Proposed fiscal year 2026 budget.

And we're going to handle this is uh the flex director, Mr.

Collins.

He'll make some uh overall comments and then we'll open it up to questions from the city council.

We'll begin with the members of the finance committee and then we'll go around the table.

Uh I'd like to ask everybody, all the members of the city council, uh, as we go through this, if you find if if there are if if at the end of the day, you conclude that you might think some changes to the budget are necessary or desirable.

Please go ahead and get with Mr.

Carbo.

Uh, or well, first of all, discuss them with Mr.

Collins.

And then if you still think that's the case, get with Mr.

Carbo to draw up uh a the proposed amendments to the budget, remembering that we cannot add any income.

So you're if you're going to if you're gonna add something to the budget, you gotta if you come up with a resolution to change the budget, you gotta just gotta even out.

If you're gonna add or subtract revenues, then you gotta add or subtract expenses to match.

Hopefully, we will have none of these, and everybody will be absolutely delighted with the budget that's been presented to us.

But we'll see.

So we'll start out with Mr.

Collins.

Thank you, Mr.

Collins.

Yes, sir.

So thank you, and thank you guys for taking time to do this.

This um the 2026 budget is a little different than what we've done over the last couple of years.

Uh, rather than just kind of look at this from a math problem, how do we balance it?

We started out with going back and looking at the last couple of years, specifically 24 and 25 to look at actual revenues and actual expenditures to kind of go back and see what the future looks like.

Obviously, we've had some questions about being level funded for revenue for the year, so we knew that that was gonna be a bit of a challenge.

So we started there.

There were also some just simple requested additions to the budget, additional staffing.

We knew that um there were some other costs that were coming through, so we wanted to be mindful of what those were.

We've made an effort to to address those to the extent that we can.

We also worked at combining um some areas, some of our revenue.

We'll get into convention center and how that looks different, capital and how that looks different.

Um, but this the budget that you have is um just simply a synopsis of all of that work.

Um, you will you will in just a moment have handouts for for the slides that we're about to go over.

And at any time, if you have any question about any of this, please let me know.

We'll work through.

So uh with that, we'll we'll start right on in.

Um, so for 20 20 FY 2026, the budget is comprised of the general fund, capital improvements and the enterprise funds supported by the general fund.

In years past, there's been a convention center fund in addition to this with OVG coming on board.

The convention center operations are done by contract.

So in years past, the convention center budget that you saw was primarily pass-through money.

Um, you would look at a convention center budget and it would show sales tax, it would show lodging taxes and other things, but the convention center itself did not generate those revenues.

Those were monies that were applied to the convention center and then moved back to the general fund operating account or the capital account.

Um, with the change and how OVG has come in and they're gonna be running the convention center in a different format.

We simply condensed those funds, everything that would have been operational in the convention center has now been incorporated into the general fund.

Um, as an example, you would have seen a line item last year that said convention center sales tax.

That was simply an allocation of sales taxes that went to the convention center is passed through for a standalone budget.

That standalone budget has simply been removed and everything has been incorporated back into the general fund.

Uh the general fund budget summary itself, uh as you see here.

Um there are some increases to some departments.

Um, the top right, the biggest um line of this are the taxes.

That's comprised mostly of sales taxes.

Um, about 17 million of that difference is is made up of what have been previously been going to the convention center.

So everything that was convention center sales taxes made its way back to the general fund.

Everything that were any other licenses and taxes that had gone to the convention center have now made their way back to the general fund.

So we're relatively level funded across the board with our sales taxes, licenses, and other sources of revenue.

We've simply combined those into one location.

Um, so overall, not a substantial change on all of the revenues, it's just condense those to one location, and that's the list that you see here.

Um let me let me back up one one slide.

You'll see also is you have in your budget on the far right-hand side, and we'll address this for in just a minute.

But you'll see our total revenues of 416 million, and you'll see our total expenses of 416 million.

The reason that's important is obviously the city's not going to in this year have a surplus.

We knew that we're gonna be transferring some money in from operating capital.

There were some capital needs, capital balancing, level revenue becomes a part of that discussion.

So that's money that's transferred in from what used to be the unassigned fund balance, it's now just a general fund operating balance.

And I'll describe in further detail what that is.

The process uh for the budget, we we typically start this in April or May.

We started a little later this year.

That was done intentionally.

