Good morning, it's 10 o'clock, and we'll call the meeting to order the finance committee meeting for the City of Jackson City Council.

Are there any announcements or comments?

Okay.

In this meeting, we're going to examine the information that's been provided for us in terms of revenue, expenditures, et cetera, and work toward amending our budget for um the month of May or April.

And we don't have to amend our budget immediately.

We just need to do it before July.

So this is a work in progress, and I hope that the council will work toward amending the budget one time for the whole 23 or 30,000, whatever we have to amend, and based on what revenues and monies coming in.

Thank you, uh, Chairperson Clay.

To that, and this obviously is more than a 10% adjustment, whether we do just the first part or we do the first part in the second part.

Um what is the legal requirement for there's public notice that would have to take place?

Um even if we wanted to adjust this budget in part one, what's the what would be the timeline for how that can be done Brandon Jackson Finance Manager?

Um with the advertisement, they would um require us to actually have you all vote on the notice as well.

So the notice would be afterwards of us actually um approving.

So we would let's say, for example, I'm not I'm not saying we would, but let's say we were going to do this at the next council meeting when we post the the agenda the Friday before or whenever to notice that the meeting was taking place.

That's the only sort of notice that would be required in advance, and then if we were to pass it on that meeting, then you would have notice after the fact.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

Because it would be your uh the statement of votes of how you all voted.

Okay.

Okay.

Um within two weeks, excuse me.

Okay, but at that point, the the vote would have already taken place.

And obviously, you would set up the timeline for us.

Most definitely.

Okay.

Whatever date it is in the future.

Will you do a timeline based on us amending our budget the first of May and tell us where we gotta be based on the first of May?

And then that way the first half of the year is gone.

We can analyze all the numbers from the first six months, be prepared to do whatever we need to and make it final.

And we will have gotten any money that we're gonna get from the legislature.

We will have gotten the major taxes, we will have gotten everything, and it'll be a simple 50%, and we can figure out where we're heading.

Last thing I'm gonna say, and then we're gonna open it up for start to work.

May is the meeting that we're supposed to start working on formulating our policies for the budget.

So while we are doing this, we can come up with ideas of how next year's information for the budget will be presented to the council.

Go ahead and get our calendar for the whole time from May to August.

So by then we'll have everything in place, so we'll be working hand in hand with current numbers.

Uh Chairwoman Clay may ask a question.

Uh, and thank you so much for sending over all the documents that were sent over.

It was uh helpful to be able to go through review.

Um I want to make sure I'm understanding it correctly.

A lot of it seems to be relying on fund balance.

Is that an accurate interpretation of the numbers we saw Jillian Caldwell CFO?

The numbers represented in the the um information we provided on yesterday are from the the FY25.

Most of these packets are from the FY25 revenues and expenses, so that you can see where we landed last year on these amounts.

And so we're not using these to um, so we are using these to help us see where we should be currently.

We're using the revenues that were received last year to adjust the current year's budget, and we're using the expenses from the divisions for last year to put them back at those amounts instead of the overstated amounts.

Are you finished, Mr.

Parkinson?

Yes, ma'am.

Okay, so what I'm asking you to do is the six months that we've gotten this year, use those numbers and let's project the next six months.

Let's don't use the past six months.

Project forward.

Because we know what we've gotten for the six months.

We know exactly where we are.

And that's why I'm saying April will March will end the quarter, in half the year, and project forward.

May I ask a clarifying question?

Peter Taverson, CAO.

When you say project forward, you mean project forward in spending because the second half of the year spending will not be identical to the first half of the year's spending.

So when I just want to make sure we understand what you mean by project, so we provide the proper information in response to that.

Thank you.

Okay.

This is what I'm saying.

We have taken in six months of income, revenue, not income, revenue.

Take that six months, okay?

And you can compare it to the six months at the same time last year, okay?

But don't use last year's numbers.

Use what you've actually taken in for those six months, okay, and project for it, okay.

If we know that we've gotten the maximum amount of taxes that we're gonna get for this year in these six months, then don't use that high number for the next six months, okay?

So you can look at what you had last year at those six months and compare.

You can look at the first six months.

Were the numbers close?

If the numbers were not close, use that same formula to say what these numbers you think are.

Do a projection.

Take your expenses from the first six months, the actual expenses.

So the first six months of the year are gonna be all real numbers.

Nothing in that first six months is gonna be anything that we have to think about.

It's done.

It's what we collected, is what we spent.

We have to put the brakes on going forward if we're not gonna get this amount of money.

So we're basing it based on these last six months.

What we've spent, we can't take back.

What we got in, we can't.

We can project, and then we'll use all the ideas that we can come up with to generate revenue to get forward and the things that's going forward, and we won't take any services from the city or any constituents at this point or do anything to we really see.

It's only a week left in the month.

So we'll have those numbers in real time in a week.

It's gonna mean a lot of work for the council and a lot of work for the different departments, but I think we can make it happen using those numbers like that.

Right.

Mr.

Foot.

Thank you, madam chair.

The um appreciate the documents y'all sent out.

I uh in uh response to my request yesterday.

The um what I'm trying to under make sure I understand is the picture from 50,000 feet really way up.

And the and I'm so I've got this document, the six-page document, year-to-date budget report, fiscal year 2025 revenues.

So I even though this is 2026, I want to look and see where our sources of income stream coming in or revenue streams coming in, so we can make sure that we've you know focus on maximizing the revenue, and then you know that brings us closer to closing the gap.

So as I understand this in this first the first block on page one of this form, it says general property tax, and it's got sixty-six million five hundred and seventy thousand dollars, and that includes thirty-six million uh of realty taxes, which I assume is taxes on properties, and then it's got nineteen point eight million in current personal taxes.

Can you know what that means?

What's the difference between we don't pay income tax to the city of Jackson?

What is that 19.8 million dollars in personal taxes number?

Peter Taylor C AO, those are personal property taxes or personal property taxes, right?

When the tax assessor comes out uh to businesses, they assess the value of the furniture that are except okay.

Yes, sir.

So it's not the actual personal homes or anything.

That's just no another.

So I didn't okay.

Yeah, and that is taxed.

It is assessed by the county tax assessor the same as real property taxes, and then collected by the county tax collector and remitted to us.

Okay.

But that's what that means.

And yes, the way some of these things, and let me give this caveat on that, because I've asked um the CFO and her team some similar questions.

Sometimes the way things are labeled for whatever reason, I think is is a little bit misleading.

Sure.

I know that um uh the CFO and Mr.

Jackson corrected, I shouldn't say corrected.

Substituted some better words on a couple of items that I reviewed yesterday.

I think as both you and Chairman Clay have pointed out as we go forward, we do need to get the right language in the right terms.

