Welcome to our meeting.

The date is August 21, 2025.

The time is 6 p.m.

This is an open meeting of the Grand Island City Council.

The City of Grand Island abides by the Open Meetings Act in conducting business.

A copy of the Open Meetings Act is displayed in the back of this room as required by state law.

We have some representatives of the Boy Scouts with us tonight.

Steve White, who is with KRVN.

I hear him quite often.

Asher, Steve and Sarah's son, a sixth grader at Barr Middle School, and the wife Sarah, who serves on our library board.

They are going to come forward.

We are honored to have them lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Please rise.

Thank you, Steve and Asher.

It's always nice to have scouts come to our meetings and show an interest in our process of governing the city.

Mrs.

Grenier will now perform roll call.

Council President Sheeran.

Present.

Councilmember Stelk.

Present.

Councilmember Conley and Nickerson will be absent.

Councilmember Brown.

Present.

Councilmember Hazie.

Present.

Councilmember Mendoza.

Present.

Councilmember O'Neill.

Present.

Councilmember Pollock.

Present.

Councilmember Landwear?

Present.

And Mayor Steele.

Present.

Also present are Jill Grenier, the City Clerk, Laura McAloon, the City Administrator.

Patrick Brown, the assistant city administrator, and Chief Financial Officer.

Individuals who have appropriate items for City Council consideration should complete the request for future agenda items form located at the information booth.

If the issue can be handled administratively without council action, notification will be provided.

If the item is scheduled for a meeting or study session, notification of the date will be given.

State your name and the agenda topic on which you will be speaking.

Our agenda item 6A, fiscal year 26, Finance Department budget proposal.

Mr.

Brown, good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Thank you, Mayor.

Good afternoon, Council.

We are going to start off with the finance budget presentation.

And with that, um during these presentations, obviously I'm going to be up here all evening.

Please just uh ask questions as we go.

And if I get this to work.

Yes.

So finance department, personnel services increasing 3.8%.

Operating expenses increasing 31.9.

That is due to audit services contract being much higher than expected.

So it's a new three-year, I think a three-year or five-year contract with Bergen uh B V D.

Any questions on that?

With that, Mr.

Shear.

What does that represent?

Sherr sorry what does that represent the 31.9 percent sorry what does that represent most of that cost is audit costs what's the number how much uh I think I budgeted 120 up from 70 so the 30 grand 40 grand 50 50 grand yep that math is right so um so yeah just the Yada costs that have uh are increasing I've also we have a module as as council knows uh we have somebody working on a strategic plan for the city and so we also have a strategic plan module or actually I'm going down the wrong path here but I'll finish my thought uh eventually we're gonna use this uh strategic plan in our budgeting moving forward what I wanted to say is we have in the module a financial reporting system that actually does the comprehensive financial reports they are gonna help build the complexities of the financial reporting for the audit and so we'll be able to do that monthly once we've got it built so I built some of that cost into the audit costs if you notice we've been written up for that for the last six years so Mr.

Sheridan you're light you're uh still on did you want to speak no okay that's fine I just didn't want to overlook you so in addition to our budget uh we are proposing a reorganization or some reclasses in the finance department the assistant finance director would be uh reclass to a controller and this this becomes it's a more accurately reflects the the responsibilities and expectation expectations of that role we're looking to move an accountant to a budget and purchasing manager the budget and purchasing manager would be so important in this organization I will tell you budget is a 12 month process we do not have dedicated people to do this budget process purchasing takes someone for meticulously looking at RFPs making sure that you know all purchases are within budget but also making sure that uh all the contracts are signed and we have some sort of systematic order of keeping our contracts and on top of that is looking for savings in the in the way it is set up right now there's just not enough time in a day to do purchasing right to do to really expand it and really find some savings for the city.

Mr.

Hossee thank you mayor uh Pat my I really am glad to see the purchasing manager position you know coming into the finance department my question is really are they going to be able to do any project management along with the purchasing and so we have a lot of projects going on you know this year are they gonna be the purchasing manager are they going to be involved as like project managers as well yes so what I would like for that person to do is update our website with the way the project is going with updated costs maybe even some pictures and be in a pretty robust transparent process so yeah that's exactly what I'm gonna have them do.

Okay perfect thank you Pat another uh proposal that we're uh wanting to do is moving the utility billing division to the utilities department they're already located at 1306 uh where the utilities is housed and so um that'll take a little bit of I guess stress off city hall finance people and uh more concentration on city operations and also moving the grants administrator to community development along with side by side with amber um just so that we have a little bit of redundancy uh there and so Chad has agreed to add another person and I agreed to let him take a person so that's our proposal for finance any other questions before we move to IT okay Mr.

Some of it comes out of utilities.

These job classifications are paid by a whole bunch of departments, aren't they?

Yes.

So we have an administrative fee, which is paid by the enterprise funds.

And so there's a percentage that each enterprise fund pays for.

Basically, support services.

It's for finance, HR, legal, administration, and yeah, whatever.

So looking looking through the papers, why I kind of got that impression, but I wanted to make sure that I was reading it right.

Yep.

Thank you, Pat.

Absolutely.

For our IT department, and it's an internal internal service fund.

So personnel services and creating an increasing seven percent.

This is due to a reclass of a systems technician to an information technology infrastructure engineer.

This position was budgeted at step three includes benefits.

Currently we have two vacancies in IT, so we have a total set staff of six.

Actually, should be seven.

Operating expenses increase 7.6% or 69,740.

This is due to uh antivirus software in the Microsoft licensing, which increases every year.

Mr.

O'Neill.

I just have to ask a couple questions on this one.

Um Steph might be able to help answer some of this too.

But what is the number of devices that you guys have that you have to secure at the city?

And also, uh, do you have any statistics for the amount of threats that are blocked by your current security software?

Yeah, sure.

Um, so we just moved to a new antivirus um about three weeks ago.

Um we're currently protecting about 500 devices, um, approximately 60 servers.

Um I don't have good stats on the attacks we've blocked.

Um, as you probably know, once you move to a new antivirus, it attacks everything, whether it's good or bad, until it learns, you know, and you put exceptions in, so those numbers are a little skewed.

Um, but so far we're happy with the product, and we are able to manage it a lot better than the one that we had previously.

And are they assisting helping manage it with some of the increased cost too of responding to any incidents?

Yes.

So we got the whole vigilant package with the 24-7 SOC.

Um, yeah, we have the whole data center behind us with this product.

What's that?

The threat landscape is doing nothing but increasing as well from what I see.

So yes, yeah.

But so far we're we're really happy with the product, and they've been helping us a lot.

So glad that we have better controls.

And then also as far as the staffing, it sounds like you're down two positions, and you're trying to hire a higher level position, which I think you guys have kind of been lacking for while it's my understanding.

Yes.

Um get one one higher level local person and rely less on contractors or um that's that's all I have, but thank you.

So I I would like to add um for the two vacancies that we have.

Um I think Spencer did some marketing for us, it had some of your suggestions.

Incredible turnout.

We've never had this many people apply for IT positions before.

So we have uh scheduled, I think next week or the week, I think maybe the week after, we have six to seven interviews for each position with highly qualified candidates.

So we're we're excited.

It's been what five years, six years since we were fully staffed.

Um it was four.

Four, so yeah, it well feels like six.

So any questions.

All right.

Moving on.

So in the last part of tonight's presentation is uh council's uh ability to weigh in on some decisions.

So first up is the FTE request decision in the box in the blue and yellow up here.

These are new FTE requests.

If you notice here, that's a new number.

My math was off.

Jack caught me on that one today, so it reduced it by half.

Some way, somehow it doubled.

A community service officer lead, uh, 80,000.

Maintenance worker parks.

Uh step one, uh, 46,877.

The reason the wages looks a little lower, is because he's got a start date of 3.8.

So that's half half the year.

So that is why the the wage looks a little different.

Otherwise, it'd be 54.

Attorney at 150,000 at step one.

Library assistant one part-time.

This is actually two and a half people for 39,900.

Same for the next line.

So it's it's five people.

These five people would work 16 hours a week, which equals 80 hours in a two-week period.

So no benefits for them.

So is there something we would you want to add, subtract?

Mr.

Hossey.

Thank you, Mayor.

So if I could just go down just so I understand what everybody's doing.

Uh when we start at the top, we have a police officer.

Now, is that just adding one to the force, or is that with the animal control related?

What's that person?

Oh, we'll let Kevin speak to that.

So our original uh stay on target for a 60-month was five because we were talking about a traffic unit, but this one police officer that we're asking for uh specifically what we're gonna do is put that position into our fleet, code enforcement and uh animal control duties.

So the officer that we're putting in there is not only gonna deal with uh helping the fleet sergeant out, uh, but also uh help investigations for code, animal control, and for the safety side of it.

And then the next well, next three, the two community service officers are those animal control.

Yes, sir.

Uh one of those is a part-time uh because we're looking at 2.5 positions to deal with animal control, and so one is a lead uh and then the other one is a full-time as well, and then one is a part-time.

Okay, thank you, Chief.

Then on the next one was the parks maintenance worker.

Um, was there a this one was just for um the water for the sprinkler systems?

I believe he did say irrigation specialist.

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

We're we're trying to reduce the amount of contract, you know, because we probably have, I'm sure with the city that our side, we have lots of irrigation systems and lots of them broken.

Yes, all over 60 irrigation systems, and they're they're commercial irrigation systems, so they're pretty complex.

It it takes somebody somebody very knowledgeable, and they'll do more than just the irrigation systems, but that's primarily what we'd like to have them do.

That they'll be especially during the summer of the irrigation season, they'll be running around fixing irrigation systems.

Yeah, so will this person because one of the things that got brought up on I think Tuesday's meeting, you know, is the the golf course in the in the parks department.

It has a 40-year-old sprinkler system, irrigation system, and and uh they spend time every year just kind of fixing the problem.

They're not proactive in in doing it, they're always in the repair mode or and of course you probably heard the same stories I did about the one went through a car.

But anyway, uh would that person also be able to help out there at Jack Rabbit too?

So they have constant needs as well as any other park in our system do.

They could for sure lend expertise.

Um we do now.

We actually share supplies and equipment with the the golf course, but this would be primarily.

I mean, this person would be busy in the parks, and I know um Joel and his staff out there, they are they have expertise in the irrigation systems already that they have out there, um, you know, and I'm sure they always need more help, like every everybody else needs more help.

And and we help we would be able to help where we can, um, but this person the request today is primarily in the park system.

Okay, thanks, Todd.

And then and then the next one I think was was the attorney.

I I don't can carry.

Can you talk to uh are we able to reduce contract attorneys, or is is just the workload um building up because when we move purchasing to the purchasing manager and finance, that should uh freed up some attorney time, but not enough.

So it it should have, I think it what we're what we're learning is it freed up a lot of maybe tasks that weren't within an attorney expertise approving claims, approving things.

It has seems to have increased some of the contract negotiation and review timelines and stages, probably became kind of a wash.

Obviously, moved expertise where expertise needed to go.

Um as far as that increased workload, I know that was one of the questions last if I recall correctly the last time I kind of had three rounds of questions.

The workload really increased enough to justify that increase.

Was there revenue available to pay for that increase?

And could we split the baby for lack of better words and use contract services instead of a new employee and kind of going through and investigating that?

It looks like since Grand Island made the move from one attorney to two attorneys, we've over doubled in population, all went up by 40% in land mass, uh doubled our roads, um, almost tripled our staff and our budget.

Um the reality is for legal services, that growth is wonderful, but that growth always comes at the expense of paperwork and legal burden.

There's easements to review and contracts to be signed to spend that money.

So the the workload increases just incrementally.

Every single piece of growth adds a little bit.

And it looks like during the last large economic recession when the city took a hit to a lot of employees and we had a lot of layoffs.