Again, we knew that our revenues for this year were going to be a bit lean.

We wanted to make sure that we got our revenue projections as close to accurate as we could.

So we really didn't focus on revenues until after June 30.

If you recall from last week's um finance committee report or the budget report, we got really close on our revenues for this year.

We were within a half of a percent on projected revenue.

We wanted to keep that same momentum in fiscal year 26 because of the consolidation of some of those funds, it just caused us to be a little more cautious with our with our revenues.

But typically we would get to departments, review all of those.

Again, this year we did actuals over the last two years rather than budgeted.

Uh, it goes to the directors, and this year we focus primarily on the executive directors and it's back to finance.

We go through the work in the finance department to make sure things balance to the extent that they can.

The mayor, the budget goes to the mayor for approval, uh, which it did several weeks ago.

We had a series of meetings on the on the budget itself, and then here we are at the council.

Um, obviously to you guys on August 20, and then our meeting today.

Some information to recap as we go through the budget, then um matters of importance specific to our cash position.

Um, projected numbers, our October one general fund operating account balance is projected to be 102 million dollars.

You may recall that our last meeting we anticipated to spend some money through the August and September months, August and September are typically our leanest months of the year because they're our lowest revenue months of the year.

Um, our expenses are relatively fat, but we remain low on our revenues.

So, with that, we expect October one, our projected uh unassigned fund balance as we used to know it, operating balance to be 102 million dollars.

The general fund operating account budget transfers in are 29 million,991309, and we'll get into deeper discussion as we go through this presentation.

September 30, 26, if we're forecasting out, we look at an anticipated September 30, 26 general fund operating balance of 72 million, 8,691 dollars.

I will say that as we go through the year and we look at the budgeted expenses, we don't anticipate that we're going to spend all of that 29 million 991.

Obviously, we have to balance the budget, and there's a number to be plugged in that will come in from operating.

However, over the course of the year, there are going to be a position or two that goes unfilled.

There's going to be an activity that isn't funded for whatever reason.

We're going to typically wind up spending less of that money just as we have had conversations about with the current year, where the question will be hey, we budgeted 300 million in expenses, we've only spent 290.

That's just the normal function of um having money at the end of the year.

We've done a pretty good job of staying within the budgets each year.

That's what's allowed us to have that money in the bank.

So although we're looking at 29 million,991, we expect the actual of that to be closer to 23 million by the time we get to the end of the year.

We just don't anticipate spending all of that money just because everything's not in place on October 1.

So as we progress through the year, everything that's not funded or not filled comes back to us during the year.

So we do anticipate there being a little bit less spent of that 29,991.

That would leave us with 72 million dollars in the general fund operating balance.

Over and above that 72 million, there will be in the reserve, the fiscal 26 2026 reserve fund balance, which is required by ordinance, $64,455,195.

That is a static number that will not change through the year.

It's based on our revenue and an employee health insurance reserve of approximately $9 million.

So the city would then, in its general fund, have $72 million operating plus $64 for reserve, and then $9 million in employee health insurance reserve.

There are some changes as we get into the budget for the year.

And we'll kind of walk through what those are.

The first is the term cost center.

The term cost center is being phased out in fiscal year 2026.

We're transitioning back to a department and division budget.

Cost center indicates that there's some cost that's going outside.

But a department in a division, in this case, would be the police department patrol division, right?

The patrol division is we've typically considered that in the past will be a cost center, but in fact, it's just a division of the police department, right?

Fire suppression is a division of the fire department.

So we're transitioning to departments and divisions, language and migrating away from cost center, unless it's something out from under the umbrella or under the roof, so to speak, of the city mobile operations.

Also note fiscal year 2026 is the final year of funding for the police and fire pension unfunded liability.

This year it's budgeted at $16 million.

That becomes important because we just talked about the $29 million that we have budgeted coming out of the general fund operating.

We know that in fiscal year 27, that $16 million really be about $15 million.

There's going to be some recurring money.

But we know in fiscal year 27, we have about $15 million coming back to us in the budget.

That $16 million will not be spent in fiscal year 27.

This is the last year that that full $16 million will be spent.

Again, there'll be some remnant funding, about $1 million.

If you were to take that $29 million and subtract that $15, now we're down to $14 million, going into $27,000 and it comes back to us incrementally as we get through the budget.

