And call our um Columbia work session uh for January seventeenth to order.

Um we have because of the fire alarm that went off on Wednesday, we uh I think are starting with the end of we're starting with the end of our uh presentation from Wednesday.

So Matthew Air Erin, am I just kicking this to you?

Uh I believe so.

Is that correct, Matthew?

That's great.

Okay.

Aaron Keys, Utilities Director.

I'm gonna kick this over to you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh and I will just start all over again with electric.

Not all the utilities, just electric.

Thank you for that.

Um so for electric what we have proposed for FY twenty-seven is a six percent um increase for all the tier uh revenue increase um on just the tiers.

So no change to the customer charges or the base fee.

Uh that'll be about eight point six million dollars in additional revenue.

Uh additionally, we want to propose uh increasing the cap for the PCA or the power cost adjustment factor.

Uh right now the power cost adjustment factor is based on uh tier one for the electric rates.

Currently it's capped at fifteen percent of tier one, and we'd like to propose to move that to twenty percent of tier one.

What occur has occurred this last year and in previous years is the purpose of that power cost adjustment is to recover the excess of expenses that occur uh with the power purchase part of the electric budget.

Uh, because of weather conditions and things like that.

There are sometimes expenses that we don't anticipate in a year.

And so the the purpose of that is to attempt to recover some of those expenses.

Um weather things have been going on, like we had a a winter storm fern this year, and then we've had a few days this summer already with really um a lot of uh stress on the grid that will cause some higher prices for us.

So with those two things going on, we'll have additional costs that we need to recover through that power cost adjustment factor.

So that's why we're recommending moving it from 15% to 20% of tier one.

And the water and light advisory board has recommended uh both of those for FY27.

So some of the things that we have done with the electric utility, uh if you recall the forecast, we are below what we need for cash reserves.

So with that in mind, we know we also need to do some uh defer some expenses, uh try to make some cuts.

Uh so that's what you'll see here.

We're we're deferring the maintenance on the landfill gas generator.

Uh we're deferring a capital improvement project that was about um just under a million dollars.

Uh there are two positions in utilities that we are proposing to eliminate, and then there are four positions specifically in electric that we're gonna freeze for the next year.

Uh the good news is we did get uh or we know we should be receiving a three million dollar grant from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to replace uh transmission poles.

Uh so hopefully you'll be seeing that in the very near future come through council because all those grants have to come through council to be accepted.

Uh so that helps us a little bit.

Uh one of the other things that I will probably have a budget amendment for uh that I wasn't thinking about was funding a cost of service for electric because uh we did the last cost of service, I believe it was in 2022, but it was based on like 2020 or 2019-2021 numbers, which were all kind of wonky because of COVID.

Um so, and with all the the changes going on in electric, we we feel like we need to go ahead and do a cost of service this next fiscal year so we can uh update our rates and update the power cost adjustment factor as well.

So, next slide.

Um of the significant impacts to utility rates.

Uh two of these we really don't have much control over.

Um the first one is the significant increase in electric capacity cost, which we talked about in uh our IRP discussions, and we'll talk more about uh one of the the most pressing ones is our Dynogy contract is expiring.

Uh we are having conversations with Dynogy, and we do anticipate being able to uh extend that contract for at least another year, but the prices on that are much different than when that original contract came into place.

And so I believe it's like a three million dollar difference, $3.5 million difference from our original contract.

So that will be a pretty big expense.

Uh but that provides some financial less risk financially than if we were to depend on the market, which could be much greater than that, because that's probably the price that they anticipate the market being at.

Um if we were just made ourselves subject to the market for that same amount of capacity, it could come in a lot higher.

Um we'll probably be bringing that contract to you in the very near future.

I think Betsy had a question.

Um Dynasty is Dynagi, it's dynamic, sorry.

Is what is like gas or solar.

We don't know.

Uh we just have a it's purely a capacity contract.

We don't get any energy from that contract.

Uh so remember we have capacity and energy when we talk about things, and capacity is just uh the ability to turn the lights on.

Uh and so that particular contract is not tied to any specific energy source.

Okay, thanks.

Uh and then uh one of the things we would like to move forward with is some high priority infrastructure projects.

You know, we've been talking about transmission line, uh, advanced metering infrastructure, and we're gonna need to start talking about generation projects.

So none of our electric costs are gonna go down in the next many years.

Uh, and then the the third item is uh local marginal prices.

Uh the day ahead marginal prices, as you can see, the average price uh during one month in 2025 was $36.14 a megawatt.

Uh this year that same month it was $44.50 a megawatt.

So that's a 23% increase year over year, and that's just in purchasing energy.

Um so that's a cost that we have no control over that that we need to be sure we're ready for.

So that's the the long or the short answer, whichever way you want to look at it, of why we we need to continue moving forward with rate increases for electric.

Uh we're showing here what that would what those charges would look like.

This is just the uh electric customers that use gas for heating.

Um the other uh customer or residential rates are fairly similar.

Uh you can see uh the customer charge, the base charge stays the same, there's no difference, uh, but each kilowatt would go up six percent, kilowatt hour, sorry, would go up six percent for both uh summer and non-summer, and then the industrial and and small general services and large general services would be the same.

The customer charge stays the same, uh, all the tiers go up, and I believe the we have the demand charges on those going up as well, the six percent.

And so now we show non-summer average and summer average.

I know some people get upset.

Is it average?

Is it median, you know, high, low?

It's so hard with electric because we've got the three different residential rates, and then you've got small general service and large general service.

So, yes, we are only showing this one uh average number.

Um we will be working, we while we are working with IT to have a bill calculator uh ready to go.

Uh hopefully, we're hoping by the beginning of August, it'll be ready to go.

Um, got a thumbs up from IT so that people can uh put their own bill in there.

So this shows uh an increase for non-summer average with both the six percent in the tiers and the five uh percent increase on the PCA cap uh of about eight dollars a month, and then in the summer it's you know twelve dollars and eighty-seven cents.

So you could extrapolate that the heat pump customers and the all electric uh customers, their bills are gonna be a little bit different, but in this in the same range.

So and then if you'll recall the the average impact to customers for the other three utilities, the the water, the solid waste, and the sewer.

And remember, sewer is gonna go down for a lot of people, it's about two dollars and eighty-nine cents.

So you would add three dollars on to that for a monthly impact.

Any questions for staff?

And again, this will be part of the conversation.

Uh I think on August 3rd.

On August 3rd is the second reading for all of these.

Okay.

Now sewer we have to do by state law, we have to advertise any sewer rate changes for 30 days, and so that one won't actually be voted on until September.

Okay.

Uh, but you can certainly talk about it if you like on August.

Okay.

Any questions for staff on the electric uh revenue proposal.

No, okay, appreciate.

All right, Matthew, back to you.

All right, now we will conclude with our uh all funds work sessions.

So uh we will go over a little bit of fund accounting.

We'll look at special revenue funds, our debt service funds, uh internal service funds, and then we'll go over the fiscal year 27 budget.

So a little background on fund accounting.

Uh fund accounting is a specialized system that is used by governments, and it focuses on accountability over profitability.

And so the primary goal for fund accounting is to control the use of financial resources.

Um accounting, we divide all of our resources into funds, which restricts the purpose for those funds uh basically by legal requirements, and then each fund has its own revenue expenses, assets, liabilities, and fund balance.

So transfers between funds or internal reallocations of resources, and not necessarily external revenues or expenses.

And the key reasons for fund transfers are to support operations, fund capital projects, fund debt service.

We have compliance with legal or grant requirements, and then reimbursement for services.

So the city has six different fund types.

And so we have the general fund, which we talked about Monday, enterprise funds, which we talked about on Wednesday, and then the final we'll talk about today, which are the special revenue funds, debt service funds, internal service funds, and the capital project fund.

Well, capital project we'll talk about on Monday.

Right.

So now we'll get into the special revenue fund.

All right, so I'm going to go over the special revenue funds.

So uh what are special revenue funds?

These are funds that account for specific revenues that are legally restricted for particular reasons.

