All right.

Welcome as I call to order the March 3rd City of Murphy regular city council meeting.

Time is 6 p.m.

Rise with me as I provide the invitation to leave the budget legions.

Heavenly Father, bless us as we consider the agenda in front of us tonight.

Give us the wisdom to act with compassion and vision for what is best for our community.

Bless us and uh watch over our public safety officers and the community they serve.

Watch over our military as they enter a new engagement.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

I will turn the time over to the City Secretary for roll call and certification of point.

Mayor Scott Bradley here.

Mayor Pro Tim Elizabeth Abraham?

Here.

Deputy Marion.

Mayor Pro Tim Janay Willem.

Here.

Councilmember, please two Scott Smith.

Here.

Councilmember, please three injured chase.

Here.

Councilmember place for Ken Oldman.

Here.

Councilmember please five Laura Dew?

Here.

Mayor certified the presence of a plan.

Thank you.

Item four public comments time we set aside on an agenda to allow residents to address council on an item not on the agenda this evening.

If you have a um some uh some rules of engagement as elected officials, we are here to listen to you.

We recognize you, the people have a First Amendment and Texas statutory right to speak at public meetings.

The city is consistently placed an agenda on the City Council and Planning and Zoning Commission meetings, agendas for public comments.

The city its officials and his employees will act upon and consider only objective, non-discriminatory reasons and factors for compelling government purposes in all city business, including land use issues.

The city, its officials and its employees will not consider any discrimination anyway, including religious discrimination.

The city, its officials, its employees will treat all persons and property owners equally.

With that, I am going to I have one public comment form tonight.

Mr.

Maynard Little.

Hope you're having a good day today, Mr.

Little.

Maynard Little, 1004 St.

Mark Drive.

Good evening.

Some of you may recall that in both of the last two council meetings.

I'm asking each of you to explain why you voted to increase the stormwater fee and create yet another financial burden for all ratepayers.

I am merely seeking clarity.

Please raise your hand if you've contacted me to set up a meeting.

Not regarding this, but nonetheless, uh you have been pretty good.

Well, I'll meet with you either.

None of you have about this, but I'm happy.

None of you have.

Why have none of you contacted me?

I have sent follow-up emails to you to four of you.

Only one has responded.

Isn't responding to the con to the concerns of residents one of the responsibilities of a council member?

I believe that it is.

Consequently, I will again request a meeting to obtain all of the data and logic you used to approve the stormwater fee increase.

I look forward to hearing from each of you to obtain this information and your opinions as to why it needed to be increased.

And I um want to thank you for your attention to this matter.

All right.

If you if you stick around for just two minutes, I will have a response to one of your questions in my report.

Right.

All right.

Is there anyone else who would like to address council on an item not on the agenda this evening?

Not on the episode.

Not on the agenda this evening.

Seeing none, we will move on to Mayor's report.

Um there was a uh request that uh Mr.

Little had brought up last week.

It's an issue that I've experienced myself.

It's the presentations are kind of hard to get to afterwards, right?

Um they uh they aren't always linked uh within uh within the within the agenda, so uh residents have can't go back out without watching the presentation online.

So I've had a conversation with city staff.

City staff is working hard to um to to create a process that within 24 hours of the council meeting, then uh the those documents will be available online for us to consume.

We want to go back to look at it, and residents to be able to consume if they want to be able to take a look a look at it.

So I looking forward to that.

We'll give staff enough time to kind of implement that new policy.

But I think that's exciting.

So thank you, staff, for consideration on that.

And that's going forward from this meeting on the I want to give staff enough time to get it implemented.

So uh so yeah, we'll let staff uh figure that out.

Okay.

So moving on, that's that's what I had for my mayor's presentation.

I have a mayor's report.

Yep, go ahead.

All right.

So Carter has a picture that I shared with him this weekend.

I spoke with the young men's service league, um, the North Star chapter.

We met at the Murphy Baptist Church.

And so uh they wanted to learn more about civic responsibility.

So we spoke about that.

Uh great group of young men had lots of questions for me, so I thoroughly enjoyed my time with them.

They said that they had you there one time, so they you you beat me.

I I have been there before, and I've also done their mock counsel for them a number of times.

I'm very disappointed they did not reach out to me for a mock council.

I know.

You know.

So just a little bit about uh the Young Men's Service League.

Um it is a 501c3 nonprofit national organization.

Um YMSL are moms and their teenage sons who volunteered together uh to serve their local communities uh during the four years of high school.

Um wish I had known about that, I would have made my son join.

Um YMSL currently represents over 31,700 members and of young men, and as part of more than 199 chapters across 24 states.

So the YMSL offers mom service opportunities and time together with their sons to grow the relationship and to instill in them a heart of service to last a lifetime.

So again, very, very proud to have been there.

