Well we'll move on to the next item on our agenda, which is an update on the Manhattan Regional Airport.

Good evening, Mayor Commissioners.

Brandon Keyser, real quick update on some things that are going on at Manhattan Regional Airport.

As you're all aware, we're gearing up for a rather sizable infrastructure project, and that is to replace our primary taxiway, Taxiway Alpha.

And just for the crowd, you know, just as a quick reminder, Taxiway is a pathway on an airport that connects to runway to a ramp.

Critical component of airfield operations.

So we are we have completed taxiway alpha's design, and one of the integral pieces that comes out of design is how to phase the construction.

And so when I when we walked into this project, I had a demand that this construction was not going to impact any type of operations on the airfield.

And so our consultant Olson, which is in the crowd, uh came up with all these different scenarios.

And we worked with the FAA and with our airport stakeholders to come up with a solution to allow this construction to occur that's also feasible that does not impact operations.

And what you're seeing here is that construction phasing schedule of what the FAA airport, Olsen, and our stakeholders agreed upon.

You can see it's five phases, roughly four phases of construction that starts would start in March of uh 2027 and be completed in November of 2027.

Again, I'll point out if you have any flights you're planning to fly next year.

This project will not impact your flights, so go ahead and book them.

Realistically, all that you'll see is if you got a window seat and you pull open the shade, you'll be able to see some construction, see how neat it is, and then taxi out to the primary runway.

So schedule overview, November 18, 2025.

Came to the commission seeking approval to uh move forward with design.

The reason for that is the FAA uh gave us an opportunity to do all three different sections of Taxiway Alpha, get discretionary funds, and then also take advantage of a better grant split.

And I'll talk about that in a little bit.

And so traditionally, uh Taxiway design for our project design uh this size typically takes about a year.

It was compressed substantially because we had to hit that June 1st grant application deadline.

So we completed design uh April 17th.

We bid the project April 21st.

We had a build up bid opening on May 19th.

It was a very competitive bid opening.

We had four different uh major contractors that submitted for this project.

Uh the lowest bid was Clarkson Construction, which also has uh familiarity with our airport because they're the contractor that did the runway project.

So following that bid opening, we had two weeks to put together a hundred and twenty-three-page grant application and get to the FAA.

So I just want to give a big shout out to my assistant airport director, Kim Boyce.

She's a big part of us being able to hit that deadline.

And actually, we got it done two days in advance.

So we submitted that two days prior to it.

So now we're in a holding period.

We're waiting for this really large check from the FAA.

Uh once we actually get that grant offer, I'm gonna come back to the city commission to secure approval to uh accept the grant offer and award the construction contract.

And if you grant that, then we'll move forward with construction starting in March with completion in November.

Project funding, yeah, the big question, right?

How much does it cost to build 7,400 feet by 50 feet wide of a taxiway?

It's a lot of money.

It's 15.6 million dollars is what it all comes down to.

Uh but one of the things that I'll point out, again, like I mentioned, uh, since we were able to get that grant application submitted on before June 1st, we're able to take advantage of a better split.

Traditionally, our grants that we receive are 90 to 10 split, 90% covered by the federal government, 10% by uh local municipality US.

Uh but luckily with FAA reauthorization, we were able to take advantage of a 95-5 split.

And so we're looking to receive roughly 15 million from the FAA, and the city's cost is a little over 700.

I'll pause there for any questions that you might have before I transition on.

I don't know if I'll answer them, and my intent was to just hear all your questions, and then when I bring it back, I'll be really getting it.

No, I'm just kidding.

I'll answer all the questions.

As I recall in some of our previous conversations, the airport takes in some fees out there ticket sales that can't be used for anything else other than eligible projects.

This type of project.

Absolutely.

So I would assume this the city share of this would be mostly paid for by those.

Yeah, so what you're referring to is the passenger facility charge program.

It's a program that's created by the federal government.

It allows airports of our size to go out and uh fill out an application, utilize that that city share to put towards those PSCs or allow those PSCs that we get to help pay for that.

It will take a little while for us to realize those funds, but my full intention is this project is completely eligible for that, and so I intend to put that onto the PSC application once the project is all done and we know all the information.

So it's at a point, the city will be in reimbursed for that amount plus interest.

Again, shameless plug.

The more people that fly out of Manhattan, the more the more PSCs we collect, the quicker we can pay off these things.

That's it.

Okay.

All right.

That was easy.

I put up the picture of the uh beautiful uh tri engine up there.

Yeah, so I I think this was taken in the late 80s, maybe the early 90s, the old Dodge Dakota in front of the uh stone hangar kind of gives it away.

I mean, I'm kind of guessing, but the reason I put that up there is it's a beautiful picture.

It shows basically, you know, the history of aviation and some of the history that we have at Manhattan Regional Airport, but it's also hard to believe that almost a hundred years ago, that was the way that people flew commercially.

It was on those old tri engines.

And if we fast forward to today, here we are now on an ERJ 175.

It's the largest regional aircraft that American has in their fleet operating the majority of our flights.

And so these things, I mean, they can fly at altitudes of up to almost 40,000 feet over 500 miles an hour.

The one thing that did get worse over the years is the leg room.

I mean, I'm sure on those triples you got a lot more leg room than what you do on the ERJ 175s.

Um diving into our commercial uh total passengers that have gone through our terminal thus far, year to date.

This is January through May.

Uh if you look in the really small red letters, I don't know why I made it so small, but or numbers, you can see that uh basically for 26, we're pretty close to where we were last year at the same time.

We're within like I think it's 580 uh total passengers, the amount of people getting on a plane and getting off.

Um so we are doing really well so far, all the way through uh May, because last year, you know, as you all know, was a record year for Manhattan, and looks like we're pretty close, you know, to matching that.

And then just real quick before I turn it over to Danielle.

I just want to talk a little bit about flight schedules.

So traditionally, uh during June and July, busy summer travel month for us.

We have our traditional five flights, three to Dallas, two to Chicago.

But unfortunately, in May of this year, the FAA came out with a ruling and said you American and United were involved in a capacity fight at Chicago, and they're trying to throw in so much capacity that that airport can handle it.

So the FAA came out and did a ruling and said, No, you got to trim some of that back.

And unfortunately, one of the flights that American decided to pull in our busy time of the year was one of our Chicago routes, and that's why we've dropped in June and July to just one Chicago route.

I'm delighted to share that in August.

Uh just met with American Airlines.

August they're bringing back our second route, and it's also built into September.

As we go out throughout the further year, it's kind of hard to say.

American usually doesn't finalize those schedules uh until 90 days out.

So that I just want to touch base on that, and then the other thing I probably should have put in here is how well do K-State fans travel?

And the answer is incredibly well.

So well, in fact, that American Airlines paid attention, and the first time ever, they're gonna offer us what they call a special flight for the K-State Arizona State game.

And it's coming in in October, so we're gonna have a direct route uh out of Manhattan to Phoenix.

So if you're interested, go out there and book.

The plane departs on October 23rd, gives you plenty of time to get there, enjoy Phoenix Nightlife.

Go to the K-State game, hopefully with the win over Arizona State.

The flight comes back on the 25th in the afternoon, so you got more than enough time to also enjoy the nightlife on a Saturday night and celebrate the cats.

Uh, there are seats available, it's ready to book.

If you're interested in going, just go out to FlyMashk.com.

How big a plane?

It's the the largest one, the one in that picture, the ERJ 175.

Which is 76 seats.

It's got 12 first class seats.

So yep.

It's about a two and a half hour flight.

Any questions?

Okay.

Thank you for that update.

Yeah, thank you.

Is there anyone in the public who would like to keep praise on our airport and its functioning?

Or reserve a seat.

Or reserve the seat.

We can uh if a direct line over here.

All right, thank you.

We'll move on to our next item, which is discussing our proposed 2027 budget and sales tax renewals.

Uh good evening, Mayor and City Commission.

I am excited to be here this evening to present to you the most important policy document that you all review over the course of the year and the most important policy document that we draft and put forward for you all to discuss and eventually adopt in September.

I do before launching in to the recommended budget for 2027, want to give some thanks and gratitude to our department directors and all of the individuals who work hard on the budget every year.

But I want to give a special thanks to Rena Neal, our finance director, and to Kristen King, our assistant to the city manager.

This year we started, we adopted and implemented a new ERP system.

So not only were we putting together a budget when we are headed into a debt challenge, understanding that we were trying to reduce our operating expenses so that we could stabilize our bonded interest fund.

We were actually doing it with a brand new system that we did not have any experience with.

So I did want to extend special gratitude to Rena and Kristen for their work.

This was also Kristen's first year serving in that capacity because we had a vacancy in our finance department.

And I'm going to try to not accidentally call on that person because we did rely on her very heavily, and she is in the audience serving another organization.

But we were very thankful that Kristen was able to step up and did an amazing job helping our departments get their budgets budgets together this year for you all.

Another special thanks that I did want to give is to Baker Tilly.

So we brought in Baker Tilly.

So we have Bid Hart, and you all heard from Ben Hart in April regarding the debt challenge that we are up against and heading into in 2027 and moving forward.

But there are also a couple other folks on his team that worked really hard with our public works departments and with our utility departments getting their budgets together for them.

We do have an incredibly complex budget.

So just wanted to give those special thanks really quick.

So back in January, you all will recall that we are January, February that we had spent some time together doing our city commission retreat, and we put together some goals.

So I just wanted to put these up here to remind you all that the five things you all wanted to work on in 2026 were one stabilizing the budget.

So maintaining a structurally balanced budget with revenues meeting expenditures, a sales tax renewal, determine whether to renew and or increase a sunsetting dedicated street and park sales tax.

We wanted to also improve our communication among commissioners, boards, staff, and community, and investment and infrastructure.

So revising our capital improvement plan to prioritize necessary investment and maintenance in infrastructure and equipment.

So those uh all four of those items we are going to be hitting on uh this evening, and I just wanted to remind you that those were goals that you all had put forward and keep those at the forefront of our conversation this evening.

Budget strategy.

So again, we wanted to have a structurally balanced budget.

We wanted to stabilize our mill levy.

We wanted to maintain our service levels.

Uh about March and April, we realized that we were up against a really significant debt issue where we were spending through our uh our uh balance in our bond and interest fund faster than we were generating revenue because of a reduction in the mill levy that happened a few years ago that was in that dedicated for the bond and interest.

But we also knew that we wanted to include salaries uh for our salary increases for our employees, and we also wanted to make sure that our employees have the necessary equipment and vehicles that they need to do their jobs as well as making sure that it is safe and functioning for them.

