I don't believe we have any changes to the agenda.

So is there a motion to approve the agenda?

So move.

There's a motion by Mr.

Creel.

Second by Mr.

Gray.

Any discussion?

None.

All in favor.

It's a 6-0 vote if the clerk would note that Mr.

Marshall is out of the room at the moment.

Okay, no.

We'll okay.

We'll move forward.

Uh the mayor's report.

Mr.

Mayor, uh part of my report and part of the news.

Kim and Nikim and Maria show.

As far as I audit, it's the main uh component of the first part of our meeting.

And other than that, that's the end of my report.

But I would uh at this point, would you like to hear a little bit about 25 audit?

Just a little bit.

We'd like to hear a lot.

Okay.

Maria Kim, either one.

Appreciate it.

All right.

Maria, how many?

Maria, how many years have you done this now with Kim?

Uh years.

Four years.

It just seems like all your life, doesn't it?

Yeah.

All right, and we're all yours.

Uh good afternoon.

My name is Maria Saylor.

I'm the audit director for ABL.

Um Ken is the audit partner.

Uh she's with me and she's gonna run the PowerPoint.

Uh we conducted the fiscal year 25 audit for the City of Biloxi.

We have three deliverables before you.

We have the Green Bound report is the audited financial statements.

Those charged with governance and a letter for management recommendations.

Okay.

The communication uh with those charged with governance is a standard letter of communication.

This outlines the responsibilities for uh the city as an auditee and as our as us as the auditor.

And it communicates any difficulties performing the audit, any disagreements that we would have with management, uh, any noncompliance violations or uh of contracts or grant provisions.

The next letter, the recommendations to management.

We had a couple items that we noted when conducting the audit.

There are some receivable uh sub ledgers that don't uh reconcile to the general ledger.

And this can be uh a various number of reasons, and management is working towards correcting them.

Uh but we just note that so that it stays before the attention.

Also coming up, there are a couple new governmental auditing standards that I'll be in place for the city's uh 26th fiscal year end.

Uh GASBY 101 works on improving the financial reporting uh and the MDNA.

It's going to expand the MDNA and make it a little bit more uh conversational as opposed to numbers based.

And then GASB 104 uh focuses on capital assets and the presentation of how the capital assets are presented.

She's next slide.

The financial statements in the green bound report.

Um they paint a picture of the city's financial health as of 9 30 25.

As such, they are historical in nature and they do not represent the city's current financial position.

The city received an unmodified opinion, which is the highest opinion that we can offer.

And our audit report can be found on pages two through four of the financial statements.

The management discussion analysis on pages five through sixteen is prepared by your city management.

It condenses all the key issues and all the information that is in the rest of the financial statements into a few pages and makes it um easier to you know read in a short amount of time.

It includes a city, a section on the city's economic outlook and conditions, and it is supported by the full set of financial statements that notes that follow.

An overview of the financial statements for the municipalities.

The government-wide financial statements, uh all cities' assets liabilities are reported on a full accrual basis, regardless of timing of cash flows, and it reports the financial information similar to a private sector business.

Those are presented on an economic resource model.

Only spendable resources that are available at the end of the fiscal year are reported, uh measurable and available.

And so this is the most familiar uh that the city operates off of the council.

And so the present rest of the presentation will focus on the fund level financial information.

Moving on to the government wide financial statements overview.

Looking at the statement of net position, governmental activities, total assets were uh 430, 437 million, uh total liabilities 209, and the net position ended up at 193, 193 million for governmental activities.

Business type activities uh such as water and sewer Biloxi port fund uh were 427 million in assets, 22 million in liabilities, and the net position 395 million.

The statement of activities.

We present a summary here of the charges for services, operating grants, capital grants, contributions, general revenues and grants uh and expenses summarized in a change in net position for governmental activities, a decrease of three million, and business activities, an increase of 1.8 million.

Moving on to the governmental funds.

Governmental funds balance sheet.

The first page we have here is a summary of all of the information for all of the governmental funds.

Uh, they're broke down as major funds and non-major funds.

The city has three major funds and seven non-major funds.

Next page.

And those vary from year to year based on timing.

Unearned revenue.

Uh, there was a decrease of 8.3 million, and this is most significantly related to the use of ARPA funds in fiscal year 25.

And those change in restricted uh fund balance at uh at the bottom is related to the restriction of modernization use tax funds, drug forfeiture funds.

Moving on to the governmental funds, statement of revenues expenditures.

We again have a summary of all of the governmental funds, the modern the major funds as well as the non-major.

And on the next slide, we have a comparison of the general fund from 24 to 25.

There was one significant change, and it has to do with the intergovernmental revenues.

These are your grant revenues that are received from other governments, uh, state, federal, and so on.

And there is an increase from one year to the next, and this is most related to uh ARPA funds, the Mississippi Clean County infrastructure funds and the other ARPA funds that are from the federal government.

Expenditures on the next page.

Uh most of the changes in the expenditures here are related to personnel costs, pay raises, increases in PERS percentage, and net pension adjustments.

And continuing on, general fund comparative.

The decrease in proceeds from installment loans is related to the prior year.

There was new issuance of debt related to purchase of vehicles in the prior year and no additional purchases in the current year.

Transfers in and out, they vary from year to year.

That's just moving from one fund to another within the city funds.

And on the last line, the prior period adjustments, there is a recognition of ARPA funds related to prior year expenses.

Moving on to the proprietary funds.

So you will see the governmental fund activity for the internal service funds reported here at the same place.

Moving on to a comparative of the balance sheet.

For water and sewer, uh the changes in cash and receivables vary from year to year based on timing, based on receipts.

Um, but the most significant change here is in capital assets.

There were additions of uh lift stations and new vehicles.

The next comparative statement for the liabilities.

Uh, most significant change noted here is just related to your principal payments on long-term debt.

And then moving on to the port fund.

Changes in accounts payable varies from year to year based on timing and the changes in the long-term liabilities and deferred inflows are related to the net pension adjustments as well as just principal payments on long-term debt.

Prior preparetary funds, statement of revenues, expenses, and changes in net position.

We have a summary here of the statement.

And moving on, we compare a little bit of the changes between the prior two years.

For the water and sewer fund, uh charge changes in the charge for services are related to an increase in fees and usage.

And then also for contractual services, this are related to the Harrison County water wastewater district payments.

At the bottom, the prior period adjustments are related to the recognition of federal grants that revenues that were related to prior period expenditures for the lift stations.

And in the prior year, there was a GASB 101 implementation.

Moving on, there were no significant changes on the second page for the port fund.

The transfers in and out, those vary from year to year just based on the needs of the city and the funds that need to be moved.

Moving to the statement of cash flows.

The most significant cash flow information is that on for the water and sewer, the cash flows provided by non-capital.

These are related to the transfers back and forth between the city funds and the cash flows for capital and related financing are related to purchase and construction of capital assets.

And that equates to 2.8 million.

Moving on, the most significant note disclosures that you may want to look at more in detail on page 35 through 37 is note two, and this details the city's cash and restricted assets.

Pages 37 through 38, Note 3 details the tax levies for 25 or 23.

4245 is details out long-term liabilities.

Note 10 on pages 47 through 55 is the employee benefit plans and the related net pension liabilities.

And pages 6162 is the budgetary comparison schedule for the general fund.

The city did expend over uh 18 million in the current year in federal funds.

As such, was uh required to have a single audit.

The schedule of expenditures of federal wards is on page 80.

Most of the federal expenditures are related to ARPA and FEMA program grants.

And page not 483.

Page 83 summarizes the results of the city's federal awards.

The city had two federal award findings.

Um they were incomplete prior year schedule federal expenditures of federal awards and lack of documented policies and procedures as required by uniform guidance.

There were no question costs related to these two findings.

The last page in the financial statement report is the compliance with Mississippi state laws and regulations.

There were two findings related related to noncompliance.

The state preference law was not considered when consideration of a contract awarded to a non-resident bidder as required by state law, and bidding opened for a contract prior to the required working 15 working days.

Maria.

And there are corrective actions that the cities uh acknowledge that they're taking the steps they're taking to correct those.

Correct.

They are included in the report, the management's uh response and corrective action plans.

Do you have any questions?

Actually, I actually I do.

Where if I'm looking for the most accurate fund balance at the end of the year, because fund balance is mentioned several times from different perspectives, I guess would be the best way to put that as a non-accountant poison.

Where's the best what where's where could I find the most accurate general fund balance at the end of the year?

Where would I find that in this audit?

The general fund balance is going to be on the governmental funds, financial statements, and those fund balances are presented on page 19, and the general fund is the first column.

And the general fund is the first column.

And it breaks it down by the different categories.

You have non-spendable funds that are related to prepaids or lease receivables.

These funds are not cash and they are not available to be spent.

Restricted funds, which have been restricted by either enabling legislation or external parties, and then committed, which is committed by the council or others, and then the remainder is the unassigned balance, which is at the bottom of the fund balance section.

So on page 19, that figure would be 75,418,995.

The total liabilities and deferred inflows.

If you look to, if you look a line above it, it says total fund balance, 27,929,000.

Total fund balances.

Okay.

Maybe I didn't ask the question appropriately.

So struggle through this with me.

So at the end of fiscal year 25, what was the ending general fund balance?

Where would I find it on this page?

Where on the first column where it says total fund balance, 27,929,848.

So okay.

I got you.

So that's where we finish fiscal year 25, correct?

For the general fund.

Ms.

Thornton, go ahead.

But all of that is not available to spend.

No, no.

Right there is restricted, non-restricted, and then is it unassigned?

And so if that's the total fund balance, thank you for pointing that out.

Where would I find the unassigned portion?

Right above it, it says unassigned, 11,521,562.

Okay.

So we finished fiscal year 25 with a general fund balance of 11, roughly 11 and a half million dollars.

An unassigned general fund balance, yes.

I'm sorry, thank you.

Unassigned general fund balance.

Unassigned general fund balance.

And that also includes the economic development fund.

Four million of that is in the economic development.

Gotcha.

I am sorry, I have to make a note on all this stuff.

Thank you, Maria, for that clarification.

Thank you, Diana, for pointing those out.

My next question is on page 24 of the audit.

Give me, please give me just a moment.

Okay.

I take that back.

Okay.

Under operating expenses, that section in the top half of the page.

If you go down to the last line under operating expenses, it says operating loss.

And that figure is 9,121,315.

And I'm trying to interpret that.

Does that mean we are underwater in our water and sewer fund?

That seems like an awful lot, so I don't want to read anything into it.

Is that what I should be looking at?

It doesn't mean that you are underwater.

The ending net position at the bottom of the page is $369 million.

The current year operating, there was a current year operating loss of $9 million, $9.1 million.

