I'll welcome you all to the Monday, September 2nd, 2025, Columbia City Council meeting.

I'd like all those who are able to please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

One nation under God.

Sheila, do you want to call rule?

Mr.

Waterman.

Here.

Ms.

Peters.

Here.

Miss Buffalo.

Here.

Miss Carroll?

Here.

Miss Elwood?

Here.

Miss Sample?

Here.

Mr.

Foster.

Here.

All right.

Well, good evening and welcome.

The public have multiple opportunities to speak at Columbia City Council meetings.

There are opportunities under the public hearings, old business, new business portions of the agenda.

I do remind people to keep your comments reserved to the legislation that we're discussing, because at the end of the meeting, you can talk about anything you want for three minutes.

Individuals are allowed at three minutes or uh representatives affected by the legislation being discussed can request five minutes.

I do ask that you help me acknowledge that so that our fellows can make sure that the timer in front reads accordingly.

Um we asked that people respect the time limits out of fairness, giving everyone an opportunity to speak.

And in that light, we also asked people for people to avoid like boos and snaps and demonstrations that might intimidate people from speaking, reminding us that we're all neighbors and we're treating each other with respect.

Please address issues, not individuals, and refrain from personal attacks, including on city staff.

Disruptions will be addressed with a warning and if necessary, removal and recess.

Moving on in our agenda, our first item is for approval of the previous minute.

So ask for um I'll make a motion to approve the August 18th, 2025 regular meeting minutes.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Second by Nick Foster.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

And I know we have a few um proposed uh adjustments to the agenda.

I believe Councilmember Elwood um would like to remove Bill 21825.

Let me double check the number on that, but I believe so.

Okay.

So the recommendations for moving Bill 21825, that would go under old business.

Yes.

Okay.

Um and then also our we have an adjustment to an improvement or an improvement adjustment to the numbers on resolution 12825 that will need to have a um uh change from consent agenda to new business because it will have an amendment sheet with it.

Um are there any other changes to the agenda?

Okay.

Um I'll make a motion uh to approve the agenda with Bill 285 um 25 being moved to old business and resolution 12825 being moved to new business.

Do I have a second?

Second?

Second by here.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

Well, this evening we have two special items.

Um our first one is recognition of our youth delegation to our sister city in Hakasan, uh, Japan.

So tonight we're recognizing the Columbia students who traveled this summer to our sister city.

Um I'm gonna read a little bit about their trip and then ask you all to come up uh for um presentation.

So just as I knowledge it for those in the audience, so these students represented our community with curiosity, openness, respect, and a strengthening of bridge uh friendship and culture exchange to connect Columbia to Hakasan.

Um so while in Japan, they were welcomed by the mayor, they visited local schools, they toured cultural sites, and they even experienced some traditional crafts, which I thought thought sounded cool.

And they made the newspaper there as well, which I think is very cool.

And for good things, not bad things, so well done.

Um so many of the students have shared uh what would they inspire and how they want to continue studying this.

And I really wanted to point out that in a in a world where we can feel really divided, this sort of people-to-people relationships remind us of our shared values, and I just want to thank them for their service for our community and going out.

And so I want to encourage them to continue to share their stories uh throughout our community and within your schools.

So I'd now like to ask the students who participated to join me at the podium, and I believe you have some remarks to make as well.

So I'll come join you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and the good people of the Columbia City Council.

This summer, we were honored to be be I was honored to be part of the delegation to our sister city of Hakusan, Japan, along with my fellow delegates and our chaperones.

We were able to experience the unique culture of Japan and Haku-san specifically.

A particular, a particular highlight for me was getting to stay with a host family.

My host family in particular were rice farmers, which is an integral part of the culture and identity of the city of Japan, and allowed me to learn of the city of Hakusan and allowed me to learn a great deal about what it means to live in Haku sanction.

Some of the really important moments for me were getting to go and see the shrines because that helped me to see like kind of the culture of it from my host family side and getting to cook with my host family and really bond with them.

It was really important for me to also hike with the students and kind of just see the mountainside and see what it's like to actually live there and be immersed in the area.

It was very impactful for me.

Okay, so now I'd like to I we had five students, I believe, go on the delegation as well as the two um our chaperones.

So thank you all for that, really.

Um first I'd like uh Isaac Barry.

Is Isaac here?

Oh, there he is over here.

Isaac, we have a letter thanking you for your service to our community.

And you can stay up here because we'll do a photo.

Uh Caitlin Collins.

Sorry, you have to stand by me.

I'm wearing heels, though.

Cole Donegan.

Just cool.

Thank you, Cole.

Are you Jack then?

Jack McRae.

All right, Jack.

And then Josie Ross.

All right.

Please join me in thanking them for our service to our community.

You have something.

This we we presented gifts to the mayor of Hakusan during our visit with him, and he gave us a gift for the mayor of Columbia, including a letter and a physical gift.

Oh, awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Great.

Do you want me to open it and see what it is?

We did this last year.

So this is very exciting.

And I forgot, we sent gifts from the city on behalf of us as well.

Okay, I thought so.

I'm not very gifted in this.

Why did you take it?

I apologize, people.

This is like for packaging.

I'm a horrible this is not my best time.

You're the guy who's going to carry a box.

Would you like a pocket knife, Mayor?

Oh my god.

Don, yeah, no, wait, I got it.

Thank you.

I did get it.

Oh, it's got a paint.

Okay.

Where's Sarah Dresser?

This is so just so you know, we have on display our gifts from our sister cities up on the second floor.

Do you know what these are?

Do you have a description?

Do we have a special name?

This says something.

I might be putting you on the spot, Jen.

And then there's Kanji.

I don't recognize the Kandji.

I recognize the here.

I believe they're a type of uh local call.

That's really cool.

Well, all right.

Well, we will send a thank you note to our mayor and our sister city in Japan.

Well, thank you all for bringing this back.

And then Josh wanted to do a photo with you guys.

Wait, hold on.

I guess we should hold these.

All right, and we will pull this.

Um Sarah Dresser, Office of Cultural Affairs.

Can I present to you the gift to our city?

We have one other special item, and it's easier for me just to stay down here.

Um so this is recognizing the City of Columbia and our convention and visitors bureau reaccreditation as a destination marketing accreditation program administered by the Destinations International.

Um so our CVB um has successfully received accreditation through December 2030 and the destination marketing accreditation program.

Um this is uh recognizing their that they meet rigorous standards for industry excellence, accountability, and performance.

They've held their DMAP at re accreditation since 2015.

And just want to acknowledge that at a time when re accreditation was something not really heard of in municipal governments.

Want to thank them for their service for that.

The Columbia CVB is joining around 200 destination organizations worldwide with this distinction.

And the accredited process involves compliance with mandatory and voluntary standards, governance to finance to sales, to communications, and others.

And it reflects the high performance professionalism and teamwork of the Columbia CVP team.

So renewing this accreditation underscores their position at a trusted and influential leader in the tourism industry.

And I want to congratulate them, ask them to come forward.

Amy Schneider, our director of convention and visitors bureau, and Megan McConaughey is there for us to present with a plaque.

So come forward.

I recognize Megan, please.

Recognize Megan.

Oh gosh.

Microphones.

I want to recognize it takes a village to do this sort of a thing, and I need to recognize Megan McConaughey who did all of the work, all of the she did all of the management of what we needed, making sure it got turned in, making sure we had everything on time.

And so Megan, I wanted to publicly thank you for everything you did for that.

All right, well, thank you for that.

I just need to get a cut through to come faster.

All right, so moving on.

Um community members uh can contact the city manager's office by noon on the Wednesday before a council meeting to schedule public comment.

So schedule public comment cannot be on items on that same night's agenda.

And of note, it's been typical practice of city council to ask for additional follow-up of questions that are asked tonight at the end of the meeting if it's warranted.

So tonight we have five scheduled public comments.

So I'd like to first ask Kerry Gartner to come forward to speak.

Thank you.

Good evening.

And I'm glad I have more good news to give everyone to start the meeting off with.

Kerry Gardner, I'm the executive director of the Business Loop CID.

We just released our uh 2025 annual report, and I wanted to give you a few highlights.

Um I think it goes without saying that the biggest highlight is that um the city's on again, off again, on again, off again two million dollar planning grant is now officially back on.

We did spend much of the year advocating on behalf of that grant, and then we worked with the city to hire an engineering firm.

So uh we were ready to go once it was green-lighted.

Um the the engineering firm is actually out surveying the street this week.

They're going to do um lasers and drones and and get a map of the street.

Um, and once that's done, they're anticipating public input on the planning process starting in early 2026.

So we're really looking forward to that.

It's a big project, there's a lot of goals.

The biggest one is uh an engineering plan, detailed engineering plan, so that we have a shovel-ready project.

And what that means is that when we go apply for capital improvement funding, we are at an advantage over other applicants because we've got we've done the planning, we've done the public input, and we have the engineering documents.

So our our project is literally shovel ready.

That's why this is so important.

Some other um goals that we are uh attempting to solve with this, development's very difficult on the street.

We have a lot of vacant space, vacant lots that we can't develop, so we're looking at solutions for stormwater management, possibly uh changes to the zoning code because the UDC uh prevents a lot of development on our very old MODOT-controlled street.

So we will be working um forward on that um project, and we're very excited.

The city's been um a fantastic partner.

Um and along those lines uh with public works being our favorite department in the city right now.

They're also doing a road safety audit for the business loop.

We helped them this year uh selected engineering firm for that.

They are already deep into that project.

They are scheduling a public input session on the 9th of this month and surveying the street, looking for recommendations to make driving, walking, and biking safer on the street.

Some of those recommendations will get rolled into an eventual capital improvement project, but we're hopeful that there will be some things that we can fund and implement before we start digging up the road.

So very excited about all of those.

On the economic development side, uh, we are doing very well on the street.

We saw a small uptick in sales tax, which we're very pleased with, um, especially in this environment.

Uh and then, of course, I think the jewel in our economic development crown is the Como Cook Shared Kitchen.

We uh welcomed, we had 51 uh clients this past year.

Um that's that's incredible.

We have about 120 brick and mortar institutions on the street.

Um adding 50 to that is is unheard of.

So we're quite the incubator.

Um I think we also combined with MACLA Makerspace, Fidwest Studios, and and now the new um Columbia Educational Robotics Foundation, where we're doing a lot of like building and making and and and small business incubation.

So very excited about that.

Um also have uh two, we just uh gave out two minority scholarships to two great businesses.

Um as you know, uh the kitchen and the scholarships were partially funded by ARPA money from the City of Columbia.

Um so thank you.

When you are at the farmers market uh getting food from some of our vendors, or you're getting lunch from a food truck, or you're coming to one of our pop-ups on Friday night.

Um, pat yourselves on the back for being great at economic development.

So um thank you again for that.

Um I have copies of the annual report for you, it's also online, but we're just we're very pleased to be moving forward, and we're very pleased to have the city in our corner on this.

So thank you very much, Carrie.

Next, I'd like to ask uh Travis P.

Miller to come forward to speak.

There, uh Travis P.

Miller.

Maybe we can reach out to confirm and maybe reschedule for the next one unless he shows up for the next three.

Okay.

Um moving on, uh, Dr.

Les Gray.

Okay.

They will magically pull up if you have slides.

I know.

It's amazing.

Hello.

Um, my name is Dr.

Les Gray.

I live in the first ward.

I'm here representing myself.

If I uh came up here today and I said I've been watching you, a little weirded out.

Do you feel safe?

If I tell you that I've been watching you, me and my friends, every time you go to Walgreens, I see you every time you go before work.

Recently, you've been going after work and every third Saturday.

That seems a little suspicious.

Would you feel safer?

Maybe you would feel safer if I told you that the intention behind this tracking and this pattern recognition is to uh ensure your safety.

And that I can reassure you that I'm looking for some things and not others.

But all of this trust hinges on you trusting the relationship with me and my friends and my friends and friends, some of which you would not like what they're doing right now.

But at the end of the day, I feel like what is at stake in this scenario is our privacy and our potential safety.

And maybe then you would start watching me back.

Given this abundance of data that we know is being collected by Flock Safety, this uh ALPR, the license plate recognition uh system, I want to look at how potentially our trust can be betrayed and how the policy as it stands as it's being implemented falls short of securing public trust.

The policy says that the system will not be used for civil immigration enforcement.

How do you control that when you don't actually even own the server where the data is being stored or processed?

How do I trust that when it is so unclear what agencies you are collaborating with at any given point and for what reason?

And given general search terms such as daytime search for best result appearing 116 out of 866 searches that I pulled.

How do I know if that is or is not happening?

The policy says that search reasons cannot be one word or utilized for traffic enforcement.

That doesn't really seem true.

So I got really curious because I'm a deeply nosy person, obviously, about what access to data I did have, considering I am not a deputy city manager or a professional standards bureau.

I looked at the um the flock community transparency portal, which according to your policy is maintained by CPD.

I looked at it a few times actually.

And as I've shown, there's a lot of really fascinating things to see.

But none of that really uh was as interesting to me as what happened between July and August of 2025, which is the reasons disappeared.

I knew that you had the capability and you still have the capability because not long after I submitted this public comment and the uh the crime dashboard uh appears, the reasons came back.

And this concerns me because there are so few public checks to this system's power, and we have seen it in uh produce increasingly concerning results in other cities, nearby cities and states, to the extent that they have terminated their contracts with Flock.

So without these public facing reasons for a search, there is the capacity, the capability for uh abuse and misuses of these searches.

And the best case scenario, given the policy that you have drafted, is that we are asking inviting the police to tattletale on the police, which is generous but maybe not good policy.

I am saying all this because at the end of the day, being constantly surveilled.

Being constantly surveilled actually doesn't make me feel safer.

Uh instead, I am reminded of how increasingly less safe I am, not feel.

I'm left with some questions.

Um the city council members or the city manager aware of these reasons disappearing in the portal.

And does this all align with your expectations about the spirit and the letter of the policy that you drafted in consideration with the ACLU's recommendation?

And how might policy or practice be amended to address some of the concerns that I have.

I don't feel like we have the luxury of moving forward as if surveillance does not facilitate seamless user experiences that include and are historically and presently characterized by kidnapping, murder, and prosecution of folks whose only crimes or suspicious patterns, as I talked about earlier, might just be being poor, pregnant, or not white.

I'm here because I believe that we are beholden to each other and that we are not safe until we are all safe.

We are not free until we're all free.

Thank you, Dr.

Gray.

Thank you.

Good evening.

Well, good evening to the council.

I stand before you this evening in regards to the economic report that came out at the last council meeting.

The numbers were alarming for the black community and in particular, the median household income, which puts blacks in a not so good light here in Colombia based on these numbers, we're facing a $34,400 gap on the high end between blacks and Asians, a $22,000 gap between blacks and whites, and a $15,000 gap between blacks and Hispanics.

These numbers don't seem to be changing either based on the report, because the report states that the median household incomes across various races in 2023 show a significant disparity between black and Asian households.

And with the numbers I just stated, but it goes on to say that the income gaps continue to persist, increasing eleven thousand dollars over the measured five-year period, which suggests that there's a pay inequality here in Colombia.

This should be getting the attention of us all.

Seeing where this trend has been going, my question would be how did we get here and what can we do?

This report seems to make plains that jobs in Colombia are not hiring black workers at the same pace or at the same rate.

And this is not a backlash to any community that is that is represented on here, but we should all be coming up at the same time, and we all should be coming at the same pace, especially considering the fact that there's a 7.3 gap in population here in Colombia between the blacks and the whites.

Yeah, blacks in Colombia represent 36% of the 20% poverty rate here in Colombia.

Black children represent 44% of the 13% poverty rate here in Colombia.

Unemployment for blacks is at 7.8%.

When it comes to housing and Section 8, as of 2021, Boone County has 39% of their recipients are black.

Only 55% of the vouchers that were issued were used based because of either a housing shortfall or the landlords just wasn't accepting the vouchers.

But then a 2015 study says that white income average in Colombia from 2009 to 2013 was 46,455, while blacks at the same time in 2015 was at 27,750.

Now, if we do a quick math over a 10-year period, that means that our median household income is only raised only by a little over 6,000 for the black community.

As we can see, these numbers have only gotten worse.

Black home ownership uh here in Columbia is at 24 percent, while the whites are at 60 percent.

We can look at the biggest employers in Columbia and we find that the University of Missouri has roughly 4 percent black employees, although the 10% mark asked by the black students in 2017 has never been reached.

Veterans United is at 9% black black workforce, the City of Columbia is also at 3%.

We need to start looking at this from an economic perspective.

When one is not making money for whatever reason, they become desperate.

When we see this occur, then we also see a rise in crime, we see a rise in drug use, we see a rise in poverty, we see a rise in government assistance and in services.

We as a black community cannot pull this court alone, but we are going to need the city and those in the city, as well as the community of support to come together and help close this gap.

We cannot allow this gap to become any more wider than what it is, or we're going to find ourselves in economic strain and no help in sight.

We already see that the federal government is not coming, and it looks like our state is trying to take away our vote and our voice.

So now we look to the City of Columbia as our last line of defense.

We must begin to strategize with local organizations, local government, and local programs that are designed not only to pull blacks out of poverty, but to raise them the median household income.

How can we begin to break this economic chokehold on blacks here in Columbia?

How do we hold businesses in Columbia accountable?

We cannot put all the blame on the businesses because if one is not trained for a position, then one cannot perform the job either.

What are we doing about proper job training for a livable wage?

What job fairs or programs are offering livable wage-paying jobs?

Are the programs being offered effective, or are they just a revolving door to keep those who are at those services employed?

These are all the questions that need to be answered.

We can we cannot talk about housing without talking about economics.

We can't talk about education without talking about economics.

We can't talk about public safety, DEI without talking about economics, health care, homelessness, government programs, block grants, housing subsidies.

None of this can be properly addressed unless we begin the conversation about the economic gap that is here in Columbia, Missouri.

The SCLC wants to be a part of the solution, and we welcome any organization, any city council member, community leaders, thank you, Marcus, or anyone who has a heart for the community.

Thank you.

Thank you, Marcus.

Uh, I'd now like to ask our final speakers, Jen Bryan and Terry Hopp to come forward to speak.

Good evening.

My name is Jen Bryan, and I live in the Brooks subdivision on the east side of town.

To the mayor and council members, thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight and for your service to our community.

I want to bring to your attention the proposed Ashford Place Development, a 24-acre project directly north of the Brooks.

This proposal under the city's superseded PUD 4 zoning tool has been amended and is scheduled to come before PZ this Thursday, September 4th at 7 p.m.

It is an incredibly significant land use decision that will directly impact our subdivision and adjoining neighborhoods.

Our concerns are not about opposing growth, but about ensuring that growth is responsible, compatible, and safe.

There are three key issues I want to highlight tonight.

First being density and location, you will see that the plan concentrates dense multi-unit apartments at the back of an established subdivision, accessible only by local streets.

There is no precedent for this configuration in Colombia, and we have no public transit out on the east side of town.