Sure.

Yep.

Okay, so that that's tax on properties within buildings or whatever it might be.

The realty taxes is tax on the actual um structures, I assume.

Okay, and then the there's six point seven million advorum tax on autos.

Is that from just license plates or is that from sales of automobiles?

Do you know?

So that's licensed.

So we people people renew their license plate every year.

That's that's the money that comes in from that six point eight million.

So the total there in that box is six sixty-six point five seven uh million dollars.

And then they go to the next box and it goes through, it says licenses and permits.

Okay.

Um the uh for all kind of different permits and all.

Then the next is fines and forfeitures.

Uh I guess it's through the court system or whatever.

And it's got a million six thirty-nine is the total revenue from that.

And then it's got intergovernmental FE, and you turn to page three.

That's not much revenue, fifty-nine thousand dollars.

But then intergovernment ST, which is alcohol permits, other things per rata sales tax.

So this this is where the sales tax comes in for regular sales tax as opposed to modernization tax.

And it comes in at 31.96 million, and you add these other things along to it, and you end up with 35.7 million dollars.

So that's the second biggest revenue stream we have, I think that's the second biggest.

And you go on to some other lines here, and you go to page four.

This is a long thing, admissions fees, and set up and it's 716,000.

And then interest earned $379,000.

Now that's interest earned on our on our cash in our bank accounts.

Is that what that is?

Yes, sir.

Now I think that's gonna be up significantly because of what we we voted on, and I the the JP Morgan uh deal that we voted on.

Uh I think that should rise by my guess would be two minutes to two million dollars.

So that's that's a a big improvement if that comes through, if I'm not mistaken on that.

Now the page five, it's got other revenues.

And then we've got here we got uh utility public utility franchise, 4.7 million, and then franchise cable television 1.2, and then the nuclear power plant money from um the Grand Gulf that comes in every year, 1.6 million dollars.

And the so for that box, it ends up being the box is titled other revenues, and it come ends up being 14.7 million dollars.

And so then it you've got the applied fund balance, which I mean I you know I'm not sure if you really if that's really revenue.

I mean, that's that's just money you're taking from the fund balance from the last year, right?

Or whatever.

So let's don't account that six that's six point three seven million, but I don't really count that as a revenue stream.

Uh and then it's got uh operating transfers.

Now I'm not sure what this is.

It says 4.549 million.

Is that is that where budget transfers were done from other departments?

Is uh what do you know what that line item is?

What that explains um though operating transfers um within the revenue um are transfers and from other funds.

Yeah, so it's not really a revenue stream to the city, it's coming from other departments or something, right?

Yes.

Yes, that wouldn't I wouldn't consider that a so they go ahead.

And I can explain that uh so for transfers and from uh for other um funds, for example, whenever we moved um the Zurich settlement, we transferred some of the funds from the Zurich and to the general funds.

So that was a one time one time so it's not we're gonna we're not gonna have Zurich revenue streams every year.

No, sir.

So uh the the you you uh end up with 132 million, and you probably need to subtract out the um fund balance and also the transfers.

That would be a subtract out 10 million dollars.

You end up with 122 million approximately from 20.

Am I off on that on that?

I think so.

You you okay.

So this first column where you pulled all those numbers from those are the that was the original budget.

Oh, that was the budget.

That was FY25.

Okay, yes.

Your year to date expended column, the fourth column over.

Okay, those are the actual amounts that were brought in on each of those line items into FY25.

Okay, so I need to go back and look at them.

Um the far right.

The fourth column.

On the fourth column.

Okay.

I just want to make sure that that we understand where the mint money's coming from.

I mean, the because we we need two we need to be able to focus on the spending, but we also need to enhance the revenue streams wherever we can.

And that's one of the reasons I asked the lobbyists to come visit, be here and listen to the our discussions, because I think there's some opportunities to enhance revenue streams, and we need to focus on that um as well as an important part of this process.

Thank you.

Councilman Foote, uh, I think certainly the finance team and myself share those thoughts.

We have the immediate issues of trying to uh adjust the budget uh with revenue, but you you're absolutely right.

We've got to be thinking about how we grow uh the budget and grow revenue.

And I don't mean that simply to have a bloated government, but so this council can have its priorities uh implemented.

Uh one thing Mr.

Jackson has mentioned, and this would take some lobbyist work and some legislative approval, is uh we've watched our franchise fees from cable fall off the cliff because people do not watch cable TV anymore.

They get their video content other ways.

Twenty years ago, um 30 years ago, the cable fights were so big people got indicted.

Uh 20 years ago, uh the cable money was still so important that we hired outside counsel Phelps Dunbar to help us.

You may remember that, Councilman Hartley, make sure we got a good cable contract.

Today, those numbers have really fallen.

Should we, like some states um have done, implement something that allows us to generate revenue off streaming that is occurring within our jurisdiction?

So that would be a new uh uh revenue stream that might should be considered merely to replace one that through no action of this council or no action of population shift, but just demographic shift in viewing habits has occurred.

Obviously, we need to do a better job at collecting our fines over there at municipal court.

We need to do a better job at our permitting process.

Um I I heard I heard about that last night from somebody from West Jackson who is just trying to renew a business permit.

Yeah, so there's a lot we need to do there, and thank you for making sure that as the media picks up on adjustments and decreases, all of us don't lose sight that we need to grow revenue as well.

So I want I want to say thank you.

I think certainly we hear that that's gonna take a a citywide effort to engage that, but we should not lose sight of that.

Thank you.

Okay, revenue we understand everybody clear on revenue expenditures.

Thank you so much.

Uh Mr.

Taylor said um you provided us a preview a moment ago, and I'm wondering if you can expand on it on how this council, especially as a newbie, uh this is my first budget cycle on council, how we might expect the second half of a fiscal year calendar to differ from the first half of a fiscal year calendar in any substantive ways.

Uh thank you, Councilman Parkinson.

Uh one way is as Chairman Clay has pointed out, whatever revenue we've received this year, for example, if we receive 80 percent of revenue versus 75 this time, it's unlikely we're gonna get another 25 percent.

So that is one way, and we can um clarify that to see what the revenue is from that standpoint from a spending standpoint.

Certain things are staggered.

We have bond payments that are due several times a year.

Our um lighter note bond payments are due in the spring, and our uh heavier bond payments are due sometime, I want to say in June or July, sometime later, the second half of the fiscal year.

Um so there are some items like that.

I will also say that uh some uh folks around the city, because they listened to my comments that we have budget issues that we're trying to get our hands on, have gone ahead and spent more of their allotted budget lines to try and get ahead of that, thinking they may not have spending for the second half of the year.

And this is not improper spending, it's some prudent things that were done.