Just a quick update at the calendar.

Um, you all had a budget work session where we went over revenue projections as well as utility uh utility our enterprise funds with our stormwater, wastewater and water utilities, as well as a presentation regarding our franchise fees.

So we have our budget work session tonight, which is the first time you are all seeing uh the city manager's recommended budget that we have put together for you.

So very uh much looking forward to discussion this evening, but also recognizing that this is a lot of information to take in in one evening, and you all have only really had since Thursday evening to digest this information and understanding that there is a lot that's being put forward to you, so anticipating there to be a lot of conversations, um, questions this evening as well as uh conversations with uh your constituency in the community, um, and again having that opportunity to come back and have another discussion in August.

Um also we will have a revenue neutral uh resolution uh at our next commission meeting.

So that will be setting the uh resolution that we will be exceeding um our revenue neutral rate.

But then we will have a third Thursday, which is something that we just started this year, where the city has a booth at the third Thursdays in downtown, just giving us an opportunity to meet our community where they're at.

So we have two more of those on July 16th and August 20th.

We really set those up as an opportunity to talk about the budget and to answer questions, but what we're really finding is that folks are just interested in interacting with our departments.

And so it's really just an opportunity for us to get out there and share our story with our community.

And then, of course, on September 15th, we will have our budget hearing and we will adopt the budget as we are statutorily required to.

Starting with our revenue assumptions and how we started putting together our budget for the 2027.

We are not proposing any change in a wastewater rate.

We are looking at a 3% increase in the water rate, and we are looking at a 4% increase in the stormwater rates, which is the equivalent of a 50 cents per equivalent residential unit.

We heard from directors DeWitt and Directors Johnson on that last week.

We are also looking at a 2% increase in franchise fees.

As a reminder, this is our once in a 20-year opportunity to renegotiate our franchise fees, our franchise agreements.

And then we are projecting approximately a 1.7%, 1.75% growth in our sales tax revenue.

This is a very conservative projection, but with sales tax being one of the more volatile revenue sources that we have, we want to make sure that we are being conservative.

And then we are also projecting a flat mill levy for our budget this year.

We this is from our third Thursday event and downtown last week, and Rena and I were working a budget booth, and we had different buckets set up to look at utilities, streets, the library, the Manhattan Fire Department and one of one other server parks that we were looking at, and we gave we had five buckets and we gave everybody four dollars and we asked them to prioritize and just sharing with them.

You know, of course, there's never enough money to go around, but how would you prioritize these different services that the city provides?

And it was an incredibly fun interaction that we had, but just wanted to share that the library was uh pretty neck and neck with the Manhattan Fire Department, the Manhattan Fire Department was there with us, and I do think that they were maybe skewing the results a little bit, but um we had a really good time on Thursday, and we do appreciate the uh DMI allowing us to come out and participate with them.

It's been fun.

So I want to kick off with our mill levy analysis.

Um, so we did get our uh mill levy numbers from the county, the counties, we have two of them.

Uh, our current assessed valuation is 798 million dollars.

So that equivalent uh is 50 million dollars more than it was last year.

This eventually, so your residential properties are assessed at 11.5%, and then your commercial properties are assessed at 25%.

So what this ultimately uh reflects is that there would be if we maintain a flat mill levy, we will have a 2.7 million dollar increase in our property tax revenues.

As we talked about in April, we knew that we needed to stabilize that bond and interest fund.

We were currently sitting at about 0.664 in that bond and interest fund, and we have been able to capture uh the Riley County Police Department.

They came in with a very conservative budget for us this year, and they were actually uh declining uh their mill levy needs by two.

And so uh we also have been working with our budget with the city's budget and our operating budget, and with the projection of us increasing our franchise fees by two and a half percent, we are able to also drop the general fund mill levy support by another two mills, which allows us to put an additional four mills into the bond and interest, bringing it back to 4.9, which is almost back to where it was before the mill levy was dropped in the early 2020s, um, and and where we saw that decrease, and when we really started to see us spending down our balance that we had in that bond and interest fund.

So, one of the conversations that we had in uh April was how we were going to be able to get an additional two to three million dollars into that bond and interest so that we could stop spending that uh cash stop spending that balance down.

Um, and you know, we had a lot of conversations about if we were able to any kind of reduction or savings that we were able to find or any increases in revenue that we were able to identify, we would be plugging that back into our bond and interest.

And so this is a demonstration of that conversation that we had back in April.

So launching into revenue projections by source, of course, the property tax is the first one, and the one that gets the most conversation in our community.

So we are looking at again that $2.7 million increase there.

Utility fees is maintaining relatively flat over the 2026 budget.

Other sources, you do see an increase there again.

That is that increase in franchise fees primarily that we are talking about.

Of course, we've always looking at making sure our cost recovery with our parks and rec fees, so that is the projection that goes in there as well.

1% sales tax.

So you will see that we have increase over the 2026 budget of 13.3 million up to about a million increase of 14.3.

You said Danielle, you were only looking at a 1.75% increase.

That is because we are using our actuals to project our increase off of in 2025.

This is something different.

This is a new strategy that we have implemented in the 2027 budget.

However, I do feel confident that while we would have in the past, we would have just projected a 1.75% or a 1.5% increase from the 2026 budget.

Looking at what our actuals were in 2025, I believe will bring us more into a more accurate reflection of what our sales tax revenues will be.

So that is a change in the strategy that we have used this year.

You will see this drop here for 0.75.

So for uh Mayor Adams and uh Commissioner McCullough, uh, you have seen previous budgets where this is 0.75.

However, we know that at the end of December of 2026, we will have a 0.2 dedicated street sales tax that is going to be expiring.

So you do see a reduction from the 2025 actuals to the 2027 budget.

This transfer numbers, this is inner these are transfers that we make between the different funds that we have.

So, an example of one of those transfers would be a transfer of other sources into our debt service.

Um we make transfers from our sales tax into the the debt service when we have that 0.5 economic development.

So that's what those transfer numbers are.

So this is our projected revenues by fund.

So general fund, you will see a slight increase in our projected revenues for the general fund.

Special revenue is up as well.

Uh debt service is where you see that biggest jump.

That is again because we know we have a lot of that debt that is coming on in 2027, and we need to make sure that we have that additional revenues that we've talked about with those four additional mills and that and those increases in the dedicated sales taxes that we have to pay for debt.

That is why you see that large number increasing with our debt service revenues.

Uh, and then we have utilities, and then we have those internal services.

So our internal services are our fleet and IT.

Uh, fleet and IT, those services actually get charged back to each department in their general fund.

It's a way for us to track those expenses and make sure that we are able to have a solid funding source for those two fleet and our IT departments.

So our total revenues projected for 2027 is 170 179 million dollars.

So if we look at budgeted expenditures by fund, um that general budget, you will see a slight increase from 2026 to 2027.

Uh, that is about a it's about a 650, I think 656, about $700,000 increase is total totals to about a 1.7% increase.

Special revenues are down.

Um, again, that's because we are losing some of those dedicated sales taxes that we have.

Debt service, you see that number go up.

Utilities, you will see that number go up a little bit, internal services is up.

You will see that we have a total expenditures is 186 million.

So even though our revenues are 179 and we have our budgeted expenditures of 186, that is a demonstration of us spending intentionally spending down some of those cash balances that we have built up for specific projects in our parks department, public works departments, and utilities departments.

So we go through our special revenue funds expenditures.

So we have our sales tax, which is 8.2.

Again, this is just demonstrating those increases that we're anticipating in our sales taxes.

That street maintenance is where you see that big drop.

Again, a reminder that that is a reflection of losing that dedicated 0.2% sales tax.

We are you will see in 2026 we have budget, we were pretty much where we were in 2025, is what we had our budgeted in 2026.

So again, trying to project off of what we had our actuals in 2025 versus just projecting off what we had in 2026.

Special alcohol, special parks and rec and special street highways, all of these funds have really dedicated things that we can use them for.

So it's not really something that we have a lot of flexibility that we can use for various things.

There are dedicated resources that we have to use them, dedicated needs that we have to use those resources for.

Excuse me, Danielle.

What is the special parks and records?

So again, that's uh your special alcohol.

Um there is a percentage of that for special alcohol, but then a certain percentage that has to go towards uh mitigation of substance abuse treatment and prevention.

Um but then the special parks and rec again, part of that alcohol tax then has to be used for our parks and recs.

So city university fund, you will see this increase from 500,000 to 1.35.

This increase is because we are having an increase in those franchise fees, but again, uh we are going to be using those city university funds and transferring those into our debt service fund to be able to pay down uh some of those debt expenses that we have incurred related to the North Campus Corridor.

You will see us flat.

We are flat in the Aggieville business improvement districts and the downtown business improvement districts.

Parking management, you see a decrease.

So this is another area where we have an intentionally decreased our budget to reflect that we will no longer be uh providing enforcement of the Aggieville parking garage and an opportunity where we see we might no longer need the level of enforcement that we have had.

Um we've really talked with both the Aggieville business district and the downtown business districts, and we've had really good conversations with them, and we think that this is an area where we can reduce our meaningfully reduce our service levels.

Again, our employee benefit.

Um this is uh where we pay for employees' health, um, work comp, lots of other uh dedicated sources for our benefits, and then we have our fire KPF, which is similar to that as well, and our fire equipment reserve.

This is a fund that we have not had a lot of activity in in the last several years.

This is our general capital improvement fund expenditures.

So uh in 2026, the commission uh wanted to dedicate 270,000 dollars in this fund, and so understanding that there was an interest and a commitment to continue making sure that we are improving our equipment, our vehicles.

We have made sure that we were able to do a $700,000 transfer from general fund into this CIP fund expenditures.

Those expenditures, um, so we have some cash balance in that fund as well, and so we are projecting to spend about $900,000 in 2027.

We have some communication equipment at the airport that we need to upgrade.

We have public works is going to be doing $500,000 to relocate the salt dome that is just north of the uh fire station headquarters, and we're actually going to move to two locations.

So we are going to try to have a satellite on two smaller locations.

So we are going to try to have a satellite on the north side of town, and we are working with folks to identify a location on the north side of town.

And we are also looking at a location on the west side of town.

Why this is important?

Um having two satellite locations will help us be more efficient.

It will have less uh waste when it comes to the salt in the sand and the disintegration of that while it's um out in the elements and while we're working.

It also helps us be more efficient because we don't have to go all the way from Vanesta Drive back to JMF to reload, um, and then that saves us wear and tear on our equipment as well as fuel costs.

So we believe that having the satellite location on the west side and the satellite location on the north side will allow us to be more efficient and save us operating expenses.