And if you just give me one more second, I want to shout out specifically uh Julie Eisenman, Van Eisenman, Monica Malone, Julian Malone, Alyssa Ford, uh Liam Ford, Brendan Peters, James Johnson, Evan Wyatt, Diane Griffin, Michael Connor, Rhett Jackson Sears, Griffin Brady.

Oh goodness.

Of course I can't work my phone all of a sudden.

Um Janet McWinnie, Keelan McWinnie, Coltman Winosky, Elliot Lance, Ben Reinhart, and Xavier Bonner.

And that concludes my report.

Outstanding.

Anyone else have anything to add so to add?

I just want to add to that that Keegan and I do IMSL, not with this chapter, and it is such a rewarding experience.

And I love they did civic leadership last or this month as well.

So it's it's a really great program.

Anything else?

All right.

Thanks, guys.

Appreciate it.

All right.

Moving on to 6A presentation.

Community emergency response team CERT graduation.

Chief Elliott.

Good evening.

Thank you all for doing us a few minutes before they are newest uh graduates of our community emergency response team.

At this time, I am actually going to turn this over to our fire marshal chief Scott Eckstein to let him take it from here.

And we also have um the CERT director, Kim Petrosick, with us to help us study this evening.

Good evening.

So the CERT, the community emergency response team members are a group of active residents that have received specialized training for the purpose of enhancing your ability to recognize, respond to, and recover from a major emergency affecting our community.

During a disaster, teams assist emergency response teams in damage assessment, accounting for residents and securing quick accessible routes into their neighborhoods.

CERT team teams uh also support public safety professions by searching for missing persons, assisting at public events, and other support functions that enhance emercy management.

The hybrid basic training cert course is divided into an eight-week online uh learning curriculum and two in-person tag up uh sessions.

A final online exam is combined with a final hands-on exam uh or what's better known as a disaster day exam at the end of the course.

This is Ken.

All right.

If as I call your name, would y'all mind coming up and join us?

So our first one this evening is Mr.

John M.

All right.

Our next one this evening is Mrs.

Kathleen Cox.

Uh third this evening is Mr.

Ahmad Sheikh.

And our last is Mrs.

Jessica Weeks.

Thank you.

Sorry, if y'all will all come up front here, we're gonna grab just a couple of quick pictures.

Y'all grab grab the middle spots there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We appreciate it.

All right.

Moving on to item seven, City Manager Staff Reports.

Mayor and Council, we have a few announcements tonight.

Food Truck Friday is coming back.

Um mark your calendars for March 13th and 27th.

Join us at Murphy Central Park from 6 to 9 p.m.

for Food Truck Friday.

We will have live music, entertainment, and the chance to connect with the community while savoring delicious meals.

Uh check out our website for more information.

The Hopp and Hunt is also fastly approaching on April 2nd, 2026 from 6 to 9 p.m.

at Murphy Central Park.

Tickets are free, but pre-registration is strongly encouraged so that we can be well prepared for the crowds.

Registration will remain open until March 31st.

Please go to the website, Murphy TX.org for more information and to register.

Good Friday is April 3rd, and City Hall offices will be closed in observance.

And then our spring cleaning green is coming up April 11th.

That will take place at City Hall, 206 and North Murphy Road from 9 a.m.

to noon.

And then our drug take back is happening later in April on the 25th at the police department from 10 a.m.

to 2 p.m.

And finally, Murphy's Backyard Barbecue is coming back for its second year also on April 25th, and that will take place from 12 p.m.

to 3 p.m.

at Murphy Central Park.

The backyard barbecue competition will be bringing the heat with two smoking competitions, the brisket battle and the people's choice showdown.

To learn more, go to our website, Murphy TX.org.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

With that, then we're going to move on to the consent agenda.

All consent agenda items are considered to be routine by the city council.

It will be enacted by one motion.

There will be no separate discussion of those items unless the council members so request.

In which event the item will be removed from the consent agenda and voted on separately.

Would anyone like to remove an item from the consent agenda this evening?

Seeing none, I'll take a motion.

Mayor move that we approve the consent agenda as presented.

Second.

I have a motion and a second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passed unanimously.

Before I go into individual considerations.

You had an item you wanted to speak on tonight, ma'am?

No.

Okay.

All right.

I just uh if if you did, do you have the one that you wanted to call it?

You're good.

All right.

Good.

I just want to make sure you had an opportunity.

All right.

Moving on to number nine, uh, individual considerations.

9A.

Consider and or act on accepting the annual comprehensive financial report, ACFER FR, for the fiscal year ending uh ended September 30th, 2025.

Good evening, Mayor.

Good evening, Council.

I'm excited for you to hear the financial highlights of the City of Murphy audit report for fiscal year 2025.

Um, here to present is going to be um Brent Young with Weaver.

He is the director of our audit engagement with our audit team.