The legal department at that time dropped from uh seven employees down to three, and has now still this 20 years later only rebounded back up to four.

So we kind of fell a bit behind the market.

Um our comparable cities that we compare to for the rest of our labor force average about three and a half attorneys compared to our two.

Um, even amongst Nebraska, if we had a staffing ratio similar to Omaha, we'd be at three, to Lincoln, we'd be at four, Papillion, we'd be at six.

Um so our our needs are just behind.

What that means in reality is we we have the work we have to get done.

It means we can't do it as well, spend as much time, and our response time significantly drops.

Uh it takes us longer to get back to people, longer to get contracts reviewed.

So it's an incremental uh kind of pain that we feel being short staffed there.

Um as far as the ability to contract it out, uh they had a couple folks who asked whether we could kind of split that.

The reality is we already do contract out a lot of our legal services.

Most of that is appropriately done.

That's required by our insurance providers.

Uh that's specialty counsel like bond council or uh council to help utilities review solar or farm tax rebates, things that are beyond our ordinary skill to contract out our more routine work, which is where we've seen that increase becomes a lot more difficult.

It looks like the legal department went through that analysis about eight years ago with a private law firm, and the private law firm they were looking to hire advised it was cost prohibitive that it would cost about twice as much uh to outhouse the legal department as in-house.

Uh in looking at contracting out specific tasks, I received feedback from attorneys who were interested.

Their hourly wages ranged depending on the type of work they expressed interest in between 250 and 600 per hour.

Um most of them, the local attorneys expressed in concern about whether they could take it with conflicts of interest, they would have most of the truly available attorneys would have to come from farther away.

Some of those interested attorneys expressed they would charge for travel time.

And one of the big downsides to most of those attorneys is on average they wanted between seven and ten days to review uh conflicts of interest to see if they would even take the legal work we farmed out to them.

And on average expected about a 30-day lead time on any of that legal work, which again it's doable, but it would come at the expense of delays of of projects.

Uh we also looked at the up at the possibility of contracting out the entirety of the prosecution functions, speeding tickets, code enforcement, animal control.

Um for the comparable cities that do that, given our population ratio and and trying to find as close to comparable prosecution authorities.

We have some cities that are hard to compare to because they have uh crimes, higher level crimes in their city code than we do.

We're looking at about 350 to 400,000 at that kind of average ratio if we could find somebody who was willing to do so.

There are other complexities like right now, we are net building our court fees, we would have to advance those court fees at $50 a case.

So procedurally, they'd be difficult.

Is it possible?

Yes.

Would it represent a cost savings?

No.

Um and it would represent a delay in services.

Um this person was hired, would you bring them on as soon as you can after October 1?

Was that be the idea?

That would be the idea.

Hiring in the attorney market is uh never really that fast and that slow.

There's there's typically more jobs out there than there are lawyers, so um that would be the that would be the hope.

But I think we had a four-year experience at that.

Do you have a location where you would put that attorney?

We I think we would have to band-aid for a little while using some spaces we housed interns this summer or um, so some temporary space.

I think eventually it would take probably rearranging either the law library or that flex space we use now into an office, but um we would we would find a way.

When we built City Hall, when we hired staff, we ended up losing probably half of our conference rooms in the first three years.

And so that for design purposes, it just kind of defeated our purposes of when we were able to have so many conference rooms for for this in City Hall.

I just would hate to see that one go away because it's used quite a bit.

I think for us we would either have to we would have to replace it with in that flex space if we did if we did move it.

Okay, thank you, Carrie.

Mr.

Sheard.

Thank you.

Are you done, Chuck?

Yeah, I'm okay.

I'm fine for now.

Well, I'm gonna pick up where you took off.

Uh the library.

That's five people, sixteen hours a piece.

Uh talking to our great library staff.

Seems like it's uh uh one of the questions that came up that I came back and asked you, and maybe you can share briefly, is that this is easily hired.

Like these positions, it's almost like the IT we heard about.

You don't have a problem hiring 16-hour.

We had um 230 applicants for a full-time position, and then our last part-time position, there was a lot of applicants.

So there's a lot of people looking for jobs, good quality people, so I think we wouldn't have any problem finding some good candidates to work at the library.

This would allow us, these positions would allow us to be open longer on Saturdays.

Longer on Saturdays, provide more services.

Um, the meeting rooms are being used a lot.

We're starting to um use our for-profit meeting rooms.

We're starting to generate more revenue with people wanting spaces that are pretty cheap to come in and and have uh business meetings and so you know we people really need those services on not only during the week but on the weekends, and we we see a lot of families that want to come in.

I I worked a Sunday a couple weeks weekends ago, and it was constant families coming in, kids studying, people meeting, um community conversation classes.

So it's not like jam-packed, but you can see that people are needing services, and you know, there's a lot of people that come in that need to um facts and uh scan, and you know, we're a busy hopping place.

Uh reference help desk is a little bit different with services, uh, not as many reference questions, but more personal personalized services with staff working and helping people with computer questions and perfect.

So uh to me that's a most of these that fits right in.

It's it's good for the city, it's good things we need.

So thank you.

Uh I want to come back to the attorney question.

So you're good.

Thank you.

Uh one of the things that was talked about when we talked about this the first time was tracking the hours that we're spending between uh the two attorney positions we have now to see how much of that is attorney work and how much of that would be billable or however we describe it.

I know we don't bill all of our time, but things that are attorney level work.

How can you reassure us that we're at that tipping point?

Do you have data that shows like data data that shows the hours of a week that we're spending on attorney work?

I think now that we uh move the purchasing agent tasks out of there.

Unfortunately, there's no busy work for lack of better words, left really that we're doing.

We're spending about 30 to 40 percent of the time on um probably what I'd say uh routine matters, contract review, easement review, council agenda review, about a about 30 percent on prosecution, code enforcement, animal control, um those sort of ancillary tasks, and the remainder on probably what I call either just general advice or specialty projects, everything from good life district stuff to one-time grant projects, uh one time you know projects and programs, or doing things like general advisement of elected and appointed officials, um, answering of employment questions, some of that routine personnel stuff.

As far as what's attributable to the sorts of things that you could build to a project, for example, if we were a private firm, those were typically limited to the sort of tasks that we already charge a fee to, things like go like district application fee, TIFF contract fee renewals.

For us, that's a little harder because the portion of those expenses that are attributable to administration, whether that's clerk or HR or that as dumped into the larger city bucket.

Um, so those never come straight to us.

And it's and we so we don't necessarily always have a fee we can bill against or a project in particular we could bill it.

So are you tracking that time specifically to know what is I guess it's attorney level work that you're doing that requires another attorney?

I mean, this is this is 25% of our new employee cost here for an FTE.

We can't bill, we can't track time quite in the same way that you do a traditional project.

I you know, I could say I spent 45 minutes on reviewing this contract or 10 minutes reviewing that contract.

But the reality is as far as we are, we serve more as in-house counsel.

So a lot of that stuff isn't attributable to one thing.

If I, for example, reviewed the personnel manual and policy handbook changes for human resources, that of course applies and spills over to everybody.

What I can tell you is that's that both of us are busy far more than 40 hours a week, and we're falling behind not gaining ground, and we're no longer doing non non-legal work.

Um, so there is and that in and that's with contracting out as much as we right now can't afford to or are required to do.

Um, but we don't we are not set up and equipped to bill on a per matter basis, and that's not how our workload really functions.

I don't mean that actually for buildable hours, I just mean for tracking.

Yeah, and just to be able to track and know like I have to track every minute of my day.

Yeah, we don't we we literally are not set up to do that, and we don't have projects and clients to bill that to, so it's not necessarily particularly feasible.

We did for a while afterwards kind of keep track of more generally what are we spending on that contract review on prosecution on general advisement, and that's where we're at about that third or so split between those general in-house tasks, routine business of the city and those those functions.

But um it legal billing becomes difficult too with some of our more minor tasks.

For example, re in the legal billing world you bill in uh 10 minute increments.

Uh reviewing a speeding ticket doesn't take 10 minutes.

So if we time track, we'll artificially inflate certain tasks and then artificially deflate certain tasks.

Um we're not there's probably not a way for us to get you a truly accurate number, even if we used a private practice billing method, um, because some of those things would be flat fee charged or are done billing.

Looking at the actual dollar way of tracking it, but just literally how much time are you guys spending in your week, and you're saying it's more than 40 hours on legal stuff.

Yeah, yeah.

Is there 40 more hours a week available?

Yeah, I mean, I I I in those in those weeks and tracking, I'm probably averaging it sometimes as courtesy of city council meetings and some of those night meetings, somewhere between four six months a week.

Yeah, it's some of some of the media if I if I go in real time versus what it feels like sometimes those those can be a bit different.

I'm typically getting here at 7 30 and not leaving till 5 30 and work through lunch on a regular basis plus night meetings.

Stacy similarly works through lunch on a routine basis, and we are falling behind.

I think you would probably hear criticism from some of the department directors that we're not as fast at responding to contracts, reviewing documents as they would like.

That of course ebbs and flows is depending on the season.

Summer is always we are we would probably always be behind, no matter how many lawyers you give to us when everybody's building construction projects and acquiring property and spending down budget funds.

Um, but there is I could tomorrow uh keep a person busy 40 hours a week.

Um problem.

That was the one that I had the biggest question about.

I think the rest of these are it's uh I think they they're all very justified in my opinion.

Um I don't have any issues.

It's it's to what we just talked about, making sure that if we're gonna 25% of that on one person, uh making sure that they're getting our value back to our our city, and I'd like to hear what everybody else is thinking on that, but I feel a little bit better after hearing you talk.

Thank you.

Mr.

Paulett.

Thank you, Mayor.

I can see a need for all of these employees.

Uh we've been short the attorneys for years.

Uh they've they've been swamped since before I left the city.

The library assistance we put off and put off and put off getting help there.

The maintenance for parks is always short.

And PD, yeah, they need the four officers.

The bad thing is people remember that when things go south, those are usually the departments we cut first.

Just remember when we're adding all these people, the PD is a lot of times the first one that gets the axe.

I don't know why, but they do.

Yeah, the second attorney would probably get the axe.

But are they needed?

Yeah, definitely.

They're they're buried in there.

They've been buried for years.

And the library assistant can do more with less than anybody I know of.

So I I have no problem with any of these.

It's just we got to be careful going down the road, folks.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Mr.

Still.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um this is for Officer Danny for the office manager position.

I I got an email this morning or the last couple days.

Um can you justify that pay for the office manager?

And is it comparable to other office managers in the city?

For the office manager, yes.

And uh we did uh comparison with the array.

Um what most departments our size and larger are doing is civilianizing or or putting into one chain of command um non-police officer personnel.

Um and ours is all IBEW under that one proposed change.

And so that's what we're doing is we're we're moving that to a more executive level, but we're also uh reorganizing uh the department to where we have a chain of command, many more people under that one position.

And that the office manager position is comparable to uh the array, but also the um support services administrator is also comparable to the ones that we could find.

About half of the departments that we looked at, I would say had something that was a non-police officer that was comparable.

Um, but the other half really had uh police lieutenants that were over what this position would be over.

How does that compare to an office manager manager in the utility department pay-wise?

Uh it's I don't know what the utility department does.

I can I I know that this office manager was probably more comparable back in 2019.

Uh we don't have any administrative assistance in the police department, and so this position was everything from an administrative assistant to an office manager.

They supervised about seven clerks directly.

Uh what that's morphed into because we've deleted in 2019, we deleted a captain.

And so uh more and more things started piling into this position, this office manager position over the last six years.

And so uh what you've seen is that they've taken on a much more increased role, not only in um things that they're doing, uh technical things, spillmen, body cams, payroll, um, but they've also increased their uh span of control to comparable to what a lieutenant is, and so instead of being directly over seven clerks, uh this position now is over four direct reports, two supervisors, two leads that supervises the clerks.

