253.

No, and uh we wanted to get started.

I'm gonna turn it over to Councilman Nelson as my uh finance person.

All right, uh we're starting with the solicitor today.

So that's all there's nothing to turn it over to.

We'll go send it right back to Mr.

Betson.

I have email time.

So the uh solicitors budget is uh really not significantly changed except in two areas.

There's a couple of increases in cost just because of print um or copier contract went up a couple dollars, and I think we were short a little bit on some paper supplies, but there's really no change there.

The the there's there's two real changes.

One is uh the pay for the deputy solicitor.

Uh the deputy solicitor, I had uh, if you recall when Kathy Doyle was here uh when she left, um we reduced the pay of the deputy solicitor by about ten thousand dollars.

Um and my plan, and I've proposed that the last three years was that each year we would come up three thousand dollars to try to bring it back to where it was.

This would be the third year of that, and so I have uh the deputy solicitor's pay going up by three thousand dollars outside of any additional like uh percentage increases.

Sorry to interrupt, but that's page twenty-four.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Thank you.

Of the budget budget, the one with the pictures on the front.

So the one you gave us yesterday.

Yep.

Okay.

I'm sorry, with all that 24.

24.

Okay, thank you.

So uh again, that's one of them is that the deputy solicitors it went up.

The other change is that about a little over a year ago, we had two positions.

We had a paralegal and a legal secretary.

Um due to retirements um and kind of a unique uh skill set with a higher uh I thought we could try to see if we could combine those positions.

That's actually worked very well.

When we did that, we did increase the pay of the new whatever title you want to call it, but we did increase the pay.

I've proposed another three thousand dollar increase really because I wasn't certain it was gonna work and I didn't know if we'd have to split it back out.

Uh but I think for the time being, while you have the individual you have, uh Ms.

Ways, uh, it would be um definitely in our best interest to uh pay her competitively, and so that is a one-time.

I'm not looking to do that number of years, but that would be a one-time increase, I think, to make that pay uh really reflective of doing both positions.

That's it.

Uh you added casual labor back in.

Uh casual labor is uh Mr.

Visheco.

Uh that has not changed.

Uh we have not.

We've been pretty fortunate, I think, over the eight years that I've been here, we had a history, a long history of referring a lot of things out of the solicitor's office, which I took issue with we have not referred anything out this year.

I don't um anticipate really the need to refer it out with the staff we have.

We we should be able to, and we need to be focused on doing that work in-house, not sending it out.

Oh, I'm sorry, you just moved the line last year that was referred to as an assistant solicitor.

Uh and this year you moved it to casual labor.

Well, I can't take credit for moving anything, but but I think that that is what it is.

Yeah, that um we have a a part-time uh uh solicitor who does not get paid benefits or health insurance, and that's what's reflected there.

I I do not personally I don't like referring work out unless it's something that we're not capable of handling.

And that being said, I just thought of some where we did.

We had a sewer issue that was referred outside uh because there was uh uh a need for somebody who had EPA experience, and so there was a need to do that, but that's not a good habit to be sending stuff out.

We should handle that internally is he uh committed to another year.

Who the casual labor?

Um that I I don't know.

I've had discussions with everyone, and just so we're clear, I'm not in the picture next year.

Um I'm out, so uh the question is the staff.

I I believe that the staff um would be beneficial to stay.

Uh I think Ms.

Devlin has indicated to me that, or she has indicated to me that she is open to that and would support that.

I have given my suggestions to each of them that I think it's it's a good idea and it's a benefit to the city to stay.

Uh and I believe that they are willing to do that and desire to do that.

I cannot speak as much for Mr.

Vishekko.

Um I just don't know.

Um, and I've I've expressed that to also Ms.

Devlin.

I I I don't think that's a guarantee.

I don't think uh I I wouldn't gamble on that.

Um and so that is a hole that that would need to be filled if if he makes that choice.

Um, but I'd never say never until you know uh he may change his mind.

But his plan right now, I think would be to retire.

Jury would stay.

What Jason?

Uh Jason, um, yeah, my understanding is Jason would would be interested in staying.

As long as he's the one that's getting it the yeah, he's the one, yeah.

Well, yeah, no, I think if if uh you raise a good point.

I mean, there can be changes, and I think if there are changes to the people, well, they may go down, they may go up.

It should be reflective really of their experience.

Um so I uh the the what I'm proposing reflects the bodies that are in those positions.

Uh if those people were to change, then you would need to assess their level of experience and and uh and pay them accordingly.

But uh yeah, uh that pay proposal that I have is connected to Mr.

Check, and that pay proposal that I have is connected to Ms.

Wade.

If those faces change, I would not uh be inclined to support those.

Any other questions?

It's pretty straightforward.

Yeah, you have really easy budget budget.

You've cut the you've cut it over the last three years.

This is the fourth year, and it's only gone up a thousand something from last year.

So I mean this is really easy to yeah.

I'm bordering on cocky, but I think we're uh we're about half what we were in 2018.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Okay, uh, clerks.

Thank you.

Thank you, thank you.