Um I do want to recognize Brent Young as well as Mateo Key, who worked really hard on getting the report ready for us tonight.

I also want to recognize Miss Paulet Overman, our assistant finance director, who has also put in countless hours in order to meet that report by six months from the end of close.

It was really a little bit more challenging this year.

We had a new fund that we created the the VERF, that internal service fund, which came with a lot of different questions, a lot of different answers that were needed.

And then we also had something that's called a Gadsby pronouncement.

You'll hear it called the um Gatsby 101.

It's related to compensated absences, and they changed the way that we format that and the way that we calculated in our report.

So it was just a little bit more challenging this year, but thanks to to the team for um being able to get it through on time.

And with that, I'll let Brent um move forward with giving you that presentation.

Thank you, Berna.

Good evening.

Good to see everyone again.

You will have uh, I believe everybody has received uh all the various uh PDF versions uh and probably hard copies now of uh the various deliverables related to the audit.

Um I'll be referencing several different items uh if you have the hard copies in front of you.

The largest one is is the ACT for that's the financial statements.

That's uh a very large document, it's about a hundred over a hundred and twenty pages long, it has a lot of information in there, has all the financial results for the year ended uh September 30th, uh 2025.

Uh there's also a uh two-page report that's on the internal control.

This is where we would document any uh control deficiencies that we would have uh identified.

Uh I'll go over that in uh part of my presentation.

And then there's also a uh a little bit larger document.

This is uh the communication to those charged with governance.

Um it's uh several pages uh long and it has all the information related to uh what our responsibilities are, what management's responsibilities are, what the council's responsibilities are, uh, and what we've been uh tasked to do in terms of giving our audit opinion.

So uh if you need more detail about those items, I'm not gonna go over that in detail.

I'll just reference it throughout.

Uh, just wanted to point out the various documents that I may be talking about.

So we'll do uh some brief introductions.

I'll I'll go over who our team was, uh, we'll go through the audit process itself, uh go over the audit results and uh required excuse me communications.

We'll hit some very high-level financial highlights, and then we'll obviously leave some time for any questions anyone may have.

So I'll skip to this slide.

Um as uh Berna mentioned, my name is Brent Young.

I'm the director.

I've been on this audit for several years now, um, and I'm the one who signs off on the audit opinion for uh Weaver.

Um team uh we have multiple people, but the main people I wanted to point out is Mateo Key was the in-charge.

He was out here every day doing the audit, so he was uh handling uh all the work from the interim field work all the way through final field work, so he was integral part of all this uh and had a lot to do with the actual work uh that was being performed with my supervision.

Uh John DeBurrow, who was formerly the partner uh for your engagement, is now the technical reviewer.

He he looks at from an outside view of making sure that uh we've you know cross all the T's and dotted all the I's and then we also have on a consultation side, we use uh Alisa Gilbertson.

Uh she helps us with big data.

Uh basically you have a lot of transactions that flow through uh the GL, so uh she uses uh data extraction software and helps us uh isolate transactions that we may want to look at further.

So that is the team.

So let's go over the audit process a little bit.

Look at the timeline.

Um this is similar to every year, uh, but wanted to give you the actual time.

Uh during September of 2025, we came out and did interim field work.

Uh final field work started in January of 2026.

Uh we released the audit opinion on uh last Friday on the 27th, and obviously we're here today to discuss uh that and then it it all pretty much starts all over.

We're pretty much uh involved year-round.

Uh there as uh Berna mentioned, and we'll talk about in a little bit more depth.

There are new accounting pronouncements that come out uh over the uh course of of the year, so there's always questions and guidance needed uh as far as how to uh properly uh implement those.

So let's talk a little bit more about the audit process itself.

The audit was performed in accordance with the generally accepted auditing standards and generally accepted government auditing standards.

Uh the audit process was a risk-based approach for which we identify potential areas of risk that could lead to material misstatement in the financial statements, and then we tailor our resources uh to uh address those specific risks.

For the current year, the areas that we identified for potential risk are uh obviously just management general management override of controls.

The controls are there for a purpose.

If they get overridden, then that's when there's there's errors can occur.

Uh improper revenue recognition, uh, specifically in the utility billing, uh, misappropriation of cash uh through improper journal entries.

So those are the areas that we focused in, those are what areas that we identified as where if if if errors would have occurred that they could be potentially significant.

So we spent a lot of time making sure that those items did not occur.

Uh these uh were addressed by walking through the various controls, and then we also tested a sample of utility bills and basically pulled the utility bills, made sure that the rates that were being used were proper, the amount of usage was correct, and what was being charged to the customers was accurate.

Uh additionally, the significant areas included you know the rest of a revenue recognition, that's all the tax receivable sales tax, uh, any grants that are received, and the related receivables, uh the capital projects, purchasing and compliance with the bidding procedures, payables, accrued liabilities, and expenditures.