Second, being traffic and safety, our neighborhood streets, primarily Hoy Lake, are already burdened with speeding and cut through concerns.

Adding hundreds of additional trips without improvements to state highway WW, permanent traffic calming measures in our neighborhood, or construction of arterials, such as the long planned L.

Chaparral connection creates serious risks for drivers, pedestrians, children, and pets.

Third is livability and design standards.

This plan relies on zoning established in 2010 without consideration for subsequent development in the area.

The current plan seeks variances for very small postage stamp style lots, has an adequate parking, and defers to undeveloped floodplain as green space.

These choices undermine livid livability for both future residents of the proposed Ashford Place and for residents of our neighborhood, the Brooks.

I share this tonight because when this comes before council, we hope that you will give it careful scrutiny.

Neighbors are engaged, constructive, and we want to work with the city to achieve responsible growth.

Thank you again for your service and for listening.

I would now like to invite up my neighbor, Terry Haupt.

I thought I got a little bit more than just two minutes or two.

And it's combined five minutes together.

Oh, okay.

Hello, my name is Terry Haupt.

I live at 1224 Shore Acres group in the Brook Subdivision.

And I also thank the uh the mayor and the council members uh for a chance to speak in front of you this evening and for your service.

Normally I speak without notes or written comments, but tonight as this is a very emotional uh subject to myself and 99% of the other residents of the Brook Subdivision.

I felt it better to write out my thoughts instead.

As Jen said earlier, the decision in front of planning and zoning committee on this Thursday will have significant land use consequences and possible precedents that will directly affect our neighborhood as well as future neighborhoods around the city.

I don't want to get into too many more details right now of this uh potential apartment complex because it is not yet in front of you.

Uh we do feel, though, that there are several important issues here that the council member needs to be prepared to hear.

Uh Jen pointed out those three main issues being density and location, traffic and safety, design standards.

Okay.

This project is being presented as a single family attached dwelling with three units in each structure development.

This is simply legalese.

Okay.

Even one of our city council members who we met with thought that this was going to allow for home ownership.

Okay?

It was going to be a less expensive way for individuals to own than a median cost, median cost of a home here in Columbia.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

People living in Ashford Place will not be afforded the privilege of ownership.

Troy Miller has publicly stated that he plans to retain ownership of all the land of all the units.

He will only be renting these units.

So whatever legalese and verber verbiage he's writing, these will be nothing more than triplex apartments.

Unfortunately, even then, many of these ash for place designs and requests are only meeting minimum requirement set by ADC code.

My question before you in front of City Council here this evening is this.

Minimum standards.

For instance, do you expect the minimum service when you go to Missouri University Hospital or to Boone County Hospital?

Do you expect minimum service?

You expect minimum safety on your brakes and tires.

If you want to submit your written comments to Sheila, she can make sure that copies to provide to all of us.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

All right.

Moving on to our first public hearing of the evening.

Um, Sheila, would you please read public hearing 2625 and the associated bill 18325?

Public hearing 2625 is the FY2026 annual budget for the City of Columbia.

Council Bill 18325 is an ordinance adopting a budget for the City of Columbia, Missouri for the fiscal year October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026, FY 2026, providing that certain amounts shown in the budget document are appropriated for the various departments specified in said budget and fixing the time when this ordinance shall become effective third reading.

Do we have a staff report?

Yes.

Um Mayor, members of the City Council.

Um we have a short presentation.

Uh it's mostly centered around the amendments, uh, but there will be some conversation outside of that as well.

So here's the proposed budget uh with the total revenues of 558 million uh and total operating expenditures of 539 million, uh capital improvement projects of 59 million, and total expenditures equaling 58 million.

Capital improvement projects of $59 million and total expenditures equaling $58 million.

I mean, yes, $598, I'm sorry.

Here's a general fund overview.

Our general fund looks like this.

We have revenues of $132, $133 million almost, operating expenditures of $136.5, which leaves us with a revenue under expenditures of $3.5 million.

Once again, that uh deficit is mostly made up of employee expenditures, uh, but there are some one-time general fund uh new decision items that also make up portion of that uh deficit.

Uh this is something that was asked of us uh at the last council meeting to kind of look at the cash above and below target.

And so uh for if you look at the very uh right-hand column, the FY26 proposed budget uh with uh the current over under projection, uh it leaves us with the ending available cash balance of about 46 million uh with that 20 percent reserve at 27 million, it leaves about 18 uh close to 19 million above uh the cash reserve target.

And so uh this is a little different from what we had talked about before because the city did receive uh a lump sum payment uh that that basically uh added around 14 million to the fund balance and the general fund.

And so uh that did make up it it made the numbers look a lot better than uh what had been presented before.

Matthew, can I stop you right here and this can be for you or this can be for the city manager?

Um can you remind council um what goes into the reserve?

Like why would any funds go into the reserve?

What makes up this reserve?

You mentioned the $14 million settlement that we had heard about earlier this year, but what other things um would go into making a reserve?

Uh the reserve, so uh in this sense of the word, this is the cash reserve, so the cash on hand that we would have available to spend um on projects or what have you.

Uh we have a uh cash reserve target or restricted reserve amount of 20 percent of all expenditures.

And so anything above that 20 percent uh cash reserve target would be something that either needs to be spent down or uh planned out in the future.

I guess I was getting more to what goes into it to build it up.

And so I think you have mentioned in yours past that budgeted items that we've acute that we have um appropriated to go towards personnel, for instance, um positions that we have vacancy that we've budgeted to put funds towards that, and at the end of the fiscal year, is it that those funds kind of you know, some of those funds go into then our reserves, our cash reserves?

That's correct.

So in the past, uh what we had seen was uh conservative revenue numbers, uh, and then uh expenditures that were probably more than what could actually be spent in the fiscal year.

And so that just creates a perfect storm of uh adding to that that fund balance.

Okay.

We can go on.

Okay.

So here again is just the breakdown of the uh revenue uh within the general fund, I believe.

Uh Councilman Waterman, you had asked to see kind of the the difference between 25 and 26, and so this is basically what that looks like uh in this current uh state.

So there's about a $900,000 difference in revenue.

Um a lot of it has to do with the revenue from other governmental sources or the the grant revenue.

Uh it it dropped significantly.

And there's also uh a drop in budgeted pilot payments that is pretty big.

Uh and then you have that $1.6 million and appropriated fund balance, which is basically the what we had last year, what we said we were going to dip into reserves by.

Yeah, counsel about Foster.

The revenue from other government uh sources the that's grant funding primarily.

That's correct.

And that's a sizable number.

Um I don't know if we want to get into this here, but are we looking to make up the difference in those in that loss of grants or that that doesn't show up?

Does it show up in the budget in that way?

Or are we just simply having to eliminate programs or limit services and so forth?

I think it was a mixture of both.

So there were a mixture of uh not having some programs and then also uh the city uh taking on the burden of those programs.

So part of that difference in terms of the shortfall will be will be made up and part of it won't.

That's cool.

Okay.

Other questions on this slide?

Yeah, Betsy.

Um you have any um idea why or why do you think the pilot will be less?

Uh I think it was a little it was a little higher last year.

Um we don't expect to bring in a little a little bit of an overestimation.

I think it was just a course correction.

Okay.

Yeah, done.

Actually, I didn't realize we were as per slide.

Could you back up one slide?

Just out of curiosity because I've gotten some questions for some constituents.

20 percent reserve target.

What established 20 percent is the level for the reserve target?

Uh that's the that's the target that is set basically by the uh GFOA, which is the government financial officers association.

Okay.

Uh is it's set as basically you have around four months of your um available cash in case of a catastrophe, something happened, uh we weren't able to collect anything, we could at least run for around four months uh before we would have to take some other type of action.

Okay.

I think you told me that before, and I appreciate it.

Thank you.

No problem.

Okay, moving on.

So here's the same comparison with the general fund expenditures.

Um we're looking at an increase of about uh six point uh sixty-eight six hundred and eighty thousand dollars.

Um not much of an increase, and that's because we had that concerted effort by uh the city manager and uh and the department directors to uh decrease certain parts of the general fund budget to make way for uh the important part, which was those personnel services and and uh trying to get our employees some sort of increase in this fiscal year.

Matthew, can I ask um does this slide also reflect the proposed amendments on this evening's budget, or is this the one this one?

This one does not.

But uh depending on what uh amendments are accepted by the council or not uh when we come back next next week on the 15th.

Two weeks.

Yes, we will we will provide something like this so you can see the difference as well.

Okay.

Uh Valerie you have your hand up?

Oh, sorry, sorry.

I'm thinking.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay, so now we'll get into uh some of the amendments.

All right.

So we have these broken down for you by type.

Um we have one or two highlighted on most of these slides that I'll go over, but if there are any questions about ones that are not highlighted, feel free to stop me and ask.

Um, Megan, before you start, can you just quickly explain for council?

I know a lot of our council members had a questions.

Um amendments, you know, coming up some that can you talk about the budget timeline as far as when the budget is closed and how some of these are fixes before you get into individuals?

Um so we had council work sessions on the budget starting in the middle of July.

Um and obviously we need some time to prepare final numbers and you know, to get you everything that we present to you at those work sessions.

So we cut off budget changes from departments around the end of June.

Um that's been a few months now.

So there are various types of amendments that come up.

There's things that maybe got missed in the original budget, corrections, typos, errors, that kind of thing that we find after the fact.

There are also things that we maybe didn't consider or we didn't know about back at the end of June that we would like to include in the 26th budget.

And so those are kind of the major reasons that we have changes with amendments.

Thank you.

All right.

So the first type of amendments that we'll talk about are corrections.

So the couple that we're highlighting on this slide are there was one parking project that was included in the original budget that we've decided to remove.

This is based on further analysis of their cash reserve, which doesn't have enough money at this point, even with the increase that's being proposed to support the three capital projects that they originally had in the budget.

And then the other one that we're highlighting on this slide is a true example of like a typo in the budget.

So we found $2 in a line item that has never had a budget in it before, so we're just taking it out to clean things up for the final version.

Is this um I mean what you gave us were a lot of amendments in numerical order?

So are you if I have a question about four or five, when should I ask that since it looks like you missed those?

We gave them to you in numerical order in a big list, and you also should have received them broken out by type.

So we'll go through these in the slides by by type.

You sent that to us also?

Or it's in the slides.

I'm not sure I thought they were sent out, but if they were not, I will.

No, I I mean I'm just looking for it for tonight.

So what I have is just the list of amendments in numerical order.

So are you gonna go through those?

I mean it looks like you're picking some up, and then are we going back to the other?

No, they're everyone will be presented in the slides.

They're just in by type.

They're by type.

And so uh these here are corrections to corrections that are amendments.

And so everyone that there was a correction will be listed.

And then we'll go through uh encumbrances and a few other a few other amendment types.

And so the number that that correlate to the number on your sheet is to the left on the left hand side.

Right.

And so uh I'll make sure.

So if you have a question about four, I'll make sure that you'll get back to it.

Okay, so then can I ask the six hundred thousand dollars to remove enterprise project ramp maintenance and repair?

Yes.

First, I don't know what that is, but uh the six hundred thousand is in red.

So what like do we have the money for that, or it's budgeted for that in the future, or it's is it somewhere in the budget or this is a project that was originally budgeted in the proposed budget, and it's red and it's got parentheses, which means um in accounting language that it's a negative number.

So we're removing that expense from the budget.

Okay.

I like that.

Okay, thanks.

So these are all corrections.

Is the next slide also corrections?

Yeah.

Yes, we have page breaks in between uh to different differentiate uh the type of amendments amendment.

So on this slide, the one that we're highlighting, um, you'll see a lot of these on corrections.

This is a net zero amendment, so that means that we're moving money in between two different places, but there's not a net effect on the budget.

So for this one, um, as you probably know, we decided to put utility customer service back into its own fund rather than be split out into the five different utility funds that it previously was split into.

And there were some expenses, um, in this case facilities management fees that had been charged to those utility funds that we needed to move to the new UCS fund in order to charge them in the correct place.

All right.

The one that we've highlighted on this slide is also something that you've probably heard about before.

Um we had several grants in health that we expect to receive less revenue than we originally had budgeted back in the spring.

Um and some of those decisions also came after the cutoff that we had in June for departments to make changes.

And then we don't have anything highlighted on the last slide since we already talked about net zero, but if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

So am I counting correctly that 28 of the proposed um 74 amendments we have are corrections.

That's correct.

Okay.

Can I ask if you can go back one slide?

Sorry, Mayor.

I don't have my hand up enough.

Um number 44.

If this grant was not awarded, have I presume that means we have not spent that money yet?

Do we know?

Um we don't know.

I'm I'm guessing not.

Okay.

Thanks.

Yeah, Nick.

Um we can go back one or two more.

It goes back to that parking um the 600,000 number six.

So uh a project ramp, is this the ramp over by the police department?

Yeah.

Yes.

So I know that there's been talk about repair there for some time and removing it for the reasons that you state means it won't be done, of course.

But do we are we thinking about how we might be able to do that in some other manner?

There is um there's about $700,000 built up in that project already.

This is something that we've been transferring money towards because the ramp is, I think, getting to a place where it's not safe anymore.

Um but we've also had conversations about whether it's worth it to spend, you know, a million dollars, a million and a half to repair that ramp if it's something that's not going to continue to be used for you know in the current way for a while.

Um and so in this case, parking did not have enough cash in their reserve to cover all of the projects that they would have liked to put money towards in 26, and this was the easiest one to remove since it already had a balance built up in the project if we decide to do any smaller fixes on it in the meantime.

Um or to you know go a different direction entirely.

So the safety issues may be addressed anyway.

Okay, thanks.

All right.

The next type of amendments are new funding amendments.

So these amendments are something that was not included in the 26th budget originally.

Um so these are kind of new funding requests or something that's come up since we cut the budget off in at the end of June.

Um so the first one that I'll highlight is a project that was included in the 2025 CIST plan.

Um it was missed in the original budget.

It wasn't included in the projects that we had planned for streets, and so we're gonna add that back into the budget.

Can I ask uh two questions?

What does CIST stand for?

Capital improvement sales tax.

Capital improvement sales tax.

Okay, thank you.

And then the expense is 180,000.

So this is 90,000 more than we already have budgeted?

So the number four and number five that are the first two on this slide.

Uh-huh.

Um, these include funding for the project, and they also include a transfer, which is a revenue and an expense from the capital improvement sales tax fund.

So the actual cost for that for those projects are 90,000 and 500,000.

I think so.

I think this this is where it becomes confusing.

And you guys had this during the budget work session.

So it's not an expense of 180,000, except for the fact that an expense because it's a tra it's a transfer from an existing fund that we have money in.

So that is one expense to that fund.

And then it's also an expense of where it will actually be spent from.

That's correct.

It is a very confusing thing to show in this way.

It is.

I'm I'm not sure of another way to show it without I feel like another line that shows the expenses coming from CIST, like existing funds to there, and then you're doing your expenditures.

I I but I don't because otherwise it looks like you guys are double like it's double.

But I know it's not, but it looks like it.

I'm just I wonder if just looking at this, it would be I'm reminded of this when I look at the we I've gone through this a number of times, so I'm beginning to get it.

But it in this case, I think it's all about the capital improvement uh projects and capital improvement sales tax itself.

And it just a note here would be helpful.

That this is these are budget budgetary um budgetary numbers and the rest is uh capital improvement sales tax numbers.

So that we can have those two together.

Rather than just assuming, which is mostly what I do about that.

I wonder if it might also be helpful at some point to get a picture of the budget looking just at the transfers to see that while they're moving between the different departments, and it is it looks confusing and it looks like it's costing us things, the transfers overall will equal out to zero.

The transfers overall will equal out to zero.

It's just switching them between the funds.

Sections.

So I wonder if we just got a sheet of transfers just so we could see that pretty zero number that is not zero on this chart and freaks us out every time it comes up.

We could definitely uh put something in the I guess we could we could do it for this item next uh uh either a handout or or we can put it as an amendment or something.

Um either way you want it.

We we have that information.

It comes up in I feel like it's come up in every conversation of the general fund.

So maybe more of an overall rather than just specifically this item.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we we have a document that shows the transfers for every piece of the budget.

So thank you.

Just another educational opportunity.

Well, no, I think you said next meeting.

Yeah.

Next meeting.

Okay, sorry, I missed that.

I'm like, well, next year is fine, but I'm so confused about this year.

No, we but we can provide it as uh either handout or as a um document within the ordinance.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah, Valerie.

I do think that Mayor Buffalo's remark about an extra line is a salient point.

When we're looking at this, it's nice to have this overall extra document.

But when we present these individual changes out of context, you know, the the column that shows two from and the line that shows this one too from clarifies that and I get that you have included it in the parentheses at the bottom, but again, it's just the appearance, it's hard.

Yeah.

The both and to me is.

Oh, Valerie, your microphone is nowhere near you.

Sorry.

Sorry.

That's okay.

Um what I'm suggesting is that it's a both and I like both ideas, and I think we would all benefit from them.

Okay.

All right.

So the item that we've highlighted on this slide is related to computer replacements.

Um in this case, we did budget computer replacements in the departments.

There's also an expense in IT that needs to be budgeted so they can actually purchase the computers, and that's something that was left out of the original budget, so we're adding it back.

I think that's topic.

Are we repl how many computers are we replacing at one time?

And do we have an ongoing budget to replace a few every year, or is this just something that comes up every yeah?

All the computers are on a replacement schedule.

So we do every four years for most computers.

Um every year we would replace about a fourth of those computers.

This amount specifically is for 340 business class computers and then 95 MDTs, which are those tablets that other departments who work outdoors usually use.

Yeah, Nick.

So being sure I understand this.

The the show is an expense of 663,500 to IT.

But did I understand you to say that there is revenue that comes from individual departments that covers that expense?

Yeah.

So the expense in the departments and the revenue that IT receives were already in the budget.

We had just overlooked budgeting the authority for IT to actually purchase the computers in their fund before they deploy them to the other departments.

So the revenue that comes from the departments is roughly equivalent to the amount of the expense.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

I'm sorry, there's another one with a transfer that I highlighted on the slide.

I will try to break it down a little bit better.

Um we have not done a great job at budgeting for maintenance of public buildings, which would be like this building that we're in, or any of the city buildings.

And so we have decided it would be prudent to budget a little bit more than we originally did for the maintenance of public buildings.

And again, in this case, we are adding $900,000 to the project budget, and then there's also an expense transfer of $900,000 from capital improvement sales tax and a revenue in the project of $900,000 related to the transfer.

Did you have a question, Valerie?

I have a comment, not a question, so I will hold it to the end, I guess.

Meaning both we can give you an example like one of the major projects that needs to be looked at for our facilities.

Right.

And uh I think what are we looking at for tuck pointing?

Around a million dollars.

And so it's substantial.

And so the one thing we haven't been doing a great job of is budgeting or putting money set aside for those facilities.

We're great at building buildings, but the general maintenance is something we really need to budget for.

And so kind of like what we've done with our vehicle replacement fund, we're now going to do the same thing for our facilities.