Say that again, please.

But the current year operating loss of $9.1 million for water and sewer.

Okay.

That's how I was going to say it has depreciation and amortization in it.

Okay.

So if we took those factors out, what would the There would be a gain of about approximately a million?

Million dollars.

Okay.

So we have been trying to stabilize our water and sewer over the past years with slight but raise increases for the past probably eight years, I believe.

So it's good to be on the positive end of this, right?

Yes.

That's why I chose it.

At the moment.

But the question is, given the cost of as things increase over the years, whether that will continue.

But the cash was under the management's discussion and analysis, Diane, I think this is your narrative.

I just want to point something out that's I think is a good thing.

Total actual revenues exceeded in this was fiscal year 25, not this year, last fiscal year.

Total actual revenues exceeded amended budgeted amounts by $383,000.

That's a good thing.

Right?

Good.

We need good things.

Total actual expenditures were $6.9 million, less than amended budget amounts.

Right?

According to the narrative.

That's a good thing as well, is it not?

Yes, it is a good thing, so appreciate that.

The next is if you'll turn to page $73.

Okay, so I'm at seventy-three.

Okay, at the very top of the page where it says revenues.

We had under employee, yeah, underemployee medical claims.

This is our insurance program.

The total operating revenues were $8.4 million.

And in fiscal year 25, the total operating expenses were almost $10.5 million, which means that our premiums didn't cover the expenses, correct?

And when the premiums don't cover the expenses, that difference in this case it was $2 million.

Where does that $2 million come from?

It will be transferred from the general fund mainly.

Water and sewer import could get a portion of it as well.

But we are also due a receivable from some stop loss claims that were still outstanding that will reduce that figure.

Right.

I just want to point that out for our employees who may be tuning in that uh you get great insurance, but then when our our claims exceed our premiums, that difference has to be paid for out of the general fund.

Which those funds could be used for other things if if it was a break-even proposition.

So thank thank you, Diana for that.

Believe it or not, that's all I have, Maria.

Thank you.

Thank you for answering my questions.

Uh thank you for putting this audit together.

I'm sure other council members may have comments or observations.

If so, just uh give me a signal, I'll be glad to let you ask questions or pay compliments or make observations.

Anything?

Okay, really.

Any comments, questions?

Sure, question.

Mr.

Marshall, go ahead.

On page 84.

7 million one year 29, 264 dollars.

According to your report, on the finding of um 7 million 129,250 $64 of Opera and hazard mitigation expenditure were omitted from the prior year.

I am trying to figure out how did that play into the final numbers.

Is that how first of all, how is it omitted and what effect does it have?

And I know that you guys put that down as a special note.

The city received ARPA funds in advance, and they were given options on ways to spend it, whether it was via revenue loss applied to revenues that were lost, and then they could therefore spend it on general expenses for the city or infrastructure improvements.

And in September of 2000 of 24, the city obligated seven about six point nine million in ARBA funds as a revenue loss.

These were for expenses that had already been spent and already been paid, it was an earmark because they were required to be obligated before December of 24.

And so once they were obligated, then they should be reported the moment that they are obligated.

And this occurred right near uh fiscal year end, and then it was not captured on the prior year financial statement.

So this year it was moved from in the prior year, it was an unearned revenue and it was not available just for general purposes.

And so in the current year it was moved out of unearned and it was moved into revenue as a prior period adjustment.

The hazard mitigation grants were related to FEMA.

These there was some significant delays in completing the projects and then getting the grants submitted for reimbursement, and as such, they were not received until the current year, and they were not because there was so much of a delay, uh, they weren't brought to the attention of the audit firm that we did not know to include them in the prior year.

Okay.

Were those numbers a plus or a negative when it were reapplied to the following year?

Were they were what?

With that a positive or a negative being reapplied.

In other words, you it came the mistake happened in one year.

You were you reapplied it and readjusted it in the next year, right?

It's an adjustment in it was money, it was revenues that would have been received in the prior year related to expenses that were expended in that year.

So it's a net effect because the city had expenses that related to the lift projects, and they were owed to the by FEMA funds that were not reported in that current year.

So in the current in that year, it appeared though the revenues were not as high as they should have been.

They should have been higher in the prior year.

So we took those revenues, we we use them in the forwarding year, next year.

They were reported as a prior period adjustment so that it's reflected not in the current year as to so as to not make the current year numbers in a incorrect.

Okay.

When you say in current year, what are you talking about?

25, sorry, the current year under audit.

This type of omission or error.

Yes.

All right, I'm good.

Questions, Ms.

Questions, Mr.

Glavin.

Yeah, I'm just uh curious on our assets.

What was the increase in our overall assets?

Can you give me that number where where to point to that?

Capital assets?

Capital assets, so what we have invested in buildings and equipment and all that kind of stuff.

Because we've used some of our cash to, you know, build those assets up.

I'm just curious what was the change in 2025.

They are presented separately on the financial statements.

For the government on page 39, you look at the governmental activities, and there were additions.

If you don't want to include the depreciation because that's a you know non-cash number.

Sure.

There were additions of 6.7 and then transfers.

The transfers are moving it out of uh CIP, construction and progress, and then moving it into the fiscal year the fixed asset system.

So there's a total there, but there are also some disposals.

So we're looking at approximately 21 million increase in governmental activities.

Then if you move on to the next page, the business type activities are presented separately, and there's approximately 1.4 million in increase in capital assets.

Okay.

So we've had a healthy increase in our our assets for the city, which is looked at uh when they rate our bonds or or stuff like that.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's a positive, that's a positive news.

No other questions.

Anything else?

Any other questions, Mr.

Gray?

Mr.

Marshall, anything.

Yeah, um, you gotta excuse me because it's kind of speaking German here.

Okay, in in the general fund.

Was that 4.5 million over the uh previous report of year, prior year balance?

Okay.

Uh I can't find my notes on it, but I think if you showed a negative actually for 2025 change of approximately 2.29 million.

After beginning balance, it will restate it.

I was trying to figure out how do I how did that happen?

What is it what am I missing something?

I didn't consider something.

So you're looking at you're looking for the change in the general fund only.

So on page 21, it shows the net change and fund balance at the bottom, the first column uh of uh decrease in two million.

Is the act from current year activities?

The change is different when you compare the ending fund balance to the prior fund balance due to the prior period adjustment.

Had the prior period adjustment been reported in in the prior year, then the change you would be seeing would be the two million dollars two million decrease, and that is the current year activity.

Looking at the last few years, are you seeing that the are you thinking that the health of the city financial is getting better or there are decline that you could notice?

I do not have the prior year financials with me in order to compare them at this moment.

I can certainly look back at them and provide you with a comparison, but I don't have them before me, so I can't speak to that.

If if I may, thank you.

Uh Kim.

The accounting firm is in the business of presenting facts.

Would that be accurate?

Not in the business of presenting opinions, I think.

Uh did I state that correctly?

Right.

Right.

Exactly.

Your opinion is this is an accurate audit based on the information you received.

Right.

That would be your sale.

Right.

Exactly.

I learned that last year when I met with you.

Thank you.

I just want you to know I remembered.

Thank you.

Mr.

Marshall, I'm sorry.

Any other questions?

No, I'm good.

Okay.

Anybody, Mr.

Schumacher, you're suspiciously quiet today.

You're contemplating.

Okay.

All right.

Mr.

Creel, anything?

Kenny, you're done.

All right, as far as I know, we're done.

Um, do we need to take any action in terms of accepting this audit today?

And that's all we're really doing is or receiving the audit.

Would that be a better would that be a better word?

Okay.

So there's uh there's a resolution to accept the audit as pres not today.

On that, okay.

At a future council meeting, that's good.

You're just here to present it.

Thank you, Maria.

Yeah.

I'm going to work hard to remember your name after four years.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kim.

Appreciate it.

All right.

Um there's the audit for you.

All right.

At this point, we'll move to citizens' comments.

Um we'll allot up to 45 minutes.

We'll give each individual speaker up to three minutes.

Um you recognized, come up to the table, sign in if you have not already done so with your name and address.

Uh you'll have to pull the mic close so that everybody can hear you.

Please state your name and your address clearly so the council clerk can record that accurately for the minutes.

That being said, is there anybody on my left your right that would like to speak?

Yes, Ms.

Ruske.

Good afternoon.

I'm Sarah Rusky, the director of the Harrison County Library System.

And I'm not going to take too much of your time.

I have emailed our budget requests for the library system, and then I have emailed uh modified request.

And so I consolidated some of the information just in a quick one pager for everyone to see what proposed cuts, how they might affect the library.

I give you a 10 percent all the way up to 50 percent.

And so I just wanted to share this with y'all to make sure you got it and and hopefully put it in a an easy to um easy to consume format.

And that is that is all I wanted to say, and thank you for your time.

And uh I will see you um at our budget hearing.

All right.

Thank thank you, Sarah, and uh do appreciate the email that you send everybody dealing with the implications in terms of funding.

Thank you so much.

Is there anybody else on my left that would like to speak?

Here's your opportunity.

Anyone on my right, your left?

Last call.

Gee, almost everybody out there is an employee.

All right.

Thank you.

That concludes citizens' comments.

We'll go to the policy agenda now.

The subject matter of the meeting is to discuss the fiscal year, municipal budget for related purposes.

I think today we're gonna be looking at three or four departmental budgets.

And Mr.

Weaver, I will turn it over to you.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

We're gonna be able to present this draft budget to you currently right now.

We'll go over the police, administration, executive, and legislative today.

As you can see, overall, the directors and the managers have came together and have tightened the belts as much as we possibly can.

Um the employee count on your spreadsheet.

Currently, right now, the layoffs have not done anything on that.

No layoffs have been done.

These are positions that were vacant from either retirements or individuals that have left.

So we have not filled or are not gonna fill these positions currently, right now.

And each department will be able to break those down for y'all of where those positions are and what's going on with it.

But we've done a reduction from the general fund outside of the non-departmental of a little over almost 5.5 million, um, which is a significant reduction in there, which will also come with some services reduction too.

But each department will be able to go through these and explain and answer any of your questions as we go through.

Any questions of me at this point in time or Ms.

Thornton?

Sure.

Just uh just a quick housekeeping note.

On the 11 by 17 that we're looking at uh at the very top, non-departmental total general fund and so forth.

Um that column in in the I guess it's gray or light blue, that's the proposed fiscal year 2027, and right next to it to the right is fiscal year 2026, correct?

Okay, yes, sir.

Just want to be sure.

All right, thank you.

Any other questions before we have the police department?

Start off.

Yes, sir.

I got a question for you.

You say the cuts were for service.

I said reductions to make sure that expenses and revenue were able to come together.