Like I mentioned, uh the interim field work happened in September of 2025.

Uh we walked through significant transaction cycles at that time.

That includes the budget and financial close, purchases, purchasing of the accounts uh payable payroll, including the TMRS controls, uh cash receipts uh over uh taxes, municipal court and utility billing.

We tested internal controls over cash disbursements and payroll, and then we tested compliance with the public funds investment act and the bidding procedures.

During final field work, which happened basically from January through February of 2026, we tested significant accounting balances using the combination of techniques, uh vouching of material transactions, sampling transactions, and applying analytic procedures.

Again, this is where we perform the utility billing recalculations on a sample of uh that we pulled, uh, and then assisting with the preparation of the financial statements uh and single audit report this year, a single audit report was not necessary.

Audit results.

Uh so this is kind of like the report card for the year.

Uh the type of report is an unmodified opinion.

That means it's a clean opinion.

There's no changes needed to the financial statements to be in accordance with the accounting standards.

There were no material weaknesses identified, no significant deficiencies, and there were no uh uh non-compliance material to the financial statements noted as well.

We did, in our opinion, and uh Berna mentioned this, we did have an emphasis of a matter uh during the year uh ended uh September 30th, 2025.

GASBY 101 compensated absences was implemented.

This required the beginning net position of the governmental activities uh to be reduced by a little over 1.1 million dollars.

Uh wanted to point out that this is not an error, this is just a change in how the accounting uh the uh standards are approaching uh compensated absences.

It's really just uh to be more clear.

At the end of the day, uh you have not only do you have the end users of the your constituents, but you also have uh bondholders that purchase the city uh bonds.

Uh they are looking and there's been a uh a push to get um the financial statements of governance to be pretty similar to uh public and and private companies as well.

So the accounting is kind of coming uh full circle, coming closer together because of that, and this is one of those items.

This is similar to a few years ago uh where pensions and OPEB had to come onto the books.

Uh there basically uh the accounting world is getting away from have allowing any off-balance sheet items of any kind, basically from since Enron forward.

So that's really what the basis of this.

Uh so it's not an error, uh, it's just the way the guidance has changed to uh change how those are calculated and how those are reported.

Again, I'm not gonna go through the the governance letter.

That is, I just wanted to point out that it is available.

If you did want to look at that, uh that goes through all the different required communications that were uh required to make, goes over you know our responsibilities versus your responsibilities, uh which we take quite a bit of time to go through.

So I just want to reference that to let you know that it's out there, but we'll move on from there.

Let's look at some financial highlights.

Going to look at the high level items, uh governmental revenues.

Uh what we got here is a two-year comparison of the various types of revenue that the governmental funds uh have.

Um the total revenues uh for 2025 were 23.8 uh million dollars, which is a uh 3.5 million or 13% decrease from the prior year.

The primary reason for that decrease, most things were up, but the primary in decrease here was related to intergovernmental revenue.

If you remember last year there was an ARPA grant, there was quite a bit of money uh recognized for that grant, uh, which is a roughly three point seven million dollars in the prior year.

That is where the majority of this uh decline came from.

It's just because you don't have that grant this year.

Um, everything was pretty consistent or increased slightly uh from the years before.

Um other revenue, which includes your investment income was down also uh uh three hundred and five thousand dollars.

This was obviously due to interest rates coming down from the year before.

Um property taxes was slightly down uh by $365,000.

Uh while the valuations were up, the rate came down, so that kind of offset each other, but for the most part it it came down $365,000, which is slightly less uh than the year before.

Um there were but there was quite a bit of increases in licenses and permits, uh $530,000 to be exact, and uh sales tax revenue of $145,000 and charges for services of $144,000.

So you can see the types of uh revenues that you have are pretty consistent year to year.

The pies have changed the pie pieces have changed a little bit, mainly uh as I said in the intergovernmental revenue section because that's where that grant revenue was in 2024 and it didn't repeat itself in 2025, which was expected.

So uh the pie pieces have changed a little bit, uh but for the most part they're pretty consistent year to year.

This is just the same information in uh uh just a different format so that you can kind of see that as you can see.

Most of these are relatively consistent uh year over year, uh, with that one being right in the middle there in your intergovernmental revenue going from 4.8 to 1.1, and again, that's related to that ARPA funding.

So, in terms of governmental fund expenditures, um look at this uh in terms of each fund.

As you can see, uh the majority of the fund uh of the expenditures are gonna come out of the general fund uh or the debt service fund with a little bit in the uh capital projects fund depending on the projects that are going on, and then there's slight amount from the uh actual ARPA fund that we were just discussing.

The total uh fund expenditures totaled 24.6 million, which is a 2.5 million or 9% decrease.

The largest portions of this were the budget not uh budgeted economic incentive of 2.3 million dollars uh in the prior year uh to HEB.

