Recording in progress.

Yes.

Oops, sorry.

Entertain a motion to approve the agenda.

So moved.

Any discussion?

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries and attain a motion approval of the minutes from the I'm sorry.

November 4th, 2025 Finance Committee, and November 4th, 2024 personnel committee.

So moved.

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries on to regular business.

Do you want me to go first or okay?

Um, so this year we tried something new.

We held an east side and a west side Alder listening session with the community.

Um I was attended the east side and Alder Hinkfist attended the west side one, so we're just gonna give a quick recap.

Um some things that were brought up um feedback were there was just some questions about the go big green bay.

Um some people felt that there was possibly some wasteful spending with pencils and notebooks or the prints, a lot of it, and as I inquired today if that was covered by the consulting firm themselves or um by us, and the response that I did receive today is we did um designate ARPA funds towards the consultant, and it did also include purchasing swag items and meeting supplies like water and cookies.

So that did come from ARPA funding to specify that.

Uh it was brought up asking about contracting garbage pickup, and when I inquired with uh Director Jussen on that, she said that it has been thought about, but typically other municipalities that have looked into it.

It the cost may have started out low, but over time those contracts continue to go up, and then it was out of our hands as far as um controlling what that price was.

So uh at this time it's recommended, and if you want to jump in at all, let me know.

But ultimately that keeping it in-house was probably most beneficial and more under our control with budget-wise.

So we did not see any benefit with that.

Um there was an inquiry about spring and fall cleanup, and we did mention on that night that um you know, with a lot of first of all, a lot of those vehicles are used for multiple things like snowplows, things like that.

So even if we were to reduce one thing, we still need the vehicles.

We still need the staff for other things.

So again, trying to cut costs with that did not seem like it would benefit the budget much.

Um another thing that was brought up was the bulk pickup.

We offer the large bulk pickup twice a year and then the four extra bags um throughout the year.

And I was actually I personally found this very interesting and very neat that the two times that we do it, it costs the city approximately 78,000.

But with the with offering that we do allow for people to put out extra added cost, and actually with that cost, we were bringing in 114,635 dollars in the year of 2024.

So we actually exceed uh revenue by offering that than what it costs us.

So I thought that was actually very neat.

And I don't know if we the idea was to offer it on demand and charge that person for that.

But again, there's still personal, there's still vehicles and I think having it readily available people are more likely to use the excess for a fee than if they had to call and pay for all of it for that trip.

And then lastly just an idea that was brought up nothing we have to take action on but an idea of a good neighbor business donation option to ultimately adopt a street or a sidewalk pay for the donate pay for it and then offer the city to market and advertise that business.

So instead of like adopt a highway with cleanup be able to specifically invest in that chunk and that they possibly benefit from so kind of like the good neighbor just the idea of a business being able to donate and get in on that.

So that was the feedback that we had we had a a good turnout and I was very excited to do it.

So Aldering Fisher oops sorry I'm going to thanks Albert the Westside one was held on October 30th right after the short term rental um was introduced.

So we spent a lot of time in there on short-term rentals, answering questions, listening um to what they had to say.

But what was really there was a husband and wife there that lived in the Lambeau area for 50 years.

And they talked about how the um how it has changed and how much they enjoy it.

Because they sit outside now and they see kids running around people having fun.

So just you know that's just a little tidbit and all of the stuff that we've heard on short-term rentals um that made made us smile.

The other thing was leak pickup um and I know Val you're you're new in this and we we have a roving or something online that tells us where everything is supposed to be so we there's a few of us that just like to have a dialogue um with you talking about leaves on the terrace not on the terrace how can we make it more efficient with how can the residents help and how can we help you with it still maintaining it.

So we'll we're definitely going to want to set up some time probably right after Christmas to talk about that.

And then um I'll talk to you more about snow plowing and um of the roads that we want to make sure that all the snow goes to the side that there's no houses on so that was some of the big things and then we there was tack talk of taxes um kind of where our assessed rate versus um actual and what that means Brian did a great job um of explaining that and that was those were the three big things anything I forgot.

I would just add you know and I think this is just the recurring theme that we've noticed the question around taxes most notably was centered around revaluation, right?

So the assumption that uh because their taxes went up everybody's went up by that amount and so I think it was a good opportunity to really sit down and explain how revaluation works and that uh that's not an equitable impact.

Um I think once we explain it I think they were much more understanding about what was happening.

Nope.

And just receive and place on file or do we need to take any action move on?

Okay.

Number two consideration of possible action on the request for the 2026 new positions and reclassifications recommendation to discuss during the individual departments and the 2026 budget approval do I have a second second okay any discussion all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed motion carries unanimously um on to number letter F, review and approval of the mayor's recommended 2026 budget we are going to start this section with uh the overview from the mayor.

And uh especially, like I said, for the finance department, a lot of a lot of time and and effort put into it.

So really do appreciate that.

Um just to go through uh a few of the the highlights from from my perspective.

Um, like I said with the first line of of the budget message, um, you know, nothing flashy here.

Honestly, it's it's just uh again uh a focus on what are the core services here in the city of Green Bay, um, those essential services like like public safety, um, you know, like DPW parks, you know, all the core services that people really have come to uh come to appreciate and and understand that we need to be providing effectively and efficiently um here in in the city of Green Bay.

Um again, I've been a broken record on this next point.

Um pretty much every time I've introduced the budget, I've talked about the need um for additional support from the state of Wisconsin.

Thankfully, the legislature and the governor have come through uh with shared revenue enhancements.

But in addition to that, I and a number of elders have talked about the possibility of uh a local sales tax option, um, especially if it's something that is supported uh through referendum by our residents.

Um just understanding the benefits that have accrued um with the the county having access to something like that.

Um, you know, I think they're gonna be bringing in probably close to 40 million dollars uh when all is said and done for just for this year, um, as a result of having that sales tax.

So you think about what roughly 40% of that might be if you're thinking about the city of Green Bay, um 16-ish million dollars.

Uh that's almost exactly what we are borrowing or asking to borrow in 2026.

Um, and that's really what the county has done is is to devote all of their sales tax revenue to eliminating the debt that um that they previously had had taken out.

Um so anyway, broken record on that.

But um I'm gonna continue to be a broken record until something changes dramatically at the at the state level.

Um the next point is just something that is not reflected in a line item, um, but something we've been really focused on as a as um as a city across departments here within the organization.

Um thanks to Ishu Gupta, who's a fellow in my office, um, we've been working tremendously to uh to focus our departments on data on understanding what we already collect, how we can more effectively um use that information that we're collecting and and how we as a result of that improve services uh for the residents here in in the city of Green Bay.

So gonna be continuing um to do that in the year ahead.

Uh Ishi is going to be presenting on that to our council uh hopefully in in December, I think we're shooting for.

So some more to come on that front, but just wanted to give a little bit of a preview that um that's gonna be a real focus for us uh again in 2026.

Um then in new positions, uh a little bit of an oversight in my budget message on this second point.

Um the first one though, I did talk about with that financial and data analyst in the fire department.

Um Chief Knott is doing a lot um kind of on that previous point that I was making as far as usage and deployment of of data.

Um and so we feel like that would be uh a great uh game for for him and the department to have somebody uh with some expertise in that area.

Um that next point is one that I did not mention in the message when I was talking about uh new positions.

So three uh community service officers is what we're we're looking for in the police department.

Um so we're proposing essentially to in-source city hall security.

Uh, feel like we could kill two birds with one stone by by doing that, obviously providing security at our at our front desk here on the first floor of City Hall.

But in addition to that, um offering um some, you know, kind of like a pipeline opportunity for additional CSOs to get some exposure to city business and of course the police department.

Um so hoping that uh that the council uh may support those uh those positions.

Uh then as far as the you know the the numbers themselves, uh 3.4% levy increase uh equating to um almost exactly a 3% mill rate increase uh for our property taxpayers.

Um 5.4% reduction on an equalized basis.

This gets at uh some of what Alder Hinquist was was referring to, um, just as far as the difference between assessed value and equalized value, because our property values uh continue, and I have a slide on this later, but continue to jump up so dramatically, the tax rate on an equalized basis um is really lower than it's ever been.

Um the tax rate here going from I think it's 812 um proposed to to go to 837 um, which equates roughly to $60 for the average 250,000 uh dollar home.

Uh a big uh change in in this budget, unfortunately, is an increase in debt service payments of you know over right around 2.3 million dollars.

Um, because of uh my focus and this council's focus on infrastructural investments, obviously, you know, you gotta you gotta pay for that.

The way that we pay for it is by borrowing, you know, what I was suggesting earlier is it'd be helpful if we maybe had some sales tax revenue to pay as you go for some of those investments, but um, because of interest rates going up because of those additional investments, uh borrowing has gone up as well.

And then uh, you know, finally we're really a people focused business.

Um, and so as a result of uh of that being the fact uh regular salaries going up, what 2.8 million dollars.

The way that we are proposing to deal with some of those increased costs is by increasing our turnover number.

So for those that aren't familiar, that's basically the assumption that you're gonna save some money with um you know how you experience turnover as a large organization.

And so I'm not gonna pretend like there isn't going to be any pain in that.

I think it is possible that departments will have to strategically keep some positions open longer than they may like in order to recognize that savings.

Um, but in an effort to really keep that that property tax increase in check, uh, that's what we're proposing here.

Um this just gives you that like pie chart kind of kind of understanding of uh of how uh or where our our revenue goes that's that's collected.

Uh fire department and police department obviously taking up the the lion's share um of those dollars uh because uh you know I said city government generally is people focused, that's even more so the case with police and fire, a lot of personnel working on our behalf uh every single day, and and so those uh those numbers are reflected here in the in the budget.

Um expenditures just broken down a little bit of different way, uh salaries and and fringe benefits uh together, you know, taking up I think uh almost 65% of the budget.

You'll see the debt um represented there as a as another significant chunk, and then um some others scattered.

Um again here salaries fringe and and Wisconsin retirement service payments, um 1.5 million uh increase, contractual services, another bit of that, uh, equipment and building repair, and then that big number with uh with debt service.

Increased revenue.

Um so this is a the good part of the story is I was referring to increased uh shared revenue and payments coming from the state of Wisconsin.

Those dollars are now tied to increases in in sales tax.

Uh so as long as that continues to go up, uh shared revenue will continue to bump up for municipalities across the state.

Um also an increase in municipal service payment.

So that is what municipalities receive if they have if they have uh like a state office building or university buildings in their community.

Um that's how that uh because those those properties obviously don't pay property taxes, so the state recognizes that and bump that payment up, and then transportation aid is also going up a bit.

Um we're also in that next um that that second five years of the 10-year agreement with the United Nation.

Um so that's why uh that cooperative governance uh agreement payment uh is going up, fees and services and EMS revenue going up a bit, and uh license and permits because of the council's decision to um to agree with some staff recommendations to bump those up.

Uh and then interest revenue uh coming down a little bit with interest rates projected to come down in in 2026.

Yeah, I'll depict this.

Yeah, so this that that number is the increase in the overall payment.

So I think it's like 500 to 550 or 525.

525 to 575.

Yeah, yeah, and this just uh this uh chart just goes back to what I was saying as far as property valuation is concerned, um, you know, really almost doubling in 10 years, um, which is kind of hard to believe, but uh, but that's been the track record uh here with uh with property values.

Um and then this is another way of comparing equalized and assessed value.

Um as some of you may remember, the the state requires uh revaluation if you fall outside of is it 10% on 10% on either side of uh of you know one to one value essentially.

Um and so as you can see, uh we are far outside of that already, even though we just did a revaluation in 2022.

So on track for another one in 27.

Um, but just to give people a little bit of a preview, property values have not gone down at all, and instead have, like I said earlier, gone up pretty significantly.

Um this time around, though, we are hoping, and it seems as though it's the case that commercial values um are tracking a little bit closer to residential.

Um that wasn't the situation last time around.

So there was a little bit of that imbalance that residential property taxpayers um you know bear the burden on.

Um this time around, hopefully that's that's not uh there isn't that much of a disparity.

Uh city tax rate here.

Uh again, this just kind of demonstrates that gap between the equalized and assessed equalized value or uh tax rate um way down at 649.

Um and uh and unassessed, it's 812 going to proposed to go to 837.

Um this just gives you a breakdown.

Obviously, um the city of Green Bay is not the only entity that that assesses property taxes.

Um we also have our school district uh in our county uh and WTC.

So this just gives you a sense of the proportion there.

City's at about 37% of that.

And then here it just goes back to reinforce um what I said about assistance uh at the state level.

