

You're the conduit.

Yes, to get those those monies back out.

Uh to the uh and it's uh the the two that are facilitated by Main Street is the Bella and Desports.

Machado Patano is SMP D D.

So there's two that are just strictly facilitated.

So through their sales tax, the money is generated by sales tax.

It's uh Rachel figures up what the amount will be, and then a check is cut to Main Street, and I turn around and write the same exact amount and give it to the Bella or desk boards.

Perfect, yes, ma'am.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Uh I know the administration has patiently been observing, taking notes and absorbing all this.

Do y'all have any comments on the proceedings today that you would like to make?

So we're we made some significant suggestions and but we're adding back to what we're started.

So we're up approaching back another two hundred thousand.

Right.

We added back to that two hundred thousand dollar savings that we started, and we're right back where we were.

We're non-departmental.

And that's not to put the miss logic behind everything.

It is what it is.

We'll we'll make it work.

Okay.

Rick, any comments.

From an administrative side, no, sir.

We basically we give you courses of action in which you seven up there and the mayor make the final decision.

So we just have recommendations and then whatever you decide.

All right.

Mr.

Tisner, one other item on ND 195, that's feed the needy.

They've never requested anything of us until this year.

Uh I don't I don't know much about I actually don't know anything about them, but I I would say uh I'm not in favor of funding them this year, taking on a new Mr.

Tisdale.

They were funded through the admin and we moved it to non-departmental this year.

They were funded through the admin.

Which department budget admin and executive?

Well okay, so I don't know what I don't know what that is.

I don't know what the program is.

I don't know if you don't have a description.

That's fine.

I just why did you move it?

So that it was categorized like the remainder of the request.

Before it was within the administrative and executive budget.

So you moved it from there to non-departmentals.

Why?

Because it's submitted as a request to like the other items, so we would make trying to be consistent.

How many years was it with the administrations?

How many what?

How many times has it been with the administration?

I I can't answer that, but it's been for several years.

It it's similar to the audit report that was in legislative and we moved it over to uh administrative and and I guess they found this over there.

It probably was just started there and never moved into its appropriate category.

So now we see it and and we didn't really see it before.

You know, where where it was, or we didn't notice it before.

I think that's who are they and what are they?

They're been in business for 36 years.

Um I don't know where they're located though.

Cross.

They're located on Lamey Bridge Road in D.

Ivorville.

And they come forward to us and to either talk to us or reach us.

Have anybody on this council have been talking to them at all?

I don't think.

I stand the legacy.

Yeah.

Hold on.

Okay.

Holidays.

It said feed they needed.

That's the law enforcement fee to needed that we do every year.

All the law enforcement agencies in Harrison County get together, and we do a major cook for for uh uh Christmas and Thanksgiving, and then we deliver those to people who uh are more or less fortunate.

We compile a list from year to year as to where those meals are gonna go.

So strictly for the food, all the labor is done, blah blah blah.

Thanks for thanks for explaining that, Chief.

So I didn't realize that's what it was until that that's fine.

So I'm thinking could we put it if we're looking for a place to it to land for it to land, I guess administration, or couldn't you put it and just fund it through the chief's budget?

Or do y'all still want to keep it administration?

Whatever you want to do, I'm fine with.

Yeah, I think it goes non-departmental, in my opinion, and we can see it more clearly, I think.

Well, about 800 to a thousand meals for Christmas.

Thanks, Ken.

Now, not the first of all, uh when you're on your way out and I stopped you.

I'm old school, I tell my kids don't stop all men when you see them running to the bathroom.

All right, I'll do that.

I'm gonna do that.

Appreciate that.

I apologize for that.

Uh second thing is uh I'm a hundred percent for anything that you can do to show community action.

Besides, I don't want them to only see you taking in data they assist that they're brother the two.

If you're doing something other than that to community service, you got me.

So now I know who you are, what it what it is.

You know, I don't see no problem with that.

I appreciate you.

Yeah, I agree as well.

I wasn't wasn't completely sure that I was an old man, but you've confirmed that I know that walk.

All right, I'm glad you got a little whiteness lighting up the room.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Marshall, for that.

Um I'm gonna go if there's no other comments, we're gonna go ahead and wrap this session up.

I want to remind everyone at our September meeting, there'll be a clean copy of everything that we discussed here, and at that meeting we'll be prepared to approve and recommend this budget.

So do this all weekend.

So, no, we're not gonna do it all over again unless y'all want to.

You know, so uh I I want to thank y'all again.

Thank you for for uh giving your time and effort.

Uh been a lot hours in this.

And I want to thank the administration also and and I want to thank y'all, the administration, HR, all the departments that's been involved with this, and uh like I said, the council, the clerks, the directors, everyone that's provided input, and certainly our constituents that have been sending us emails, all the the non-departmentals.

Uh thank you for your work.

This isn't anything personal.

This is trying to uh fit the round peg and the square hole, literally.

And uh I think we're almost there.

So the chair will now entertain a motion to adjourn.

Question question real quick.

I know we've got to call a meeting.

Let's see, we're gonna have a public budget hearing next Tuesday.

Just be a resolution.

And then we'll need to have the typically we have the budget hearing 530 before that six o'clock council meeting.

We'll have a budget hearing for the general public.

Well, in past years it's been at 530.

I checked it was last year.

So I'm assuming it's it's prior to the regularly scheduled council meeting.

Typically, we start at 5:30, it's up there.

We listen to comments and and then it usually goes pretty fast.

Yeah, it does.

And and then we adjourn we adjourn and moments later open the regular council meeting.

We just need to be sure that that's uh that's all.

Yeah.

All right.

Any other comments?

Chairman a motion to adjourn.

Move by Mr.

Creole.

Do I have a second?

Segue by Mr.

Gray.

Discussion?

All in favor?

Those opposed.