So we can make sure, for example, that we get trees down at Jamie Fowler Boyle and Sykes and Level Woods and those places.

We can make sure that we um continue with the council's priorities at Grove Park and other places, but we can adjust for that, do as Chairman Clay said, give you both revenue projections and spending projections for the second half of the year.

Um, but that's that's where your differences might come from.

It won't be a vast, it won't be a 20 percent difference, but just the nature of some of our bills and what we're doing, you'll see that.

Sure.

So it makes sense that you wouldn't have uh either revenue or expenditures even all 12 months of the year.

And if I'm hearing you correctly, the bulk of our revenues come in the first six months, but the bulk of our expenditures might happen in the last last six months.

Yes, sir.

So if we were to take the first six months and just double it, we'd be in big trouble.

I'm not saying you're suggesting that.

I'm trying to understand that someone who's never been through the budget.

Um I wouldn't say we'd be in big trouble, but but we we would be um that would be a very casual approach that doesn't take into other factors that we know.

And I'll give you an example.

Uh I suspect that when we run the reports for the first six months of the year, y'all will be pleased that spending is probably no more than 42 percent of the budget you set.

That's excellent.

Now, we've you know, if that's our number, we're all going to be big sigh of relief.

Um, but that in and of itself doesn't get us where we need to go because we're gonna spend a little bit more in the second half of the year.

Do we when we do our annual budgets?

Do we have a cash flow uh projection month by month?

I don't know again.

I'm coming back when you did, Councilman Parkinson.

We certainly didn't have one last year.

It's my understanding that hasn't been done in recent years.

I can tell you historically, when councilman Hartley and I were here previously, those type of items would be provided.

And that's why we appreciate the council's feedback on Wednesday as to what it needed for today.

And if you'd like something like that, I say you, the council, uh, we'll make a note of that and get that document as well, or create that document so you can have that.

That's excellent suggestion.

Thank you.

So I was gonna say, it's almost like we all like level billing when we pay our bills, but we don't have level billing in reality.

Another thing, fixed expenses that we know occur.

Can you give them to this council?

And you can put when they are due, and we can use those fixed expenses, and just like we do our budgets at home, we can divide them out and figure out monthly what we got to reserve and see what kind of reserves we have to have.

When you say fixed expenses, uh, Chairman Clay, again, I think this is one of those terms where it's subject to some um different interpretations.

I think the finance team and myself view fixed expenses as bond payments.

That's what I'm talking about.

Utility payments, but I want to make it clear, we do not view personnel as a fixed expense.

So um that's true, because it can fluctuate.

Right.

People can come and go.

But I want to make sure I want to make sure when we provide you fixed expenses, we don't intend to put personnel in there.

We certainly can provide you those numbers, but I just wanted to make that distinction again.

This is new for a lot of us.

Certainly the challenge this size is new, and I just want to make sure we're communicating well as we collectively work through it.

Thank you.

I want everything that we do to be as smooth as possible.

So as many numbers that we have, and anything that you can give us that we're not asking for that you think we need, please give us.

I talked to Mr.

Brandon this morning about some different reports and some different ways to give them to us, and we're gonna work with him and come up with ways so that we all can see the numbers at the same time and be aware of what's going on.

Okay, thank you, Madam President.

So the uh we went through an exercise with these three pages or the six pages of the um the budget uh on revenues coming in, and um but now on the other side.

What I'm from for me, what's gonna be helpful is understanding the the monies that come in the you got the money's coming in, so the money's going out from the general fund.

And so can you give me the you know the big categories?

One of them will be payroll, and whatever the other categories are, and about how many million for each category from the gent this is from the general fund.

Okay, you repeat the question.

Yeah, this is um uh the the revenue we went through the budget, which talks about money coming into the city, and now I'm trying to find for the for the general fund purposes the money going out from the general fund that is paid out on a whether it's a regular basis or one-time basis or whatever.

So we we because we've got to make we're gonna have to tighten to get to close the gap, you gotta focus on the revenue coming in, but also the the money that's going out and where it's going to, so we can see what potential savings might be or where we should focus on to come to generate those savings Jillian Caldwell, CFO.

Um, just wanted to kind of mention the year-to-date budget report, FY25 expense by division.

That is a list of by division how much you're spending.

And so it we can you know classify by category, um, like you said, personnel services, but this is a list by division.

Just wanted to which is that a report that you sent us?

Yes, sir.

The year to date budget report FY2025 expense by division, expense by division.

Uh Ms.

Clay, may I ask a question about about the report that was just mentioned?

Um hold on for a minute.

Yes, ma'am.

Report.

You can go he can go ahead.

I'm just trying to find the what go ahead, Mr.

Parkinson.

Thank you.

I I know we weren't uh in office necessarily during this time period, but I'm wondering if anyone can explain the any rationale for these extremes.

So for example, it looks like planning and transportation went way over their budgets for last year, and it looks like um right-of-way maintenance, um, office of publications and a few others went way under their budget for last year.

Is there any context or rationale for either of those extremes?

What number, sir?

I I'm looking, for example, it looks like transportation was budgeted, their revised budget was 1.8 million, and they spent over 3 million.

That was the biggest, and then similarly, planning was budgeted 4.5 and spent over 5 million.

Those are the extremes.

And then on the other end, it looks like um street right-of-way maintenance was budgeted over 2 million dollars, but spent a half million dollars, and there's a few others extreme cost savings there.

I can explain that.

So um, starting with planning and development.

Um 403, um, where you see the five million two hundred ninety-five thousand dollars expended.

Mr.

Jackson, slow down a little.

Excuse me, counsel for putting my my role on for a minute.

I know you're not used to getting up here on the mic, and I know you want to explain all this.

I can assure you the council is not gonna leave until you explain it.

Just take a breath and make sure everybody can catch up with where you are, including myself.

Okay.

Thank thank you.

You do have a nice jacket though.

I told them the same thing, Councilman Parkinson.

Uh so uh thank you.

Uh I'm sorry, counsel, but that's just one of those habits that's hard to break.

All right, you you're ready now.

Yes, sir.

My apologies.

Um, with 403, um, that is the Office of City Planning, uh, where you see um five million two hundred ninety-five thousand and eighteen dollars expended.

Where you see 5,295,000 and $18 expended.

That is actually where the street lights are paid from.

So there was not enough budget for the street lights, and that's why you see an overridge in that account.

Let's see another one.

Right away.

Right.

460.

Yeah, 460.

Street right-of-way maintenance.

You see only 570,000, uh 57,000 expended within this division.

This is where we parked the funding for the grass cutting contract that you all adopted two years ago.

But it wasn't done.

But is it was the work just not done?

Is that what we um what we ended up doing?

Um, I believe Ms.