If um the the payments that we were receiving back in 1999 were adjusted for inflation in 2025 dollars, uh we'd be receiving 24 million dollars more than we get from the state of Wisconsin.

Um so you think about a budget that's 143 million dollars, uh 24 million dollars would be a huge proportion of that.

So again, just reinforcing what you know, we um many of us have been advocating for for a long time, which is just you know, increased assistance from uh from the state because if we don't receive it or we don't receive additional flexibility, um that burden on property taxpayers just continues to to bump up.

So that's what I got for you.

Any questions?

One um, I know we discussed what the increased salaries for staff, what it totals.

What is that percentage-wise for colour was that two percent cola?

Um two and a half, two and a half two and a half percent.

And then, of course, as you know, we have a step system.

Um, so that two and a half doesn't necessarily reflect entirely what you know how employee compensation is going up, but yeah, the cola is two and a half.

Okay, thank you.

Obviously, it's it's not necessarily on um our things to vote on, but uh what is it what amount were you possibly proposing for that sales tax?

Um, I mean we we haven't really gotten to that point.

Um, you know, what the what the county does is a half cent.

So when I was kind of running through that scenario, that was with the city being able to to um to have a half cent sales tax.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

How much of the sales tag at the county is generated by the city of that half percent?

Yeah, so I mean, I was using 40% because that's roughly our population share.

I think it's possible that um, you know, we might be able to get that number from the DOR, what is actually generated by the city of Green Bay, um, because I think it's possible that it's actually higher than 40%, but as a population basis, that's roughly what it is.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

All right, thanks again.

Yeah, I'm not going anywhere.

So if you have any other questions, let me know.

Okay, then yes.

Um I thank you, Chair.

I'm just wondering how we um, as far as open the floor, if anybody has anything to say in general, um, you know, like right now or okay motion open.

Well, but I can't because I'm not on your committee.

Okay.

If there's anybody here who would like to speak, can just approach the podium, state your name and address.

For the reckoning of time.

Second.

No, it's it's a good end thought.

All right.

Uh all those in favor of closing the floor, say aye.

Aye.

Okay, the floor is closed.

So we'll go through then one at a time on item one, common council.

Any questions or discussion there?

Okay, I have a motion to approve by Alder Johnson to have a second.

Okay, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed, motion carries.

Number two, mayor's office.

Any questions in this one?

Okay.

Second.

All those in favor say aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries.

Number three, administrative services.

Any questions for discussion?

Um, I do have one question here.

I'm sorry.

Uh page 40 for reference and the finding line number 53001 contractual services.

What is it did?

Um increase.

I was just curious.

Is that for the reassessment?

Starting the process.

Yeah, go ahead.

Um do I have the right one on?

Um, yes, um, over 50,000 of that increase is from our revaluation.

We ended up splitting the revaluation over three year time period.

So we paid 57,000 in the 25 budget and then 125 in the 26 budget, and then we'll go back down to 50,000 in the 27 budget.

And so it's an increase over the contractual services for our reval.

Mostly what the increase is is the okay, yeah.

Correct.

All right.

Any other questions?

Go ahead, Alder Hinfess.

Uh question regarding the training and travel.

Um, I'm all supportive of that.

I'm assuming they've just increased these are standard conferences that you guys attend every year.

Wait, what can you mention?

Page 39 5201.

I mean, it's going up seven percent, but I'm just assuming it's I can take a look by department.

Um, yeah, I there is nothing um specific in there for um I I think each department probably just has a small increase.

Okay, all right.

Okay, any other questions?

All right, so I have a motion to approve and a second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye opposed, motion carries.

Number four, information technology and equipment replacement.

Okay, I have a motion to approve by Alder Johnson, second by Alder Galvin.

Any questions?

Um, I do have one page 49 line 55140, equipment replacement.

What equipment?

Uh okay.

I will start.

I'll start and explain this one.

Um, the number is exactly the same as last year.

We just had it in a different part of the um budget.

Last year it was in the 421 fund, which is our IT replacement fund, it's a capital fund.

And since these are ongoing annual um replacements, we've now moved it back to the general fund.

And so um, once we get to page the 421 fund, you'll see that the 180 has just been moved.

Okay, we were levying money into the the capital fund, and again, these are truly operational funds.

So dollar moan is flat.

Okay, perfect.

Thank you.

Any other questions on this area?

Yellow.

Oh, go ahead.

Other question that I have is when you're talking about budget constraints, um, maximizing ROI on I IT, demonstrating clear return on investment, uh, particularly in the areas of cloud migration, uh, AI integration and digital transformation.

Are we trying to migrate most things to the cloud?

No, I'm reading oh no, he's kidding, he's kidding.

We're not actively we're not actively trying to migrate, but as systems naturally move to the cloud, we move to the cloud.

I mean, probably savings there from a data's perspective if you can put it in a cloud versus well it's sometimes it costs more, okay, but we don't have to maintain it internally.

We can reclaim those resources for other uses internally.

Okay.

Okay, any other questions or discussion?

All right, then we have motion to approve.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye opposed, motion carries on to law department number five.

All right, any questions for discussion?

Well, hi.

Hi, go ahead, Alder Hodgson.

Um, I just have a general question.

I I noticed the regular salaries was uh minus point one percent.

And I looked at the uh the schematic of the law department.

Is that because the deputy city attorney was replaced by paralegal, or what's the uh reason for that?

Uh do I have the right one?

That's yes, yep, absolutely.

So we have eight total positions, and I'm proposing to reclassify the deputy city attorney position, which is obviously you know is my former position and has been vacant since I took this position to a paralegal.

Our our current or former paralegal is obviously the advanced paralegal now.

So just a strategy to align those positions differently.

Okay, and this is okay, thank you.

Perfect.

Can I ask Attorney Coach?

So page 56.

I'm 53021 legal expenses.

For 2025, the projected amount is quite higher, obviously, than 2024.

And now it's back down.

Can you explain the jumps in that?

Sure.

I can.

There's a um a significant amount that was projected in there for a couple of matters.

We maybe have talked about this previously on some tax appeals and then uh a specific lease and some other things that we didn't end up spending all the money that we planned on.

Okay.

Or we have spent money in other years, and we planned that that continued, but we didn't spend it this year.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Any other questions in this area?

All right, then all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries unanimously.

Number six.

Municipal court.

Okay questions or discussion.

I seem to remember last time he wasn't here and we took something out, and then he showed up real fast.

So I make a motion to cut the entire budget.

There's no second for that.

What?

Move to approve.

Second.

Okay, any other questions or discussion?

All those in favor say aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries.

On to number seven human resources.

Second.

Okay.

Any questions or discussion on this section?

Um I will start with one if that's okay.

Page 68.

Line item 5201.

I think Alder Hinkfist was kind of um inquiring about this in the general area, but the training um did go up.

I know it's not a huge number, but can we just get a little background on that?

Oh, sorry.

Okay.

Uh you bet that's uh the normal conferences and trainings, labor relations, some technology, wellness, culture, and uh the Sherm conferences throughout the year.

So training and travel includes all of the conferences that we have been attending over the years.

Who's typically traveling to the is it?

It'd be it's local, it's within the state.

Okay.

Yeah, there may be one or two that's a little bit out, but they're more mainly down to Madison, uh Isle Cart Lake, so local Wapelra type things.

Sherm is in Madison, so they're within the state.

Okay.

Is it mostly admin going to those traveling ones or it's all of us?

It is.

Well, not all of us, but it's all categories of the HR department.

Okay.

And then um on page 69, item 5207 for recruiting.

Again, not a huge amount, but I do see an increase.

Is that just to kind of help with filling things?

Yeah, we had a really high spend this year.

We had three director level positions that were vacant, which of course has a has a pretty big cost to it.

Uh found some efficiencies in reference checking where we bought into uh not a not a very small price project, but a small uh agreement to do automated reference checking, which is helping out tremendously across the city.

Um so yeah, and what I've heard over the past, you might not see it in 24 and 25, but it's been high on and off throughout the years.

Last year was a high year, and we're just preparing for another high year.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any other questions on this section?

All right, I have a motion to approve in a second.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Oppose that motion carries on to number eight community and economic development.

All right, any questions or discussion on this section?

Yes, go ahead, Alder Johnson.

Uh Director Renirwig.

The um, of course, this is sometimes the danger of knowing the inner workings of the department.

Uh where is Placer budgeted and is it still budgeted?

Yeah.

That's got that one.

It's typically out of our marketing budget.

Um Placer uh next year came back with a higher fee, almost actually more than doubling.

So we don't anticipate subscribing to that service in the future.

We're gonna look at alternatives tools that we could use that are more affordable.

I can give you a recommendation on that front separately, but okay.

And full transparency, the reason I'm asking is you guys know I I wasn't fond of the bids having to pay.

It doesn't affect me and my employer because we actually get access through it through Wisconsin Main Street, but the other two I do if they were still paying, I was gonna make an adjustment there, but um happy to talk with you offline then about some of the alternatives I've seen in the market.

Sounds great.

Um I have a question, page 775121 lease payment for 90,000 that's a lease payment for our vehicles, our inspection vehicles.

Okay.

Yeah.

Uh um, it's similar to what I just um explained about the IT.

We also did that for four other departments that have lease vehicle lease um equipment.

We have in inspections, and then we have in um police uh DB uh DPW and in parks.

All four of them.

We had them in capital funds, and so we were levying into a capital fund.

These are not capital uh equipment, these are actually l leased equipment.

So we have now moved the exact dollar the dollars from out of the four twenty three twenty-five, four twenty-six and four twenty-seven funds.

So when we get to those pages, you will see the exact almost the same amount moved over year over year from last year to this year.

We did increase by twenty-three thousand dollars or uh about four percent.

I think it's it was a small amount.

So it's uh we went from four hundred and twenty thousand to I mean sorry, five hundred and twenty thousand to five hundred and forty-four thousand.

We pay for total leases of vehicles.

It's about ninety-one on vehicles that are being leased through our release program.

So there was almost no increase um well year over year.

We just moved it from one budget to another.

Sorry, can you say that what was the total lease payment?

Under the general levy, it's 521,000 was last year.

This year it's 544,000 for leased equip um leased vehicles through enterprises or uh vendor.

And I apologize, how many vehicles did you say we're at?

Um that is a total of twenty on ninety-one, but I apologize that it's gonna include a few sanitarian storms, so and so it's probably more like 85 vehicles that are being um right now.

So in the last five years we've increased and we have 85 vehicles on a lease program instead of borrowing for them.

We used to years back, we used to bond uh for a few vehicles every year, and now we have moved them into lease programs and they're in the operating budget and no longer being um borrowed for and paid interest on.

Okay, and just to kind of put it in perspective out of this 90,000, how many vehicles is that covering?

I do believe inspections has 15.

15.

Okay.

Thank you.

Any other questions on this section?

Go ahead, Alder Johnson.

Oh, sorry, you'll uh next.

Uh here linebacker, I I think that's the second item, at least it's been brought up, and maybe there's more hidden in here where you had said they we maybe historically have bonded for something but shifted it to the budget, which I'm gonna applaud that again.

But do you have a sense of an aggregate what that impact is this year?

I didn't know if that was a separate calculation that you'd conducted.

I am not sure that there were any real big changes this year, but over the last course of a couple years we have been moving things back off of um long-term borrowing if it truly doesn't meet the capitalization policy that was really just uh we've been put we put into place a couple years ago and now have been we just updated.

So if it doesn't meet the capital policy, we're bringing it into the operational budget.

Um I don't know if there was a large change.

So um when I say it was moved from a capital fund, um, it was just being tracked and ran through a different fund, a 400 series fund.

We were still levying for it.

So in last year it was also we weren't bonding we weren't bonding for those.

So big flat changes we made.

We moved IT's annual replacement of computers out of what we call the capital fund.

We were already leveling foring and we were not borrowing for it in the last couple of years.

There was a time we did same thing for vehicles.

So now over the last course of three to five years, we it's been in our operating budget.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Okay, and Alder Egg.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, yes, I I'm I just gonna ask about on page 77 um 5908 neighborhood associations.

Um I know it's zero for uh 2024 and then it's 10,000.

Um and it says specifically uh in the description that it's for mini grant requests.

And I know that when we had ARBA funds, we we um put 30,000 towards that over the next that next three years, and it was specifically for mini grants.

Um I guess I wondering do we want to stick with that or could it be a more general rather than it being specified?

I know Alder Johnson made that motion to make it specifically for mini grants, but I did I I guess what are your thoughts back when it was the ARPA funds?

