Welcome to our meeting.

The date is September 8, 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.

Federal late than never, huh?

Please rise as we recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

And to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God.

The City Clerk will now perform roll call.

Council President Shearden.

Present.

Councilmember Stelk.

Present.

Councilmember Conley.

Present.

Councilmember Nickerson.

Present.

Councilmember Brown.

Present.

Councilmember Hazi.

Present.

Councilmember Mendoza will be absent.

Councilmember O'Neill.

Present.

Councilmember Pollock.

Present.

Councilmember Lanfair.

Present.

And Mayor Steele.

Present.

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

Patrick Brown, the assistant city administrator, and chief financial officer.

Carrie Fisk, the city attorney, and Keith Kurtz, the public works director.

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.

No one is present in council chambers.

No one has signed up to speak, and no one has come forward to speak.

So we shall continue with our public hearings.

Public hearing 6a.

Public hearing on fiscal year 2025 to 2026 annual single city budget and annual appropriations bill.

Good afternoon, Mr.

Brown.

Good afternoon.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh good evening, Council.

So this evening we're having a public hearing on our budget.

The reason we are meeting this evening, it needs to be a separate and distinct meeting arrest from all city council matters with no time limits.

And so this is why we are having this on a special day.

A lot of this information is out on the website and in your packet, obviously.

But I just want to kind of show you where the proposed budget is.

So you just go to our uh website, hit the fiscal twenty-six proposed budget, go to executive overview, and this is what we'll talk about first.

So the budget document, I think is one of the most important documents the city has.

I think it's next to the strategic plan and also obviously the auditors and the audit report.

So this is a comprehensive uh process going through all the activities of the city, looking at what we're spending money on, see where our revenues are coming in, and so on and so forth.

So below here is a comparison for the fiscal year 26 to the fiscal year 25 budget.

So the fiscal 26 proposed budget disbursement transfers 8.3 percent or 25 million, 26 million higher than adopted 25 budget.

Differences mainly due to general fund excess cash reserves and bond proceeds for several parks projects, and good life uh district disembur disbursements and grants placeholder.

So the good life district disbursements is in anticipation of spending some of that money.

We don't know how much.

We don't it's it's just uh given us the authority to spend all funds revenue projections for fiscal year 26 increase 1.2 percent.

It's very conservative, or 3.5 million.

So the important one here is a property tax.

25 valuations of the city of Grand Island increased over 24 valuation by 378 million or 8.1 percent.

If the city applies the 25 mil levy of 0.2781 to the new valuation of $5 billion, the city's property tax revenue would be $14 million.

Instead, we are continuing the same tax ask that we have in the last seven years, and that tax ask for a total of $13 million.

That is city property tax and then CRA property tax as well.

With doing that, uh the mill levy, the proposed mill levy will go down to 0.241484, CRA property tax uh mill levy would decrease from 0.017 down to 0.016, roughly rounding.

Um with that being said, I just want to show you since we're on property tax.

This is a good graphic.

Really shows right here.

This is the mill levy through the history from 2017 clear up to the proposed, and this is just the city mill levy.

So we we have all done a great job in doing this.

So general fund revenues for 26 is projected to be 0.7 percent higher than 25 adopted budget.

Personnel expenses are budgeted six and a half higher than fiscal year 25.

While operating expenses are 3.48% lower than fiscal year 25, with an overall increase of expenses of 4.3 percent, 2.2 million dollars.

Total sales tax revenues forecast at 29.7 million for fiscal year 26.

This is a 2% increase or $582,000 over the 25 budget.

Increases in line with recent trend in sales tax for the Grand Island, but for slightly lower than forecast inflationary data.

All other revenue sources of general fund account for 35 million, a decrease over 25 budget of 55,000, so very de minimis.

So that is it for the general fund and and the overall summary of the city of Grand Island budget.

Below here is the capital improvement projects and equipment purchases of fiscal year 26, and it is in your packet as well, and so it's broken out by uh departments, and so uh anybody and everybody can see uh what we are spending projects on.

Uh at the end of the day, we're spending 82 million dollars in projects, so quite a bit of money.

So personnel changes.

So we have additional FTEs and reclassifications.

The uh right below here are the new FTEs.

We have a police officer, we have two and a half uh CSOs mainly due to uh animal control.

We have a maintenance worker for parks, uh, that is uh mainly due for working on all of our irrigation.

Uh we have a lot of a lot of integrates attorney and library assistant one part-time.

So this is actually five part-time people uh working 60 16 hours a week.

So on the reclass, when this originally came out, we had uh the reclass for the support services administrator in the police department.

After further discussion, it was decided to study this more with city council.

And more than likely, we'll be bringing this back in fiscal year 26.

But for now, it's not in our budget.