That was that was a one-time expenditure, so you didn't have that again, so they obviously that accounts for the vast majority of the decrease in of that $2.5 million uh decrease in expenditures year over year.

And again, this is just a comparative uh same thing that we did with revenues, just to give you an ideal of the types of revenue of expenses that are that are occurring uh year over year.

Um general government was down uh from 7.2 to 4.9 again because of the ARPA.

Uh public safety was up slightly uh from uh 8.6 to 9.9.

The rest of these are pretty consistent across the board.

Fund balances, so the governmental fund balances uh were a combined total of uh right around 25.5 uh million dollars at the end of uh fiscal year 2025.

The majority of that is in the general fund and the capital projects fund.

Uh the general fund has uh around 11.

uh 7 million, uh the debt service has just under 1 million, the capital projects 12.6 million, and ARPA fund has a little bit left in it of 223,000 dollars.

Overall, the fund balance increase 7.2 million dollars, primarily related to a uh $500,000 uh decrease in general fund, an increase of $61,000 in the debt service fund, a $6.5 million increase in the capital projects fund.

That increase is primarily related to the issuance of COs during the year, uh certificates of obligation, and an increase of uh $10,000 uh in the ARPA fund.

The unassigned uh fund balance was 11.6 million dollars, which represents uh 58% of general fund expendures, which is pretty consistent with where you guys have been uh year over year.

Uh that's a healthy uh place to be in case of any emergency that may occur uh many years ago when we had COVID was a good example when that happened, a lot of people pulled back, a lot of sales tax revenue came down.

So you have that the cushion there in case there is anything like that that comes up down the road.

In terms of budgetary highlights uh in the general fund, there the city had a favorable budget variance of 2.1 million dollars.

Uh actual revenues were uh 293,000 more than budgeted, and what like we mentioned earlier, the primary driver there was the licenses and permits, uh which was 234,000 more than budget.

Uh actual expenditures were 1.1 million less than budgeted due to the cost of uh savings in uh nearly every department related to budget amounts.

Let's talk a little bit about the enterprise funds.

Uh this is gonna be your uh utility fund, your water and sewer, and your storm water.

Uh the uh operating revenues are down uh slightly from the year before from 15 million to 14.5.

Uh operating expenses were also down from uh 13.6 to 12.8.

Uh the net position of the um enterprise funds increased by 1.7 million during the uh fiscal year 2025, uh primarily as a result of operating revenues exceeding operating expenses by 1.4 million dollars, and then there were net transfers out of the 1.2 million dollars to the general fund and uh capital contributions uh revenue of 1.4 million dollars that added back to the uh fund uh net position.

Did want to mention a little bit about the new fund that Berna mentioned.

Uh there's an internal service fund now, uh the VERF fund, which is vehicle replac vehicle and equipment replacement fund.

Uh those internal service funds are just basically an accounting device to accumulate uh and allocate cost internally among the city's various functions.

So it's gonna allocate as it goes, it's gonna allocate those cost uh out to uh not only the general fund but all the other funds uh in and the actual uh departmental uh functions as they use these assets.

So this the internal service fund currently has leased vehicles in it.

This is all the enterprise leases.

Uh because it is primarily uh uh predominantly a benefit of the governmental um funds rather than business type has been included within the governmental activities section of the government-wide financial statements.

I wanted to point that out because those assets and those liabilities are shown in your governmental activities rather than your business type activities.

Uh the internal service fund uh net position totaled 1.2 million dollars.

Uh it had a roughly a 727,000 uh in right-to-use leased vehicles, uh net of accumulated amortization, and 735,000 of lease liabilities at September 30th, 2025.

And that is ends my presentation.

I'll be happy to answer any questions anyone may have.

Absolutely.

Two two questions or two questions for your brand.

Well, number one, before I ask the questions, thank you and your team for all the hard work going through all of our finances.

So sometimes in social media, we hear a lot about how not a lot.

There's certain people that say that we're not transparent as as a city.

In your experience, you and your team and your organization have audited a lot of municipal governments.

Absolutely.

Varying sizes, including the same sizes as Murphy.

How how transparent is Murphy in your professional opinion?

I mean, you're where you need to be.

I mean, the way I look at it is when we come and ask a question, we should not have get a runaround.

We should be able to get it exactly what we need and get it in timely manner.

So I from my per perspective, I I generally the questions that we ask are answered almost immediately.

The answers are already there for the most part because the the they've already been prepared for uh the types of questions that we're gonna ask.

Uh but we do we're we're not always asking the same questions.

We go and ask different things.

We we focus in on uh various items uh that maybe we didn't focus on the year before.

Uh so what we are looking for is to it are is there any hesitation in giving this information?

And we never really see that.

You know, any time we ask for any support, it's there.