Yes, it was.

I remember very clearly.

Um so anyway, yep.

Yes it was I remember very clearly um so anyway maybe explaining that so historically the city has funded mini grant programs for associations in the past um we replaced that with ARPA funding um back in 23 we've now exhausted that ARPA when our last round of funds for neighborhood associations for mini grant work so I put it I just put it back in the budget at the 10,000 historically it's been used for really kind of bricks and mortary types of it or events um I mean I have a listing of things that it's been spent on but what was your question on it should if it should be well because it says it's specifically for mini grant requests and yeah so I just I didn't I guess I didn't realize historically that you it was 10,000 a year for mini grants it seemed like that was a higher amount than before.

Yeah.

It was uh well in 2018 19 and 20 um the city allocated 1000 and then in 21 it was five twenty two it was seventy five hundred and then it was the ARPA funding which was a big allocation that included mini grants and included um our City Hall Academy some um I think some um crime prevention money was all in that big um pot of money and I think we're down to about 4500 left in the ARPA funds and there's another round of mini grants coming up in the fall and there could be one I think in the spring as well and the money will be gone so I'm looking to budget this for next year for associations.

Okay thank you.

All right Cheryl are you saying you have 4500 left for neighborhood associations and then in the budget this is an additional 10,000 that you're adding for neighborhoods so there's a round of mini grants that are coming up I think soon um in November.

And that I don't I'm not sure if that was 25 or 30 thousand this round but that will really bring that account down.

I just wanted to make sure that it's not only 10,000 because there are neighbors associations are extremely valuable to the community so we're sure we can I I'm thinking 1000 would be good for next year now the year after that and I may ask for more but any other questions we we supplement that as well with GBN money.

GBN fundraises so and they have their own budget as well that we we I can match that 10,000 from the city with privately raised money to go towards mini grants.

Any amount that they raised 5000 you'll match 5000 yeah I mean usually the we budget annually the GBN I think it's 10 or 2000 budget for mini grants and then we just we use that as well as the city money.

Okay.

Public private partnership okay any other questions and I have a motion to approve all those in favor say aye guys go we're voting all those in favor say aye.

Aye opposed motion carries unanimously on to uh number nine police department and equipment replacement second okay any questions or discussion on this section.

Yes go ahead Alder thank you chair um yeah I was just um curious on page 86 um the changes in I'll just list all four of them the natural gas went up by quite a bit the telephone went way down the cell phones went up so I kind of wonder if there was a switch around on that one um the data cards I guess I was kind of wondering about that because it went 28,500 but then the actuals 57013 for 2025 and then well the projected is 500 and then there was zero for 2026.

So I feel like there's probably a switch around going on but I was wondering if you could explain that sure uh the natural gas went up because we've taken over the expenses related to the press event building um and so you'll see some other increases in other places related to that and then you're right uh there are some switching around that was done we moved the data cards into cell phones um we made some other adjustments of uh just to clean up basically to put things in categories that were more appropriate for them okay thank you questions go ahead Holder um on page 86 line five five one two one the lease payment um I had a question on the the fact it went up 51 percent um what does that entail one two one so that includes a few things that's the uh the axon agreement we uh that had expired and so we're in a new one and that cost has gone up significantly uh there's also a number of leased vehicles in there for at least non marked patrol vehicles we're trying to move to more leased vehicles because that saves us a lot of money and reduces borrowing um and what was our favorite uh yes uh we lease Harley Davidson motorcycles for our traffic safety unit um and we moved that

We uh that had expired, and so we're in a new one, and that cost has gone up significantly.

Uh there's also a number of leased vehicles in there for at least non-marked patrol vehicles.

We're trying to move to more leased vehicles because that saves us a lot of money and reduces borrowing.

Um yes, uh, we lease Harley Davidson motorcycles for our traffic safety unit.

Um, and we moved that from its own place in the budget into lease payments again, just some of that cleanup we were trying to do to true things up with where they belong.

Okay, good, good.

Thank you.

And can I ask you the same question?

Roughly how many vehicles is your department leasing between motorcycles and patrol vehicles?

Boy.

Probably 11.

Does that include the motorcycles?

Okay, okay so around that.

Yes.

So about 15 then it's really not viable yet for patrol vehicles, but hopefully uh that will it will be sometime in the future.

Perfect, thank you.

Any other Alder Galvin?

State grants.

Okay, one second.

Last year we budgeted for 299.

Looks like yeah, let's line it on the page place.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

Page 83, 4351.

State grants.

We budgeted 2025.

Actual was 123.

We projected again 299.

We pretty sure we're gonna get those grants.

Because we're we got half, not quite half this year of what we projected.

That was an excellent question.

Why does it have it?

Yeah, why is it not showing up in the actuals?

The the budgeted amount is right, you know, just 121 of that is alone is the state beat cop grant, and then we have some traffic safety grants.

But what I'm trying to understand is why the actual I thought more came through finance than 123, but well, the these are state grants, and we also have federal grants.

So we've got you know, we have a couple of different federal cops office grants that wouldn't be included in this line item.

But yeah, we're I'm trying to work with Rick to understand because it's a very good question why the actuals for 24 and 25 didn't match the budgeted projection.

I'm just looking at I'm I'm assuming there are grants out there that you're gonna apply, that's over 300,000.

Right, but we won't we won't count those in our budget until we are awarded them typically.

Um we can we can find out why the difference between 24 and 25 actuals to the projections and get back to you.

But um these are most of these state grants are things that we get regularly, like the state beat cop grant, and then putting reliable traffic safety grants.

Yep.

Go ahead, Dr.

Allenbecker.

Yep, um, I would just add we also have uh a fund called 825, and that's where actually police most of the police grants go full.

I'm general levy portion, and this could be just timing of drawing down the funds for the for the year so far.

I mean, I've drawn drawn down the third or fourth quarter yep.

And then I just wanted to make a comment on your workers' comp.

Down 31.1%.

That is huge.

And I see a lot of work comp going down.

That means we're doing something right with safety because we're comp can be a huge expense.

Um, and bringing you know our accidents down overall is just fabulous.

That can be it's down 31.

Alder profitable.

I kind of have a two-fold question, and it's more just related to like some of the introductory information that's included.

So on page 79 with the org chart, that public record specialist number changing from two to four.

Is that two additional positions?

No, those were reclassified from transcriptionists.

Okay.

And then I guess the second part of the question, or just more of a it is a question.

Um, the inclusion of video requests in that table.

There was nothing in 2023.

Is that like a new data point to track the volume of video requests and hours of video requested?

Has that been was that being done at all in 2023?

That's a that's a lot of hours.

That's a lot of requests.

It's a lot for staff to go through.

So makes sense to have four public record specialists.

I don't know if they're the ones pulling that, but has that been done prior to 2024?

The work has been done.

We have not been including it in the performance measures on our budget comments until this year.

Okay.

So I would just say, like I really appreciate that.

That's a a lot of hours to go through.

I know we've seen video footage here pulled um on various hearings.

So that's a great data point to track, just for my opinion.

Johnson Chief, quick question.

Uh Elder Hutchinson was alluding to it before, but the the leases, does that also include the evidence storage building?

Is that in that category?

No.

That's that's tracked elsewhere.

Yes.

Okay.

I just didn't know if that was potentially contributing to that increase as well.

Pardon me.

I just didn't know if that was potentially contributing to that increase, but it's totally different area.

Yeah.

Okay.

Somewhere else.

Yep.

Uh, and then, you know, we kind of ask this question almost every year.

But uh the number of sworn positions that we're budgeting relative to your ability to fill them with qualified candidates.

How's that looking right now?

Um well, I don't want to jinx us, but right now it's it's looking better than it has been.

Uh, you know, we just hired seven new people.

We're seeing, and it's not huge numbers, but we are seeing more interest from lateral police officers, both in state and out of state.

Uh, we have some plans for the upcoming year to do some targeted recruiting, maybe in some places uh here in Wisconsin and in other states where we might find people who are interested in coming here.

Um, so I maintain my cautious optimism that that's gonna get better for us.

Um it's certainly we're doing better than a lot of other agencies, especially larger ones.

Um, but we and and we still have the other ingredient in that problem to contend with for another year or two.

All this massive hiring that was done in the early to mid-90s, up to about 2,000 in the original cops funding push.

Nationally, we hired tons of police officers during that time, and they're all becoming eligible to retire, but we're nearing the tail end of that attrition problem.

How many how many of those positions are open right now?

We have I believe it's 13 right now.

Okay.

It it changes on a daily basis, it seems like that.

But that's if I recall, that's less than a year ago at this time.

Um that last hiring group helped.

But the downside is I'm anticipating six retirements in 2026.

Okay.

Um obviously we're part of the safety meeting downtown uh around some of the incidents uh happening in the east side in particular.

Um, one of the things we talked about briefly, um, though we haven't followed up since was uh, you know, sort of foot patrol officers, becops, whatever your your uh term is.

Um you know, I I recently had some feedback from some residents about continued behavior.

So I'm just uh curious if you're in need of additional resources to help combat that issue.

Could that be community service officers?

Uh how are how are we addressing that?

And do you have adequate resources to do so?

So we're addressing that on a few fronts.

We're we've been working with the schools because some of that problem down there involves um a pretty regular group of juvenile offenders and people who are at risk for all kinds of uh either as a victim sometimes or a perpetrator of different criminal activity.

And so we've started a project with the schools based on focused deterrence to try and get with some of these chronic offenders and and intervene with them in a way that brings services to them as well as making sure they're put on notice that there are consequences for criminal behavior and and to try to divert them to a different path than the one they're on.

Where we can we assign resources down there that usually is done on overtime.

I think if you look into the future of the city, one of the things we will have to contend with as uh there's more residential development downtown is how we deploy police officers down there.

Um of the other things that I would like to start doing is taking almost a place network investigation approach to downtown.

Um so you know, I get asked a lot of times, well, do you need more police officers?

Well, yes, everyone does, but as you say, we can't hire into all the vacancies that we have.

So we're looking for ways to use the resources we have more efficiently.

Um crime analysts can be a very big help for problems like that uh to help you understand what's driving them and attack the root causes of those issues so that we're not constantly responding to the same things over and over again.

Um but right now the really what the main effort that we've done there is to use overtime to devote resources down there when it's starting to get bad.

The downside of that is that we tend to burn people out because there is a lot of overtime to meet even minimum patrol staffing levels.

Uh and then you're just you know, you're not working on those root causes of whatever the issue is down there.

Okay.

And I appreciate that.

And uh you know, obviously, appreciate the insight too in terms of what you're doing to address it.

Clearly, this is not the the meeting, you know, where we tackle that detail, but I think you gave us enough to to understand.

Um and again, I just go back to wanting to make sure that you have the resources right that are required to to actually address that challenge.

I don't want to say, you know, here's a bunch of money for something that's just a flash in the pan, but if this is going to continue to be a persistent issue, if that requires more consistent presence, you know, other than allocating as needed.

I I just want to be able to have that conversation.

Of course, this is just the committee meeting.

We're gonna go to full council yet, but um, one of the things that maybe I would offer up is if you think something is necessary or required uh to really help effectively address that problem.

Maybe we talk between meetings.

Sure.

Um I don't want to put you on the spot and say what do you need, but it's I just I know how much of a pain point that's creating, not only for the businesses, but a lot of the people that live there.

Um, you know, I I just don't want that to become a thing that starts to uh fester and deter people from visiting or living downtown.

Sure.

And to your question, do we have enough resources?

Um we don't, but the reason why is that we've been carrying so many vacant positions, and I do think that if we are able to hire up to full strength, which we have every intention of doing, um, I that will take a lot of that pressure off and it'll allow us to dedicate those resources to that area and others where we have chronic problems.

You know, we're carrying vacancies currently in our community policing program right now, which could be used to focus on issues like that.

And so it's it's not so much a matter of not having enough positions or enough money in the budget.

It really is just filling those positions that have been chronically vacant for so long and then being as efficient as we can be so we can focus the resources where they're needed.

So I I would not come to you and ask for more sworn police positions right now, just based on the situation we're in.

Yeah, and that's where again I I'm not certainly gonna encroach and say, well, what about this option?

You're the expert.

You know, but that's uh, you know, where if there's even a non-sworn position that could be useful, you know, whatever creativity you think is appropriate to address the issue.

Yeah.

Sure.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I know there's 13 open positions, but how many positions total if all of them were full?

Would it be?

There'd be 190.

So that has not changed from last year.

Okay.

Any other questions or discussion?

Alderak.

Thank you, Chair.

Um, page 83.

