The Manhattan City Commission held a special meeting on July 14, 2026, to address the 2027 budget, a revised revenue neutral rate resolution, a proposed workforce housing sales tax request for a new subdivision, and a detailed discussion on debt mill levy and sales tax renewal options. All five commissioners were present. The meeting included public comment on one item and multiple work session presentations.
Good evening and welcome to the uh July fourteenth, twenty twenty six meeting of the Manhattan City Commission. We are having a special meeting this evening. Uh Chelsea, will you please call the roll? Mayor Adam Chak. Here. Commissioner McCullough? Yes. Commissioner Fox. Here. Commissioner Morrison. Here. Commissioner Von Lintel. Here. Mayor, we have five commissioners present. The quorum of three is met. Thank you. Will you rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge of allegiance through the flag of the United States of America. And to the Republic for which it stands. So instead of being about a 6.7% increase, uh the increase in assessed valuation is now 4.4 percent. Uh what that does to our revenue neutral rate is instead of being 51.056, our new revenue neutral rate is 52.210. So we need to um like the mayor read, we need to repeal the resolution we passed last week and we need to um adopt this revised resolution that would say that we plan to um exceed the 52.210, uh, but we will not exceed 54.506. Um staff has prepared uh those different scenarios that you all charged us with, however, those numbers look very different just because of the difference in assessed valuation, and we will be going through those after you have your first work session item. Um happy to answer any questions you all may have. Okay, doesn't look any better, does it? Uh it did not make it look better, Commissioner Morrison. It it definitely uh changed uh the budgeting approach that um staff had and that recommendation that we had to um take advantage of the savings that uh we saw with the Riley County Police Department and that increase in assessed valuation and plugging those funds into uh any of those additional revenues into our bond and interest funds. So very similar conversation, um, just a continuation, but uh we will um dive into that a little bit deeper later uh at this meeting, looking at those debt numbers and what we need to do as far as stabilizing that bond and interest fund uh with mills and with sales tax. So I'll go ahead and make the comment now that uh I've discussed with you. I've been through this 85 to 90 pages of of proposed budget, and I've I've come up with a couple of modifications that in my mind would get us down to that revenue neutral mill levy. However, that is subject to uh increasing the franchise fees that we have talked about in past meetings from four percent to six percent. Now we have not agreed to do that yet officially, so I don't really want to uh go out on a limb and you know bet the farm that we're going to approve those sometime down the road. So uh I'm I'm gonna be supporting the resolution tonight, but knowing that if once we approve those, I I have a budget that gets us actually a little less than 52.21. So uh just a couple of minor changes. Appreciate that uh Commissioner Fox, and we can certainly um we have additional analysis to provide you this evening, additional conversations to have with you all this evening, and we have another work session um scheduled for August 11th to continue uh working on these budget numbers and continue getting additional information for you all to make decisions uh when you finally adopt on um September 15th. Still a lot more information and conversations to be had. Uh one thing I was looking at was the eco devo 4.6 million. Um so what I'm wondering is like what's staff's recommendation for using that money and why can't we use it for LeBond and interest fund in 2027? Sure. I think that is a really good conversation that we can follow up on, but does not necessarily relate to the resolution that is in front of you right now. Um and after we pass this resolution, I will go back um to um my my desk over here, and like I said, we have a lot of additional information to share with you this evening, and I think that's a good conversation point um for our second discussion item tonight. I would just add to that Danielle, we um we all have a number of things we'd like to bring up, and I think that's for item three on our agenda tonight. And um, I would just like to move that we approve resolution 0714268, and um to um regarding the city commission's intent to levy a property tax exceeding the revenue neutral rate and setting the public hearing on September 15th at 6 o'clock at the city hall and repealing resolution number 070726b. And then we could get started from scratch on the on the budget. Thank you. Do we have a second on Karen's motion? Second. Oh thank you. Pardon me before we vote, the if we could request public comments. Yes.