It also supervises uh victims' assistance and the property room.

So all IBEW non-police personnel, that's expanded uh this role a lot.

Plus uh we've elevated this position to an executive level to where it's a direct report to me now because I had to take some responsibilities under me because our division chiefs, we only have two of them, uh, were pretty pretty busy themselves.

And so what I did was was peel this office manager position out from under Division Chief Elliott, and I had it report directly to me.

So now I have three direct reports.

So all three of them are executive level, um, very high functioning, visionary, budget uh involved with the budget with the division of police department, and so it's changed a lot over the last six years.

Um if I had my choice, I would delete the office manager position and open a whole new position for support services administrator and just hire for that.

Um but the the um uh the reclass is a lot less expensive.

I didn't mention last time that um the office manager is not salaried, so it's overtime, and easily could get if we don't flex out or do comp time or things like that.

This position could easily get four to six hours a week.

Uh so I did my rough math on that, and the $17,800 that you look at as a difference going from top tier office manager to bottom tier administrator, uh, is actually more about uh uh equal to about $5300 net because the administrator position is salaried, and so uh they wouldn't be getting overtime.

And the business manager or the um office manager does get overtime, and essentially they get enough overtime to make that this that difference about $5300 in essence.

Sounds like it's kind of a combination of several positions that includes a lot of knowledge and expertise that's required to fill the position.

I can't stress enough how important this this position is, not only for the police department, but also for the reorganizational structure of what we're looking at with our 60-year vision.

Um it's been needing uh incremental improvements since 2019, it hasn't got that uh that attention.

This is the way uh what other police departments our size and larger are doing.

Uh it actually saves money in the long run because I don't have to hire administrative assistant, which wouldn't fit the bill, um, or hire another division chief in, which certainly would be much more expensive.

So uh I've looked at a lot of different options as a police chief.

I've looked at what other departments are doing.

Uh my educational background also supports uh this type of restructuring in line with a lot of more modern police departments.

Uh it's a good way to go uh as far as proper supervision over the people uh that it would be over.

Sounds like a good good move on your part.

Uh well thoughtful decision.

Thank you.

Mr.

Brown.

Yeah, I I pretty much agree with everything Mike said.

I agree with all these positions, and uh I think we've waited till the time that we need to put them, add them in, and uh I think uh I agree with everything on there.

Mr.

Hawsey.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh Chief, I mean, you can this is the only one I have a question on at this point is really about the one reclass of the office manager.

And you you've said, and I'll just you have came in and you had a like a five-year plan, and you talked about getting in this five-year plan.

I'm good with the four positions on top, and you know, that you have this year.

And so I went back and I'm I'm just let me just see if I can phrase what I what I think has happened.

In 2024, in the police department, we added a police sergeant, we added two lieutenants, and then the police records, we had seven police records clerks and an office manager, and we created the title of a supervisor.

So then we lowered one records clerk and made one supervisor, so we still had seven, but one was a supervisor and six were uh records clerks and the office manager.

Correct.

Then 2025, we added another lieutenant.

We changed police captain to division chief, so we did that kind of a swap as well.

And we did it again.

We added another police record supervisor and one less records clerk.

So now we have five records clerks and we have two supervisors and an office manager.

So we've addressed that sequence of work two years in a row, and this is now our third year in a row.

My challenge with the re-class is this the max wage for an office manager and an max wage for a support service administrator, it's a 65% increase in salary of the max wage.

Now, granted, our personnel policies doesn't get you the 65% right away, but it does over time.

You know, and so at $40.11, which is the max wage of the office manager today, and what the request is to take it to the new reclass at $66.23.

It is currently $4 an hour under a police officer.

The wage for the office manager is lower than a police officer.

This reclass takes them higher than a police officer, higher than a police sergeant, higher than a police lieutenant, and takes them right up to captain wage, like you said, it's becoming an executive and report direct to you.

It's almost a bridge too far for me to support today.

What I would like to do, and I don't want to just say no, you know, this is not the right, I don't know if it's the right thing or not.

I'd like to sit down with a study session over the year and say, okay, what's the rest of the five-year plan?

Um because I've seen and we've supported fully because you guys have done quite well.

You've you've filled the positions, you you're doing a great job.

But this is this one position, I think what it does for me for a clerical position takes it high the highest clerical position in the city of Grand Nine, the whole organization.

I don't want to just look at it as a reclass, I'd like to just look at it a little bit broader, and we don't really have all the time to to do it.

Uh I can't support it tonight, but I do want to look at it because maybe it is the best answer.

Um, but I have to look at the rest of the plan because we've already addressed by adding two supervisors.

Now we still have the the eight people there.

Seven.

Now in the in the police records clerk group, we still have the eight people.

We now have added two supervisors.

Now we're talking, you know, talking about the third thing.

But since when I looked online, you know, you have moved over the evidence technicians and the victims assistance under the office manager where they were under a lieutenant before.

I think division chief.

They were under division chief.

Well, I it was the whoever the CID lieutenant is.

That's the way it was online.

I uh so property and evidence was under the CID lieutenant.

Yeah.

Uh and victims assistance, I believe, was under Division Chief.

Okay.

Um this what this reclass is tied to the lieutenant pay grade.

So it's not higher than the lieutenant pay grade.

Yeah, and maybe in the 26 wages.

I haven't I didn't compare it to the 26 wages, I compared it to 25, the 25 wage scale.

You know, where it takes it right up to where a captain is or within a dollar of where a captain is it will be tied to the lieutenant pay grade.

Um so it will be exactly the lieutenant pay grade.

But I think, you know, again, we're taking a position that's below a police officer and and passing a police officer, a police sergeant, a police lieutenant, or equaling a police lieutenant in 26.

I I just think I would like I need more time to look at the whole plan rather than we're nickeling diamond stuff, and I really want to do the right thing.

But everything that I see just has flags, and I just want to make sure that before we approve it, we think it's the right thing to do.

And I just kind of need the I think I for your benefit, because I know you're doing a great job.

I just need to see the rest of the plan to see how it all, you know, where are we at next year?

Uh this one concerns me, and that's why I would I've got I I can't move forward with this one yet.

Um, but I do appreciate everything you guys are doing.

I'm good with the other all the other four positions that you're asking for.

So um the record supervisors that we had, uh the reason we had two, otherwise we'd have one if we just had um if we had that number in one room.

Unfortunately, we have records uh clerks downstairs that that handle the front desk, so it's they're geographically separated.

So they needed representation where they were in the front, and then we have records clerks that do a lot of um uh on online admission to the to the uh county attorney to do tickets, um so they needed representation in their area as well.

So we had records clerks in two geographically separated areas, which is why they needed um advocacy where they were at.

Um the the lead that's in the property and evidence is not really a supervisory position, that's semi-supervisory, and so we have a lead there that reports to this position, and then a lead in victim's assistance.

But um the the pay going forward, uh we tied directly to the lieutenant's pay, and uh what you see on the reclass pay is 26 or next year, next fiscal years, and uh that's what the lieutenant's pay was gonna be next year as well.

I yeah, I just need to see the internal equity you know factor that I haven't I haven't seen yet.

And you know, I just it's it's a bridge too far.

I don't think I've ever seen a 65% pay raise for a salary class uh as a reclass before.

And so I I want to do it right, but I I have to look at it further than we have so far.

2018 and 2021, uh there were two reclasses that were quite a bit more.

Okay, thank you, Kevin.

Mr.

O'Neill.

I just want to kind of go back on that subject as well.

Um, you know, for the record, I I'm a very big proponent of paying everyone fairly for the work that they do.

And I've done budgets a long time, and I've seen things like this come up once in a while.

And you know, on my math, it's about an $18,000 increase, which I think Pat Brown can write me here, probably about 21%.

I kind of look at those percentages, you know, and when when we have that, uh I I'm saying, you know, there's kind of a high bar that needs to be cleared.

And uh I just want to look, you know, this is a public process, people are watching other city employees look at this too, and maybe somewhat similar positions, although there's some differences.

And I want to know what type of comps have we looked at.

I know you mentioned all of our places are doing it, but do we have comps out there that have been done for what these uh people doing these duties are paid?

Right.

That's a good question.

So we looked at RRA, um, which includes cities like Ames, Iowa, uh, Iowa City, Manhattan, Jefferson City, Lawrence, Rapid City, South Sioux City, um, the normal array that we looked at we would look at.

Um, what we found again was that a lot of those, a lot of those uh non-police officer positions were overseen by lieutenant as as you saw with what we had in property and evidence and victims assistance, they were overseen by lieutenant position.

Well, that lieutenant uh is much better used overseeing police officers uh in this case uh criminal investigation officers as opposed to knowing what's going on with IBEW and what's going on in the property room, what's going on in victims assistance.

So uh it's uh it's a much better move to to carve them out.

And like I mentioned, this is a salary position, it's not an hourly position.

were overseen by lieutenant as as you saw with what we had in property and evidence and victims assistance they were overseen by lieutenant position but that lieutenant uh is much better used overseeing police officers uh in this case uh criminal investigation officers as opposed to knowing what's going on with ib and what's going on in the property room what's going on in victims assistance so uh it's uh it's a much better move to to carve them out and like I mentioned this is a salary position it's not an hourly position and so um what you're seeing the 17 000 or so uh really is about $5300 if you take into account a minimum of four hours of a week that the office manager would be would be using yeah and I I just want to be really I'm kind of a Chuck on this too if I I'd like to see more detail you know I think there's more of a kind of a business case that needs to be made and I I like to see more and this a lot of it is to for the public I gotta protect people I want to prevent animosity of people watching this process as well too and make sure we don't set dangerous precedents with it and uh so it sounds like that they're getting new responsibilities that they did not have in the past a lot.

Yeah over the last six years so a lot key thing too so the job description significantly changed and I just want to make sure that any comps that are being looked at that the job descriptions are pretty much apples to apples I've worked on a lot of comps over the years I know sometimes it's a little bit tricky but I just really want to make sure that there's uh a lot of um homework done to to justify any changes to that scale I think we submitted the job description for office manager versus administrator okay thank you and Mr.

Paula I'm like Ryan and Chuck I I need to see more information on this I have no problem with the four policeman this one there's some red flags in there that just bother me but the first one is if this goes through we're gonna have a whole handful of clerical workers that are going to be wanting the same amount of money for doing the same kind of work and I can't say that I blame them.

And if they're 80% within the the range CIR is going to say pay those people now I want to I want to look and see what those job descriptions are what our job descriptions are I won't vote on this until I know what until I know what's going on we could be opening a big can of worms I I think we're confusing clerical this has nothing to do with with clerical it's uh executive level um kind of like if if you're outside the police department everybody who's watched cops know how to be a police officer um nobody's nobody knows what this job entails except probably me and the person that does it uh yeah but they all have they all have job descriptions Chief and if those job descriptions are anywhere close to being the same judges don't care what you I can promise you they're not so you know we'll have to take a look at Mr.

Shear.

Thank you I don't want to be the contrarian here but I guess I I see it as a different job and I've talked to to Chief about it a little bit to me it seems like this is a this isn't this isn't just another of our highly valuable clerical workers this is this is a supervisory position this is somebody that will be looking over many others and has I I guess what Chief is saying about the $5300 raise over what they're doing now $5300 plus they're taking on new responsibilities.

I guess after looking at the job description that we got I don't look at it as a clerical position I look at it as a I look at it as a supervisory position over I don't using different terms but in education we have certified and classified it's kind of like your officers and your non-officers and this is the highest of the non-officers is that a good way of thinking it is and and like I said a lot of departments this is over the last 10 to 15 years we've seen a lot of more progressive departments go to this because really it's a cost saving in the long run and it's uh it creates um not only a needed position because the position is needed and again uh this position has taken on so many more responsibilities that if it we don't have the ability to reclassify it um as opposed to having the person walked that's in this position I need to put them back under division chief and I need to take responsibilities away and then uh in the next coming months or in the next fiscal year I need to put in for a support services administrator um it really disrupts the the whole organizational structure going forward and what we've what we've achieved to this point.