Thank you, Ed.

Thank you.

So are you not going to be here in policy?

Yeah, thanks, Ed.

What page we got okay?

Okay, what page?

15 16.

Um council member Nelson found a discrepancy in the salaries of city council that um we have 2,000 for the council president and a $14,000 light item line item, but we we really only need 12 there.

So I propose we dump that into my budget.

Um that's the one.

Really, council's budget isn't changing.

So we should punish that one other twelve.

The one should actually be a twelve.

It should be a twelve because we we counted the two.

15 so the 14 one needs to be corrected to a 12.

The 12, and then the 2,000 needs to be corrected to 14 for president.

That would that would just stay as a 2000 to whoever was president, then that would just get tacked on.

Versus like going down the tier.

Okay, we got that.

The 2000 is at the top.

That's who that people.

Yeah, and that's all done by ordinance.

Yeah.

And then in the clerk's budget.

Um we fell short in a couple departments this year, so finance was great, and they helped us do some transfers.

And we do spend the bulk of our money, I think, at the end of the year with advertising and um just office supplies.

And so we requested more money in office supplies from three thousand this year to five thousand.

That's one of the places that we had to change put money in.

And then um operating supplies went down, and I think that was not a great place to be, but maybe we have two thousand extra dollars to put over there.

Um in overtime, which is at the top, we'd like to increase that.

We were short there this year.

And in the advertising, we're increasing from 7500 to 10,000 only because we have no idea what the home rule charter committee will require of us for advertising.

So we just bumped that up because we have absolutely no idea.

And um in other services, the codified this year, we codified I wanna say twenty two ordinances and last year or or twenty-six, I'm sorry, and last year we only did seventeen.

So we we were short in that account too, so we transferred money into that and we have an estimate for next year's budget already of um that's gonna increase in January and then this year at the end of the year we're gonna go up to I think fifty-six more.

Where am I mathing wrong?

So if we with the the increases that we just asked, I noticed that the pension contribution anticipated to go down by a thousand, but it's only like a two thousand increase when we're looking but that what we just what we just discussed was definitely more than two thousand.

The MMO dropped this year, so um the MMO is split amongst all of the employees that qualify for pension.

We took the pension out of the council budget um because the council doesn't qualify for it.

And in past years it was just evenly split up by number of employees in each department, so we changed that, but um the MMO dropped this year.

Okay.

So that makes it a lot of things.

Overall about you're gonna see that in a lot of departments.

Eleven hundred.

But we just when Lori was going down through some of the increases, like from 7500 to 10,000, bumping up from 3,000 to 5,000 with office supplies.

Wouldn't that the budget be more than just uh 2,000 increase with just those alone were like 5,000 that we needed an increase?

Like the total overall budget.

Oh, well, I think if you look if I'm reading this right, the total expenditures for 2025 budget would be 372,921 and anticipating three eighty-six six thirty-nine for twenty twenty-six okay.

And your operating uh expenses went from uh thirty-two thousand to forty two thousand.

Yeah, gotcha.

Thank you.

Yeah, so just line up.

Yeah.

Any questions?

And remind me, we we approved the change on the transfer limits, right?

Yes.

Um does that make it easier for you on your numbers, like where you're like, oh, I think we might be off by a thousand here or there.

Can we just call it a wash and say, hey, you got you can transfer ten thousand anywhere else?

Well it surely helped with doing the agenda, made them smaller, but in the line items it was just hard to tell because so many things came in under budget and other things came in over budget, so we just tried to adjust and guess.

Yeah, okay.

But knowing that we can transfer does make it easier in the future.

Because this is a lot of nickel and diming.

You only have one item in your operating expenses over ten thousand.

Right.

You could zero out any of those lines and make it work except for other services and charges, which sounds like your most ambiguous line item.

Right.

So any other questions?

Um I remember last year we discussed about possibly making sure that we had a digital um access point for the Times newspaper.

Have we discussed that any further beyond?

Because I know when I had a meeting yesterday with Jackie, they were mentioning that they need um access to the newspaper as well.

So I didn't know if we um were considering getting access to the newspaper for council members or for at least one person to have access in case we needed to read an article or two.

I want to say I thought someone in the office had a personal one.

Okay.

And I mean I go to the free portal through the library, so that's not that big of a deal, but sometimes when you I'm not paying.

Do you know what I make?

Six thousand a year.

Um on top of my other job.

But anyways, uh I want to make sure that we have access to some of the digital articles.

I know sometimes it takes a day or two for it to populate on the free access point, so I just wanted to make sure that Janey's working on that actually.

I just knew that other departments had mentioned it in the past.

I know we brought it up in conversation last year when we were in budget, and I don't know what happened, but yeah.

Finance and purchasing are working on a lot of things, and that's one of the things uh Genie's got on our plate right now.

Sounds like we shouldn't have each department um contracting separately.

So yeah.

And other services and charges are like conferences and workshops.

No, that's actually the codified um and subscriptions, printing, dues and memberships.

Um we really didn't do any new memberships, but that's where we took out some of the um uniform printing things out of that budget.

