Good morning and welcome.

I call to order the Lake Cavasu City Council budget and CIP work session on Thursday, May 15th, 2025 at 9 a.m.

If you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

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

And to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God, individual liberty, justice for all.

Thank you.

Item three is our roll call.

Ms.

Williams, if you please call the roll.

Council members Nancy Campbell.

Jenny Koch here.

Jim Dolin.

Here.

David Diaz.

Here.

Cameron Moses.

Here.

Vice Mayor Michelle Lynn.

Here.

Mayor Kal Shehey.

Here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

We'll go on to item four, which is our public hearing for the presentation discussion and potential direction to staff on the budget for fiscal year 24-25.

With year-end estimates, fiscal year 25-26, the annual budget, and the five-year capital improvement plan.

Mr.

Knutson.

Good evening, Mayor.

Good evening, Council, members of the city staff and our residents.

So today is our budget work session.

Or did I say good evening?

Good morning.

So lots to share today with uh the council as we uh uh now uh dive into the uh ongoing portion of our budget for fiscal year 26, which starts, of course, on July 1st.

So we'll have a presentation from uh the team here in a second.

But before we do that, I wanted to kind of go through I asked each of the department heads to give me uh you know one, two, three uh different items that they feel are most impactful in the upcoming budget, and I'd like to go through those with you and kind of start the morning uh in the in that way.

Uh human resources.

Um we'll talk about this uh uh uh today in a little more detail, but uh um most proud of the comp and class study to address the attraction and retention of our uh employees and bring our city's pay plan to market.

Uh a continued focus on a city's safety program to meet or exceed OSHA requirements and provide a safe working environment for all of our employees across all of our departments.

Uh we were taking looking at uh some minor increases to health insurance costs um very important because we want to make sure that we're meeting the needs of our employees in the uh city's attorney's office, city attorney's office.

Um they are preparing for any necessary staffing increases due to the implementation of our building bridges court or other specialty uh courts that take place.

So uh Judge Kay and all the good things they're doing in the in the courts that requires other departments to uh step up and and uh support those efforts.

Uh in the police department, um a large purchase of uh new portable radios uh across the board for our law enforcement professionals.

It comes with the most current technology, increasing the communication necessary to protect our law enforcement professionals, and a continued commitment to the wellness of our employees, including a focus on the employees' physical, mental, and financial wellness.

Made great strides in those areas this budget year, and we'll continue that uh coming up.

In development services is the addition possible addition of a new planning technician uh to improve efficiency and processing applications, enhancing custom enhancing customer service by reducing wait times for all those that uh are applying for building permits or uh uh zoning uh cases or just review of uh plans, and that'll help uh uh support uh our planning staff and ensure smoother project reviews and approvals.

And then also within uh this budget proposed is the adoption of the 2024 building codes to keep our community in line with current codes and standards, which is the most effective method of maintaining safe environments and protecting the health and welfare of our community.

And uh parks and recreation.

Um we're looking at our uh a new uh recreation uh reservation registration software.

We have software right now that is really really cumbersome for anybody that's trying to sign up for our programs, and so uh some new uh software there would be uh um uh would be would be uh heavily wanted by our our our residents.

So the current system does not work like it's supposed to.

And of course, we've been talking about the uh the parks master plan uh that will inventory our existing parks, identify long-term improvements, and including the assessment of and location and future cost of our future ball fields, and then also looking at the updated ball field lights at both Rory Park and at Sarah Park.

Sarah Park was uh identified as uh a need at our last budget work session.

Uh within the city manager department, we're looking at uh um conducting a citizen survey again this upcoming year to identify the needs and priorities from the perspective of our citizens, and these results will guide staff and council in the future for all of our decision making processes and our planning efforts.

Uh we're looking at in our transit uh division is is replacement of two ADA compliant vehicles for transit to better serve our community and ridership.

Uh and uh looking at uh more uh resources, including training to better position our grants team to apply and get uh additional grants to offset our local taxpayer dollars.

In administration services, uh the addition of a senior procurement specialist to support the volume of projects that the city is undertaking, enabling administrative services and our procurement division to provide the level of service needed for public works and our other departments due to the complexity of our projects and strict timelines.

Uh, we'll be in a better position to complete projects quicker and much more efficiently.

And then within uh admin administrative services, of course, is our IT division.