And I appreciate the thoughts that you have guys I totally do.

But I think he's put enough of the research into it and shared it.

I'm not sure I mean I I get what you're saying Chuck I just don't know much more we're gonna see other than the job descriptions and the way he's described it.

So that's um I support this I've put a lot of time talking to the chief about it and talking to administration about it.

HR is not here tonight to talk about their do they have any feedback on this?

Did they?

Yeah, Aaron had a conference and is at a conference in Omaha.

Um HR supports this.

Um HR is the one that developed the array, helped develop the job description.

Um I support it.

Um frankly, I hadn't seen the term office manager used in a police department in ten years until I moved back to Grand Island.

Uh the director or the support services administrator, whatever term you use after support services, is commonly found across the U.S.

and police departments much smaller than ours.

Um it it is, as Kevin said, and and again, I rely on the subject matter expert, um, both himself and our HR director.

Um this is a normal classification of someone who is at the executive level and is would be one of three people reporting directly to the chief of police.

That that is not clerical work, uh, in my opinion.

Um, and to say that it is the same as an administrative assistant, um, I I strongly disagree.

There's a reason why we have a title administrative assistant and we don't use the title secretary anymore, also.

Thank you.

So I uh again respect the questions you're asking.

I just have a different view of it.

I I think I've seen enough that this is warranted.

Mr.

O'Neill.

I think there are a couple others in order, maybe but I can go.

Um just a couple other questions too.

So and I get you know the job description is very different than what it was, and I I think I'm in agreement with that.

Um and what I say too is I want to make sure that that job description comp is looked at at other comps, and I'd like to see where the comps are in that to make sure they are even.

And the probably that's in there, maybe I missed that part, but well, no, what I what I want to point out for you, I appreciate that.

I asked that question um when I first got here.

Um the way our array is done, and this is you can you probably see our department heads nodding their head, yes, because the way our array is done, it's done by job title.

Uh we don't our our consultant does not gather job descriptions for us.

So we often are making our best guess um based on a title.

Uh it would be great if we could get into more detail than that, but that's the process that Nebraska requires.

And the other part of my question too is I I assume this is a very talented person or who wouldn't be talking about this change as well.

I just want to make sure that there is I don't know what type of vetting process was done because this is a whole different position and skill set.

I want to make sure that there uh that we remove any bias in the process of when we do this.

But I mean, who who all had vetted that this is a um I don't know if like the uh CD HR works with the police on this too, but just to make sure that the qualifications are met by this person to move into that new role.

I can also assure you that um although I love everybody in the police department, um we I look at I evaluate positions, I don't evaluate people for those positions, and what we've done over the last 30 months is evaluate each position and making each one of those as efficient uh and effective as we can.

And I I just want to make sure there is a a fair process done on that.

I mean, it sounds like you've consider it, but I just have to ask as well when I see a change like that.

So thank you.

Mr.

Paulick.

Thank you, Mayor.

Chief, if the job is that much different, why was there not a new job title put out there and request for applications?

If it's that much different, then it's different than the person that's handling it.

So I would think that we would want the best person for that job.

And not saying that this person isn't the best person because they would have the right to apply too.

But if if we are making it that much different, then we need to be looking for the person that fits it.

I think what you see uh is a is a microcosm of an overall symptom of what's been going on in the police department at least over the last 10 years or so is that there's been a failure.

Uh and I'm not blaming anybody or any group, but there has been a failure to incrementally add things.

We look at our radios, we look at our uh vehicles, we look at our personnel, we look at our restructuring.

Um there's been a failure to incrementally change things uh over a period of a decade, and in this case since 2019.

And so what we're looking at is a catch-up period that could have been done in 2020, 2021 uh incrementally to get to this point where we wouldn't even be here today, probably.

Um, but that's that's the gap of what we're saying.

I understand that.

Uh we we were in mess in 2020, but still it's half the country.

Uh I I still want to see all those job descriptions, uh, and if they're that much different, I really would like to see it opened up for applications.

Yeah, council member, I just want to make sure you everyone understands and the public understands the job descriptions, both the office manager and the support services administrator job descriptions are in the packet and available for public review.

I'm done.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Mr.

Lanfear, I assume that this position is a non sworn officer position, right?

Yes, sir.

It's it's a non-sworn position and it's a salaried position.

Um I have no problem with it.

I think I've heard enough that I think is needed.

I sort of regret the title of it.

I think it could have been better.

It's kind of misleading what the responsibilities will be.

But I think you it's a needed position.

I would like to see it possibly be opened up to the public.

But uh otherwise, I still support.

Mr.

Hawsey.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh Chief, I just wanted to say one thing.

I'm in favor of your restructuring.

What I'm not in favor of is the process of the reclass.

If you would add a new lieutenant, non-officer, senior executive level, and and removed one office manager, and you had a competitive, everybody got to apply for it, I would be in favor of it.

So it's one of those, it's the reclass part that I that I get hung up on because they were from from all our intent, and you know, it they were a clerical position in the tech, and that they oversaw police records clerks, and and just that's all they did was oversee those.

You've added in some things that we haven't seen before, and I think you've already done it.

I'm assuming you've already done it.

I have, yes.

Yeah, and so we didn't know that.

I mean, it's it's not it's not when you when you approve the change in the job description.

I don't know that I we ever saw it on the council side.

It wasn't a council decision to change, it was just done administratively, and we don't know that stuff.

But it changes it enough that it's really taking it from uh you know this level to this level.

And because the change is so drastic, you know, it's the in internal equity that I worry about.

And so if it's an open position and everybody gets to apply for it, all of my concerns are gone.

And so it's not the the way you're structuring it is my concern.

It's just the process that we're going through.

Well, if there was if there's a way through the reclass to open it up, I would.

Um, you know, I'm and in Aaron's absence, I just want to um make sure that what he has told me gets conveyed to you because we had heard that question, I think, via email about um has it been opened up, or or perhaps someone who was commenting on it said that.

Um the office man, this with the reclass, the office manager position is eliminated.

Therefore, that person in the process that you're suggesting would be laid off.

Certainly able to reapply, but you just need to understand that position would be eliminated in order to create the new position of a support services administrator.

So that's not something that from what Aaron has told me, that's not a practice.

The City of Grand Island has ever engaged in.

So we do not eliminate or we do not lay people off when we reclass a position.

And I just want to reiterate uh what the chief said, what he's part of what he's addressing with this proposed new job description.

That job description hasn't been approved yet.

It hasn't been adopted because the position hasn't been approved.

The reclass hasn't been approved.

Um that uh we've not done that process where we eliminate someone when we reclassify their position because the work has been being added to their plate under that wonderful other duties as assigned that we put in every job description since 2019.

What we are proposing is a correction to something the city has failed to do since 2019.

And I don't think we're never intending to lay people off.

And that everyone in the and I don't know any of the specifics about any of it, you know, but I do am concerned that internally that everybody who qualifies for that would have the ability to apply.

Now I would hope that the internal candidate who's you're talking about applies, and I would hope that they would get the job.

I mean, I'm not because I'm sure that the skill set is there.

Um but it's the process of of removing everybody else's ability to apply, that concerns me.

I think a big point too on that is as administrators said, we we've added these jobs on and these duties and these responsibilities and supervisory things.

Um there has been an attempt prior to me coming here to uh add some pay to this position, the office manager position.

That was several years ago.

Um, and that's kind of why we're at where we're at.

Is it number one to me, as I mentioned in the email to everyone, it's a needed position.

Uh if it if you accept that it's a needed position based on on me telling you that and my experience and my time and my educational background, if you if you accept that it's a needed position, it's also uh one that uh I've looked at other things, other alternatives as lower cost uh and being right by the person uh in this position as well, what they've been doing for the last six years.

Um but it's number one, it's a needed position, number two, it's the least expensive of any other option that we have, except not not approving it.

Mr.

Still.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I just wanted to give you my support uh for reviewing this, uh the support that Laura gave you, Aaron's put in on it, uh, and what Jack has said and put in on it.

Um I think we just need to move forward and go with it.

There are some things we need to iron out on the description, but I support you on on for the pay level of the new job.

Thank you.

There are no further questions.

Or Mr.

O'Neill, you have a question.

No, I I didn't mean that in my hand.

Okay.

So are there any other questions on any other reclass?

Okay.

I I'm split I'm split evenly on office manager reclass.

So okay.

Uh we'll move on to what we have now is capital equipment.

Mr.

Brown.

Let me go back to say that I totally support the reclass.

I don't think I was specific on that.

Okay.

Thank you, Doug.

So on the equipment.

Let me just pull this up a different way.

Okay, this doesn't really show it very well.

So we'll just go by actually this we're just gonna do this way.

So building capital equipment was a vehicle, uh, inspection vehicle.

Uh we've just been replacing his uh as we go.

Um it is replacing a 2004 2010 Ford Focus, so Mr.

Hossey.

Thank you, Mayor.

So Pat, my one of the questions that came up at an earlier meeting, and it's on vehicles.

Okay.

Um I don't have any particular question on vehicles.

My question came about hybrid versus gas engines or electric versus hybrid versus gas engines.

Are these all gonna be gas engines?

Because I think historically what the council has looked at is we've been adding a hybrid or two every year for the last I'll say five or six years, maybe more.

Um but we've been adding hybrids just in a small quantities to see if how they come out, whether they're the right ones or not.

I'm okay with adding a couple of hybrids to keep testing the shop and you know, and getting the responses from the shop about yeah, these these make a lot of sense or they don't make a lot of sense.

Um when these vehicles come up, how how do I know whether we're talking about a gas engine or hybrid or an electric car?

Because I I'm not concerned about the vehicle itself.

I'm just was curious, more curious then about what type of engine are we gonna have in them.

You know, like for uh this is a building department.

That so actually the only hybrid would be the police.

So the building department is gonna be a gas.

You know, that might be the only department that actually could use an electric car.

You know what I'm saying?

I I would agree.

You know, it's one of the things Central City had an electric car for their building department.

Uh that might be one that I think makes sense because they never go out of town, and that you know their use is different than uh than a police you know, cruiser.

So um I to your point, I I like the idea um with that you would have to add putting or installing a charger at here at City Hall.

So I mean that's a one-time cost.

But if we if we went that well, I guess you really you know, hybrid summer hybrids plugins sometimes, I guess.

Do we have chargers in in our system in our shop in our and our anywhere at our offices?

No.

I would imagine that law enforcement center law enforcement center has one.

Um there aren't any there's actually a dearth of them in the entire city.

Um so the one that it's that's at Super Saver, um, and then you some of the Bosselmans have them.

That's the only thing my thing is you know, I just want to make sure that we're using the right type of vehicle for the right use.

And so that would be my only question.

So I'm not concerned about the cars.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um I'm not sure how uh well I don't know if we should go through this one by one because I think that'd be crazy.

So my assumption is that uh you've seen most of these equipment uh uh asks requests.

Uh again, the only one, and Kevin could correct me if I'm wrong.

The only one I don't think he really talked about in his presentation was the uh firing range.

Um again, I could be wrong, but um I don't remember that.

So yes.

Someone reason it's not pulling up.

Don't do it this way.

Mr.

Shear, I think you have a question.

Yeah.

So on the I think what you're looking for is the uh the police training at this one right here.

There you go.

And what was that?

675,000 or yeah, we didn't hear much about that one.

Yeah, I'm trying to pull up his uh his actual request form.

I'm not sure why it's not pulling up.