So kind of the prime example is the park sales tax that can only be used for uh parks and recreations operations and capital projects.

So this is a list of all the special revenue funds we have in the city.

So we have convention and visitor bureau, their primary revenue source is the hotel motel tax, uh community developed block grant, uh known as CDBG, that's uh a grant fund.

Parks and rec, their primary revenue sources park sales tax, transportation is the uh transportation sales tax fund, uh capital improvement sales tax, uh those funds can primarily be used for uh capital improvements, specifically roads and public safety capital improvements.

The mid-Missouri Solid Waste Management District is a grant funded project.

Uh contributions or donations given to the city, and then uh the public improvement fund, which is primarily uh funded through development fees.

Uh one more thing about the public improvement fund, uh there was an oversight, and we forgot to put a slide in going over that.

There is some information on the handout on that.

It's a relatively small fund, and uh the expenses are largely um uh art re uh repairs for art, the art we have in the city, and um is it stormwater, so Megan?

Yeah, stormwater.

So uh their revenue, their revenues do uh their expenditures do exceed their revenues, but uh we they have a fairly substantial amount of cash on hand to cover that, and we can provide a slide later so you guys can see that for more transparency.

Thank you.

Okay, convention and visitors bureau, CBB.

So this is uh um the one that's mostly funded by hotel and motel tax.

Their revenues are projected to exceed their expenditures by a lender little under uh 500K.

They do have some restricted cash that goes to the airport terminal bond, and we'll kind of walk through that in the next slide.

So to kind of uh to get to their cash on hand, we um if you look at that, the line above is their total revenues and expenditures, and the uh uh below that black line is their revenues, less hotel tax, and their trans their transfer to the airport to cover that terminal bond.

And uh that's how we get to their ending cash.

Their cash is is pretty stable.

We're and we're expecting that to stay the same in 27 with cash above target a little under three million dollars.

All right, C D BG and home.

So this is uh a grant funded fund, so it uh we don't really track their cash, but you can just see in 27, we're expecting revenues of 1.1 million, expenditures of 1.3 million.

Uh it's pretty common to see that because their revenue we we get reimbursed after the fact, so their revenues are not always on the same track as their expenses.

All right, parks and recreations.

So this is the this slide here kind of outlines their total revenues, operating expenditures, and their transfers to capital projects.

Uh this at from this slide here, you can see that they have revenues exceeding uh operating expenditures and transfers to capital of 45,000.

Do you remember though that this park sales tax does have 50% of it is allocated only to capital where and the other 50% goes to operations?

So we we try to show on this slide is their operating cash and how it's being affected by the budget.

So in 27, you can see they have reven operating revenues of 16.8 million and uh operating expenses of 17.9 million.

So they are going to go under their revenues will be under their expense expenditures by a million dollars.

They do have enough available cash to cover that, but they're trending in a direction where we don't think that the $5 million operating subsidy that the general fund is giving them is going to be enough to cover them in future years.

One of the primary reasons for their uh growth in expenses is been having to reallocate money to uh salaries and wages due to the changes to the minimum wage.

Um, another thing we are gonna look at going forward though, is in is a pretty uh extensive look at their fees to see if their cost of kind of doing a cost of service study with the economic team to hopefully maybe find some ways to generate more revenue through fees.

Can you remind us?

And maybe Gabe, um and I know it's probably intro and first read, and I just haven't looked at it yet for Monday.

But are we changing fee?

We've changed fees last year for parks and recreation.

Are we proposing changes again for fiscal year 27?

So at FY27, we have a minimal increase in fees.

Uh, I think it's a total revenue of about 9,000 to 12,000 dollars.

Some of that has to do with the fee increases we did in FY25 and 26, were a little more substantial to get to where we are, and that's why this year we we don't propose quite a few, and then next year, as Jim kind of talked about going through that study of our fees, charges and see where we're at.

Okay, um, where we have some room to grow.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

Um, so I'll I will remind everyone, kind of branching off what Jim said that Parks and RAC is kind of a unique fund because they do have some recreation activities where they charge fees and we expect them to recover some or all of the costs for those activities, but they also have a pretty large portion of their fund that is for the general public good.

And so we do provide an operating subsidy to parks and rack from the general fund that funds those activities.

And like Jim mentioned, that operating subsidy has been pretty flat at about five million dollars in the budget for the last several years, despite the fact that their minimum wage has increased quite a bit based on regulations.

Um and then just the salary increases that we've done with staff in the city as well.

Um, so with that being said, because they are kind of tied to the general fund, um, they also did a pretty in-depth look at their budget as part of our internal budget review process, and they continue to adjust all of their personnel budgets for part-time staff in order to meet those minimum wage requirements, but also try to maintain their existing level of service that they have.

And as I'm sure you can imagine, that's pretty difficult when we've had some substantial increases to minimum wage in the last several years.

They also continue to delay fleet replacements and purchases of new mowers, equipment, and vehicles, and then in the 27 budget, they decided to hold open to vacant construction staff positions to try and reduce their cost.

Could you have a question, Christina?

Yeah.

Um, so my question would be, and I think I'm just trying to guess what people might ask me.

Um, but I think they would wonder, because I think everybody loves our parks and trails, like where everybody talks about them and how great they are.

But I wonder if people will be asking me, will how do we take those kind of changes?

So you're talking about substantial uh you know employee increases because it's you know cost of living is going up.

How do we take that into consideration when we are talking about put adding new parks and stuff?

And so, how does that you know how do we weigh that long-term like vision?

Because you know, as the city does grow, and if we go outward, we need new parks in new areas because the people in those areas deserve parks.

Yeah, you know what I mean?

Like I know it's like a complicated question, but I think that a lot of people would be wondering that a couple different answers.

So, number one, when we look at new park development, we'll obviously look at the amenities associated with the park.

So, what is the level of maintenance that's required?

Um, so that's kind of a big consideration in terms of new development of parks.

We also look at, for instance, the next two projects that we will discuss with you is replacement of a bridge on the MKT trail and also rainbow softball center improvements.

Both of those we look at from a cost reduction standpoint.

So replacing that bridge actually alleviates some maintenance that we have issues with the older bridge, but at Rainbow Softball Center, we're gonna move to an LED lighting fixture, which reduces our energy consumption.

So it's kind of a balance for us in terms of when we talk about new park development, how much maintenance is there in terms of the activities, and then also, for instance, at the field house, we that is a facility where we talked a lot about we need to recover 100% of our expenses.

So it's an ongoing discussion with the types of parks that we build and the amenities that we put in those parks.

Um I can tell you we've we've probably stepped back a little bit in terms of park development and and and where we're at, and then definitely when we start to talk about the next park sales tax and that renewal, it would be much higher percentage of maintenance of existing parks compared to new development.

But the other thing is Jim kind of talked about two other things.

We'll always look at additional um reductions in expenses, but we've had lots of conversations about sponsorships and how we work with whether it's a local business to be a sponsor in a facility in U Healthcare, for instance, at the Columbia Sports Field House.

So that's another way we've looked at how we generate some revenue to offset expenses.

So yeah, it's but to answer your question, it's really just based on the park that we're looking to develop, amenities we put in it and the number of people hours that it takes to maintain it.

Okay.

And um, oh man, you said something and it triggered a thought, but it's gone, I guess.

Oh, okay.

Um, but I appreciate your uh taking time to explain that.

I think we just you definitely have to keep that in mind because I think that's like one of I I don't know, everybody I talk to, that's one of the important things for them is having a park that's nearby that's important to them.

So absolutely up here, can I ask a quick question?

Um I see on here at the holding open two of our vacant construction staff positions.

You know, we hear often when you're like, Well, we're gonna have a contractor kind of build some of this, and then our staff will do the XYZ.

Will this impact any current projects that you have going on?

Oh, is it the next slide?

Yeah, next slide.

Oh, look at this.

Uh so Megan, if it's okay, I'll just what I get for not looking at the presentation.

No, it's totally okay.