If the answer is not known, that'll be told as well, which is important.

If if someone doesn't know uh why something was accounted for the way it was, uh to bring that forward is is the right thing to do so that we can get it corrected and get it represented correctly in your financial statements.

Because at the end of the day, uh the financial statements uh you know they don't belong to an auditor, they belong to the people of the city, they belong to the bondholders that are investing in your bonds, uh that belong to uh the other governments that you do business with.

You do business with uh you know local governments through in a uh local agreements, you also do business with uh you know North North Texas Municipal Water District, you do business with the state and federal government through grants.

So they need to have uh uh an understanding that you're being transparent, and from my perspective, I don't ever I've never seen anything where anybody's trying to hide anything from us in any way.

So hopefully that answers the question.

Yeah, it does.

And my other question is you know, in your opinion, how would you categorize how financially sound the city of Murphy is?

Yeah, I think this the city is pretty financially sound.

I mean, you have a you have a good healthy fund balance.

Uh you're you're not in at risk of any, you know, any defaults.

If you look across the nation, uh some of the especially some of the northern cities that are in in bad position, honestly.

Your your uh funding position of your uh pension liability, which is probably the largest liability, is is pretty healthy.

You know, you're you're you've got a uh uh you've got that funded pretty well.

Uh the state kind of forces that for the most part, but uh uh those plans can really uh drag a government down.

From that perspective, you guys have done a pretty good job of of maintaining that and and making sure that uh that your contributions are appropriate so that that pension liability is not a uh huge uh issue going forward.

Um I would say that in the in general uh there's you don't have really any uh negative fund balances anywhere of any kind.

Uh you you there doesn't appear to be any uh need to go in that direction any time.

I in fact you have a little bit of room if you need it uh to uh to continue to uh keep tax rates low or to uh decrease them if you need to, or if if you're ever in a situation where you have uh, like I said, with COVID where pro sales taxes drop significantly, all of a sudden you have that cushion so that you can keep your public safety uh and all the other services that most citizens are gonna want uh funded uh if that type of thing does happen.

So thank you.

I appreciate your frank question opinions on this.

Absolutely.

All right.

Any other questions?

I've got one question.

Uh absolutely as the year goes through and you start your uh your field work.

If you see something that is uh alarming, troubling that that potentially could be a problem, do you wait till the your annual reporter do you meet with staff to go over anything that would be alarming?

Yeah, so we if if anything pops up that that is going to cause an issue that we're gonna have a finding, you know, if we're gonna have to bring it because basically if if there's a an issue that's material enough that it's gonna affect the financial statements, so we're gonna make uh city staff change it and and correct the financial statements.

We bring it up at that moment, you know.

So we're not there's not a wait and see uh if it's not going to get any better, basically.

So if there's a problem, we bring it up.

Uh you know, I don't not everybody's been here very long, but we've had some issues uh uh you know, probably uh it's probably been five or six years now, where we did have issues and we did have to bring them forward and we did have to get them corrected, and they resulted in material weaknesses uh and significant deficiencies that had to be reported.

At that time when those when those came up, uh those were being addressed uh in real time uh rather than delaying them.

So we knew kind of early when those things were occurring, and it wasn't one of those things where we it's not really proper to hold on to them.

This body we would we probably bring it forward here as well.

We may come to a earlier uh meeting to have a discussion.

Uh you don't really have a committee that handles that.

Uh so a lot of uh a lot of cities and water districts and school districts have audit committees that they may can run that through first or finance committees.

So you know that's that's another option.

Uh that's really up to you know you guys, but that's that's kind of what I've what we see normally see.

We normally have to go through that first, but yeah.

All right.

All right.

I have a question just for the city staff on how you know, as Ken was saying, we see a lot of things about transparency on social media, maybe even some other places that they post this.

Is there a way?

And I know that Bailey does a great job of doing a meeting recap of what we discuss in the meetings.

Um so we always post our agenda online.

have to go through that first but yeah we're good all right all right I have a question just for the city staff on how you know as Ken was saying we see a lot of things about transparency um on social media maybe even some other places that they post this is there a way and I know that Bailey does a great job of doing a meeting recap of what we discuss in the meetings um so we always post our agenda online um so and you guys I think do a great job of trying to engage the public and letting them know what's going on but is there a way that we're going to come up or a creative way to present what we went over today for the public to understand you know what we're doing with our budget where we are fiscally um and what our plans are because I think maybe we have information out there but they don't necessarily understand it or know exactly where to find it.

So our public affairs officer is currently working on like a budget bytes series to start explaining portions of our budget from a department level leading up to the big budget process and how we rolled out the budget video how we've done that for the last couple of years to kind of educate people with a little bit of entertainment mixed in there.