Yes, sir.

What do you mean by reducing?

What do you mean by the word reduction?

Each department will be able to discuss those reductions with you as they come and talk to you, yes, sir.

I understand that, sir, but what do you mean when you say reductions?

A reduction.

If I'm giving you something now, I'm not going to give it to you later.

Okay.

That's a reduction.

So we're reducing the services by a percentage.

We're doing it for certain.

There will be personnel reductions, as you can see.

There's 25 currently at this point in time.

And when you reduce the personnel, then you're not able to do all of the services as well either.

But each department will go into detail with you.

I understand the part about each department going to go into detail, but I'm about to talk into the administration right now.

Asking them for sure if we're saying the same thing or we're using different terms.

My term that uh determines are what I'm hearing is that we're going to be doing less for the people.

Mr.

and Mrs.

Belux will be getting less.

Is that that would you be able to reduction in services?

Let me answer that.

If you if you're asking the question, uh the he's not filling with the services we're providing now, and the bulk of the 25 has come from the un uh uh uh vacancies that are in the place right this minute.

Okay.

If you don't have the people to do these services, uh it may take longer to do these services.

But bottom, you know, the the thrust was to make your revenues match up with your expenses.

61 percent of the whole budget, the 84 million dollars is related to personnel.

That's the easiest and the fastest way.

If you can provide the services with a reduction of number of people, you may have to uh uh the the timing and the frequency might be impacted.

Because the services will still be provided.

I want to I want Mr.

and Mrs.

Biloxi to understand this.

That's why I'm asking you exactly.

Well, it doesn't I'm talking, sir.

It does sound nice when you say reduction.

I like that word reduction, it's a nice little word, but we didn't reduce their income, we didn't reduce the amount of the tax bills and things at all.

However, we want to say that because we're reducing, in other words, we're not gonna hire the people, which means we're gonna cut back the expenses by not hiring people, but we're also having trouble right now keeping the grass cut.

So we're gonna have less people cutting grass, which means we're gonna have worse grass situation because we uh you know I'm talking numbers.

We're talking numbers, the numbers that were reduced or the number of employees that were forecasting for 27.

Now, the impact, you know, there's a several ways that you can uh get things done, but from the cruise and the things that we do with personnel, those numbers will be less.

So they can do more, but it will take longer to do more.

Now, you again these this is for discussion.

Okay.

And the discussion, let me finish what I was trying to say.

This discussion is what is it worth to balance these budget that balance these revenues as expenses.

This is how we it's not magic.

This is how you do it.

Your revenues have been fixed, not on not keeping up with inflation.

Uh and again, sorry, how do we keep up with your council's uh desire to make make a balanced budget?

When you mean balanced budget means equal revenues equal expenses.

This is a way to do it.

Okay.

So go ahead, Mr.

Marshall.

Go ahead.

I want it to be clear, because people are asking the question.

We're not having a good, we're not doing a good job of giving good service now because we're looking at the people complaining, all the complaints we're getting.

So we're going to do less.

Well, these questions you need to ask each department manager if you can perform the things you know.

But this is this is the whole intent was to let each department tell you how do you propose to provide even better services or you know, more frequent services.

That's this question.

That's the question you need to ask as you review with each department.

I'm asking for clarity.

I can ask the I don't know how to make it any clearer.

We we're reducing the number of people.

That's the reduction is the number of people we've proposed to hire.

So if I if I might offer this, we'll get into the nitty-gritty details by speaking with the department heads, they'll be able to tell you how the day-to-day services will be impacted.

If I may, Mr.

Marshall, as go ahead.

I'll ask my question after you complete it.

Go ahead.

Okay.

Before we start calling the department heads, okay, they're not in charge of generating the revenue or anything.

They're just in charge of meeting the numbers.

Okay.

I understand that.

But I don't want Mr.

and Mrs.

Beloxy to think that word doesn't mean what it means.

We can we can sugarcoat how we want to.

We're going to give what we're proposing is overall, each department supply less services to the citizens of this city.

Am I correct?

You know, the whole initiative was related to making revenues and expenses equal.

That was the root of the situation.

Now, there are other ways to do to do things, like increasing revenues and those other kinds of things that may prevent you know impact.

We may hire more people, or your budget may allow us to do it.

But the whole root of this is your directive to say make revenues equal expenses.

And this is the first draft of how we're going to do this.

So the law is by understanding that we have to have a balanced budget, which means our revenues and expenses must match.

It's not a balanced budget.

It's revenues equal expenses.

That's not a balanced budget.

Okay.

Okay.

When you say reduce employees, I want to be very clear what you're actually saying is that we're going to have less people.

We're not going to hire people to do the job that needs to be done.

So we're going to save money.

In order to make the numbers work, we're just not going to hire the people that we need because we can't afford to hire them.

Councilman Marshall, this is a balanced as close revenues versus expenses as we can get.

Apples and energy, sir.

Sir.

I'm I'm asking a question.

I want to make a statement.

Please, whenever you allow me to comment, then let me know.

Are you going to answer the question?

That's what I'm asking.

Go ahead and ask your question, sir.

The question is, are we not hiring people?

Because we can't afford to hire people, which will result in us not as a city provide the people with the services.

Is that a hard question?

This first draft of this budget proposal to the council as a reduction in the amount of employees.

This will not be a final draft until you the council votes to accept it.

This draft will go through multiple different revisions at that time.

We're submitting this to you now to have the discussion of how do we make revenues and expenses come together.

Now, as we increase revenue, we can increase expenses, which will increase the employees, which will also increase other services as well, too.

So did that answer your question, sir?

Simply put, no, sir.

I gotta say everything you just said is basic knowledge.

I just want the administration to say very clearly, so Mr.

and Mrs.

Blexi would know that we are at this draft contemplating according to this draft, having less employees to provide the services, which in turns mean we're gonna be servicing the citizens of this city less.

If I may, I would I would think that it's self-evident, obviously, if we don't have the manpower that we had uh this current year or compared to the previous year, we're not gonna be able to provide the same level or frequency of service as we've done in the past.

There are fewer hands.

So we're gonna have less people working for this city, which means that we're getting complaints that we don't do enough for the citizens already.

So come next year, according to this draft, we're gonna even need to win less.

We're going backwards.

You can beat this all the way you if the the frequency is the key thing that you said.

The other variable in this situation, if there's an ability to raise revenue, you can raise personnel.

But we're not giving up the services, the frequency is what will be impacted by the reduction of number of people.

Right.

Now, the your wish was to make revenues equal expenses.

This is our first draft at doing that.

Now you want to talk you know 50 to 60 more minutes on this.

This is the first draft of this.

And we haven't even talked about revenues and some of the things we could do to impact uh the quality and frequency of services.

We're not giving up anything, and you could question each and every one of these department directors that you you're gonna be talking with, how they can do this with these numbers.

Thank thank you, Mayor.

Um I have I do have a question related to that.

If we're if we're looking at an employee count next year of 577, that's a reduction of 25 from uh this current fiscal year.

Are these positions already vacant or will they be vacant when the fiscal year starts?

Some of them are right now.

We've got a number of vacancies for some of them, but but some of these positions, these 25 have employees in them.

And what I'm getting at is heard?

All the 20, all the 50 are vacant?

25.

I think they are all vacant.

I want to say they are, but I don't know, because that changes from day to day.

But what I'm what we're looking at is, again, trying to make our expenses match our revenue this fiscal this next fiscal year.

And I just want to be sure that we're not laying off people at this point.

That's not what we're talking about.

We're talking about 25 positions that are vacant or due to with retirements, will be vacant here when this next fiscal year rolls around.

It would be similar, it would be similar to vacant positions that we carried for years for a number of years that we we didn't fund this year because they had never ever been filled over a number of years.

So the fact that we are having fewer employees this next year, that's been true probably with each of the past several years.

If we looked at the actual number of employees on the job as opposed to the number of positions in the city, I'll I'll just leave it at that.

But we'll be able to get to the nitty-gritty.

Let me say this is as of seven nine.

Okay, vacancies in department, administration two, community development two, parks and recreation five, police department 16, fire department 11, 7 in public works.

That's that's the vacant positions right now.

We are always looking for employees.

That's right.

We can't find enough police officers.

And what we did in this current fiscal year was we reduced the funding for personnel because we funded only those positions that were filled at that time.

In fact, we have this year, except in special circumstances, usually for first responders, we have not filled positions that became empty this year.

Or maybe in if if it was a special skilled position, but for the most part, um that's kind of been our trend lately is to try and match our revenue, our expenses better with our revenue.

So this year, here's where here is where we find ourselves.

Uh with that being said, any other.

I just want one minute.

So to be clear, I heard you line clear 25 positions that are currently vacant, unfilled.

You we're starting there, we don't intend to uh fill those positions.

Could it compromise services, of course, if we don't have the numbers and y'all are not hiding that you said it could be a reduction in services.

However, we have other things in our toolbox.

So in the in regards to grass cutting or ditch cleaning, we can uh solicit uh our partners in the county to perhaps pick up a little bit of the slack, maybe not all of it, but we if we communicate effectively, that's why we are a team, and we're a team with the county as well.

So those are some strategic things that we need to try to put in place.

And again, this uh somebody used the word first draft.

Today is our starting point on the expenses.

We had a starting point, not a concrete number on the revenues.

Now we have a starting point for these departments, and I've been sitting in on some of the strategic uh discussions, as has uh uh Mr.

Tisdale and and Mr.

Marshall.

So we have a glimpse into the hard work Rick and the mayor and each department has been putting into this to get at this uh point today.

So we all got to roll up our sleeves, work together in unity, and uh kind of get this budget where it needs to go, and then we execute it.

That's all I have, Mr.

President.

Thank you, Mr.

Gladby.

Mr.

Mayor, could you read those positions that again with department they are?

I can ask you this one.

How many was with the police department?

16.

Speak into the mic.

And and to clarify that.

I'll repeat that apologize.

And if I may, to clarify that, although we have these are positions that are available, that we're right.

So we have sixteen positions, let's say in the Belsey Police Department.

They are not all sworn.

That's what we say.

They're not all sworn, no.

They are not all sworn officers.

We want the public to know that.

But again, let me say two in administration, two in community development, five in parks and creation, sixteen in the police department, eleven in the fire department, seven in public works.

And those are the numbers that you get, each one of y'all get on a monthly basis as well, sent to you from HR department.

That's correct.

And generally, and looking at that that report that you're kind enough to send to us, uh the number of uh positions vacant in the city vary from seven percent, which I would I think in looking at it at the data would be uh relatively good month.

We only have seven percent vacancies, which is about 40 positions.

Think about that.

And sometimes it's as high as eleven percent, which is 60 folks.