Uh, just as we talked about those impacts, but on fleet, we just have an aging fleet.

So when you talk about um the need to replace things, whether it's related to safety or rather to related to wear and tear, there's a cost as it gets older.

That also that last bullet point kind of addresses that.

Um, if we have less construction staff, depending on the project, there may be a need to use more contractual services to complete that project.

What that ultimately ends up with is typically a higher cost.

Um, and so we have to look at the budget for that project and what we're doing.

So, for instance, I'll go back to the MKT trail.

We had originally proposed to replace bridge nine and 10, um, but now due to the cost of that replacement, we'll only propose to do bridge nine at this time.

Yes.

What's the risk associated?

I feel like that's what I'm gonna be known for during these conversations.

But what's the risk with um not repairing that bridge and the impact to the community and or to the city?

So, what we do on the MKT trail, given those bridges are about 120 years old.

Every five years, give or take, we'll do an engineering study of each one.

Um, the biggest impact is can we drive a vehicle across those bridges?

It has very little to do with the pedestrian traffic trail user, more so in terms of EMS public safety, if something happened on the trail being able to get across the bridge.

So nine is in is in terms of shape needs to be replaced.

Um, a lot of that has to do with the old bridge structure being in the creek, where we'll go to a free span bridge, and again, we'll cover it on Monday.

But that's kind of one of those things when we look at our construction costs and where we're at now compared to even where we were five years ago.

It's evaluation of the project and how much we can do at one time.

Thank you.

Yep.

Um, can I ask on um the example?

Well, it could be on examples you gave or or other places.

Um are you then seeing an increase in your services?

Like I know it's a budget kind of reduction, but when that's reducing in personnel, are you then seeing an increase in your services?

So basically purchasing contractors to do some of the work.

So it it kind of it fluctuates.

So a lot of that is dependent upon um, for instance, HVAC issues you may have in buildings.

Um last year we saw an increase in the number of HVA service responses that we needed to have.

This year we've been okay in terms of those services.

We have had lots of discussions on our side about how we troubleshoot an issue first with our staff, and then we would go to that contractor and say, okay, we have figured some of this out.

Here's where we need the help in terms of that process.

Another big discussion we'll have with you all coming up is for instance at the ARC, we're 20 plus years old, and it's time to replace some HVAC units, and so we're going through that process right now to figure that out.

So it it kind of flows with what is happening with the park system and how we have to use our contractors.

Thank you.

Yep.

Thanks, Kate.

All right, thank you all.

So one thing that Gabe didn't call out, but I feel like we wanted to talk about is that their fleet, over half their fleet is over 15 years old, and 25% is over 20 years old.

Parks is kind of traditionally has one of the oldest fleets in the city, but just to give you some context, our general replacement guidelines are 10 years.

So those are pretty pretty far over those guidelines.

What did you say there it was again?

I think.

So their fleet, half of it is over 15 years old, and 25% of that is over 20 years old.

Wow.

And it shows.

No, I'm just kidding.

Your trucks look great, Gabe.

Okay, so going back to uh the the rest of the special revenue funds.

So transportation sales tax.

Uh, this is a dedicated tax that covers uh roads, streets and sidewalks, uh, airport and transit.

Um in 27, we have uh revenues of 19.6 million and expenses of a little over 20 million.

We we have been trying, we have a pretty large excess cash uh for this fund.

It kind of built up over COVID, and we're uh and we're starting to spin that down now.

Um so a lot of these drops off from the 24 million to 12 was planned.

We do want to try to get that a little lower, but not quite not have that big of a drop-off year after year going forward.

Uh capital improvement sales tax.

So this is the dedicated sales tax that goes to uh new new uh streets and sidewalks as well as uh public safety capital projects.

In 27, we have expected revenues of 9.6 million and expected in a budgeted expenditures of 10.7.

So we have a bit of uh expenditures are exceeding revenues in this fund again.

Again, this was another fund we are we had a bit of excess cash on that we're trying to spend down.

Uh going forward, though, we're gonna be much more uh tighter with this with this fund, making sure the revenues and expenditures are pretty closely aligned.

All right, and then mid-Missouri Solid Waste Management District.

Uh this is a grant fund uh as as well.

Um this one has 223,000 in revenues and 220 in expenditures.

Again, this is one of those that the revenues and expenditures don't always meet up due to the timing of the grants.

And then contributions fund.

So this is the fund that all the donations to the city goes into.

There's there's not a lot to talk about here, but we ex we have a budgeted expenses.

So this is money we've received in in prior years that's going to be allocated out to various projects, and that budget is 76,000.

We never budget revenues because we don't know what we expect to get in uh contributions in any given year.

Most of those uh allocations, I think, usually go to parks for like um park benches and things of that sort.

And now we'll go over our debt service funds.

And so debt service funds are used to account for the payment of principal and interest in the governmental debts or in our governmental units.

And so currently the city has one binding in the debt service fund, and that's the 2016 special obligation refunding.

That was for the city hall.

Uh and FY27, we expect to have an additional debt service fund established uh basically through our designated loan fund uh related to the improvements at the armory.

Here's what uh uh debt service funds look like.

Um we have to keep some money in and available cash as a uh reserve on our debt, and so that's why it usually always has around a million or so uh in c available cash.

All right, next we'll talk about internal service funds.

So internal service funds are funds that we use to account for goods and services that are provided by one city department to other city departments on a cost reimbursement basis.

So those costs are typically paid in the form of fees or one-time transfers from the departments that receive the service to the department that's providing the service.

And a good example of this is the fleet department, which provides maintenance to the other city departments on city owned vehicles.

We've got several internal service fund departments.

They are the employee benefit fund, the self-insurance fund, fleet operations, information technology or IT, public communications, which is being re-established in the 27 budget, utility customer service, which was reestablished last year in the 26th budget, and then the vehicle and equipment replacement fund or the VERF.

So when we look at employee benefit, um, I know that most of these cash reserve targets you've seen are a 20% cash reserve target because this fund deals with medical and prescription claims that are a little bit harder to predict.

They do have a 75% cash reserve target.

Um and you'll see that even with a 75% cash reserve target, we have quite a bit of cash above that target still in this fund.

The self-insurance fund is the same since this is where we pay out claims based on risk, it also has a 75% cash reserve target.

Um we've been trying to get that down a little closer or their cash above target down a little closer to the cash reserve target, but um we're expecting them to still be at least about six million dollars above their cash reserve target based on the 27 budget.

Megan, can I interrupt you?

So on both this one and the last one, um, you know, what what causes the sort of fluctuation?

Because it looks like if I'm looking at like the employee benefit one, um, you know, we had cash above was 5.5 million, and then the next year kind of like 10 million.

Like what's what is causing this sort of fluctuation?

So you'll notice if you look at the revenue and expenditure amounts there, 24, 25, and 26 are all actual numbers, and then 27 proposed is a budget number.

So you'll notice that the expenditures are quite a bit lower in actuals than they are in the budget.

And part of that is because we have to budget to be able to pay out claims, medical claims when we get them.

Um so we have to budget quite a bit more than we expect to spend in those funds to be safe.

Okay.

And so if we have a lot of claims, then that cash reserve can dip a little bit, and then if we have fewer claims than we expected, it can come back up.

Okay.

And that's the same way.

For self-insurance, right?

And self-insurance, this is when, like, let's say a trash or city business by an ionic buy.

After a car ran a red light, but just saying.

Oh, that's so that's that would come out of okay.

Yeah.

And we do work, we are working to try to bring those above targets kind of closer in line with where we the reserve, but with like employee benefit, we we want to be kind of conservative about that because we don't want to get caught with some huge medical claims and then need to move money from some other funds.

So we're trying to slowly do it, but it's kind of it's gonna be a long process to try to bring those down.

Right.

And it I mean, and that's the point of the 75%, right?

Right.

Yeah, yeah.

Um I'm talking about that above number, the amount above that that 75%.

Okay.

Can you say that again?

Oh, sorry.