As far as the audit we've not done that in the past as I recall we can um we can find some create Bailey's very creative we can find some creative ways to try to get this out to the public but I think the most valuable piece is making it available right and letting people consume the information the way they want to consume it and then being there to answer questions and being transparent in however we can help them understand the information because as you guys know we do put out a lot of information daily weekly monthly and it's not always being fully consumed.

So we also have to be careful um about oversaturating we want people to really understand that when we're sending them information especially stuff about the finances that it's important and we want them to consume it.

But I will absolutely get with um our public affairs officer and talk about maybe some creative ways to put this out for people to be able to digest it.

Thank you.

China I want to point out too that the city of Murphy uses a service called ClearGov and Cleargov is a pretty good service that that's open that's on our website.

Yeah any citizen can go there login or anything and get all that information from our finances there.

And it's very intuitive right so they can go through it they can look by department they can look by fund they can look at the history um so it is uh thank you for bringing that up is it it is an interactive tool and I believe um we did put something out to kind of let people know it was there.

But that it's it's never a bad thing to continuously remind people of the resources that are at their disposal.

And clear go like I I did just a little search and not all cities have views that that we choose the city of Murphy chooses to use the service so that we can be transparent.

If you go to the city of Frisco you're not going to find this this type you know of um software I mean there may be they may have something different but but I don't want to call for Frisco tomorrow.

I'll have a Jeff Cheney call you so thank you.

All right all right very good we have an action item on this we need to uh either accept or deny the uh annual comprehensive financial report I'll take a motion on this may I move that we approve the annual comprehensive financial report for the fiscal year ending September 30th 2025 second I have a motion second all in favor aye aye any opposed motion passes unanimously item B consider under act on a resolution authorizing the city manager to evaluate execute a general services agreement with Neil Schaefer Inc.

to provide engineering services for design work associated with the rehabilitation of the million gallon elevated storage tank uh uh located at 1300 rodeo drive in Murphy Texas an amount not to exceed 107,200 dollars Donald I know this is not the first time I've seen this exact uh thing how often do we do this typically on you're talking about rehab and attack this yeah rehab in this tower typically a full rehab about every 20 years oh okay there may be some we did a painting yeah you may need to we did the one the intent we did Betsy I think a lot of the Betsy one and it was I believe it was just exterior only.

So we'll be taking a look at the interior of that one in the near future as well.

Yeah.

Yes good evening mayor good evening.

Great question uh the scope of the services for this agreement includes the design bidding and construction administration services necessary to rehabilitate the rodeo drive uh elevated storage tank uh rehabilitation will include uh blasting and repainting the tank's interior and exterior uh repairing and re or replacing some areas of corrosion uh rerouting some cables uh removing and reinstalling all conflicting antennas and other purchases that are on top of it on top of that tower uh and then some other minor things uh if approved design is expected to start in March uh and take approximately six months to complete plan is to advertise in October or November construction in December, January and February.

Uh and then some other minor things.

Uh if approved design is expected to start in March and take approximately six months to complete.

Plan is to advertise in October or November, construction in December, January, and February.

Try to get that tower back up and running before the summertime hits.

Um staff recommends approval.

I'll answer any questions you may have.

So go ahead.

I was going to say is the the tower down the entire time we're doing anything, even when we're just on the outside.

Yes, ma'am, it'll be down.

Thanks.

I don't have a question, but just a comment.

I didn't have not gone back to see what we paid, but this seems like less money than what we paid for the other one?

For the other one.

I just remember being outrageous.

So this is just design only.

Oh, there we go.

Yeah, this is design on the still.

Okay, still outrageous.

Okay, good.

All right.

Well, at least things don't change.

Right, right, right.

Okay, got it.

No more questions.

We had to move the antennas off the last one too, so that came back to us for that too, which added some extra cost because that wasn't figured in the first time.

We I remembered y'all bringing that up, and I made sure to add it into this.

It always comes up.

Always comes up.

We learned from that.

We learned.

All right.

I suppose it's water safety.

All right, I'll take a motion.

Are there any questions?

Uh other questions?

I'll take a motion.

We are moved that we act on approving this resolution authorizing the city manager to execute a general services agreement with Neil Schaefer Incorporated to provide engineering services for design work associated with the rehabilitation of the one thousand one million gallon elevated storage tank located at 1300 rodeo drive in Murphy, Texas, in an amount not to exceed 107,200.

Second.

I have a motion second and a second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed.

Motion passes unanimously.

I'm C consider and or act on a resolution authorized the city manager to enter into an interlocal cooperation agreement with the North Texas municipal water district to relocate a portion of a 14-inch portable water main to resolve a construction conflict with uh with the FM 544 pedestrian bridge project.

Okay, thank you, Mayor.

At a previous council meeting, uh you all approved an easement agreement with North Texas Municipal Water District to allow for the relocation of the uh 14-inch pottable water line you just mentioned.