So I mean the the service frequency of service uh has been impacted every year for the past number of years, probably since maybe just before COVID or COVID, ever since then, it's just tough to fill all these positions, and that was five years ago.

Okay, we ready to move on?

I got one in I got one question.

All right, go ahead, Mr.

Nair.

Does the city employees know that we're that we're what we're doing here today with this budget that they might need to step it up a little bit?

Maybe start working a little harder.

Because we're trying to make this work our own cells.

Well, yes, sir, all the city employees, they have supervisors and the directors are here, and if you have any comments towards any of them as they come up, please as the councilman feel free to tell them derogatory or positive.

And uh if you think that they need to step their game up, let that director know they need to step their game up.

If you think that they're doing a good job, let them know that.

Okay.

What I would ask is that you understand the entire picture and not just see a snapshot of something.

Okay.

And I also would ask that we take a look, and if we're gonna do a revenue and generating aspect, that it not fall on the city employees solely.

Okay.

Uh and having said that, my other observation would be given the fact that this is uh a publicized meeting.

I'd be surprised if employees aren't viewing this very video in the next 24 to 48 hours if they're not viewing it now for exactly that reason.

All right.

I had another question out just for clarification.

Final question.

Yeah.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Of course, always the final question.

Always.

Uh Mr.

Mayor, you you said it was 25 positions, but your numbers indicate 43.

That's right now.

Yeah.

We're proposing 25 less than what's vacancies show right now as far as numbers.

What extent is we have to do vacancies right now today for next fiscal year?

It's going to be 25 positions less.

That helps.

Okay.

Is that good?

Would that be the same as a hiring phrase?

No, sir.

We went over all of this Friday with you, Councilman Tisdale, and Councilman Gladvin and discussed all of these details on Friday.

Well, I looked at the numbers and everything, but I want to make sure I'm hearing this right.

I'm on.

So we're just not going to hire anybody.

We're not going to hire those numbers of positions.

The numbers you have right now are greater than this, so those positions are still available for being hired.

Okay.

That's not called a hiring phrase.

Position adjustment.

Positions are open.

We may not be able to tell.

I'm a civil, I'm a I'm a uh domestic engineer.

All right, sir.

We're good.

All right, good.

Uh I'm gonna make a meeting adjustment.

We're gonna move to the first director's report.

Uh Chief Everett.

Welcome to the big dance.

Thank you.

All right.

Thanks for having us.

Who is your who is your sorcerer's apprentice, your trustee sidekick.

Sorry, I'm Laurence Slater.

I'm in the finance division.

All right.

Thank you for being here today.

You start wherever you like, Chief.

All righty.

I I like to start off with back when internally we started having a bush uh budget discussions within the police department.

All the components of the police department put together their wish list.

When we had this wish list, it totaled out to be about 24 million one hundred and forty-nine thousand seven hundred and eighty-three dollars.

From that point, we started having our own internal cuts that we were doing, you know, trimming the fat.

Anything that we necessarily did not need and it was a want, we did away with.

As we progressed, we got to the numbers that was okay, that was provided to us that was ideal for our department, which was about 23,900,000.

So we finally got last week to the budget workshops.

We shopped, we met that 23.9.

We we made the necessary cuts.

It wasn't pretty.

But we made the cuts that was necessary to get there.

However, when we left the two-day workshop, we were down a little bit more than what our ideal or target number was.

So in total, we're at about 2.9 million that we had to cut out of our buttons, or I'm sorry, reduce our budget based on the ideal number that was given to us.

Now, as you can tell, that is different, a little bit lower than where it was last year.

So we struggled this year a little bit operationally.

There were some there were things that we were doing in the past that we were not able to do this year.

I have my very high concerns about the services that we are going to be able to offer to the citizens of Biloxi moving forward.

And just kind of give you an idea of where we are.

We did that.

But in doing that, that involved forfeiting some of the positions that we had available on the patrol side of the house.

The impact that that's going to have is we're already short now, where we need investigators, we need another animal control officer, we need traffic officers, we need um people in crime scene.

We have needs in order to provide the services that you all demand of us.

The phone calls that I get about you know the unsheltered people that are hanging out.

If you go back years ago, you didn't really make that many phone calls because of that.

We had a dedicated squad that was addressing those issues.

They were the liaison between the city and the resources that were available for these unsheltered groups.

We had to dismantle that group because we were so uh so short patrol wise, and once we dismantled that group, we haven't been able to catch up since.

Well, currently we have two spots that we can fill.

Those two people just resigned.

But we have probably six or seven people that are in our process to be hired.

So we can't add bodies to uh outside of the two, we can't add bodies right now to kind of backfield where we need to be.

Um the council meetings we've, I mean, the war means we've been to traffic complaints, issue speeder, speeders, speeders.

We have over 20 of those complaints right now.

We're short in traffic.

Our traffic manpower or our officers, they're dedicated to escorts, traffic crashes, all this other stuff.

So can they necessarily get around to all these speeding complaints that we're continuously taking?

They can't.

There's no way around that.

They just can't.

We're being asked to do more with less, and for years we've done that.

We have squeaked by.

However, it don't stop your phone calls, don't stop your phone calls, your phone.

It it they don't stop.

We're having to get creative in how we're gonna address these issues.

But at the end of the day, to the citizens, it looks as if we, the police department, we're not doing what's being required of us.

Trust me.

Before I came over here, we were dealing with an issue.

Hey, we will find out what happened with that issue, we will address it.

But I can tell you this the group that we had dealing with the unsheltered population, it's only one person doing that.

You may get one person.

We're talking about for the entire city of Biloxi.

We can't keep going like that.

If we do, we're gonna have to lower the expectations of what it is that we're wanting out of our police officers.

Because we we prioritize our calls.

The citizens of Biloxi, you know, the in progress calls, the medical calls that we get dispatched to, all that stuff is gonna take priority than somebody hanging out on the corner, to be honest with you.

I know it's not it's not pleasing, it's not the polite thing to say, but we are going to answer our calls for service first.

That's always gonna be our priority.

Nothing is gonna change about that.

So, in terms of dealing with the manpower, the the staffing, we're gonna have to have that.

And if we're done, that's fine.

We can keep going the way we're going right now, and we can make it work.

I'm telling you right now, we can make it work.

But what I'm asking of you is when you're asking for additional things, please support us when we can't offer that.

And and the first thing, and then I'm gonna point out events.

Nobody wants to hear me say this.

Events eat up the vast majority.

I don't see a good chunk of our overtime.

Before I walked out of office today, I started just taking a look over all the events that we have.

I counted up to 30 without finishing the list.

I just stopped at 30.

Out of that 30, I randomly selected 17.

Out of that 17 was 417, 417, 313 for 17 events.

Again, that's everybody having to work.

Every single officer we have, and some of those events, we're begging other agencies to come down.

If it were not for Harrison County and our partners with the state, we absolutely could not safely host event, an event in the city of Biloxi.

It's impossible.

Scraping the coast, cruising the coast, spring break, air shows, whatever you look at, if we want to protect our citizens and the people that are here to enjoy this event, we could not do it alone.

If the state pulls out at any moment because they got other resources or other important obligations to deal with, it falls back to us in Harrison County, and you can ask them.

We are strapped during these events because they have other areas that they have to take responsibility of as well.

I don't know how to look at that one.

And then just I touched on I stopped at 30.

Could we do this?

Absolutely.

But that 31st event, that 32nd event, that 33rd event, when it comes before the committee, we can't support those.

One, where's the money gonna come from?

Where are the additional resources gonna come from?

These are all things that are gonna fall in our laps, not just us.

When we have these events, we drag fire department, we drag public works, we drag community development, parks and rec, they're all in this with us.

The police department alone just don't go deal with it.

So now that you know, 100,000 or whatever you're looking at the police department, that's intensified because we have the other services from the city as well that's being rendered.

So it's something that's going to spiral out of control if we don't get ahead of it.

So, and I'm not here to point a finger at anybody.

I'm not saying it's the mayor's fault, I'm not saying it's Mr.

Weaver's fault.

I'm not saying it's your fault.

All I'm saying is here we are this time.

We we've we've gotten a peek behind the curtain.

We know where we are, what we're doing is not working.

What we have to work with is not gonna cut it when we are trying to sustain what it is that we are doing and add to that.

That's just the truth.

I I wish I could dress it up better, but that's the truth.

In this particular um reduction of services, we lost the ability to hire additional people.

We lost cars that we need.

We lost items that we the camera system at the police department, outdated, unsupported.

If a crime were to occur within that police department, we have to rush right now to get the video pulled.

It's so old we get about four to six days where it starts recording over.

In talking to IT and other people about this camera system, the vulnerabilities that we have by this old system is it's through the roof.

It's a liability.

We had to cut that from it.

We we had to remove that to meet this number.

Our CVSA machines, they are truth detecting um instruments.

We use those for criminal cases.

We use them for administrative investigations, we use them for background in the hiring process.

Well, they're exceeded their support life.

And anybody who's ever dealt with those machines know after four or five years or so, they get to a point where they start glitching.

Maybe it's designed that way to keep us by, I don't know.

But when they glitch, we're talking they shut down and you start over.

That's a lengthy process.

We're at a point where we need two right now.

However, we can limp them alone.

I'm okay.

We can do that.

We can stretch out another year if we need be.

The picture I'm just trying to paint is we can maintain what we're doing.

We can't add to it.

We absolutely cannot add to it.

And we've asked questions, whether it was myself or other department heads.

We've asked questions, how do we get away from this?

And we don't have the answers.

We don't.

And if you look at our budget that was cut, you turn to parks and rec.

Okay, well, why can't you cut more out of your book?

Well, they can't either.

We were all in the room together.

We go back to our agencies, and the first thing we hear is what is the city doing for the people.

I had somebody tell me yesterday or ask me yesterday.

Why is the city trying to balance the budget on the backs of the employees?

I don't have an answer.

We give and we give and we give, and it just seems like more and more is being taken from us.

And this isn't and just from what we're seeing here, it goes back to the doing more with less, and we're just going to need the support when it gets to a point when we cannot add more to our plate.

Sorry about the rant, but that's okay, Chief.

I considered it, I don't consider it a RAN.

I consider it a clear level headed explanation, which is why we're here today.

It's here's the situation.

Here's the situation.

Everybody needs to know what the situation is because we know we have some difficult and challenging questions to answer and also uh determine how we're how we're gonna allocate these dollars that we have.

So appreciate your uh candor on that.

I got a question.

Uh go ahead, Mr.

Gray.

What where do you need to be at?

Where where do you think you need to be to be able to service people, give them the service that they need?

All right, so ideally 147 is where we want to be.

And that 147 would give us the ability to bring back this the squad, this proactive unit that we have to address the unsheltered population.