Um seasonal salaries 5003, the bottom of the page.

Um it says 120,000, which is up quite a bit.

Um, just wondering if you could explain that one.

Yeah, that's the addition of the three full-time CSO positions and then an adjustment to the salary for the CSO position that makes it more competitive with other agencies.

That's that line item, and that's probably another place we'll need to through up next year and put that somewhere more appropriate than seasonal salaries, but that's where we kept the CSO program up to now.

Okay, so it's it's not it's not going to be a seasonal thing, but it's just put there for a placeholder, basically.

Yeah, that's where the CSO program has lived up to now in our budget, and so that's where we park that the money for the three full-time positions.

And they're full-time permanent positions.

Yes, ma'am.

All right, thank you.

Um, it's a small amount again, but I'm just curious.

On page 83, line item 4412.

Regular alarm 30,000.

Did we what is that?

Is that alarm permit?

That's our alarm permit program, and we pay an outside entity to oversee that for us, and then there's a revenue item somewhere that should offset that from the alarm fees and uh fines.

Okay.

I think that is the revenue.

Oh, that's the revenue one, sorry.

Yep.

Oh yeah.

Do you have a question, Alder Johnson?

To provide a little clarity, Alder Grant.

Um, that's specifically for uh alarms for burglars.

I'm glad we're capturing that revenue then.

Any other questions or discussion?

I don't even know how to follow that.

Questions or discussion?

All right, we have a motion on the floor.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries unanimously on to fire.

Approved.

Second.

Okay, questions and discussion.

Oh, sorry, Alder Johnson.

Go ahead.

Chief, I'm gonna ask the question that some of us are talking about behind the scenes.

Overtime.

Nope.

There we go.

Okay.

Yes, absolutely.

Uh overtime is always a factor.

I'd really like to sit down with with everybody to explain like how the overtime works.

Um, so with our with our staffing, uh 50 50 people working a day.

Um, you know, some days we incur overtime, and that's based on planned absences.

We do allow contractually certain number of vacation days, and then add all of the other factors into it.

Um, we're very cognizant of our time.

Uh we've we've worked to try to make adjustments to that.

We've also tried to increase that as we go.

We also proposed a plan to add additional firefighters to offset that.

Um, and there's a there's a break, there's a balance point there, you know, and and that's what we're we're willing to explore and and we'll continue to explore that as maybe a feasible alternative to this to bring those numbers down.

So I think that you know, specifically the conversation, right?

Just we I can't remember how many years ago it was three, two, right?

We added six.

Yeah, before my arrival.

Yeah, it was.

Yeah, but we added six new firefighters to offset that, and it doesn't seem like it's been offset.

Yeah, and I would agree since that point we did also add an ambulance, and then we also um reach a contract agreement with one of the other communities that we serve.

And so both of those had numbers in place that just basically we know with all the time and all the factors, we need about 1.4 people per riding position.

And currently we're we're probably less just a slightly less than 1.3.

So that's really the factor that drives us, is that it's just just people, and and again, we have 50 seats we need to fill every day, and when we dip below that with the available staffing, that specific day we then cur overtime associated with it.

Okay.

I mean I presume what's driving that though is when uh are they sick days or no it well, and I could I have a uh specific chart that shows us, and like I said, it's uh I'll send it to you today, tonight yet.

Um, that shows us, and it is specifically we we have 65 people assigned per shift, uh, and there's 50 riding positions, and you start tack tacking off the nine days that people are on vacations, uh some other uh, you know, whether it's FMLA, whether it's uh sick leave or or long-term injuries, you know, it starts whittling that down, it puts us really close to that number.

That's what I was talking about.

That factor of uh a staffing factor of 1.4 is really that industry norm, and again, we're below that at this point.

So those changes, like uh again, we would be a much more serious situation if we didn't add those additional people.

But yeah, you know, the question is was that was that enough at that point?

Um, because again, we've had some structural changes to organizations since that point.

Um it seems to me like some of those would be static, right?

You you know what the vacation is gonna be.

Yep.

I mean, even sick, right?

Has the limit, but uh fMLA to me would be a variable.

Uh special events could be a variable.

Um I'm just curious if you've seen a spike in the variable things that might be driving the overtime.

Uh not necessarily.

Like I said, all of those are are not our planned, it's just the number of of bodies that we have.

Um and like I said, we did we have a uh proposal that looks at actually increasing staffing to as a way to offset that overtime.

Uh and again, it's just that balance of whether whether the staffing or or the overtime is and where we want to be necessarily.

So, but there is definitely a break-even point.

And I think you know, we can get there.

Um, we also looked at, you know, if there's any future mergers or anything, we need to account for that because at this point we haven't necessarily accounted for that in those mergers.

And so it's a static staff of whether it's for an engine to an ambulance, but we know the factors are higher than that, and we need to account for it.

Okay.

Thanks.

To build off that really quick, how many vacant positions do we have right now?

Uh zero.

Oh, okay.

Alder.

We're actually actually have plus two because um we did get permission over higher.

So we have we have multiple anticipated retirements this fall, and those would be filled through at Trian then, or what these people would fill those roles.

So we're actually too heavy at this point.

Okay.

Alder Kelvin, sorry, did you have thank you?

Uh Chief, I'm trying to remember where did we add on the extra ambulance?

That that would be the the ability said station nine, perhaps, or is that or that is that we you just said we added on an extra ambulance?

Oh, uh to station seven.

That was that at that point.

Far, far east.

Correct.

So we have five six.

We have six five and seven.

Oh, and and also station two and three.

Yeah.

Two and three also have ambulances.

So we've got five ambulances.

Six total.

Six, okay.

Station E is the other one.

And then uh even though we add staff on, as soon as we do, and we renegotiate the contract, they ask for more people off.

And if I remember correctly, we usually grant that as part of the negotiation process.

So, how does adding more on when we allow more off going to alleviate the situation we're running into?

Sure.

And there's a the balance and like I said, the contractual uh obligations we we work to balance that.

So it would again the factor includes that number.

Um, so as we more add more people on, again, the contractually we're obligated to design one additional vac one additional vacation day or one of those vacation slots or one of those vacation blocks, but uh you know, again that factor looks into that and accounts for that.

So and if I remember I'm trying to remember back to the last time we talked about your overtime.

I thought there was gonna be a study done.

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought there was a study that was going to be done to kind of quantify where the overtime is going.

Correct.

How it's going.

And we did that.

Um, and I uh believe we sent that to the committee, and again, 72% roughly is is what is actually those cover those spots in the seats, and again, that's the bulk of where overtime goes.

You know, we're very cognizant on our off-duty other activities and events, and we've actually worked to eliminate and reduce some of those.

How many of those are due to workman's comp?

How much of that do you remember is due to workman's comp?

Uh that I don't have broken down, but I can we can certainly work to do that.

Okay, thank you.

Yep.

Comp line down 23% from that different key.

Correct.

Um, Chief Knott, and looking at the overtime for covering PTO, that 72% you mentioned.

Do you happen to have like what stations um are taking advantage of that more frequent?

I shouldn't say taking advantage, but I'm just looking at like the west side that it appears there's 74 positions.

The east side, if you're just looking at the city of Green Bay, it's 85.

Um, so there's nine, but then when you include Alloway and Bellevue, I mean there's 118 covering east side, and then there's 74 covering the west side.

So just kind of wondering if there's a particular station, it looks like station four only has 12 staff there if if they tend to account for you know the rough person.

I don't want to go get you in the weeds with this, but you know where I'm going.

Right.

I see where you're going.

And and certainly, you know, that's something we can look at.

That's with that new position.

We hope to really be able to drill in this stuff that we haven't been able to do very well.

So historically, so these are some factors we'll look at definitely next year and really see if we can drill this down and and provide that.

But again, no serious things have been noted as far as like a specific station or anything like that.

So thanks.

Thank you.

I have a question on page 93.

51508.

What is that?

It went up dramatically from 2024 to 2025, and now it's yeah, projected high again.

So I was just curious what was that?

Yeah, unfortunately, this is a uh, yeah.

Unfortunately, this is due to a line of duty death that we sustained last year.

So that's what that stands for.

Okay.

Sorry, that we have abbreviation, so it's hard to know what those things are.

Okay.

And any other questions or discussion.

Okay, we have a motion on four.

Those in favor say aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries unanimously.

We are on to public works then.

Entertain a motion.

Okay, do I have a second?

Second.

Okay.

Questions and discussion on this.

Uh head Alder Hutchinson.

Yeah.

Uh Director Juice.

Okay.

Um under 500 01 regular salaries on page 104.

Um the percent increase is 10.4.

And it seemed a little off.

Um could you explain the numbers in that line?

Yeah.

So we did something a little different with our accounting.

Um in the past, uh, the stormwater and sanitary sewer utility would contribute um funds for admin and overhead.

And so that was accounted for in that line item.

Um the contribution is still being done.

We're just accounting for it in a different different line item.

So our actual increase is only about three and a half percent, just for you know, um the step increase and the two and a half percent cola.

So it's not actually ten percent, it's just showing that because of the redistribution, right?

Okay, thank you.

And welcome to the um budget process.

Thank you, Chair.

Um okay, on page 105 under car allowances, it just it's gone up 463 percent.

So I'm just wondering what the change is on that.

Yeah, so the the amount is only 3,000, so it's not a large sum.

Um previously, some of those charges were going to the capital fund, and those would be operating expenses, so we've corrected that.

Okay, so just switch it around.

So it's just mileage.

Uh, we don't have enough vehicles uh for our inspectors, we don't have enough of the lease vehicles, so they have to use their personal vehicle and this reimbursement.

Or perhaps if someone's traveling to training.

Okay.

And then also the clothing allowance.

I know this went up quite a bit.

37%.

Yes, so um currently our operations division does not get a cold clothing allowance.

Um, so these are field employees.

And um we put some additional funds in there to hope to provide something this year for them.

They put they they purchased their own yellow high visitable visibility shirts.

So we're hoping to um provide something.

It may not be you know a hundred percent coverage for the whole week, but we set aside some budget for that.

Okay, thank you.

Can we go over on page 105301 contractual services?

So what we're I understand this was ran October 27th, but the actual for 2025 is 65,000, but we're projecting almost 500,000 for next year.

Yeah, and so there's contractual services, so we have multiple different divisions uh between operations, engineering, and facilities and bridges.

Um, I think what was happening is um not all of the uh contractual services like for in construction inspection was needed this year.

Um, so maybe the amount wasn't wasn't there, but um as we took a look at everything across the board, uh especially with the new facilities and bridges division, we're expecting to have to contract for more engineering related services.

So um in each of the divisions, things may have gone up a bit.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Any other questions or discussion?

Okay, then motion to approve sound core.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Uh that passes unanimously on to parks, recreation, and forestry equipment replacement.

Entertain a motion.

Okay.

Questions and discussion on this Alder Johnson, go ahead.

Director Ditchite, um, very coincidentally, uh, I ran into uh David Charles earlier today.

One of the things we were talking about was Bay Beach and uh sometimes the maybe shortage or challenge of um having enough capacity for uh maintenance or mechanics.

Just curious if that's a problem you're continuing to experience and if you've contemplated maybe contracting out specialized pieces or I mean, is there anything there that we can do to ensure that you've got the staff you need so that the downtime on our rides is kept to a minimum?

So a couple things with that.

One is first of all, uh Bay Beaches has a separate budget, uh, as you know.

So whatever we do there doesn't affect the levy.

Uh so if we hire more staff, that takes away from the bottom line as far as how much profit Bay Beach makes.

And when you do that, you might have to increase rates accordingly, uh, just so that you're bringing in enough revenues just to pay the bills and still have enough money to do uh renovations.

Uh this last particular year in 2025, we did have a shortage of mechanics.

So we are basically down one mechanic all season long.

Uh we're still down that mechanic.

Uh we have one budgeted, but we're finding a hard we're having a hard time finding a qualified candidate to fill that.

Uh, in addition, uh our own staff laid the tracks for the train project, uh, which took away from park maintenance workers, it also took away from mechanics.

So it was a challenging year because we, you know, we tackled a fairly large project.

We were down a mechanic, and we also had a lot of breakdowns this year compared to to other years.

So it was a challenging year.

Uh, I don't know uh how we would be able to address uh a staffing shortage necessarily because like I said, we're having a hard time even finding qualified mechanics with the allocated budget that we have for that.

Um so I guess there was kind of a a lot of things going on this year.

I have had similar discussions with Dave, uh Charles also in regards to this.

Uh but um, you know, our mechanics at the shop, uh, so partial part a portion of them are funded through Bay Beach also.