And so we can have money set aside so that we can take care of these projects before they become a major expense.

Right.

Can I can I ask on that?

Um were these the sort of things that the public improvement fund that that 2% of the or the 1% of the two percent.

Usually would fund part of it, yes, ma'am.

Part of it, but it still was never.

It was never funded at the level we would probably should have been funded at.

I feel like we're finding a lot of these things that were never funded at the level that they should have funded.

And we're um noticing that we had a lot of cans that were being kicked down the road, and we're attempting to pick them all up now.

Um I think that's right.

And I think that's responsible.

Um I'm also wondering how many cans are there?

And do we have to pick them all up at the same time on a rough budget year?

Um and is there a method for phasing this in?

Is there some kind of study we have to do to find the lost cans that are turning up one at a time?

So this one in particular is not being funded by the general fund.

So it's not is not one of those things that that is actually uh putting a strain on this budget.

Uh I think as we go through the budget process, we do find out more.

We do talk with the departments and we find out more issues that that may arise that we may not have known about.

And so we try to address those as they come up.

But I I appreciate that comment.

Yeah.

I have to do that.

With the um major maintenance piece.

Uh did I hear correctly that you were saying this is something that we have been good at continuing the maintenance?

We just haven't been good at budgeting for it.

No, we have we've been great at building buildings.

It's got it.

It's the continued maintenance of those buildings that we've kind of suffered at.

Okay.

Okay, so hold on.

Let me make sure that I'm captured that.

So did I correctly count that we had 15 that were and how did you describe the the section of amendments?

You described these as missing in the original budget or what was it?

These were like new items that were not included originally in the budget.

Okay.

Thank you.

So do we don't have this money budgeted in our current budget at all?

We have $100,000 for this particular project budgeted in the current budget.

That seemed quite a bit too low considering some of the maintenance that has been deferred on this building.

And so we're getting the rest of this money not from the general fund?

That's correct.

But from the CIST money?

Yes.

So um we have that money?

Or not we don't?

Yes.

So uh we pool we pool all of our funds together, we invest those funds, and then we we make some sort of return off of those investments.

Uh this money is coming from the capital improvement projects investment fund, uh, where we have invested those funds while they're not being actually put to use.

And then you make a little money off of it, and this is where we're able to do the uh capital projects or the major maintenance uh for the city building.

Okay.

So the sorry, there's good.

The uh the data nerd in me is still trying to figure out like how do we make this a little more understandable when we're looking at the at the budget overall and whether these are costing us money, whether they are costing us half of what we're seeing on the screen.

And I wonder if maybe we can add like a column of total impact on budget, and it would just tell us this is costing zero dollars because it's coming from CIST.

This is going to cost this additional money, this one's getting moved.

And so we're just seeing that total.

Is this actually adding to our overall budget or not?

Would that be possible?

And I think that was a question that Nick Foster asked beforehand when he asked about kind of like is there a sum total to these amendments?

Yeah, I think if we can separate segment out what's general fund versus some of the other funds, that may help with that overall view to see exactly which which fund is impacted by it.

Because like this right here, this is all funds, and so it kind of gets kind of okay.

Is that general?

Is that kind of improvement?

Where is it coming from?

So I think there's ways of doing that.

Well, I agree with that.

And I think that when it comes to our looking at all of the budget as the budget as a whole, it is the general fund that we have more discretion over and primary responsibility for.

So that that would be helpful in that way to just break that out entirely.

So these are our encumbrance amendments, and so uh encumbrances are basically funds that were budgeted in one fiscal year but have to move to another.

Um normally uh if these if these funds have already had a PO or uh purchase order.

Purchase order, I'm sorry.

If they have a purchase order on them already uh by the end of the year, they will automatically move to the next uh fiscal year, and that's something we also bring back to council to kind of show you uh everything that moved from one year to the other.

These encumbrances are things that will not have a PO on them by the end of the year.

So instead of waiting for them to roll or wanting them to roll, we just budget them in the next fiscal year.

So that means we had the money in the last fiscal year, but we just haven't spent it.

That's correct.

Correct.

I just like to make sure it's not new money we're having to find.

That was the perfect explanation.

Okay, thank you.

So we uh we really didn't highlight any of these because they're uh the money is already allocated.

Um but if you have questions, just let us know.

I think there's only two pages of these.

Okay, so did I count so there's eight?

Yes, that's correct.

Can I ask what City Works is?

It's under the IT um 43, I think it was.

I believe that is the work order system.

Randy, is it?

Randy, you want to come up and talk about that a little bit?

CityWorks.

Randy, will you introduce yourself for those who do not know who you are?

Sorry.

I'm Randy, I'm the assistant IT director.

Uh CityWorks is uh essentially a large work order system for the entire city.

Uh, city utility guys are out, you know, putting pipes in the ground, or public works guys are putting new streets down.

You know, and this gives us a way to coordinate that so we don't you know put a street down.

Uh it goes across the city.

We're integrating it with our call center.

So if citizens call in to report uh a bridge it needs maintenance or a street or whatever.

The call center would generate a work order and it goes straight over to those guys to do it.

Once uh the work order is done, it kind of feeds it back into it.

So there's a closed circle loop in there for everybody.

I mean to answer any questions if there's something else.

Another benefit of the city works that it will allow us to do a better job of having our metrics.

And so you'll be able to see exactly how many miles of streets you have, how many how many how many miles of pipes you put in.

So as we're looking at funding for future years, it'll allow us to have a better idea of exactly how we're budgeting for those those type of projects.

And so one of the things that we talked about before is that you know, we have one department who's using one system, another department is using a different system, and if we have this disjointed and so this is an opportunity for us to pull everything together to one streamlined process.

And so it's a should be a better way of actually keeping account of the things we're working on, keep up account of our projects and have a better uh understanding of exactly what is our assets that we have in underground and in ground.

Our current system doesn't uh handle linear assets very well.

This new system is a lot more geared for things like that.

Linear assets being pipes and stuff.

Sorry.

Valerie, did you have a question on City Works?

Yeah, I did.

Um I think we've touched on this before, although not in detail, just conversationally.

Um I'm excited to have more metrics.

Um what and maybe I just missed this in the previous discussion.

What do you mean by it will not be purchased before the end of the fiscal year?

And how does that affect this?

I I think it's that these are encumbered, they were supposed to be spent in fiscal year 25.

And so they're carrying it forward to 26 so that they can issue the PO.

Yeah.

I I guess I'm disappointed that we won't get to do it this year.

Well, we'll but you'll enter it probably potentially by the purchase it by the end of the calendar year, maybe.

We'll see.

Right.

Right.

So apply it to the current projects as they're planned.

Yeah.

I mean, that makes sense.

I appreciate that.

Thank you, Randy.

Yeah, Don.

So just to be clear, again, this is stuff that was we originally budgeted for 25, it's not going to be done, so we're carrying it over to 26.

That money from the FY25 budget isn't going to follow along into the FY26, is that correct?

Sorta.

Uh we are we are budgeting.

We are actually budgeting this money in 26.

So it won't be spent in 25, but it will be budgeted and spent in 26.

But but I I think maybe to Don's point, you did have this money in 25.

Yes, it was budgeted in 25.

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

Then I guess.

Part of my question is why do we have this here now then?

Because this is something that's already obligated, we're going to do it.

And if that's the case, then why are we not showing a since it's carryover money and associated revenue with it?

Because we're technically okay.

Technically understand it may not be revenue.

Okay.

Um but since we're carrying it forward again, maybe a third column carry forward from FY25 or something like that.

Um just to show, because right now it looks like we're adding all these expenses without any associated.

There is I mean, there is not necessarily associated revenue with this.

This was budgeted in 25, so we are not spending it in 25, and we're going to budget it again in 26.

And to kind of kind of go off with your quest.

And that's the reason why it's called an encumbrance, because then that just shows that it's an audit pull through.

And so it's it's not necessary to to have the revenue part, but it is to just show that this expense was in this current budget and it will be moved to the next year's budget.

Right, I understand.

We're I I understand the point that we're saving or we're spending it later than we originally intended.

That part I understand.

It's just that if somebody and I'm not sure I even understand if if I were to see this without it, okay, and under or missing the encumbrance section, you know, I'd be looking at this saying, okay, we're adding, you know, over $500, $600,000 just on this one slide right here, uh, you know, of additional expenses.

But in essence, yes, it's additional expenses that will show up in 26, but by the same token, that money was already already saved.

Was already we've already pocketed, scrolled away, whatever term you want to use.

Right.

It should almost be an NA in the revenue.

Under revenue or something.

It was budgeting.

So some way to indicate that this is like yet, money that's already was previous.

Yeah.

Can I ask then um to that point?

How do we capture fiscal year 25?

You know, I know when we talk about fiscal year 27, we will see budgeted fiscal year 25, and we will see fiscal year 25 actuals.

Are things that are encumbered that the expenses you know that we had from 25 that we ended up spending in 26?

How does that show up in those numbers as far as um uh revenues or you know does that does that true up somewhere?

These type of encumbrance will not, but an encumbrance that already has a purchase order on it, you will see a decrease in the authority in 25 and an increase in that authority to spend in 26.

So then if we um estimated that for fiscal year twenty-five, we would have enough revenues to cover this the the eight items that are here in our encumbrances.

Um does that how does that sort of true you know, is that coming out of what we expect to take in in fiscal year twenty-six for expenditures or um revenues, or it's a wash?

It it would basically be like a wash because you would the money that you received in twenty-five would have taken care of these expenses if we were able to actually buy those or purchase those within twenty-five.

But since we can't, we have to move that expense to the next year.

And so it is not necessarily something you would balance in that year because the revenue actually came in a previous period.

It does.

And it's it's one of those uh And I understand the government accounting and there's all these different sorts of things.

This is just regular accounting.

That's not even government accounting.

If you want to think of it as because it wasn't spent in 25, it will go to our reserves.

And then it just moved from there into 26 to be spent.

And so that's that's how you true it up.

Yeah, and that's I guess that's my question is like where would you see to Don's point that revenue, because this is not included in the $3.4 million that's coming from our reserves, is it?

No.

No.

Right.

This is not.

Yeah, we just made this more complicated.

Go ahead, Nick.

And I'll just ask one more question.

So the the revenue was realized in fiscal year 25 spent in fiscal year 26.

That's correct.

Okay.

So you Barbara, you can look at the difference between what was budgeted in 25 and the 25 actuals.

Um they'd probably be less than whatever was budgeted, and the amount that they were less is what was added to the reserves in that year.

And then that is where the funding comes from in order to spend more in 26.

Yeah.

I appreciate that.

All right.

So the last category of amendments that we have are changes to personnel.

Um we do these separately because personnel is budgeted by position, which means that a change to a position can in turn change a bunch of different benefit accounts and things that are associated with that position.

Um because it's a little bit different than how we budget everything else on a single line item, we kind of call these out separately.

So the two that I'll highlight on this first slide are the um additional million dollar contribution for the police and fire pension.

This is something that was requested last year, and there was some confusion about whether it would be a one-time contribution or if this is something that we had planned to do every year going forward, um, which is why it was not included in the original 26 proposed budget, but we are adding it in now as an amendment to do that additional contribution again.

And then the second one, um, I will call out the personnel corrections and general fund just because it's such a large number, you'll notice that it's red and it has parentheses, which means that it's a decrease, which is good for our general fund.

Um this is largely due to moving the airport safety officers into the airport fund.

They were originally in the general fund in police.

Um, and you'll see that offsetting increase in the airport fund on the next slide.

There were also some 56-hour firefighter positions that we have that were allocated essentially more than 100 percent.

So we were budgeting, since they work more than 40 hours a week, we were budgeting more than 100 percent of their salary, basically.

Um and then we also had some deferred comp rate errors that we corrected that ended up decreasing our personnel expense in the general fund.

And then, like I mentioned on this slide, we highlighted the $900,000 increase in the airport fund.

That is the impact from moving those 11 FTE positions out of airport safety and police and into the airport fund.

And then all of the other personnel corrections, we haven't highlighted or called anything out.

These are just the dollar impact basically from changes that we got back from departments and from HR regarding where positions should be allocated, which divisions they should be in, and if there were any benefit or rate adjustments that we had to do based on feedback, okay.

So uh with all of those included amendments uh that we just went over, uh total revenue for FY26 uh proposed budget increase by 1.7 million dollars, uh total operating expenditures increased by around $5 million.

Uh so you still have a total revenue and uh total operating expenditures uh that are under that total revenue.

And then you look at your capital improvement projects, it increased uh close to six million dollars uh for total expenditure increase of ten point nine million dollars.

Here's what that looks like for the general fund.

Uh it's a total revenue decrease of around $327,000 and a total operating expenditures decrease of around uh $1.1 million for a uh difference of uh $800,000 to the good for the general fund.

So it decreases our uh deficit for $26.

Can we go back to the last slide?

Yes.

So that's $10 million more than we have.

Yes.

When you originally presented the budget.

That's correct.

Uh around six million in capital projects and five million in operating expenditures.

But that includes the transfers to and from, which is why on the next slide we see that the deficit has actually decreased some.

The next slide is general fund only.

Got it.

Right.

Yeah.

And just clarifying, this is the total budget here.

The everything is total budget.

So this one is the total budget.

That's what we're doing.

But what I mean is, yeah, it's the it inclusive utilities.

That's correct.

And general fund.

That's correct.

Can I um clarify?

So I was trying to keep track of our different amendments.

And what we have attached to us has um 74 numbers on it.

I only counted 72 amendments.

And I just say this when it comes to our parts of our process for adopting amendments and what we've done over the last couple of years is kind of grouped them together.

Right.

We've we've we've done like the corrections together, the encumbrances together, and then the new items sometimes we've done one at a time just to kind of go through and then obviously the personnel is kind of lumped together as well.

So I might just ask um before we get to that point of voting, if you do have a list of them as the group that I could see by numbers, because this was me trying to quickly write down what are numbers I saw.

Um that would be useful for me for when I call a vote on the amendments.

So I don't know, Megan, if you have a cheat sheet or if somebody in finance does and could get it to me when it comes time to that.

That would be appreciated.

Yes.

I had to I'm not quite sure how to address this.

But it seems like we were already you know, folks are calling us having a deficit budget already because we were three million dollars at the in the original budget that you that your department gave us at the end of July.

And now we've added another seven million dollars.

No.

Is that not correct?

So the general fund we decreased the deficit by eight hundred and twenty-four thousand dollars.

But I think that's that mean we're not in the red with the general fund anymore.

We are still in the red, but we're only we're only in the red two uh point seven million.

Well it's a three point five.

Okay.

And then if you go back to the total uh budget, what you look at is so your total revenues is around $560 million, your total expenditures of around $544 million, your capital improvement projects, that's that's that's $64 million.

So that's that big number.

And so that's where you get your that no that when you're looking at that two million dollars.

So $5.9 million of that is capital improvement, five million is uh operating expense, but but but you but you're not at uh deficit.

So your revenues are still greater than your expenditures.

And so basically when you're looking at capital expenditures or capital improvement projects, these are funds that are uh saved up over time, but all expensed in one year.

And so that is why you don't use that as an operating expenditure or don't mix those in with actual operating expenditures.

Right, because those are capital improvements.

All right.

Sorry, a little slow for me on the uptake.

Are there any other questions from uh the council?

Okay.

Um, we will open the public hearing if there's anyone who'd like to speak to uh PH 2625 and 1832, please come forward.

I'll go ahead and open the public hearing this way.

Sorry, come forward.

Um good evening, Tracy Wilson, Cleek Camp Race Matters Friends.

Uh I think what I like from the conversation is that you're that the that the city manager's office is responding to the Capitol Projects audit.

Um obviously we can see there's a lot of work to do there in terms of uh getting the information correct.

Um I I actually found this a very onerous process, not easy to follow at all.

Um we have a bill fund, we've set it up to be audited, has drop venus with a narrative for every expense, and it's linked to the cases, et cetera, et cetera, where it needs to go.

There's no narrative attached to anything here, we cannot follow it, it makes no sense.

If you're gonna put down an Excel spreadsheet and then hack part of it out to put it up there, there should be a trans transition narrative to the presentation.

I've taken these out, and this is what I'm presenting.

Um it could be a narrative at the that's also in writing.

Um so I hope that gets worked out.

I am concerned that our capital project capital improvement projects um has a huge debt service, so that money is not all going to projects, it is debt, and we should talk about that.

Um Reverend Richardson talked about poverty earlier in the meeting, and I did ask um uh Mr.

Seawood for demographic data for each council ward for demographics and poverty data.

We talk about poverty a lot in the aggregate, and I think that we need to understand it by zip code, by council ward, and um probably by um a police beat as well.

Um I have just a couple of things about uh I want to bring up is that um I noticed in the city manager's August presentation about the budget of housing, they said the availability of attainable housing.

It seems like we don't want to say affordable housing.

I understand you've been saying that for a long time, but this language thing is kind of annoying.

And so if we're doing affordable housing, we're gonna do a housing study.

Let's be consistent about what we mean about the definitions.

It is meaningless to say that attainable housing means some nonprofit provider or someone built it.

It doesn't tell us if we're meeting our goals for providing housing and meeting those demands.

So I think we need 3,000 or some housing units.

Um, how does the number of units that the council approved get us toward that number?

Because it doesn't say.

So it doesn't help to say we we approved this many units, we don't know how much each unit cost for public services, and we don't know if those numbers get us to where we need to be for housing.

That is an equity issue, by the way.

And as long as we look at it in the aggregate, we are complicit in maintaining that inequity, and I think it's wise to be careful about how we use our language, not in the in the aggregate, but how we do it specifically, targeted to the people who are being, I'm gonna say oppressed and harmed by structural habits, our structural habits, just like you saw with the budget, are producing the problems that you have.

Would anyone else from the public wish to speak on the proposed fiscal year 26 budget?

Hello, Tanya Heath from Fourth Ward.

So the issues of today have to do with the public trust.

And out of the seven of you, there were three council members who ran unopposed, with at least one who got an endorsement by a union.

There's one council member who ran and did not receive a union endorsement.

Then there's three council members who ran and got union endorsements.

And so with that, there is a conflict of interest between the unions and the taxpayers.

Therefore, any council person who might be uh endorsed by a union may want to recuse themselves to keep the public trust when voting on the budget because we understand that there might be um raises that are gonna be voted on with soft money because you're dipping into reserves.

If that is the case.

That puts a conflict between you and the taxpayer.

That is very unfortunate because there's only seven of you.

And so that is the type of thing that when we are coming up into a full service city, it is a problem because we keep adding more and more positions, more and more things that we're doing, and we're not staying within the budget.

And that is not sustainable.

We cannot keep going into reserves as a way to pay raises and keep employees.

Because at some point it's not gonna work.

And then what's gonna happen?

Are the employees gonna be fired because we don't have enough money?

And so I really encourage each of you who was voted into office to make sure that you are doing the right thing with the trust that has been given to you.

Recuse yourself and let the remaining people vote for a balance budget.

