Good evening.

My name is Patina Brown, and I am the finance director here at the City of Marietta.

It is Tuesday, June 3rd at 6 p.m.

I will officially begin the City of Marietta Fiscal Year 2026 budget hearing.

Tonight I have the pleasure of presenting the 2026 fiscal year budget, but before I begin, I do have a few housekeeping items I need to address.

For the purposes of the public hearing accessibility, this hearing is recorded and will be available online.

The budget is a seventh month long process that begins in November each year.

It includes detailed departmental input and review as well as extensive external research that contribute to the economic impact of the city's finances.

The recommended budget provides an account level detail of all revenues and expenditures by fund.

The book was compiled for council and the public in preparation for tonight's public hearing.

Advertisements ran on a weekly cycle up until the hearing date, and notifications were posted on all city websites and social media streams.

This document was made available in the city clerk's office, the city manager's office on Friday, May 23rd.

It was previously provided to council in advance of the May 27th Finance Committee meeting.

The total proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 is 428,392,732.

I have listed the primary contributory funds.

The general fund is $78.7 million, SPLOS at $16.8 million.

The Board of Lights and Water, or BLW is at $174 million and $300,000.

The self-insurance fund is $20.4 million, and the pension fund is $16.9 million.

The school system accounts for $86 million.

However, it is a pass-through fund, and monies are collected on behalf of the school board and remitted to them monthly.

The current general fund budget is a 2.4% increase over FY25, and BLW is 5.95% increase over the FY25 budget.

The major increase year over year for each fund is contributed to the personal personnel increases for general fund of 4%, and the school board, which is a 3% increase in tax assessment.

The general budget assumptions include there's no millage rate increases, there is a 2% increase in the countywide property tax digest.

We did not include any fee increases in our budget assumptions.

11% in property and casualty premiums over the current fiscal year, which are attributable to renewal increases.

The 2% increase in property taxes mentioned in the previous assumption slide considers commercial properties and property sold in the past year.

Marietta's homestead residential properties are subject to the property tax freeze that has been in place for the past 24 years.

Under the homestead exemption, the valuations are held at the value at the time the home owner qualified for the exemption, but bonds and school board millage rates are not applicable.

Taking a look at the general fund revenue summary, the property tax assessments countywide increased at approximately 2%.

The general property taxes include a real personal motor vehicle and public utilities.

The increase in real property tax assessment were offset by a $600,000 decrease in the title avalarm or TAVT tax from the FY25 approved to the FY26 proposed budgets.

No fee or tax increases are included, as I mentioned previously.

Other revenues include a $15.5 million transfer from the BLW and $4.8 million transfer for tourism.

There's also $2.8 million of indirect costs, and those are costs that are incurred in between departments for services rendered.

As I mentioned in the special call finance committee meeting earlier this month, earlier last month, the general fund revenue remained relatively flat year over year.

The areas of increase are in state in the state insurance premiums, and these are taxes, taxes that are levied on insurance companies, the tax equity or service delivery strategy, and fines and forfeitures.

So the financial forecasts are in progress to assess collections and expenditure needs.

We'll continue to review those areas to determine needs assessments and sustainability.

Public works and parks and rec account for another 13%.

71.2% of the general fund is personnel related expenditures.

And we anticipate another increase for FY26.

A portion of that has been estimated inside of the FY26 budget, but until we have a full review from the insurance, we won't be able to determine what that full amount will be.

A 4% salary increase is built into the budget, but again, we always take a look at the financial health of the of the city and mid-year to make a determination.

Personal services is budgeted at 100%.

The city has recently had a number of vacancies.

However, as of FY25, we have experienced an increase in hiring, but that has impacted our capital expenditure.

So we continue to monitor those areas in order to ensure we have sufficient capital expense budget at the end of each year.

Due to the overall enhanced vacancies, we have reduced our forecasted salary save.

We've increased our reduced our forecasted capital salary savings.

The total capital budget was decreased from 1.5 million to 1 million.

The final installment of the latter truck is 750,000, along with routine capital costs that have placed a strain on the budget, making it more difficult to purchase necessary capital requests.

So an ongoing assessment, as I mentioned before, will be done in order to make sure that we are able to sufficiently purchase capital items.

Taking a look at our BLW assumptions, there were no retail rate increases, 2.5% wholesale water increase, 3% wholesale wastewater, 2.6% increase in transfer to general fund, 7% pay increase for the line workers, a 4% pay increase for applicable general employees, potentially at mid-year, and $525,000 is the use of COVID relief funds that was set aside during COVID.

Lastly, the utility cost for general fund and BLW paid will be paid at a wholesale cost plus an adder.

Previously, the city was paying retail costs for its utility use.

But the salary savings are direct reflection of the benefit cost and reduced supplemental sales, which has served to offset the generation costs.

So this will conclude my presentation, and I'm happy to answer any additional questions that you may have at this time.

I will ask that we conclude the presentation and I will open it up for any guests that are currently in the audience.