I think that's where it came from.

And um and their costs have increased for the codified, and we did amend many more ordinances this year than in the past so where's um conferences and workshops for your side education and training, oh okay.

Yeah, I'm completely missed that.

Last year we asked for um to increase it because we were looking into getting more training for the staff.

We anticipated this year going to the PML and then it didn't come out of our budget.

So um that was like a gift, but we do have we're looking into it.

We just didn't find anything that you could use.

If yeah, that seemed to be good for us.

And city council has 8,000 in education and training.

Did you get any update on the newly elect training?

I know you were bringing up in conversation yesterday that okay, just making sure nothing changed.

I don't think that the PML is going to have training.

Okay.

I just wanted to know they used to, so that would have come right out of that budget.

There are a few other organizations who are who've already announced like their civics, so I can get so that way counselors can look at it.

Well, Lori, everything looks good.

I don't worry too much about the clerk's office because you always run things by the president, and the president normally knows what's going and coming.

Um so I know Tyler and Mel have been doing a good job this year making sure expenses are under.

So good job.

Thanks.

All right, thanks, Lauren.

Right, thank you.

The mayor and Renee couldn't make it tonight, so um I'll just run through the mayor's office quickly.

Um it is on page 17.

Can everybody hear me?

I don't want to touch my mic, I'm afraid it'll start feedback.

Yeah, and it's kind of high.

Okay, I'll I'll be okay.

All right.

If it if it starts feed feeding back, it's your fault.

Okay.

All right.

So the mayor's budget really hasn't changed much.

It's um it's well, down in the uh labor area.

We have the increase from uh 95 to 120 for the next mayor's salary.

So that was um that was an ordinance last year.

So and um pretty much everything's the same as it was we we just carried the same budget forward except for the uh wages and they they've got their um increases in there.

Question okay with us getting new mayor and staff coming in.

Um the salaries that are depicted, are they going to be expected?

Yeah, I don't I don't know the answer to that, but uh it's it's kind of like Ed said, this is put together using the people that are actually in those positions now.

Okay.

So um there might be some changes to these positions and uh salaries.

That'll be up to the new administration.

So we calculated all the um benefits based on the current salaries along with the mayor's increase.

And the only other thing that sticks out here is that the uh it's communication bill went uh was higher than expected this year, and that's because we had some uh some people moved out of the uh mayor's office and their phone budget stayed there.

So um we're probably gonna fix that before the end of the year.

So it's only a couple hundred dollars.

And on the one that we have it it looks under budget.

Well, I mean that's through through October.

So it's may it's probably gonna go over budget if we don't reclassify some of those expenses where they belong.

So uh that's all I have for the mayor's office.

Melissa, anything?

No.

Any questions?

Um is the treasure number.

Oh, he's he's back here.

Are we gonna go over the communications?

No.

Uh treasure.

Will we go over communications?

Oh, communications.

It was mayor's communications, treasurers, and then development, finance, and co-enforcement.

Oh, yeah, well, I wrote it down earlier.

Well, he can listen.

Kyle Kyle will be really fast because he doesn't have a lot of changes either, right?

No, no changes.

No changes.

You don't get the memo book steam bill either, huh?

It's a little warm.

What page do you we are?

Oh, communications is on 18.

You really?

You got you don't have any changes at all?

I don't have any changes at all.

No, we we took the uh the same the same amounts that were carried over from last year.

Okay, except for the uh wages.

Except for the wages, right?

Yeah.

Where does the contract with CAM fall under?

Like that.

That's in uh general government.

Yeah.

Is that administered by this by you all?

Do you oversee that contract?

Um there's some question about that.

Um it's it's it's uh it's a little fuzzy, honestly.

Yeah.

Um we're trying to clear some of those those things up because as you know, there have been um I think there's a lot of like I don't want to say handshake deals, but I think there was a lot of things that were like understood, but maybe not.

Yeah, and um, you know, there have been changes at CAM.

Um, you know, there's different rules and regulations now from the state and the federal government, the CAM is having to adapt to the line.

Bottom line is they work for us, right?

That's what the contract says.

So we call them, we want a meeting Tuesday night.

They should be here Tuesday night, not tell us that they can't be here this night.

We've had meetings change because CAM couldn't turn the cameras in.

Well, I find that but we don't like so that I think that's part of where the contract that's where the the fuzzy is because we go into it.

Because if it's not clear in their contract and they've already booked somewhere else, then they can't come because they don't have enough staff.

Yeah, because we as a council we know that we could have study sessions on Tuesdays and Thursday night, so we kind of like mark that off, but if we don't schedule with them, they are not gonna anticipate working with us.

Yeah.

That's where we need to wherever the changeover is in staffing, having that.

Yeah, and if you and if you run into those situations, please let me know because I can uh bring them up to correct.

Under salaries, uh how many employees does that entail?

Five.

Yeah, five.

Okay.

Okay, good.

This isn't another pretty straightforward one.

We try not to make it complicated.

Any questions?

Yeah, it's kinda hard to try to hash out on when it's mostly just salaries.