We also have about 200,000 that we are going to, we have a over 456 different pieces of equipment that includes snow plows, dump trucks, aerial trucks, fleet vehicles, and so we are going to prioritize those pieces of equipment that are in need of being replaced, and we are going to do about $200,000 of replacement next year.

We have RCPD, so their budget request of about $24.3 million.

The library request, I do I did want to go back and mention regarding that mill levy analysis.

While they did have an increase in their library fund, that mill levy change was actually reduced in their employee benefit fund.

So it's actually a wash for the library's mill levy.

But you can see what their request is for 2026, which is just a slight increase.

So overall for the total special revenue funds, I don't have all of our special revenue funds detailed here, but all of those are actually included in this budget, and you will see that there is a slight reduction in our special revenue fund expenditures.

We have our outside agency request.

For the most part, we have maintained what our levels were for last from 2026 and 2025.

There is a reduction to the CVB of about $250,000.

So we are using that reduction of the TGT funds towards CVB to again transfer to debt service to start paying down additional debt services that we have.

That's important to note.

Particularly, we are still paying for the conference center, and we have a few more years on that.

And so just trying to use some of those revenues that are being brought in through the conference and conventions that the CVB brings to pay down that debt.

They did increase their request to 307, but we maintain them at the 297.

That is paid out of our economic development fund.

We have a committed the Manhattan Area Technical College, which is $200,000.

We have our Aggieville Business Association.

We pay $90,000 out of TGT, and then we have $80,000 out of the Aggieville Business Improvement District.

And then we have our Manhattan Arts Center, which is getting $43,700, and the Riley County Historical Society Wolfhouse, which is getting $5,000.

Again, all of these are maintaining 2025 and 2026 levels.

Community services, again, we are proposing to maintain where our levels were.

In 2025, the total general fund support for community services was actually 557,000.

We have replaced 100,000 of that general fund support with 100,000 of our opioid settlement funds.

But we are proposing to maintain that level for outside agencies this year.

Again, the debt service expenditures.

Sorry, last week regarding our utility fund expenditures.

We talked about those internal service funds and how important it is.

You will see that increase in the fleet.

Again, just we do have some aging equipment.

We do have aging vehicles, and so this is just trying to keep up with those service needs that we have, and that is again transferred from general fund and from utilities that come into the fleet.

So general fund expenditures.

So in the general fund expenditures, we have an increase of $656,000, so $1.7% increase from 2026 budget.

I think what's important is even though we are only proposing a 1.7% increase, we are still anticipating promotions for employees as well as a 3% for salary increases.

That's approximately $750,000 across all departments.

We are also planning to transfer $700,000 for facilities, vehicle, and equipment to that CIP that we talked through.

And then I did want to note that this is a reduction of four full-time equivalents, so four full-time positions, which is a savings of about $250,000.

This is the incredibly hard work that your department directors have put in and make maintain making sure that their actual expenditures is in line with what they are budgeting.

And so to be able to include our salaries, to be able to include $700,000 for those capital improvement needs that we know are stacking up for us, and then also being able to stabilize our bond and interest.

We will go into all of our different budgets, but I did want to note that all of them are really between a 1 to 2% increase.

We have a couple that are in that 3 to 4% range.

But you will see that there's a reduction in the city manager's office, and there is a slight increase in human resources.

I did want to point out that we are seeing a $392,000 increase in our finance department.

That is a priority that we have had and that we have talked about for the last couple years about how important it is to have a sufficiently staffed, a sufficiently resourced finance department.

So this is a reflection.

We are currently in the process of hiring our chief financial officer.

We did interviews on Monday.

We have a lot of fantastic candidates.

And so we will bring our finalists in on July 13th to do those final round of interviews.

I'm very excited about that.

And then again, this is a reflection of the financial service contracts that we have been using with the assistance of Baker Tilly as well as AGH and which is the accounting services that we use to help us get our auditing documentation together.

And then as well, our auditing company changed their name from Reno.

Do you remember what our new auditing company's name is?

Okay.

It doesn't matter.

Our auditing firm, they changed their name and they were they were bought out.

So but this is just a reflection of those increases that we are seeing in those financial service contracts.

And again, just a demonstration of how that is a priority for us moving forward.

Slight decrease in the airport, maintaining relatively flatten fire.

Public works, we do have a little bit of an increase here, but uh again, between that four range, uh four percent range, and we are just just making sure that we are adequately resourcing those folks who are out there maintaining our roads and making sure that uh our uh thoroughfares and all of those things that they take care of are taken care of.

Parks and recreation, there is a slight increase in parks and recreation, but I did want to note uh that the offset between the increase in revenues with parks and recreation actually reflects a six percent decrease in their reliance on general fund, and then we have a slight increase for the joint maintenance facility.

Planning and development.

Um this is a department that is primarily staff, and we have an incredible uh planning and development team.

So there is a little bit of an increase here, but we have a solid staff, and we are excited to be able to continue working with them and seeing a lot of the good work that they are doing for our community.

And then we have a slight decrease in our legal department, as you all know.

Um our long-term city attorney is resigning, um, and she is moving to another city a little bit further down the I-70 corridor.

But uh I am very excited to share with you all this evening that Rachel Shirk, who has been our deputy city attorney for the last decade or so, has accepted that interim city attorney position.

So we have our general services contracts, and so those are up slightly.

Um, this is where we pay for our insurances, the things that go across all departments.

So our property and liability insurance, um we are also planning to pay for one of the things that we have talked a lot about is that uh comprehensive plan update that our planning and development team is going to do most of the heavy lifting on.

But we were able to include the 175,000 for us to do the uh growth model in the financial analysis as we uh develop that comprehensive plan so that we can strategically determine where we need to start uh growing and what that and and investing um our resources in and then again those outside services are just up slightly.

So action needed.

Um, again, happy to answer any questions.

I know this is a lot of information that you all are seeing for the first time.

Um but the uh action that we will need on 7-7, which is next week, which is your next commission meeting, is a resolution levying a property tax rate exceeding that revenue neutral rate.

Uh we'll provide feedback on the recommended budget.

Uh so we have that work session already scheduled for August 11th, and then in September, we will conduct that revenue neutral rate hearing.

And in 2020, and then we will have um the revenue neutral hearing, and then we will have our budget hearing, and then we will also adopt the budget on um September 15th.

So I will stand for any questions that you all have.

Go ahead.

Uh can I get you go back to page five that one?

Um so I'm proud of RCPD for the law board for doing a good job on their budget.

Um I'm hoping we can do something similar to what they did.

And I know we're in a we're in a tough spot with debt, but our residents are pretty sick of property taxes, they're pretty sick of taxes, they're sick of inflation.

So we need to really really really find new spending cuts somewhere.

And that's that's my challenge to you.

I've got suggestions, but the the we just can't when so go flip to the next page.

So when we get we're going from 34.7 million dollars in property tax to 43.5 is the projected in 2027.

That's a 25.16% increase in four years.

And to me, that's unacceptable.

And it's gonna be very hard for me to pass a revenue.

Yeah, I wasn't expecting um our property valuation to continue to go up as it has.

Um, and then it's done it again, which is a blessing for for people selling, but for other residents, it's you know, occur it can be a curse.

So that is my frustration.

Um we've been talking about we're on board with I believe we're on board with um moving the quality of life sales tax to something new, you know, probably debt service or roads, um, which that's a significant amount of money.

Um we're just doing the franchise tax increase to two percent.

So I would be I want to see relief for the for proper, I want to see us revenue neutral is really where I want to see is the property tax.

And that's I'll let some others speak.

Could I just one of the things I just point something out?

Um the 2024 actual was done by the previous commission, previous previous, and uh that they went down four milks.

Then when we came in and did the 2025 actual, we had to go up significantly because of various things that were not funded or underfunded.

So um if you're looking just you know, if you're looking at 2024, it was done in 2023, and that's the consequence of drastic mill levy cutting.

And the other things I would also point out, Andrew, that the um the change in the mill levy for the police department was not all together intentional.

This is in part because um their budget was calculated prior to knowing the um the valuations, and so this decline is because of that change from 748 to 790 in the value of a mill.

We don't have to, I mean, we just don't have to follow valuation on property taxes.

Just because property valuations go up doesn't mean we have to match the MAC.

One of the things I did want to provide a little bit of context here for too to keep in mind as we're having this conversation.

So we know that our assessed valuation went up 50 million.

That is a reflection of new homes, new buildings, new properties that have been developed and improved in addition to the increase of existing residential properties and existing residential, business, commercial, and industrial properties.

One of the things I did want to point out is part of that 50 million is actually $2 million of Civic Plus coming on back onto the tax rolls, too.

So just something to keep in mind that that $2.7 million is not being solely bared by only existing residential and only existing commercial industrial properties.

Well, my comment is in January when we met socially to talk about where we are and where we're headed.

Several of us said we did not want the mill levy to stay flat.

We were asking it to go down.

And with a 6.8% increase in property valuation, I was hoping at least to have it go down for some equitable valuation for the cost and income.

In other words, if we raise 40 million dollars when it was 54, and the valuation goes up, that's still what we ought to raise.

And those new people coming on, they're going to get fleece for 52 percent mill levy also.

So they're not getting hammered, they're not getting the privilege.

All we're trying to do is salvage those who are stuck with 54.

And I had great expectations that it would not necessarily be zero.

I had a great expectation that we would not levy a hundred percent of the mill levy on any appreciation and valuation.

That's number one.

Number two is going through this, I don't see a lot of intensity of trying to delay the reassess expenses cost programs.

Um I see the CIP for the zoo and the cemetery still in there.

Um I don't know that we have approved a CAIP program for any amount of money that ought to be considered in this budget yet.

Number one.

Number two is it seems like uh staff wise, I'm not opposed to a reasonable salary benefit.

People cost money.

People are big expensive, I understand that.

But this agency, the city has been concerned about the law board, and they are not zero, but they are certainly more balanced than three percent.

And I think that's going to be something I have no idea what the county does.

I don't know that they know what they're doing yet.

Um, but I think in totality, we are not shifting attention by staff and taxpayers.

All of these groups have sent in requests for money.

I mean, I I've known all of them most of my life here.

Most of them are doing good things, but there's no recognition that there's an elephant blocking the door, which is debt and all the other things, and how are we going to chew that sucker up?

Yeah.

And none of that has been recognized, in my opinion, here yet.

So I a couple, if I just real quick, Mayor, uh, when we had our conversation in January um about the ability to possibly lower the mill levy a little bit.

Uh, we were not anticipat, we were not um fully aware of the debt challenge that we had coming.