It is important that we do what we need to to make sure that the core mission of our city is taken care of, which is potholes, safety, electricity, water, and the things that keep everybody in all wards, their quality of life and their basic necessities taken care of.

Thank you.

Anyone else from the public wish to speak?

Good evening, Ken Rice from Ward 2.

Um I will um just briefly just say that uh uh I agree with uh Tanya's um uh talk on I I I do have quite a big problem when people receive umormous amount of money to um you know get elected from unions.

Um personally, I think public unions shouldn't be able to endorse and or support candidates uh because I think it pure creates a conflict of interest if you're going to do union negotiations and approve their monies that you have an undue influence by them, and um it keeps you from your main duty of supporting the taxpayers who elected you.

So I would say that I agree, and I've also found out just recently that you can't just recuse yourself, you have to get approval, which I think is ridiculous.

I think that this is another reason we need to look at charter reform to look at why you couldn't just choose to abstain or recuse yourself without having to get counsel or city attorney approval.

That is crazy.

Um couple of other things real quick uh that I promise you that I see uh I talk about the budget.

Um the transparency, guys.

I just listened to you all.

A lot of work, but I I thank you.

I I thank you that you're continuing to ask for it.

Please, um city finance person, city manager, we need to make these um to a fifth rate level.

They need to be charts, pie charts, easy to read, easy to understand.

I'll tell you, I see a doctor up here, I see professionals.

I've been doing budgets for years, and I'm sitting here confused at what the heck is put out here on this thing.

It's ridiculous.

It needs to be easier to understand.

I don't even know, God bless you.

If I would have got elected, uh you know, trying to figure this thing out is tough for you guys.

And then for the public to understand it, it is almost beyond believable.

Please continue to push that this is more easily rate readable.

I understand that somebody, you know, in the finance department, they all understand it, but the regular citizens, the taxpayers need to understand that.

And um, you know, again, I do urge you the finance committee.

I've talked to a number of them.

They're not in agreement necessarily with how you how uh the direction that you're going with deficit spending, the city manager, and I know uh mayor you'd said you brought him up, and yes, he's agreed to some of it, but they keep saying the same thing.

Stop doing the overspending because it's not sustainable.

And guys, be transparent.

If you're gonna overspend, where are you gonna get more revenue?

There's only one place, only a few places.

Thank you very much.

But anybody else from the public wish to speak.

Eugene Elkin, 3406 range line.

I'm merely speaking on behalf of you all as a council.

We're learning tonight how hard it might be for each one of you to interpret the language before you.

The three previous speakers have clearly presented you very important facts.

How do you get an answer?

Do we scrap it and start all over?

Because in life, if we don't get our numbers straight, two plus two don't equal three.

It happens to equal four.

Reason I'm up here tonight is uh sudden announcement of my church's closing.

I would like to know.

Eugene, um, remarks right now to just the budget.

I'm on the budget, and I'm sorry I got interrupted on the important facts.

Okay, I'll give you the moment to speak.

When someone loses their church and it has become their life, and I chose to go to that church to keep it open.

I need some numbers and I need them produced in such a way that the public knows.

What was turning point worth to our personal budgeting of keeping Wilkes United Methodist open?

Today, recently, a lady got up here in front of us and told us we had 300,000 remaining dollars.

Is it being used to give one-way tickets out of the city for our homeless?

Is it being used at all?

Why would the church choose to close in reference to everything we've been doing?

The religious side of the whole effort will be taken away.

And I don't think anybody, not even me, I hadn't even thought about the perspective.

We give them a welcome to Columbia.

And we give them hope.

And we don't do it lightly.

God bless you all as you make decisions.

Anybody else from the public wish to speak on fiscal year 26 proposed budget?

But we'll continue our um public comment until our September 15th meeting.

Um it's not your last time to talk on this.

All right, seeing then we'll come to council comments.

Um did you want the staff to go over those two items then?

Yeah, so it looks like um eight and nine are missing from the slide.

So I didn't know which bucket they fell in.

Both of those are new funding.

Um increase to the turning point contract that we have in the health department.

Um that's related to the number of days that they expect to need to be able to open due to weather.

Um and then number nine is funding for fire station five.

That's something that we've talked about quite a bit.

But happy to answer any questions.

Uh yeah, I have a question on that.

So that's five million dollars for the new fire station.

And I don't object to that, but where is the money coming from?

Oh, capital improvement sales tax.

Okay, so we have enough money in there to go ahead and budget this?

That's correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any other comments or questions from council?

Lots of comments and questions.

Um, this is my first go-round, I'm looking for direction on when to ask specific questions or when to make particular comments.

Um I've read every page of the budget and tried to learn and understand.

I've had multiple meetings with staff members, ask lots of questions.

Probably tried some patience here and there.

Um I have questions or I have comments regarding the template of the budget.

But I also have questions as far as making amendments to the budget.

Um the time to do those things.

So usually what we do as far as for amendments is that the direction that we give is that if council has a proposed amendment to the budget, uh, we asked to you know, provide that beforehand, you know, provide it what it is, if there is a dollar amount associated with it, um, and then to ask um the question is where is the expected revenue to come from?

Uh in years past, sometimes it's like, oh, I noticed that there's this item rather than do that project there, I would recommend that that money go towards this other bucket.

Um you saw that years ago, um actually I think we've commented years ago, street maintenance um kept on getting a lot of its funding removed and put into other things.

Um that was kind which I think is resulted in why we're now having so much street maintenance questions.

So that's one of the ways that we usually um um project for amendments.

So I guess if you have proposed ones um to bring them up, and then usually we have them as a vote um vote on if if there's agreement.

Okay.

So that's something I could do this evening.

Or it would be for for a lot of it, it depends on the dollar amount.

You know what I mean, and if we expect where the revenues to come and that, yeah, it's a vote of the council.

Okay.

Um well, we can maybe start with general comments on the template and then go to amendment.

Yeah, and then I'll also just say we can amend the budget at any time too.

Right.

So whether or not it's this evening, at the next meeting, but or you know, for going forward, we do amendments quarterly, if not more frequently to the budget as well.

And my preference would be to have a budget that we don't have to amend, but I that's you know, probably big thinking on my part.

Um this kind of goes back to some of the comments that we've had on the slides.

But in reading the the budget, the narratives, I think something that would be very helpful and make it more user-friendly, like some of the comments we've heard, is in the narrative sections, specifically where we're talking about the highlights or the nice projects that have happened that we're all very happy and excited about, if or even the upcoming things that we can have the line of the budget that reflects that change.

So if there is a significant change, increase, decrease, whatever, um, that it can be automatically connected in the narrative portion, because what I found is I was reading the narrative portion, like, well, that sounds really great, but then I'd get to the budget detail and not understand that that is where the increase was happening was because of what I just read about, if that makes sense.

So I think it would be helpful to to match up the math with the narrative in whenever wherever that is possible.

Um that's probably the the major template suggestion I have.

I do have um, and we've and I know we're gonna be talking about strategic planning as this fall moves on.

Um, but one of the questions as I was reading through each department's report, and there's differences because I know there's you know different directors and departments and things.

But my question was um, and this uh deCarlin is probably for you.

Um, when we're looking at the strategic plan, are do you as a city manager assign specific strategic plan priorities to each department, or do they do their job and retroactively go in as they're writing the report and say this is where it aligns?

So for the strategic plan, each uh each plan item has a department, usually has a department director associated with it, and then they meet with all the department directors that will be associated by whatever that item is.

So like we talk about our uh infrastructure.

No, all the department directors that are involved in some form of infrastructure will have a project out of that that they can kind of point to.

And so it really gears toward what the items are, but there are department directors that are aligned with each strategic align item to make sure that there's a process for those communications.

Okay.

So there is kind of some upfront organization that it's presented differently by each department, which again I understand.

Um and I and I'm gonna be very transparent as somebody who grades papers for a living.

I did a lot I had to take that hat off a couple times.

Um just gonna say one of the areas for that I think can be improved on, I it or uh the yeah, improved on, um, is how the measures are written.

Um some measures are very clear, um, others are not at all clear.

And so as somebody who's sitting in my seat trying to determine progress, you know, where we're spending our money on if we're achieving our goals, if the progress measure is not clearly written, it's really hard to hold that department accountable to the spending of that money.

And so I don't want the progress monitoring um to not to be an afterthought, but not to be underdeveloped.

And I think in many cases that in my opinion, um those progress measures were not very well developed.

And I didn't see the clear connection to the strategic plan.

And it's difficult for me to determine where we are at.

So I I would that's my feedback on that.

I think that's a fair analysis.

I think that's part of the reason why I think from uh from the council discussion is let's kind of start over and one of the things we gotta talk when we look at this strategic plan, it goes back uh different council, different city manager, mostly the all the department directors are newer than the ones that actually were here when we this was first developed.

I mean, one of the things we've got to talk when we look at this strategic plan, it goes back uh different council, different city manager, mostly the all the department directors are newer than the ones that actually were here when we this was first developed.

And so an opportunity to kind of take a step back and look at those processes and kind of develop a new cadence would be good for us.

Yes, and I think we do we need to see it as an opportunity because while turnover is difficult, um, it is an opportunity to bring in new perspectives and say this is how we can do things better, and it's a matter of making sure we get to that discussion and have that discussion and then keep going.

It doesn't stop at the discussion, I guess is my point.

Absolutely.

Um I'm thinking I'm I'm prioritizing what I want to say.

Um of the things I'm just gonna move on to oh no, actually I have one more thing before I get move on to that.

Um we talk a lot about the increase in the personnel and how that's a large chunk of our budget.

Do we have any kind of outcome measure or information where we can summarize how many employee and I know we have we've we have seen that table, how many employees we've increased by each year, because we had that whole table of like bipopulation by thousand people, that kind of thing.

So I remember seeing that.

Do we have any kind of outcome measures or citizen survey information that we have combined with that to see if how our services have improved with the addition of those um positions?

Looking at like a quality of services type of measurement.

Has the increased personnel improved our services?

Yeah, and I would say at the present moment, we don't.

We are trying to do a little bit better job of surveying.

So we did do the survey last year.

Uh we've also did the community summit.

We're we're making those efforts to try to make sure that we're engaging our residents to kind of hear exactly from them about what their thoughts on our service are.

But I would say that it's we're probably too new in this to say exactly if we can see if there has been substantial movement to say that because we've added these employees now we can see what those changes are.

Yeah, I think that it's an important discussion going forward.

Absolutely.

As we're investing money in personnel that we're able to look at the public and say, this is why it was worth it.

So if we can have some type of objective measure, whatever that looks like, um, I think that would be an important piece for us to consider moving forward.

Um then as far as amendments, things that I would we can discuss and then decide if we're gonna vote on or I would say maybe um maybe maybe we can do the questions maybe first.

If there's a few more questions just before we get into specific amendments might be useful.

Are there any other kind of questions for staff clarifications or like template remarks, which I don't disagree with, having an easier to read budget?

I think everybody would agree with that.

Um so we'll go Don and then Vera.

Mine's just more of a comment and just and Matthew, you and I have had this discussion about clarity.

Um again, what we went through earlier in the discussion we had, I think was good illustration of the clarity.

Um the other thing that I that frustrates me is that in the agenda that was posted online for these specific amendments, we just had the one numerical list.

And then tonight it's presented in a totally different layout.

Okay.

I understand why you broke it up, and it makes sense.

But if that's the way it had been given to us in the beginning, probably would have made it a little easier to follow.

Um so that's just mine, you know, and we've had there have been other instances of the slide presentation that's given here doesn't match what came out in the agenda.

Um but that's to me, I think it would have been a little easier.

And then, you know, to the mayor's point, there were two items that you know suddenly seemed to, for whatever reason, weren't touched on or there that you know we found, that's fine.

But uh so just a little frustration on my part.

So thanks.

So also a template formatting comment.

Um but going through it, it it calls to mind a lot, like looking through a textbook.

And oftentimes in textbooks, it will start with a how to read this textbook section that will tell you cues to look out for when you see something in bold.

It's a glossary term, that kind of thing.

How to read this budget would be a fabulous section to have.

Um like right nestled in next to the um, I forget what that first one, how our budget is organized.

I think talking having a general overview of what is fund accounting, because 90% of the people who read this will have never encountered that before.

What is transfer of services and what does that mean for our budget?

What does the parenthetical notation mean on a budget chart?

So that it starts to make a little more sense the first time you're reading through it and you're not having to come with questions.

I think would be really beneficial to making these conversations more productive.

Any other council questions, comments on this?

I'll just go to when it comes to this point.

Okay, sorry, Valley.

Again, you're the far right team.

Going down the line.

Yeah, I'm just kind of going through this list as we have it.

And I'm looking at personnel corrections.

So I get that you know we're kind of moving people around at the end.

Um a lot of these look like small changes.

It looks like um we're losing a couple personnel.

Well, maybe not losing personnel, but a listing that won't be filled or something.

Um I see a negative for stormwater and a negative for um electric.

Um I'm wondering what those positions are, why they don't exist or don't need to be filled now.

How we're reaching our staffing for that.

So um you'll also notice that we had some changes in the personnel appendix that comes at the end of the budget.

Those were in order to get what we've budgeted for positions essentially to tie to what HR has in their side of MUNIS that they use and what they have authorized in the budget.

In the utilities specifically, there are a lot of positions that are allocated, which means that they are budgeted across multiple utility funds.

So it may be one employee who does work for two or three or even four or five utilities.

And so sometimes those allocations don't add up entirely the first time that we do it, and then there are other times when the department will change this employees doing more work for this fund versus the other fund that they were last year.

So in the utility specifically, there were some allocation changes that or corrections that we had to make.

So those aren't necessarily a position that's disappearing, it's just related to the allocations.

Yeah, they're percent effort on each.

Okay.

Okay, thanks.

Yeah, and I'll just point out um just a thing for for mine is um logistics of the amendment sheets that we have this evening in our process that we've done in the past.

Um so I think this year we have one fewer sort of public hearings, so we don't have as many times of which to have multiple votes on amendment sheets.

Um I will say that if we do have any proposed amendments tonight, we don't necessarily have to vote on it tonight.

We can vote it on on the next one or any future meetings.

Um but I do say that that you know we had hope to have like a clean copy of the budget that will start us for October 1st is obviously the intent to this.

Um so if I'm reading correctly, this evening we do have proposed for us two amendment sheets.

One amendment sheet has four sections to it.

Uh if we were to group them like they were grouped in the presentation into what we've done in the past.

So you have corrections, you have new items not included in the original proposed budget, you have encumbrances, and then you have personnel changes.

And then the second amendment sheet is a correction to the personnel appendix that was attached to the proposed budget, and it's just correcting the numbers that are allocated in that one of our first appendix appendices to the budget.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

Okay.

So what is the what do we want to do going on this?

Do you want us to discuss and vote on the some of the we usually like encumbrances and things like that that are cleanups are a little bit easier?

It's new items that become a little bit more conversation that might be a vote at the next one.

Well, ideally we can if we can have the discussion today and vote on the ones we can vote on.

I mean, yes, we can bring it back and reimend, we can amend the budget it does on the 15th.

But if we were trying to get that cleanup copy, it'd be great if we could do it all today.

Okay.

Um so then Jackie, I'll come back to you, and I don't know if any other council members have other kind of proposed amendments.

I I will remind us that you know a lot of what we have before us came after long conversations and work sessions and meetings with council, which is why we saw some of the changes proposed, like personnel increases for staff.

So I want us all to keep that in mind as we're looking at this budget and potential amendments.

So yeah, Jackie, you had any questions on that.

Sure.

Um just going to my requests.

Okay.

Um the first thing I would like for us to discuss about or to discuss is potential use of money for the Office of Violence Prevention to add an additional staff member, um, specifically a coordinator to assist with program implementation so that we can have our director who is very good at engaging with the community and identifying the needs and strategies to work directly with the community on violence prevention could benefit from having some assistance.

So that's the first thing I would like to discuss about potentially earmarking some money for.

List them all and then we'll kind of go.

The second one is as we have already had some discussions around federal executive orders, I'm anticipating that we might have additional ones over the next couple of years.

And um in an attempt to make sure that we are fully prepared, I would like to request some money set aside to be able to contract with outside counsel who has experience with uh federal courtrooms and so we can uh support those discussions.

So those are my two.

Any other proposed amendments in this?

So I'll let staff kind of respond to those first those kind of two ideas.

And it would help too to know do you already have something in the budget for either of these things or um a plan for this?

So DeCarlin, I'll start with you.

Well, so we we do have money in the funds for for legal if uh for financy needs outside council.

So yes, we actually have uh uh we should have adequate funds for that and have identified some resources if need be.

And so we're prepared with that.

And if we do exceed our budgeted authority, we will have to come back for an amendment because you never know what that's gonna cost.

It is expensive.

Um, but we would come back to you at that point in time if we needed something additional.

Can you tell me is that like a specific line item in the budget?

Is that fall under the law?

Yeah, it's uh contractual uh services in the law department.

So that budget uh that line item actually covers several different um items as well, but it covers litigation or outside counsel um when we need to contract with outside council.

It's like 300.

I don't have it off the top of my head.

I didn't bring my detail with me, but it's like uh it's around a little bit over 300,000, maybe 350,000 total.

So we do not have to have that specifically earmarked because that's included in services.

It's already, we already have that.

And and so we know within our budget that that uh those funds don't get uh spent always every year.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

And so that's kind of we know that it's out there, it's a placeholder because we we don't want to be caught off guard.

Um so I know that Matthew knows and the city manager knows that it in any given year we can return um a hundred thousand dollars or so, maybe two hundred thousand dollars of those funds uh back to the general fund as a spend balance.

Okay, so I'm seeing 377,050 proposed for the services.

And that includes the outside council.

And that includes outside council.

Okay, is so I I'm just I'm gonna be really picky.

Is it specifically stated in the detailed services that it includes outside contractual?

Yes, when we uh prepare that budget, and I'm sorry, I didn't know we were gonna have this discussion, or I would have brought the uh I I could have more detail for you, but um we have some uh contracted um uh help uh office administrative help out of there out of that budget, which is it it's around $50,000 uh give or take.

We have some uh research tools that we use.

Um some of those are budgeted in the uh books and subscriptions, but some but part of that actually gets allocated to contractual services because it is a um uh an expense that is tied to it's a software called co-council that it that we pay for out of those contractual services.

There is a uh coming out of that same line item, um, if we have expert fees uh in connection with with litigation, we we pay for those out of contractual services.

So it's kind of it's it's a little bit of a lump sum, but the by far the largest amount of that is is allocated to outside council.

And can I clarify on this too, looking at actual 24?

So if would you say that your actual 24 is more realistic to you know 160?

You know, basically to I think to Jackie's point is like, you know, we want to make sure we have enough.

And and I know yes, you can come back to us with a moment, but it does look like years past you have never spent the total allocation because it's a larger amount for those just in case.

Correct.

So this year um we were preparing for uh a rather significant trial, um, and that resulted in the 17 million dollar judgment that um that director Lew had talked about during his presentation.

So we had a rather large expenditure that's the largest that we've had um out of that fund.

