All right.

Wanna go ahead and uh call to order our finance committee meeting on Monday, uh November 10th.

Um Brenda, you have the floor.

Thank you.

Good evening, Council members.

This budget process was designed through meetings with council leadership and the administration throughout 2025.

Our shared goal was to provide transparent information to residents and comprehensive information for informed decision making.

Working with Chair Renner, the request was we present 20 26 priorities for each department.

These priorities are contained in the budget book that was delivered on October 31st.

The design of this process is to reduce last minute budget additions or removals for the finance team the week prior to second reading and vote.

We encourage your feedback about staffing requests and operations this evening for the departments on the agenda and moving forward for the rest of the month.

This evening we'll hear from the leaders of the following departments on priorities that are funded in the 2026 budget requests.

The mayor's office, marketing and communication, economic development, human resources, finance, information technology, and mayor's court.

After the department presentations, we will answer the previously provided questions and any additional questions that remain.

Again, the goal of presenting the budget in this manner was to allow for additional review and time to ask questions.

If there are items of priority, the council has opinions or would like further clarification, we would love to have your feedback for these departments this evening.

And with that, we will start with the mayor's office.

Mayor Jadwin will discuss the 2026 priorities for the mayor's office.

Thank you, uh Director Ballmer.

So up on the screen right now, you see a list of the 2026 priorities, a summary of those.

Those are also recounted within the budget book, uh, as well as the 2025 accomplishments that are indicated under the mayor's office.

Um I think the biggest lift that we'll have in 2026 is the very first one, which is the transition of city services and employees to the new civic center, uh, which is projected to be late February, uh, March of 2026.

That necessitates the coordination of the move itself.

Uh, first of all, how do we start one end one day here at 200 South Hamilton and start the next day at 825 Tech Center Drive without the disruption of services here?

Uh everything from our city hall operations to our police operations.

So simply the coordination of the move itself uh is a heavy lift that we uh already are working on and planning on.

However, it's the preparation for those moves.

Uh, we're moving into a new building, so all the new policies that need to be put into place, uh, evacuation plans, procedures, building policies, the badge and access levels, how all those things will work, updating emergency action plans.

Uh we also, uh as council, you are aware uh because we've been through that building, but the the move to uh a more cohesive efficient customer service desk.

So as our residents walk into that building for service.

Right now, uh for as limited as our hallway is, every day we encounter people who walk in and they don't know where to go.

Uh if they want to pay pay a bill, if they want to go to planning, it they it's very confusing to them.

Uh in the new space, they will be able to walk in.

There will be one customer service desk, whether they want to pay a water bill, have a question about their trash pickup, uh, want to rent a parks facility, uh submit plans, everything will be at one customer service desk.

So making sure that our customer service folks are cross-trained in all of those functions is something that we're working on and will continue to be preparing for.

Then we have the senior center operations that we'll be moving over there, uh which necessitates developing building policies for them as well, rental agreements for the new multi-purpose room that will be part of uh of that new building, uh, the badge and access and educating our members on how they utilize that space and so that they are prepared when they move over there from day one.

Uh and then, of course, our police operations, which uh we'll be here for another hour if we talk about everything involved in those moves.

So uh that is a huge lift uh for my office.

So when I say my office, I mean uh the executive team and myself, uh Director Schultz of Ulmer, uh Wybensinger uh and myself coordinating with all of the departments and making those plans.

Uh beginning in January 2026, we'll also have the kickoff of the Argahanna Strategic Plan, which was adopted by council a week ago.

I know Miranda, I believe has some questions.

She's gonna speak uh a little bit further about that uh once uh we get through the priorities.

However, one of the goals that we have and one of the I'm gonna say demands really that that plan imposes upon us is the mission vision values that we must communicate to our employees so it's not only educating and informing them on those mission vision values, but building that cohesion around them.

Obviously, our staff was very much involved in the Argahanna strategic plan development uh through all of the engagement processes that we had.

However, now that it's been adopted, making sure that they are having those mission vision values at the forefront and that we are building that team culture so that we are one team, one success will be again a focus for us.

And I know our HR team uh may speak a little bit to that as well.

We have foster and grow citizen engagement through the continuation of the Gehana Citizens Academy program.

Uh this next year we will be the third session that we've had of that program.

Uh the first two sessions have been extremely positive.

I actually think we have a couple of members, graduate members of that program uh sitting in our audience tonight.

But that program really is has been wonderful for creating engaged citizensry, uh, which in turn creates more active and informed citizens.

It builds understanding understanding and engagement with our citizens, builds relationships that we have, and it also promotes transparency to give our residents that behind the scenes look of how our local government operates so that when they come in here and they see these conversations happening, they have a better understanding of everything that took place before we ever even got here and got to this point.

So we'll be continuing that program in the new year as well.

Uh next, we have improved the city's emergency management function by developing a continuity of operations plan.

I call it COOP for all divisions within the city, which really will ensure that the city is set up set up for success uh in the event of a disruption to city operations to not only ensure that employees get paid, as we're seeing right now on a federal level, uh, but we we don't want that to happen here, uh, but also ensure that we are in a position to continue the delivery of services to our residents.

So that plan is critical to those functions and is something that will be a focus for us uh in 2026 as well.

Obviously, we have the continuation of the community grant program uh that has been very successful and again uh just recently even being able to utilize that program to address the food and security needs here within the community.

And then uh finally uh continue to enhance the risk and safety program.

Uh Melissa Jackson has been doing a phenomenal job in leading that program, which is uh focused on maintaining our multi-year safety training program, uh including CPR first aid AEDs, having those within the new building will all be uh important for folks to not only know where they are, but how to utilize those.

Uh enhancing safety in our work areas by completing safety work area audits, reviewing our safety data sheets that must be submitted, conducting chemical audits, uh, and conduct and update written job hazard analysis by position, all of which are required by federal and state laws.