It gives us the ability to add to our traffic division.

It gives us the ability to beef up our our patrol numbers to where maybe we're we're getting a little bit ahead, and we can start adding other components to the police department, such as um in our future plan, our five to ten year plan, we have a um proactive unit that we've been planning for a couple years.

We put this proactive unit together, they are going to be split into two squads and they're gonna go on the same schedule as a normal patrol officer.

However, they're gonna specialize in dealing with some of these in progress and aggravated calls.

However, on the backside of it, they're gonna be working different hours as well, which is gonna cut down on the amount of overtime we're getting for investigators being called out during the night and over the course of the weekend.

So you need about 1.7 more than what you got?

Sir.

You need about 1.7 more than what you have now?

Is that what you're saying?

What are you looking at?

Let me do some quick math.

Chief at fit.

147.7.

We're talking about money or are we talking about bodies?

No money.

Money, okay.

How much more money do you need than what you're getting now?

We know you need all the bodies you can find.

Wow.

Absolutely.

I did see something.

Hold it up.

A little over a little over a million.

That will no that won't give you vehicles.

We that's something else we had to cut.

Right.

Or reduce, we we reduced our number from 10, well, eleven.

We have one ACO at an animal control officer.

We re we uh remove that's from our wish list, and then we reduce the amount of vehicles from 10 marked patrol vehicles to three.

So if we hired additional bodies, we're gonna need additional vehicles.

Okay.

All right, and each vehicle, excuse me, each vehicle basically upfitted and everything is what about 90, 80 to 90,000?

A chunk.

Thank you.

All right.

Go ahead, Mr.

Gray.

That's all I have.

All right.

Thank you.

Question, Mr.

Creel.

So do that direct purchase, is that is that vehicles?

The the 127, I believe it was.

128409.

Is that am I looking at that right or is it the wrong line item?

Okay.

Thank you.

So that that that one twenty-eight four nine, that's vehicles.

That's the two that you're referring to.

Three.

It's mainly vehicles with a couple of other items.

You have $7,000 for that archive?

And then 85, I'm sorry, 8995 for one CVS C V SA machine.

Yes.

Okay.

And then one wheel balancer.

Arrest is vehicles.

So we didn't buy any vehicles last year.

All the vehicles we did last year were lease.

Is that what that is?

Well we purchased them.

It's just a lease purchase to pay for them over five years, but yes, we did purchase them.

So that's a 752, Diane?

Is that the 752?

Where do you see 752?

The FY2026, right below the direct purchase.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah.

Out number.

Right.

Uh 640, yes.

So that's that's what that is from last year.

So all right, so that's this would be a capital purchase of the three vehicles would we would actually buy outright.

Right.

Okay.

Finance.

What we're looking at, Councilman Creel for that is we've discussed before that from the actual patrol units, we try to rotate them out every five years.

So 20 percent of his fleet would be equivalent to at least 11 patrol vehicles.

That's not including any of his administrative or anything else.

So but this year, based upon the money where we're looking at, we were did a reduction down to three.

So this this uh how many vehicles was it last year that the 752 was left?

I believe.

Eleven patrol vehicles.

Plus he had uh two or three administrative vehicles, I believe.

I don't know that we got administrative vehicles last year.

You got a couple of them, not much.

So but they did we did the 11 to maintain 20 percent.

Sure did.

And then we were moving from there.

And we're trying to do 11, 11, 11 to keep that going to where they always had some, because you're always gonna have either vehicle down.

Uh unfortunately, we do have accidents from multiple different reasons.

And so those are things that just happen.

So that 752 would be a five-year deal.

Is that what we're looking at every five years at 752?

No.

No.

No.

Every year, 11 vehicles.

Right, but that 752 represented 11 vehicles that we leased last year, leased to purchase.

Yes.

Okay.

Um, so Chief, and I know you you're down some in employees, but I I know we we we have that 80 percent gig going on.

And you've had some people take advantage of that, correct?

We've had nobody right now.

We haven't done anything with that from my understanding it anybody who retired that will be eligible for it, could not um apply for it until their 30 days were over.

Okay.

So do we do we know what savings that would be?

I mean, I I know it's if we were to hire someone, the general average is about 11.8 percent, is what we would save or yes.

And then that's gonna fluctuate multiple different ways, in which Diana is gonna go into more detail.

Well, we didn't budget to bring back an 80 percent people because there is no guarantee that they'll come back.

Okay.

So we budgeted the position at the full rate in case if a different person fills it.

Okay.

Now, did we include that position uh for potential comeback in in this?

But the position is budgeted.

It is budgeted.

Right.

So for the ones uh the three that's retired, it's they're budgeted in hopes.

Budgeted at 100 percent, because if a different person fills them, they're not eligible for the 80 percent reduction in Okay, but I thought you said that we reduce so we we do have open positions in the police department currently.

That would be fully funded.

Yes.

Yes, yes.

Okay.

That's right.

All right, and and you had mentioned when you partnered with Harrison County and the state for the events, and I don't know.

Have we have we tried Keysler or does Keysler they will I I've tried personally, I've tried to get Keysler.

Their legal team will not allow them to arm off base.

Got it.

Okay, and then outside security, is that is that even an option?

A private security company to to assist.

It is.

Well, I I mean, I guess we would is it an avenue that we looked at to see if it would be a cost savings as opposed to having more overtime if it would be less expensive to contract uh than it would be to have your entire force working with uh with overtime, especially with the whole package that we have and PERS and things of that nature.

Well, well, I'll say this.

That's a little bit unique in a sense because of what it is that we do.

Normally in these on these events, our officers are out in the middle of the event itself.

You put a security officer out there, especially on arm, no protection or anything like that.

Well, people need help.

They're going to the first person they see they think is a police officer, and they're it they're not going to be equipped to deal with the situations that we are equipped to deal with.

So I would say that would be kind of unique in a sense.

So and and the only reason I brought it up is I would think that you you have the expertise of identifying the positions where your officers need to be and where a security officer could be that would be less interactive or less instead of putting a police officer there, someone that didn't need to be in the heat of the matter.

But I yeah, I get what you're saying on that.

I just you know how to catch a a unique rabbit, right?

How's that?

Unique up on it.

So I I think there's a there's uh there may be an opportunity to look at financing there.

Um so you mentioned your your camera systems um in the in the um downtown.

Is there is there grants not available that we could explore to see if I know there's match money that comes with that.

I know where Mr.

Rick was going with that.

I know there's match money that comes with that, but is there federal grants that we could explore?

I know Congressman Easel does a lot with uh with the uh law enforcement with uh federal grants.

So that's why I was asking.

Have we explored anything on that?

But we actually have started looking at it.

We haven't found a a true source yet that will I I guess that will fall on it, or we would that would meet the criteria for.

I know a few years ago, um Director Miller and um Chief D Bag, they both looked at some of the state technology money to try to get that process rolling, and I don't believe that ever panned out for one reason or another.

Okay.

And then um I agree with everything you said.

Um and and I understand your concern when you say this is what we can get by with this year.

Um and and we can't put more on our plate because our plate's pretty full right now.

However, I wanna just I'd be remiss if I didn't remind this council that, especially with our police and our fire, not to demean any other department, but we really have to look at what we give up short term and what we're gonna be giving up long term as well.

I understand this gentleman sat there and he cut and did what he needed to do to get what the numbers that and we appreciate you going through that exercise 1,000 percent because I know it's not an easy job and it's not an easy job for us, but by doing what you did, kind of we're in this together.

We're in this together.

So, you know, we're here to help you since and you gave us a balanced effort bringing what you brought to the table, and we appreciate that.

But please, we have to understand what we're giving up short term.

Let's not make sure we don't give that up long term either.

I don't want him to come in here with this 23 million and all of a sudden next year we said, well, you did it with 23.

Can you do it with 20?

That's that's not the way I'm foreseeing this gentleman.

He come up here with a good face estimate.

We're gonna look at it, see what we can do, and we're gonna reinvest in you.

So thank you.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

All right, thank you, Mr.

Glavin.

Yes, Chief, appreciate you sitting in the seat today and answering some of these uh difficult questions.

Um I had some similar points that uh Councilman Creel made, but I'm gonna I'm gonna focus back on the grants and and I've been doing a lot of research uh prior to this meeting and and jotted some of these grants down.

So are you familiar with the uh Mississippi Office of Hot Highway Safety Patrol grant?

Are you that particular one?

I I haven't looked at it directly, no, sir.

Uh you know the acronym is MOHS.

Um but it reimburses 100 percent of of some cost.

Okay, uh well, just I'm not aware of the grants that we have, so that's why I jotted some of these down to to kind of answer that question.

So I'll mark mine off that we are participating in that particular one.

And I believe we also in this other one, the Mississippi um Office of Homeland Security has some homeland uh security grants.

And we're we're using some of those.

Um there's also another grant I jotted down, the Mississippi community-oriented uh policing services and schools.

Have y'all heard of that one?

Is that the more related to um school resource officers, I guess?

Well, it's uh $10,000 per officer uh to deploy at uh school resource centers.

Yes, sir.

Yeah.

Okay.

And there's another grant called the Justice Assistance Grant.

uh security grants and we're we're using some of those um there's also another grant uh jot it down the Mississippi community oriented uh policing services and schools have y'all heard of that one is is that the more and more related to um school resource officers I guess well it's um ten thousand dollars per officer uh to deploy at uh school resource centers yeah okay and there's an another grant called the Justice Assistance Grant it's a local law enforcement uh block grant I don't know if y'all are familiar with that one um and some of these may be just coming on online uh to apply for uh but this uh can be applied for those technology upgrades that you were speaking of earlier uh that's what these are specifically for so I don't know what the grant the matches uh for this particular grant if there is any uh if we qualify um and then the CHIP CHP y'all heard of that grant it's a cops hiring program I I think is uh the technical uh term for it and that's direct uh federal funding to cover up to 75 percent of any entry level uh positions or fringe positions yes okay um and I know there there's probably uh several more but I I think maybe another brush and scrub at uh the available grants you never know what we may uncover to fill a significant or or if even if it's a little part of the gap uh it certainly helps.

Um have we ever considered and those budget meetings but following reports online uh for nonviolent uh you know crimes or maybe past tense crimes?

We have there was a program looked at a few years ago that I believe was budgeted I I want to say maybe 2324 but it was one of the things that got reduced out of our budget as well.

Okay and then video calls versus actually dispatching a car to a to an address if if possible I know some law enforcement agencies are are going to a video call and it saves on gas wear and tear on that uh vehicle I you know and again these programs would have to get be given some thought you can't you know pull the trigger on these tomorrow but there's certainly ideas uh as we move forward and think outside the box a little bit that may be something that we look look into.

