Thank you, Mayor.

We're recording.

I'd like to call this meeting for the work session for the Johnstreek City Council to order at 5 04 p.m.

this July 14th.

Thank you.

Could you lead the pledge?

I'd be happy to.

I pledge allegiance.

Can you just mayor marks?

None.

Thank you.

The first item under the agenda is strategic priorities.

So fiscal year 26 budget initial presentation.

Are you starting a soft mayor or this first assistance?

Great.

Mayor Bradbury.

All right.

So in front of you is a brand new budget book for fiscal year 2026.

And it I think needs to be said that Johns Creek as a city is in a very good, very strong, healthy economic financial situation.

In fact, we have never been in a stronger financial position as a city than we are today.

As you might can imagine, is once again built on the rollback rate.

This is the third year that the budget has been submitted to you based on the rollback rate.

The good thing about that, why I'm so partial to that, is it makes it easier for us to live within our means to not raise taxes because we are in balance right there in the budget built on the rollback?

The budget, I think does a very good job of advancing our strategic priorities and improving quality of life and making investments and improving our community.

Those strategic priorities, obviously, arts and culture, public safety, transportation connectivity, economic development, and obviously recreation and parks.

It advances all of those and makes key investments in those areas.

There are some new initiatives that I would point out.

Obviously, the performing arts center is something that if the voters choose to approve the bond this November, there is money allocated for the construction documents.

But again, that would only be activated if the voters approve the referendum.

It's not a ton of money, but I think it's very important that we quickly try to get all of these different road improvement projects looking like what we are accustomed to, that homey pastoral uh look and feel as we drive through Johns Creek.

In public safety, there are uh new vehicles included, and obviously it's a new fire station, not a new fire station, a new fire truck, which I don't know.

They're similar maybe in cost sometimes.

Um anyway, uh the traffic control center is the other uh initiative.

The hardware that it takes to make our traffic center uh so unique and advanced is coming to the end of its useful life, and so there's money in this budget to replace that equipment.

And with that, uh I look forward to transitioning the budget from myself to all of you and listening to your feedback and your uh ways that you might want to change it.

And I think we have always improved our budget after we have collaborated as a council.

So uh with that I'll hand it over to Kay and thank you for everything you and uh Kimberly and everyone else in the team that participate in getting us to this point.

Sorry, did you orient you to the budget document that you have the format of the document is the same as it was for FY 2025?

So you have tabs that are representing different pieces of the budget, the lime green, yellowish, or the personnel as in past blue are operating, the yellow are capital, both uh the accruals and the capital funds.

I'm sorry, the blue is capital, the red is accrual funds, and then the last tab that has forecast is the five-year CIP that's been updated related to the capital that is proposed in the budget.

As our normal process goes related to the budget development, we'll talk a little bit about that, provide the financial details, give you a few budget highlights and the priorities, and then talk about the next steps related to future discussions, and most importantly, answer any questions that you have or begin that initial discussion or follow-up that staff may need to get information to you for any questions that you have.

The budget is one of the most important decisions that the council makes every year that you're very well aware.

A lot of work goes into this from the staff perspective and gathering information, having meetings, looking at the priorities and the initial feedback that has been given to the staff related to strategic priorities.

So that's how we have built this budget.

It also is our guide for spending.

It's our roadmap of how we plan to spend the money from what sources, and then through each department.

It also provides us an ability to monitor our progress along the way and to target certain milestones and be able to report back on those throughout the fiscal year.

And then certainly based on the city's strong financial policies, it's an opportunity for us to ensure continued financial security and adherence to those policies as the budget is developed and presented.

We start the budget development process early on, and looking at revenues, see how our top 10 basic revenue sources are performing and how what we might expect, or if there are certain parameters that impact those in the upcoming fiscal year.

Then departments work very closely with the city manager's office related to operations, and a numerous meetings are held where we discuss needs, we discuss what might be changing operationally or things that might be coming up that in the new year that are not part of the current operations.

We look at existing personnel cost and spend a fair amount of time on those projections, looking at not only the salaries and wages, but also those benefits, the benefits package that the city offers to employees and what we might expect in the next 12 to 18 months and develop a series of assumptions so that we can as accurately as possible estimate future personnel cost.

And then we move to the accrual funds, and this is what we like to say is we pay ourselves first with these.

This is a really important layer of financial protection that the city has in place and putting aside money across these different buckets, whether that's infrastructure, equipment, or vehicle replacement, whereby as an asset is being used or depleted, the city is setting aside funding so that there is money in the bank to replace that item.

There are certainly always emergencies that may come up and things, and so it's important that we have adequate balances in those accrual funds to mitigate or offset any anomaly that might happen, and the city has done a really good job of that in the past, and this proposed budget continues that practice.

And then lastly comes capital enhancement and new positions.

So through the budget process, departments are allowed to make requests, whether that be an enhancement to an existing service or operation or an initiative, and then the capital projects fund, things that are outside of those accrual funds, more of the one-time capital, sometimes those are the larger capital items, and then requesting any new positions that are not in the current approved full-time equivalents that are approved through the budget process by the council.

And then we take a look at other funds.

So all of the things above the other funds line are related to general fund in the associated capital projects funds and accruals.

The rest of them are every other fund that the city has.

So a little bit about the financial details.