You know, can't really do much with that.

Yeah, the I I think the only thing I would note is under uh you went down, like you cut your budget.

Yeah, um education and training, I believe it was under that line item last year that we transferred out to um um uh for the cafe interns um for celebrate early, but um you know we've we've spent hardly any money at all under office supplies or um any of the other funds.

We had one large expense um having to fix um the camera um earlier this year um that our um uh digital specialist uses, but um but other than that we we've stayed well within the budget.

Where did the cuts is that where the cuts are gonna be then in the operating supplies and because they're they're not listed like good date right now, is that where they're gonna because you if you're you're just dropping, I'm just trying to make sure I'm following group insurance.

Is it the group insurance?

Okay, just group insurance, yeah.

Council, yeah.

Go in peace.

Okay, thank you, folks.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Okay, next up is the treasurer.

No.

Treasure is um what page are you on?

It's page 25.

Good.

Um that's the uh council book.

That's not true.

Yeah.

Well, we have a copy of them.

Yeah.

Now my first question, because I have one is did we hire the individual that we were supposed to hire from last year that you all begged us to give you funding for?

We did.

Okay.

All right.

All right, I just wanted to make sure.

Yeah, that was one of the things uh we were gonna say here today.

You know, we were gonna say thank you very much for that because that was a position that is a position that is definitely definitely needed.

And since the new employee has come on, she has been really really been a good benefit for us.

Uh as you all may know, uh 2025 has been a it's been a very challenging year for the charter's office due to in the beginning of the year we had to we had the county tax bills and the city tax bills and the stormwater bills.

They were at the post office, and they asked us, the county asked us to bring them back.

So they said, Do you think we fixed that issue on Tuesday?

I'm just never mind so I really just wanted to say thank you to Teresa.

Your office, they helped out tremendously because we manually had to take out 37,000 bills and print new bills and put bills in and lease a year office even not only your office, even Melissa stepped in and they had crates and crates of tax bills that you know they were taking them out, and we manually had to put them back in the right with the right city bill, the right parcels and everything.

Even not only your office, even Melissa stepped in and they had crates and crates of tax bills that you know they were taking them out, and we manually had to put them back in the right with the right city bill, the right parcels and everything.

And good thing that we put them all in the right ones, and Kathy got all our Kathy's, and she didn't get any of anyone else's, you know.

So just want to say thank you very much for dealing with us and going through all that with us throughout the year.

Um as for the budget, our budget is basically the same as last year.

The only real addition is uh postage, and that's because postage goes up every year.

So we went from 55,000 to 60,000 just because of the price of postage.

The the issue that I see with the budget is where we were with the city controller, um just that salary for the city treasurer.

I think it's you're not, I think it's a problematic salary.

We we fixed it already.

Is it already I meant when is it?

In two years, we need one more election.

Okay, one more okay.

I don't know if my I didn't retain it, but that's that's not okay.

So good.

I'm glad we were already proactive.

Never mind.

We're working on it.

Everybody else coming up this year, so we still have a lot of people.

It doesn't kick in until a new uh treasurer comes in.

Jad screwed up the edge.

Should have had a couple, I should have done it four years ago.

You have two more years left right now.

And I plan on coming back to the race.

Dead or alive.

I'm healthy.

I got some jasmine's laughing.

I'm laughing.

I mean, hey, when when you got the time, you got the time, right?

Keep me young on the dog licenses.

I'll keep bringing that one up.

Dog licenses.

I do think we should punt that back to the county.

Well, that's your decision.

Okay.

Uh I think that's it's a redundancy, and if in the state law, I believe it falls on the county to do it.

So we're doing a service, and I don't think it's funny that we should.

Yeah, we only collect what you we only with all due respect, we only collect what you give us.

Yeah, it is labor intention, you know.

Yeah, but what it brings in, it's it takes away it doesn't seem like it would, but when they come in, it basically ties up a couple employees for a short time, right?

Uh we got it, we got switched from dog to it, just you know, now with stormwater on there.

Yeah, yeah, if you want to get rid of it, it wouldn't bother my department one bit.

It would it would uh we could focus more on the other through the stormwater too.

Well no, no, no, I I I got I got feelings about that, and I think if the public understood that when you collect the stormwater, you're putting that over everybody.

If you were to put that on the taxpayers, that levy, only the taxpayers would pay.

Right.

And if you come to my office and look at what I'll I'll take somebody out of random, take merchant again.

They don't give us a pilot.

Take a look at what they pay on the stormwater.

You know, in the future, I think I could see us doing it with public safety.

Uh you know, things like that, because the only way around is state law which says we can't tax is to have a fee.

Right.

So, you know, that'd be the way to and the fee goes across the board to the nonprofit.

Unless the state, the commonwealth wakes up one day and decides to tackle the issue.

Sorry.

Oh, it's my wife, she's on the injured list.

That's right.

I'm sorry.

Right, yeah.

I mean, I understand the point of fees.

I know property tax only um only hits the taxpayers, so I'm I'm gonna always say the fee is the way to make everybody pay.