Also within the budget, a substantially reduced number of pasture vehicle purchases is budgeted for fiscal year 26.

The way we've budgeted for vehicles in the past has been on an accrual basis to where you put money in the budget and you accrue money and capital over the course of the year.

And no one really had a really good grasp of how that happened.

Were we saving money monthly to buy vehicles in the next year, or were we paying leases on vehicles we purchased in the past?

So we transitioned away from that in this year, and that is what prompted the number of vehicle purchases that you guys have seen on the council agendas over the last couple of months.

Really, for about the last 90 days, you've seen a series of fleet purchases, pasture vehicles for public, when I say passenger pickup trucks, passenger cars, things that are not fire trucks, not garbage trucks, not patrol cars.

Everything else, you've seen a good number of those that were purchased in the last 90 days.

That was done to spend the money we had on hand.

Um we had some concerns about supply in 2026.

So in fiscal 26, you won't see a number of those passenger vehicle purchases.

Most of what was needed in 26 has already been commissioned or requisitioned in in fiscal year 25.

So we believe the fleet is in good shape for a fiscal 26.

Uh the next page, the general fund transfers out from the general fund in fiscal year 26 increased, primarily uh due to two things, incorporating the convention center budget into the general fund, and we can again talk more in depth about what those were, but it's just as we described on the first page, all of those transfers in and out going through the general fund as it was shown previously, and then reclassifying various transfers out.

Um there was some money as we have money coming in.

You may recall that there's money going out to agencies that it had not gone to in the past, as an example of the airport authority.

When we made the changes to the lodging tax this year, the airport authority was a beneficiary of that.

So we try to reclassify how some transfers were gone out, and we'll show what those are.

And then at the bottom of the page, the five cent gasoline tax revenue and the seven cent roadway fuel tax revenue are now transferred to capital to be used by the public works department for road maintenance and repair.

That's a bit important because under Alabama law, gasoline taxes and roadway fuels are required to be separate from any other operation.

They can't be commingled.

Um, so what we've done in this budget, and you can see when we as we go through or if there are questions about that.

We showed the five cent and seven cent gasoline and fuel tax coming into the budget.

We show them going out to the capital budget, and those will be used by public works for road repair maintenance, potholes, repair, that sort of thing.

It won't be used for paving resurfacing, it is for spot repair over the course of the year, but um that will be $1,175,000 that we have for miscellaneous road repair across the city over the course of the year.

You'll get that number on what $1,175.

Going further into the general fund, um, all divisions of the finance department with exception of the police and fire pension department have been combined into one department.

Um you may recall that I've had conversations with some of you about the benefit of condensing, come of our some of our what were previously cost centers condensing some of our departments and divisions.

The finance department is one of those that we were able to roll everyone with exception of police and fire, must be held separate because of their funding model.

Um, but everything else in the finance department has been rolled into one um department.

Now internally, we have those divisions, but the finance department is one budget for all of our departments.

Um within those departments, we would have finance admin, we would have revenue, capital, and accounting.

So in our own departments, you would see those divisions.

But as far as funding the department, they're just one budget.

A small benefit to that, if we're just looking to save money, and this is just one of the things that stood out.

Once we once we combined all of our departments, um divisions within the finance department, we looked at ways to save money.

A standout on that was our training budgets.

Once we combined all of those divisions, we were able to put all of our training money into one training line item, maintain the same level of training for the year, but we're able to cut our budget by 50%.

Is because we have multiple call centers and multiple divisions with multiple training budgets, there was some overlap.

So we were just able to condense and combine those and then save that unbudgeted money to put into actuals for the year, and that's how we arrived at some of our savings for the year.

Several divisions within the public works department and the public services department have been combined to reduce operating cost and improve efficiency.

Um as separate cost centers or divisions, they've been rolled up into one.

Um, and then just below that, the biggest one that we see, the former motor pool enterprise fund has been dissolved, and those operations have been combined with the fleet division of the parts and services department.

The purpose of that is so that um the enterprise fund for motor pool as we knew it really wasn't an enterprise fund in that it was self-funded by all the other departments.

It was an activity of the other departments.

So what we've done is put the vehicle purchases budgets for the other departments in their departmental budgets.

We've taken out of the other departments and divisions fuel expenses.

There will still be fuel paid for for the city, and it will be paid for in the fleet department budget.

That's why when you get in the fleet budget, you'll see a large large expense in fleet change.