Well, what that has so especially with the employee benefit fund, what that has helped us, what that has helped us do uh is not pass alone some of the increases that we've seen with the health plans to our employees.

So we've been able to uh instead of increase employee uh contributions to their medical.

We we've been able to leave those kind of status quo.

And this year, we'll talk about it a little bit on the third.

This year we were able to we were able to actually uh redo some of those plans so they're more in line with uh making their money back.

So uh we have that 750 plan, and right now that 750 plan is being uh subsidized by the high deductible plan.

So getting those things more in line.

We're we're able to do that now because we have this this balance within the account.

Okay, thank you.

Good uh sorry, you wanted to repeat.

Um so you said could you explain why I can't remember exactly what you said.

Um, but it was we were talking about the 75% cash reserve target, and you were saying that there's the reason you wanted uh the above or below over that 75% or can we get it?

Okay, yeah, I'll kind of try to recap that.

No, it's fine.

Um, so like on this slide's a perfect example.

So that that 75% cash reserve target, that's if you have your cash around that number, a little bit above that number, that's kind of where you want to desirably keep it.

You don't want to have it excessively above that number, right?

Because putting that too far above means you're holding money here that could be used for other things.

Right.

So what we what we've attempted to do is try to get that above below target closer in line with that 75% reserve target, and with like self-insurance, I think we've been Megan can probably speak more on like what the tactics were with that as far as not charging as much to the departments and letting that reserve kind of take that uh take that up, and what Matthew was talking about with employee benefit, kind of the same thing.

So that's that's what we've been trying to do.

So we're not holding too much, but we always that's 75% means we're always gonna hold more than we do for like the other funds.

That kind of clear up what you're asking.

Yeah, I think so.

Okay.

Thanks, Jim.

So you'll you'll notice if you look at the cash above target at the bottom in 25, it was like 14 million above target, and then it's down to 10, and we expect it to be down to six.

Um, you can see in the total revenue line how much we're recovering from departments.

Um so you'll notice that we're not recovering the full expense of that department from the departments because they have cash above target.

So we're trying to get it down closer to that 75%.

Um, and that's one of the mechanisms we have to be able to adjust that cash amount to the extent that we can predict what we think it will be.

Okay.

So I appreciate that like we're trying to minimize the impact to staff.

That's great.

I guess one of the things that like stands out to me that makes me a little bit nervous because we are talking about like overall budget pro concerns, is that when we do have those big numbers that are continuing to decrease to a line a little bit more, but then we're also having to cut initiatives and stuff, like I guess it you see where I'm going with that.

I feel like you're gonna respond already.

But I think that that's that's part of the way that we were able to create a less impact to the other departments because we're charging those departments a little bit less because we have that excess uh reserve.

I guess what I'm I guess what I'm thinking is like if we used to have a bunch and we've gotten used to charging less, and eventually we won't have that over excess.

You know, we won't be at 15 anymore.

We're at five, so then in like two years, that's even less, right?

And so then eventually we do have to start charging more.

But the goal is if that makes sense what I'm I get it, I get it.

You're right.

But the goal is to keep it try to keep it at that 75% cash reserve.

And so I get that.

So that that prepares us if there was a catastrophe that we still have that fund in order to take take care of that.

Yeah, no, I totally get that.

I guess what I'm thinking is like more long-term, like the 10-year plan versus the five-year or the catastrophe disaster.

Totally correct.

It's how do you sustain this?

So we we look at these every year, so we're always adjusting.

Yeah, I mean, we could see that for sure.

Yeah, so uh when they when they start to get closer, yes, we will have to adjust again and then maybe uh maybe we will have to do some sort of increase uh for uh employee costs for health benefits or for uh the departments with self-insurance.

So that's just something we look at every year and sort of adjust as we go.

But I don't I don't think is it's nothing to be too concerned about.

And you'll notice also if you look at the revenue number that we do try to smooth this out for a department.

So in 26 we cut quite a bit the amount that we were recovering, and now we're starting to step it back up so that we can even out closer to that cash reserve target to the actual spend versus the okay.

Yeah, we're not trying to make big giant like that.

Yeah, that's what I was worried about.

Like we'll come like two years, and they're like, okay, now we have to jump 10%.

So we're we're sort of in that step, you know, you can see we hit that lull in 26, and now we're kind of gonna step back up to try to get meat back up, but we're not gonna do it all at once.

We're gonna kind of gradually do it over time, is what our goal is.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, cool.

I just thank you.

We need to be clear about long-term problems.

All right, so um the fleet department, I don't want you to be too concerned about this number, the revenue under expenditure number.

Um, fleet is designed not to make a profit, but just to recover their costs from other city departments, and part of the way that they do that is they purchase parts and they do maintenance and repairs on city vehicles, and then they charge those costs out to other city departments.

So, kind of how we talked about with employee benefit and self-insurance, we have to budget more in their expenditure line than we expect them to spend.

So, kind of how we talked about with employee benefit and self-insurance, we have to budget more in their expenditure line than we expect them to spend, and then all of their costs are recovered from other city departments.

So if they end up spending that entire line, their revenue will also align with what they spend.

Um we also have a note that we are going to increase the hourly rate for fleet from $100 an hour to $110 an hour, which is still pretty significantly below what our third party rate is when we send work outside the city.

So just to clarify that difference between the the 1.6 million, part of that is because of the pre-purchase of parts before they're needing to go into a vehicle.

Yes, that's correct.

And the the labor rate when we send something out is closer to 160 dollars, so you can see that that difference there.

Uh we will always try to keep a difference being significantly under, but there's a there's a uh a number that more closely matches that with what we are trying to do, and that's why we're trying to get to that $120 mark.

So the one in 10 you're saying doesn't really actually cover the cost of the hourly rate, but so the the 110 is a cost savings for departments of using the city's fleet department as opposed to sending it to like Joe Mawkins or somewhere.

Um, and we try to keep that rate pretty far under what the market rate is, um, but we are increasing it from $100 an hour to $110 to try and recover the cost that we need to for that department.

Okay, thank you.

All right, IT is next, and again you'll see that their total expenditure line exceeds the revenue line.

Um, however, they have a really healthy available cash, and we will try to keep them right around where they should be not making money but also not losing money.

Um IT did have some impacts as a result of our internal budget review process, those fees hit departments pretty heavily, they're a pretty big part of our intergovernmental fees in general.

So they did delay some of their purchase requests for internal software until FY28.

Those were new decision items or NDIs that were requested as part of the budget process, um, but they weren't critical to security.

They would help streamline information and and help us with security a little bit, but they weren't critical, so we decided to delay them to 28 in order to provide some relief to departments on IT fees.

Sorry, can I can we just sorry I care about this section, so I just want to make sure that I'm giving myself time to think about that.

When we you're delaying the sorry, I lost my own slide.

You're delaying the soft internal software until FY28.

What's the impact of uh those delays so uh Mark Neckerman IT director?

Uh just so you guys know the way we do our NDIs is we prioritize them one through in this case 19.

These items are items 16 through 19.

We also categorize our items in uh must do, should do, and can wait.

All four of these items are in the can wait category.

Yeah, okay.

So um they're in the can wait.

Like, what's the impact to the weight?

So it for example um we're looking at some email encryption.

We already have email encryption for those people that have to have it.

We're looking to add a few more people to it since there's a cost involved in that.

There's really no reason to do that unless they're gonna be uh moving down the road with um more confidential information.

What if they accidentally get confidential information?

You can do that.

Never mind.

I'll I'll just come that's fine.

Do you want to talk about it?

Okay, thank you.

But yeah, it's just so you're aware that email encryption is number 19 out of our list.

So thanks, Mark.

Thanks.

Well, I I guess I just want to know, okay, of the your top one that you're delaying.

What's the impact to that one?

So the top one that we're delaying is number 16 is a uh physical access control test for our EMS environment.

So uh, in order to maintain uh with regulations, we have to get a test system in and test it to make sure that it's fully functional before we implement it into that system.

There's nothing wrong with the one that we have.

We're just having some issues getting some updates every once in a while with that, and we were just exploring the uh idea of replacing it.