I think Jason might have mentioned briefly on Tuesday.

Uh so actually um to put it in context, we had an estimate done on what it would cost to have a building put on the law enforcement center um campus there.

Uh what we've done as you know, is um decide to renovate uh Heartland AG at a much less costly price than it would be to build a new building, and we're getting a lot more bang for the buck.

We're getting collaboration with our departments great.

Um so that's that's a win.

Uh the building cost at on the campus of the LEC was initially estimated three years ago to be 1.9 million.

Uh it would have gone with interest to about 2.1.

Uh what we have tentatively arranged is to park that 1.9 million because we have other capital projects that we need to do.

So renovating uh Heartland Ag is estimated to be just over 1.1 million.

The next highest priority is to add some office space, some cubicles uh for our code enforcement officers and our animal control officers to the existing pound uh auto pound building.

And so we move out code enforcement out to that location.

Um makes that response customer service a lot better overall.

Uh that's probably about 150,000 or so.

And then uh we need to um completely replace the gates at the law enforcement center.

Um we don't know exactly what that's gonna be.

So uh the next in priority was going to be to partner with uh the Heartland shooting range and look at how we could collaborate and put up a uh law enforcement only uh range area in conjunction with the berms that they have or a berm that they have so that we don't number one disrupt what they have going on at the at the Heartland shooting range park uh and that we don't add traffic uh to what they have.

So we'd have a ideally have a separate entrance and this this range, which is very typical of police departments uh actually a lot smaller than ours to a lot larger, they have their own uh law enforcement only range.

It greatly increases our ability to train our officers uh as well as Hall County uh deputies.

Uh it also gives us the ability to host classes and to have some of those classes uh pay fees and to help support uh the law enforcement range.

So ideally, depending on how much money we have left in our in that 1.9 million capital uh would go toward what we can do to construct um a range, a law enforcement range facility at Heartland Shooting Park.

Is that something you think that we could hold off a year until we've seen all of the other projects come through?

Uh it seems like I mean I'm I think it's awesome, and I think it would be another great feather in the cap of Heartland Shooting Park.

But is it something that we could wait a year for a budget to see how all these other building projects and and capital projects come through for you?

Absolutely.

What I'm what I'm doing right now is I'm just in the beginning stages.

I didn't realize coming from Texas how expensive dirt was in Nebraska.

Um I would have brought some with me from Texas.

But um uh what I'm doing right now is looking at where we can beg bar and steel dirt, although obviously it's gonna cost money for trucks and people to haul that dirt, and so that's where we are right now with that.

Um I'm setting that up, planning the seed that this is something that we want based on where our capital budget is after these others.

Um but that is something that that is on the prior list right now.

It's the lowest on that whole capital.

Uh and we haven't uh we haven't moved forward with any, you know, any uh hard financial commitments or anything.

Um and we've had this 1.9 million for a couple years now because we've anticipated building a building.

Um I'm glad I'm glad we waited actually.

I'm glad it is kind of weighted like this because what we're doing with Heartland Ag as I've mentioned before, I won't go over the benefits of it, is just a tremendous partnership.

Um so that's great, and it's a money saving.

And so we'll see where we are, but um it's down the prior list, so I don't know if we'd even start touching it in the next fiscal year.

We'll but we may be close, but uh I'll come back to you well before that.

I know you will.

Uh yeah, I I just think yeah, what's gonna it's not gonna be the 1.9 that you're gonna spend on the on the building, but uh nothing comes in at the price we expect it to, and I'd hate to to have multiple projects going within that budget.

So, yes, I think that one to me is an easy one to pull off for this year and reduce that.

So we wouldn't have it take what's I'm sorry, we we would definitely wouldn't go over that 1.9 million at any point.

Um I just wanted to see how much is left so I know how much dirt I can haul in.

Exactly, exactly.

So Pat, if we if we move that out of here, that would take you pretty much down to what does that solve all the problems?

Uh it does, actually.

Perfect.

Good answer.

Aim the please.

Mr.

Mr.

O'Neill.

Um just another thing for Chief here as well.

I I've probably asked you about this before, but part of me asking is to kind of clarify for public record too.

But out at the law enforcement training center by the airport, I think they're building the new indoor firing range as well.

And uh I I know maybe their needs don't kind of mesh with yours.

We have a whole lot of synergy and time, but um I maybe can kind of comment on that if there's any shared things you guys do with them in the interim as well.

Um we have a really good partnership with the training center.

Uh I go to the police standards advisory council meeting uh almost every month when they when they have it, a very good relationship with the director there and the executive director.

Uh I'm also on the crime commission now.

Um so we have a very good relationship with them.

Um, but that's kind of where it ends as far as access to to their range, because they uh they have NSP classes that are out there, they have three classes of uh recruits a year, and then they do uh training.

Um they do firearms qualifications for themselves and uh other places that don't have ranges or access to ranges.

So a lot of blacklisted dates basically.

Yes, absolutely.

Which is what helps justify why you need more.

We we haven't been out there probably oh well since I've I've been here so three or four years at least.

And uh one other question too are there still some issues with like the exterior of your building out there as well currently that we need to address.

I believe there are.

They're they're doing a lot of renovations, the skid pad that you've seen, which is gigantic concrete slab for the cars, uh the range itself, they've also uh have some building improvements to do, and uh they all also hired they used to have seven instructors, now they have ten.

Uh they're trying to get uh authorization for 14.

Thank you.

So on then I would assume that uh all the other equipment passes on its requests, or if there's something else that you would like to talk about.

Okay.

Um Mr.

Pollock.

Thank you, Mayor.

No, Pan, I I think all the rolling stock and the equipment is it's needed.

Okay, it's wore out and and I know the PD vehicles have got a jillion miles on them, so they're I I don't see anything wrong with any of the equipment.

Very good.

Um we'll move on to uh uh parks well projects, okay.

And in this conversation, I am assuming uh for uh council here that the projects for streets which are in a one in six plan, the enterprise funds, which is electric water, wastewater, those projects, you know, they're systematic, they're strategic, they're in a right study.

I think we're all good with those, I believe.

Um if there's something you wouldn't would like to discuss, please let me know.

Um otherwise, uh we'll move to the parks projects because we have so many there.

But before we get into the parks projects, we do have an update on the South Locust Trail to Camp Augustine.

Uh Keith.

Yes.

So based on the conversation the other night, obviously during that uh meeting, I had sent an email to the consultant that we currently have working on this project.

And as you guys remember, I I believe it was several months back, we uh amended our existing contract with JEO to um continue design of this project.

Um primarily in preparation for moving this project forward so we could deliver in the next budget year.

Um with that being said, in and kind of the background of this too, when we hired JO uh back in 2024, early 2024, um the intent of this was to get this off the ground to a point where we would have an engineer cost estimate.

And as I understand the goal with that was so that there could be uh look for grant funding applications uh for that project.

Obviously, it's uh it's a large cost, but the other component to that that we have to realize is with those grant applications, we were we were anticipating uh federal funding.

So as you all know, federal funding comes with with with its own strings and and different things that we have to do to comply with those funds.

So that cost estimate, one it was very early, uh again dated back to almost a year ago.

Two, we were anticipating federal funding, so we were using a higher cost, which I do believe to be true, and we could talk about other projects that we've completed both on a on a cost and a timeline scale on how those things impact that, as well as there's a lot of environmental permitting that's necessary.

So during the meeting the other night, I emailed and said we really need to look at an updated cost estimate.

So we're moving towards I would call where we're at, probably a 60% design at this point.

So there's still some components that we need to look at.

So keep that in mind with what I'm gonna share with you uh on this.

The intent was to cross both the north and the south channel of the Platte River in discussion with the grand scheme of the plan out at at Camp Augustine.

Um it probably makes more sense to cross that South Channel within the park, not out by the four-lane busy road, interstate interchange, all of that kind of stuff.

There's a lot more opportunity for different activities in the park for that that bridge.

So it was decided it was probably not advantageous to move forward with engineering design on a second bridge.

Build a small temporary, what I would call a small temporary trail head today, and then when the park project itself comes into play, we would pick that trail up from there, bring it however the landscape architects and engineers see fit at that time into the park, use the bridge there, whatever.

So, with that being said, looking at all that our estimate right now uh with engineering, which we've got some of this done, but I'm gonna give you what the whole project cost uh would be estimated as, which does include with the work up to this date.

We're anticipating about 4.3 million dollars.

Now I know that's still a lot of money, um, and I know uh council member Nickerson was focused on the million dollars a mile, which honestly, a million dollars a mile, uh where that stems from is we used to say, and this was 15 years ago, a million dollars up for a lane mile, one lane mile.

So a lane mile on a road is 12 foot wide.

Now a trail, we're looking at a 10 foot trail.

We're gonna say that we're just gonna use uh the assumption that both of those would be the same today, and I rule today, and uh and I bounced this off a couple other in engineers today.

I feel 1.5 is the better estimate for a lane mile today.

So we take the bridge out of this 4.3.

Um, we're hitting that 1.5-ish number on this.

This does not, the other thing that this does not include it, it includes negotiation and appraisals for so many tracks of right-away.

It does not include the right-of-way cost.

So, based on the design today, I'm estimating we're probably gonna spend, I think we could probably acquire right away, which it isn't a lot, most of it's temporary easements or easements.

Um, you know, I think the right-of-way purchase price is probably around $50,000.

Now, that's saving every tree we can save.

I think that there's a discussion to be had with parks, and we kind of talked about it briefly the other day.

Um are all those trees that we're trying to save really worth saving.

Would it be easier, more cost effective to bring the trail in and take a tree out, plant a new tree, and call it a day.

We don't have to acquire right away, we don't have to do appraisals, we don't have to go through all the process.

So my numbers again are a little unsure.

There is some contingency built into it.

If we bid it today, I I think we would be under that number.

Um, but we're not there yet.

So I I do want to be a little conservative in that.

So it doesn't get us down to the million dollars a mile, and we do have to build a bridge.

So that's that's kind of where we're sitting on that project.

I don't know if anybody has any questions or I'm glad you took it upon yourself to circle back with the JEO because Tuesday night when that seven million figure popped up on the screen.

I about fell out of my chair because I had always understood it was not that much money.

So uh I don't know what the council's gonna do with this, but uh the I the 4.3 and I hear a lot of numbers as my mayor, but the 4.3 is more in line with what I've been hearing over the months.

I appreciate that.

Plus, I did talk after our meeting Tuesday night, I did talk to a uh person involved uh who does construction and was told the seven figure was not in line, so I mean that's just anecdotal, but so I'm I appreciate you doing that, Mr.

Kurtz, and and that 4.3 is what you confirmed with JEO.

Okay.

I don't know if anybody else has any questions, but I want to thank you for doing that.

So one little cleanup matter before we move on to the to the parks projects.

I did want to um discuss the uh Jason Hornaday request that was to council um and what their thoughts are in do you want to fund those?

Uh well, we have here it Jason Ed followed up with a very nice email to council.

Um so the items were drainage solution for trap and ski fields of 47, completion of a new sporting clay loop 97,000 and storage building rehab of 390 for a total of new budget of 534.

Mr.

Sheard.

Thank you.

Uh well, if we just took 675 out of one that was gonna go at the Heartland Shooting Park, this is less than that that we could almost net it out equally there.

Uh I think I'm always embarrassed to say things are low numbers when they're 500,000, but in comparison, this is a pretty low number to me.

Uh compared to some of the other projects, and if it's a building we own that needs to be rehabbed and taken care of so it can be used properly.

Uh I guess I I would like to put the whole thing in now and get it done with that's my thought.

No further comments.

Okay.

So parks projects.

So we have uh I guess the you know the main ones to talk about is the Stally Park train area, the rider field renovation, um, and the rider park baseball field renovation.