We're we're getting a little, I know it's a little problem with the stormwater, and I I think before the end of the year, I'd like to get together and maybe have a little press conference, explain to people that it's not a one-year thing.

A lot I I seem to be seeing a trend where they paid the first year, sometimes not the second or third, you know, a few people.

So it looks like there's some confusion, but I think in in general, you know.

That fee coming in is a lot better than turning around and levying it on just tax beers.

Right.

I understand.

Because we don't have an awful lot of pilots, which is some we should work on.

I agree.

What would you say the difference in the collection for the stormwater was like this year compared to the first year we did it?

Well, we collected around 80% the first year.

Okay.

And this year we're probably around 78%.

78?

Okay.

It's just that when you work with stuff you see trends that kind of make you wonder are they are they thinking this was only a one-year thing, you know?

But it's a statewide thing to deal with stormwater, isn't it?

Yeah, but not everybody I don't think Milky puts a tax on, but I might it's up to every township or municipality to levy it if they want to.

I don't think everybody does though, to my knowledge, right?

Not that I know what yeah.

But it's a lot, it's a lot better than going after taxpayers, you know.

We don't put a lien on their house until three years of not paying.

No, um, we actually lean them right away.

Well, what we do right now is we send them a nuisance letter if they don't pay it with the first year, then we send them a nuisance letter which has an additional fee on added on to it, and that has been getting people to pay.

So we we had roughly probably don't quote me on this.

The first year was probably around 7400 parcels, and I think now we might be down to maybe like 23, 2400 parcels of the first year because we've been sending out notices and letting them know that you still owe this, and that fee has gone up since.

So that's how we've been trying to combat it to get people to pay the 24 and 25.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

But they're they're very niche questions, so I'll offline about that.

Okay.

Nope, I'm happy the help that we gave you last year has been helpful.

So I know this year has been a trying year, and hopefully with the new election results, we'll have a good year next year.

I think we will.

Well, we did bill.

You guys worked hard to get it out.

We billed them, but they have not paid.

And you know, we're how do you say hopeful?

Yeah, we might be talking with our attorney Eddie, see if we can with a change of administration over there.

I don't know.

It you know, we did bill them and we worked with finance uh making sure we had the numbers all covered with the overtime.

Yeah.

But if we provided them a service, they should owe us the money.

What I got I was a little worried this year as I heard comments from one of their council people that the same issue might be surfacing again, and I said, Oh no, you know, so we're gonna stay on top of it this year.

We don't we don't need a repeat of that.

Thanks, guys.

I don't have any other questions.

Say good night.

So your office is fine.

Okay.

And feel free to come down if you need you know, guys have any questions.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good job.

Oh, good night.

It was like in 1998.

Okay, next up is development finance.

There's the thing.

There was some sort of uh pettiness that went into that business 20 years ago.

Yeah, everybody has been saving this water for the next person.

So nobody's touched it.

So if you're warm, take your coat off.

We don't know.

Okay.

Development finance is for further forward in the book.

19?

Thank you, 19.

So uh put it straightforward as budgets go.

And if you remember a couple of years ago, we broke that out separately because we thought it would be a good idea to see how much it cost to operate these development programs versus what it actually earns.

And I kind of liked having that transparency because it showed what it cost to be able to offer that service versus the program income.

And deal for it.

I like that it's still a profitable uh venture.

Is it broken out of this?

I don't think that's in here.

No, but uh we're around 750 a year in program income versus what it costs to run that.

Um in terms of in terms of well, and then the budget that we're that we're looking at.

Just in terms of operating expenses, you can see I spent nothing.

Uh I think 495 is what's listed in here, and that was actually reimbursed.

That was a conference I went to where I was a speaker, so I think we got that back.

Um I continue to run it uh very conservatively and try to grow the funds as much as possible.

And uh of course, my position as it has been for a while is 100% reimbursed.

The development funds pay for that, so it's just a pass through.

Um I don't know, is that in miscellaneous reimbursement?

Yeah.

So on the top side of your roll-up, there's a line item miscellaneous reimbursement, which would include that dollar amount.

So what happened?

So that's a $300,000 profit off of that.

Does that roll back into the revolving phone fund or is that going to operate?

So we do we do a uh a few things with so yes, we generate around $750, give or take.

Right.

Uh pays my salary, the rest of it gets put back into the loan funds, but we also, for example, we support the flag Erie Fund.

Yeah.

And being able to bring those breeze.

Micro grants, yeah.

The flagship fund.

Uh we've done some other initiatives with the program income that we've earned because it's basically at that point.

Um you look at what you're earning and it's like what what's a need in the community?

Where should we direct that?

And I really like the fly eerie fund model because we were able to step up, be one of the larger contributors to that, and do it in a way that that did not touch our budget.

And the reason I felt it was appropriate to pull it from there is because that's directly economic development related.

Being able to help stabilize operations there, and we needed to be a partner with that and find a funding mechanism that does it in a way that's sustainable long term, that we could do this if we're able to attract another flight.

And so ongoing, I think this could be you could build on that model.

