All right, well, good evening.

I know I got quiet right at six o'clock.

Everyone was I'll go ahead and call it to order our city council uh pre-council for Monday, January 5th, the first one of 2026.

Um our main topic is uh our budget priorities as uh staff prepares fiscal year 27 budget.

Didn't we just do fiscal 26 budget?

Yeah, we're all right.

So I'm gonna kick it over to Matt Lou uh for presentation.

Are you okay with questions at any time or do you want to go through your slides?

We can do present uh questions at any time.

Okay, all right.

Matt, I'm gonna kick it over to you.

Oh, to start it out with uh the current strategic priorities.

Uh this is something that we're looking at redoing this year, and I believe we'll go through that process um sometime soon here.

But currently our strategic plan uh priorities are organizational excellence, safe community, uh inclusive and equitable community, resilient economy, uh reliable and a sustainable infrastructure.

And so these are our fame our five main goals for fiscal year 26.

We had uh three main priorities, uh which were public safety, affordable housing, and city employees.

And so we'll break down uh what that included uh in the next few slides.

So for public safety, we had the addition of uh six full-time police positions and reassignment of four park rangers and two airport safety officers uh to police officer positions.

We continue the investment in flock safety system and axon technology upgrades.

Uh we had the addition of two positions for the city's divert program, and then we have the continuation of additional one million dollar investment into the police and fire pitcher, which was basically 500,000 for each group for housing.

Uh we have the continued investment uh in additional homes with the Columbia Community Land Trust.

Uh we'll begin assessment of recommendations outlined in the Boone County housing study.

Uh, and then the CDBG home uh budget increase by 18.6% from FY25 budget.

Um we also saw an increase in segment.

Hi, folks.

We also saw an increase in uh what was it?

The housing permits for fiscal year uh 2024 going into 25.

We don't have 26 numbers yet, of course, but uh we did see a substantial increase from 24 to 25.

But uh okay.

We if I guess if they want to hear do you do you all want to hear the numbers?

Um I think we had them in our crosswalk that we did with the county at the work session a couple weeks ago.

So it's a that attachment that we had.

So we did get that update.

I would say in this this year, I think we need to.

I mean, not not trying to tell the council what's good or anything, but I think things that are that are within our purview, things that we can control or things that we could be more actionable with uh with as we go through the priorities for this year.

Be more actionable with can you do the microphone?

All right, it's hard to get used to the microphone.

Um, you mean items for housing that we can be more actionable with?

Yeah, I mean, just all together with our priorities.

I think that's something we definitely want to think about this year as we're building these priorities.

Uh, I don't think that's something that the council necessarily needs to figure out here.

I think we can figure that out together as we go through the process, but it's something we need to that needs to be on the front of everyone's mind.

Yeah, agreed.

Um something that I guess as we are fleshing out the budget process and moving forward in tandem with the housing study.

I hope to see um more of the connections from the crosswalk um action plan reflected in the items um specifically that we are budgeting for.

Yeah agreed um something that I guess as we are fleshing out the budget process and moving forward in tandem with the housing study I hope to see um more of the connections from the crosswalk um action plan reflected in the items um specifically that we're budgeting for um the other thing that came to mind was the affordable housing trust fund which I think we ceded with a million dollars last fiscal year 25 I think we've seen it in what the 24 okay yeah so finding additional methods to um continue to fund that I think will be important for longevity of that um fund.

Yeah absolutely okay and then lastly uh was the city employees and so we increased uh funding by 5.8% for personnel and 10% for employee medical benefits uh pay ranges and employee pay increase by 3.5% in fiscal year 26 and the city is moving forward with classification and compensation study phase three which will focus on performance management so uh we hope to get that all in place this year can I ask um that on the 10% for employee medical benefits the the big thing with that was that the city gave the cost for the increase and didn't pass it on to employees that was that 10% increase was because of that increase in cost that's correct and I'm Kathy can you come closer to a microphone like half one back over by you so that 10% increase we're recording so just microphone microphones you can pick it up how's that you can pick it up so the 10% increase to health insurance premiums actually just took effect on January 1st and that increase was shared between employees and the city we went to a new system previously we had um contributed a flat amount to each level of insurance and we went to a percentage so I'm gonna give a real simple example with employee only coverage.

So the city provides employee only coverage for the high deductible health plan the city contributes a hundred percent of the cost not a flat amount if you want to buy up to the 1500 high 1500 PPO plan the city is going to cover 95% of the cost of the employee only coverage.

If you are still in the 750 deductible plan that's closed to new enrollees then that's another buy up and it's 90% of the cost for employee only coverage and then we contribute a flat amount for dependents the same amount for every plan.

And that was new this year for previously we had covered we had a flat dollar amount and I'm sorry I don't have it off the top of my head um previously it was a black dollar amount and we changed to a percentage that went into effect January 1st okay yeah and the change in cost the 10% change in cost for our budget does that reflect the change in the way that we're covering it or does that reflect a change in expense because of an increase in cost of health coverage so there was a 10% increase to the gross premium for our rates and that amount the 10% is that total gross premium which is increased contribution by employees and increased contribution by the city does that answer your question yes yeah I was trying to understand if you were explaining how it that increase was shared or where that came from so do we expect year to year the cost of health coverage for employees to continue increasing around that amount I'm not sure about the amount but based on past experience I do expect there to be continued increase in costs.

We're self-funded and so the two things that drive our cost are medical inflation and claims experience and so you don't know year from year right what those numbers are going to be but I do I mean just based on past experience I would say yes we expect those to continue I just can't tell you at what what rate yeah I wonder if it would be helpful to look at previous years and rates that they're I have all I have all of that data I'm sorry I wasn't prepared to discuss this tonight have it at your fingertips now maybe that would be helpful for future budget presentations so we can understand what prolonged costs are for personnel.

Um so we can understand what prolonged costs are for personnel.

Absolutely.

Thanks.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, with that change from a flat rate covered to the percentage cover, have we seen costs to employees go down?

Have we seen employees paying less than they had to, or is it about the same for them?

Has it gone up because of the rising cost of health care?

So it did it did go up for employees this year, except for those that have employee only coverage in the high deductible health plan because we are continue to pay 100% of that.

In addition to that, we also increased our contribution to the health savings account as well.