Weathers um tried to um put together a number that we would need over time.

Um, however, I believe that's only going to be enough for a couple of years, to be completely honest with you.

Um, so that will be revisited because possibly at that time we didn't know if we were going to to hybrid or contract everything out.

So that's but this is just the 25 budget, right?

Yes, sir.

So they were budgeted two million dollars to cut the grass.

And they spent a half a million dollars.

Yes.

So the two million dollars, again, this is the budgeting habits we're trying to correct, was not intended to be two million dollars per year because the city doesn't have that reoccurring money.

If we had two million dollars a year to cut grass, we wouldn't have had the complaints we we've had.

So instead, uh Ms.

Weathers, as I understand it from talking with her, was able to get this money placed in the budget, and then they spent about a half million last year, and we hope to spend in that neighborhood again this year, though we've modified the contract, gas prices are up, and the acreage that we're good we're asking is gonna be up some.

And so that in turn is where Mr.

Jackson says this money will run out in a couple of years.

This isn't really money for one budget year, it's money in a line that the city was hoping to have carry over, not spend all of it for several years.

I appreciate that, and I'm glad that it ended up being savings because now we're in a position where we really need savings.

Uh that said, I will just respectfully say if the previous council intended for two million dollars to be spent, then two up to two million dollars should have been spent.

Um again, it ended up working to our advantage in this case because we ended up being uh real short on funds, but um, I think you know the council uh allocates funds in the ways that the the council wishes the administration to expend those funds, and so um I hope we don't get it to a case where the the administration says okay, well, they allocated this much, but you know, we we'd rather not spend I just want us to be aligned in what the budget is being allocated for.

I don't think you have any disagreement from myself or this administration again.

This is a number that was chosen at least one council ago, if not a couple of budget cycles previously, and so the decision to try and use it sparingly over years was done before all of us are here.

I think part of this exercise that we're going through is to get exactly where you're trying to go, Councilman Parkinson.

When y'all set a budget, and I believe I said this Wednesday, then it's on us to implement that budget.

And I said that in my opening remarks, and we could we are committed to implementing the budget that is inacted.

And so we want to align ourselves.

Thank you, sir.

I would think, if I may, madam chair, when we when we come in and we deliberate on the budget in our minds, and correct me if I'm wrong, is for the annual budget, right?

And we're not trying to, because when money's not spent, then the administration typically moves those funds around to catch up other stuff.

Yes, sir.

And so, and now we're wondering.

So, well, if we budgeted two million dollars, only 500 was spent, no wonder there's still dirt on the ground.

No wonder they're still, you know, grass not cut right away, right away is overgrown.

And so in my mind, you know, I'm not gonna say misspending, but we're underspending, like it's our personal finances, and that's just not proper how things are done.

I don't again, uh Mr.

Grizzell.

You don't get any disagreement from myself or your finance team, those decisions about how to spend the money, the contracts that were let last year for grass cutting for less than the total amount that was budgeted by the council were decisions before this administration took office.

We want to be on the same page.

If you've put it in the budget, the money exists, we need to implement it as the council intended.

I have another question.

Where is fuel man on here on these expenditures?

Where is the fuel man?

Fuel man would be a line within each of these divisions that have fuel man charges, and so we don't have just a fuel report.

We can we get that?

Yes.

And also cell phones.

That's another issue.

Because my understanding is that um, and I'm sorry, madam chair, please correct me if I'm out of line.

Um we're paying for a lot of cell phones, folks who don't work here anymore.

Two, we need to know who has a vehicle assigned because if there are non-essential uh employee, because I've seen vehicles out in Carthage, I've seen seated vehicles at restaurants during the day, you know, didn't appear to be a business meeting.

Um, we need to reel these in.

And if you're not a first responder, have to be on call somewhere, then we need to reel in these vehicles.

But I know for a long time, JPD's overtime as well as the fuel man uh expenditure has been eating us alive.

Yes, sir, and to some degree they still are.

So we managed to get some vehicles parked, and we had just started to see a decrease in this year's fuel man costs when the gas spike rose.

Respectfully, Mr.

Tableson, I would like to see a little more aggression with that.

Yes.

Well, I wasn't finished with my statement.

Okay.

So I I can feel your aggression.

Uh I have delivered to the mayor's office a set of vehicle policies, which are fairly intensive, somewhere between 25 and 30 pages that were drafted by our risk management department along with myself.

Um, I think they will park all the vehicles you have in question because the policies are not only detailed, but they hew to attorney general guidelines.

Um they also do something that unfortunately have been abandoned.

Mr.

Hartley, you remember we used to have accident review board.

Yeah, I'm not saying police and fire haven't had one, but we used to have one citywide.

Uh, and that accident review board could also review your vehicle usage and other things.

All that is in the recommendations as those policies have been presented to the mayor's office.

I expect him to sign those any day now.

They don't require council action, but I'm more than happy to share those with the council as well, because I think this is the type of effort uh council president Grizzell that's exactly what you're saying.

Now, let me pivot the cell phones because that is another very good point.

Uh I received the list of cell phones about two weeks ago.

It doesn't take anything but a quick glance to see that we are um uh not where we need to be on cell phones.

I noticed a couple of people that have retired.

I I hope that's just an error, and that we haven't allowed them to take their cell phone, and we're not still paying for it, but we're investigating that.

I also saw cell phones assigned to places like TMH1, TMH2, TMH3.

I assume that's Thalia, Mara, Hall.

But a cell phone should be assigned to a person, not just some generic location.

So all department directors were requested or directed to review the cell phone usage within their department.

They have Monday's directors' meeting, they're supposed to report the results to me.

And let me say this for aggressive, Mr.

Grizzell, for department directors that haven't done that, I will make the decision and just start turning off cell phones.

And and also, uh, because I pulled salaries while requested salaries um a couple weeks ago, and I was really stunned to see we got folks on payroll.

I have not seen yes, sir.

Um, and they're making some really high salaries.

And I would like to know what is their charged with doing as we're cutting back, because even the council, we've cut back.

Councilwoman Clay doesn't even have a clerk, you know.

Um, we've cut our travels back, we've done a lot on our part.

Um, but we would really like to see more intentional movement in all the departments to shed some of this weight.

These, you know, we have we need really need to maybe do some job studies.

I know that the clerk of council's office has looked at, you know, asked for job studies in the past, and we need to reimagine what work looks like.

We don't need three people doing the same job where one of them has to wait on another person to do what they need to do 15, 20 minutes.

And I understand we got some good people, but we we're at a crossroads now, but we have to really make some weighted decisions.

We have a financial responsibility to this city, and if we have a lot of dead weight with whether it's fuel man, all these extra vehicles, overtime and other things that we really need to be intentional about shedding at.