Okay.

Well, thank you.

Thanks, folks.

Appreciate that.

All right.

So next we've got the public communications fund.

This fund we had a long time ago before I was here at the city, and now we're bringing it back.

Um this is a new re-establishment, I guess I should say, of a fund that we previously had, um, and you'll see it again as a fund in this fiscal year's budget.

Um, and again, the revenue is slightly under the expenditures.

That's just because we don't expect the department to spend their entire budget, so we also don't want to recover more than we need to from the other city departments.

Um utility customer service is another internal service fund.

This was re-established in FY26, and this fund only services the utility departments, and as a result, the utility departments pay for the cost of this internal service fund.

All right, and then last we have our vehicle and equipment replacement fund.

This is where we do vehicle replacements and purchases for all of the governmental funds in the city, so that includes all the general fund departments as well as parks and rec.

Okay, now we will get into our I'm sorry, that's fiscal year 27 budget.

It's a throwback.

Throwback.

So here is a look at the total proposed budgets.

We're looking at uh revenues of 574 million with operating expenses at 546 million.

Then we put in our capital improvement projects at 56 million, and we have total expenditures of around 603 million.

Can you go ahead and give the spill about the capital improvement and why it's so capital improvement projects are not included in the operating expenditures, which is where you want to balance your revenues to.

Capital uh improvement projects are usually projects that we've collected funding on for many years, two to three, some 10 years, uh, if you look at the the landfill sale, and then once we have the money, enough money to allocate towards that project, it goes into the budget.

Uh so this is so the total capital improvement projects is not funding from fiscal year 27.

This fiscal is it's funding from prior fiscal years that will be expensed or set to expense in 27.

So hopefully I said said that in something that's digestible for you all.

Is was that clear?

It's clear to us.

The conversation is what gets reported on.

Yeah.

Yes.

So for fiscal year 27, we are projecting to have more revenue than expenditures for for up for fiscal year 27, not counting capital projects that we had already been saving for.

That is correct.

Okay.

Yeah.

So I mean, we're we're looking at having around $32 million in excess.

Um and that that happens mostly because of your enterprise funds and things like that.

You have to have money to set aside for future capital improvement projects.

And I think especially because we're talking so much about the general fund when we're talking about things, people see these numbers and they think, oh, the city has a lot of money.

This is including enterprise funds.

That is clear.

So this is not just that general sales tax, general property tax.

Yep.

And so we'll get into a little bit of what that looks like on the fund breakdown as well.

So just to kind of expand on the capital improvement part, um how how capital improvement projects are funded.

Uh the general fund funds there's through transportation sales tax, capital improvement sales tax, general fund reserves, investment revenue, bond funding, and the designated loan fund.

Enterprise funds, they it's almost exclusively through operating revenues, but there is also transportation sales tax, bond funding, and some designated loan fund uh expenditures for capital.

And then we have parks and recuses parks sales tax, investment revenues, general fund residential, and the designated loan fund as well.

So where the money comes from.

When you look at the city as a whole, we make the majority of our money from fees and service charges, about 57 percent.

About 89 percent of all of those fees and service charges come from utilities.

And so that is it's up a little bit from last year.

Last year we were at about 82 percent of all of our fees and service charges come from utilities.

This year it's up to 89 percent.

And that has some to do with us losing grants and uh other revenue categories dropping, not necessarily that we're just making that much more in utilities.

This is a look at the proposed revenue by comparison, comparing fit fiscal year 27 to fiscal year 26.

I think uh one of the big changes you'll see is intergovernmental revenue.

The majority of that is because we moved the communications department out of general fund where it was intra-governmental revenue into fee into uh its own fund, which changed it to fees and service charges, so there's an offset there.

But overall, the the proposed uh revenue for fiscal year 27 is up 2.7 percent.

I just want to make sure I repeat back so I make sure I understand what you said.

Did you say that the communications department is moving to the fees and services charge line and then the revenue associated with it?

Okay.

Yes.

And that's an internal service charge, not an external charge for the public.

It's just that because of the nature of the fund that we moved it into, the revenue gets reported in a different category.

Um, the other one that we could point out is revenue from other governmental units, which is up quite a bit.

A lot of that is because we got about 12 million dollars from the FAA for airport capital projects this year.

Um that one as well as the transfer line are pretty volatile because they're really dependent on capital projects that we do each year.

Um high percentage changes or dollar changes in those lines can look concerning, but they're pretty common.

Okay.

So now we'll talk about where the money goes.

And so personnel services make up personnel and services make up only almost half of the expenditures.

Uh and when you look at the all funds for the city, power supply is a is a close third uh with 15 percent.

So uh sort of breaking down that miscellaneous piece, uh just like we did with the general fund, we want to kind of show you all what what was in miscellaneous.

And so the majority in the miscellaneous expenditures is insurance, uh followed by medical claims and damage claims.

And uh basically our our miscellaneous expenditures are expenses that do not fit well in other accounts or categories.

And so as things change with GASBY or our the governmental accounting standards board, as they they start to make changes in the way we report uh some of these things will end up having their own categories in the future.

Here's a list of our proposed expenditures, comparing them uh to fiscal year 26.

Uh as you can see, personnel services is up by 3 percent, uh, but it did one materials and supplies up by about 6.7, but I wanted to uh point out the transfers and capital both now significantly in fiscal year 27.

Uh as as Megan said before, that some of your capital numbers are volatile and they they change significantly from year to year.

But overall, we're looking at a uh decrease in expenditures of about 8%, 0.8 percent.

I'm sorry.

Here are your expenditures by function, and so utilities make up nearly half of the budgeted expenditures for the city for the city, and that's followed by transportation and then public safety, and public safety is is always one that's that's unique here because it's only basically only two departments that make up that are the the third largest in the city uh by function.

Well now we'll get into some of the requests that were approved in this budget, and so uh we had 19 uh position requests approved in the budget, and we have 12 that were not approved in the budget.

You want to talk about any of those?

I believe we we gave a handout of the NDIs and the different things that were approved to council.

I think it was sent as a PDF.

Um, the finance group, uh it says that we're removing a compliance officer.

Do we currently have one or is that no?

This was a position that was requested, but due to funding issues, we we decided we would hold back on that.

And that compliance officer is would be within the business license division.

So basically ensuring that we that businesses have a license.

Uh it also would do some uh reconciling of collections like the the city collects its own hotel motel tax, so things of that nature.

Okay.

So it wouldn't be us like being in compliance with like government regulation or something like that.

It's no that that's something that we do all the things that we have to be in compliance with uh mostly fall in accounting, and that's something that falls under your uh your controller.

Okay.

Um and then I think the other, sorry, did anybody else have a question about it?

I had one on that previous slide, but you if you're on this one, that's okay.

Uh, under the improved uh positions request, um I see an additional rental compliance specialist.

So I know that's something that we've talked about.

Is this one um specific?

I don't know, DeCarlin, if you want to speak to it.

This is No, it's uh actually I'll let Bill come up to take about talk about it.

But it's what was requested by council.

Yep.

I just thought it's a good thing to highlight, right?

This is a conversation we've been having for a few years.

Sure.

Um so yeah, it's additional rental inspections that we have to do.

Um also for short-term rental compliance as well.

So those are the main thoughts for behind that function.

Okay.

Awesome.

Happy to see that.

Oh, yeah, Valerie.

You might want to stay there, Bill.

Does the um short-term rental license fee help contribute to that cost?

Um I believe it does, but I don't know the specifics.

Thanks.

I I do not believe it is attributed specifically to that cause, but it is all general fund revenue, so it is it is offset in general fund expenses.

What's the difference between rental compliance specialist and code enforcement officer?

So uh the rental compliance specialist just strictly deals with rental.

Um, inspections, um, things like that.

Co-enforcement can do other things besides rental properties.

Do our code enforcement officers also do rental inspections?

There do, there's some crossover.

Yeah.

Um I noticed that there was also an in the not approved list, there was a code enforcement specialist.

Yes.