And they're they're all aware that when Baby when Bay Beach is in operation, that's really kind of the top priority to make sure the rides get up and running as quickly as possible.

Okay.

Thank you.

And I know for what it's worth, I think Alder Steuer knows how to solve the shortage problem, which is combine all the garages, which you guys may recall he talked about every year.

Um, and I know we're not going to solve that in this uh within the budget process, but I would offer up that I do think that there's uh more and more.

I think I'm seeing the merit of maybe some of what Alder Stoyer was suggesting, even if you know execution of that isn't as simple, you know, because I think uh you know what I imagine I I understand and appreciate the need for specialty uh types of training for certain pieces of equipment in different departments, but uh I would imagine from time to time there could be some capacity within that bandwidth that could be lent between departments.

And so if you guys are not already having that conversation, I'm sure you are, but you know, I always think that that's uh obviously a way to perhaps address that shortage is by trying to figure out if we have folks within our organization, another department that might be able to pinch it when when needed on things that aren't as complex or specialized.

Yeah, and I will say the other issue we had out at Bay Beach was just a shortage of ride operators, and that's that's a recurring problem year after year.

The more rides we build, the more ride operators we have to have.

Uh I do think that uh, you know, in a seasonal payment plan, I do think that they're the pay scale is right as far as where they should be.

Uh, but you know, it's like any other uh seasonal position, you're competing with a lot of other entities uh for summer positions.

So that's the other challenge we have.

How frequently would you say you're impacted by that?

Uh I would say like having to close a ride because we don't have enough labor.

Uh the last month of the season, very frequently uh because we are open when college is in session.

So the college students go back to school, and it's very difficult, especially the last month to open up all of our rides at that point because uh for ride operators, they do need to be over 18 years old.

It's not as challenging kind of mid-summer, even begin of beginning of summer as it is the end of summer.

Certainly not trying to solve that problem here today, but uh you know, sometimes I think retiree pools could be a good solution for that.

I heard Alder Hutchison looks good in the train conductor cap.

So um something to think about.

That's all.

Thank you.

Maybe I'll just go on retirement.

Thank you, Chair.

Um Director Dish, I I and I'm this is tailing on with uh Alder Johnson.

I I've noticed uh when I get out there that it seems like a lot of rides have been down every time I'm out there.

I know some of it's mechanical, a lot of it is staffing.

Uh but I had an experience at uh uh Wisconsin Rapids at their public pool.

Uh we were down there on vacation with there with the family one day, it was all high school kids.

Two days later we go, it was all moms and dads and grandparents doing the lifeguard duties.

And and I'm sure you you'd be open to that, but have we found a way or a check with other places?

How do you actively recruit that that generation and see if they want to buy into helping keep our pools and our parks open more often and more rides available?

Yeah, and we can look into that uh in the upcoming months uh to as far as how we do recruiting.

Are there other resources that are out there that we could reach out to, such as uh, you know, very senior centers.

Uh I guess we can look at that.

Uh I do think that we do have a very aggressive recruiting process right now.

Uh, but a lot of it is kind of we've been doing things very similar to how we've been doing it in the past.

So um, but we are offering incentives to try to get people to come back over and we weren't doing that a few years ago.

Uh so you know, there's we have better years, we have some good years and some bad years on it.

Uh your experience out at the park this year with uh with rides being down, yes, I'd say some of it was lack of ride operators, but we also had a lot of rides down this year, uh kind of throughout the season.

They're old rides.

Uh we do get them up and running as quickly as possible.

And some of the some of the uh equipment that broke or some of the rides that broke were not quick fixes.

They were fixes that you know, like for example, our carousel uh that broke like the last month of operation and we had to shut it down for the season because there was no way to repair it in the timeline uh in order to get it back up and running again.

But we are we will we're taking the appropriate steps, and our hope is that come May when we open every single ride will be open.

Uh so we're hopeful that we're gonna be able to accomplish that.

There's a lot of stuff being done off season.

All right, thank you.

Really quick, all the second two question on that.

You said recruiting.

I remember um we would get a postcard in the mail saying do you wish to come back?

Are we doing texting or some sort of reaching out?

Because I remember we would fill out when we could start our schedule ultimately and send it back.

Cause wow, I just sounded really old.

Um, but that I remember getting that every summer in college or every spring in college.

Are we doing that?

We still do the postcards.

We mail it out to every previous uh employee, ask them for that information.

In fact, uh Nina's been actively working on that this past week.

She's hopefully that'll be done in the next day or so.

Uh, but we are actively recruiting uh beyond that once we get the postcards back and we kind of know how many positions are gonna be filled.

We're reaching out this early.

Yep.

Actually, I completed all the retires last year this evening.

We are in a new system now.

I don't know how long we've been building with us for the time.

I've no comments.

So I don't need that.

I'm joking, I was in college.

But the beauty of our new system, everything used to be hard copy, and humility, and then we'll go here and finished.

Everything's electronic now.

So when I hire them today, they got an email immediately inviting them back in leader or other paper.

So pretty exciting.

We always shoot to have our rehires done before Thanksgiving the last two years.

And then we have our post-it positions when Christmas breaks, the kids come in on my college too.

Okay, I was just kind of curious because I remember it being later in the year, only because you do look some colleges do Mayterm, you just you don't always know your schedule.

And I know I would be a little anxious to commit that early.

So I didn't know if we would see success actually reaching out.

I understand the process of hiring and knowing what's open, but is there potential that reaching out in late winter, early spring, we would have more of a commitment or you're not having issues?

Okay.

So every five days, if they don't activate that account, I'm sending them another.

Gotcha.

So that'll go on until we finally say, okay, you come back to our okay.

We do that, and we do that throughout our divisions.

Um Deanna's right.

There we do so many great, we do job bears, we do so many things.

They do the postcards.

There's been so many things to try to.

We've had a lot of success.

Okay.

Good.

Awesome.

Okay.

Hold on.

Is it off of this?

Okay.

I'm just curious if you tried using a rotary dial phone like Alder Grant did when she was younger.

It was actually pigeon.

Sorry, guys, two hours of number talk, uh, humor's my coping mechanism.

Dan, the one when I used to work for the YWCA, you know, we had two pools there.

And every year I made sure that we were doing at least one lifeguard class.

So that and I worked with Ann in your um area to get these people hired.

And my question to you is is there any way that we could offer as a city of Green Bay lifeguard classes during the winter over the holidays or something where we can get more because there are a lot older people too that are lifeguards or could pass the lifeguard test.

I'm just throwing that out to you to actually get classes because it's hard to get lifeguard certified.

So we might just have to take the bull by the horns and say we need 20 lifeguards, and we're gonna put on a class and we'll pay for the and we're actually implementing a new program this coming winter here, and it's the very thing that you're talking about where we're trying to get perfect uh younger individuals to get who are interested in lifeguarding to start off uh kind of younger with the training and build their their experience up to become and with the ultimate goal of becoming lifeguards for us once they're able to.

Uh we are kicking that off uh this winter, and um it's pretty exciting.

There isn't gonna be a fee for it, so we were able to uh find a donor to to pay for this program for us.

So uh more to come on that, and I can fill you in on the details, but we are planning a very similar program as we speak.

Yeah, because some of the agencies that used to do that and licensed lifeguards, we don't have as many anymore.

So that's why I'm bringing it up.

Thank you, Elder Digit.

All right, Georgia Digit, I have a few for you.

Um, I'm sorry.

I just think back to the retention from year to year on seasonals.

It's important to note that they have a 60% retention rate from year to year for so 24 to 25 out of the over 500 employees that Nina's team brought back.

Uh it's over 60 percent of retention, which is pretty impressive.

Okay, back to the hot seat.

I'm just kidding.

Uh page 116, 48990, miscellaneous revenue.

That is dramatically higher, was that from 4899 zero.

Yeah, I'm gonna discern on that one.

So we were booking that as the parking revenue over at the mile license.

Okay, that's what I was wondering.

Oh, I've actually miscellaneous fraction.

Okay.

That's what we've seen this year.

Perfect, thank you.

Um hang on one second.

Sorry, at a couple.

And just to um play off of that, in the end, we didn't uh it wasn't the parking revenue.

We it was just 90,000 in general revenue is what was decided last year.

Okay.

Yeah, can I bring it to the case?

Yeah, so you know, the projection was $90,000 in in revenue uh of that.

Uh we broke it down to 12,000 for cage sponsorship, 10,000 for Otter Toberfest, which was a new event, and then 68,000 in in corn revenues above and beyond what we um currently uh budgeted last year.

Uh so right now we're projected, we we probably won't hit the 98,000 in corn, but it's going pretty well.

Uh, we're kind of projecting about 34,000 above and beyond last year's uh numbers.

Uh keep in mind we went from $2 per bag to $5 per bag, and we weren't really sure when we projected that out.

Um how many people would be, you know, would purchase corn with that increase.

But in the end, it's going well, and we're, you know, well on track to you know, we're going heading in that direction, but we're not gonna hit that number this year.

Uh but one thing to mention is you know, we did make a little bit of extra revenue at the DRC over what at the our banquet facility uh at the sanctuary, which um you know will offset some of the difference that we weren't able to accomplish.

So we're about 10,000 over in additional revenues over what our budget was for the banquet facility.

So we made up some of the difference there.

That's what I was gonna ask about because um quite a few times this summer we went and we noticed that there had to be someone there to physically sell it.

They didn't just leave it out and let you drop the cash, and my kids were very upset with me numerous times um that that it was my fault.

But I saw so many families that were bringing their own, and I thought that was great, but I just wanted to like the wildlife sanctuary had so much less corn just all over the place.

And I guess I didn't realize in years past how much there was, but then there was a reduction.

So I was just curious, both on the revenue perspective, but overall just wanted to comment like how nice of an experience that was to not just be like surrounded by corn literally everywhere you were walking and the year before we made that change too.

Some of the geese were just getting a little aggressive at times with folks as well.

So just overall, I just want to know how that went from a revenue perspective.

But I think it was a great change.

Okay.

Um back to Max one page 118.

Line 55101.

I see equipment repair went down a good amount, but then 55201 building repairs went up.

I know they're probably not related, but can you kind of just give us an overview on that?

Sure.

Um equipment repair uh went down about 121,000.

The bulk of that was two things.

Uh so one was um we moved um equipment repair from parks to forestry uh because now forestry is 100% funded through storm as of last year.

And that was one of the miscellaneous items we forgot to move over last year.

It should have been moved over last year.

So uh that's you know, equipment require uh repair on you know, trucks and and wood chippers and stuff like that.

That was 70,000.

Uh and then the other big uh number in that was 58,000.

Uh that was added to the budget uh through an amendment last year or this year uh to repair the Joanne slide.

So that was kind of a one-time expense.

It went into that uh line item.

Uh so it was removed out of here because it was a one-time expense.

So that made up the bulk of the 121,000.

And then what was the other one that you building repairs 55201?

Building repairs.

Um that um hold on, just one second.

Let me just check something.

Okay, so building repairs uh went up about 33,000.

Uh that was just several new initiatives uh that we're gonna be tackling here.

Uh, one of which is ten thousand dollars for city hall.

Uh, we'd like to replace a lot of the carpeting in the in the law department.

Uh that carpeting is very old.

Uh, when you go into some of those offices, uh you'll see how bad some of that carpeting is.

Uh, we did add $15,000 into that account uh for automatic locks.

Uh, because if you recall last we used to budget two shelters per year at $15,000 total, but last year we removed that from our budget because we had a large, I believe it was around $100,000 that was allocated through, I believe ARPA funding to put to do a maybe 10 to 12 shelters.

Uh, we did that project, uh, but now we'd like to continue with it.

So we added two shelters back into the budget.

So those two items alone are $25,000.

And then the other one uh is we added $7,500 for the sanctuary to do some uh maintenance repair to the siding at the residence that's out there.

That's the log of the log cabin when you first come in.

Okay, and because I've asked everybody else to see your lease payments on page 118, 55121, 160,000.

How many vehicles is that covering?

I don't have the number offhand.

I'd say we're easily into the 20 plus.

And is this the first year we're really leasing?

No, we've been looking for a while.

It just got moved from one account to the other.

I don't, I'm just guessing at that number, but we have quite a few vehicles now that are enrolled in that program.

Okay, perfect.

All right, thank you.

Uh Johnson.

Thank you.

Um I don't know if you saw Alder Galvin's tail wagging when you talked about the extra shelter locks.

No, you just busy on his phone.

Oh he's happy.