Yes, sir, Mr.

President.

I want to again say thank you for the voice of this council.

Uh sometimes I feel like um the loan voice across the street on some of these things, though uh the CFO will be the other voice on it.

Uh she and I rarely seen from a different sheet of paper and trying to get the budget under control.

The rest of the department directors and employees of the city need to hear exactly what y'all are saying as council members.

Um we have identified, I think, 33 positions uh initially that we think are redundant.

We don't think that is uh the be all the end all, but we will present those next week along with what I mentioned in response to your email, uh Councilman Foote, uh various areas for the council to look at and what those mathematical savings uh may amount to or revenue, depending on what it is.

So we'll put those uh initial 33 positions in there, Councilman Grizzell, uh, and then we will probably recommend some additional positions as we go through the timeline, uh Chairwoman McClay established uh Miss Brown Thomas.

Okay, just to add on what we talking about, is what brought to my attention that it's a lot of people that occupying city buildings for free.

Can we check on that and see who are in these buildings and why are they in there for free?

The second thing that I have is on line 403.

You said the street lights was paid out of this, and that's why I was in negative.

But if you go down to line 454, it's also street light.

So is that the same or what?

So the division 454 and 403 is in the same um department, which is planning and development, and as you see, that money was pulled from the actuals were charged two before uh 03 instead of 454.

So you see that money from the original appropriation being pulled out uh pulled out and transferred over into 403.

Why was it done like that?

Right.

Um the actuals were charged to the wrong account line.

Um who did that during two, I believe two um budget seasons ago, we um took all of the utilities and moved them into um one division per department, and that's where that mistake came into place.

But we have um switched that back over into 454, so it'll be better upkeeping of um our traffic lights, excuse me.

What was the the thought process to you of moving all of the utilities into one division?

So within each department, you have several divisions, and each division had it had its own um utility lines.

So uh for better record keeping, we thought moving all of the utility um lines into one division for each department would be helpful.

Um, but we have kind of reversed that to be honest with you.

But Streetlight had his own line, correct?

Correct.

And someone thought it was great to, I mean, just for record keeping purposes, because again, we're sitting here, and I don't have as much budget experience as some of my colleagues, but it just seems like maybe again, maybe I'm wrong.

A lot of money movement has been taking place.

So that's part of the house cleaning that we're actually um doing right now for everyone to have a better understanding of where's what is where and where is what um so we are working on that.

The umce again, it has been moved out of 403.

Um, we moved that um at the beginning of this fiscal year and moved it back into um 454 and also traffic lights.

Um, we moved traffic lights back into this individual line as well, uh, to separate it from other utilities um within public works as well.

So that's that's part of the cleanup.

You hear that, Miss Anders?

Mr.

Hartley.

Yes, sir.

Appreciate it.

I want to go back to where we were about 10 minutes ago when we were talking about grass maintenance and uh right-away cutting.

Well, first of all, let me comment on some of the other subject that came up.

Uh vehicles, we definitely need to look at that because it's not only a bad image during time of these cuts, but also gas prices have gotten ridiculous.

So you know, when someone see a vehicle in uh in Neshoba County, that's a problem.

Okay.

Um so I'm sure the administration would be working on that.

But going back to what we were talking about uh with the uh right-of-way cuttings, uh, I'm wondering if we could look at uh Mr.

Tavison perhaps we could look at uh adding more money now for for those riderweight cutting.

And the reason being is this uh other than just leveling it out because we're so far behind.

Uh a guy came to cut a lot of mine, uh, and it's and he said, Well, I'm gonna charge 75.

So okay.

He said, next time I'm gonna I'm gonna charge you $50.

Why?

Because we had to do a more a lot more work knocking it down, and next time it should be easier.

The same goes here.

There's a lot of places that has not been visited.

Uh we have to catch up, and then once we get it on schedule, once we get it knocked down, then it'll be a lot cheaper.

But for right now, we need some serious money there with uh line mowers, personnel, etc.

I think councilman Hartley, you have that.

Um we hear the direction of the council today.

I'm sure Mr.

Anderson, uh, this is music to his ears.

Um there is money there, as Mr.

Jackson pointed out.

We have the bid tabulations for the grass cutting contract that was let that should be coming your way.

We expect that contract to come in for less than what you have appropriated in that account.

So now that we're all on the same page about that account, we can spend more money out of that account and then figure out how much to put in there for FY27 and 27.

So what you want to accomplish, I believe the funding is already in place as opposed to trying to um hold back funding as bit as was done previously.

We simply spend the funding that is there today, as you and Council President Grizzell have indicated.

And I think we can get caught up, like you say.

Yes, sir.

And uh, and then the other thing is aesthetics, tracking businesses, uh making our citizens feel comfortable.

Uh there's so many other ramifications to us not uh going out and doing that and putting the necessary revenues into that area uh that's going to really clean up the city and give the right impressions.

Thank you, madam chair.

I just want to remind all of you all, including me.

Uh budget is a sheet of paper, okay?

And these numbers are not money.

So although we have these categories and it look like we have that, we may need to move something to somewhere else, but we're gonna take care of what needs to be done first.

So don't get happy about seeing extra dollars because those dollars may be moved at any time.

So the point is when we come back next week and we have the numbers from the end of the month, then we can see what we really have in terms of money because it's all about what we really have in terms of spending.

So whether these numbers are budgeted or not, we should not go hay wild.

And for those departments that decided to pre-spend, maybe we need to look at some kind of, and I don't want to be the barrier of bad news, uh freeze until we get a new budget or something.

Um, but that's up to the council.

But if you're gonna pre-spend thinking that you outspotting us, maybe we just need to just cut it off and let you not spend at all.

But the council needs to think about that.

Um I'd rather see us freeze spending than furlough or layoff or do anything like that.

But we need to all work together and we need to do what's essential for the city, and we know the city needs grass cutting and trash picked up and safety is always gonna be a first priority.

Okay, I ask some questions.

Uh-huh.

Mr.

Put.

Thank you, madam chair.

The um one thing would help me would be if we could take these 50 items, however many it is in this list here, and consolidate some of the items because they're all within say public works, because you get engineering as a line item, then you get infrastructure management division, and then you got public works director of administration, public works director of office.

Uh I'd like to see, you know, but but JPD is just one line, which is good.

And fire is just one line, which is good.

So you can get the big picture, and then if you want more detail, you can.

But let me ask go on to another thing.

Um it's got down here, redevelopment authority, 1.4 million.

Um, I thought we were paying them $600,000.

Uh what does that 1.4 million go to for Mr.

Foote, tell us what line you're looking at in Mr.

I'm sorry, excuse me.

423.

I assume that's Jackson Redevelopment Authority.