Um let's see Mr.

Glavin I will I will say to that for something along those lines we're going to most likely have to get with the court about as well because if there's anything that at a later time there's gonna be some type of affidavit signed against somebody for arrest that's going to come that person's gonna have to be subpoenaed and maybe I'm overthinking it but I want to look at that as well as as you should overthinking especially in law enforcement I mean that's a critical service that we uh provide and uh you know to a city like ours.

So uh I I just wanted to point those ideas out just uh as a outside the box kind of way of thinking we have some tough decisions.

Hopefully as we go through your departments one by one today and we get back uh to other adjustments that we're gonna make if we make any of those savings we need to try to pay it back to the high priority items that we are making some of these difficult uh decisions to cut that concludes my report my comments Mr President thank you thank you Mr Glavin Mr.

Schumacher thank you Chief great presentation I thought great presentation I'll say a few things um you know with the police department I I think it's a unique department and not to diminish any other department but obviously public safety I think at some point and we've done it and and I know we we have to look at the budget we have to cut where we can cut but I'm not certain and I was a police officer a long time if the department can sustain and make it through the next budget year with what I see and what I hear.

That's my opinion I'll ask your opinion in a second but you said it a minute ago as well I think and I know this the last couple years at least since I've been here we ask more just what you said earlier.

You know we're asking for more with less and we've done it the last two years and when does it end?

I mean if if if we roll into next year and you're able to make it with this then do we say hey you did it last year you're gonna do it this year.

So my concern is when does it end?

I mean if we're cutting overtime we're cutting positions we don't have the officers you said it yourself you're running the show you and Chief D back in your personal opinion can we sustain and make it with with with what you have in these cuts now?

Sustain?

No.

Can we limp along this budget year?

We can sustain no events tonight we could have a major crime you have CID you have officers work 24 hours of overtime it could happen five times in the next two weeks we can't foresee that and that's my concern plus the events you mentioned the events earlier.

We can't foresee that.

And that's my concern.

Plus the events you mentioned the events earlier.

Again, overtime is a major concern, but but cars.

I know you y'all mentioned three vehicles but you were hoping for how many?

11.

And we're you're asking for three.

Hopefully we can I I would love to get 11 but positions.

We've the positions are cut.

And and I think you mentioned 147.

I know there was some confusion there, but did you mention 147 positions earlier?

That's what I thought.

Yeah.

And I don't know if we can do that.

That would be fantastic but even at 147 does that kind of get you in a better position.

Okay.

That helps a lot.

Significant.

Council absolutely chief will you explain what the 147 is versus the rest of your administrative staff as well too because if you look here you've got more than 147 and I don't want anyone to get confused.

You're in reference to actual patrol on 147 correct right.

Do you know just out of curiosity are we at 132 sworn now?

132.

Do you know what the what the increase in in money would be between 132 and the 147 sworn a little over a million.

Just for those officers and that's for that's a factor.

That's what I was going to excuse me ma ma'am if if you would just at that point you've got to you got to share the mic the people at home have no idea what was said.

That's okay.

That's all right it's tough to remember that a million dollars but that to 147 for the additional but that does cover salary that covers the insurance and pretty much everything outfitting them and okay we still have officers that are applying now so are we still getting a steady stream of applicants?

Yes yes sir we we have six I think in the background process right now.

Okay.

And and I guess uh lastly morale and I know I know the troops are you know they're concerned about the budget and equipment and overtime and everything else what's the morale like at the police department right now?

It's not great.

And it's more than one factor into that.

I think it's kind of one of those things where it's kind of been kind of boiling for a little bit and now it's starting to boil over you have the strain that officers are put that they're put on officers from working short you have but I'll give you an example before I go too far off.

We just had the critical incident a couple um weeks ago that's five officers that are being required to come in and work overtime.

The reason they are required to come in is because the ships are already short.

So if we don't force them to work then there may be a part of the city with no police officers there may be a part of the city with two police officers or one police officer.

So we have to force them to come in.

So on top of you know being forced to work overtime being forced to work events you know me breathing down their necks about you know why people are sleeping on the sidewalks or making them get out and do more you know while they're working short it's just a whole bunch of stuff that are fine it's just finally coming to a head and most of that all really circles and comes right back down to this budget.

Yes.

Yeah.

Okay.

And and obviously that's their major issue of the okay that's that's all I have for now thank you.

All right Mr.

Creel for one question.

So the so the 147 if you were if you had the 147 do you have the vehicles for the 147 So we currently no sir we don't okay we have some vehicles we have 80 marked police vehicles for patrol out of that 80 I think we have probably about 13 or so that are nine years or greater.

We're kind of limping those along right now they're they're our backup units.

So if we were to hire police officers right now a lot of them are going to go in those older backup units.

Okay and those are take home vehicles mostly is what they are?

Yes sir all marked patrol vehicles okay thank you thank you Mr.

Gray you said you had a question if you um if you had the money to hire more do you have the officers you can hire?

We have some we currently right we're at 132 if the six that we have in this background process they make it through that would be six we could hire rather quickly.

You know, nobody wanted to apply for this job last year.

So that's that's why I just want to see if you're all we're seeing the numbers.

It's just slower than what we've seen years ago.

We may get just last month.

We probably had 20, 20 people, so that apply to be a police officer.

When it came down time to test, I think five or six showed up.

Right.

So we're we're seeing them for whatever reason, some of the other agencies they hire a lot quicker than we do.

We can get you in in a couple months, another agents can get you in in two weeks, three weeks.

So they're we're losing people at other agencies.

No fault of anything that we're doing internally, it's just we're gonna do our due diligence regardless of the the amount of police officers we need.

Working short is better than working with the wrong people.

So we we don't want to compromise in that area.

So we are losing a couple people that way, but we are still seeing threes and fours here and there.

So we can hire, and I feel like we can hire consistently the days of seeing 15, 20 police officers hired at one time, that's probably behind us.

Right.

Okay.

I know last year, yeah, having trouble people applying, so at least so.

All right, thank you.

That's all I have.

All right, Mr.

Marshall.

All right.

A little odd.

Um to the police department, um, chief.

None of this is your fault.

I think it's embarrassing to Mr.

and Mrs.

Biloxi that we have to sit here and listen to our chief tell us that the mere viability of our police department, of our police department is on the table.

We can change the wording, we can get all funky with the way we say the word, make it sound better, but bottom line is you just showed us that the viability of our police department is on the table.

It's on the line.

I was not expecting this type of information when I first ran for office.

I began to hear it last year.

That's why I could not support the budget last year.

I made my concerns last year, you guys say I'm just fussing and preaching.

This year.

Should have a police chief sitting there saying the things you just said.

No city that should be on this Gulf Coast.

If any city in this Gulf Coast, it shouldn't be this city of all the cities.

This what we're hearing, and I would go, I'm gonna assume that every department come after you.

I'm gonna hear the same thing.

Okay, worse and worse and worse.

It hurts me more than that.

It's very important.

But I'm just old school.

If I die 911, I'd be dang if we're gonna zoom call.

I'd be dang if you're gonna video call me.

If I die at 911, I need to know you're already on the way.

You you know who I am.

It's showing up on the computer.

You got somebody in the route already.

We got senior citizens having the medical emergency.

We ain't zooming nothing.

We are we're not.

I'm not pretty not anybody for saying that, but we're not video recording uh uh video chatting.

That's not what we do here.

The fact that we we're looking for that type of a service to our citizens to save money, tells you what dire shape we are in as a city, and that's embarrassing.

Did I hear you say that you went to Kiesel and asked them to help?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

We should not have to go and ask a military base to help patrol our streets or help us on our streets.

Ms.

Mr.

Marshall for special events.

For special events, so we oh, I'm glad you brought the special events up.

It gets worse.

I'm gonna I told Dr.

Tiz, yeah, I'm gonna be nice.

I'm trying to calm down.

Not going, I'm I'm gonna be nice and as brief to the point as you can be.

Thank you.

I'm not gonna be very brief because I know Mr.

Mrs.

Blux don't pay me to be brief.

They pay me to be straight to the facts.

And I'm gonna do just that.

We shouldn't have to ask them to help us.

We should be able to take care of our own.

Events.

We are a tourist town.

Which means we have events.

Events means tourism.

It means that we have more hotels being filled and booked.

We have restaurants that we want, hey, come hold up a restaurant in Balexi, but when we have events that can have too many people, we don't want the event because it'd be too many people, which are the customers of the restaurants.

When people go to a new city for a tourist, they don't they really don't want to eat in their own, they want to go to new, exciting, different restaurants.

But we can't protect them because we don't have the money.

This is boiling down to a failure.

And it's not the police department.

And the next department that comes here, the department here to sit in those chairs, it's not their fault either.

You can bring every department down here to the rotor rule, man.

It's not their fault.

We as elected officials have got to come up with a plan.

Put it on the table.

We may not like the person presenting the plan.

We may not like the plan.

But cutting, that's not a good plan.

It hasn't worked last year.

Didn't work the year before.

Didn't work three years before.

It hadn't worked in the last five years.

Hadn't worked in the last six years.

So I guess we're talking about the definition of insanity.

That's what this is.

We have got to sit down and address the issues.

We cannot have our police chief sitting there telling us that because of finances.

You can't protect fully protect the citizens who are paying the bills.

I do have some other things I want to say, but there again, I'm not gonna preach.

And we, as the elected officials, have to do our job.

And I like to also note that the mayor is not in this room while his police chief is telling us that the viability of his police department is on the table.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Marshall.

Uh Mr.

Weaver.

As the chief administrative officer, I'm the one who deals with the budget on here from this.

The mayor and I have discussed this fully, and he's very much aware of what's going on with this budget.

I didn't elect you, sir.

Thank you.

I appreciate you doing.

I like you.

Easy, Mr.

Marshall.

But I did not elect you.

You know, we was not on the bank.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr.

Weaver, I appreciate that.

There being no uh further questions of the police chief and his trustee assistant.

Thank you for coming again today.

Uh, Chief, as I said earlier, appreciate your clear explanations and describing the situation.

Um, and we appreciate the job that you do.

It's a difficult job regardless.

It's always a difficult job.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Okay.

Mr.

Weaver, who's next in uh the lineup?

Stop it.

Legislate.

Legislative, yeah, that's us.

And Carrie, if you don't mind going over the details, you good with that.

Do you want me to?

I'm happy to do whatever, but I know you deal with this.

Uh there's really not a whole lot to say.

We've cut out everything except uh those things that were required to do by law.

So uh I think that resulted in about a 40,000 dollar reduction.

40,756 because Mr.

Creel is counting individual dollars, and we appreciate that.