But yeah, otherwise it just isn't much there.

Um I put a little bit in for office supplies and and but like I said this past year I actually spent nothing.

Got reimbursed for that 495.

So might be the most boring budget in your book.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Questions.

Do we want to bring code enforcement up now?

No, asked to come up.

Steve.

There's nowhere to nickel and dime when it's all been nickel and dimed.

There's not much there.

That's what I'm saying.

Like this is not a my first budget back to back, and I'm aware most of it's the salaries.

Yeah, well, and same with code enforcement.

If you look, the budget's actually uh lower than two years ago.

Uh lower than last year, lower than two years ago.

Um page are we on your page 20.

So we've really tried to control expenses.

Um obviously a lot of that, you know, it's gonna be there, it's just the way it is, but uh the crew has really done a good job of trying to run a tight ship.

Um we don't spend unless we have to.

And I would say that the the main change versus last year is if you recall, we built in for one year only the position of assistant manager of code because we were in that transition period.

Uh we funded that out of the sum of the program income off the in of the uh loan funds so that it didn't hit our budget.

Um so I took that out this year.

Um so the assistant manager of code position's been eliminated.

We're just back to having a manager of code, which is uh Steve.

And um I did put uh some funding into one line I don't think education uh professional services uh so that our current manager code could continue to consult if we need it, uh but it's a much uh lower cost than uh having that position in the uh budget.

So our current manager's gonna transition into a consulting role if and when we need that consulting.

Uh but I would think over the past year uh you know Steve's really been able to to get up and running, and there's a few things that I'm sure we're gonna need help with.

Um but uh I don't know if you want to speak to that, Steve, where where you are now versus Yeah, I think that um Andy is a good resource to have on hand.

He's got uh 20 some years of knowledge with the department, so uh there will be times that we will need to contact him in the future.

Uh professional services.

Professional services.

Where's your staff compliment?

How many people you have on staff?

We have 20 people.

It's on the back.

We have we have one vacancy right now.

Right.

And if you recall, the other change we made is last year we we took one of the zones, uh, one of those positions and dedicated it solely to rental inspection.

Right.

Uh we did have a person here, but they they were only here for I think five or six months, and they took another position.

So that's vacant again.

Um we are in the process of interviewing for that position though.

And I still like the idea of having that position focused when he was strictly on the five months.

How did that go?

Was it did you see a lot of the tenant issues that were coming repeatedly somewhat?

So there were two getting addressed?

There were two outcomes to that.

First of all, I think it helped with our sweeps.

Okay.

Uh, because as we talked about, a lot of the junk and debris, vast majority of that are rental properties.

And so we also had somebody out there bird dogging the rentals, and I think it really helped on that end.

The rental clerks also saw a jump in registration because they all started to notice that we were looking.

Okay, and so I really think that we should continue with that.

You know, it's it's unfortunate that person didn't stay on for long, but while he was here, I think it made a difference.

And uh, you know, you've got almost half of your residence rent.

We need to have somebody who is dedicated to strictly in uh inspecting those rental units, keeping on uh the registration piece of this, and um so right now that's the plan.

It is in the budget, it's just vacant right now.

We're in the process of interviewing, and hopefully that's filled soon.

I think it should be made more public.

If anybody should be in a public safety, it should be you guys.

You're going into all areas of town, and you're going in with a complaint.

So you're going in with people who weren't happy in the first place.

If you've been having a look through wood genuine warning, we can get out.

That's a couple of the guys came up and talked about maybe being licensed to carry for their own protection, right?

We put them through safety training, but uh they did they did go through training.

You had some trouble walking to I know these areas pretty well.

Yeah, we did put them through training.

I'm aware I'm very trying what you guys are doing.

Thank you.

I don't think most people are aware of what they walk into.

We've had people physically threatened, threatened to get just nasty.

Um we've had an inspector uh their name put out on social media.

Where is this person?

Does anybody know this person?

It it's a tough, tough job.

And uh, you know, they walk into scenarios that that typically are are are challenging.

And uh so it's a tough job, they do the best they can, and you know, we've only got a small number of of actual inspectors covering a large area.

So then picking that budget for that precise reason you guys have braceless as far as I'm concerned.

So but there's you know there's there's things that that that I think we can build on.

I think we've come up pretty good way here this year.

Uh but you know there's there's some other things that that we're looking at, and then I think Steve's gonna be able to take that to the next level and and build on what we were able to do this year.

I'm not you know trying to be the good guy, but I've been around a long time when there's problems that have to be done.

I have to go in different places to get help.

I only have to go one place for enforcement because the guys jump on it and it's covered 24 hours.

I only have to go one place for enforcement, these guys jump on it and it's covered 24 hours, I get a call back and they say, yeah, just take care of you know the stuff throwing garbage over a fence or whatever, and that's that's so important.

Well, and and and a lot of that listen to help.

That's all.

And a lot of that, you know, some of that credit goes back to you because you went along with our crazy idea of the abatement fee.

That really shocked people.

Yeah.

When they come and they see that hanging on their door, um how many did we hang?

