Okay, good morning.

I'd like to call to order the finance and economic development committee of the fiscal year twenty twenty-five, twenty twenty-six department for budget reviews.

They're pretty much the same ground rules we usually always use.

And we'll conclude today with a review of the budget for the Department of Human Resources and the March 15, 2025 vacancy report.

Each day during the budget proceedings, we'll take public testimony at the beginning at 9 o'clock a.m.

Is there anyone in the public wishing to testify this morning?

Seeing none.

For council members, we'll go through the ground rules.

And you should have this in front of you also.

So for our procedures for this year, the following is a summary summary of budget procedures.

For more details, please refer to the budget expectations memorandum, data January 8, 2025 that you all received.

The departmental budget reviews will follow the written schedule.

If a department's review concludes before it's allotted end time, the next schedule review will be in immediately.

This minimizes scheduling for budget callbacks.

Prior to each departmental review, please review all materials and prepare any questions.

Please contact council services budget staff to send questions to the admin in advance, especially questions unlikely to be answerable on the spot without prior notice.

For example, questions that will require research or time to compile.

This will help limit the number of written follow-up questions, and I believe the admin will be happy enough to have a lot of written follow-up questions.

All questions must be directly related to the proposed fiscal year 2025-2026 budget.

The admin has been asked to be prepared with key personnel to answer questions.

Council questioning will commence after the respective department has finished its presentation.

During all budget proceedings, the council rules will continue to be enforced, including rule number 6F regarding council members speaking.

Decision making is scheduled for Tuesday, May 13, 2025, and Wednesday, May 14, 2025.

Council services budget staff will meet with each council member between April 21st to May 2nd to discuss decision making proposals.

Any proposals to add to the budget should identify the source used to account for the increase.

Budget cuts are revenue sources.

Four votes to reduce or remove an item, five votes to increase our ad.

Decisions will be made department by department.

The committee will then consider any revenue proposals thereafter if applicable.

The committee will not revisit items after they have been addressed unless deemed absolutely necessary.

So those are the rules.

Next, I'd like to suspend the rules and call upon the admin to present their fiscal year 2025-2026 budget overview.

Members, I do ask that we hold our questions until the end of their presentation.

Any questions?

If not.

Welcome, Mary.

You have the floor.

And of course, we would like to say at this time that it's a great honor to continue to deliver services uninterrupted despite what's going on outside of our realm of control.

We do all of this with our RISE philosophy, which is to be responsive, to be resilient, to do things with integrity, to work together under the banner of solidarity, and we take great pride in maximizing our effort as we inch towards excellence.

So with that being said, our department heads are here to brief you on the budget to help provide information and answer your questions.

And I have to say that this has been a wonderful council as far as diving into the details, providing the checks and balances, and at the end of the day, you folks have made some very tough decisions, and we appreciate that.

So, Chair Council members, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Again, is a brief presentation like uh previous years to give the council and the public a general overview of the budget and uh various outstanding items, variances, and so forth.

So with that, beginning on slide two.

So our budget proposal continues to adhere to the elements of the long-term financial planning.

Uh it's we stick to the structurally balanced budget resolution where recurring expenditures should be covered by recurring revenues.

The estimated excess of reserves is approximately 3.7 million, and proposed in the FY26 operating budget is the use of 3.6 million for non-recurrent expenditures.

I would want to point out that at this point we are using estimates again for fund balances as we continue as the county and finance continues to work towards finalizing the ACFA for fiscal year 24.

Um, in keeping with that, hopefully by May 8th, we will have the fund balances finalized, and we can be more firm on that.

Is the last bullet point on this slide on slide three?

Uh, this is an overview of our revenues proposed in this budget uh by fund compared last year if FY25 or the current year we're in, and the proposed submitted for FY26.

Um revenues increased by 18.9 million or 5.3%.

General fund increased by 11.7 million or 4.3%, primarily attributable to rural property taxes of 5.9 million or 2.5%.

County transit accommodations tax increased by 900,000 or 3.1%, and we have also budgeted interest earned at 4.6 million.

The highway fund increased by 550,000 or 3%.

Uh, this is due to increases in fuel taxes of 400,000 or 7.4%, and motor vehicle weight taxes of 150,000 or 2%.

G tax fund increased by 3.3 million or 9.3%, primarily attributable to interest earned uh increase of 2.4 million and G tax of 920,000 or 2.6%.

Solid waste increase by 1.2 million or 11.8%.

Again, due to interest earned of 1.1 million, and other charges of current services of 120,500 or 2.3%.