We also have reclass two positions in the finance department, a position, two position or one position in streets, and two in utilities.

So total FTE costs is $595,000 to the general fund.

Well, overall.

So the 25 budget, this is projected.

This is the budget with the projections actually.

So pretty close on revenues within 264,000 if everything plays out the way it should.

Total revenue of 53 million.

Personnel services budget was 40.9 million.

And we'll be coming in with a vacancy adjustment of about 778,000 vacancy savings.

That is closer than most years, and it's because we're keeping and retaining and actually recruiting much better than we have.

Transfers out was 2.7 million.

Total expenses of 53,262.

Now this year we did take some money out of reserves.

We bought a still working on the fire station, the ladder truck, an ambulance, and a police vehicle storage and training facility, adding up to 10 million dollars.

That leads that leaves us ending cash balance of 35 million.

Cash reserves policy is between 20 and 30 percent, and so I just divided, took 25 percent, and per our fiscal policy, we need to keep it 13.3 million in the bank.

This more than covers two months' worth of expenses, uh is which of which GFOA, our our government finance officer association, uh their minimum requirement is two months.

Now from there we have excess reserves of 22.4 million, and so we go back up to 26 proposed, it's our bid again in cash, uh, our revenues, and I did put in a projected.

We're always very conservative on our on general fund revenues.

So I put an adjustment of 300,000, um saying that I'm betting on that we're gonna have at least 300,000 more than this number.

Transfers in is 35,000, a little bit down from usual.

Total revenue of 53.7 million.

Personnel services went up to 43.6.

As you could tell, this is our biggest cost center.

So this is why we're we we look at this pretty hard.

Uh end of year vacancy adjustment.

Again, this is low, this is conservative, but we think we'll save at least 500,000 due to people leaving and a time it takes to recruit, hire, and train.

Operating expense, 11.3 million, uh just a little bit below from last year, and looking at it uh operating adjustment about 500,000.

Again, conservative transfers out is up a little bit uh for this year.

Uh we have economic development at 950,000, transit at 530,000, those are our matches that we need to make, MPO of 62,000, uh community development 100,000, and uh equipment into the cut uh equipment uh capital equipment fund is 1.4 million in the future, and this is a goal that I would uh like to stick to 2.5 million because it just seems like it's growing and it's kind of getting out of hand.

And uh equipment into the cut uh equipment uh capital equipment fund is 1.4 million in the future, and this is a goal that I would uh like to stick to is 2.5 million because it just seems like it's growing and it's kind of getting out of hand.

So we so we really need to concentrate on planning better in our uh equipment purchases.

So we have uh total expenses 57.1 million, and for right now, I have the Stalley Park train improvement area being paid out by cash 2.25 million, rider park ball field upgrade 3.8 million.

Part of the island oasis renovations at 4.5 total uh reserve usage of 10 million five hundred and fifty thousand dollars, ending cash at 21.7 million.

Our policies again at 25 percent is 14.2, and our excess reserves is 7.5.

Um I'm I'm comfortable with this number.

I don't want to go any lower than this number, and so uh that that's where we are with the general fund.

So if we look out, you know, five years down the road, and as usual with these projections, it's always worst case scenario, right?

So this is where you're getting into the red in 29.

Believe it's 29.

Yes.

So we will watch our upcoming years and uh keep an eye on our future.

Sales tax revenues.

Um just missing September should be out, uh, which is July sales, which will be out in one week.

I'll know that number.

So we're pretty close to what we did last year.

So uh that is it.

Public hearing is now open.

Is there anyone that would like to speak on this item?

If not, public hearing is now closed proceeding with 6B public hearing on fiscal year 2025 to 2026, general property and community redevelopment authority tax request.

Mr.

Brown, yes, uh thank you, Mayor.

Um, I just touched on this um in the last presentation again.

Uh the mill levy for the city would go from 0.2610 to 0.2415.

CRA would go to go from 0.0170 to 0.0158, and then the parking ramp across the street here.

Um, that's on the next one.

So the total the total mill levy uh that we would get for city and uh CRA goes from 0.278135 to 0.257290, and this again is requesting the same amount of property tax that we have in the last six to seven years.

Thank you.

Public hearing is now open.

Is there anyone that would like to speak on this item?

If not, public hearing is now closed.

6C public hearing on fiscal year 2025 to 2026 parking district number two ramp tax request, Mr.

Brown.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh this we are asking the same tax ask for the parking ramp.

It's nine thousand ninety dollars.

That moves the mill levy from point zero one zero four seven to point zero zero nine seven one one.

So we're we're getting down there.

So um that is it for parking ramp.

Public hearing is now open.

Is there anyone that would like to speak on this item?

If not, public hearing is now closed.

Thank you, council members.

We have completed our agenda.

We are adjourned.