Uh Todd added, and this is in here Pier Park Lake Trail, Andy's South Locust Trail and Island Oasis, Mr.

Sheard pretty talkative tonight.

Um thoughts I have.

One, I I haven't spent much time hearing about the pier park until the other night.

Um, and it seemed like that was something that was in the early stages that isn't maybe from Todd isn't as high a priority as these other four sense, and that would be one that uh you seemed a little less I don't know, your enthusiasm was a little lower on that one.

Yeah, no, I mean when we submit our budgets, we submit our budgets in March, you know, and we really haven't made a lot of progress on that.

Um so if if there was one of these that you're looking to slip to the following year, I would say this would be one that you could probably push to the following year.

So one that is a little bit bigger price tag is the island oasis.

And I know I'm going to be not popular here, but I'm gonna ask some questions.

Uh when we look at the changes that we've talked about, and I think they are slick, they look good.

I like to put putt, that's fine.

But the difference in cost between the renovating to get it to where it's gonna be as the good a quality as it can be in its current state for 20 years is about three million, and going all in with these upgrades is 15.9 million for 20 years.

And that is a difference, if my math holds, of about 12.9 million.

And by the time that we do financing on this, we're looking at 20 years of that.

Let's say it was financed at zero percent, which we know it won't be.

Uh let's say we just did it all with cash.

Is that difference worth 12 million dollars over 20 years?

And I'm not I don't expect everything the city does, trust me, to make revenue in everything we do in parks and rec.

I know we subsidize these things for quality of life.

But the life of that park, is it is it an is it a 12 million dollar difference, 13 million dollar difference?

Is that going to be worth it over 20 years?

Crystal ballett.

So I don't know if I can answer that question specifically, but I'll give you a little bit of background again.

We I did go through the master planning process.

We you know, we took public input, uh the uh consultants gave us some recommendations.

Um I will say that the um the three million dollar project is is night and day different than the the 15 million dollar project.

This the 15 million dollar project is a basically a complete renovation of the facility.

Um it's it's basically everything is new, honestly.

Um the lazy river would stay the same, but the the wave pool would be separated from the leisure pool.

Again, the putt putt gulf is is new, we don't have that.

The the splash areas, which we don't have some of the recommendations um from that uh master plan, you know, you know, the children's areas we don't we we've we don't have dedicated children's area at the water park, so we're really not serving that group very well.

So we're trying to serve those those groups.

Um trying to find ways to add more revenue.

So that was another thing that we wanted to do, and and the the uh the 15 million dollar plan does do that, right?

So um the the three million dollars is is literally pumps and filters.

It's it's just all behind the scenes.

It would be it would you wouldn't see anything.

Does it get rid of the sand?

The sand that's the sand areas, yeah.

Um I was thinking it did get rid of that, but it may get rid of the sand areas, but that's that's honestly just a minor thing.

We could do that tomorrow if we had to do that.

I mean, just with yeah, that's just a minor thing.

Okay, honestly.

So like I said, I mean to answer your question, I know it's a big dollar, uh, you know, um aquatic facilities.

If you have, I mean, if you've s aquatic facilities today are expensive, that's why cities um build them and not a lot, you don't see a lot of private aquatic facilities, but it is um a major renovation, and just to let you know where at, you know, of course we've had some presentations, you know, we did hire the the the uh um design firm, you know, they came and gave a presentation, and and the design is ready to go, and we're ready to go out and bid so anyway.

I hope that answers your question.

It does, and I 100% love all the feedback we got, but I'll fill out forms and say I want things if they don't have a price tag attached to it.

You know, if we'd have said this is a 12 million dollar price tag, do you still put that above some of these other things?

I'm not sure everybody would still feel that way.

Um I would rank it high if I don't have to see a price.

I just I don't know that we are ever gonna be back.

I think you said a few months ago or a month ago or so that we probably will never be back to the numbers at Island Oasis that we were uh before all the competing uh parks in neighboring towns came up.

So the question is is doing this going to make an impact to make it so much more special that we're gonna pull from other towns.

I I don't know.

I don't uh I don't know.

And I and I I don't know if I again I can answer your questions, but in my opinion, um we're selling a destination, not just Island Noise, it's just the Grand Island.

You know, it's it's more for people the things to do.

The location is amazing that we have at Island Oasis, you know, the putt-putt golf, the the families, the you know, the uh um, you know, the being open longer in the season, so we're we're sort of gonna serve more people, bring in some more revenue, you're right.

I don't know that we'll ever have you know 120,000 swimmers like we did when we were the only water park in the state of Nebraska.

Um, but I do I do believe this is a good plan to you know bring more visitors to Grand Island and again give it you know, um I guess provide that package to the to our visitors to Grand Island, yes.

Well, I would love to hear what everybody else has to say.

I just I know I'm not gonna be popular, uh, but I appreciate your feedback.

Mr.

Hawsey.

Thank you, Mayor.

So Todd, let me I've got a couple of things I want to talk about.

The first one, let me talk about Pier Park.

We talked the other day about two of the three fountains are are running.

Um the feedback that I've gotten is that there still is the smell.

The smell problem still does exist.

And I don't know if the the answer is the third fountain.

We've been trying to discuss this for more than a decade, and and it doesn't seem to get fixed.

I know that you said the third fountain has been out for a long time.

That may I don't know if that's the cure or not, Todd.

We need to fix that that smell so the neighbors don't have to sit in their back porch and and and do that.

That's what I want to I want to make sure that a pier uh park that that's we focus on whatever we're doing to that lake when we're gonna have to fix the walls or whatever we're doing.

We need to fix the smell as well.

And I don't I know it's not every day, but it's just certain times, and I don't know the the details of how it works and how it doesn't work, but I do know that it is a community neighborhood problem and it it hasn't gone away for good.

So we still need to remediate those problems.

At Island Oasis, uh I think creating the puttbutt or the miniature golf course, I think it's a great thing to add an additional use to attract people.

Uh I think it's dependent upon how well you do it, how well it's done.

I've been to ones that I wouldn't go back to a second time.

I've been to ones that I would go back time and time again.

So I think there is a difference between how you build the miniature golf part of it.

It can be a heck of a tr uh an attraction, or it can be a dud, you know.

Uh but whatever we build, I'd like some marketing expertise behind it as to the attraction.

Uh I don't want to just do it from what you think or what I think.

I I really want some science behind if you build this, you're gonna attract this.

If you build that, you're gonna attract something else.

You know, and and trying to extend the season is a great is a great thing.

We've been talking about this for a long, long time.

Uh so I'm in favor of extending the season uh at Island Oasis.

I'm in favor of doing a quality putt-putt or miniature golf, but I want to see some numbers.

I want to see what do you build?

Because I don't I don't just want something that's just gonna be there and and not have a wow factor to it.

I'd love to see it indoors because I think that'll really extend your season.

Um, again, I think it could be a beneficial from the revenue side, it can make up the shortfall from when we used to have 2,000 plus a day at the water park in the very beginning, you know, and and uh so I I think it can it can actually put some life back into that facility in a good in a good way if we do it the right do the right thing.

Uh in the same thing with the golf, and one of the things that came up after our Tuesday meeting, we got an email, I think you were on that email as well from um Justin uh from landscapes.

The irrigation problem again, it's a 40-year-old irrigation problem.

It does need some fixing, and I don't know.

Um I know we talk about capital pro you know, I'd like to see some, I don't want to just see those kind of projects overlooked, you know, even if they didn't submit them, it's still our course.

You know, he lets what that's his point is still the city's course, and and I still want us to have a a thumb on what it needs, what it doesn't need.

Are our contractors doing what we need them to do?

Uh I I want to make sure, and if that if that irrigation system needs to be repaired, I don't want it to just be overlooked because landscapes didn't do something.

You know, they don't have any, they don't have a dog in the fight other than they manage it for us.

You know, but every dollar goes in, every dollar goes out as a public dollar, you know, and so I want to look I want to make sure that we have a a concept of what's going on out there and what do we need to to fix, even if they can't afford to pay it out of the revenues from the golfers.

Uh I know that we talked about um we've talked for a long, long time about paving the the parking lot at the golf course.

It's never been on the Capitol projects, and it's 40 years in the making, and you know, again, it never it never makes the list, but we can spend a half a million somewhere else, and they just brought it up this year.

You know, for the life of me, I just like there's when I bring my golf cart out and I have to go through the gravel and everything, and all this stuff gets in my car, and then I'm vacuuming my car out every week.

You know, it's I've been to other courses that have paved lots.

It's it's not that you know, it's not that unique to have a paved lot at a golf course.

So again, I I wish that I would see that sometime, and I've been on the council.

This is my 18th, maybe 19th budget year as a council member, and I've yet to see it.

And so I see all these other requests.

Um the other thing is we talked at the golf course about a simulator.

For the same reason we talked about Island Oasis, the simulator was a great idea to extend the season.

Um we had a simulator down on South Locust called Bearded Buffalo Golf.

Uh it was a wonderful thing.

Uh a friend of my partner, uh golf partner and I we golfed down there January, February, March, probably a little bit into April.

Um it was a wonderful thing for us to do in the winter because my muscles aren't getting any better, they're getting older, and and so it's just it's just a nice thing to do.

But when COVID came along, they didn't make it through COVID.

They closed up.

Uh there was an opportunity, and we've talked about this opportunity for for years now.

Uh I think that I'd like to see that same logic of of extending the season and providing things that the community needs, like the simulator out at the golf course.

Uh, I don't care who runs it.

I you know, that I'll even in your thing.

But I these are the projects that I don't see ever come up because I'm not so sure who's listening.

Uh they're not asking because they're just their job is just to manage the golf course.

Our job is to think about what do we want to do with the Grand Island public golf course.

You know, and so those are the things I want some of us to put in, not expect them to do it all, like the paving, like the simulator, because it will extend the season, it will do a lot of things.

It will provide a bring but you know, value in the middle of the winter in the in the non-golf season to the course and to the people that that play that game.

And and I know there's there's quite a few, I don't know the numbers that go do golf, but I know that bearded buffalo golf prior to COVID was doing had a lot of people.

They had 50 some people in our league, and then I'm like, there must there was seven leagues or whatever it was.

There were there was hundreds and hundreds of people that did the winter golf.

And so I think these attractions are kind of getting overlooked, and year after year after year they keep getting overlooked, and no one's bringing them to the table.

Uh and I wish we would as a municipality when we own these courses, even though we have a contractor managing them for us, we still have to have a pulse on what do we what do we want to see out of it, and then what do we tell the contractor we want them to do in response.

And so I wish I wish that we would see some of those uh things make their way into the list, and and I think that for the same valid reasons that we do in other places.

So thank you, Todd.

Thank you, Mr.

Hawsey.

Mr.

O'Neill.

Um I just want to talk in particular about Island Oasis.

Um if we spend over 15 million dollars on something, I want it to be used.

I want it to be used more than what it is now, and I think things that extend the days of operation are the most important out there.

I think the miniature golf is extremely important.

Um right now, you know, you have this massive investment, you only use it for just under three months a year.

I want to see, you know, if we make this investment, are there other uh studies that we've done to show do we think would increase the amount of people coming?

I don't know, do we have those numbers?

We do it was in the uh it was in the master plan that we did, and that's was part of the you know, by including the the splash areas, the the children's areas, making it more family friendly or friendly.

Um that was the idea behind the renovations was to bring more more customers, more swimmers.

And how late in the year do you think you could extend the business through the golf?

We think we can go until uh October.

And I'm sure that labor is probably a major consideration of why you kind of close the park down when you do now.

Um do you think that there would be possibilities to extend it a bit further with a little more limited capacity operations potentially?

Yes, so I mean our plan right now with the um miniature golf and the splash pad area is actually offer a uh section of the water park that is you know that can be open during those other times.

Um yes, if we and if we can get staffing to to uh you know stick around um after school starts, then we can actually stay open on a few weekends too.