So you can expect for that to go back down in the future.

So just this may be more of a process question then.

So how is the outside uh council, how is that triggered?

Is that a law department uh decision or is it a council saying, hey, we need to get an outside person?

How is that decision made?

Um it comes sometimes it can come through council.

We'll talk about whether or not we want to pursue something, or it can come through the city manager, it can come through our recommendation.

It usually is a consensus that's developed.

That said, there are what comes out of that account are um litigation matters or times when we are seeking outside counsel that is not covered by insurance defense, as I would call it, even though we are self-insured entity, the rules that apply to say a private insurer when it comes to defending a car accident or defending a police action or whatever uh uh a employment law claim, those are all going to come out of the self-insurance fund.

So I don't want you to think that all legal expenses come out of that fund.

That is only for items like what you mentioned, and then anything else that actually might happen uh to be non-insurance defense.

So we have we currently have um something coming out of the utilities that is a non-insurance defense that we also cover out of that, but it's fairly it's fairly insignificant from a number standpoint.

Thank you.

Uh yeah, Nick.

Oh, wait, oh actually, I'm sorry.

DeCarlin, do you want to um to the staff?

Yeah, so I mean that's that is a that is a goal of ours is actually to increase that by for a coordinator position.

It was actually when we initially talked about the office itself, it was let's hire a director.

Uh then let's start working on some programs, let's get some things moving and then bring in a coordinator later on.

So that's a goal.

It's not something that we put in this current budget, but that is something that we see happening in the future budgets.

So my concern with it not being in this budget is that it would even in let's say hypothetically we don't put it in this budget and we put it in next fiscal year's budget, and it can take, let's say, six months to get somebody in that position.

We're looking at another year and a half to two years before he would have assistance in that department.

And if public safety is one of our priorities, I would hope that we would be able to s financially support that effort and making sure that he can be most effective in his role and do it sooner rather than later.

Um the other possibility, and again, I don't know because I'd not you know budget king, but um the is it possible that it can be a shared position?

Is there is there an existing person that can like part-time assist?

I am I'm just trying to throw ideas out there because I I would like to see additional support in this in this office so that we can move forward with some violence prevention programs.

Trying to see exactly when you say a shared position.

I I don't that one I'm not sure about.

Okay.

I think brand new position, brand new person.

I think we I think it's it would be more uh prudent to have uh anything.

Thank you.

So um the question is I understand it is about adding a position into the FY26 budget.

Even if we added the money today, we don't know how much because we don't know what the job duties are, what the pay grade is, and we'd have to come back to you to do a classification and pay plan amendment.

So it would still take time, even if you just put a random amount of money in in the budget, it would be a yes because we don't know what that job would look like until we evaluate it.

We will be accepting what we call, and you guys have heard me talk about this before, but the job description questionnaires will be accepting those in January for new positions, which would be the perfect time to submit that information for us to evaluate it, and we don't have to wait until FY27.

That is up to the city manager and the council if we want to bring it sooner.

So I your concern was well, I don't want to wait till fiscal year 27, then it takes months to fill it.

It doesn't have to take that long, but there's process that has to occur prior to us adding that position in the budget.

And we'll be talking about that very soon.

Okay, so historically has and has the council like maybe put some money aside saying we don't know what the cost is gonna be yet, but we're gonna kind of set this money aside, and once we get that job description, that will go towards that.

That way we have no kind of appearance.

I'm aware of one time that there was money put aside, but then the position never got added and the money went away.

Um I'm not saying I know all of the things that have come forward, but typically it's we're bringing you the classification and pay plan amendment and asking to appropriate funds at that time.

Yes, I I would say um that kind of.

So we kind of did it with the creation of the Office of Violence Prevention.

It wasn't though part of the regular budget time.

We had just adopted the budget when we had the incident that called for it.

And so I would say, and I think for that process, we did request to then move money that we had already allocated to a different project that we ended up not doing to put to allocate that money towards the creation of that, and then you went through the process of the JAQ, the job analysis questionnaire, to create the position that then started later.

So um I think maybe what it would be would be to look at identify if we have any like projects related to this that aren't going to be done that we can look toward and then just uh give the initiative to start the process for a JAQ for according to our position, knowing that it's gonna take time.

Yeah, I would say look in the fact that we have a healthy response.

So I mean, if we if we're looking at you know, trying to create this position, let's kind of create let's do the process than we normally would do.

And so if we can start looking, we can start having those conversations about what it looks like, and then trying to develop exactly what that coordinator coordinator would do, and then that's something we can bring back at mid-year as part of a allocation for funding.

But I I think let's let's do the let's do the homework first before we toss out a budget number because that can get kind of what I'm hearing is not a budget amendment, but would it be uh a motion to ask you to do the homework to begin that process?

Okay.

Yeah, and I'll just point out too um probably this would also be a good one when we talk about the highlights and significant changes.

You know, we can't tell how much additional money in that section of the city manager's budget is also going towards the program expenses you're expending to increase.

One of the things that we've done for the office is that um instead of just having the ability for to spend every time we every time we allocate something for a new project that will come back for the council for uh for authorization.

So I think there's something on is it on this current budget uh for the um Yes, it is part of the not current budget, this current agenda.

Uh there's money set aside for a project, and then there's another project that's gonna come along within the next couple of so that that is something that the council will see as those projects move forward.

Uh I I want to give us a little bit more time to actually kind of take a look at exactly what we're doing and then figure out if we're gonna have a coordinator, what that coordinator will do, and then we can kind of put kind of put kind of put something more substantial to talk about exactly what that job would be.

But that is that is a goal that we talked about earlier on when we actually talked about establishing that office.

Okay.

Uh Nick.

Well, um just a couple of things, and I think it's just a reminder that we can amend the budget at any time in my mind, the budget is a living document really.

Absolutely.

Uh so it's important to keep that in mind.

So in regards to funding for outside council, if we have the occasion where we find we need authorization for greater funding, we can always do that.

Um and then with the office, uh that position with the Office of Violence Prevention, I I'm all for that that office being uh having the capacity that it needs.

Um the the one position is still pretty new, and I think uh what I'd be interested in is hearing from that person about whether they're because there'll be some supervision that will be required in that position.

So I'd want to be sure that he is in a place where he feels like he can do that uh before we do it.

But I'm all for examining examining the the position and and looking at the possibility there.

Other discussion about the budget uh potential new amendments, otherwise I will go through our list that we have.

Okay, I'm gonna go through our list that we have.

And um, so staff handed out to us the attachment that is on the agenda, which is four pages with um one through seventy-four.

And I'll just call out we I mentioned we have these in four sections.

Um these are not color-coded, and this is the thing where it gets tricky.

So I'm just gonna fold out call out their numbers when we do this and loop them together as what you have.

What are you asking?

So I'm gonna go through this section by section corrections, the ones that they had on their first side were corrections.

I'm gonna call out those numbers.

I'm gonna loop those together and make a motion to approve that amendment, asking for a second, asking for a vote.

I'm gonna do that with each of the four sections of types of amendments that we have, going from corrections to encumbrances to new um to personnel to new items.

Um and that will be my way of kind of going through these.

So can I ask?

So I ask yeah can we pull those sections up on the screen when we vote for them?

Yeah.

Can you go can you bring up the corrections first?

So your first few slides of this and if we have I have a question about amendment 27.

So do I ask that question when you get to that point of listing these numbers that's the million dollars for the pension fund.

Sure.

Yeah?

Sure what?

Yes.

Like you said call it up when I get to that number.

Okay.

Okay.

And yeah that are these finalized when we accept the budget because we haven't gotten the clean version of this yet?

Correct.

So this is just for an amendment.

We're voting on the amendment pending the clean version and acceptance of the final budget.

Correct.

These are amendments that will then come back to us for the September 15th one.

Okay.

Thanks.

So starting with um corrections.

So corrections um and you please correct me if I'm wrong but how I wrote this down too is amendments one, two, three again you can see this on here but I have to make sure I have this is the same thing.

Six, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-three, twenty-six, twenty-nine, thirty, thirty-seven, thirty-eight thirty-nine, forty, forty-one, forty-two, forty-four, forty-six, forty-nine, fifty-two, and fifty-three.

Did I get that correct?

Yes.

Okay.

So I'll make a motion to adopt the amendments that are in the category of corrections.

Do I have a second?

Second?

Second by Nick Foster.

Any discussion on the corrections?

Hearing none.

All those in favor of adopting the amendments that are corrections to the the um presented to us budget say I.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay.

So those 28 amendments are passed.

Or we'll move forward, I guess I don't know how to say they'll they'll move forward.

Up next I'll go with the encumbrances.

Wait, but that's not your next one.

Do you mind skipping ahead?

Because it to me it makes more sense.

So the encumbrances are the things that were originally budgeted in fiscal year 25, have the funding for them but won't be encumbered until fiscal year 26.

So for this this is item 16 or amendment 16, 22, 31, 32, 33, 34, 43, and 48.

Did I miss any Megan?

Okay.

Any questions about that?

So I'll make a motion uh to adopt the amendments that are um doing the encumbrances moving forward do I have a second?

Second.

Second by Don.

All those in favor of the encumbrances say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay.

Next we'll go to the personnel corrections, which I think is just following this one.

And the first one is the one that you wanted to ask questions about Betsy.

Yes.

I know last year we um we did this although we are you know quite in the hole for the pension plan anyway and there was some discussion as to whether that was really going to do any good with the amount of just with with what we're having to spend out of that.

And so I'm wondering about making that a yearly expense especially when we might need that money for something else.

I mean it says the police and fire department but doesn't that come out of the general fund.

Yes it does a general fund okay I think the the question of does it do any good it will no if we if we look at our their our pension fund has been a 30 year pension fund by adding this additional million dollars a year that will increase the timeliness of actually getting so fully funded so it it does do some good and so that's and that's the reason why I think once it was proposed to be an annual allocation okay no but it was not proposed last year to be an annual it was I think for some reason it was mistakenly left off of this for for the for this current budget.

I think there was a miscommunication but I know when we had the conversation with council it was always the anticipate the the thought that this will be an annual allocation of an additional million dollars to those pension funds to the pension fund.

And so it didn't pull that over for 26, and it was just it was just missed.

So that's why this one is a And the personnel advisory board and the actuaries and everything, they are now they have been putting the assumptions in that it would be a recurring, and that's the numbers that we've been getting is the assumption that it would be a recurring payment.

So does this amendment make it a yearly?

I mean, are we going to be able to do that?

I mean, every budget year we vote every year, but it will be included in this one, and the intent is for them to continue it going forward.

That's correct.

Okay.

Yeah, done.

Yeah, I was just going to say I if memory serves, we got a recent presentation from the pension.

And that additional million actually made it to where we basically put in what we spent, so we weren't dipping into the capital to pay out the benefits.

So if memory serves, it did serve its purpose.

Okay.

That's so we we made we made the we made it without that million dollars.

The million dollars is sort of um a gravy at this point.

I don't know, Jim, if you wanted to explain.

Jim McDonald, Assistant Finance Director.

So what we did is uh on October one, we moved that million dollars into that pension pool, and it's been earning investments in that pension pool ever since October one.

We have not needed it to cover our expenses this year.

There could come a chance when we might need it if there's a big drawdown on drop payments and things of that sort.

But as of now, we haven't needed it.

And our anticipation, hopefully, is that we won't need it next year either.

And so that the money can just go into the investment pool and earn earn investments on that and keep keep growing.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Um so the ones that I have listed for personnel, these are amendments 27, 55, and really 55 through 74.

I'm not listing every number out, y'all.

You can do that, Dash.

Um, so we have, and this one total has 17.

I'm sorry, personnel has 21 amendments within it.

Are there any questions to this one?

I think Value, you had asked a question earlier, got it answered on these.

So I'll make a motion to approve um the amendments that are within the category of personnel.

Do I have a second?

Oh, second.

Seconded by Jackie.

Any discussion on that?

I don't know if the hesitation and seconding means there's questions.

Okay.

Um so all those in favor of adopting the amendments that are the personnel corrections, say I.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay.

So those ones.

So the ones remaining then, so go back to your slides there, or the new items.

And in this one, I believe we have 17.

Uh, and then I'll point out on here the ones included in this one.

Um, we've got items four, five, which are those capital improvement projects.

Um, eight, nine.

So that's not on this list, but eight is again the new funding for turning point contract for the mid-year allocation and the funding of the fire station five, that's number nine.

Um, and then we have fifteen, eighteen, twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-eight, thirty-five, thirty-six, forty-five, forty-seven, fifty, fifty-one, and fifty-four.

Are there questions on these?

I know a lot of you asked questions while we were doing it.

Um, are there questions on these new items that council has?

Yeah, Betsy.

The question on eight.

Um, the new funding for turning point, which says mid year, is this the money that we are we've started or we have already spent?

I mean, mid year is like April, right?

There was an amendment that I think already came to you for 25 funding.

They also need an increase for 26, which is the amount that's shown on this amendment sheet.

You want to add anything to that decrement?

Yes.

So remember the one of the things that we talked to Trinity Point to do is to be an overflow for the summer, just like they're offered a winter.

And so this 22,000 was to cover for the winter costs.

The summer costs.

The summer costs.

So is this money we have already spent?

So we so we spent it in 25.

This also pulls for it in 26 as well.

So we did a mid-year allocation in 25 when we asked them to to take on the summer, but we also have to put it into this current budget for next year or for this upcoming year.

This is when we add some beds when the temperature gets above a certain level.

Yes, sir.

Right.

But next year we're hoping to have the opportunity campus, but next summer, right?

Next summer, right?

But so I think that's kind of the one thing that Eugene was asking about is what happens when Wilkes closes.

Right.

They're moving their services to the opportunity campus.

So turn it point operations will go to the opportunity campus.

So we will still have a contract with them for services.

It's just in a different location.

But when they won't be doing overflow, will they?

They may not be doing overflow, but it's still accounting of it's all based off of the number of people that are being utilized.

So the number of beds being utilized.

Okay.

So we'll just have to see how things go.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay.

Thank you.

Additional questions on the new items for this one.

So we've got um 17 new items that were missed in the original proposed budget.

Um do you want me to go lump them together like the others?

Uh yeah, I thought you did.

Okay.

All right.

So um I read those numbers out to you already.

Um we have the 17 proposed in here.

I'll make a motion to um approve the amendments um that are in the area of new items.

Do I have a second?

Second by Petsy.

Any discussion on this?

All right.

Uh all those in favor of the 17 amendments say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

So you've got your 74 amendments.

Um I I would ask um while we're asking for kind of a clean budget for like the totals to equal up and what comes to us.

It would be useful if there's also kind of a supplemental memo that's attached that does the categories that we just voted on so that we can see those as the categories were presented to us, along with like the sum totals of those.

I think that would be useful, even though they should be included in the clean budget, just so we can show that transparency.

I appreciate that.

Okay.

Any other discussions on this one?

All right.

So again, reminder this will come forward to us for the September 15.

We'll have another public comment period on this as well before we talk about that.

We've closed the public hearing, and this will show up under old business next time.

I didn't bang the gavel.

No, I know.

That's why I want to make a point that the hearing is closed, but it will be under old business, so this will be taken comment.

Didn't tell me to bang it.

Okay.

Sorry about that.

All right.

So yeah, we will continue this.

Um the amendments have been discussed, but now we'll go forward for the next fit.

The the budget will be discussed and voted on at the September 15th meeting.

All right.

Moving on.

It's only 923 on to old business.

Sheila, do we have um can you read Bill 1842?

Council Bill 1842 is an ordinance amending chapter 27 of the City Code as it relates to electric rates and fixing the time when this ordinance shall become effective third reading.

Do we have a staff report?

Yes, good evening.

Erin Keys, Utilities Director.

With me is Sarah Talbert, Assistant Director for Utilities Rates and Fiscal Planning.

At the last council meeting, the mayor asked us to bring forward information about the customer charge from the 2023 electric cost of service study.

Uh so that's what this staff report will be is to follow up on that.

The customer service charge customer charge for electric is meant to recover fixed costs, such as billing meters, meter reading, and customer service.

These costs are incurred to serve customers regardless of how much energy they use.

For comparison, the energy and demand charges recover variable costs associated with the buying, selling, and generating energy and capacity or peak demand costs.

So billing meter reading and customer service are mostly personnel expenses.

Um salary and benefit increases for these staff are recovered in the customer charge.

So we have seen increases in salary and benefits to be more than what was expected in the escalations uh that were in the 2023 cost to service.

Therefore, the 2 percent increase is justified for the customer charge.

In 2023, the cost-based customer charge uh that was calculated by the consultant was $30.19 cents.

So the actual cost to provide the fixed customer services is $30.19 cents per residential customer.

We are currently charging $22, not the $30.

Um and we're proposing $22.44.

So not quite $8 of the fixed costs are currently being recovered in the variable energy costs.

Also from the 2023 study, the consultant analyzed the City of Columbia's data.

And for Columbia, the customers that use the energy assistant program assistance programs, those customers used on average between $17% and $46% more energy than customers that were not on financial assistance.

So a 2% increase impacts all customers.

And I'm unsure how to measure the proportionality of the impact on low-income customers when I know that some customers that use the energy assistance are high energy users and could also be considered low income.

So the rate structure proposed and implemented in 2023 was moving towards recovering costs more fairly across all customers.

So moving towards recovering consistent fixed costs in the customer charge.

So in the 2023, the customer charge was adjusted to $22 from $16.31.

Assights to the customer charge provides revenue stability for the electric fund because we know exactly how much we'll receive each month as far as revenue.

And assigning cost to the customer charge also provides bill stability for the customer.

So the utility bill is going to recover our cost one way or the other, either in customer charge or the energy charge.

By recovering more of the fixed costs in the variable rate, that actually causes larger fluctuations in monthly bills.

So as you can understand, you can argue the point either way, you know, how it was argued last week or how I've discussed it today.

Our current proposal is a 2% increase in the customer charge, the energy charge, and the demand charge.

I forgot to include the demand charge in the slide, but that is also being increased by 2%.

For the residential customer charge alone, a 2% increase is 44 cents per month.

The 2% increase in the customer charge overall generates about $300,000 in annual fixed revenue.

This is the forecast with a one-time, 2% rate increase in FY26 for the customer charge, the energy charge, and the demand charge.

You can see that the cash above the reserve target is declining over the next five years.

That's the line that's above the debt coverage without with pilot and without pilot.

It's that line that has the yellow at the end.

So if you look at fiscal year 2030, we are forecasted to be one eight $1.8 million below our cash reserve target.

When looking at these forecasts, uh I'm sure in the past, a lot of folks have pointed out there's $42 million in cash reserve target, and that's a lot of money that we're holding on to.

But that's for emergency situations and unexpected power purchases due to weather.

I'm pretty sure a catastrophic failure for electric will cost well more than $42 million.

So it's important for us to keep that cash reserve target.

The money in excess of the reserve target is what's used for projects such as transmission lines, substation upgrades, feeder projects, generation projects, power purchases, advanced metering infrastructure.