Um what's the consideration there?

Well, we we were through that request when we uh saw that we got the other position funded, so I think we felt like we can manage the workload with what we have.

Okay, thanks.

Thanks.

Did you have a follow-up?

Is it that it was kind of associated with that?

If you have that code just co assigned a code enforcement and not a specialist for just whatever else you would need to look at.

What's the risk there?

Like what's not getting looked at?

Or was the idea to have that person do that?

Does that make sense?

Or that position?

Yeah, I think I understand the question.

So I don't think there's a real inherent risk.

You know, we'll still be able to respond to complaints and uh things that we see ourselves when we're out doing inspections, but yeah, we don't think there would be any drop-off in servers or impact that way.

Or or workload to the other supervisor or the other specialists that have to do the same with less.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Yeah.

We'll be able to manage with what we have.

Betsy, you had a question?

Um, I don't really have a question.

I mean, the code enforcement specialists, those are the guys or mainly women.

I think Marcia's one of them that go out and say, look, we have trash problems or broken windows, or you can't park on the front yard of your house, uh weeds or something like that.

Yeah.

Or the weeds are too high, right?

So that's what they do as opposed to the rental inspection folks who go in and make sure there's smoke detectors, the doors closed, the windows work, that kind of stuff.

Yes.

So they've got two different positions.

So it's a little confusing.

It is.

Yeah, I mean there's some crossover, like as well.

Okay.

Thanks, Bill.

Who responds to sorry?

No, you're good.

Sorry, Bill.

Oh, Bill, you have to come back.

Where's the crossover between um code complaints?

So who responds to code complaints?

We we kind of assign it based on how the complaint comes in, you know, and some of it depends on scheduling of other inspections and availability.

But you know, like uh a rental uh inspector can cite trash and you know, weeds and and things like that.

So it really just depends on what's in the pipeline right now and how things are scheduled.

Yeah, thanks.

So if someone were to say like the bathtub doesn't work or this bathroom doesn't work, would that be a code enforcement person or a rental inspection?

It would be a rental inspection, and we're not gonna send the landscape maintenance ordinance enforcer out for that.

Okay.

Thanks.

Thank you.

So we did try to highlight on this slide which positions were withdrawn by the department during our review process internally.

Um of the things that goes into that consideration is that it's a lot easier to just delay a position that would be nice to have, um, but you don't actually have it yet than it is to get rid of something that's in the current budget, um, which is why you'll see so many of them were withdrawn by departments.

And um, so I guess this question is for police for the real-time information center analyst.

Um, does this then delay?

I mean, I think we we have a probably some new new people in the audience and at the dais to explain what is the real-time information center.

Uh and and what would this what does this do?

Not having the analyst to be participating in that.

So the idea would be, and these are really popping up in a lot of different places.

They have them in Kansas City, St.

Louis, Springfield, O'Fallon, Blue Springs, Lee Summit, everybody's kind of going to the similar model.

And it's a way for us to try to get information out more quickly to the people that are working in the field because we have so much information coming at them in the cars, whether it's through dispatch or through all the different cameras, everything that's going on, it's trying to get them that information more quickly, and it's and it's intelligence on what kind of call they're going to.

Um, ideally, it would ultimately connect somehow with the 911 system, so that obviously that information is kind of going out simultaneously.

That's a much bigger lift.

But yes, this was this would be kind of two positions to seed that project.

Um right now, the the I guess the planned location, that would be the second floor of the North Station, um, was kind of what we were where we were hoping to put it.

Um, but yes, that that would we would just hold off on that until do we have um I haven't skipped ahead to see the other things, but do we have then also the budget to besides just the people?

Is do you also have an NDI for the budget to actually kind of build out?

So we have some money left that we've moved it around several different times, Lisa sitting in the back.

So um we have a severe evidence storage problem, and so we um this is a long way to answer this question, but it's been moved around several times.

So we were going to add on to the training center uh down south and add evidence storage onto that building.

It was it was constructed to be built on to.

So at one time there was money in that project, and then when the IBM building came up, we said, hey, that would be perfect.

It's got a 4,000 something square foot tornado shelter we could put evidence in.

Um so we sit put that on hold because we wanted to wait and see what happened with movement to that building.

So we're kind of sitting on that money right now.

I think we have the money that we would need to get the project up and running.

It won't take the entire second floor, maybe half from the estimates we've looked at.

Um, but that would be putting in you know the computers, the monitors, things like that, desks, uh everything of that nature.

Um so it's kind of a wait and see right now because if if uh depending on what happens on in all on August 4th, we may have to pivot back to trying to figure out how to use that same money to build out for evidence because that's a huge problem.

Can I can I ask when I've seen uh examples of this, like I got to see one in Cleveland, it's a joint like city-county because a lot of that information is shared.

Is our thoughts that this would be because it's it's really about also intelligence across jurisdictions?

Ideally, obviously, because we're the largest police agency in jurisdiction uh populated jurisdiction in this area.

Ideally, we would have kind of a regional approach.

So if you think about a task force model that's been used, we have a cyber crimes task force where people contributed investigator to help with the Boone County Cyber Crimes Task Force.

Very similar to that would be my my dream goal of having someone say, and and a lot of task force models they'll say, hey, if you can't afford to send us a full-time employee, you know, you you're a smaller agency, they may chip in $25,000 per budget year, something of that nature, and then we would we would staff that part of it.

Um but obviously the more agencies we can get involved, the better it works.

So definitely partnering with everybody locally that we could, including Jeff City, the Boone County Sheriff's Department, all those folks.

Okay, thank you.

Uh yeah, Christina question.

Uh so for the real-time information center analysts, this would be in addition to like they would not sit with the joint communications team, and this would be in addition to what we're paying for the three eighth cent tax for just uh dispatch, right?

No.

Uh I'm not sure about the like the 911 tax.

It's not the it's not the it's no, it wouldn't be the theme.

Yeah, it would be it would be a different thing.

They're not dispatchers.

Yeah, it's it's connecting from our dispatch information, but they're not dispatching, they're not dispatchers.

They're really just looking at that analytics to really try to figure out exactly what are some of the needs of our law enforcement or our firefighters who are trying to ascend to whatever issue they're dealing with.

Yeah, history on a call location.

Um, you know, obviously a lot of departments are going to this is becoming more and more prolific, a drone is first responder program.

That would be that would be ran by these folks.

They would be civilian employees, they would not be sworn employees, and so they would be actually running that program as well.

Thank you.

All right.

So can I ask?

Sorry, sorry, go back.

So again, these are these are new, like you know, these are new positions um that are be were proposed, but not didn't have the budget to.

So I don't know for the public works.

Um this is obviously like kind of like a new crew.

Um I'm reading.

I don't know where she so basically, yeah.

So a new crew leader and then three equipment operators under that.

Like, are these people that would be filling potholes?

Or you mentioned on Monday part of it is um that um the concrete.

Yeah, like the county roads that we are absorbing, apparently.

Sort of uh yeah.

So remember we talked about this uh earlier on where we talked about bringing out a concrete crew to help do some of our concrete work.

This is what this was, and so it's the uh staff and then the equipment, and so I'll let Shang kind of talk a little bit more.

Yeah.

Um there was um some feedback given by um street division employees about how much citywide concrete work we contract out.

Yeah.

And so we what this was was there's uh we're seeing more and more of them on the contractor side of vehicle that you can make concrete right there in the vehicle and then place it.

And so the idea was a new concrete crew with one of those vehicles.

One of those vehicles also requires the ability to store the materials that make up concrete.

So the truck and the materials were six hundred plus thousand dollars, but I also need a crew that does that work.

So what you see here is a crew leader and three operators.

It was there was six hundred and thirty thousand dollars I think in truck and material storage and then four four positions there.

When comparing that to uh the work you have to contract out was there a return on investment for that investment that you know this year we'll see more spent or there would be yes um I don't think it's as large as uh people might think that it is but there is a return on investment um but also remember when we order that truck there's a time frame with order to get that truck and so you'd spend most of that first year probably getting the truck getting the material storage thing built before you could really do that and so we felt like what we're doing now the cost benefit wasn't enough based on the budget situation to propose it this year.