Yeah, and and I understand the uh mini golf and the splash should be separate, which is a fantastic idea.

I I would I'd encourage more of that planning too.

But you you would think you can do part of the actual water park as well outside of that potentially.

Yeah, that that would be the hope, yes.

And again, time will tell from a staffing standpoint, but um, but yeah, for sure on the on the splash the splash pad area and the and the mini golf.

Yeah, and I just really encourage you if we make an investment like that too.

I want to make sure we have it open um long enough hours that people can use it as much as any.

I think a couple nights it closes a little bit earlier currently.

We've actually we've actually uh have expanded our hours here the last two years to promote had uh more success adding staff.

So uh we're actually going in the right direction.

So if we can continue that, then yes, we'll hopefully be open more and figure in.

Yeah, and I guess just kind of last thing, you know.

I figure if there's not an increase in numbers, we're probably doing it wrong, but I assume these things would help drive people, and that needs to be the real focus is drive more.

So thank you.

Absolutely, Mr.

Landfeer.

Sir and some Mr.

Shear over there.

Is 12 million dollars more worth it?

I've been to Hastings, Water Park, uh Wood River.

I'm not really sure that we need to go upscale on this.

I think it'd be better off going just making repairs for the moment.

So I really like to see us just do the three million and delay anything else.

Golf course would be good.

You know, it's something that's kind of missed in this town, I know.

But uh I'm not really sure 12 million dollars more is worth it.

Thank you.

Mr.

Paula.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh Pat, are we um we have just one bond payment right now, don't we?

For the husker harvest days.

Or do we know that we're paying cash for that?

So the so the loan that we have is for veterans complex.

Oh, okay.

And that'll be paid off in December of 27.

I would I would gladly rebuild the park.

I I would like to see it bonded.

That way we can spread it out over time, and we'll have some money left over for the uh other projects, which I think you and Todd can sit down and figure out.

I don't think I'm qualified to sit here and micro manage the parks department.

I just for some reason it's not my job description.

Uh but Todd can help you with what the important things are that need to be done and how much money he's got to work with.

I I think that would be the way to go.

I know we have a meeting on Ryder Park coming up in October, wasn't it?

I think.

Uh yeah, I believe uh that was yes.

And for us to sort of contract for the rider park rehab.

And and I'm all in favor of rider park.

I not really in favor of the deducts on some of it, but uh I was more inclined for the four and a half million than I am for the million that they dropped off.

But that's just me and not the rest of the oh I got two.

So yeah, I uh I I would like to do it that way, but I think bonding on the water park is the only way to go.

Okay.

Sounds good, thank you.

Mr.

Brown.

Yeah, I like the complete project, but as I said before, it's gotta have a wow factor where it's gonna attract all these people and uh being open longer in the year.

I think that's a real good idea.

But I'm I'm for bonding long term.

Uh the other thing is I've got quite a few calls this last week on the Pier Park stench of the lake.

Can we do some kind of study or something on that to see if we can address that?

Uh numerous calls this week when that came up again.

Well, that's that's come up for years and years and years.

And uh and Todd can speak to this.

I thought, like in years past, was there some kind of chemical treatment used on that on that water or I thought I thought John Collins mentioned some type of treatment, but it only lasts a while.

Um, there was uh an algae side to keep the allergy to kill the algae, but with what we were finding, we haven't used it hasn't been used in in a number or a number of years.

Um what was happening was it was actually creating more because when the organic material would die, um then it was creating more smell and actually more fish kills.

So we've kind of gone away from doing the algicides.

Um maybe looking to have a contractor look at it and see what well as I've been you know, and and Chuck mentioned it too.

Um I think you know, we talked about delaying the uh the um the sidewalk project, and which is really gonna be the seawall as well, check looking into the seawall.

I think that would be the time to just kind of look at the the options as well for improving.

You really need to improve lake quality.

Um there's there's not an inlet or an outlet to the lake.

I know Keith and I have talked about it before, um, what we could do to you know improve some of the flow of the lake and that type of thing, so some more study would have to be done, yes.

I'd like to, you know, maybe have somebody take a look at a professional and and say we need to do this or this, and uh what's a uh I've been invited over there this weekend to smell it, so I guess I'll come back with you with a report.

Bring your skateboard Mr.

Stelk.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Um I just wanted to tell you what what I'd like to see.

Um I'm in favor of the Ryder Park project 100%.

I think it has a lot of community backing, and I think it's well needed.

Umasis, I'm I'm too conservative to spend 15 million dollars.

Um I'd like to maybe do three million and then what should be your repairs and then maybe do a couple other things to get the golf in and maybe do a little bit every year.

Um, unless you're you find some way to bond it and we can afford the bond payments on it.

But that's just uh just too much money for me to stomach.

Um I like um the Heartland shooting event park and what Jason wants to do there, and then I I like I really like the Stalley Park train project and the other small things.

Um I think we could could do some of them every year and keep going with that.

But that's my two cents.

Thank you.

Um I will just, and I've heard it mentioned a couple of times about the island oasis.

It is being designed with a wow factor.

Uh the putt-putt golf is is being done with a consultant that designs these, that's what they do.

So I would just let you know that it's not uh it's not uh being designed um in a small fashion, put it that way.

Um and then the and I just want to let council be aware though, the three million dollar repair would be a three million dollar repair for the existing facilities.

So when you when you size a filter, you would be sizing a filter for what's there, sizing pumps for what is there.

So if we were to try to do upgrades in the future, they may not necessarily work, if if that makes sense.

So we would be sizing for what is there currently.

So just would make that clear.

Mr.

Pollack.

Oh, I was um I had actually asked to talk about the lake down there.

Uh when you have that many waterfall, use that as a house all winter long, and then it gets hot in summertime, and the bottom of that lake turns over, that's where you get the stench.

And it's horrible.

Uh I've been down sitting down there, and it yeah, you gotta leave.

You just can't take it.

Uh and what you can do with it other than dredging it out every few years.

I don't know of any chemical that'll take care of it when it turns.

Just got to get rid of the stuff on the bottom.

Mr.

Hawsey.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um the one thing that I hear the most from my constituents is is about uh something to do, you know, and and families included.

Uh I think we do a great job in the summer, you know, spring, fall.

Uh I think we do a great job.

But I think it's in the off season.

If we can develop things to do, that's I think what they're what people here would benefit our citizens, you know, if we gave them something more to do in the winter.

I think we do a tremendous job during the summer.

Um I wanted to mention Stalley Park and how well that garden is.

I mean, it is just it's fantastic.

And so, you know, kudos to everybody who put that together.

Uh Joyce and I were down there the other night, and some guy had put up this marry me, and so he he was proposing to his girlfriend.

I mean, we're we're sitting there watching them set it all up, and there's rose petals all over and so it's it's a wonderful place for them to do things like that.

You know, and when you witness things like that, you see how the community loves it, and they respond with here's how it fits into my life, and here's how I do something special.

So, you know, the the Sully Park has been been great.

Um the one thing I hear on the water park is is the ones with younger kids are now going to Hastings or going somewhere else because of the younger kids aren't getting their well factor or Hastings has something better than than us for the kids, you know, and so I think when we do these developments, I'm okay with the larger expenditure as long as we're catering to all of those that were missing.

You know, what age groups do we do well with, what age groups do we not do well with?

Kind of the you need the marketing side uh to say this is what's missing, and this is the people that are leaving, and this is where they're going to and why they're going.

You know, obviously I like the putt-putt side, you know, and and uh you said the um the little what was the pond called next to it?

Next to the putt putt?

Flash pad.

Yeah, the splash pad.

October 15th, you think that's all you can get as far as extending it out in the end.

How about in the beginning?

You know, is there uh I I think as long as yeah, I mean, of course, this year would be you know, but as long as uh we have the staffing, it would be nice to keep it open as long as we possibly can, honestly.

Because we we foresee it to be heavily used and and revenue generating.

And I and I should have mentioned in that uh master plan we did with the water park, that was part of the um evaluation of what are we missing for folks?

This and this this plan does have uh you know dedicated children's areas, and it's something that we're missing today.

So I I just I I think you know that's what we're I'd like to see you try to focus on, and and uh I wish that if we had a nice January or you know, a nice week in January, we could open up the miniature golf.

I wish we'd open up the golf course.

You know, sometimes I think the even the golf course isn't open when it's a beautiful day in January.

And unless there's a real reason not to be able to golf.

So people that buy season passes at the golf course, they want to be able to go out on nice days.

And I think part of the landscapes thing is is maybe they're closed more than Don and Scott used to do it.

You know, and so I think it's a people we're used to going out there in nice days in January and golfing.

I I think those are the things we really want to focus on is in the winter time.

If we have opportunities to be open and to provide something, I'd like to think about that too, and not just have a solid date.

We're gonna open on you know April 15th, we're gonna close on October 15th.

You know, I I'd like to be a little more flexible because if it's nice out, everybody in their house needs to get out out in the in the winter or the fall.

Well, you know, late fall.

So if we can, that's where I'd like to try to focus more on.

So thank you, Todd.

Mr.

Sheard?

Thank you.

Uh one comment on that.

I'm a member at Riverside, and I have golfed in every month of the year because they are open year-round.

And I'm not sometimes I'm the only one.

Uh, but if the grass is healthy enough uh to be out there, there'll be people out there.

So I dig on that.

Uh you know, I I've already said what I feel about you've changed my mind a little bit about some of the excitement on it.

Um I do feel better knowing that we are looking at about two and a half million less on the trail.

I think that opens up a little bit more funding that I'm not quite as worried as I was.

Again, it's it's the silliest thing to sit up here and talk about half a million being small numbers.

But in the scheme of things, having a couple of those things does help.

Uh to what Mark was saying, remind us on that plan.

You don't have to get into the whole thing, but is there an opportunity to add some of the stuff?

Was there a middle ground between three million and thir and sixteen million?

No, not really.

Um you could there be?

Yes, yeah, yes, no.

Yeah, I should say.

That's a big number.

I shouldn't say that.

I shouldn't say that.

You could do the putt-putt golf, probably.

Um you could do the putt-putt golf, you could add the putt-putt golf.

But putting in the bigger filters, that you're talking about.

The filters and pumps would be sized for the pool.

You wouldn't really be able to renovate the pool after you've you've put it.

It doesn't make sense to do part of it.

At that point, you are looking at sunk cost, right?

Right.

That if you don't do it all, it's not worth the bigger amount.

All right.

I was hoping for something there, but no middle ground.

All right.

Mr.

O'Neill.

So I, you know, if you just invested the three million, you're really just not doing anything for the wow factor.

You're just basically kind of fixing what's there.

No real change.

That's my concern about is you the users won't see anything, honestly.

I mean, it'll it'll uh it'll it'll give the life uh to the water park for another 20 years, but the users probably won't really see it.

I've been involved in other development projects, and sometimes you just try and rebuild it as as it was versus make it much nicer, and that's really what's gonna draw people in there and and enhance it.

Otherwise, there's not really an excuse to go check out the the new things that can't really tell the difference on.

Um the other thing I just want to talk about real quick is on the the trail.

I think I'm very supportive of that the price is heading in a different direction.

It sounds like there's a little bit of interest for some other private contributions for it.

Uh, you know, I I'd really like to see a little bit more of that and maybe give it a little time for some of those to come in there.

I think maybe that's starting to trend in a in a positive direction to get some private funds.

Um, you know, I don't think we want to wait forever.

You need to kind of build something when it's gonna be ready out there, but I'd like to have a little time for people to really get some fundraising going for that to kind of help match that just a little bit, but I don't want to wait long, but I'd like to see maybe a little bit of who else will throw some money in on that too.

Mr.

Hawsey.