So that's not only including the appropriation to JRA, that's also including the bond payment.

The what bond payments?

How much how many bonds do we have?

What what's the dollar amount of the bonds that J or under JRA?

I'll get that information to you.

Uh you know, the let me make a suggestion, an outside the box suggestion here, um, regarding the JRA situation, which that's my understanding is they have 90 90 properties across the city, which um I assume don't pay any property tax.

One of the things we've got to do is find more sources of property taxes.

What I would recommend is um when we're gonna auction off these vehicles for that are that's a motor pool that we aren't using anymore.

Let's auction off the buildings JRA and let them be bought by people who are can pay property tax on those buildings and just have an auction, send out national notice.

We're gonna auction off, you know, a whole bunch of commercial properties, and we can put other properties in the list as well.

You know, all these, you know, old hotel and everything else, and just have a gigantic auction for business investors.

Ms.

I would be opposed to that as long as we put some stipulations on there that they have to develop it within 12 months.

Well, I'm uh whatever the point is that when they buy it, they have to start paying property taxes.

And and other people take some 18 months to develop, that's okay with me.

But the main point is that we're open for business and we want to rise, so let's get some capital in here, and that's one way to get some graduate money.

Okay.

Just one other stipulation I would put on that, and that is that we go local first instead of getting these folks from New Jersey and Houston and and other places.

I think we need to think through that.

That's something we need to table, but that is something that's don't table it.

No, they leave it open for discussion.

We're not I'm just brainstorming, okay.

This is just a brainstorm ever.

Okay.

But don't start tabling stuff.

Listen, we're not gonna table it in terms of not thinking about it.

Right.

But we're not the auction, when would the auction be?

It won't be within the total line.

What is an idea?

Well, there's nothing to table because it's not an item on the floor.

Yeah.

May I make a suggestion.

But I understand.

This is what I'm gonna say to y'all.

We could bring that up.

We're gonna bring that up.

I'm with you.

Uh we all in favor of it.

Okay.

We are all in favor of it.

There is we need revenue.

Nobody is against revenue up here.

Okay.

Nobody.

Council members.

Um again, I requested JRA appear at our next meeting.

They begged off to the second April meeting.

I think that JRA, and again, I don't want to pledge your time, but I do think the relationship between the city and JRA warrants its own committee meeting, whether that's a budget committee meeting, a legislative committee meeting.

I can see it arising several places, but all of this is worthy of conversation.

Uh, you support JRA, and they have to be a partner with how you see the vision of the city.

It can't be their vision only, it has to be a shared vision.

And uh Councilman Foote, you're absolutely right.

We have too many properties in this city that don't don't generate any tax revenue whatsoever.

So again, uh I defer to y'all, but I do think JRA is worthy of its own um set meeting where they come over and answer these questions and explain what they're trying to do and get your feedback because you need to know whether you have a development partner going forward.

You'll you'll schedule that.

We'll schedule we will schedule a meeting with JRA, a specific meeting.

Back to the budget items.

Well, that was a budget I want to ask about.

What is that that million four go to at JRA?

Is it salaries?

They don't have that many people.

Um we um so the one point four is um only goes towards the bond payments or the bond payments, okay.

And the appropriation.

Okay.

We need if you could get some more details on how much we owe in bonds and uh the under the JRA like that.

We need we need a bond schedule for the whole city, all bonds, and that's what I said about fixed expenses.

That is very, very important.

We cannot not pay our bonds.

Yes.

So that is most important.

We need to prioritize as a council what's most important, what services we want to keep.

We want to keep all services.

Don't let me say it like that.

We want to keep everything.

But what we can reasonably afford to pay the next six months and working forward where we can go.

Because I don't want anybody to say we don't want or we against something.

But we really gotta look at what's important to us on this on this and fuel man, phones, et cetera.

That's gonna be a big cut.

So by the time we get back together, we will know exactly how much that has decreased.

We'll know how much our taxes are that we have collected.

We will have gotten the bulk of our money.

We will know where our expenses are for the current year, not 2025.

And once we get those figures, we can really work on what we're doing.

Because right now we're working on past history.

Mr.

Plitt.

No, another line, I think that uh line item that I think we could save some money on is um on the street lighting where it says it's line 454.

Uh total is 3.57 million.

The um I think there's consultants out there, uh, Mr.

Davison that can bring some value to um give show us because there's the whole it's a black box that energy has with us where where we don't know what the specifics are, we pay you know um three and a half million, the more most of that money I think goes to entergy.

But I would like to, you know, have some have some other um people come in and give us some some um uh ideas on how to reduce that number.

Yes, sir.

Uh I agree with you.

There are consultants out there, um, and we will uh the administration will bring someone forth uh before the council.

You're right.

That is a number that perhaps isn't a short-term number, but like your revenue uh comments, we can't lose sight of that.

Yeah, and we can't whether we get that problem solved next six months or the next 12 or 18 months, we can't ever let up and that we have to solve that problem and get efficiencies.

And while you're there, councilman foot, uh you and um uh those have brought up, but it's particularly you, the copier contracts.

And so when you when you see um the suggestions we will have next week, we've heard that as well.

Mr.

Jackson's been doing some um uh detail on that.

We have 33 copier contracts, and while all the vendors are indeed on the state contract um list, there ought to be some efficiencies in there as well.

And then I'll take it a step further, and these will be more detailed discussions.

Why do we have a publications department and 33 copier contracts?

There seems like there ought to be some overlap or efficiency saved there.

We either need to better use publications or we need to uh reduce the copier contracts, or perhaps we need to better use publications and reduce uh reduce both of them.

But those are some questions where perhaps we have been we're siloed currently, but there ought to be better overlap and synergy that promotes efficiency.

Okay, uh one other line item I have a question about is code services, it's 444, 4.3 million dollars.

Is that code enforcement?

Is that what that is?

And that is that the I didn't realize we had that much of a budget for them.

I know we uh increased our code enforcement officers.

That what all is that 4.3 million dollars, that's a lot of money.

Um what does that cover?

Or the do you do is there a can somebody get a breakdown?

Not right now, but I'd like to see a breakdown of how that 4.3 million dollars is spent on in uh for code enforcement.

And also that does that include, I'm sorry, Mr.

Harley, uh CB, the CBDG, all those funds.

No.

No, those funds are in um separate special revenue funds, they're not in the general fund.

Because we got too much blight.

For four point million, yeah.

Yeah, something.

So code enforcement has a budget of four million dollars.

Yes.

And we can get a breakdown of that budget line by line.

Yes.

Yeah, I would like to see that.

Thank you.

You do need to take a look at that.

I appreciate y'all bringing that up.

We seem a little bit of miss.