So if we deplete our cash in excess of the reserves, we will have to reduce the amount of funding that we do put towards capital projects.

And so that's why we look at this forecast every year to see what the trend is and if we need to recommend a rate increase or not in the past when we have not when we've recommended a rate increase and maybe it hasn't gotten approved or not as much as what we asked for.

In future years, we have to start adjusting what our capital projects are going to be or adjusting some of our operational operational expenses.

That just means we're deferring maintenance and we're deferring improvement projects that that need to happen.

So that's what I'm looking at when I'm looking at the budget and the forecast is what is our trend and how do we get it to where our cash above the reserve target is a more consistent value.

And so that's why we will continue to ask for regular incremental increases to get to where it's a more consistent value.

So at the last meeting, the mayor asked us to provide information on changes in revenue if only the energy and demand charges were increased by 2 percent.

So if the customer charge remains $22 and the energy and demand charges are increased by 2 percent, the overall annual revenue adjustment decreases from 2.8 million to 2.5 million.

So that 2 percent customer charge increase generates about $300,000 annually.

So this is the forecast with no customer charge increase and a one-time 2 percent increase in energy and demand charges.

Similar to the other forecast, the cash above the reserve is declining, but at a slightly higher rate.

And then if you look at the FY2030, we are forecasted to be $3.3 million below the reserve target.

And this is more than the $1.8 million forecasted in our current proposal.

So over time, that $300,000 does add up, but we can also recover that in future rate increases if that is what council decides.

So again, staff recommends regular incremental increases.

We anticipate uh updating the cost of service for electric in fiscal year 2028.

At that time, we can continue discussions with council about philosophies on where to recover costs, whether we do so in the customer charge or variable rate charge, and and who do we recover those costs from.

When we do the cost of service, we'll also update and reset the uh power cost adjustment base values based on the actual costs and what the revenue requirement will be at that time.

So at this time, staff is requesting approval of the legislation to amend Chapter 27 as it relates to electric rates, and I'm willing to attempt to answer any questions.

Questions for staff from council?

Okay, Nick, you have a question?

Oh, done.

Go ahead.

Oh, good part voice.

It gives me a chance to think.

All right, done.

Just to reiterate, and I know we addressed this before, but just again, for somebody that may be paying attention that wasn't previously.

Water Light Advisory Board recommended the full 2.4 percent staff you are recommending to 2.0.

Um reasoning for rounding down.

Just to make it less a little less onerous, painful, whatever term you want to use.

Right.

It was it was conservative.

That was our original conservative estimate.

Um so we just stayed with our original estimate.

We're happy to do a 2.4 percent if that's what council desires.

Um I will say uh, you know, in the past we've had trouble moving forward with rate increases, and so I think that was a reason that we wanted to go fairly conservative and felt we could justify, and it was a reasonable amount.

Yeah, I guess my concern is if that puts us we start getting a little bit behind this time, you know, next year, and of course it's all a projection anyway.

So that would be my concern.

You know, and frankly, I'm debating the idea of kind of split the difference and maybe doing 2.2.

Nick, you had a question.

Well, if I'm if I'm not mistaken, I think didn't council sort of give direction for this more at 2 percent rather than 2.4.

And and really with some of the same concerns you had, but also to try to implement something where we are doing that on an annual basis.

And I and I and I'm I appreciate the the uh document that shows where we can anticipate going in the projections about that, and knowing that we are going to look at that every year.

So I think that we could see it a steeper, see a steeper increase in the rates moving forward.

Uh I was I wasn't here for the last meeting, but I was tuned in, sorta.

Um in in the public hearing, it was suggested that uh more of the increase should go to the base rate rather than and and should go to the usage rates rather than the base rate to encourage uh conservation.

Can you speak to that as to why we're using we are increasing the base rate and not depending on the on the usage rates to provide what we need?

Right.

Again, you know, all of our costs are increasing.

So not only our fixed cost, but our variable costs are in have been increasing, uh more so than what we uh anticipated with the 2023 cost of service.

There's escalations already built into that.

But the increases we've seen in salary and benefits in materials in power purchase, uh all those have increased more than what we expected.

So we're really paying for two different things here, aren't we?

The the base rate in the cost of services, that this is what it costs to provide the service to those places, and then the usage rate is this is what it costs to pay for the actual use.

So that's why they're separated out that way.

Correct.

Thanks.

Well, and I think can you remind the cost of service study said that if we were to truly recover the cost of providing the service to every customer, you said it was $30, a base rate should be a base charge should be $30 and or around $30 in some odd sense.

Yes.

And we're proposing $22.44.

Yes.

There's still that the gap there.

But it's been having to actually be covered by the variable rates.

So that is being captured in that sense, is being captured in the in the usage rates then.

Right.

Part of part of the fixed charges or part of the customer charges are being recovered in the variable charges right now.

All right.

I appreciate that clarification.

Any additional council comments?

I'm sorry, council questions.

On the on the same note of use rate rather than base rate.

Um I really appreciated the context you gave particularly about the stability.

That was not something I had considered from both the utility side and the customer side.

Uh but I was also curious about the the feasibility of it.

You know, what amount of increase would we need to see in the usage rate to help take some of that to help cover some of the costs without having to increase the base rate?

Yeah, I don't have a good measure.

But yeah, it's only $300,000 that the base fee would be we would lose the revenue on.

So it's without going through the cost of service study again to determine how that needs to be reallocated.

In the grand scheme of things, $300,000 in the electric budget is is a small amount to try to reallocate out to the variable costs.

So what we what Aaron presented was we either move forward with the proposal of the 44 cents or we remove it and it's only a $300,000 reduction, estimated reduction in our in our revenues.

And we provided that forecast to show you if you decided not to move forward with it, that's the impact it would have.

Thank you so much for that clarification.

So you're saying that if we wanted to look at increasing use rates instead, we would have to start this whole process over essentially.

Not necessarily start the entire process, but we would but we would have to go through the whole whole model and everything to figure it out.

But for 300,000, it's we can recover it in the next fiscal year.

And fiscal year 2027, you know, whatever incremental rate increase we bring back, we would figure out what that would need to be.

Understood.

Thank you.

Additional questions before I open up for public comment.

I don't want to miss you on my clicking over here.

All right, would anybody from that?

Wait, anybody from the public uh wish to speak on bill 18425?

See, none will come to council.

Okay.

Yeah, come.

Uh I just wanted to say that the program um the scholarship program is very helpful.

Um and it would be great to continue it.

I would like to see, I'm not exactly sure how you would work this out, but it would be really nice if there was a set amount you got each month instead of the $900 flowing gradually throughout the month, because I think people would be much more able to budget and would also be a little more aware of how much money they're spending, how much energy they're using.

Thank you.

None will come to council um council comments, council questions, clarifications if they have.

Yeah, Betsy.

Um I would just like to speak in support of amending the chapter 27 the way it's been written.

Um, we've gone through probably a year, a year and a half's worth of work trying to sort of look at what would be reasonable as a base rate increase, what would be reasonable as a utility rate increase to try and keep from having what we had to do with the water um bills, which go up twelve percent.

We don't want to do that.

You know, that's it might not look like that much, but it sounds terrible if nothing else.

And so if we could be going up 2% every year or every other year, I mean that's what the economists recommend, that's what the finance guys recommend, that's what our consultants recommend.

And I'm not really willing to monk, or I would prefer not to monkey with this at all, but just go with what the recommendation is.

Just a quick clarification.

So we did not increase rates by 12 percent for water.

There's a 12 percent revenue increase, um, but a lot of people's residential bills actually went down because of rate structure changes.

Sorry.

So I don't want that quote to get out there.

And if you're not gonna do that, you're right.

I don't need to give that information.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up.

Hold on.

Let's let's go with the electric rates anyway.

Okay.

But yeah, yeah.

Yeah, Valerie.

That's a real hand raise.

Yeah.

Um I definitely agree with the um small two percent raises frequently um as opposed to a large one.

I think that was the right choice, and we've talked about that at previous council meetings.

Um I did have a lot of people contact me either by email or at the grocery store on the street with concerns about raising rates and concerns about affordability.

Um and I do share those concerns.

And partially I think that's why the two percent is the wisest um route to go.

Um, because if we don't do this now, we risk having a sudden increase that makes it less predictable and less affordable.

Um I did go through because I wanted to know what the impact would be like to someone who lives in the first ward and uses a lot of electricity because we have old homes in the first ward.

Um so I went through some of my bills and some people who were kind to share their numbers with me.

Um I can agree that um it turns out I thought I conserved well and I use a lot of electricity because my home is not very um sustainable.

Um so I should look at some rebate programs and I would draw attention to those for all citizens.

Um my highest usage month for my own bill um was January my sorry, not January, July, um, because it was a very hot month and we used a lot of cooling electricity.

My bill under the new rate for the same kilowatt hour usage would have gone up by a dollar sixty-two.

Um while any income when you're low income, any change is um difficult.

I think that that is an amount that in the highest month we can be more comfortable with um as it's easier to plan for than having a larger change later.

Thank you.

Any other council comments on this?

Or additional questions on it?

I'll just say I appreciate you um responding to the question that we received from uh resident at the last one.

And and I I also appreciate it.

It is a thoughtful that we're already not recovering the cost of the service in in our current rate structure, and so I appreciate that information because I can then go forward with what we have before us.

Um Sheila to please call roll on bill one eighty-four twenty-five.

Council Bill eighty-four twenty-five, Mr.

Waterman.

Yes.

Ms.

Peters?

Yes.

Ms.

Buffalo, yes.

Ms.

Carroll, yes.

Ms.

Elwood?

Yes.

Ms.

Sample?

Yes.

Mr.

Foster?

Yes.

Moving on.

Um Sheila, will you please read um Bill 20525?

Council Bill 20525 is an ordinance amending chapter 14 of the city code as it relates to parking meter rates and fixing the time when this ordinance shall become effective second reading.

Do we have a staff report?

Yes.

Uh Shane Creech, Director of Public Works.

Um, I've got Deep from Finance here to help.

They only trusted me with the very first slide, so um the parking utilities meter fees have been relatively unchanged since 2013, with the exception of meters near campus that were increased to a dollar per hour in 2015 to match the university.

The university then increased their fees to a dollar twenty-five in 2022.

No changes to rates or permit fees have been implemented since 2020 citywide.

Having cheaper meter fees than the university long term can have the impact of pushing students into downtown, thereby limiting customers' parking during the school day.

And with that, I'll let Deep take it from here.

I think we can give a good background of how what the history of our parking and how when was the last time we had a parking rate change?

And then there is some number, and we already mentioned that we have to pull 600,000 from a CIP project on the ramp because we are a little short on money.

And as you can see on the based on those 20 20% crash deserve, we are yellow.

And then if we have would have added that 600,000, it would we could be in negative.

That's why we thought we will push that for now.

We did uh couple of studies uh with the University of Missouri Business School, uh and then yeah, as you can I listed those sources parking rate analysis one and then park it and parking rate analysis two.

So they all recommended that we need to kind of redesign our rate.

Um this is the kind of summary of our current uh hourly rate downtown, 60 cents per hour.

And if you are if someone is parking less less than an hour, they pay by that time.

Uh and then with the park mobile app, they are paying a additional fees of 20 cents just for one time.

If they say, for example, if they park two hours, they will pay one-time fees of 25 cents.

Uh at the campus, uh right now it's uh one dollar and then fifty-five cents, which make at the part using the app makes it more expensive for the student to park in our spot rather than the MU parking structures.

So what we are proposing here, we are proposing to change it to one dollar flat uh for both the coin as well as the um park mobile app without and then we will uh we will absorb the additional fees.

So no additional 50 cents, 55 cents for the first hour, but for each additional hour they will pay one dollar.

Uh both the downtown as well as the campus.

So we uh we are not increasing anything at the campus, but we are dec absorbing that 55 cents.

Any questions in this one?

Because are there any questions from council?

Well, I have one.

If you can go back to that initial slide.

Oh, um uh sorry, the one the next slide.

This one?

That one.

Um we're still looking at available cash being below target all along the way here, right?

Uh and I see it's just this just goes to 2026.

Moving forward, are we still seeing that that not deficit, but that uh lesser amount related to the cash target?

If we you know the five year five year we showed, I think with this current situation, it will be negative going forward.

So there's a good chance we're looking at parking rates again before too long, right?

Yeah, at the end of the slide, we have some we'll mention that too.

We have to check that in the going forward.

So does sorry, does this chart for the proposed column show without the changes?

Okay.

So this is what it would be if we don't change anything, and then in 27, it will probably be negative.

But you have another you have another chart that's gonna show what we okay.

Yeah, we we have another uh table like that which include the increase.

Okay, well, maybe it's a good idea to go ahead and look at that then, right?

So this is the next slide with uh additional 300,000.

Which we also include uh some payment we have to make because of that 50, say five cents adjustment we are paying out of ours.

Any addition questions for staff on this?

I skip a few slides.

Do you want me to go to those slides back?

Yes, please.

Okay.

So I mentioned about these, I kind of explained how the current design and what would look in the future.

Uh and then this is we kind of drill down the meter coin meter versus uh the app.

Coin meter needs some personal to go and pick the coins along with our maintenance, meter maintenance, and there are some third party who kind of manage our coin coin also.

Uh contrary, if we go to the app, there is no personalised app, easy to access, it's cashless.

And the best part I like is that I can sit hid this room and can extend my parking time.

I don't need to go and put a coin back.

So then there is a I think uh we compare some cities, university towns, as you can see, and then you see we are at the very bottom part at 60 cents.

So if we increase it to $1, it will be we'll be around middle.

So and you can see that uh horizontal line is around $1.36 cents is the average.

So we'll be still below the average.

Any questions for staff on this one?

Yeah, Betsy.

Well, I have just a question on this.

When you say there's no maintenance involved.

How is that possible for parking meters?

I mean, we might not be putting coins in, but isn't there some maintenance involved for the park mobile app?

Park mobile app we do it in app, though we don't need to physically go to the meter.

I know, but uh I mean, still won't those meters either get damaged or need to be upgraded, and is that not our responsibility?

It's it's all handled by the app.

Um so what you see now is parking meters where you can either use coin or you can use the app.

But there are other parts in town where we don't have the meters there at all.

You just use the app.

And so I'm noticing each one is numbered and you'd go in and use the app.

So there's there's no meter to maintain, there's no coins to pick up.

So there's essentially no no maintenance.

And if you go to most other cities our size or larger, you don't see parking meters anymore because it really is an outdated technology that is really hard to find the pieces and parts and the ability to maintain and the amount of coin that you have to deal with is just slowly but surely going away.

I think we will have to at some point.

Um what I would like to do is something along the lines of uh like a kiosk by block or something where you could still use cash, but you could also use a card but move away from meters at some point.

We're not asking to do that now, but I think that's something that we'll we will need to talk about because that's just the way this is the way the technology is going.

We'll talk here a little bit about transit and it's very similar in the need for something like that for transit service.

Okay, thanks.

Yeah, done.

Okay, question.

If we do away with the meters, we go to the app.

How would parking enforcement know that I paid?

We can see all that now on our side of the app, so to speak.

We can see whether you've paid.

Okay, so we have a side of the app we can.

That's how we do it right now.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's how they find additional questions for staff.

Okay, would anybody from the public wish to speak on this?

Oh, do you have more slides?

I'm sorry, D.

So we saw we show some of the public.

Uh we show a couple of the pictures that where we need the uh maintenance and CIP, and then that's also on the budget, uh, the proposed budget on our website.

Um is because uh for the elevator maintenance, which is around 200,000, and then the uh major maintenance on the fifth annual uh walnut, which is around 400,000, which which we must do that also, which is also included in the budget.

And then what uh Megan mentioned earlier that we are pushing that 700,000 for 2027 because we dropped that 600,000 on the ramp maintenance.

So it's easy, that's what it is kind of annual, so we'll come back next year probably and during 2027.

I think we're done.

At the end of the slides.

Okay.

Any questions come up on those?

All right, would anybody from the public wish to speak on um Bill 20525 related to parking meters?

Oh, Nikki Davis with the district, 11 South 10th Street.

Um I sent you a email earlier last week.

Um the district would just love to see this be postponed for right now.

This has not come in front of our board.

They just would like to hear about it.

This is the first I've seen of any of these slides.

Um I think it did go to parking commission, but it did not have time to come to our board meeting before it was on the agenda.

So we're not saying yes or no to any of this.

We just would like more time to discuss it.

Okay.

Thank you.

Would anybody else from the public wish to speak on the proposed uh changes to the parking parking meter rates?

Um question um do has the staff I know that we have a CID representative on our parking advisory commission, but I also understand that they haven't met since our commission met, like the their board meets next Tuesday for the CID board.

Um so is there a possibility for staff to go and present this information to their board if it can be on their agenda?

Yes.

Okay.

Just want to clarify that one.

Any other questions?

Um so we have a request to table this.

So it'd be if the request was to table it to be the 15th meeting, would that give time to then have a presentation potentially to the CID board and then it would just be tabled to the next meeting?

If that's the desire of council, we can do that.

I just wanted to clarify that request that we had received.

Any other additional council comments or questions on this?

Do you want to make the yeah?

Yeah, I'm happy to make a motion to table this item until September 15th.

I would second that request to table to the September 15th meeting discussion on this.

Is there a staff input on that?

You use you pulled the mic back.

Well, I think the I think the finance folks are concerned about how to present the budget without knowing what which direction we're going on this.

And what's the difference?

Well the well when one of our amendment we had already is the 300,000 reconciling.

So we should we go ahead and amend that?

Your your budget assumes that the that the parking rates are changing, and if the if for some reason this particular ordinance does not pass, then um your budgeting staff has to go back and amend all those line items to reduce those revenues and and change some of the some of the projected expenditures at well to be able to match.

I guess I'm just throwing that out.

Right.

I guess I would just say that um based on the conversation and the justification for the changes.

Um I see that I see that the downtown business owners are pretty responsible and uh respectful to the understanding of the needs of the utility.

And I guess I I just I just appreciate the opportunity to continue to do the education with them, but I don't foresee that there will be a lot of pushback to it.

Um that's just my feelings from this.

It was just more of the timing of when these came about and that they didn't have as much time.

But that's my own sort of perspective.

What remind me what's the difference in revenues?

Um good if you have a chart a while ago.

On one of those amendments, uh I was on slide sixteen, I think.

Um I don't remember the number.

So we you voted to amend that 300,000 additional 15.

Can we move on?

Number 15.

Okay.

You don't have to bring it up.

I it was amendment 15, which was the parking revenue increase due to rate increase.

Um the only thing I'm just gonna mention this uh as much for the city clerk and me.

Um if if you don't pass it tonight or if or or take it up tonight and make a decision, um it will appear on your agenda before the budget adoption adoption at the next next meeting, so our numbers are gonna be out of whack, but that's really just more of a reminder for us to be able to move that um this item up prior to budget adoption.

So I'm fine with it either way.

I just want to make sure that you're aware.

Okay.

Okay.

Uh other discussion on this, and then I'll probably do roll call on the request to yeah, Nick.