Uh Director DJ, we've talked before about uh at the last finance committee and other times too about you know the extra facilities coming online, um, and just making sure that as parkland has been added that you have the right uh staffing solution.

Um where are you at with that?

What are you thinking in the next year, two years?

Yeah, so I would anticipate we'll be bringing a proposal forward sometime next year.

Uh we're gonna have to incorporate whatever changes uh we need to into the 2027 budget.

So we're anticipating shipyard uh will be under construction next year, the bulk of the year, and probably open if I were to guess sometime around May of 2027.

Uh so we're gonna have to have operational expenses built into our 2027 budget, both from a programming standpoint and a maintenance standpoint.

Uh next year we're we're gonna be building the new shelter at Light Park.

Uh, there's gonna be additional staffing needs, uh, mainly maintenance needs regarding that shelter.

Um, so we're gonna have to add that.

But that'll be you know done towards the end of next calendar year also.

So that really won't go into effect until 2027.

Uh JBS is another uh park that is coming uh that that will be done probably mid-summer next year.

Uh we didn't forecast anything in our budget for 2026 for JBS.

Uh, but we will probably, you know, we'll just have to find that in our existing budget.

Uh, but we are looking at what our programming needs are, what our you know uh operational expenses are gonna be for that too.

So I would say you I would you should expect that we're gonna be proposing additional staff and additional maintenance needs uh due to those facilities opening up primarily in 27.

Yeah, and I appreciate that, right?

And it's it I mean, even the the three facilities you mentioned there to me are even a heightened level of of maintenance because of the anticipated uh extra foot traffic that you would have in those areas, right?

So they to me require a different level of care sometimes.

You can't just show up once a week and cut the lawn.

And you know, you and I had talked about shipyard in particular with uh the geese challenges there, right?

It it makes it almost untenable to go down there and and walk around that promenade.

And I understand it's still a work in progress.

Um, but wanting to make sure that again you have the right personnel, the right equipment, so that we can maintain these things, what I presume will likely be needed more than once a week, given you know the ongoing ongoing needs that sometimes are presented with those larger venues.

Yeah, and I've kind of been working with stack staff and giving them the guidance that by probably March of next year at least get me a preliminary draft of what that'll look like.

And then from there we'll work together to put together a final presentation sometime in the summer.

Okay, thank you.

And just one final thing.

This contradicts a little bit what Alder Profits said about corn.

Uh, but if you're looking for celebrity endorsement, I think that kid from TikTok who did the I love corn thing.

Oh, he could drive sales, I'm telling you.

How many parks do we still have left to do with the electronic locks?

Uh I'd say we're, I don't know the exact number.

I can look that up, but we're probably two-thirds the way Don would be my guess.

Will we finish next year?

Or no, this is gonna be ongoing.

We're doing we're proposing in our budget two per year every year.

So what about let me ask a different question?

Are all of the shelters with bathrooms have an electronic lock?

We're primarily putting the locks only on the shelters with bathrooms, and it's really for the bathrooms.

We're not really doing it for the shelter portion, it's for the bathrooms.

Like I said, we're over halfway through our shelters, maybe a little bit more than that.

Okay.

I'm gonna do my best to not get on an entire soapbox here, but just kind of piggybacking off of some of the comments we've heard overall through the night.

I just want to say this is the eight percent of our budget.

And when I go to other municipalities, I brag about our park system over and over.

And when we look through and see some of the things, I mean, some of the stuff I just noticed with my family, a POS system at Bay Beach.

I didn't have to pay cash in the middle of the park.

Thankfully, I had five dollars for a pretzel, but I could tap my phone.

Like that's pretty exciting.

Um, the West End train, like people brought that to my attention, just talking about how excited that that was done and we'll be ready to go.

Um, noticed the cages, getting a re-up at the wildlife, like noticed a lot of these things, and it's eight percent of our budget.

And then I turn and I look at 2026 challenges.

Just not sure if the rest of the council knows that there's six playgrounds in this city that are older than me.

Just gonna throw that out there.

Um, there's an additional 16 that are older than most of our lifeguards we were talking about earlier.

Um, there's a lot of challenges, I think, um, for parks in the future.

And with the amount of staffing they have, that's not that's not unique to parks.

That's unique for every department.

But going back to the mayor's comments earlier about the ability to have that sales tax potentially um to just go back to the state about shared revenue and what we're missing there.

Like we have some challenges in park, but we also have plenty of departments across the city who are being asked to do a lot with very little.

So if I'm in this seat next year, who knows?

Come budget season, but I really really hope we get to continue to break about this parks department and all of these phenomenal things that they're doing while maintaining and hopefully upgrading those six playgrounds that are older than me and Elder Presley.

So just I wanted to give my kudos and I just really really hope in the future that we'll continue to make those increases necessary to keep our parks, of course, all of our new exciting the JBS, light park, shipyard, those are amazing, but we have our small neighborhood parks that need some love too.

So I just hope we're all gonna keep that on our radar if any of us are here next year.

Two parks with new.

I mean, if the playgrounds were older than Alder Galvin, I might be worried.

Uh just a brief update.

I know we did the shipping container for the serving beer at Lake Park.

How has that been going?

You know, it it went okay.

I mean, it we for the draft event it worked great.

Uh we did try over the summer to kind of um really make it work uh during the far during the markets on Broadway.

Um marginal success at that.

It just uh it never really took off.

Part of it was probably we didn't market it as as much as we should have.

Um, but keep in mind that that was a you know a temporary thing, you know, the ultimate goal is to move it uh to the shipyard, and we are kind of looking at ways to actively program that, and that's part of our staffing levels uh of where we're gonna be placing it, makes a difference, and then how we're gonna staff it and when we're gonna open it, and then what activities can we offer as part of that too?

So a lot of a lot of planning is going on to make that successful when it moves to shipyard.

All right, thank you.

Alderak.

Thank you, Chair.

Um so uh director dichet, I know we talked a little bit about this because um I you know it asked about an issue that's that's been coming up in my district.

We're trying to get some trees taken out of um like conservatory areas and uh or conservancies, I'm sorry, and parkways and things like that.

And um, I know it's special equipment, things like that, and it wasn't added to this year's budget, which is a bummer because it's it's needed.

Um, but you had said that it comes a hundred percent.

The forestry comes a hundred percent out of stormwater utility.

Uh and I just wondered if you could explain that a little bit as to I guess the rationale behind that.

Well, the rationale behind it is because of the value that trees have uh in kind of eliminating additional stormwater needs.

So yeah, I mean, if you can imagine how much uh water a tree soaks up, uh, if you were to eliminate all the trees along the street and in the parks, how many more storm stormwater ponds you would need to build um because that water would have to go to somewhere right now.

The trees soak it up.

Uh and so the thought process behind this when it was proposed several years ago is it would offset the cost of building uh and maintaining additional stormwater uh features and help dealing deal with flooding issues also.

So obviously, if the water gets soaked up by trees, there's less flooding in the community.

So that was the rationale when it was proposed a few years ago.

Uh initially, when it was approved in the budget uh a few years ago, it was an 8812 uh split where it was 88% funded by storm and 12% funded by the general levy or budget.

Uh last year it went to 100%, and that was uh reviewed and discussed at budget time last year.

Okay, thank you.

I and I, you know, like I said, I know I did notice that my um sewer amount went up quite a bit.

Um so okay.

I didn't know if everybody was aware of that.

I know we talk about a lot of things at budget time, so um don't always remember all of these things.

Thank you.

All right, all those in favor say aye.

Post motion carries.

Uh we are on then sorry, special revenue funds number 14.

Keep going, Cathy.

I'm following the agenda, so it's special revenue.

Okay.

Sorry.

I just clicked it on.

Move to approve.

Second.

Any questions or discussion?

I know.

Yes, page one thirty-seven.

Can I ask um on page one hundred thirty-seven?

Item four seven four one zero equipment revenue.

Hundred thousand.

So 2024 actuals like 329 and then it was low before that.

What is that equipment revenue?

Here.

Um I believe that would be um like the sale of equipment.

So if we were um trading in like when we're purchasing new equipment and then we sell equipment, so just capturing their revenue within the budget.

Okay.

Thank you.

How much would you get it and traded in alder act?

I don't know.

It's been a long week, hasn't it?

Yeah, yes.

I just want to make sure you were awake over there.

What was it?

Oh, that was the orientation.

All right.

Any other questions?

Does everybody have enough time?

Sorry, did we not do a motion?

I thought we didn't.

You did a motion.

Yep, they did a motion.

So we have a motion to approve on the floor.

Any other questions?

No.

Okay.

All those in favor say hi.

Post.

Motion carries.

Okay.

So sorry, this is what so now we're on debt service number 15.

Second.

Questions and discussion.

Yeah, go ahead.

Uh Director Linebecker.

Uh you know, obviously we saw a couple of rate reductions recently.

Um does that I assume that correlates with with bond rates, and then maybe the subsequent question to that would be if so, is is it like an annual review that we do to see when we have uh issued bonds that would be eligible for a lower rate?

Is that part of an annual review process?

Um financial advisors, and they will review every year whether or not there's it would be there'd be enough cost savings to um refinance.

Um typically it'd be a bond that would be um probably 10 years old because you have there's only one usually you get one chance to try to refund um a previous bond.

Okay, good questions.

All right, all those in favor say aye.

Move to approve.

Second, second.

Any questions or discussion here?

Okay, take a vote.

All those in favor say aye.

Post motion carries number 17 internal service funds.

Questions or discussion here.

Okay.

All those in favor say aye.

Post.

Motion carries.

17 internal service funds.

Wait, did I just do that?

Yeah.

I'm so sorry.

Consider consideration of possible action to approve the 2026 barring request item number 18 on the agenda.

Yes, go ahead, Aldo Johnson.

Um so obviously at the finance committee, um, something that we had asked was for staff to prepare a list of maybe high priority needs.

Uh so I see that document is included.

Um the question that I had is uh you know, you have multiple departments in here.

So when this priority list was created, does that go across departmentally or was it by department?

It is by department.

The bottom of their uh spreadsheet.

Um but no, I did not, we did not change um the two departments that submitted um theirs are separate they didn't yes, the um we did not put theirs, they're they're each department separate okay, thank you.

Um and then Director Juicens, the I I guess the thing that I noticed, and this was brought up at Finance Committee, um, that a greater would potentially be a high priority, and what I noticed is that it wasn't in the CIP currently.

Was that just kind of an oversight?

Just wanted to maybe reinforce that that that would be the number one priority.

Yes, that is the no that's our number one item.

Okay.

Just because the other items, you know, were kind of noted where in the CIP they fell, and this one has NA, so I'm presuming that it was currently not listed in the CIP.

Correct.

Okay.

And that's right, again, I'm just trying to reinforce, right?

If it wasn't in the CIP, but it's emerging as the number one priority, right?

You see where I'm kind of.

Right.

It it doesn't, it hasn't fallen to the, you know, we have limited funds, but we have lots of need.

So usually you know our top priorities are the two sanitation trucks, the two plow trucks, and that takes a fair amount of our CIP equipment budget.

And then from there we have to prioritize it down.

So when we look at the limited budget, it hasn't fallen to the top, but if we had extra funds, that's what the field supervisors are saying is their highest priority.

Okay, great.

And I appreciate that clarity.

I just wanted to be sure from your perspective that that was your what you felt as well.

So um I know there's some folks here that spoke at finance.

Uh I didn't know if anybody here wanted to speak on this particular item.

Okay.

Good.

All right.

And this is that piece of equipment that would take less trips.

It's covers more area, right?

With clearing the road.

Is this the ice?

Uh the additional the motor grader would be used uh for plowing.

Um I would have to defer to staff to give more insight on the usage if you want more detail.

Okay, and I just remember talking about less passes is okay.

This is that.

Okay, okay.

So efficiency.

Do we have any other questions?

Okay, go ahead.

Uh yeah, Director Dichite, recognizing that your priority list is separate.

Oh, and now I'm seeing you have a different numbering system there.

Now it's making sense.

Um the cargo van for the wildlife sanctuary.

You have it number one, is that do you currently have one?

And what would this be used for?

Yeah, so we we currently have a van there.

Uh it's used for transporting animals.

You've probably seen it around town.

It has a big wildlife sanctuary wrap around it.

Uh, but it's old.

I mean, it's from 2006.

Uh, and really the problem we're having with it is it's rusting really, really bad.

So, you know, when you when we're bringing this to events and showcasing the sanctuary, um, you know, to bring an old rusty van to an event like that, uh, just isn't a great impression.

Uh it was in our in our replacement list for 2027.