We got 20 code enforcement officers, which is two point we don't have to.

We had two point eight per ward.

What now they must be doing other things.

Okay.

Well, I don't know.

Uh I'm not gonna say what they're doing.

I'm saying that we have 20.

And let's look at this in a logical manner.

Um, even if 20 were operating efficiency, we don't have enough funding to tear down all of the properties that 20 could do if they were writing that efficiently.

So we will get you that line by line breakdown of that area, and there needs to be some real thought uh collectively on what is efficient code enforcement because it doesn't do us any good.

Could we do 10 officers and put those other 10 salaries in the actual dollars that tear down the blight?

And so we y'all have to be able to make those decisions.

Um but you do need those line by line breakdowns so you can ask the property.

Well, my understanding, I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

Is that yeah, we have 20 code enforcement offices.

They're not all doing code enforcement.

Some are doing inspections, some are doing um what's that asbestos and all that kind of stuff.

Some are also you know doing permit stuff.

But I think that again, we need to reimagine what this should look like so that we can get the most efficient uh levels of work out of our employees.

If we got 20 and they making 38,000, that ain't but 760,000, you still got three million dollars out there, and you're not tearing down properties and we getting a match, et cetera.

So something is missing on that line item.

Well, we'll get you the uh individual line items, and councilman Grizel, I think you're correct um as to how the actual boots on the ground are operating, but you're also correct that we've got to reimagine this and do the best way possible.

It shouldn't take two or three separate people to come out and visit a property just to get a renewal.

I'm not even talking about a tearing down, but people who tell me they're getting business license renewals get visits from two or three people in the planning and development department.

That ought to be one person checking it off and figuring out do they meet the criteria or not.

So we'll get you the line by line, and um we thank you for helping us.

This is what the city modernization project is really about.

This isn't just about we've got adjust our our budget, but it is looking how do you who set the policy and make the authority uh governing authorities make the decisions?

How do we do that to promote the efficient modern city that I think all of you want?

Yes, if I may um bring your attention to this report, we provided it's a it's a spreadsheet, it's it says City of Jackson budget.

This report breaks down by category those divisions that you see in your year-to-date FY25 budget, and in the third column, you will see what has with the exception of the last six days of this month, you'll see where we are as of FY26.

Uh uh, that's the budget.

Okay.

So on the second page of this packet, you will see um division 444.

That is that is the code.

Code services division.

444.

Okay.

444 is on the second page.

Yeah.

It's about the fourth division down.

444.

That is the breakdown by category for that division.

So personal services.

What is that?

It's got two 2.1 million dollars.

What is personal services?

That's that salaries and fringes.

Oh, that's that's payroll.

That's just payroll.

It's more than 20 people that are um being charged to 444.

I I have to keep going back, you know.

Um, but code enforcement.

Um, one thing, Mr.

Tavinson, aren't we doing cross-training now to make more efficient use out of code enforcement?

You would need to ask Director Brown that I have tried to give her some deference as a new director to reorganize that department, and I don't have that, but I will make inquiry on that.

I ideally going forward, everybody in this city needs to be cross-trained to do something more than one narrow job position.

I pick up trash around the hood building.

I'm pretty sure that's not my job description, and that we employ somebody over there in director Anderson's department to do that.

All right, but we none of us should be above doing more than one job.

So let's hope they're cross-training.

We'll find out from Director Brown.

Okay, and uh uh on that same note, uh cross-training.

There are uh within the last year, there was at least one person or maybe two that just inspected dumpsters.

And there are the fences and stuff around dumpsters.

Okay.

We need to make better utilization of uh by cross-training all of these folks.

So hey, you driving by a house and there's a case on it, you stop there.

Uh and the second thing is we need to put more emphasis on the enforcement side.

I mean jail time, penalties, because these guys are going around in circles, okay, and uh they're going like hey, you get a complaint over here, and you pass 10 properties that need cleaning up.

Okay, and then you go around and around, and then after a year, it falls off, and you so that is not efficient at all.

So we need to talk to Director Brown about that.

And lastly, I just want to ask right now, as of the end of March, what percentage rate should we be looking at for his expenditures?

We would love to be below the 50% as CO CAO Tableson stated, we are currently around 42%.

On average, I'm looking here and I'm seeing 103%.

I'm seeing uh 125 actuals, you know, I'm seeing 116.

Um living on this, you know, and I'm seeing, and so uh that's concerning to me because this this report, this report is a full fiscal year.

This is for FY25.

Oh, okay.

Yes, okay.

Yes, and thank you for that.

Yes.

Um, last thing I wanted to mention in that 444 on the other services and charges, the 730, um, well, 710,000 that's currently in the budget for code services, that's mostly your um demolition projects that you are approving on the consent agenda every other week.

Can we put that under a category called demolition projects?

Well, or by line it is well, I mean, but uh or just extend that you know, code service dash demolition, so we can have some idea that a it's not just going forwards uh other things and payroll, etc.

And we'll know what's already already in there because we're asking all the time how much money uh pretty much every other meeting we're asking how much money is still available in code enforcement for demolition.

Thank you.

It's also I mean when a quick addition.

Okay, go ahead.

Thank you.

Um can you tell me why this is labeled fiscal year 2026 adopted and fiscal year 2026 revised?

That is the adopted budget is as it was uh adopted in back in September, and the revised is where we cur where we are today um with the budget, and so a lot of this council hasn't revised the budget, have we?

Again, this is a language issue.

It's it's interesting to hear y'all talk to each other and talk past each other, just the benefit of having sat on the bench.

Um it is you are correct, it is not revised.

That would not be the right word.

That would be the proposed revised budget that resets to FY25 actuals, not a revised budget.

It's councilwoman clay, Chairwoman Clay has said the intention is to revise the budget all at one time.

So that is simply uh finance using the word differently than I think you or I would use it.

But he probably should say proposed.

But even if we even if it was the revised down to the 2025 actuals, the grand total is more than the fiscal year 2026 adopted, and I know you don't want us to be spending more money than we're currently budgeted.

I answered the grammatical question.

That's my area of expertise.

I'm gonna prefer the math question over to Mr.

Jackson.

I got can I have a question?

Hold on, let me get the why he got this now.

We don't want to do it.

That's not the end of the house.

So let's hold it forward.

Okay.

So the only difference within the adopted budget and the revised budget is us actually increasing um our revenue, um, which is long uh what is it?

Um proceeds to long-term debt in order to purchase more equipment and public works.

That was 138,000.

That's the only difference in between the adopted budget and the revised budget when you look at the grand total.

No, sir.

If you look line item by line item, there's all kinds of differences between adopted and the revised.

So you can move money within category without council approval.

As long as it's within category.

And within the 10%.