Um that was something that came on board, um, and I was able to really wrap my arms around uh what that challenge was and what we were up against.

So that is uh one of the reflections uh where we have tried to uh again uh be able to take this growth and assessed valuation that we have seen.

Um our economy has caught up and being able to take advantage of this situation and being able to stabilize that bond and interest fund, um I do think that that is um I I certainly heard um the commissioners when we came on board in January.

Uh there is still an opportunity as we talk through that sales tax um renewal conversation that we will have our next conversation that we have.

There is still a conversation for us to use some of that uh revenue.

Um, however, I did want to make sure I put forward a budget for you all that shows a stabilized bond and interest fund with a stable mill levy, which is what our rating agencies prefer, and then also to be able to communicate and advocate to our community that we are using a new sales tax to do new projects.

Nowhere in here, do I see a department budget?

I mean, I see the city, I see pieces of it.

But is there an individual department budget that we can see where it was 24, 25, 26, 27?

So we are working on those detailed budget sheets for you.

That is a result of this new system that we have.

We will be able to provide those.

We will drop those in those in your mail folders.

Those will eventually be a part of the budget book that does get posted to the website and it's made public, and you will have all of that available to you in the next week or so.

So to that point, I appreciate all the numbers that have been provided here, all the work that's gone into it.

I appreciate the RCPD budget remaining within reason.

But I've done a lot of budgets over the years, and you know what this information doesn't do me any good in this form.

What we need is income and expense columns, actual 24, budget and actual 25, budget 26, and so on.

Um so hopefully we will we'll get that.

Uh with regard to the mill levy, uh again, when we were talking at the beginning of the year, we were we told you we wanted to see our goal was to see a reduction in the mill levy.

Uh we you were talking, we were talking uh assessed valuation increases in the three to four percent range.

Here we are at 6.75 percent.

So uh on top of that, we've raised the franchise fees uh two percent.

So when I look at just the general numbers, the assessed valuation last year produced 40 million seven hundred and seventy-five thousand.

If you use that same mill levy this year, it produces uh 43,500, so 2.7 million dollar increase or 6.75.

On top of that, we have franchise fees and 1.9 million.

So that's 4.6 million dollars of additional income just from those two items.

My goal is to at least get one of those mill levies knocked off to reduce the mill levy by at least one.

I think our citizens deserve it.

Uh our uh many of our valuation went up 14 percent.

I know a lot of people's valuations have gone up 10 percent plus.

Uh so we have got to do something at least give a little relief to that, you know, in our uh talks here in a little bit.

We're gonna be talking about the sales tax renewal, and we're gonna ask for an increase in that.

So we need to offer a little relief somewhere.

In my opinion, there's plenty of room for a one-mill decrease on the debt.

We have a whole lot of information that hasn't been provided to us.

Uh one of these numbers shows a nine million dollar increase in the debt service, or you know, from one year to the next.

Um, we've asked for detailed uh debt service analysis, all the different projects, the debt service, uh where that's at.

We haven't gotten it yet.

I started putting something together, but just in 2020 six, or for this year, our debt service went up 4.2 million dollars from those GO bonds that were issued last May, May of 25.

For next year, they go up 3.2 million based on the bonds we just approved a couple months ago.

So lots of different funding sources for those, but just the bond and interest fund has gone up about five million this year and next year.

Um of this tells us how much has gone off the books.

We don't know you know what what payments ended this year.

So that's do you all think this I well I want to give Commissioner McCullough and Mayor.

Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, Commissioner Fox.

I apologize.

Well, just to wrap it up here on the uh again on the debt service from 21 to 25, we've had positive net gains adding you know to the to the reserves of 21,500,000 dollars in five years.

For budgeted this year, it's a negative 3.3 million.

So we've got some room there.

Um, and we can certainly talk about this in the future, but you know, we we have added a lot of income to cover debt service.

You talk about the university fund, we've raised the utility fees, some of that's covering debt service.

We don't have to do it all with the mill levy.

So we uh we're owed a lot of additional information on this debt situation.

Um I hope we get it.

Uh we do have Ben Hart who is planning on presenting on the debt um right after this.

Good.

Go ahead, um having been through a few budgets, it's complicated, it's very complicated.

Um I think one of the things that makes it the most complicated is often there are different sources of revenue for the same fund.

And um sometimes I think it really would help us, particularly with all the groups that are here that we we support, like the MAC and things like that, to see how much we have in the ED fund and you know what is coming out of it.

Just you know, instead of trying to get it out of the sales tax and out of the this, just quite frankly.

I also think it'd be really helpful if we'd see a a CIP that's a little more filled out in that you know, you've got various things that are hopefully coming out of streets and that kind of thing.

But you know, um what just to see the list because I think often we don't really understand, and maybe to see the lists, you know, in the the years coming out, like in 2028, do we need a new fire engine or something like that?

I mean, that's pretty significant.

I also think that we kind of get into this thing about the mill levy that I really wish we could just calm down and not be so fixated on it.

What we want to see is how we can provide good government for the citizens of Manhattan.

And to me, the question is um, am I paying too much in taxes to the city for what I get out of it?

And quite frankly, I don't think I am.

I spend, you know, I I get my tax bill, and I think many people don't understand that that's also schools and the county and even the state.

And so what I spend is not even $2,000 to the city.

I spend $1,200 on my internet.

I spend, I can name you a number of things that gets me up to my whole tax bill that I do because I want internet and I want Netflix and I want a telephone wick or whatever, WTC.

So obviously, there are probably people in our in our community that are hard fixed to pay for their property taxes and to pay for those kinds of things.

But quite frankly, looking at this board, none of us are really hurting to pay for our property taxes.

And I think we just got to sit down and figure out what does it cost to run this city efficiently and look out into the future and where are all these various funds going back and forth.

And I do think the thing with debt is it's really important that we understand what makes up that debt.

How much is specials?

You know, we we we put four million in the bond and interest, I mean, what went to bonds on that.

How much of that was specials?

Wasn't even a road or a bridge or anything like that.

It was banking people's infrastructure for them to help them pay for their houses.

So I wish we could stop fixating on the mill and just say, what does it cost?

What's this cost to do this right and have and keep up in the future?

And I would also like to point out inflation was 4.2% in June.

That means cars, gas, everything we have is gonna go up 4.2 percent, and everything it costs the city to do things.

Anyway, that's where I am.

Um could considering that several of the commissioners also campaigned recently on reducing debt.

They just jump out at me.

Um that uh you know, previous commissions did reduce mill levies significantly not that long ago, and that's one reason why we are in the position we are in today.

And I I don't disagree with you that it would be nice if we could reduce our share of the total property taxes, but I also agree with Karen.

What does it cost to run an effective and an efficient city and to keep offering the services that we do offer through our parks and rec department through our fire department through the airport?

You know, these are all necessary services.

We wouldn't have some of the industrial growth that we have had if we didn't have a well-functioning airport.

We wouldn't have some of the visitors that we have if we didn't have a well-functioning airport.

So I would like to at least acknowledge the efforts that you are making to tackle some of these bigger uh more long standing issues that we do have to be responsible for.

Yeah.

Um, I'm gonna ask uh Ben Hart to come up and um show um what this recommended budget does for our um for that debt challenge that we had uh presentation that we had back in April thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Ben Hart with Baker Tilly.

Uh you've seen this sheet, this chart that's up on the board.

Uh what we brought to you back in April was the problem, right?

And the problem was starting at in a future year, 2031, is as uh Commissioner Fox has pointed out, uh there's a deficit, you go in negative cash position.

That's when kind of the deadline is, if you will, to be able to identify funding in order to offset the debt that exists.

The orange piece is long-term debt.

The green piece is the is as if we took all temporary notes that are outstanding now and long-term finance them.

That doesn't take any account of any cash contributions to pay down that debt, any future decisions like that.

It just at a worst case and will worse, as a most case scenario, debt financing all of it.

So what this does is you know, you can see the lines is the difference between the line that's coming down, the cash line, and what's actually existing there.

Well, what I told you back in in uh April was is still true.

It's a three and a half million dollar number.

That's the gap, three and a half million dollars.

And that's really starting in 2030, 2031.

That's where that three and a half million dollar gap comes into play.

You're right, and Commissioner Fox is right.

You've got time.

That's the nice thing about what you've got in front of you right here.

You've got time because the county or the county, the city has built up a cash balance in order to bridge, and it's that's a strategy, bridge through until debt starts coming down.

So what this next slide does is show you as you move over, one of the options that was presented tonight, or the buttons within the budget that was presented tonight was moving the four mills over, and what that does to that line.

The first line, you can see that nose dive to 2031.

The second one kind of flattens out.

If this graph was extended out to say 2043, what you'd see is a dip, but it would not go below zero.

In fact, it would it would level out right around four or five million dollars, which is still higher than most cities debt fund balance as far as a percentage of your debt itself.

But what that does is keep you positive.

It basically solves the problem, is what I'm saying.

No, it did this does assume all capital projects moving forward, have a revenue source combined with them, so we're not worsening the problem.

What this does is fix what's there, the three and a half million, it fixes what's there.

The three and a half million, it fixes what's there.

Uh and obviously it's a policy choice that uh it with is within the budget itself.

And uh Commissioner Fox pointed out, you can do it now, you can do it long term with the levy that was moved away from the general fund at two mills, the 1.4 million dollars taken out of the general fund and moved over to the debt, paired that up with the reduction R C P D levy that closed the that closed the gap.

So I've only got the two slides.

I wanted to pay basically give you the updated picture and what that looks like.

Uh if you extend this out, you're gonna see you're gonna see that dip, but it will not go below zero.

This closes that gap.

Um how do we how do we portray future borrowing?

Future debt.

Yeah, any future borrowing that go above that level, above the green.

And we talked also that night about needing a debt policy in order to guide through that conversation.

And I think that was that night also was one of the goals is to come back with a debt policy.

And as your municipal advisor, that's what we would do.

We would start a draft so that way you can start talking about what does that look like.

How do you use cash?

When to use debt.

How do you pair debt up with revenue sources?

Because not all of your debt is is tax backed, is property tax backed.

It's there's a lot of it that goes toward your enterprise funds uh and your special revenue funds.

You've also got uh uh uh a bunch of it that's ended up special assessments, which is a property tax, but it's voluntary property taxes assessed back to the back to the uh the owners of the beneficiaries of that project.

I do remember your request that you're talking about in getting the list that has everything, and I can uh commend staff because what the city has is every project outlined that's currently outstanding, and then those that have not been long-term financed built into this forecast.

So this is made up of a lot of detail that and it's is really good information.