I mean, it does run, it works.

Uh, it just is very rustic compared to most of our other equipment.

Okay, and then your number two item, the toolkit.

Um, of course, you have a number of venues listed here.

I'm sure you have other uses outside of those three venues, but correct.

It it is this something that you would need to have in service.

Like, do you even have the personnel to use it right away, right?

Because if we're just gonna buy it and then it's gonna sit or be heavily underutilized for the next year, well, then I would prefer to wait another year.

So I'm just curious where I mean we would use it, it wouldn't go to waste.

I mean, we would definitely put that in the fleet and use it.

We do have a shortage of them where we could use more.

Um, but this will be likely be one of the requests in 2027 if it doesn't get funded this year, uh, because this would be a necessity when those other parks open up.

Um, but yeah, it wouldn't just sit there, it would get used.

Sure, but would your predominant use be on those parks?

Uh I mean that construction.

Once those other parks um open up, that's when we're really going to need it.

I mean, now we could use it.

I mean, if there's extra capacity now in the in the bonding, that's why I threw it in there because it's something that we will likely have to bond for in 27.

Uh, so it's either kind of do it this year or next year.

Um, is you know, when I'm setting my priorities for next year or for 2027.

So could it wait?

Yes.

Uh I I think the sanctuary cargo van is is uh is a higher need than the toolcat at this point.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Director Lumbecker, if you could just verify for us.

Um typically when you come back with sort of that max capacity for for bonding, that's really to ensure that the bonds were paying off, right?

That we're not taking on more debt than what we're paying off.

Is that accurate?

That is no longer accurate.

Um we are definitely going above what we had um are paying off.

I actually don't have that number with us.

We were probably paying off somewhere between 10 and 12 million.

When they established that recommendation, then what is that based on?

Um, you know, we put that in place a couple years ago based on our capital and improvement plan, and we we picked the if you just picked a number.

Um I'm I'm not sure if it was calculated, but we were just looking at a five-year forecast look and based on the mill rate.

Um, we were working with our financial advisor, and they came up with this we came up with this calculated number of how much maybe we thought we could have support in the mill rate.

Um, for future borrowing, knowing we have some larger fight fire station and police needs, but it is more than what is being paid.

Um I'm being paid off.

Okay.

So the reason I bring all that up, right?

You know, it's I think sometimes it's been talked about like, oh, we have this capacity, right?

Of an extra million dollars, what can we spend it on?

And just making sure that everybody understands it's not exactly free money, right?

And we have some really major needs coming up.

And where this impact comes in is when the bond repayment starts in a year.

The the the mill rate will have to obviously uh adjust to account for that repayment.

Um now that's not to say that's these things aren't needed.

To me, it's really wanting to make a wise decision about when they're needed and and uh really making sure that we're not treating this excess capacity based on the recomm the recommendation of the maximum we should bond as free money that doesn't really have an impact.

So um now that said, uh I'm presuming Director Juicens that the the greater, knowing that this has sort of evolved as a top priority that if if this is not approved this year, can I presume that it would be in your bond request for next year?

Well, we still have to prioritize like the the plow trucks and the sanitation, so it would depend on how much funding is available.

Um I know in the past there we had talked about whether or not we could use fund balance to cover some of those things, like this type of purchase, but to get to the number that we put in, we used up a lot of our fund balance to reduce our um bonded amount.

So we actually had an original uh original quest that was more than what we put in.

Um, and we lowered that by using up some of our fund balance.

Okay, thank you.

Um, so the only reason I share what I did about the million is because I don't want us again to to look at it like we need to find a million dollars of things to bond here.

But based on what we heard during the budget cycle last year, what we heard at finance committee, I think there's one thing that really emerged, and that is public works in particular, uh, really hasn't had equipment investments in quite some time.

And a lot of their stuff was falling apart.

I remember the story that was shared last year.

Um when uh when when uh about the mayor uh going on the the plow ride saying, Oh, you picked the worst truck, and they're like, No, it was the best one.

Um, and so uh for that reason I'm gonna make a motion to amend.

Um do we actually have a motion on the floor right now?

No.

Okay, so I'll first make a motion to approve.

I guess that's okay.

Okay.

And then I would make a motion to can I make two motions?

Isn't that allowed?

Uh make a motion to amend to add the uh the used motor grader uh for $370,000.

Yes, all right.

The motor grader.

I'm trying to uh is that because I don't see when this is motor grader.

The oh the DBW streets, okay description.

Um yeah, because I uh well, first of all, I guess I'm can I I I'm wondering why we're adding stuff to the budget.

Oh, to for bonding, okay.

Um but the number three, it says intended replacement year was in 2018.

Um so I to me, I guess I'm wondering why we're going with the number one thing because they were intending to replace something in 2018 and then 2019.

So it's like they were hoping to do that one before.

So I'm making that motion because this is what the department prioritized as their number one thing.

I understand that it might have been in the plan previously that way, but obviously things change every year, so that's why I'm selecting that item.

And it was also talked about at committee by staff directly who deal with this, the that it would help with efficiency and time of staff.

Do you want to talk a little bit on this?

Because not everybody was at that meeting.

I watched the meeting.

Oh, just kidding.

Okay.

Um, okay, they're presenting what their their needs are, and then hey, what else do you want?

You know, like we're adding on top of things, and I I guess that can concerns me.

So the bonding came in under we said a dollar amount, the request came in, it was under that dollar amount.

So that's where we said since it came in under, are we missing an opportunity to catch up on some department needs that have been pushed off, as you can see.

This request is from 2019.

So these things have been pushed off.

So we figured since we were under, we wanted to hear from the departments to see if there was anything we could do to help them catch up with those needs and still stay under that number that we had originally asked.

Yes, Alder.

And I think part of um what I heard when we were talking about this at the finance committee meeting was the fact that the greater will get deeper the snow.

We won't be surface plowing as much.

We'll get closer to the street.

Correct?

I mean I looked at it first.

They can speak to the usage in the field.

Um Zed is one of the big complaints over on my side.

Right.

And what I heard from him is if we got our own whatever that big thing is called, it would definitely help.

And also I know even safety, how that would affect our um first responders and things like that.

So I think there is a bigger picture that we can address multiple needs.

Right, right.

Yes.

I I can address the question about the the plow truck that was due to for replacement in 2018.

So of our flat frontline trucks, that is that is a frontline truck, and when it's one of our oldest, and it is seven years past, um, it's replacement date.

But that's the status of our plow trucks, is we have um one to four or five, six, six, seven trucks that are past their replacement date.

Aldo Calvin.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh the needs of this community um far outweigh what the state allows us to use.

And as to uh the mayor's comments before this meeting started, they have painted us into a corner that affects the health and the safety of this community, and they allow us no way out.

Uh they belittle us for not spending our money wisely.

Um they give us a hard time about the money that they begrudgingly give us, and yet you look at what the staff are talking about where we have equipment that should have been replaced years ago, and we put it off so much it becomes normal.

We're used to it, and the public doesn't even understand, they just see that their taxes are going up $60 on a quarter of a million dollar house, and they're upset.

No one likes to pull up to the gas pump and see that the price has gone up.

Nobody, but this is the cost of what we offer to this community, and you see where we're short police officers, we're short park staff, we're short everywhere.

We're short equipment, we're short in morale because of the equipment that they are forced to use, and we talk about safety.

I can't imagine a squad car going out seven years past its due date or a fire truck.

And so obviously we pour more money into that because they absolutely have to have it, but they can't get there if the streets aren't plowed, or they're working more accidents because the streets aren't plowed.

I mean, these are the things that that just tie me in knots when you hear about give us the ability at least have a half cent sales tax.

We will use it wisely.

We're not gonna buy stuff that we don't need.

We're gonna give this community what it deserves and what it should have been get getting years ago.

You know, I talk about when I started on the department, I called it a Cadillac department because we had 12 cadets.

We had so many officers out there doing the job.

They were actually doing bicycle enforcement.

When was the last time an officer did any kind of bicycle enforcement on anything in this community?

Not because they're ignoring it, but because they don't have the time, they don't have the manpower.

So these are the things that hurt this community, and we do well.

I think we do very well.

But there comes a time when we have to start spending the money, and I know it's not easy, and I know it's gonna give the mayor just fits uh as he tries to figure out how he's gonna balance this into next year and the year after that.

And at the same time, we have to take care of our employees.

We have to give them the raises that they deserve that they so they can live and raise their families like everybody else out here, and we can't keep short shifting them.

So I'm you know, I look at these wants, I wish we had the ability to fill everybody's wants.

Um, but I'm would also like to make an amendment that we add in the truck for transporting animals for the uh wildlife sanctuary.

Um, at one time we had cars in our department that literally we had to use old street signs to plug up the holes in the bottom so the water wouldn't come into the car as we were driving through the city.

And we've gotten smart.

We saved a ton of money by leasing, and and we're we I mean, we are working to save money year in and year out.

Staff, employees, and the council are doing everything they can to save money, and it shows you know we've done some very smart things.

Um, but I would like to add that vehicle in the parts, and I would also ask the director of parks what is the cost for two of those locking mechanisms for the bathrooms, yeah.

Yeah, we have we have a primary motion and amendment on the floor, so my intent always was to take items one at a time or smile.

All right.

Um, I think we have to expense it first.

All right, I apologize.

Okay, so any other discussion on Alder Johnson's amendment.

Okay, then all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

That motion carries.

Then Alder Galvin, did you have another amendment?

Yes.

Now I would like to uh amend to add the animal transport vehicle, and I would like to add another uh I believe someone said $30,000 for two locks.

Is that correct?

It's uh $7,500 per shelter.

Oh, so we have $15,000 in the budget for two shelters.

All right.

I'd I'd I'd like, well, I'm not sure how many more parks we have, but I would like that double that and and see that we get four parks added on.

That's another thing that this community deserves is if you're paying for a bathroom, you deserve the right and the ability to use that bathroom when it's open and functioning.

And I understand it's as it's been explained to have someone go around and physically open and close those bathrooms is very demanding, time consuming, and not probably the best use of our staff's time.

But if we can set them up on the locking system, once that was working at the parks, I think it's great.

And I think it's great that it's there on weekends and everything else, so we don't have it's there's another savings that we've given this community, and I think we can do that.

And I think we can do that.

Yes, correct.

Uh just for clarification, the 15,000 is in our general budget.

Uh are you proposing to add 15,000 in the budget, or are you proposing to add 15,000 in the bond requirement?

15,000 in bonding.

Okay.

I I would not recommend bonding for those locks.

Um, I mean, I think it's a good discussion about the about the locks that we're having, but I would suggest either going back to the operational budget or maybe bringing it up in the full budget meeting at at council or you know, something that we did uh the first time around as director Ditch I mentioned, we used ARPA interest um to buy a number of them.

Um so but that money's gone, right?

We still have that.

Oh, I thought that was all gone or committed.

Yeah, so I mean it would be appropriate to use a modest amount of okay, uh in my opinion.

But um, I'm gonna take it on top of that.

We just approved a new capitalization policy that typically it should be anything over $10,000.

So these would not we haven't capitalized any of the other locks that have been improved at this point.

So it and they we currently have been putting those through operating funds or through ARPA interest.

Um there is available ARPA interest if there was the desire to try to use those funds.

I'll withdraw that for my amendment.

Just the vehicle.

Then discussion on that, I guess my question, because the vehicle is only 55,000.

Is that truly worth bonding for?

Or why are we not actually like considering our interest?

Why would we pay interest on a $55,000 vehicle?

For all fleet and equipment we bond for it.

Um we used to, I mean, back in the day when budgets were a little more flexible, we kind of went back and forth and some stuff some fleet and equipment was put into the budget, but uh for the last number of years, all mostly all fleet and equipment have been in uh the bond request.

Alder Johnson.

Yeah, and I appreciate the point on that one, Alder Grant.

That's obviously something you know, I've talked about every year through this process is trying to find those things that we can put into the operating budget.

There the fact is though there are other things within the bond request that are even below that, you know, that I would maybe uh things that even happen more frequently, think of like radios, right?

That I would prefer to see us eventually work into that.

Um this one to me makes sense to to have part of the bond.

But if you wanted to put in other things into the to the operating budget, I'd probably be more inclined to support that, but uh also keeping in mind that right now we're at three percent, right?

So obviously we put more stuff uh into the operating budget, the three percent is gonna go up unless we take something out.

Um I'm I'm comfortable at a three percent threshold.

I don't feel overly comfortable about continuing to see that go beyond that.

But um so I I support the I guess the the note on the site.