A couple hundred?

Probably close to three hundred now, we've hung.

Yeah, and we only had to clean up a handful.

Seven, seven or eight.

I mean, when they see that number, they're like, we're gonna we're gonna jump on this.

So we did the study session with you, I think it was in April.

Um, you know, we're six months later now.

How have those numbers been holding up on the on the revenue side?

You know, like how of uh tickets issued, are we still seeing, you know, I don't need to see the the bar charts and stuff that you gave us before, but uh you know uh how you guys viewing those numbers right now?

There's fewer tickets being issued for junk and debris.

Uh we're still issuing for grass and vehicles, but there is fewer for junk and debris.

Okay.

I do know that with us getting the new uh code enforcement officer hired for the rental inspections.

I would like to discuss possibly implementing a fee for when we our guys with public work have to do clean outs or like large massive garbage pickups because they're just left.

I mean, I see it all over the city, so I know that it's a nuisance, and if we can implement the fee for that cleanup, I think that's the we did that in March.

Yeah.

For when the landlord just put about it.

That's what that's yeah, that's the abatement fee.

It goes on their water sewer garbage bridge.

Okay, I just didn't know where it's a good thing.

So that's how it's routed to the owner.

And then it's like we do it.

Yeah, but that but that's where it shows up is on their water bill.

Okay.

So have we seen that going down?

Well, we only had a half dozen or so, right?

So it's on their water bill, and then we'll have to see how quickly they pay that off.

But once word got out there, I mean it really got people to react.

Um and and if you remember, we had to do it that way legally, you can't call it a fine.

Right.

And you don't want to do it, you do it in one way, you have to take it through a different legal channel, right?

Whereas you do it this way and we were able to find a case where other cities had done it this way and it goes straight to their water bill.

It it it people react differently.

Are we seeing a tr a trend with is it more of like the the landlords who maybe are buying up tons of property and aren't here?

Is it this the are we seeing like trends in and where where it's where the problems are?

Oh, a lot of it would be vacant landlords.

Okay.

A lot of it is.

So they're not just they don't they're not visiting the properties and are supposed to be doing that.

Yeah.

Uh and then the other question is how about with our inspections of of some of the businesses versus like just like individuals and people, like some of the we've got some business like you've noticed and brought up a couple times with some who are leaving a lot of just dishwashers and washers and refrigerators and yeah, they're they're told they're not supposed to do that.

Um we do send people over when we do get complaints about certain businesses that have washers and they're uh encroaching the sidewalks, and we do send our people up there and they do move them back, they do start get rid of them.

Um there's a couple of them that are they're tough.

Sorry.

There really is.

I'm sure you see the the couple that are doing that.

Is there an ordinance that's prohibiting or something that we need to address on this side that would be helpful and being able to hold some of them accountable like we are like in in this capacity?

So I so let me touch on this because I think it's sort of related.

But what I plan on doing outside of this, because I don't want to cloud it with the current budget, but we have been talking about a few things under quality of life ticketing.

And it goes to uh work that's being done illegally to people who are not licensed to do that work.

And as it stands right now, typically the quality of life ticket for that is a $100 fee.

Okay.

That's not scaring anybody.

They don't care.

They're gonna roll the dice and they're gonna continue to do the illegal work.

So there's two pieces to this.

Number one, it was a conversation with the solicitor's office.

Do we need to actually uh can can't can our crew go out there, walk into a job site, and without a licensed journeyman or master, um, be able to write a quality of life ticket.

Whereas before there was there was the thought where you had to try to catch wait for somebody to come back.

So I think the way that they approach these inspections, we're able to do differently.

Secondly, and again, I don't want to get too far into this, but there's some initial language that we're working on with the solicitor's office to change quality of life ticketing from a hundred dollars to a thousand, and if you're caught doing illegal work um that and then you're not licensed, or you have apprentices on a job site and there's no journeyman or or master to be found, or you have somebody who's taking their license and uh allowing others to do work with that license, and they're not part of that job, and we know this is going on.

Um I think we need to put a little more teeth in that.

Is this geared towards it's crazy?

Businesses is this gonna be utilized against an individual who maybe is doing work on their house?

No, this is this is meant to be this is meant to be for the contractors who should know better.

Okay, we have certain contractors who are selling their license to get permits for individuals who are barely apprentices.

Um this is what we're going after as far as that thousand dollar fine.

We're trying we're trying to stop them from doing that.

It's really clear you need to have a journeyman or a master on site, and and when you have apprentices working under someone else's license, and everybody knows what's going on.

Well, we want to mut so it's it's like the abatement fee.

We want to make sure the language passes legal muster, right?

And so they're working on that now, and I think next month uh we'll have something for you.

But I I didn't want to build this into the budget because we need to do it first.

And uh and then a couple other things.

We're looking at that rooming house inspection fees.

Um we need to make sure that our fee structure is uh helping cover the cost.

There's some instances where our guys are going out so many times for one project over and over again, and uh it's it's not covering the cost.

We're looking at electrical uh permitting and plumbing permitting and mechanical.