Uh obviously it's got a lot of notes on it.

I'll clear I think we can clean it up and get it back to the city manager.

Yeah, can you can you email it to us?

I was gonna say that that's what we need.

We don't need these graphs like that.

Yeah, and I I'll make sure I'll make sure that the city numbers and how much of that's being paid by the bond and interest fund, how much by special assessments.

That's all broken out into that sheet.

Yep.

Water, sewer, absolutely.

Yeah, not all being paid by the the mill in absolutely right.

Yeah, it'll break it out by revenue source in a couple different ways.

Yeah.

Uh any questions on on this piece.

So the the 20 2026.

So how much how much debt total is that reflecting?

This is your current debt load right here.

This is everything, this is debt service for everything that's currently outstanding in 26.

The bond issue of the general obligation bond, that's not the temporary notes.

Right.

In the orange, that's right.

Temporary notes are in the green.

That assumes they're converted to bonds.

Exactly.

This this reflects we're paying about 24 million, 23 million how much total debt.

Like what's what's the I should know that I don't know that number.

It's approximately 350,000 million.

Million, yeah.

That includes temporary notes.

We're not paying anything on that.

Right.

Right.

That's just the you're asking for the total debt that's bonded that we're making payments on.

That that this is ref that this is paying the 23 million.

Yeah, that's 70, 80 million.

Yeah, that April 28th work session, that presentation gives you totals for everything.

And it highlights the over 300 million dollars in debt that we have.

It has it highlighted by category, and it breaks down your annual payment of roughly that 22, 23 million.

That's what grows to 27 million, I believe, next year.

Sorry, I'm gonna have to go back so that April 28th one.

Well, it's attached to the memo that you got for this as well.

It's attached to that that you got on Thursday.

The fastest way to find it.

Thank thank you, Ben.

Yeah, you're welcome.

I'm sorry, Andrew, did you have another comment?

Did you have another comment?

I was just gonna have I was gonna ask more questions about the the budget.

Thank you.

I think part of the problem trying to grasp the debt is there are different sources of income for the debt, and there's different kinds of debt.

There's specials, there's um debt that's paid by well paid for by the water department or the sewer department or that kind of thing.

Um there's um you know, debt that's uh in Aggieville that's paid by other things, the TIFF districts and things like that.

So it's kind of hard to really get your hand around.

Um I'm not you know, I'm just saying I agree with you, it's complicated.

Jason, I don't think we actually did link it.

It was in the 23rd debt.

Oh, okay, perfect.

Just take me there.

So yeah, so it's in your 23rd.

The memo that you got on the 23rd uh was that debt conversation, uh, Commissioner Von Lindel.

And so again, uh Commissioner McColl to the point where you're talking about those different um debts that we have issued with the different revenue sources for them.

Um that is all in that um April 28th that can be found through the June 23rd memo.

Was there a particular slide you wanted me to start on, Commissioner Von Lentel?

Let's go to nine.

Can you tell me when to stop?

Yeah.

So why are we projecting an increase for the tourism convention?

So this is your this is the expenditures, and so there are a lot of um, we are projecting a 3.2 million dollars that will be collected in that transient guest tax.

And so that um tourism and convention, um we carry a bit of a cash balance in there, but again, we are looking at using 1.25 million of that to go to CBB.

Um, there is uh we are looking at about um what is it two fifty for debt towards the convention center?

Uh we also use um some of those funds to go for um beautifying downtown, uh beautifying Aggieville um contracts to do those.

Um we have a very limited um things that we can use those transient guest taxes for um that are determined and outlined by um state statute.

So one of the things I brought up to you was the idea of well on this budget, we're still looking at 500,000 for the discovery center, probably.

500,000 dollars for the discovery.

Subsidizing the discovery center.

Yeah, um, I will call Aaron uh director stewart to come up here um and talk through what our subsidy is for those um different Flint Health Discovery Center because well Danielle, my thought was that we start using transient TGT dollars for the Discovery Center and then clearing up milk because I thought it was general fund that was paying for the Discovery Center.

So that uh we can review if that is going to be an eligible um expense for TGT.

Uh Rena, do you mind pulling up that tourism and convention?

Um, and let's talk through how we are divvying up that 3.2 million.

I think that's important that would be helpful too, yeah.

Good evening, commissioners.

So for 2027.

Um had previously shown on our slide the different agencies that are receiving or requesting um tourism convention dollars, and that's about 1.57 million dollars.

We do have $500,000 going in to the general fund.

Um, and again, that's for beautifying downtown Aggieville, um, things of that nature, $750,000 to the bond and interest fund that includes the extra $250,000 for the conference center, but also we have Annaburg Park that that's included in there, and then just some of the original conference center debt.

Um, and again, that's for beautifying downtown Aggieville, um, things of that nature, $750,000 to the bond and interest fund that includes the extra $250,000 for the conference center, but also we have Annaburg Park that that's included in there, and then just some of the original conference center debt, and then also special revenue fund um last year and in the past, we've had um to transfer some money to the parking garage to help with those dollars, and then that is the majority of where the expenses are coming from.

So parking garage expenses are eligible expenses for TGT, staffing, yes, staffing, staffing, cleaning, safety, those sorts of things.

Um so the money that's used for beatifying Aggieville, was that was that done uh voted in by a previous commission or that is a that is a service um that we provide for Aggieville and for downtown.

Um, and so if that is a policy decision that the commission would like to see us cut that service, we can have that conversation.

Well, we can't have a conversation if we don't have information about what is it, what can we do, how who should be carrying the burden?

I think Andrew's correct.

It may not change anything, but we ought to have the information so we can even have a conversation because truthfully we have a spending problem and the income is stagnated.

If you look at all the pretty charts, it looks like our sales tax is slowly going, but the rest of it has been stagnant for five years or more, and so we can't rely just on sales tax to bail everything out.

Um the other hand, I think that's just equally fair to cut with those dollars as to this the full full mill increase on the 6.7% property valuation.

How do we have that discussion with you in budgeting?

For beautifying Agieville and they about 100,000 a piece.

Uh yeah, probably yeah.

So uh just for magnitude conversation, um, the beautification of Aggieville and downtown, those contracts are approximately 100,000 apiece.

So and then I was gonna jump so page 13.

So move it's like four, I think it's 14 on yours.

Um I might already missed it.

What's the title?

Well, it has RCPD special expenses.

I don't have the special revenue funds expenditures.

This one.

So the 2027 budget has 24.3 um million dollars.

And then when you look at the um the mill levy, it's 20, you know, it's 23.

So what's the difference?

There's a difference of 1.29 million.

How does that how do we come up with that?

Yeah, so that is your uh personal property.

So those uh mil that um mill levy is also applied to personal property, but that's not reflected um in that mill levy analysis.

So that is something that uh we get from the um county.

It's a fairly particular, it's fairly volatile, um, but that makes up that difference.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yep.

So, yep.

Um, just for um following up, what I'm hearing is that this commission would like to see uh more uh details, so we will get those budget um those detailed budget sheets um for you.

Um we are working on those.

This is part of that new system, so we do appreciate your patience.

Uh we wanted to get our totals in front of you so you had those.

Um you know, one of the things that um I would just share um with you as perspective and something to think about.

Um, it would be very helpful to me as your city manager if I kind of knew in this conversation is definitely been enlightening, but um versus going through those detailed budget sheets line item by line item, we can certainly do that.

Um it is a very tedious process.

Um, I can assure you that we have spent um, gosh, collectively, uh Jason, Rena, Kristen, Ben, um, and I have probably spent collectively over the last several weeks, 60 hours in a room going through those with your department directors.

And so um I I just want to share with you all that uh we have certainly sat down and we've gone through those and we have looked at those.

Um, but we will get those budget detail sheets to you.

And if there are any particular questions that you have once you have those, we would appreciate having those, and then we can provide answers and documentation of what you would like to see reduced.

But also, as you're uh reviewing those budget detailed sheets, uh, let us know what services you want to see cut as well.

So I will also share uh the last couple years of putting um together the budget for you all, we have very much been in a tightening um situation.

So we are not really adding any additional programs, we are not adding any additional uh like projects out of the general operating fund.

And so that's why this has been a fairly simplified budget and why you don't see a whole lot of detail because it has really been that status quo and bringing so when I first got here in 2025, we had a $750,000 snowstorm in January.

So we were very much in a tightening mode from the beginning in 2025.

So we were really tightening um our actuals there.

Uh heading into 2026, we were very much in a tightening mode there as well.

And so just understanding that uh when we are looking at uh these conversations, the reason you don't see a whole lot of things like on this slide where we talk about an increase of 392,000, uh, is because we haven't been doing this in a lot of the departments.

Um there's not a whole lot of things to identify and point out and bring your attention to to the magnitude of three $392,000.

So I will again get those detailed budget sheets.

I also um there is a chart.

I know exactly what chart you're looking for, uh, Commissioner Fox.

Uh, we do include that when we do the final budget, but we will get that updated and we will get that to you for you to take a look at with those um revenues and expenditures per by fund um actuals for the last several years.

So we will get that chart to you as well.

Um is there anything else I and um that detailed list of all of the projects with debt?

We will also um get that to you.

We're trying to figure out a way to get that to you all.

It's a very large spreadsheet, it's very tiny font.

So trying to figure out a way that we can get it to you.

So anything else I'm missing of additional information we need to get.

So one of the areas I just wanted to touch on, you know, we we've asked the RCPD to tighten their budget, we've asked you guys, everybody.

I have a little heartburn with with the library.

Uh library has great service, but in 2025, their actual expenses shown here 4,300,000.

27 budget, 4.5 million.

So a 500,000 dollar increase in two years.

I know their budget increase was like 7.86 for this year.

Uh if everybody else is having to kind of toe the line, you know, two or three percent increase.

Uh I think the library ought to do the same.

Okay, thank you.

This was that increase was coming up.

We almost have to look at the uh ordinance, do we not?

Uh the structure of the ordinance that the city passed the deal with the library, and should that not be at least addressed and discussed as we look at how we do it, because at this point, unless we look at the ordinance, uh, there's not a whole lot we're gonna do except whistle in the wind.

Yep, we can certainly um I do think that uh Mr.

Norris is um here to address those questions that you all have, and we will pull up that ordinance um and we will get some information.

Eric, do you want this or would you prefer that middle of the analysis to speak from?

I can speak from my house here.

Uh thank you, Commissioner.

So with the Manhattan Public Library.

Um the increase that we had this year does reflect a lot of deferred maintenance that we had across uh three different line items.

Uh we've been dipping into reserves for the last several years to cover operational costs like that.