Future reference, when you move money, we don't want to approve it.

We just want it to be noted that money was moved so we'll know what we're looking at.

Okay.

So that list I gave you all yesterday.

Um when it said contingency, we moved all of that money outside of the actual um account lines into those um contingency accounts in order for the departments not to spend that money.

So we just parked the money.

So that's where you see all of these changes.

But the um everything is still the same.

It's just parking to a contingency account.

Brandon.

Within category.

Let me just say this.

Umless there's more transparency, we will be having a lot more of these meetings.

And I know you don't want to be sitting in that seat every other week until we can get to the bottom of this.

But as the administration is moving money around, we need to know.

But as stuff is being moved around, we need to know, and that's what chairwoman clay is saying.

We need to know how money is being moved around and why.

Unless you're unless you just want to you are operating off of an entirely different budget than the one that this council approved.

The money is still within we adopt the budget by category.

So the money is still within the category.

Now the account lines did change, but we adopt by category.

And I completely understand.

I am willing to be in this hot seat every week if I need to to get this budget correctly.

Well, I don't think you understand.

We don't want to have to do this, but we would like more transparency.

If there's money being moved around category to category, and this may be viewed as micromanagement or whatever, until we can actually see some um until we get back in the black.

But we need to understand because we know you know, like even with salaries, there's a range, y'all can give somebody the money however you want to, but we need to see where we are.

Okay.

And and let me point out for clarification, those monthly budget, monthly um council reports that you all are the financial report you're receiving, it shows those any any moves that we're permanently making.

The adjustments that Mr.

Jackson is referring to are that's just where we were trying to hold the departments steady until we we had this conversation because they could spend, you know, as until you all make a final decision on how you want to make the budget adjustments, they could continue to spend what was adopted in September.

As we all know, that was overstated.

And so this was our attempt to just kind of freeze them temporarily, and so it like he said, it's still within the budget as you approved it by category.

We have not made that type of adjustment.

And and again, as I stated yesterday on those monthly reports you're receiving if you prefer them in a different format so that it's clear to see where the adjustments are being made, where the money is being spent, we can definitely make those adjustments as well to the formatting of those monthly reports.

We're gonna listen to Mr.

Foote, and then we got some suggestions for you.

The um a point I wanted to make with reference in earlier conversation about the money for for blight removal and code enforcement.

I think it's really important that we segregate the money that's gonna go to demolish stuff because we're making requests from the to get money from the state and maybe even federal level to address the blight situation.

There's legislation, there'll be in the legislation next year, and and we they need transparency from us on this is the money we spent last year, and it's in this line item there, and this is what we hope to have to address blight, and it can't just be part of a budget about code enforcement.

I think that um undermines our uh the the sales point with with um the state legislature to get the money we need.

They realize we've got a blight issue, and I think a lot of those state representatives are willing to give us money for that, but it needs to be clear to them that it's gonna go into blight removal and not spread around on salaries or something else.

Thank you.

Yeah, Mr.

Hartley.

Yes, thank you.

I'm chair.

I'd like to echo that, and it may be from Mr.

Anderson's standpoint, looking through his budget, but we need these these fundings specifically marked or noted because what we're trying to do on one on the state standpoint is to uh let them see, because when we testified in front of that uh uh revalidation, uh Jackson revitalization uh committee.

Anderson's standpoint, looking through his budget, but we need these these fundings specifically marked or noted because what we're trying to do on one on the state standpoint is let them see because when we testified in front of that uh uh revitalization uh Jackson revitalization uh committee one of the things they ask how much money are you spending how many how much personnel they asked for that specific kind of information so I agree with my colleague there we need to make note uh of that not only for the state but when going after federal dollars this is what we're doing this is what we're serious about we're not just asking you for money we're asking you for additional support and help thank you madam chair mr steps thank you councilman grassell your point on transparency is well taken but I want to make it clear we're being as transparent as anybody has been with this city in probably 20 years so we will continue to improve that transparency but the moving of money legally within categories is not something new for the last six months I understand and I don't want you to take what I said wrong well I have hold on let me finish if you don't mind I have a reputation and some integrity I spent 35 years in the courtroom getting that what I don't want is someone to listen to this and take that somehow this administration while I'm CAO is not being forthcoming or transparent or doing something improper.

We are trying all of us are trying to fix a budgeting process in real time that none of us is responsible for and so uh I don't take offense to it but I want to make it clear we will endeavor to do even better transparency.

I think we made a lot of progress from Wednesday to today and you have charged us with some very specific things today we'll follow uh up with but I also want to make it clear for the public that there is quote unquote no funny business going on thank you Mr.

Thomson and I want to say that we appreciate you guys moving the money if the intent was to freeze it we are not against that but we all need to be on the same page and I think this council needs to commit to meeting once a month in person and we are without a council member today and we should have all seven of us sitting here if we're going to make decisions because at the end of the day it rep we represent the whole city and all of us should be involved in this and not just to we get it straight but from here out we should commit to meeting once a month going through these numbers and seeing where we are so we'll never have any surprises yeah and uh and and we we're great and uh just one quick thing and I was going to save it for towards the end but this is the new dream team this is in fact what he Ms.

Tableson said the best relationship the most input we've had in many years and so I I appreciate that we got a renewed energy we got new folks uh new direction this is it folks this is as good as it's gonna get okay so thank you I appreciate the administration the finance for being as forthcoming bear with us as we go through this entire process okay thank you well we've given them a lot of things to get back for us so we need as a council to decide when we want to meet again because we need to meet and between now and May 1 we need to be working at least every week even if it's not in person um to get this taken care and likewise if we need some less than quorum meetings uh y'all can decide amongst yourselves how to do that but we we pledge to make ourselves available if two or three of you if one of you or two or three of you want to meet uh as some working quorum so we don't violate open meetings but to facilitate the process as well all information that we share we're gonna share with all of you because we want all of us operating from that same factual basis and again we appreciate your commitment to this process um because CFO myself and Mr.

Jackson and the rest of the team can't do it without y'all the meeting uh hastily called meeting we had yesterday and provided us information on some issues there in ward five so we certainly appreciate that we got made a lot of progress you to the finance team for getting the information to the auditor so we are in the process of working with the auditor so that you are to be commended for that and we look forward to having those numbers and by the time we get the new budget we will have real numbers so I hope you guys will work together with the finance committee I know we change committees etc but we need to carry this forward to we get it done.

Um there's an um a meeting this afternoon, and so we are now in the process.

We the collective city uh are in the process of catching up the two year audits in addition to the one that was completed in the fall.

And I don't think that's some really good news that the public needs to know.

So I just want to echo you.

Thank you for bringing that up.

Are there any other questions or announcements?

Then we are adjourned.