It's a great idea um it helps in several areas but like I said we're all looking for ways to help out with what we're dealing with here.

Okay.

Thanks Jane I appreciate that.

Yep you can go ahead okay now we'll get into the vacant positions held open uh I believe we had 23 positions that were held open on so basically those are positions that weren't budgeted in this fiscal year now we'll talk a little bit about uh fee changes what things oh I'm sorry yeah so um yeah Valerie's got a question and then I don't see I don't see Capanot is anyone here from municipal court I can't also see over the podium I can barely see over this podium but all right Valerie you have a question yeah can you specify what you mean by held open are they held longer into the year or are they positions that will not be filled during this fiscal year they will not be filled during this fiscal year.

Can can I clarify um here go I don't what side am I looking at go a different slide go one there.

Do we mean municipal court or do we mean city clerk's office for the deputy city clerk position that's being held vacant.

No that's municipal court.

Okay.

Deputy city clerk is deputy court clerk.

Do you mean deputy court clerk?

Yes.

Okay I was like uh Sheila I was like I want to know why we're yeah yeah okay and talking to uh talk to the judge his thought is right now that he could hold on that however if he does see a higher caseload he may come back and ask for a appropriation to fill that position okay okay thank you did he have an idea of like if that caseload yeah they they monitor they monitor that pretty regularly and right now the caseloads are are low enough that the he doesn't want to give up the position right however he's willing to hold it until there's a need.

Okay I guess uh where I was going with that that's good info I was just thinking like what's the ramp up time so if he did start getting a really big caseload you know will I'm assuming he thought about that.

Yes he does.

Yeah and when they do I think in February we usually do a state of the court and I think he's that's when he also kind of brings together like his court caseload and we kind of get a heads up on whether or not he's gonna be making any changes.

And oh I had a question about oh can you go back a slide Matthew there is uh on the electric side so when we are looking at the water and light technicians and I thought I saw somewhere about a line a line worker oh create crew leader line uh water and light what's the impact to your team for keeping that open so positions that are getting added last year and this year we added some line worker positions and that's to get uh more line workers on board because we're seeing a lot more undergrounding work so we're trying to develop a crew that's focused on underground not just overhead but underground and until we get that crew in place we don't need the crew leader this next year because it'll take us a year to to get those line workers in place get them trained up and then we'll be able to and then we'll have some line workers that have been there long enough that are more well trained and capable of taking that crew leader position.

And until we get that crew in place, we don't need the crew leader this next year.

Okay.

Because it'll take us a year to get those line workers in place, get them trained up, and then we'll be able to, and then we'll have some line workers that have been there long enough that are more well trained and capable of taking that crew leader position.

So that's why we're holding it open for a year.

Okay, that makes sense.

And is there any impact to the community by um not having some of these other ones like the substation technician or the lab uh technician?

Right.

So uh not at this time.

So but we're not willing to to let go of those position eliminate them yet.

Uh I think in the future we may need that substation technician as we have more work, but just at this time, we think for the next year we'll be fine without it.

Okay.

I'm just thinking about the increase of storms we've had and all the different things, and right.

I don't know what they exactly do.

So I'm like, how does all the different things that have been happening with possible new projects and all these things?

Right.

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

We're looking at long term.

That's why we don't want to eliminate these positions, but we know we don't need them for fiscal year 27.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thanks, Aaron.

Like Aaron mentioned, these positions are still authorized in the budget, so they could come back mid-year with um a council amendment if they needed to to change any of these.

We're just not budgeting for them to be able to hire and pay for someone in that position during FY27.

Okay.

All right.

So then to wrap up, we have just a really brief overview of some of the fee changes that you'll see as we continue to go further into this process.

Community development will propose a few increases for applications within the planning division by a relatively small amount.

Like Gabe mentioned earlier, Parks and Rack is also proposing a few free fee increases at a much smaller scale than they proposed last year in the 26th budget.

I think Valerie has a question.

Yeah.

Um for the community development fee increase.

Um, do we reach out to development professionals?

Do we get any feedback on that?

I know there's always a concern when we raise development fees that it might inhibit construction of new housing.

I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing that uh the parks director just got deputized by the fire department with a sticker.

Sorry.

For those who can't see the audience.

No.

Uh yeah, so to answer your question, uh no, we haven't reached out, I think, to the development committee on the on the increases on those specific fees.

Uh I think it's um kind of attributed to increased cost of services, and it's been a number of years since we've raised most of our fees there.

So uh kind of that cross-the-board approach is what we're looking at there.

Yeah, when was the last time we raised the fees?

Uh I believe it was about eight years ago, maybe.

I think we there has been some um specific fee increases.

I know, I think over the last eight years, but kind of a comprehensive look has been a little bit longer than that.

Does council have to approve fee changes, or does this kind of go along with the budget?

It goes along with the budget, but there will be separate ordinances related to fee changes that you'll see.

Um, I think they're being introduced.

It's introduced on Monday.

It's on Monday, yeah.

Okay, then voted on for August 3rd.

Yeah.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thanks, Clint.

We'll have more detail.

Right.

Yeah, I did I do want to note that a lot of these proposed fee changes uh were in part due to our looking at the the different fees, looking at our cost for service study that we prepared this year.

So the cost of service study that we did, I believe we began we began in January.

Um and we just recently completed uh the study, and so we looked at all fees and services within the governmental funds, all right.

And then health will also have some increases to mostly their inspection fees that they will bring forward and the parking utility you heard some about on Wednesday, what they're proposing with their rate adjustments and then our last slide is just a brief summary of the utility rate increase or rate changes that Aaron talked about on Wednesday and then earlier today.

And then our last slide is just a brief summary of the utility rate increase or rate changes that Aaron talked about on Wednesday and then earlier today.

And uh just a question.

You mentioned um the IT is working on kind of like the bill calculator.

Um will that be for all of them, or is it just electric and just water?

Sorry to make all these.

Oh, that's your own bag.

That's so we are working on all of them.

Uh and what it's looking like right now is it'll take your current April bill and translate it to what it would be like if all the rate changes were to occur, what that and it would show you all the line items of your bill.

Okay.

So we like my specific bill or just like a your specific bill from April.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

So it won't reflect summer.

And we were just debating that because if we if we do last summer, there were some rate changes that occurred October 1st.

So we were just debating that it's like, well, that won't that'll be kind of wonky.

So yeah.

And then um, what's the planned outreach for communications on if this were to, you know, if if that on August 3rd?

Right, it would be similar to years past where uh we would have stuff on uh the website and you know, all the social medias and city source and all those sorts of things.

Okay.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

And I think we're two discussion now.

Is that correct?

That's correct.

Yeah.

So I think Matthew and and probably De Carlin and Megan and Jim and all, you know, I think um just want to say first off appreciation, also the departments for kind of trying to find these the savings where we could, especially for general fund, but really an enterprise as well.

Um I think one of the questions are you know so we're gonna be getting this intro and first read on Monday.

We're gonna be probably voting on some of these fee changes or utility rate changes.

We need to understand in from you know your your perspective, like what do we need to be thinking about?

Um what what are gonna be the impacts of some of these?

What happens if they don't pass?

So what you know what I mean?

Walk us through some of that conversation.

So do Carlin, I think this is really for you.

When you say that they don't pass, you're looking at some of the rate increases or I'm not, you know, I'm not saying I'm just thinking I it's not that I'm saying they won't.

I'm saying that like we need to know, understand.

What's the risk?

Yep.

Yeah.

For Christina's, right?

She's gonna get a t-shirt made with like what's the risk?

And so I think it's it's that.

Yeah, it's it's it's it's about operations.

And so when we when we do this look, you know, you're looking at how do you make sure you maintain the service that you have?

How do you look at the impact for what we know are increasing costs?

Uh how do you balance that with making sure that you have the employees to provide that service?