So this year we we moved those expenses out of reserves and put them into our tax fund to cover those regular operational costs that we have.

Excuse me.

Uh along with that, we had a lot of major projects that have happened just because of deferred maintenance over the years.

We do have a capital improvement fund, which is reflected in there this year.

We're gonna eat about half of that when we get on paying off two elevator repairs that were our two elevators from 1968 in order to get those back up and functioning as they needed to to pass inspections.

We ended up spending close to uh close to 500,000 dollars out of those reserves.

So what we were looking at was moving those regular operation costs away from dipping into our reserves and putting them back into the general fund.

Nothing reflects where the library foundation stands with assets and responsibilities.

The Library Foundation is a completely separate organization.

It's got its own board, and we do uh request money from them every year for uh supplemental costs.

The question was how much money is in that foundation and how is it used?

I understand it is separate from the city money, but if the belts get tightened enough, you may have to rely on them for some of that.

I'm just trying to figure out.

I found out that we have a couple million dollars in the police reserve funds and IT and stuff.

And so I guess I'm just wanting to know all these groups how much money they got on the outside that we're not seeing as taxpayers.

Uh we have access to requesting funds from them, but we don't have access directly to those funds.

They can deny those fund requests as they come along as well.

Uh I believe the main purpose of the foundation is to help supplement those costs for uh updates, improvements, uh, and and and those sorts of requests that we can submit in from there.

Uh it would be something that would help us defer some of those costs if we put in a request to uh replace all the carpet that we needed to in the library, they could help us with funds like that, but again, they can turn those, turn that request down as well.

Um, Eric, I think you should also mention that you had to put on some um people to watch, you know, to have some security um guards, I guess.

And the Trump cut the um money for museums and libraries slash that budget, and so that's going to greatly impact Kansas libraries too.

The federal funds come into the state library, and they do help provide services that we access here across the state.

Um, so when we see impacts to that, that just means that there's less services that we can provide online.

The state library does use those federal funds as much as it can to push out those services like that.

Uh this last year we did have to hire uh a full-time manager as a safety and security manager to deal with a lot of the uh safety issues that we're having with some of our uh more troublesome uh patrons and some of the guests that we're having downtown that were frequenting frequenting the library.

Okay, well, and I understand I I think the library does great things, and I certainly nothing against it.

I just you know, for holding everybody else to certain levels of increases of income.

Why I don't know what options we have, but if we have options, then I think we ought to use them, but if we don't, we don't.

So thank you much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Commissioner Morrison, uh the ordinance that we have is a charter ordinance.

Um the cap um that the library can have is six mills.

However, unlike RCPD, the library board makes a recommendation to the city commission, and the city commission can set the library mill levy where it would like.

And I think that'll be part of our discussion coming up just so we can resolve where we're at if we're right or wrong.

Um thank you, Daniel.

Yep.

Uh we'll take public comment on this item.

Good evening, commissioners.

My name is Gary Oles.

I live at 3308 Frontier Circle.

The first thing I would like to ask for to extend beyond three minutes and get an additional two minutes if I need it.

Second.

Commissioner McCullough.

No.

Commissioner Fox.

Yes.

Commissioner Morrison.

Yes.

Commissioner Von Linnel.

Yes.

Mayor Adam Chack.

No.

Motion passes three to two.

Sadly, that doesn't surprise me.

You know, uh Jared, will you start the clock, please?

I want to be gracious because this is a new commission.

There are previous commissions.

But I think the reality is come January of this year, it really wasn't a surprise that debt was going to do what we do, but it did.

You all knew it was coming.

You knew well in advance it was coming based on spending, based on projects.

And it's coming.

It'll be here soon.

I don't understand all this.

And I think to some degree, you as commissioners and the staff have an obligation to explain it to the common man.

Commissioner McCoy, I think you're absolutely right.

For city services, it's a bargain.

It's absolutely a bargain.

People don't look at it that way, though.

And to some degree, I'm preaching to the choir.

Because RCPD is the problem.

80% of property tax revenue collected by the county, allocated, I guess you could say, to the city, is given to RCPD.

You all know that.

I don't know that the public really understands that.

I don't know what you can do other than say it a million times to get through.

I've asked the county to consider getting RCPD, their own sheet where people can see on their tax bill when it shows up, this is what you're paying for law enforcement.

I think it's a reasonable request, but it requires statutory action, evidently.

What I don't understand, and I know there's a good explanation that I can get from staff.

I just haven't asked yet, but I want to ask publicly.

If you go back to 2019, and I have the certifications from the state of Kansas, the Department of Administration, that show what the budgeted amount is for the debt and debt service.

And each year it started coming down, well, bumped up and then started coming down.

In the last two years, there was only like a half a million dollars added to it.

So the Milbalevy portion went down.

Now, you two know that because you were on the commission.

But did you ask why?

No, you just accepted the professionals' advice, which it's understandable because there's so much information here.

But why did it drop and now why does it have to go up?

The debt gets paid, whether or not it's sales tax or whether or not it's property tax.

The debt gets paid gets paid.

And since I want to be respectful to your no votes, he hit the nail on the head.

You all have a spending problem.

You don't have a taxation problem.

The problem is, and you said it well, well, government's gonna cost, but at what cost?

What at what cost?

We can consider it reasonable, because well, you all can afford it.

I can afford it.

Most of the people in this room can afford it, but there's a whole lot of people out there that can't.

And that's the challenge.

And I think you're gonna do what you believe is the best interest of the city and in the best interest of the citizens.

And I do appreciate your service.

I may not sound like it, but I do appreciate it.

Gary, had you signed in prior to speaking.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else who would like to make a comment at this time?

My name's Linda Cook, and I'm a resident of Manhattan.

Do you need my address too?

Okay, 3703 Birch Court.

Um I am the uh president of the board for the Manhattan Public Library, and I just wanted to let you know that the board has a committee that does review the budgets, and we did deliberate for quite a while about the budget, um, recognizing that we needed to be sensitive about any increases.

So we are being very diligent in in looking at the dollars.

One of the things that I did, or two things that I wanted to point out.

Um there are a lot of, and I I know it's probably the wrong terminology, but there are a lot of homeless people in Manhattan.

Um that number's gone up, and it's created some um situations in Manhattan that's required a lot of extra work on the part of businesses as well as organizations like the library.

Um they do hang out there.

If you would come in and visit us, you will see them.

Um they're allowed to be in there during the day this summer, they will probably be in there uh a lot.

There's there a lot in the winter.

Our hours are from nine o'clock in the morning till nine o'clock at night.

Our security now is there to protect the patrons that are in there and to help make sure that you know these people are welcome, but they can't be disrupted while in there, while they're in there.

And we've had some very scary situations that have happened, which has required the security personnel to work with in the library.

The other, since I've been on the board for about five years now, appointed by the city commission.

I have learned how old that building is, and even though it is owned by the city, it is not maintained by the city.

We've had to have a boiler, thank goodness.

We've had been able to patch it up.

Otherwise, we're talking about a couple of million dollar projects now.

Eric believes he's got it fixed until he at least retires or moves on.

But those are things that are out there.

The two elevators are repaired, but they're old.

So it is hard to get parts for them.

Um and this one has a little problem with whatever's under the ground in order to find a place to fix the hammer jack that goes down in there was an issue for us, but we didn't, you know, we have to kind of plan for that and keep that capital money in there.

Our roof is leaking, so that's the next project that we are tackling.

So the fact that I go in there and I see so many kids in there, we had science fairs this year.

You know, we're working for young people and develop the workforce in this town.

I can tell you the library is doing a lot to support that effort with the school.

So, yes, we did increase the budget.

Uh, we are under our mills that the state allows us to have.

We're very cognizant of that fact, but um, I just want you to to totally be aware of the serious issues that we have in maintaining that building.

It's a great location.

We don't want to move from that location, but we gotta think long term.

Um the role that the library plays in the community is pretty great, and you know, the 20, 30 years, I don't know what's gonna happen with that building, but you know what happens with older buildings, and you have to figure out some way to keep them maintained and keep them operating.

So thank you very much.

Thank you, Linda.

Anyone else who'd like to make a comment on this item before we move forward?

Good evening, commissioners.

Thank you for your time.

My name is Annika Lewis.

I live at 615 Morro in Manhattan.

I am a fairly recent resident.

We moved up here last October, so less than a year, and my husband and I moved from Oklahoma, place with famously low taxes and famously low cost of living.

And when we planned our move, we knew we were gonna have to scrimp and save, and we budgeted.

Our cost of living has gone down because we may pay more in taxes.

We're not paying for so many things we had to pay out of pocket for.

We had to pay out of pocket for parking, we had to pay out of pocket for after school activities, for many things that are taken care of by the city.

So one thing to remember is connecting the numbers on the screen to our current quality of life.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you for that.

Anyone else?

All right.

Um, I think the final item under this agenda item is looking at the possibility of sales tax renewals.

Okay, well, commissioners, um the second um thing that we need to talk about this evening is um the sales tax renewal.

So I'm gonna start with a few things that we already know.

We know that our current city sales tax rate is 1.95%, which is approximately two pennies per dollar.

One percent of that or one penny per dollar is our permanent sales tax, and then we have three dedicated sales taxes.

We have a half cent economic development sales tax, so that is your sales tax, where 70% goes towards debt uh for the North Campus Corridor and the um Aggieville uh improvements that we have going on.

Uh the 20% of that goes for uh jobs and economic development in our community.

Uh we've used uh Opal is uh an implementation of a software that we use that 20% to deploy, and it went live uh yesterday.

And so we've had lots of conversations about how the that 10% of that half a penny per dollar is to be used.

So then we also have a quarter cent uh quality of life.

So it expires in 2027.

So this is the sales tax that we have used to build Anthony Rec Center, Eisenhower Rec Center.

We also used it to finish the work that we did at the Steel and Pipe Ballpark.

We have also our one that we have coming off in 2026 is the 0.2% that is dedicated for streets.

The total sales tax rate in Manhattan Riley County is 9.15% and 9.45% in Pottawatomie County.

We also know that we have two to three million dollars that is needed to stabilize our bond and interest fund.

We have a $7 to $8 million annually needed for street maintenance.

We have 14 to 20 million dollars needed for a fire training facility.

We have a six to eight million dollar need for our zoo and cemetery facility.

We have a hundred and twenty dollar, 120 million dollars identified for parks in our move MHK study.

This does not include indoor aquatics that has been taken off the table.

And then we know we have 200 million dollars in deferred maintenance and capital and facility needs, and we know we owe you all a refined list of that capital improvement plan.