Um that is part of the FM 544 pedestrian bidge project.

There's a direct conflict with where that line is right now.

This ILA simply outlines uh all the responsibilities of both parties, uh insurance requirements, uh conflicts that may arise from uh construction services, allowing them to come in and do inspection, that type of thing.

So uh again uh council recommend I mean uh staff recommends approval.

Be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Any questions?

I'll take a motion.

We are moved that we approve agenda item C as presented.

Second.

I have a motion of second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Thank you.

Motion passed unanimously, thank you.

All right, moving on to my item D, consider and or act on appointing an applicant to fill the vacancy on the historic resource resources advisory committee.

And Candy, we did receive an application, right?

There's just one here for a Mr.

William Dickinson.

Is that our preferred candidate?

So in October, the subcommittee of the council members did the interviews, made the appointments in December and January as we were preparing for the first meeting of this committee.

We received an email from Mr.

Rivers.

He actually moved out of Murphy.

So at the first meeting, we asked the members if they had any recommendations.

And this gentleman came as a recommendation, and he does have experience.

Great.

All right.

So I have one comment.

So we've been getting lots of different interests from the community about what our process is for the board and how people can apply to boards.

So I just wonder if it's worthwhile to have a short period where like two weeks or something where we do advertise and see if anyone else chooses to apply.

I mean, I think this guy's resume is very good and right on par, but I also feel like perhaps we should open it up to the community.

I I think I I absolutely agree kind of with the position that you're taking, because this has been a conversation.

I think uh the boards that they're more interested in are our uh not the advisory boards, they're the the commissions, right?

Like PNZ and so on.

But we can't but we can't have a quorum until we fill this one.

So I'd rather go ahead and fill this one.

Yeah, because we don't have a it's not a full committee.

Well, and I I want to I want to point out too we went through the whole process in the fall, like we always do.

We are filling a hole that came about.

So this this process is a little bit different because we're filling a hole, and it's our responsibility on council to fill the hole.

But there is, you know, as we all know, there is process every year.

We advertise it.

Lots of people apply.

We have a committee.

All these all these appointments are appointed by council by committee, and it's it's straight up.

Yeah, and I and I think I think it's there is a real opportunity for us to have a conversation before we open the next session.

How do we communicate this?

How do we encourage people to come out?

Um, you know, uh, you know, and there's always the ability to improve the process.

I just don't know that there's a reason for the uh for the for this board to delay this.

And I'm not trying to put it's just this board is is here's a guy who's very interested in in coming in.

He's been recommended by the other members.

Let's let's go ahead and get him in so that they can get started.

So this guy sounds awesome.

Yeah, that's not very good.

His both makes very good.

Yeah.

We're lucky to have Bill on this bill or we really are.

All right.

With that, I'll take a motion.

Mayor, I move that we approve.

I'm sorry, move the throttle.

That we approve um the appointing of Bill Dickinson to serve on the historic resources advisory committee.

Second.

I have a motion, second all in favor.

Aye.

Any opposed.

All right.

Motion passed unanimously.

All right, we're moving into executive session, according to the Texas Government Go, Chapter 551.

Sub Chapter D, the City Council will now recess in the executive session to discuss the following.

Item A, 551.071, consultation with attorney on pending contemplated litigation on a matter in which the duty of the attorney to the governmental body under the Texas disciplinary rules of professional conduct for the State Bar of Texas clearly conflicts with this chapter.

I land use and zoning matters, uh development plans, site plans, and planning processes.

And two, regarding restore the grasslands LLC and Harrington Turner Enterprises LP proposed wastewater treatment plan time is 652.

With the provisions chapter 551, sub chapter D, Text of Government Code, take any action necessary regarding item A, paragraph five uh 551.071 consultation with uh attorney on pending or contemplated litigation on the matter in which the duty of the attorney to the governmental body under the text disciplinary rules of professional conduct for the State Bar of Texas clearly conflicts with this chapter.

One land use and zoning matters, development plans, site plans, and planning process.

Two, regard regarding restore the grasslands LLC and Harrington Turner Enterprises LP proposed wastewater treatment plan.

There was no action taken in.

Exactly 724.

Let me get that down.

All right.

With that, uh we'll move on to 24.

With that, we'll move on to future agenda items.

Council members may request topics for future agenda meetings.

No member of the city council may discuss any of the requested subjects until such matter has been properly placed on agenda.

Would anyone like to uh place an item on a future agenda at this time?

I am gonna um gonna start a new process.

It just is um just it's just to stay in line with our government's policy.

Uh when you request an item for a future agenda item, uh we are going to I am going to see request a second.

Um often I'll probably give the second myself, but I want to make sure that that we're following the the government's policy process uh as part of this.

Would anyone like to move uh to put a future agenda item at this time?

Seeing none.

Time is 7 25.

We are adjourned.