We're kind of low on that end as far as other municipalities.

That's what Chris is talking about.

We're going to be coming to you probably not going to do much with residential permits, but commercial permits.

Uh like Chris was saying, we had uh my plumbing inspector went over to Edison School 40 times on a $3,000 permit.

So we're we lost on that.

Yeah.

So we got to bring it somewhere where we're doing better than that.

Yeah, just I mean, something that accurately reflects the cost, but it's always something cautious.

We we lack investment in the city, so we don't want to discourage investment.

So, like you know, if residents, you know, the one-off type thing of somebody going to a residential property to putting in a new box or something, you know, like I don't want to.

Typically that's one visit, right?

Right.

But when you have an inspector going somewhere 40 times, and you know, there can be you can sharpen that up a little bit.

Like, let's make sure that we don't call them out until you have things done the way they need to be done.

Um certainly, and you've heard me say this many times, I don't ever try to stand in the way of investment.

I don't like taxes and fees, right?

Yeah, yeah.

But there comes a point when you have to you have to discourage bad operators, right?

Yeah, and that's all we're trying to do.

This isn't meant to actually raise any revenue.

This is meant to like the abatement fee.

That was never about revenue.

Yeah, that was about changing people's behavior.

Right.

And that's what this is would be too.

Okay.

Yeah, um, I've I've had people tell me that um it's a mindset that people just don't follow the rules here because nothing's gonna happen.

Right.

So um, if you don't have any type of financial reprimand, you're not going to follow the rules.

So the vast majority of people are are good, they follow the rules.

We have a handful, and it's just the same, it was the same with junk and debris, right?

It takes a small number to really mess with.

Yeah.

So regarding the uh contract is a selling uh giving their uh uh license when you catch them.

Why don't we blast them in the paper, blast them all, face books?

No.

The difficult thing is catching them because the problem is they've got the job done 99% of the time before they come and get their permit.

We know a couple of them that are doing it, but we can't actually prove it they're doing it.

If if they would do if they'd get the permit and then do the work, it'd be it'd be a lot simpler.

And a lot of them are doing in the evening too.

After hours, right.

But the process is they're supposed to get the permit first, right?

Yes.

The only reason they would be allowed to not get the permit first if it was an emergency situation.

Then they have 72 hours to get a permit only if it's an emergency.

And that's a state law.

So it'll always be a challenge, but I think if you raise deterrence, it'll help.

They should ask that you get the permit before you even start.

Well, I'll give it uh later.

No, we won't start the project.

They have a responsibility as well.

I see that's the message we need to uh put out there.

I see it being where in this when with my working with our West Bayfront is they would take, especially with disabled or elderly, um, especially when it was a widower who are the or you know, who's at home uh by themselves, how many times they would come in and they would take the money, they wouldn't be licensed if they had promised or they were showing something else, and so she just took it as often she just took it up.

There's a lot of volatility.

There is and so I do think we have a we have a an obligation as and then sometimes you'll get the homeowner that'll be like, oh, I'll just tell them I did the work and then the contractor or whoever's doing the work is protected because now they have the umbrella that the homeowner did the job.

The home earner is you know doing that.

Well, unfortunately, homeowners would still be accountable to code, even if they did it themselves.

They still have to do that.

Well, you'd be surprised with how many people I chat with when they're doing something updated.

I'm like, did you get a permit?

And they're like, what do you mean what do you talk about?

A permit.

I'm like, well, technically you're supposed to get a lot of money.

A lot of times they'll have the their contractor will tell them that they have the permit.

So they're just taking it at face value.

Yeah.

So again, this isn't meant to be against homeowners.

It's not meant to be the vast against the vast majority that followed the rules.

It's meant to try to deter the small number of people who'd gain the system.

And it's a safety issue, and you know, we'll we'll have some thorough language for you to review.

We want to make sure we do it correctly.

So increase the fine to uh extra thousand if it's a senior citizen.

What?

But the senior centers are you want to charge them an extra thousand.

If they do it, oh okay, okay.

Find them if they're taking advantage of a senior citizen.

I'm like, what?

Maybe we can't do that.

Um boys, cooks well.

I appreciate your hard work, both of you.

Well, it was nice and easy to follow.

I feel like after a few times of doing budgets with a certain council, you know what we want to see and how we want it broken down.

So we appreciate all the recommendations we made last year and to make the budget easy to follow, and when most of it's the salaries, you really can't can't do much.

I mean, you guys hardly order office surprise, you guys make it work among each department and outside of the salaries.

There's no more squeezing.

So we'll see what happens.

So with Andy, he's retiring.

You have that consultation fee, but if you don't need him, then that becomes something that's still in there.

Right.

Right.

And how our money left over and the clerks and city council gets passed over to the next year, that's how that will probably go.

Yeah.

Like our professional.

Thank you.

Well, thank you guys very much.

Thank you.

So there was that's it for presentations.

Uh do we need any other discussion?

That's the only thing on the agenda is open discussion.

Do we have anything further to discuss?

All right.

I'm good.

President, do you want to adjourn it?

Adjourn.