We are currently working on it, and it is forthcoming, and we will have that at the August 11th meeting.

Other considerations, we have had a lot of success with dedicated sales taxes in Manhattan.

I just listed uh the rec centers that we are currently building, the steel and pipe ballpark.

I believe this is the second or third time that that quality of life sales tax has been approved in the city of Manhattan.

And then we also have the streets.

Um that street sales tax, that 0.2% was approved in 2016, we were able to make a lot of headway.

Unfortunately, we've lost a lot of our purchasing power after COVID, and so we are not able to make as much of a dent in the street maintenance that we have as we had intended had originally intended when that tax was passed in 2016.

We know that we have success with these because we pointed to specific projects.

We know that they have been time-bound, um, so they are usually sunsetting at 10 years, and then we also know that we have a pull factor of 1.3.

So, what that means is that 30% of the sales taxes collected in the city of Manhattan actually come from people who are outside of our community.

So, one of the other things that we want to consider as we are approaching the expiration and the sunsetting of this dedicated street sales tax is possibly repealing that quality of life one year early.

The reason I am bringing this consideration before you, I think we will be very difficult for us to have a conversation about renewing a street sales tax when we know that we have another sales tax that is going to be expiring with one year.

So I think it will be hard for us to have a conversation about what we're gonna do with streets without talking about parks, and I think that those two things could get conflated.

I also think that we have uh this provides us an opportunity to be more transparent and more clear with our community about what sales taxes we need and what kind of investments we have and requirements that we have in our community.

One of the things that we need to keep in mind though is that we will need to dedicate that first four million dollars for the remaining expenses at Steel and Pipe Ballpark.

Um if the recommended budget is adopted, we will not need any of the sales tax to stabilize our bond and interest fund.

After we were finalizing our budget numbers, this presentation got fairly complicated, and I do apologize for that.

So I appreciate your patience as we walk through these different scenarios because I have three different scenarios, and then I have two different scenarios for each of two different proposals for each of those scenarios.

So we're gonna kind of walk through six different situations, so I do apologize for how this got a little complicated, but appreciate your patience.

So the first scenario that we have is if we re we know we have 0.2 falling off.

We know that if we repeal that 0.25 a year early, and we raise a half a penny.

Our new sales tax rate would be 9.2 in Riley County and 9.5 in Potawatomi County.

I have a second scenario, um, scenario B, which would be three quarters of a penny per dollar.

That would raise our sales tax to 9.45 in Manhattan and 9.75, or sorry, in Riley County and 9.75 in Potawatomi County.

And then we also have a third scenario, an aggressive scenario, which would be an additional one penny per dollar.

That would bring the Riley County Manhattan sales tax to 9.7 and the Potawatomi County sales tax in Manhattan to 10%.

Three scenarios, two different proposals for each of them in two different counties to talk about.

So we are extrapolating this out quite a bit.

So the first scenario, if we move forward with a half cent per dollar, generates approximately $8 million annually.

If we look at the recommended budget that was presented to you all this evening, we could dedicate $6 million to streets maintenance, and then we would also have $2 million for funding that fire training facility that we know that we need to make investments in.

However, with only being able to invest $6 million in our streets, we will continue to fall behind on our street maintenance, and we don't necessarily have any additional funding for any of those other deferred capital maintenance items that we have.

If we look at an alternate budget, so if we were to look at reducing that to mill levy support for the bond and interest fund, we would need to use some of the sales tax to stabilize that bond and interest fund.

So we would have six million dollars for our streets again with only being able to invest six million dollars per year.

We continue to fall behind based on the presentation that Director Johnson gave you all a few months ago regarding our payment condition index and knowing that we have a goal to try to get to 70.

And then we also don't have any funding for a fire training facility or any other capital needs.

Under this scenario, the total investment over 10 years would be approximately $85 million.

Scenario B, we would be looking at a three quarter cent per dollar, which would generate approximately $12 million annually.

If we look at the recommended budget, so on my chart here, this yellow orange color represents fire, this blue color represents other charcoal, that's the color of asphalt, so that is your streets.

Um shade that we have there.

So with the recommended budget, if we are stabilizing with mill, we could look at this sales tax and using these sales tax dollars to make progress on our street maintenance if we dedicate two-thirds of it towards street maintenance with that $8 million number.

We would have funding for our fire training facility, and we would have cash for deferred maintenance needs and other capital needs.

Again, we know we owe you all that capital improvement list.

We are working on that, we are refining that.

We will have that for you at that August 11th work session.

If we have this alternate budget where we reduce that mill levy support for the bond and interest, and we need to dedicate some of the sales tax, this is how the numbers appear to be a little bit different.

So we could possibly dedicate $7 million for street maintenance.

This would allow us to start to catch up, but we're not really making progress.

We would stabilize that bond and interest with to the tune of approximately $2 million.

We would have funding for our fire training facility, and we would also have about $1 million for deferred maintenance.

The total 10-year investment here would be approximately $128 million.

Scenario C, our aggressive approach, would be a one cent per dollar, and it would generate approximately $16 million annually.

If we move forward with the recommended budget, we would be able to make progress on our street maintenance at $8 million annually, funding for the fire training facility, we would have funding for some of those move MHK projects.

So when I talk about those move MHK projects, the two that we have identified and prioritized by our community in that study that was done would be Northeast and Northview Parks, which are over on the east side of town.

We would have funding for that fire training facility, and then we would have $4 million for that deferred maintenance and other capital needs.

And so that is one thing I want you all to consider as we are having these conversations and thinking through how we are able to catch up on our deferred maintenance in our streets as well as maybe some investment in our parks.

Again, if we do an alternate budget, we would need to dedicate some of the sales tax towards stabilizing our bond to interest fund.

We would still be able to make progress on streets, we would have funding for fire training.

That investment in Northeast and North View would minimize a little bit, and we would do a little bit of a trade-off for the cash for deferred maintenance and other capital needs.

One of the things I want to make sure the total 10-year investment in this scenario will be $171 million.

These are not set in stone.

This is not exactly how we have to do this.

These are just meant to really get the commission talking and discussing and create creating a starting point for you all to facilitate this discussion.

So I want to be very clear that none of this is set in stone, that we have a lot of different options, a lot of different variables, but I was already at six different mutations of a possible sales tax renewal proposal for you all.

So we could certainly start having those very robust conversations.

But the next part of the conversation that I did want to start is talking about what kind of impact this sales tax increase would have to households in our community.

So looking at a monthly monthly and annual impact scenario A, where we are increasing our total sales tax, dedicated sales tax, would be a half penny per dollar, but that is really an increase of 0.0005.

So an average family of four spends between a thousand and four thousand dollars per month.

So under the half penny per dollar scenario, they would pay this family would pay an additional 50 cents to $2 monthly, or $6 to $24 annually.

Under scenario B, where we have three quarters of a penny per dollar, the additional cost to a family would be three to twelve dollars, or $36 to $144 annually.

And under scenario C, it would be an additional five and a half to $22 monthly, or $66 to $264 annually.

What does this look like in real life?

So a weekly impact, I think the one that we all can really relate to is the grocery bill.

And so I have asked for a couple examples.

Example one is a family of four in our community, and you can see those impacts if we were to raise that sales tax from the 9.15 to 9.2.

So that would be an additional 20 cents on this particular grocery bill.

And if we were to look at that three-quarter cents, the additional sales tax that would be passed on or would be paid on this particular grocery bill would be $1.19.

And again, for scenario C, if we went up to a full cent, it would be $2.18.

I wanted to show two very different family of four weekly grocery bills here, and I appreciate my volunteers.

I did want to note the person, the family member on the right, I think could give a clinic on how to use coupons and how to be very savvy shopper.

And I can tell you I got the whole list.

It was a very robust, healthy menu.

It was taco and pizza week at the house.

And so, but I was very impressed with their coupon clipping and ability to work within a budget, and so just wanted to be able to show a different impact here as well.

So you could see on this particular family of four, their increase under scenario A would be 0.09 cents all the way to a dollar increase if we were to move to a one cent.

I also wanted to demonstrate what a once-a-year cost would be.

So I am not a parent, but I am certainly an ally.

So I know the estimate that I was using was if you had about $144 and back to school supplies, $250 worth of new clothes, and if you had $150 worth of shoes.

So to take two elementary students back to school shopping in the city of Manhattan would be about $1,100.

Under scenario A, which would be that half cent penny per dollar, the additional sales tax paid would be 56 cents.

Under a three-quarter penny per dollar, the additional sales tax paid would be three dollars and thirty-seven cents.

And under a one penny per dollar, the additional sales tax paid would be six dollars and eighteen cents.

One more scenario, if you would allow me, it would be a purchase that we all make probably once every eight years if you are lucky.

Um so if Taylor buys a 45,000 car, the additional impact that they would have to their additional um the additional impact they would have to their sales tax bill under scenario A would be 22.50 cents, which would be once every eight years.

Scenario B would be an additional 135 dollars in sales tax, and scenario C would be an additional 247 cents, 247 dollars and fifty cents in sales tax.

So next steps on this conversation is determining where where we want to be with those sales tax amounts, the half penny per dollar, the three quarter penny per dollar, or a one penny per dollar.

Uh we need to discuss projects and ballot language, um, and again, we know we owe you the refinement of that capital improvement plan because we know that being successful uh is going to require us to have specific projects and be able to communicate uh to our community how we will be using their sales tax dollars.

Uh we will need to pass a resolution repealing the point two five quality of life one year early, if that is the direction that this commission wants to head in, and then we will also need to pass an ordinance adding this question to the ballot for the November election.

Our deadline to do this is August 26th.

So our last opportunity for a city commission meeting is going to be August 18th.

So we have the next six weeks or so to refine our specific projects to define determine what we want that sales tax amount to be, and really start talking about how we want to start investing in our streets and our infrastructure and addressing our debt issue if we need to in the community.

So happy to stand for any questions.

I know you all probably have a lot of thoughts.

We have talked, been talking about this since January.

Um, so I know this isn't the first time you are seeing this information, but this is certainly the first time that you have all been in the same room to discuss it together.

So my question would be when you gave us the pie chart of where the money would go, you talked about other infrastructure issues.

Whether it would be our parking lot and stairs in the back, or would it include the drainage problems we got on?

So it wouldn't include our drainage drainage problems because we would use our stormwater utility fee for that.

Uh we could potentially look at parking lot issues, but really what I have in mind uh when I talk about those deferred maintenance and other capital needs is more along the lines of we know that we need uh we've talked a lot about the cemetery and the zoo joint maintenance facility, but yet we don't have a dedicated funding source for that.