I'll just say that I think uh I understand the concerns and uh uh I'm I agree with the mayor.

I I think I'm amenable to this.

I also think that we need to be sure that we hear from the people who are this will impact on a daily basis, the business owners and the residents of the downtown area.

So uh I'll be for supporting um supporting this.

Yeah.

Uh very similar to what council member foster just said.

Um, but I I will always uh prioritize communication and hearing from our constituents over the ease of the process on our end.

So like moving things around on the agenda feels like a pretty easy solution to allow for more comment and feedback.

And I I just want to acknowledge I think that the communication is much more important than the procedural things.

Can I say clarification on that?

Council can request to adjust the uh budget or the agenda to have Bill 20525 read before Bill 1842.

Or sorry, Bill 183-25.

I'll just do it.

Right.

We're just going to show it like that on the agenda like that.

So that way historically.

Yeah.

And then we'll do that.

Just want to go over that one.

So it doesn't work.

For me to forget.

And as long as we as long as we put it out there, you're aware of why this particular thing will appear.

Out of numerical order.

Correct.

Okay.

Any other discussion on the motion in the second to table the vote on Bill 20525 to the September 15th meeting.

Seeing none, we have a motion and a second.

All those in favor of tabling 20525 to September 15th say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay.

So this will be Bill 20525 will be tabled.

All right.

Moving on to 20625.

Sheila, will you please read the bill?

Council Bill 20625 is an ordinance amending Chapter 22 of the City Code to suspend transportation fares for users of the GoComo public transit system for the period October 1, 2025 to September 30th, 2026, and fixing the time when this ordinance shall become effective.

Second reading.

Do we have a staff report?

Yes.

This is re-upped each year as part of the budget process.

Following a review of those factors, staff brought forward an ordinance and recommendation to remain fare-free in fiscal year 2026.

Another factor can to consider in the reinstitution of bus fares is the need to install modernized fare boxes.

This would cost on the order of 250,000 and would take approximately one year to complete.

Here's an example of a more modernized fare box.

The old fare boxes, which were little more than a box with a hole in the top, were removed when we went fare-free because we knew we needed a more modernized system, and it would have been difficult to install the plexiglass partitions installed around drivers during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

It's essential that new fare boxes include the ability to take not only cash, but scan a bus pass or credit card and tap to pay.

However, this technology is constantly evolving.

Therefore, staff would be reluctant to pursue installation of these fare boxes if we weren't sure we were on a path back to charging fares.

I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

Questions from council for staff.

Yeah, Nick.

It seems to me that logistically, this is sort of a moot question.

I mean, we can't we can't reinstitute fares now because we simply don't have the technology.

But I'm wondering ahead of time, how much lead time would you need in order to reinstitute the fairs, include you know uh place the boxes and so forth so that it could be done?

Um we'll we'll have to you know go through the city's purchasing process to um determine vendors, evaluate those and then move forward with purchase and installation.

So conservatively speaking, probably about a year.

We could probably do a little bit quicker than that, but by the time we'd have it instituted, I wouldn't want to try and bring back fares in three-quarters of the way to the fiscal year or something like that.

So my recommendation would be if that's something a path you want to go down, is just kind of get some direction here, move forward with that with the plan to be fare-free next year and return to fares as soon as 27.

I'm not suggesting it's a path I want to go down.

I think it's just something that we probably if we're going to consider it, we need to be considering further ahead than right now regarding a year from now.

Yeah.

Or for this budget.

I've got Betsy and then Dow.

Um do we have any kind of plan as to what we're going to do about transit.

You want to speak to getting the transit study work session coming back to us?

Sure.

Um we had a transit work work session some time ago and council asked for some additional information.

Um our consultant is very close to having that back.

They're going to be at the parking transit advisory commission in later in September.

And so with the hope to bring back not only the draft transit study that you have already seen, but the additional information that's been gathered.

And then from there it'll be an acceptance of that and then how to start to implement that from there.

Well good.

I didn't think we had anything going, so I'm glad to hear that.

Yeah.

And that the expenditure of installing these kinds of items would cost more than collecting fares for them.

Is that accurate?

I mean, it's been some time since we've um we've obviously had fares, but nationwide, historically, there are very few transit agencies that recover costs through fares.

They're all highly subsidized by the federal government, state um state um state money as well to different degrees.

And so it anything we do here will be a much smaller number than the money we get other other places to fund the transit system.

Yeah, that's kind of a given.

Um and that's something that I think is well understood.

There's kind of two parts to this question, and that like we understand that collecting fares is never going to cover the cost of running the system.

Um but what about the cost of installing the collection device, right?

Would collecting fares cover the cost of taking the action to collect the fares?

Um that's what I want to know.

Return on investment.

Return on investment or how long would that even take for it to be a reasonable investment?

Sure.

Um we we and we think that installing these would cost about 250,000.

So it definitely wouldn't be something we'd recover probably the first year.

Um you're looking on the order of two or three years to you know to break even, probably, I would say.

It's a little bit difficult to say because if you go back and look at the the ordinance that's included with the packet tonight, it was pretty complicated.

You know, there's lots of different ways that you could get a pass and you could get you know 25 rides, or you could get uh a month unlimited rides and all that kind of stuff.

So it's a little bit hard to go back and determine exactly how much revenue you would bring in.

Um but that being said, it it would not be something you'd recover in a year or two, I would say.

That amount is that an amount of staff time that we're prepared to expend.

Um if that's the direction of council, yes.

Um I think there's other benefits to considering um reinstituting fares that we have to think about.

But like I said, my my biggest concern with technology like this and the technology we talked about with parking is that's kind of ever evolving.

And so the last thing I'd want to do is spend that money, install that, and it'd be three, four, five years more before you wanted to go back to do that because chances are we'd have 250,000 we spent that I'd have to upgrade.

And so it's a little bit tricky.

It's I I don't I don't think you can do this this year because of this problem, but I think we need to be talking about what the plan is and what that horizon is so that we can start planning for that in some way.

Are there questions?

All right.

Oh, done.

Yeah.

Um were you on the uh chamber leadership visit last year?

Last year, yes.

Yeah.

I forget which of the communities it was, but we got a presentation for them about their transit was it Durham?

That they were fare-free and just going gangbusters with it.

But I if I remember correctly, they were getting ready to end the fare-free and go back to uh a paid.

I can't remember if we asked to have that included in the additional information or not.

But I'm just wondering what kind of an impact they saw once they went back to a fair uh bus or fair transit system.

Sure.

And I it's been too long since I've looked at exactly how we amended the consultant's contract, but I remember a discussion about that was fresh in all of our minds was a discussion of looking at other communities and how they've funded transit, what mechanisms they use to fund a transit, whether that's um a tax or they get additional state funding, um, those kind of things.

And so I know that one of the ones that we gave them was the Chapel Hill Durham area because that was one that was fresh in our minds at the time.

So thanks.

Yep.

Additional questions for staff.

All right.

Would anybody from the public wish to speak on Bill 20625?

Um Nikki Davis again.

Uh so we also included in the letter that we sent last week requesting for this to be tabled.

Um I will say, with just the little bit that I've learned here.

Um I think that we'd probably remove that request right now.

I think it's pretty obvious what Nick said.

Um, but again, still would love to hopefully have a presentation to our board so that they will understand this and we can relay that to our constituents as well.

So thank you.

Would anybody else from the public wish to speak on um Bill 20625?

Hello, my name is Lily White Boyd.

I'm the Vice President of External Affairs for the Columbia Chamber of Commerce.

I did want to just answer Don's question.

Um the speaker you all heard from last year was from Durham.

Chapel Hill's transportation partner was out of town during the visit.

I still have the contact information for Durham.

I do also have the contact information for Chapel Hill if you all wanted to hear from that group.

Their setup is quite different because they do have a uh contract between their city and their university.

So that is one of the things that we were talking to them about as possibly an aspirational partnership, but their fare would be very different based on the fact that a lot of their ridership is university.

However, Durham was specific, uh was specifically who you all heard from last year.

Happy to provide that information.

Thank you.

Anyone else from the public wish to speak?

On bill 20625.

Seeing none I'll come to council comments.

And I'll just point out I just Googled it really quick.

Durham is still fare-free till June 2026.

So I don't know if they didn't.

They just redid their budget, it sounds like this year.

All right.

So I know we had it had a request that has now been withdrawn to this, but I think continuing this conversation.

Um I'll say we also know that it's broader than just this about the recovery part of it is about um, you know, people destination riding and and what what what the intent is on on our buses.

So I think including that, especially when we're reviewing this with the transit um consultant will be helpful, as well as with our advisory commission.

Sheila, will you please uh call roll on bill two oh six twenty-five?

Council Bill 20625, Mr.

Waterman.

Yes.

Ms.

Peters?

Yes.

Ms.

Buffalo, yes.

Carroll?

Yes.

Ms.

Elwood?

Yes.

Ms.

Sample?

Yes.

Mr.

Foster?

Yes.

Moving on uh to Bill 21625.

Um this I believe we have um on our old business because of an amendment sheet that was needed.

So um Sheila, we please read Bill 21625.

Council Bill 21625 is an ordinance authorizing a consolidated grant agreement with the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission for FY 2026 transportation planning purposes, and fixing the time when this ordinance shall become effective second reading.

Do we have a staff report?

Yes, you do, uh, Madam Mayor.

Uh so this is uh an amendment uh sheet uh request to the consolidated uh planning grant that we have, annual authorization that comes before uh the city council.

This is a uh that's referred to as a contract renewal between the Missouri Highways Transportation Commission.

The funds that are within this grant uh are derived from the FHWA, our Federal Highway Administration and Transit Administration with an 80-20 uh federal, 20 percent local match.

Uh the funds support uh city staff and multiple departments projects and programming that are all identified within uh the attachment uh to the actual contract agreement that you had in your packet, which is the FY 2026 UPWP Unified Planning Work Program.

Total funds to be allocated are 1, uh 168,481 with a federal share of roughly 934 uh thousand local match uh for that 934,000 of 233,000.

Per the federal guidelines and the reason why the amendment sheet has come before you, the local match shall be no less than 20 percent.

Uh the original contract and the supporting allocation spreadsheet that has been used uh for many years contained a rounding error in it this year.

Um resulting in the local match being less than the 20 percent.

The highway commission asked that uh the contract be updated, uh which that updated contract shows a dollar less in the federal allocation and $37 more uh in the local share allocation.

The total dollar amount of the grant uh is uh no different.

Um but the allocation spreadsheets have been adjusted at this point.

So we have 20 point, I think two percent, and then uh 79.8 percent.

So we will never hopefully encounter this problem again.

And talking with our CATSO representatives, this is the first time in his memory uh that this type of error has ever occurred.

And so we are asking that you approve the amendment sheet and authorize the city manager to execute our consolidated planning grant uh for 2026, uh ensuring that we then have 95,000 coming to us for which it will cost us two hundred and thirty-three.

Um that's going to ensure that we have our funds that we need in order to do our transportation-related planning projects as well as fund staff and retain compliance with the Federal regulations.

If you have any questions, I'll be more than happy to answer them.

Are there any questions on the rounding adjustment request amendment sheet from staff?

No, I thought it was very clear.

All right.

Um would anybody from the public wish to speak on bill two sixteen twenty-five.

Come back to council comments.

Okay, so we have an amendment sheet.

So um I'll make a motion to amend bill two sixteen twenty-five per the amendment sheet.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Do uh um all those in favor of amending the amendment sheet, which would replace exhibit A, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

Sheila, we please call roll on bill two sixteen twenty-five as amended.

Council Bill 21625 is amended, Mr.

Waterman.

Yes.

Ms.

Peters?

Yes.

Ms.

Buffalo?

Yes.

Ms.

Carroll.

Yes.

Ms.

Elwood?

Yes.

Ms.

Sample?

Yes.

Mr.

Foster.

Yes.

All right.

Moving on.

Sheila, will you please read Bill 22425?

Council Bill 224-25 is an ordinance authorizing a software as a service SAS agreement with Tyler Technologies Incorporated for a records management system RMS for the police department and fixing the time when this ordinance shall become effective.

Second reading.

Do we have a staff report?

Hello.

So this is the contract for the replacement of our current records management system.

We've had this money sitting allocated as a project for a few years now.

And after some exhaustive searches and looking at different things, we have settled on a product, and that is the contract that's in front of you.

Is that the end of the staff report?

I'm happy to answer any questions.

I don't know if you want me to reread the memo or questions from uh council to staff on this one.

You want to ask them?

Yeah, Vera.

Um, so uh first of all, thank you so much for uh responding to my very last minute question when something came up.

Um and also getting the Tyler Technologies rep to provide an answer.

I really appreciated that.

Um I already asked this um to you previously, but just to have it into the record.

Um can you talk about the uh data ownership, intellectual property, and privacy of the software that you've selected?

Yes.

So we went through a really extensive IT has a really extensive exercise that we go through with lots of checklists that uh pertain to cybersecurity requirements, privacy requirements.

Um obviously everything has to be CGIS and compliant, which is criminal justice information systems as dictated by the FBI and the Federal Government, so they meet all of those requirements.

Um the city already actually uses Tyler products, so we kind of already had some of that established, but as it relates to law enforcement type information, they meet all the requirements.

Sorry, can you speak to um who owns the data?

Oh, we do you own the data.

Yes, Tyler on the data.

Yes, we own the data.

Perfect.

Thank you.

Additional questions for staff.

See none.

Um would anybody from the public wish to speak on bill two twenty-four twenty-five.

See none, we'll come back to council comments or council questions.

Yeah, Don, you have a question.

Um I know we've obligated some of it recently.

Is this something where we could use some of the uh forfeiture funds forfeiture funds can only be used for one-time expenses.

They can't be for recurring expenses.

Okay.

Um that's just a stipulation of the forfeiture rules.

Um but we actually um if you kind of look at the money and my money lady is here as well, but um we've had money sitting aside for this project for quite some time.

And so we're using the money that's in that project.

And there's also I couldn't go into great detail without it in front of me, but obviously there's costs associated with the current system that won't be associated necessarily with the new system.

So we kind of tried to do all that math out and and we negotiated what I think was a really good deal with Tyler.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah, Valerie.

Yeah.

So we own the data.

Um does the data live on our servers or on the software provider?

So one of my favorite things about this, this is how nerdy I've gotten in my police chief days, is the fact that this is going to be cloud-based, which has a lot of advantages for us, especially when it comes to data security and how we have to run updates.

So it won't sit on a server anymore as I understand it.

And any of my friends are welcome to come up here and help me if they want to talk super technical, because our Tyler reps are here.

Um but that cloud is through.

Microsoft AWS, sorry, Microsoft was the other one we looked at.

Through Amazon Web.

So they meet, there's so many federal agencies that house their data in that cloud.

So they have met all the most stringent requirements to be able to house that type of data.

So being on a cloud-based system is going to be much more secure for us, um, far better than where we're at now.

And just I could go into to detail that would bore you, but right now we have to really run a weekly update in this system to get it to the system to take anything that the current vendor has added or taken away, or it's kind of like if you had to automatically update your phone.

Um so imagine trying to get everybody that has a computer in the police department to do that every week.

Our success rate is not high.

So doing it this way is going to be a huge time saver and hopefully keep the data.

It's actually caused problems with the data by that not happening.

So this eliminates that issue.

All right.

Any other council comments?

Seeing none, I'll ask um Sheila to please uh call roll on bill two twenty-four twenty-five.

Council Bill 22425, Mr.

Waterman?

Yes.

Ms.

Peters?

Yes.

Ms.

Buffalo, yes.

Carroll?

Yes.

Ms.

Elwood?

Yes.

Yes.

Mr.

Foster?

Yes.

All right, moving on.

We had one item um moved from consent to old business and one move from consent to new business.

So um Sheila, will you please read the item?

Bill 21825.

Council Bill 21825 is an ordinance amending chapter two of the city code as it relates to closed records and fixing the time when this ordinance shall become effective.

Second reading.

Do we have a staff report?

Um yes, but we may need for our police chief to come back in.

I just want to make sure she's aware before she goes too far.

Um I will tell you this is an update.

Um there have been some changes to the sunshine law since our city code has been updated.

Um and what this ordinance does is it brings our code uh and the uh the reasons for having closed records uh in compliance with what state law currently has.

I can go through all the uh specific amendments that have occurred since chapter two was uh last updated if you'd like for me to, or um you can ask whatever questions you'd like.

Which which would you prefer, Mayor?

Yeah.

Well, I'll just um I'll probably ask if Vera, you had questions I know on this one, so I didn't know if you wanted to start with your questions.

Um yeah, so one of the reasons that um I wanted this pulled from consent agenda.

Um I was uh I was wondering, so you mentioned bringing it into uh cohesion with the state sunshine record policy.

Uh but we do have a uh we have previously made exclusions to that.

We chose with the utility payments not to align directly with them.

Um so I was wondering why in this instance we chose to align so closely.

So normally what we do is we we actually normally try to bring them up to date and bring them to the city council whenever the changes occur.

So the last time the change occurred with regard to the utility bills that was brought to the city council and decided not to do that.

Um that's the same way with all of these.

If you decide not to adopt any of these changes, that would be within your prerogative to do so.

Um and like we said, we can walk through them if you want to, but that this puts those issues before the city council.

Do you want um do you want me to have staff go through the the Yes?

That was yes, let's have staff go through it.

Would you mind uh talking about the updates to chapter two?

Sure.

So there's an addition, there is the addition of subsection 18 or some subs some substantial uh modifications to what was uh subsection 18.

Uh and it provides for security measures, uh GPS data, investigative information, or investigative or surveillance techniques of any public agency responsible for law enforcement or public safety that if disclosed has the potential to endanger the health or safety of an individual or the public.

Subsection B to that same section is new and provides for any information or data provided to a tip line for the purpose of safety or security of an educational institution that if disclosed has the potential to endanger the health or safety of an individual or the public.

Subsection three is to add language of any information contained in any suspicious activity report provided to law enforcement that if disclosed has the potential to endanger the health or safety of an individual or the public.

And then uh subsection D is the last uh subsection that was modified and provides that any specific response plans that are developed or adopted or maintained by any city department responsible for law enforcement public safety, first response or public health for use in responding to or preventing any critical incident which has the potential to endanger individual or public safety or health.

And then it goes on to say that financial records are actually open records.

Um they aren't they are not closed records under this particular exception.

And then if you seek to close any records uh pursuant to the exception, then you're required to stay in writing how or why that would impair the ability to protect the public health safety and welfare, and that that outweighs any other uh consideration.

So that's the first uh significant uh change to the language that exists.

It did exist previously.

This just clarifies the circumstances under which uh those records happen to be closed.

And that's uh uh wanted to make sure that the police chief might be able to um address that a little bit, how how operationally that might change for their department.

Um the next the next section uh has to do with that portion of any record that identifies security system or access codes or authorization codes for security systems of real property.

That's a new addition.

Uh new addition is for individually identifiable customer information for visitors who have campsites in uh public parks or shelter reservations.