Directorbecker would that be probably like a 10-year note, I presume.

Is that the shortest note that we do?

Or is it a five year old?

Yes, typically it's um a 10-year note, correct.

Okay, do we are there shorter notes?

Um, we are currently when we take out a 10-year note.

Um, our financial advisor specifically will say that um we're borrowing um squad cars at three years.

Um garbage trucks at eight years, anything that has a uh a shorter um use useful life.

So when you're we're it's still a 10-year note, but they're really being paid off if you'll look at the amortization schedule.

It's a lot heavier in year one, two, three, and really the first three years because it's includes the million dollars for squad cars, and that's a little heavier.

So they're they're they they categorize them and make sure that they're paid off in that time period, and then the rest is allocated over the remaining 10 years.

Yeah, and I know it always comes down to math, right?

And one of the things I was never really supportive of is having um notes or or bonds that extended beyond the useful life of an asset, but I certainly would support a bond that is shorter than the useful life of the asset.

So I only say that to suggest that I don't think that the bond term necessarily has to correlate with the life of the asset for what it's worth, understanding that that puts a little more strain then, you know, on the on the operating budget, but um yeah, just kind of food for thought.

Okay.

Any uh yes, I'll rank this in relation to the wildlife sanctuary.

There's a um a group that raises funds.

Uh Director Ditchite, where is that in here?

And what are they uh raising funds for now?

There's actually two groups uh all affiliated with the Friends of the Wildlife Sanctuary.

So we have the Friends of the Wildlife Sanctuary, they primarily fundraise for capital improvement projects.

Uh they do a little bit above and beyond that, but they'd like to get out of funding, uh general operational expenses and stuff like that.

Uh, you know, when they go out and fundraise, uh, they like to, you know, when they talk to donors, they the donors like to, you know, put their not necessarily their name on something, but they like to see something new and fresh.

Uh typically they don't pay for or they haven't paid for in the past bleed or equipment.

But I will tell you that like every building that's out there on site was fundraised by the friends of the wildlife sanctuary.

So the city didn't pay for any of the buildings that are currently on site.

There's also a group called the Guild, uh, who is a they're a subcommittee of the Fowls.

Uh the Guild also does fundraising, but all of their fundraising dollars go towards uh animal rehab.

So it goes towards the cost of food and medicine packages and and items such as that.

Okay.

But it's not forecasted in our budget.

Those are, you know, we ask them when we need it.

Uh, and then if they're able to, if they're in supporting giving it, they'll give it, but it's not forecasted in our budget to use that as a revenue source.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Any other questions on the amendment or discussion?

All right.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

That motion carries.

Any other amendments or discussion?

Yes, I'll okay.

So I know you're going one at a time, so I'm I'm just adding up.

You said that you go up to a million and and uh with those two additions, it's at 425,000.

So I are you looking to add more to that?

The motion to approve is amended.

Didn't get a second yet, but that would probably answer your question, Alderack.

Um 55,000.

Or you're talking total.

Okay.

The two amendments.

All right, trying to keep track here.

But I I it sounded like that you were kind of making a final, so I'm just wondering, you know, were you trying to go up to the million?

I think the fact that I made the motion to accept as amended is signaling that I'm good.

And as you mentioned earlier, I not seeing this as a shopping spree, but knowing that future bonding is going to be much greater in future years.

So if there's any other amendments or discussions.

Yes, I I would like to say something before we go.

Go ahead.

Um this is my tenth year doing this.

And when I started out, it was a laborious project.

Uh we stayed up almost as late as we did last Tuesday.

And we nitpicked, you know, 200 from magazine subscriptions for the law department, and at the end of hours and hours, we would save 25 to 50,000.

I'm I'm proud that in more recent years, staff puts out and explains what they need for their department to run.

And council puts the time and the effort into studying that, and we spend a lot less time wasting time and moving this city forward.

And I'm I'm proud of what we've been able to accomplish.

Um, but like I said earlier, there needs to be some changes if unless if this city is gonna continue to thrive.

And I I would imagine this applies to most communities in this state.

We need to have some dramatic changes and some more sharing of the tax dollars that we pay out, need to come back to our community.

Um to that end, I know that's a state level, but I think it needs to be said more and more.

I think more and more people when they complain and to us about uh their taxes and that, I think we need to do uh as good a job as possible and continuously stress exactly what they're getting for those dollars, and they need to get out and see exactly what we do.

And we're not like it was just said, we're not putting up taxpayer dollars to build those buildings at that wildlife sanctuary, which is an absolute jewel uh for this community and the surrounding area.

And imagine what it would be like Bay Beach, what would that be like?

I mean, I I guess I have been around a long time.

Um but I remember what Bay Beach was when I was a kid, and we went there for our yearly school thing.

I know what our parks were like, and there has been changes.

I think government moves too darn slow, and it's been frustrating, and I continue it's gonna continue to frustrate people, but there have been some unbelievable changes in this community over those years.

And I'm happy to see that we're still trying to do more.

But there comes a point where you're not cutting fat anymore, you're cutting bone and muscle.

And I think we're at that that tipping point here.

And I I don't know how we get the legislature to start listening, but we need to start working on that more and more and make sure that they hear us and hear what we need.

Thank you.

Any other discussion?

Okay, so we have a motion to approve as amended.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye opposed.

That motion carries um number 19 consideration with possible action to receive a place on file of the 2026 2030 capital improvement uh plan.

Sorry.

Yes, Alder Johnson.

Thank you.

Uh Director Jewsons, I know um we were on an email string together with uh one of the projects that ISG had been working on as part of the urban design contract with the city uh was improvements or design improvements to Adams Street and Washington Street for those not overly familiar.

Um you're still sitting with a lot of the the remnants from the mall era, and if you've never spent any amount of time down there, it's not pleasant.

And so it would part of part of the urban design contract was to create these streetscape design standards, which will be coming before this body at some point.

Um, but what I what I wanted to offer up is as an amendment, I want to get the director's feedback first.

Uh downtown Green Bay did prepare a cost estimate of what it would take to make those improvements on Adams in Washington.

The reality is the most likely funding source for those things is through a TID.

Um, and there's no financial impact to what I want to propose today.

Um but what I would like to do is at least have this slated in the CIP, recognizing that you know there's no commitment to doing it.

That's an annual uh assessment of of what is prioritized and emerges.

But my fear is if we don't put in the CIP, it's very easily forgotten that it's something that we want to do.

So um I the question I would ask for you, Director Juicens is and might even be even more of a question for Director Eilenbecker, but um what would be the appropriate year to slot that in because you know, likely it would be based on whatever you know where we have a TID balance that that could fund it.

So I don't know if I if I made the amendment, should I say year one or year five?

Well, I we the the cost did was higher than we were anticipating.

Um so I'm gonna defer to Director Ellen Becker to answer the funding piece of it.

Correct.

Um, as you know, we just got the estimate today.

Um, certainly well over a couple million dollars for streetscape, and we it certainly talked about it maybe being a TIFF eligible expense.

Um, you know, since the estimate just came in today.

I mean, typically we would talk about it at a development team meeting, see what how much we would approve.

Maybe we wouldn't approve it all, maybe it'd be a shared of cost, and then um at that point we would decide whether or not when when there would be available funds.

So with the estimate just coming in, I'm not sure we could certainly add it to the CIP, but you know, we would probably have to have it as a phased approach, unless that is not I'm not sure again.

I don't know enough about the estimate if it's phased approached or if it would want to be in all in one year.

Yeah, and again, to be clear, I I am fully aware, and and I I want everybody else to be aware that I'm not asking for any funding for this right now.

I just want to have it placed in the CIP so that it's again what what's not documented is easily forgotten.

And so by by having it documented, it shows that uh we'd like to to do something in that area, likely with a TID at some point within the five-year period to really show some value, I think, for the investment that was made within that urban design contract.

Uh, we relied on downtown Green Bay as a partner to help us maybe understand and prioritize um what what investments would have the highest and greatest impact in that area.

So yeah, I could see adding it to TID 13.

And we could, and usually when you add it to CIP, it's really the just expense side.

We don't know what the funding is at this point 100%, right?

At this point, so we would add it probably under the TID 13 with the expenses and then whether or not you know how much would be funded by year and by whom.

Okay.

So I I'll just do this then.

It's again recognizing it's uh something binding about this, it's gonna be evaluated year by year.

Uh so I'm gonna make a motion to add it to year three.

Um, and the it's Washington and Adams Street.

The we can have the plan, I think available in the full council packet.

Uh, and I believe the number was two point three million.

2.34.

Yep, I think rounded up to 2.4.

Okay, so 2.4 million.

So that that is a motion to amend the CIP to add that in year three.

Go ahead, Alder Prophet.

Just ask, would it be possible to do it in a phased approach, Alder Johnson?

Just given, I mean, the end of construction for Nova and just having entertained on Washington recently and seen kind of what Washington's current state is, and given that we're gonna have uh a beautiful new amenity.

Is it possible to do it in a more phased approach to kind of um I don't want to say rush the timeline, but maybe move up some of it to at least complement um the massive investment on the other side of the street.

Yeah, it's absolutely I I think the reality is that you know I'm just kind of dropping it in there.

It's not really directive to actually do it or plan for it.

So uh to me by putting it in year three, it gives staff plenty of time over the next two years, right, to figure out how to approach that, where to slate it, and then future councils will obviously make the determination if it's something that they want to prioritize and fund based on whatever funding sources are available at the time.

Okay, sounds good.

We have a motion on the four to amend.

All those in favor say aye.

Posed that motion carries.

Um that was to approve as amended, right?

Or do we still have to do that was the amendment?

Okay, so then we need to approve as amended.

So second.

Okay, all those in favor say aye.

Aye opposed that motion carries on to informational enterprise transit and water utility.

Oh, sorry.

I guess I would add the reason why it's informational.

It is a requirement by state statute that the city of Green Bay included in the the budget book and in their public um publication in the newspaper.

However, the water commission and the transit commission actually approves their their budgets.

Um so that is why it's on here as an informational item because you really can't take votes on um make changes to their budget.

Yeah, I'm just gonna maybe speak here.

Uh unfortunately, and we've talked about this in the past, the way this agenda lays out, it doesn't really give us uh a place to talk broadly uh about the budget.

So if the chair would give me the latitude, I would just do it here since the next item is adjournment.

Um chief fault, curious.

You know, one of the things for those you know who aren't intimately familiar with the budget, one of the biggest challenges we have and why we always have these questions of like, hey, this line raised by five thousand dollars, what's that for?

Is because we don't have the detail behind some of these lines.

Uh and of course, we talked about the implementation of uh priority-based budgeting and the ability for us to maybe look at programs, services that we're providing, and and so that way I I to me I feel like that's a more efficient and healthier conversation about what we value as a community.

Uh since the last time we talked about this at finance, curious if you if there's been any further advancements um on an update on when that would be implemented in is it possible that we could expect that for next year's budget?

Yeah, I think it's possible for next year's budget for sure.

Um we're hoping early in the 2026 to implement it with all the departments and included for 2027.

Okay, great, thank you.

And then and then I would just make a just a general statement.

Um Mayor, you said it in here, this isn't a fancy budget, and I think you're right, and I think this was more questions today than changes, which I think speaks volumes to your leadership on this issue, but also the hard work that staff has put in.

So I do want to thank everybody for that.

Uh we've had some tenuous budgets in the past, and you know, we can always disagree on certain policy implementations, and I think that's what that's been about.

But this really to me demonstrates that there's there's nothing, there's no frills in here, right?

And it's just trying to maintain our services, the quality services that our community, you know, has come to expect.

So I really do want to recognize that that effort and that hard work.

Um, Alder Grant, when I was chair of finance committee, we approved the budget in 20 minutes.

So the challenge has been extended.

This meeting or the next the next one.

Okay.

You're cut off now.

Anyone else give them an inch, he takes a mile.

Anything else?

Just echoing his comments.

This is fabulous.

So right in the capital campaign, so or the capital improvement plan into this and being able to look at it broadly.

Awesome.

Just a really really nice job.

Very easy to go through, too.

So and I'd like to just thank staff, honestly.

I really look forward to this this discussion because for me it's honestly fun.

I hope you guys don't think the questions are grilling, but it's actually really fun and interesting for us.

This is always like an annual deep dive into what how you guys function every day, and we appreciate it.

And I really appreciate our employees that took time to come here, and it was after hours for you.

And it was after hours for you.

So thank you because your input really does matter.

It's we don't know everything of your day-to-day job.

So appreciate you guys being here multiple times.

Those in favor say aye.

All right, we are adjourned.