So projects um like that and along those lines.

Um we also know that we built the Eisenhower and the Anthony Rec centers at the exact same time, and they are coming to be of age of about 12 to 15 years, and that's when we start to see those HVAC systems start to give out on us.

So that would be another possible opportunity that we would have.

Um we know that we have equipment uh not necessarily equipment needs, but because we are trying to work towards using our general fund and some of those revenues to stabilize the capital improvement general fund.

But um we do have that very long list of over 200 million dollars of deferred maintenance, and so uh we know that we owe you an answer on what those specific projects would be, but not necessarily fixing the parking lot out back.

Bigger bigger than that, yeah.

Okay, there's not back, and there's a problem by that.

I understand.

So I would just throw out my support for renewal of the two sales taxes.

Uh the the good thing about this community is they have always been supportive of reasonable uh quality of life type bond issues provided that the issue had some kind of a time limit, and that the funds were going to uh specific kinds of categories of things.

Um I've provided you with with my thoughts on uh a breakdown.

I have I would propose keeping it under 1%.

I've proposed it.

I think it'd sell better than a 1%.

I have a list of eight different categories that that would go to, starting with street and repair replacement at the top of 40 of that 90.

Of that 90, fire department facility upgrades 12.5 of that 90.

And on Dale City Office Repairs and Improvements, General Park Rep and Ugrades, some zoo upgrades, cemetery upgrades, and uh and a small amount for social service funds to take that line item off of the general fund, take it out of out of the mill levy equation.

Only a oh sorry.

So that would take in the city that would take our tax rate to 9.6.

It would take the count the pot county to 9.9 versus 10.

Um that doubles the amount of funding for street improvements.

Uh provides funding for the needed fire department improvements that we're gonna have to do.

Uh I don't want to have to pay for them on my tax bill.

Uh provides various levels of funding for different interest groups.

Uh I think the more interest groups that can benefit from it, the better.

Uh, as far as votes.

Uh as I said, it removes social service funding from the general fund.

Uh it provides many of the needed improvements on that are on the five-year CIP list.

Otherwise, those may never get done.

Um it spreads those costs out to people that that shop in town, as you said, the the 30% that come from out of town, so that they're helping with our expenses.

So that would be my thoughts on.

Yeah, appreciate that.

The only thing I would offer for feedback um, I I think that proposal is very similar to what we have here with our ones.

It's pretty close.

There would be a bit of a machination of some of those numbers, but I think it's pretty close.

Uh, the only thing I would offer uh for consideration is um looking at that um dollar amount that we would have dedicated for those community service groups, it's a lot of administrative burden um for us to track these sales tax for such a small number, and even though it's in the general fund, um it's you know property taxes only make up about 20 percent of the general fund revenues, so we could already say that those uh community services are funded with um our general sales tax, and the other thing that I would just offer for consideration as we are trying to draft a ballot um question, um it does get very long and it does get very complicated and convoluted the more times we try to divide up those different categories.

So just something for us to keep in mind.

Uh one of the things uh real quick, sorry, Mayor Adam Chuck.

The one thing that uh we've talked about individually and an opportunity for me to share it collectively with the community now, is this idea of having categories of specific projects and being able to tie those specific projects back to that capital improvement list of projects would allow commissions that are sitting to be the ones who determine what the priority is for the community at the time.

Um and so that is something that we are really working on.

We've heard um from the previous commission, we've heard from this commission since I've only had an opportunity to work with two of you, but a lot of um concern that I I'm approving this general obligation, these tip notes have already been approved, and I'm approving these general obligation bonds, and that is not and but we were boxed into that corner 10 years ago to do that project to use these sales tax for that specific project.

Um so we are trying to figure out a way.

Um our last big task that we've given for Katie Jackson, our city attorney is to create the perfect ballot question based on the feedback that you all are going to give her, um, but finding a way to categorize or to write a ballot question that would still provide discretion to the sitting commission, but by addressing priorities of the community at the time.

I would point out I didn't mention specific projects.

I mentioned areas of improvements.

Yes.

I think some of those areas of improvement can be collected together.

I mean, you mentioned cemeteries and you had two or three, Larry, that I think were basically would come fall under parks and record.

So I I think there's some opportunities for consolidation of those.

Well, can I just say I'm delighted that the cemetery has gone from 10 million to 2 million?

And I still think that's crazy.

But I think it's interesting that there's so much concern about property taxes and what that you know who can pay for those.

And quite frankly, sales tax is a very regressive tax.

And it might be five for what we're asking people to do, but that's on top of nine point something.

So when I buy a hundred dollars worth of groceries, it's now gonna cost me a hundred and almost ten.

And I I think that probably we have a lot of other choice with the roads in that situation.

But I just think it's very important that the public understand we're not saving people on the low income dollars.

Maybe we're helping them with our property tax, but it's that's not what's cutting them off at the knees.

It's the going to Dillon's and seeing the thing run ring up, and you buy 200 dollars worth of groceries, and you owe the city 20 more dollars.

And uh, you know, that's the kind of thing that really is hard for people to do.

I I'm not, you know, that's just kind of where I come from.

But could I also say I don't see any reason to sunset the quality of life?

Let's finish that off and pay for the FECO park.

And I mean, that was what was that was supposed to do.

And I don't think the public is so difficult to educate if we come in and say we this is sunsetting, we want to renew for the these items.

We can all decide on those.

I think there's a general agreement that it should be a lot of it should be streets and maintenance and that kind of thing.

Um then if if in future people want to build something or do something, they can come back to the public and ask for another point two or something like that.

Commissioner Cole, one of the things I do want to make sure I know this is not what you meant, but I want to make sure we do correct it for the record.

You said on a grocery bill of $200, you would pay the city 20.

That is not true.

We would pay the whole total tax bill would be about $20 and only about uh 2% of the total tax bill, but people know.

I know what all I'm saying is this is a sales tax is a tax that hurts low-income people.

We often don't have any other options, but we we should understand that this is not a tax that's fair to everybody.

I just wanted to make sure you were quoted out.

No, I understand.

Thank you, Danielle.

How about if we take public comment on this?

Yes.

Good evening, Commissioners.

My name is Kirk Korepture.

I live at 3033 Irene Circle here in Manhattan.

Um the sales tax renewal piece that we just listened to.

I'd I like to discuss the numbers that are not on these slides, and it's kind of a continuation of what Commissioner McCullough was talking about.

Uh right up front, of course, we talked about how um our total sales tax here in the city is 9.15%.

However, um the majority of the places or a number of the places, maybe not a majority of the places, the number of the places that our citizens do their day-to-day shopping, that sales tax is actually higher than that because those are TIFS or TDDs or whatever.

There's an added tax to those bills.

So even one of the the lower increases of this renewal will push those towards 10%, if not over 10%.

And research has told us time and time again at 10% of a sales tax, that's when consumers start to get nervous and start thinking about where they're gonna shop.

Um also we talked about the impact.

Uh we had a slide up there that talked about well, if you have a family that spends $4,000 a month, uh their annual increase on the even the max renewal is only 264 dollars a year.

So 264, you know, compared to the 4,000 that a family may be spending every month.

Okay, that that's doesn't seem like a lot, but that's on top of the 4,392 that are already spending that year on sales tax.

That number was nowhere on the slide.

And we talk about Trevor and his automobiles, 45,000 automobile.

Same concept.

We look at a 45,000 dollar automobile.

Okay, his sales tax is only going to go up 247 dollars.

Doesn't seem like much on a 45,000 dollar vehicle.

That is on top of approximately $4,100.

Trevor's already paying on sales tax.

So if we're going to talk about sales tax, let's talk about all of it.

Because that's what the citizens are paying.

And yes, sales tax is a regressive tax.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kirk.

Is there anyone else who would like to make a comment on this item?

Gary O's 3308 Frontier Circle.

Everyone knows, yes, increase any sales tax is a regressive tax.

But please don't be naive to think that a property tax increase isn't a cost of living increase for someone who pays rent because it takes a year later, but I assure you rents go up not only because of supply and demand, but because of property taxes.

And those people who own those apartment complexes, they got spreadsheets and accountants that say, oops, we need to raise the rent by another three dollars a month.

Thank you, Gary.

Anyone else want to make a comment on this item?

Commissioners, any other additional comments for the city manager.

I would just say I you know I know raising taxes is never a fun thing.

Uh but you know, Commissioner McCauley, you don't want to raise any tax, but yet you've commented that we I sure would like to do some of these CIP improvements that are on the list, and that isn't gonna get done if we don't pay for it in some manner.

So whether that's property tax or sales tax, none of that's gonna get done if we don't do one of these.

So I just point that out.

Thank you, Danielle.

I think we'll continue this conversation over the next several weeks.

And uh do you need additional comments, guidance from us right now?

Um I appreciate uh Commissioner Fox being forthcoming with his thoughts and where he he is at um at this time, but obviously it takes three.

And so very much looking forward um to again um making that determination of what we think that appropriate amount is.

Uh, Commissioner McCollow did raise the point we we will need to decide if we want to repeal that point two five, or if we want to take a different approach if we want to have um uh that that's another point to discuss, and then we will get that list of projects, and then we will continue um working on that ballot language.

So uh we may need um we may we may bring this back in July, um, just so we have two opportunities.

Um I don't want to put you all up against too much of a too much inner pressure cooker um at that August 18th uh meeting, knowing that we need a decision.

Um so we will have a dis we'll talk about it at that August 11th, but then you'll need to make a decision on the 18th.

I don't want to put you all in that pressure cooker.

So uh we might bring this back um at one of our work sessions um in July.

So um you all have an opportunity to to hash through that and talk through it.

So I I would just say that I do um disagree with Karen about um sunsetting the quality of life tax.

Um certainly I have no crystal ball, but we have seen extreme volatility and prices and in the uh uh in rate of inflation over the last six, eighteen months, and there's nothing to indicate that that's not going to continue to happen over the next year.

Um I think the disruptions in global supply and fuel is going to take quite some time before it it uh levels out again, and um I think it would be more prudent to consider passing or putting one sales tax increase on the ballot now rather than going through this again next year if we continue to have this kind of volatility.

So that would be my my thought on that particular aspect of this.

I would agree with that.

I I'm I don't want to propose combining the two, but then keep one of them for that extra year.

So if we do combine the two, we need to sunset the one.

Okay.

Right.

Appreciate that feedback.

Um I know um I don't have anything else, Mayor, to discuss with you all uh this evening.

I certainly appreciate your time and attention.

Um so thank you.

Thank you.

Do we have a move we adjourn?

Second.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.