Uh that being said, is there anything else you you needed to add to that with any questions from the council?

Mr.

Schumacher.

But we backtrack.

I agree that we need to cut some of our budget as well as everyone else.

However, that being said, as an elected official, and I'll use an example, a ward meeting.

I know we've cut all postage, I think, mail outs and everything else.

We have B news for now.

I don't know how that's gonna pan out in the future and moving forward.

But even with B news, if I have one ward meeting a year and I can't advertise or send an advertisement in the mail to all of my residents, then I'm having a ward meeting.

So very few people show up because I have no way to advertise other than maybe Facebook.

They're gonna come to me and want to know why I didn't advertise and let my resident or my residents know that I was having a ward meeting, and that's gonna be for all of us up here.

I have a citizen to Wool Market page on Facebook that's very involved.

But even then, not everyone gets on the Facebook, and not everyone is gonna see what is posted on Facebook.

A lot of the councilmen don't have Facebook pages like we have.

So I have an issue with our part of the budget being cut that I can't even send a mail out when I have a ward meeting because it's hard enough, quite frankly, as an elected official sometimes from the administration and the things that get put back on us that we have no say so zero to do with day-to-day that we get I guess accused of and blamed for.

So it's hard enough, and I think when you're taking away now are only really means of advertising a ward meeting, to me that's an issue.

Secondly, again, you know, I went to Washington this year with the mayor, I've been to Jackson, I've paid for Jackson my first year to the legislative reception.

And again, that's not for me.

That's I'm not doing that because I want to.

I've been to Jackson and Washington, I've been to Jackson several times, and luckily the city has paid for that.

But it is for the city.

So again, if we are gonna take a trip to Washington to speak to Congressmen and Senators to benefit the city, or the same thing in Jackson, if we go to Jackson to speak to senators, representatives, MDO, whomever, we now will have to pay for that ourselves.

Which I certainly don't understand, and I understand I know the mayor is the mayor, but he can quite frankly go wherever he wants to go on the city's dime, but we as a council will not be able to travel anywhere.

I don't even know if we'll be able to go to training in Jackson because unless excuse me, unless we pay for that ourselves.

So my point is, I guess, is our budget, and I understand when it comes to law enforcement, fires, public works, this is nothing, this is minute minuscule.

Honestly, I understand that.

However, I mean, those are my comments, and I don't think it's um quite right that we're cutting our budget to nothing.

I don't even know that we'll be able to buy uh paper and pens, but and I'll I'll leave it with this.

When I was elected, because I'm a retired policeman in the city of Biloxi, my salary is very little.

So there is a difference in tens of thousands of dollars between the money I make in a year and the salary that is budgeted for the council.

Everyone else makes one amount, I make very little.

So even that money, I would think should, if not all of it, some of that be budgeted right back here that would allow us to go to Jackson if we needed to, or at least send out a flyer in the mail for a ward meeting.

And that's all I have.

Thank you.

Do you have a question?

Mr.

Creel has a question.

So real quick on um software licensing, would what software and it increased.

So yes, that's for our code book.

It's the codification of the code book.

It's also our computer software and our DCR recording for the council meetings.

And then the official documents.

The official documents are our minute book purchases.

Got it.

I just I noticed we didn't have it last year, that's why.

We didn't.

We separated it from printing and binding to be able to have funds, so we separated it and moved it.

Perfect, thank you.

All right, Mr.

Glavin.

Nothing.

Okay.

Mr.

Gray, anything?

All right.

Mr.

Marshall.

Go ahead.

Just like we just want to throw it right this one.

Come right on to me, right?

No come back.

Uh and I'm not gonna say anything I didn't say already to the person.

To the person already.

I told them that I meant it.

Mr.

Glavin was the president of our council for the four-year.

President President Glavin did everything he was supposed to do.

The legislation.

Legislature branch of this city is just at a branch of this city.

A lot of times I ran into Mr.

Glavin.

He was doing his job, making sure that all we ran the department, our whole branch.

Count stamps.

Everything possible to stay within budget.

If I decided, and I've traveled looking for grocery store, I've I've been all over looking for grocery stores.

Not one receipt was for gas or my time was ever bought back to present for a refund.

Because I knew the money wasn't there.

I've been out in Florida.

I've never, I know that that's not an option.

Any convention that I know of about legislation of a city government, I look at them and I say, I can't go because I don't have the funds.

So cutting, no.

Also, I I was I looked at today we was at the breakfast with the mayor.

And I've I like that event, but we didn't have anybody from the legislative there.

Every time we ask them to do something, we need something, call them on the phone, ask them, send them an email, text, whatever.

They do it.

But when it comes around to the celebration of the city events, they're not invited, there's no money paid for them.

Do we have the money even asked to invite them to come to sit and have a breakfast after doing all the work all year?

And we're gonna look at that and slight them again.

We did what we're supposed to do.

This is the of all the city government.

I got other branches coming, uh not branches, but other departments coming.

This one branch, Dr.

Tisdale and President Glavin.

Y'all did this right.

So we're not we shouldn't punish our people.

You did this right.

You did what's supposed to be done.

It would have ran correctly.

You showed your skills.

You showed that your years of many years of experience, how this could be done, and you did it.

And the branch, the one legislative branch that would have ran right, leave it alone.

Keep your hands off of it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Marshall.

Okay, I think we've covered that department.

Who's next on deck?

Mr.

Weaver.

Administration.

Administration, all right.

You can stay there if you like it's all yours.

As you can see, the difference as far as from uh this year to last year was uh about 211,000.

I'm sorry, 281.

Personnel wise, click on the increased anything, actually reductions.

Um everything is down to the bare minimums, just like all the other departments.

We've done what we have to do.

A lot of what goes on to the administration side also is the debt.

So you'll see a lot of those in there if you have questions on that.

Ms.

Thornton will be able to answer some of the debt issues, and also with the machinery and equipment and transportation wise.

You said to uh to eleven or two reduction from last year to this year, yeah.

261.

Okay.

I just want to make sure I was looking at the right.

I had to get my glass right glasses on.

But if you see some of these larger numbers like uh 6730 on other debt principal, that's where the administration pays for those different debts that come out.

Diane, any comments.

Well give give me a minute, please.

Real quick off the top of my head of reinsurance, or we is that that'd be included in here, right?

Collections on reinsurance?

No reinsurance as part of the self-insurance funds, and that would be fund 53 and 54.

Okay.

So that's not that wouldn't be.

The figure you see in here is for our property general liability and workers' comp portion that belongs to the general fund.

So that 3.2 million is our portion.

And how it works is everything flows through the workers' comp general liability and property insurance fund, and then it's allocated back out to the general fund water sewer and port.

That's our premium portion, right?

So on uh 6048, the increase is that 6048?

That's health insurance.

Right.

So the increase would be and the increase can be part of someone change their status.

Like someone may have been single last year and now they're a family this year.

We have not updated premiums yet because we do not have them for 27 yet.

We should have those premiums, I think in the next couple of weeks, although as we discussed earlier, we can't bind them till later, but size should have some pretty good numbers by then.

And real quick on um 6623, the savings there.

That's for no longer renting the post office.

Oh.

We have one month left.

That's October, and then the lease is up.

Right.

I I do have a question.

This is this would be true for each department, I think.

Um I think they each have a line item for utilities.

I'm thinking electricity or fuel.

And I know with with fuel charges bouncing up and down in this economy, even a nickel a gallon or a quarter a gallon, that's a significant chunk if that's that's increased for a while.

I I don't know what we can do or is there a way to to work at reducing our fuel bill?

I don't know how you tell uh somebody uh, you know, who's doing plumbing work for the city, don't drive more than 20 miles to do plumbing work, you know, all this week or something, but it's just it's one of those things.

I don't I don't know.

I I don't know how that would be done.

I don't even know if it's possible, but fuel and electricity, particularly when I look at the docket, and they're broken down, I guess, by a meter.

And boy, there's I don't know how many how many meters do we have electric meters in the city?

Uh there must be 300, easy.

A lot.

There may be 400, I don't know, and each one of those.

Um I don't know.

I don't, and I don't know what the locations are.

I don't know if Mississippi Power could tie those meters to particular locations.

No the locations.

Okay is it is it is it possible to reduce the electric bill in any feasible manner?

And I I don't I don't know what the savings up street lights.

Yeah.

And by street lights, I mean lights at night.

Right.

No, no.

I and that that that's part of the equation, not only that, I'm just thinking, you know, I remember we just built a new neighborhood that we're responsible for the lights.

It's gonna cost almost a hundred thousand dollars a year to light that neighborhood.

Right.

I'm just thinking of the good old days 40 years ago with the oil embargoes and everybody turned their thermostats to 80 degrees.

Geez Louise.

Is there is there not a way we could do solar?

We we've looked at that.

We're gonna introduce the question.

Would you come to the mic, please?

The the world is waiting breathlessly for what you have to say.

Thank you, Christy.

I kind of doubt that.

But um we are gonna any flashing lights that we have, we're gonna work over the next year to transfer those to solar.

And um we do have a couple locations that have solar lights throughout the city.

But yes, we're working on that.

Well, for example, you know, I hate to keep bringing up this one subdivision, but the one right there, the 219 homes on uh Pops Ferry Road.

Um, the the lights within that subdivision, is there not a way we look at it now before they start the infrastructure part of it to see if I mean if we're if they're going to put the street lights in and we're essentially going to be responsible for them, is it not a way we can say we don't want the ones that you plug in?

Uh yeah.

We can we can go that route with them.

We can definitely look at that.

Uh I mean I car before the horse.

I was just um and not to change the subject, 6432, the savings there.

In fiscal year 26, Keith Heard was budgeted at 120,000, and that was before um the contract was approved and reduced to eight a month.

So that is about 27 of it.

Um and then some other items were reduced or not budgeted.

So look appraisals went from 10 to 5 outside blocks of time with our accounting billing and just MUNIS.

It's called MUNIS system was removed.

And um we won't have a e-waste disposal.

Okay.

The remainder of the item is pretty much stayed.

So we went through from the information services side, and Shane went through as much as we possibly could reduce to do savings.

I saw where you lost a software license.

Um I guess that was through a grant.

Um 6689.

Yeah, that was a grant we had this year, but for the most part, our regular softwares are still there.

That that grant was a one-time grant.

Is Shane's still in here?

It was that cyber.

I don't really know what it did.

Thank you, Shane.

I think it was a one-time payment.

Yes, that grant was for a uh update software that we have.

Um it was just a one-time grant from the SCP Department of Homeland Security.

So it was for it was for an update, uh upgrade, so we still have the software, we just it's we're gonna have to pay for it this year.

We'll have to pay for it now.

Okay.

Question question on so thanks, Shane.