And so it's all of that encompasses of exactly how do we try to progress things moving forward.

And so when we sat down with the department directors, no, we made sure that we had a collaborative conversation about what can we wait?

Uh what are I think Mark put it best when he said, no, here's the must-have, the we need, and that can what can wait.

And and that's been part of the conversation is no making sure that we're prepared for what's gonna if we put something off, what will have the minimalist impact to operations.

And so that's the kind of things we looked at.

Um we look at our organization, we are a service organization, so we put people into vehicles and offices to provide our service to our residents.

The highest cost for everything that we do is our people.

Especially in the general fund.

Utility funds is buying per is purchasing power from that magnitude, but for most of it for our general fund, it is our people.

And so that balance is making sure that we're able to provide that service and keep it at that momentum that we'll provide the service for our residents.

And so it's a lot of hard, it's uh with some of the decisions of let's put this off weren't easy decisions, like the the real-time data center for the police department.

We know that's a need.

That is where agencies are going.

Uh it helps protect and help keep our community safe, but is something that is it something that we have to do right now, or if it's something that we could do later on?

And that's that's the perspective that we looked at.

And so when you so one of the things that we we did give you is that kind of that list of the NDIs and it talks about here's a request that was made, and here's a reason why it was either approved or not approved.

And so that kind of gives some of the justification.

I I I you know it's it's I think the uh well Christina talked about the risk assessment form.

And so I kind of looked into that and say, what does that look like?

Like a risk, yeah, risk registry.

Would be something that we could probably do for this budget year, but it's something we probably should do for future.

So that so that as you're going forward, you can kind of take a look at it, say, okay, here's an impact.

Here's the things that are legally required because it is law.

Here's the things that are something that would be good, but and here's the things that can kind of wait and put off and what's how do you balance that?

And so it's creating that analysis for that.

Yeah.

Uh but I I think you know, during these conversations, there are things that you're gonna say, well, could we do this?

And the question will become if we if we want to increase the budget, what does that look like?

And what are we gonna cut from in order to make that increase?

And so how do you make sure that you're provided that balance.

And can I ask um uh we talked about the the cost of service sort of study for the gener you know government fees?

Is that included with the intro items that are for rate any of these changes that we have coming for?

Is that like an attachment to these?

Or is that part of the presentation?

The cost of service study presentation.

Uh so they will I believe they'll work in tandem and those will come to you on the 17th.

August.

August 17th when we're having like the budget discussion.

Okay.

Right.

And so what what we will plan to do is have a discussion over the uh fee study, uh cost of service study, I'm sorry.

Uh and then uh the departments that want to make changes will present their changes as well after that.

Okay, okay.

Yeah, Jackie and then Betsy.

So I think we've had um a discussion where we had talked about council having a quick reference to the NDIs that were not approved, and then looking at the current budget year to see if the need was still there, if it was requested again and if it was approved or not.

Um can is that something that can happen for this budget?

Like look at what was requested last year, was it re-requested this year, did it get through or not?

I just think that's important for historical perspective.

So council members have more of a historical knowledge of what's been requested because the directors have identified a specific need year after year or not.

I started working on that actually.

I have a huge spreadsheet over here of trying to compare that.

We we do have that information, so we could put it together for the meeting on the third.

Yeah, no, it doesn't have to be complicated, just yeah, yeah.

Just uh this is from this year, this is from last year type.

Yeah, and I think you could include in that the the conversation that we had on Monday with then of those sort of NDIs or things, what did we already approve maybe mid-year?

Yeah, you know, so those things that when we did a uh the the quarterly budget adjustment or a new thing was purchased, we we had it had been an NDI that had not been approved in 626, but then we did do mid-year.

That'd be good to know too.

Thank you.

Yeah, yeah, Betsy.

Um so I'm gonna get back to being you know, just the scheduling person again.

Um if we are passing this budget um at the second meeting in September, it seems like in the past, then we have wanted to have the amendments at the second meeting in August.

Yes.

So that we have the chance to have public input on the amendments before we vote on them.

If the first meeting in September meeting in September, so that we can finalize the budget the second meeting in September.

Yes and get everybody paid in October.

Correct.

Thank you, Betsy.

I was gonna mention that.

Yeah, once you were done.

Um we are gonna do our best to have all the staff amendments to the budget um by the 17th, and then if you all could let us know um by the 13th, if you have any council amendments, we can include those in the slides for our presentation on the 17th.

Of August.

Of August, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I guess that's that's one of the things that um I right.

So when would this when does it go public?

And then what's the date on that to be expected for fiscal year 27?

Is it when we post the agenda for August 3rd?

So we will have a version of the budget available by the end of this month.

Um you've already gotten some handouts related to the general fund, kind of an overview with all the departments and today um all the funds in an overview as well as revenue and expense numbers, but you will have the individual department pages by the end of July to review.

Okay.

Yeah, uh Jackie and Christina.

Has the financial audit and advisory commission been provided with the same information we have or additional information?

We have a meeting on Monday where we will go over everything that we've gone over with you all with them.

And then do is there a process in place for them to alert council of what questions they would like answered before a public meeting?

Like for us to kind of wrap our brains around.

I asked them to give a recommendation.

So that's something that I will talk to them on Monday about.

Okay.

I would appreciate hearing their questions.

Thank you.

So on Tuesday, I think we have a work session for the strategic planning.

How does that mean impact all the stuff we learned today?

And that you know, does it change things or so?

We're working with Barry Dunn, who's the consultant on the strategic plan to make this budget, the 27 budget kind of a transition year between our current strategic plan and our future strategic plan because of the timing of when that plan will be approved.

It's not something that we can fully implement in the 27 budget, but we will do our best to tie both to the current strategic plan and the new strategic plan in the 27th budget.

Why are we doing it that way?

Because we don't have the new strategic plan.

Okay, I I mean I guess I understand we don't have the new strategic plan, but like I don't know.

I guess it just seems weird to have a strategic planning after like a budgeting budgeting sessions and stuff.

And I think the goal is to have it um start with the new fiscal year, but because we have to have the budget for the fiscal year done prior to the start of that fiscal year, it's not something that we can fully implement together since it's not finished yet.

Yeah, and I guess Jason.

I can add a little bit to that.

Um so the goal with this updated strategic plan is for it to be uh in front of you in October for you to consider and approve.

So the work session next week is really going to be you getting the information that Barry Dunn has gathered from the community and going through the environmental scan and then starting to workshop those priorities for our future plan.

Okay, I guess I'm just used to like a business realm where you always do strategic planning before you do budget, or at least that's what I'm used to, and so I guess it was just confusing to me.

So we have a strategic plan in place now.

Right.

This is the update that will go in place for fiscal year 28.

Okay.

So I guess I just don't understand the timing.

Any other questions?

All right, so up, so then basically for us to expect so um coming up next week is capital improvement uh plan.

And then can you speak to um kind of like the first slide from Monday's work session?

Uh the engagement, the community engagement around the budget going forward from today.

Yes.

Uh you don't have to say the dates, you can just say what you have planned.

So I'm sorry, let me know.

We have quite we have quite a few engagements that are still planned.

We have um budget town hall number four, which will take place towards the end of July.

I believe it's I believe it's the 30th.

Yeah, that's right at the 30th.

Um, and then we've got the introduction of the budget on August 3rd.

That will not be a public hearing, but there will be a presentation about the budget on that day.

Um we also have budget town hall number five, which will be related to this fiscal year 27 budget.

Um, and those dates I think are August 6th and August 12th.

Um, and then we also have the public hearing on August 17th, the second public hearing on September 8th, and then the budget will be hopefully adopted on the 21st of September.

All right, and then I think I have a let's talk local on July 27th at 6 p.m.

5:30, kidding, 5:30 p.m.

at the Methodist Church on 9th Street, and its focus is on the budget and budgeting process as well.

Okay.

All right.

If there's nothing else for this, I will go ahead and adjourn us early.

Appreciate everyone's uh work on this, and know we'll have lots of questions going forward, I'm sure.

Right?

Thank you.