Um the there is uh subsection 24, which has added a new provision to for records to protect the specific location of plant or animal species in public parks that are protected or endangered, considered to be endangered at risk or peril.

And then the last uh item is that any portion of a record that contains individually identifiable information of a minor under age of 18, except when that record is requested by division of labor standards within the Department of Labor Industrial Relations.

Now, what's of note in the last one is that it is permissive as opposed to being mandatory.

Our city code set up all of the uh closure of records as being mandatory.

Uh that's pre-existed anything.

I don't know why that occurred, but when we were looking at it and said we might have a problem with with uh making the juvenile records a mandatory closure because so often we share those records, say with coaches, uh little league coaches, youth youth coaches, or we have pictures of juveniles on the website with permission from the parents.

If it's a mandatory closure, we would not be able to do those things even with the with the parents permission.

So currently we use permission forms for that to gain parental consent.

Thank you for going through that.

Um I think so.

I have I have quite a long list of questions with this.

Um but I also think both because this was originally on the consent agenda and because the uh council memo lists out some but not all of the changes in the ordinance.

I think it might be helpful for us to have some time to to go through it and gather some information.

So I was wondering if we could jump, perhaps jump ahead to public comment and then make a motion to table.

Um I'll see if there's any other questions for counsel before I go to public comment questions.

Yeah, I do have one uh and that's A23.

Did we not see something about this or similar to this related to another item we've considered previously?

Which one number 23?

The visitors to a campsite?

Yeah.

I think you would have maybe seen it in a legislative update, something that came across from the state, perhaps um on the thing that came before council previously.

No, not that I'm aware of.

Okay.

Any other council questions on this?

I guess I have a question in is in the section 18 where we talk about um a lot of the things that they could be closed records if um they have the potential to endanger the health or safety of an individual or public.

Who determines the potential?

You know what I mean?

Like is there a scale of the records custodian ultimately has to do that because it's up to the records custodian uh for every single department to to make that determination based upon the record and the request.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any other counsel questions on this one?

All right, would anyone from the public wish to speak on bill 21825?

Evening, Tracy Wilson, Cleekamp.

I just have a question.

So if I were making a records request, and there are minors in the video that I'm requesting.

Under the new law, I cannot retrieve those records.

But and even if the parents give me permission, I can't get them.

But only if there's because there will be harm.

Is that right?

And I'll I could ask that question because I have similar.

Okay, so I'm just I'm uh, you know, it's kind of uh fuzzy in terms of well, this the point of getting the information is to present an educational argument, not not to and not to do anything.

But also, if you can't give the video, can the person come and see the video and take notes?

Right?

Not have a copy of it, but can they come?

Like if I were a documentary filmmaker and you said, oh, this record's closed.

Well, can I just come look at it and take notes?

Um you would maybe even be able to block out the images of you know the people, but you would could get the you could grab the narrative.

All right, thanks.

Thank you.

Would anybody else from the public wish to speak on bill two eighteen twenty-five?

Seeing none, I'll come to our council comments and and we'll come back to your request.

We were at the table.

I think I I think actually a lot of the questions around the minors is very confusing to me.

Uh so when following this at the state level, it was my understanding that it was basically to try to um reduce risk to minors' personal information being sunshine to like identify them, find them all.

You know, I mean that was kind of the discussion that was happening.

What you just talked about about any video, you know, I I I guess I'm very confused about that.

Right.

So so that so exactly what what her comments and questions were.

I mean, that's the that's the exact reason why staff wrote it in as a May as opposed to a shall.

Because if it was a those records shall be closed, we would actually be prohibited from providing those records.

Now, what it would allow us to do when uh when there is permission from parents or other things would be to release that.

Typically what we try to do with juvenile juvenile records as a whole, if they if they happen to relate to something that's criminal are closed already under other provisions of the law.

And what we try to do when it comes to a juvenile is or I think what we will go forward would be to make sure that you're not releasing, say a cell phone number of a juvenile publicly.

If there is consent or permission from a parent, that's a different that's a different story.

But a lot of times you run into the circumstances where you you may have we may have as a municipality have that information, and once we get that information, it's an open public record.

And I think most parents don't want those kinds of records to be open.

Now that said, there can be the the permission granted.

You can have you can have access through through guardian permission and the municipality can in fact release those records based upon that.

It just offers a layer of protection.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

And I think you clarify in the May.

Correct.

It's the May, so that we still have the flexibility to be able to release those as long as there are protections in place.

It's actually shall in the ordinance.

It's not May.

No, is B.

B.

Subsection B, all any city records to the to the extent they relate to the following may be closed records to the extent allowed by law.

It's subsection B right above one.

Yep.

Vera.

I'm going to let Valerie go first.

Sally.

Okay.

What Nancy was explaining before just opened up a lot of other questions for me.

So if a parent or guardian were to request sunshine video, does that become public document?

Well, it certainly depends upon the circumstances.

So if you have a video, a parent, a parent typically has access to to all records pertaining to their children.

It's the third party request, and what this allows us to do is get parental consent in order to release to a third party.

So once a third party makes a request, you said that becomes a public document.

Can the parent approve a request to one party without it becoming a public document?

I think I think it was I think what she was referring to is that um like once we have like an application, that is a public document.

The application.

The application, not the sunshine request.

Currently it is a public document, is what I'm referring to.

Like that's currently it is a public document.

The applicant, the application or the video with all the identifying information.

Absolutely all of it.

And so what you what you had happened was you'd have someone who is a salesperson and they will sunshine the city to get a list for or roster for everyone who's on some type of a sports event.

And because they're getting this roster of kids who are in softball, they would get the name, the address, anything that we have is a record, they would get that.

And so that's what this was trying to close is to prevent from that information becoming public.

And so like for video, so so to kind of go with Nancy and talking about the videos, the video process.

So on our city website, there are videos that may have youth.

We have parents who will sign off or give us permission to allow us to have those videos on our website.

And so this may will allow us to continue that process because the parents have signed off, giving us permission for that video.

And does that include police records?

No.

But I mean, police records are a different category than sunshine.

So police records actually get handled outside uh, well, outside of that, but there are certainly some records that don't fall underneath juvenile records that could be police related as well, and we might have to look at this section.

But generally we're talking about other city records because juvenile records are juvenile or juveniles are addressed in in the public safety context separately.

Yes.

So a lot of my questions stem from 18 sections A and D.

Um and you were just talking about police records being a separate category, but this section is talking about public agencies responsible for law enforcement or public safety.

Would that not include police records?

No, this does it does, but it's but police records as it relates to an arrest or an incident report, a police interaction with members of the public actually fall underneath a section having to do with arrest records, incident reports, investigative reports, which is outside of 610 um.

61021, which is what this particular uh portion mirrors, the those that relate to the police records are a different uh statutory section.

So in 18A, when it talks about investigative information, if it's not investigative reports, what would be included there?

So typically what you're talking about would be uh techniques or other um how best to describe this, Jill.

I need your help.

So I'll begin my comments with the Missouri legislature wrote this without any of our input.

Nancy and I have this conversation frequently.

We would probably choose different wording to describe what they're trying to describe.

So as far as that specific I I think some of it's a little bit redundant personally, but you know, security measures.

So I took several classes, got a certificate in infrastructure protection through FEMA, right?

So one of the big things with that class and that discipline is doing annual assessments of water treatment plants, electric utilities, um, the security of this building, different city facilities to make sure they are correctly secured to prevent all kinds of things, right?

We wouldn't want to release those type of documents.

If I sent something to the public works director and said, hey, I think you've got a security concern here, we wouldn't want to release anything about that for obvious reasons.

So security measures would be, I think that's kind of a good example of that.

Um GPS system data, you know, all of our police cars are GPS tracked.

I can look right now on my phone and see where they are, but I certainly wouldn't want everyone else to know that.

Um that'd be a great tool for criminals.

Um investigative information and surveillance techniques, I think those kind of overlap.

So just specifically about very detailed types of technology or techniques that we use to gather information.

But I would encourage you to keep in mind that layered over this is our specific ordinance that covers uh the surveillance ordinance that we enacted when we did flock.

So none of this precludes that.

Like I still have to go through all those steps if I want to purchase a you know a camera that looks like a hot air balloon or whatever, and I'm gonna film everyone from there.

Like I still have to go through that whole process approval process with all of you to get any type of new surveillance equipment.

So this would not allow me to end around that based on my conversation with Nancy.

Um The B and C, just to briefly touch on those, so I think that really kind of surrounds if you're not aware, the public schools have their own special tip lines for students, which work really well from what I'm told.

And so we obviously have crime stoppers, and so I think that's what those two things are trying to protect is people trying to provide anonymous information to help us solve crimes or prevent school shootings and things of that nature.

Um and then the last one obviously are specific response plans for you know, say how we're going to handle security at roots and blues or the Boone County Fair or how we respond to active shooter situations, things of that nature.

I'm happy to try to answer any other questions as well.

And so really to kind of sum up what 18 has as much to do with operational uh processes and procedures by law enforcement agencies by the city as an entity, whereas when you get into specific records and law enforcement records, all of those are governed by the other statutes that we're talking about.

Any additional questions for staff from council?

Yeah, Valerie.

I'm gonna be ultra specific.

So if someone requests a record with a video of a minor child, the parent has to approve from whatever department.

Are they notified?

Not necessarily.

I mean, I think we'd have to look at the we'd have to look at the circumstances and what the request is, because every request is different and analyzed based upon what the request is.

Right now, it would be an open record, is what I'm telling what is what we're telling you.

And so in order to have the authority to close that record or close that video, we need to change and make modifications to chapter two.

So right now it is an open record.

Um comments.

Yeah, I think the additional I think I'm what so I sorry, I'm trying to put my words together.

Um I'm wondering why we chose to do it this way.

Um I in terms of how the ordinance is structured.

Um I've done some research today in how other cities have responded to this um sunshine changes at the state level.

Um and not only is it not required that we follow them this closely, it's not required that we adopt everything that is adopted at the state level.

It's not required that we adopt everything that is adopted at the state level.

We are never required to make our records any more closed than we choose to.

But I haven't been able to find a city in Missouri that is structured in this way.

They typically are either writing their own open records policies or they are writing a document that says we follow the state policy, and then it doesn't have to be updated every single time something changes at the state level.

So I'm wondering why this is the style of ordinance we have and why we've made the ch the choice to bring all of these changes forward instead of just focusing on the minor piece, which seems like there's been a lot more conversation and awareness and questions about it.

There are several that do lay out the specific exceptions in their city code, and every time that there's a change in state law, they just go in and they they change it.

And that's what we've done with these particular changes as well, because our code already laid that out.

If we want to just adopt um the the rules and regulations that set out that are set out in state law uh as it relates to closed record, we can do that.

We can certainly go in with a whole-scale modification of the way that's been done in the past.

What we were trying to do is was meet what existed in city code.

And when it comes to the changes, I think what really happens in subsection 18 is it's more specific than what had been written out in state law previously.

As Jill had mentioned, we didn't write it.

We're just mirroring the law that's that's in state law.

A lot of times what happens is it's a lot easier for us to interpret because we can't we can't close a record that the state says is open.

Um we can open records that the state says is closed, so we can do the opposite.

But but if it's if it is a a uh if it's mandated as closed, we can't do that.

But we so what you what you see in the subsection 18 is is a lot of changing to the language.

I don't know that it changes significantly the substance if it were to be a record that's brought forward.

A lot of times what you see is is the state tries to clarify the language to make sure it's more consistently enforced across the state as to what they had originally intended the language to be when it is relates to um operational guidelines and policies of a law enforcement agency.

This is much more specific.

I would add to that.

I think the specificity in in A is also related to uh so I'm uh one of the terrorism liaison officers for the department.

I'm also on the joint terrorism task force for the FBI.

And so the the language in here, specifically talking about health or safety, a lot of this I think is built around this idea of their things coming at us from different directions now, both foreign and domestic, maybe even more domestic now than ever, that people are trying to get this information to use it to plan uh very targeted attacks on certain public systems.

And so this was much more written in the vein of trying to deal with that threat than, and I think that's why, because some of it is very similar to what's already in portions of 610.

There's portions of 610 that allow us to close investigative information and things of that nature.

This is specific, I think, and it's more geared towards that kind of new threat environment we find ourselves in.

Additional council comments or questions on this.

Do you want to make a motion?

Yes, I would like to move to table this.

Um do we need to pick a a date for when to table it too, table to the next.

I'd like to table this to the next meeting.

Right.

We have a motion to table um this to the next meeting.

Do we have a second?

A second.

Second, any discussion on the motion to table.

Yeah, Nick.

I just want to be clear.

I I appreciate that you brought this up actually, and you know, I have questions about it myself, but uh can you just provide a little bit more clarity about why you want to table?

So I I would like to table um so that we can have a little bit more time to look into how other cities have responded to this.

Um and also so we can have a little more time to look into.

I am very concerned about how it could potentially be interpreted in the future with some of the broad language that it uses in closing records other than what have been brought up tonight.

Um so ensuring that our public still have access to the records that they will want to have access to while protecting our staff in our community.

Um I also want to table so that it can start out at a meeting as an open discussion point rather than being moved from the closed agenda with not a ton of notice, so we can just have a little more public awareness of the issue.

Move from the consent agenda.

Thank you.

Yes.

It's getting late.

I'm not sure.

My blood sugar has been like I've been watching it loop-de-loop like a roller coaster this whole meeting, which is part of why I'm a bit all over the place tonight.

All right, so we have a motion in a second, any other discussion on the request to table.

So your concern is not over the portions dealing with the minors.

That's not my immediate concern tonight.

I do I do have Are we opening the those portions?

Just curious.

Is that an option?

I yeah, we could pass um a portion of it and table the rest or just table the whole thing.

The motion on the the this dias right now is to table the full um thing to the next one.

This is just to give us time for more clarity.

Yes.

For more information for more clarity.

Okay.

We've got a request.

Did you want to amend the the motion that you have for what parts to table, or are you okay, Valerie, with the whole thing being on the motion to table?

I feel like if there's parts that need more discussion and parts that don't need more discussion, we can protect minors as soon as possible.

Um do you want to amend your motion to just be the section?

Well, sorry, Sheila.

Well, I'm gonna go to Sheila or Nancy.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but if you want to pass a portion of this, you need to amend this to remove the parts that she's concerned about and then pass that, and then a new ordinance will have to come forward at some point to address 18 when you guys are ready to address it.

You can't table that portion.

We wouldn't just table part of the ordinance.

You'd amend.

Right.

Okay.

So that's how you have to kind of do it.

So either we table the whole thing or we just go ahead and vote the whole thing in, or we vote it down.

You have multiple.

Or you can make an amendment to remove the part that she's concerned about.

I think at 11 o'clock that's gonna be somewhat difficult to do.

Okay.

So we have a motion, we have a motion and a second to uh table Bill 21825 to the September 15th, meaning you have a motion a second.

Um all those in favor of tabling it say aye.

Aye, aye.

Any opposed?

No.

I'm opposed.

That's you can say that's okay.

I don't know if it's I or nay, so whatever.

You got it.

So only one nay, correct?

Correct.

So moving forward to the two, um, sorry, to the 15th.

All right, moving on to the consent agenda.

Sheila, will you please read the items on the consent agenda twice and call a roll?

Items on the consent agenda include bills 20725, 20825, 20925, 210, 25, 2125, 212, 25, 213, 25, 2014, 25, 215, 25, 217, 25, 219, 25, 220, 25, 221, 25, 22, 25, 223, 25, 225, 25, 22, 25, 227, 25, 228, 25, 229, 25, 230, 25, and resolutions 11825, 119, 25, 120, 25, 121, 25, 122, 25, 123, 25, 124, 25, 125, 25, 126, 25, and 127 25.

Bills 20725, 208, 25, 209, 25, 210, 25, 21, 25, 212, 25, 213, 25, 214, 25, 215, 25, 217, 25, 219, 25, 220, 25, 221, 25, 22, 25, 223, 25, 225, 25, 226, 25, 227, 25, 228, 25, 29, 229, 25, 230, 25, resolutions 11825, 119, 25, 120, 25, 121, 25, 122, 25, 123, 25, 124, 25, 125, 25, 126, 25, and 127 25.

Mr.

Waterman.

Yes.

Ms.

Peters.

Yes.

Ms.

Buffalo.

Yes.

Ms.

Carroll.

Yes.

Ms.

Elwood.

Yes.

Ms.

Sample.

Yes.

Mr.

Foster.

Yes, all bills and resolutions.

Okay, Carl.

Go back.

Um.

Moving on to new business.

Um we had to make a correction to Bill 21825.

So, Sheila, will you please read?

Oh, I'm sorry, read resolution two eight one twenty-eight twenty.

Am I right?

Sorry.

It's a council Bill 128-25 is the resolution authorizing a fifth amendment to the collective bargaining agreement with laborers International Union of North America Local 955.

Do we have a quick staff report?

Yes, it'll be very quick.

This is the Fifth Amendment to the collective bargaining agreement with IUN 955 and their members um voted and approved it.

We're here tonight because on exhibit B, there was a formula that did not extend to all cells in the line labeled pay grade 106.

Um steps 11, 12, 13, and 14 needed to be revised to correct the formula.

Do we have any questions for Kathy?

See none.

Does anybody from the public wish to speak on resolution 12825?

Seeing none.

Come back to council comments.

No.

Thank you for catching that appreciate it.

So I'll make a motion uh to amend resolution 128-25 for the amendment sheet.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Second by Betsy.

All those in favor of the amendment say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

All right.

Sheila, we please call roll on resolution 128-25 as amended.

Council Bill 128-25 as amended.

Mr.

Waterman?

Yes.

Ms.

Peters?

Yes.

Ms.

Buffalo?

Yes.

Ms.

Carroll.

Miss Elwood?

Yes.

Ms.

Sample?

Yes.

Mr.

Foster.

Yes.

All right, moving on.

Sheila, we please read the items under introduction and first reading.

All bills are introduced by the mayor unless otherwise indicated.

Bills 231 25, 232, 25, 233, 25, 234, 25, 235, 25, 236, 25, 237, 25, 238, 25, 239, 25, 240, 25, and 241, 25, first reading.

Thank you.

Moving on to reports, we have one report this evening.

Our proposed 2026 legislative priorities.

So do we have a staff report on this?

Yeah, good evening.

Stacey Wideman, uh City Manager's Office.

This really is just a follow-up from that work session.

Um based on feedback that I received from you all, we made a little bit of changes and I'll kind of highlight the larger ones.

Uh for the general priorities, we split infrastructure and economic growth.

And then for the specific priorities, we added short-term rentals.

That language matches what the Missouri Municipal League has for their language.

We also added a priority about state funding for transit assistance.

Appreciate both of those.

Any council comments for this?

Questions?

I'll just say I appreciate this.

I know this has been uh conversation that we've been having, and so I'm happy to see this becoming part of our cadence of um kind of setting these priorities so that when we work with our partners and also legislate legislators that they know that we're united on these.

All right, so I think is our request then um to ask for does this need to come back?

Yeah, all um resolution.