Question on software.

I'm just curious how much with with each renewal, because now we have to do these annual renewals, as I recall.

And I'm thinking just in the last five years, I you can't answer this question right now.

I'm just wondering how much the cost of these renewed the increased cost for software.

On average, they go up two to five percent per year, sometimes more.

Sometimes they don't increase at all.

Right.

Um but on average it's two to five percent per entity.

So that's I mean, that's running every year.

Everything is going up two percent.

Here we also look to see if there's something better on the market, if there's something different on the market.

I know that PD has looked and found some things that were cheaper that they liked better that they switched to.

Um they've also looked and found that they were paying for modules that did not benefit them and they could carve them out and remove them.

What do you rec Diana?

You you may not know all of this.

I mean, the answer to this, I'm wondering what we spend for all the software.

Across the board, we probably spend $2.4 million.

I mean, PD is a million by themselves, admins almost a million by themselves, and then we have a few stragglers.

But police wear body worn cameras and tasers.

That's a half million dollars right there.

Yeah, and in this day and age, you really got to have it.

And then the uh the accounting system is what I call it, but it's MUNIS, but it it works in multiple departments.

It is our payroll accounting HR system.

It's it's over 400,000 a year.

So if we're spending four, say four million on software or the other.

No, no, it's about two point four.

I'd say it's about two point four.

Two million, two percent of that would be I don't know, forty thousand every year.

That's an additional forty thousand.

I mean, it's two to five percent.

Right.

It depends on the vendor.

It depends on what it is.

And it's not just software, it's other goods and services.

You know, elevator um contracts that we have.

I know that they go up periodically, the same thing on copyers, whatever.

Just wanted to make that point out there.

Uh yeah, what do they call it?

Rockets and feathers.

It goes up and fast, and but but they never do go down.

Were there any other questions?

Administration.

Mr.

Gray, anything?

No, no questions.

Uh just same same thing.

We we're watching the budget, watching what we're spending, everything's going lower and the revenue is not going up.

Right.

I mean, so we have to figure out a way to get our revenue up.

Right.

That's all I have.

Mr.

Marshall.

I'm back to Mr.

Marshall.

Okay.

There being no further questions for administration.

We'll move on.

What's next?

Like I said, the main thing to go in what Councilman Gray said, if we take a look at it as we go through the mayor hit on it today, our population is about 50,000.

Right.

Every weekend, fire, police, public works, parks and rec are supporting anywhere from 120 to 150,000 people.

That's what we've got to be able to take a look at from a revenue generating standpoint.

That's my comments on it.

We'll go in.

Executive next, please.

We're moving on, Mr.

Marshall.

Okay.

Who's next?

The executive?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

You're going to cover that, Mr.

Weaver?

Yes, sir.

All right.

It's all yours.

Uh salaries, wages, no changes, nothing significant, state retirement went up a little bit, but as we all know, peers is going up every year for the next two years, three years, I believe, Ms.

Thorton.

So we'll have two more increases at the state retirement system after this year.

So much how much excuse me, how much is PERS going up, Diane?

Is it half a percent a year for the next okay?

And that's that's for the employ three.

For the employers, nothing for the employees.

It's for the employers that bear they got you.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr.

Weaver.

I'm sorry I interrupted you.

All right.

I know Councilman Schumacher mentioned this a while ago, and yes, D news did take a hit.

We take a we took a look at that at the 12 times.

We took a look at it at the four times.

And even at four times, that was 170,000.

Based upon reduction in every other department, we had to take a hard look at those.

We allowed 25,000 so that we're still able to do the mandatory mail outs on the water quality.

Um I know Jerry, there's four different ones that we have to do.

And Cecilia's got that information if you need to know which ones it was.

She provided.

But we've got 25 for there.

We reduced a little on the BTV, still maintaining that.

Um the B text, what one B alert?

Main we left that one alone, Councilman Creel.

I was very adamant about that one.

And uh but it does work.

Postage went down, community relations, everything, conferences, conventions, as you can see from the executive side, significant reductions as well, too.

So real quick.

Um your questions.

Okay, Mr.

Greel has a question.

All right, so out of the 311 um cut or reduction, rather, uh, the majority of that's B news.

250 or 2020.

At 170, because we were budgeting an only four.

Two sixty-four-four.

264,000.

So 264 to the 311 is is B news.

So it'll look no longer be B news.

It'll just be your required mailers.

It we it won't be a newsletter anymore.

Yeah, quarterly reports.

Either that or we just send out news three months at a time.

Um so with that, uh would would the administration or I it would be open to possibly a proposal of a commission-based structure of someone not on city payroll, not on city benefits or PERS, but that would be solely responsible for the advertising sales of B news, where we establish a threshold to money it it's gonna take for us to to keep it going, and then anything once they meet that and above, they get it a commission type structure.

And the reason why I'm asking is I have a proposal being prepared right now to to submit, and I don't want to go through all the efforts if if if we're not open-minded and would be at least willing to look at it and see if it's um if it's it's feasible going forward.

Councilman Crell, we're open to everything.

What we've done here again is a first draft of trying to get the number to where it needed to be.

Perfect.

Um any type of revenue generations, anything that we can do, any uh anything that you gentlemen have to let us know, hey, move from here to do this.

We're very open.

We we want to make sure this budget, this is a city budget.

There's nothing hidden.

It's all in public.

So what we want to make sure is we provide the best service that we possibly can provide with the amount of revenue that we have.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

If it makes dollars, it makes sense, right?

If it makes dollars, it makes sense.

And that's that's what we're trying to do.

Well, I knew this was gonna be a touchy subject, but the same thing.

You just heard Chief Ebert sit there and say he went from 11 vehicles that he needed to three.

Right.

And and and and I and Geyser talk about the three people three positions that we cut from his staff as well later on, along with everyone else that we did.

So that's where we had to take a hard look at where could we move and saving two to three positions or taking something here.

But if we can bring it back, I'm all about it because the more information we get out, the better off we're gonna be.

So and and to to your point, and I believe you heard one one through seven say that they support basically trying to get him more.

So that's that's what we're looking at.

I'm not trying to save something that I don't believe in.

I'm trying to figure out how we can save it to where it makes it makes revenue rather than costing us money.

And guess what?

If it doesn't work, then it it doesn't work.

But I believe if if if we can salvage that, then you could still save that money.

That money would still be saved because it would be generated through a different source, and that's 300,000 that can be transferred over to to police and/or fire.

So um so I'll I'll drop that off.

So thank you.

Any other questions?

Uh Mr.

Shoemaker, Mr.

Glavin.

Mr.

Nail.

No.

Mr.

Gray.

No.

Mr.

Marshall.

I do have someone who is also interested in doing a proposal.

Um I guess we need to work out.

I guess we're in the next budget, not next little meeting.

We need to work out a well.

A baseline of what the city can put in to help keep it going.

And they also think about uh getting together team for our sales revenue to build it up.

But to start off, they're gonna need a baseline of a base amount that they can work with to get it built up.

So I guess we need to have that in in the next discussions.

Thank you so much.

Gotcha.

All right.

I think we've covered all the uh departments.

Is that all?

Uh that's all we're gonna cover today.

I I would just if if uh weaver you'd pass pass this thought on to the mayor.

Um I'd appreciate it if it gives give some thought concerning the non-departmentals.

Uh I I'm gonna speak for the council here as a as a whole.

We sure value his thoughts and insights.

So any thoughts and insight he can give us about these non-departmental allocations.

Uh I know it'll be a couple of weeks really before we we're trying to get things nailed down as firm as we can now.

Uh, but I know that there'll be more discussion on this topic.

So if he could be prepared to offer any insights, thoughts and opinions, would appreciate that.

Can I add something to that?

Sure, Mr.

Kreel.

So with that non-departmental, also I, you know, the deadline was June the 30th, and I think we're still receiving requests.

So if we could get two two lists, one that met the deadline, and then the ones that didn't meet the deadline, so we can look at the ones that actually came out and met the June 30th deadline.

We also do not advertise.

Well, how did I know about it?

Because it's on the calendar.

It it's it was June the 30th last year.

It it's June the 30th every year, but we do not advertise it.

Well, it's on our calendar, but we don't like put a uh alert on B news or anything that says we're accepting.

Right.

Well, I I would think and when you say it's on the calendar, that's the budget calendar you're referring to.

But that's that's an internal document, but it seems to me that and I think Mr.

Creel's point is it it would be nice to note put something somewhere so that it's it's general public knowledge, and maybe this is maybe today is the first day that next year that's pretty much gonna be the deadline, June 30th or whatever.

Uh I would uh I mean maybe that's a huge assumption, but I would assume that there's a a form you fill out that goes in accordance with your nondepartmentals that says June the 30th is and if we don't have a form, maybe here in 2026, it'd be nice to come up with one.

We've looked at a form, and there used to be one in prior years.

Yeah.

Uh let's get Peter.

Oh, Peter's not here.

Yeah, we'll give it see if we can come up with a form.

She's retired.

Okay, uh one thing, Rick.

People's been asking me how come we don't um have the option to email the water bill.

Is that something we can look at?

Give them option, either.

I have been looking at that.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yes, we're working on that.

Sorry, we're working on that right now.

We've been working with uh IT and our water department in munis to to work out the kinks to to get that going.

Okay.

Yeah, they just asked me about I'll just also even with our water quality report being able to put like a QR code on the water bill, and that would save us some mailing out of some of those as well, too.

So we're looking across the board of how do we make savings, how do we do revenue generating um items that are able to help support this.

But we've also got to take a look at some of the citizens that don't understand what a QR code are, or they don't have that.

So those are gonna be the determinations as we work through some of these things and start moving into the future that we put this out saying, all right, if you would like this in a QR code, please let us know, and then we can do those.

And the individuals that don't, we're still probably gonna we're gonna have to mail those out to the residents because not everyone has that capability.

Uh thank you.

Thank you, ms.

Mr.

Just a stray electron uh referencing Mr.

Shoemaker's uh thought on how to advertise ward meetings.

I don't know how much room is on the water bills for announcements like that, you know.

But I mean, even if it was just uh a award meeting, this date low location done I know it.

I recently put on the water bill that Cadence Bank is converting to Huntington, and that you need to update your information.

And it was like three, maybe four lines.

Okay, so you have some space, but I know it's you're limited in capacity, but that's that's a thought.

All right.

Thank you.

Uh I'll entertain a motion to adjourn.

So I'm a gentleman.

Motion by Mr.

Creel.

Is there a second?

Second.

Second by Mr.

Nail.

Almost forgot your name.

You're so quiet.

By Mr.

Nail, all in favor.

All opposed?

Nobody's opposed to adjournment.

We are adjourned.

Thank you.