Uh one comment on the trail, and Ryan kind of jogged my memory, is uh if we do a little bit of delay for fundraising or something like that.

The other thing I think is the interest rate will probably be lowered in in time, and so I think we might benefit as well from the financing costs with a little bit of delay.

I think it might give us time to still do it, but yet still kind of capture the benefits of lower interest rates that we most people I talk to expect lower interest rates a year from now, lower than what they are today.

Uh I don't know.

I don't have a crystal ball either.

But I think those are the benefits as we could see where the fundraising is, we could see where the interest rate is, and I think we could benefit by both factors with a little bit of lag time.

Mr.

Brown.

I agree with that.

I don't think we need to just a little bit of lag time and see what private money we can get donated to this and uh the interest rates.

Um also I'm for Ryder Park and I'm for the train and I'm for the complete uh water park.

Mr.

Shear.

On the trail, if we were to allocate the money this year, and we did get the funding.

Just by allocating the money doesn't mean we're doing the project, right?

It just gives us the ability to do it so that if we did get some grants come in, if we did get some things to come in.

Yes, that's an excellent point, and it's a discussion that that Pat and I have had of an option you always have is to say, include in your budget um the 15 million, what the the big projects and then the direction to staff is that we go back and we make sure we've gotten you the best value, um, that we've sized it appropriately, plus it gives the finance team the opportunity to look at what is the cost of borrowing, what's happening with interest rates, how much of the cash should be spent, and to actually run the numbers.

We're kind of in a uh what comes first position, the chicken or the egg, right?

We don't know how to have our financial advisors run the numbers on financing and versus cash because we don't know how much you want us to spend.

So if you say the full freight, the full amount, that does not mean that we spend it.

We would every decision would come back to you for that final decision.

Okay.

I wouldn't be opposed to that.

Um, and I think this is the last thing I'm gonna say tonight.

I'm not gonna press my button, but I'm gonna use my last time to say that I really appreciate uh all y'all standing up in here and just getting grilled to pieces tonight.

Uh, and being able to have good answers.

Uh Carrie, you got grilled.

Todd, we're just filleting you up and throwing you on the fire uh on something you've already spent all this time into.

Chief, uh, we beat you up all over.

Um I didn't.

I was pretty cool.

I just want you to know that.

Uh tell your officers that when I'm speeding down on my way home tonight.

Uh, and and to all of our department directors, Laura, uh, mayor, if you just pass on that this process has been thorough from all of them.

Um we have asked a lot of questions of them, and it has been uh in my three years of doing these, this has been the best process, even though it's probably been the messiest.

Uh, I feel like this meeting has been as helpful uh, you know, uh Mike, you and I've asked for this.

I've asked you a lot of questions, and and this has been a meeting that I've been hoping for.

So I appreciate all of you all that didn't talk tonight but didn't get grilled for being here.

Um thank you to the staff.

And I'm not pressing my button again.

You know, Jack, our city staff has worked very hard, and so has the city council.

And that, you know, the people of Grand Island need to acknowledge the time commitment of council members to come in and try to understand all of this information and make very weighty decisions.

I'm going to express your thanks to city staff, but I want to express my thanks to the members of the city council, a great governing body.

Mr.

Stell.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

I guess I would like to get some advice from Laura and City staff on how much to take out of reserves, how much we can bond, and how much we can put in our budget for next year, so we have an idea about what we can spend and that kind of stuff, or what we can uh set aside for projects.

So depending on comfort comfort level, um, you know, if you want to spend all of your excess reserves, that's close to 20 million dollars.

I wouldn't recommend that.

Um I'm comfortable with half to three quarter.

So now having having the answers that I needed, I get that I got tonight.

I can go back and start doing combinations of financing and cash.

And it's got it's a combination of both.

And what is uh what would be best for the city?

And that's what I'm asking.

I would also like to see the mill levy uh stay the same or drop some so that we don't have to deal with that backlash.

Glad you asked.

Um I actually got property tax number today.

It was supposed to be yesterday, but it was today.

And let's see here.

So in the 2026 line, this is our valuation this year.

5,055 million, 209,483.

It's just hard saying those big numbers.

Last year's valuation was 4.6 billion.

So our value, the city of valuation went up 378 million, which was an 8.1 percent increase.

Tax ask for this for last year or this current year was 12 million eighty-six, and if we do the same 12 million eighty-six, uh, we add in the admin fee that goes to the county.

The total would be 12.2 million, the same as as this current year.

Our mill levy is currently for the city at 0.2610, it would drop to 0.2414.

Uh on CRA.

Um, the valuations are the same for CRA and the city.

So Chad had indicated he did he was not going to increase the mill levy or ask for more, so he was doing the same tax ask as this year.

Uh the mill levy goes from 0.017 down to 0.015.

So in total, city NCRA goes down.02 mills.

So that is the update on property tax.

So how does that look like for uh 50 like a hundred thousand dollar home on a regular mortgage?

Are the taxes gonna go down from last year, or do you see a slight increase?

All depends on valuation.

Our valuations are up, we should yeah.

And is it since ours is is up, I you can assume that your house is also gonna go up.

Mr.

Osee.

Thank you, Mayor.

Pat, my my thoughts on the the cash, you know, that we have excess over our fiscal policy max.

Uh I'd be uh agreeable to more like the three-quarters and the half, you know.

So I I'd lean more towards using most of it.

I don't think I would suggest using all of it, but I I do think using three-fourths of it it would be appropriate.

Uh part of that could be if we looked at any kind of rebates, either um you know, with the casino tax or how do we handle the casino tax.

I'd like to to see whatever whatever proposal is that is part of.

You know, do we lower the property tax asking?

Do you know do we do a rebate?

How to how do we handle a new revenue stream and and where do we tell the community here's here's what we're doing with your money.

You know, because this is a uh a windfall for the city of Grand Island to have a casino here.

So I'd I'd like to have kind of that.

What are we gonna do with that?

And and where's it going?

Because people ask me all the time, where you know, what are you doing to the money?

And I don't want to tell them the big black hole called a general fund.

You know, I think it needs to have some some definition behind it.

And and I we need to get some credit for holding our tax rate down.

The way we're able to do this is by the casino tax and other sales tax that are increases.

I know how we can do this.

The community doesn't know, and so if we could somehow be able to label it or say it, you know, with part of our budgeting process and budget messaging, I I think that would be important.

Um the other thing I would suggest is it we may be at a time um our fiscal policies came out a long time ago, I'll say 30 years ago.

Um we've looked at them.

We updated it.

You and I, we said we had a committee, we updated it in 2019.

Yeah, so it it might be time to get it, maybe the 30 percent um cap on on our on our cap, maybe it needs to be reviewed.

And and maybe it's not enough reserve, maybe the there's other factors that maybe we should go to 35 percent or 40 percent as a fiscal policy.

Uh right now we're over the policy, and I want to use that that opportunity to do all these capital improvements, a lot of these things that we're talking about, and I'd rather use the cash part of that, at least three quarters of it, to get us to where we need to do all these positive things in the community.

And and also on our on our debt side, I just I want to kind of reduce that as much as possible.

Because I don't you know, right now the interest rate is a little higher than what it's gonna be, hopefully in the next year or so.

Um, but I I do think maybe it's time to revisit.

If it's 2019, maybe in 2026, maybe it's a good time to revisit that and get a couple of people together that that can actually, you know, what work through all the details of the finance that you look at every day.

And that's all I have.

So, Mr.

Hawseon, you're suggesting a committee to review uh the fiscal policy?

Yeah, I think last time we had half a dozen panel if you can remember.

Yeah, it was you and I and Vaughn and some others, I think it was two others actually.

Okay, so there might have been four.

Yeah.

Um that are viewed.

I I think that would be great if the mayor would it would create that and take a look at least, it may not change anything.

Sure.

But it might be a good time.

You know, and then in addition to looking at the policy, as as you and I, Mayor have had discussions on the 70 percent benchmark.

Um counsel who has been around for a number of years.

Mayor Jensen has used this 70 percent for personnel costs for the general fund.

So total general fund expenditure, 70 percent is for personnel.

Maybe it's time to revisit that, research that number.

Is that good for Grand Island?

And secondly, then incorporated into the fiscal policy.

Well, and regarding that 70 percent, uh there are probably council members who haven't even heard that, but uh during uh Mayor Jensen's term, it was discussed quite often that we kept personnel cost at 70 percent of total expenditures.

It's just always been a guideline.

Mr.

Hawsey told me Tuesday that that guidelines been used for decades.

I didn't know that.

Uh it's not written down anywhere.

It's just uh it's just been a guideline that so maybe we ought to put it in policy, or whatever the percentage is, because uh it can catch people unaware.

If you have a guideline, uh, and for instance, if you're new to the council, well, how would you know?

Okay.

Uh so something to think about.

I I I'd just say in the in the 90s, uh benchmarking was an important thing in municipal government, municipal finance and and budgeting specifically.

And the one of the things you want to do is is you don't want to have people that don't have tools or you know, or don't have the right equipment.

And so there's there is a an optimal combination of labor resources, operational resources, and capital resources.

And you need to have trucks you you know for people to work in, you need to have tools for them to have, and you need to have people to do it.

And finding that combination, well, at that time, uh, you know, I think our benchmark and our benchmark at that time in the 90s, and it carried through uh through Mayor Jensen's term, um, that benchmark was like 70 to 72 percent for labor.

And so there was some that's what we were talking about in order to have the right number of people that that they had the right number of tools and everything that to that so that they can do their job optimally.

And that was just the goals, because you having people with no tools doesn't help anybody because when we had 20 years ago when we had financial problems with things, we you know, our salaries kept going up every year, and the one thing every budget would see was the operating expenses go down.

Well, you cut the operating expenses so much that all of a sudden the people don't have the right tools to do the stuff, you know.

And so then it became hard for a for a parched maintenance worker to repair something because they didn't have the tools to do it.

And so that's where we kind of ran into where we had our labor costs got too high, we didn't have enough money for tools, so we really had to balance, and we had it.

We actually had a uh I think a uh a reduction in force, most of it through attrition, um, to try to get that balance in, and you're trying not to have to get to that point again where you're so out of balance that you have to do that.

So the the benchmarking is is a way to try to stay in a range.

You it's not a rock science where it has to be here or here, it's just something that you know you watch what it's doing so that you know that you don't get not enough capital or not enough operating or not enough people, you know, to operate the city.

So it's a good resource for people like Pat and Councils to understand as why you need more operating expenses.

When we did bonding for the uh plat generating station, one of the requirements is that your maintenance had to be a certain number, and you actually had to maintain it.

Because if you didn't spend money to maintain it, the people in the that are have the bonds on on the thing knows that the power plant's not going to work if you don't maintain it.

Because that's something that runs 24 hours a day.

So there's an importance in the financial world that maintenance happens.

You know, so the you don't get to like the water park, and all of a sudden you need three million dollars just to make it run tomorrow.

No, no wow factor, just maintaining it.

You know, and we've talked about the Heartland Event Center.

It's a 20-year-old building, it's it needs a lot of maintenance.

And so making sure that we do the right maintenance when it's needed and not having it backlog and get behind.

So that's what benchmarking does.

It would be a good thing to to address in our fiscal policies, and I'd be, you know, whatever the mayor says, I'm I'm happy with that.

Uh thank you tonight for uh Mr.

Pollock has a question.

Sorry.

Thank you, Mayor.

It mine was just a real simple siloquy.

Uh I know you aren't gonna like this, but this is gonna call for more meetings to figure all this out.

I know everybody will make you all happy, but we do.

We need to sit down and have some meetings on this and and get a discussion.

Sorry, Pat.

No worries, no.

That's all thanks a lot.

Nice.

Nice nice presentation.

Administration did a great job.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Council.

We've completed completed our agenda.

Excellent meeting, I might add.

Everybody have a nice evening.