I believe operationally, that number was six million dollars.

What we were looking to do was make sure that for our departments, we weren't over budgeting in fuel and then bloating those departments that have unspent money at the end of the year or transfer money at the end of the year.

So it was just an example of taking what we believe we're gonna spend for the year, putting it all in fleet and paying for all of it in one time.

The transitioning of that doesn't mean we cannot maintain the knowledge of what money, what fuel is used.

Within our fuel management system, we know what the police department will spend on fuel, what the fire department will spend on fuel, what the different divisions will spend on fuel, but it will all be paid for out of one motor pool, combined motor pool fleet budget.

We want to be able to keep track of that and not have a fuel budget line item be an increased line item for the purpose of kind of inflating a budget a little bit.

New for 26 is a new stormwater budget or a new stormwater department.

Uh that department has been created and will be the primary division responsible for stormwater management and maintenance.

Um, you will see that in the public services uh budget or public works budget.

Um important to that are changes for how some of that uh stormwater will work and how some of the operational uh activities work.

You may recall that in previous years there was one million and eighty thousand dollars budgeted for ditch clearing and ditch maintenance.

That one million and eighty thousand dollars is still there, is simply allocated to the stormwater department um so they can do the ditch maintenance along the sides of the road and the things they need to do.

And it's sorry, who is overseeing stormwater department?

So that comes under here, it's another division we add another public service.

So let's just move it into we have a department like somebody over there.

No, you you cannot same all that's just moved under you.

So the department is so there are a couple of changes with that, right?

So one, we're looking to hire a stormwater manager.

I know they've gone through the process of doing that.

I think they've interviewed.

Come on.

Okay.

Good evening.

So what we're doing is creating a whole separate division.

So that's like we have sanitation, public service maintenance.

We're gonna have stormwater.

We are actually in the process of right now um hiring a deputy.

So it would be a deputy for that position.

A lot of the department that was under public service maintenance will move over.

So our vector trucks will move over into that department.

Our um uh some of our sidewalk will move over there, and then we're also creating um some of our own within that area.

So it would be a whole separate division that is specifically for stormwater um with a person who's over it that is familiar with stormwater so that we can actually make an impact.

So we're in the process of um, we haven't started the interview process yet.

We just got the names probably about a week ago, and um Matt is also over that area, so we're coordinating some times to start interviewing.

Most of this has been worked on and work through just public works, right?

With Nick as well in partnership with him, yes.

So it's kind of the much way from Nick to you.

No, so we will still do the I call it the whack-mo, where are it's the projects that come up that need to be addressed.

We're still partnering with Nick.

So when we get this big issue that need to be addressed, Nick will still work with us.

So we are still in tandem.

We are meeting on a regular basis, so it's me and Nick.

Is the deputy position the only position that's gonna be added?

Turn your microphone.

Thank you, President.

Is the um deputy positions the only position that would be added to the storm water department?

New like no, there's this there's another area that we have to add, and I think a sidewalk.

I can't remember what it is.

I could look at my paperwork.

Um, but that's not gonna come until later on in the year.

Okay.

We need somebody waking up every single day who's solar stormwater, and then I've been part of something else.

What's been happening is then trying to do stormwater and have to go here and have to go there.

So this is an effort to focus on just make sure we get done with each time.

I agree.

And that was my question, too.

Like right now, as we're executing these larger projects, so we have to come in and you know it's it's a bigger job.

Um, those projects right now are sitting in engineering, being project managed out of engineering.

I guess will they come over to move forward with it?

Will this be what this department does or no?

So all of the things that's with engineering will stay with engineering.

This is small, the smaller projects that need to happen, the ditch maintenance, the managing of the roads.

It's it's doing all of that that we've been doing, but on a larger scale, but very much like the mayor said, somebody who is specifically working on that because right now we get call for all of these things, it is what we see is most important.

And so Dexter has been the person over that.

Now we're adding another person, and their sole position is to worry about stormwater and how to address it.

Gotcha.

I think you differentiate or just pure maintenance sediment and vegetation as opposed to pouring concrete and putting structural things back.

That's really the differentiator.

Yes, sir.

And and within that and then and then within that, um, there was that's about a five million dollar addition to the budget that we got into, roughly um about a million dollars of that is allocated or considered allocated toward um a drainage system study.

Obviously, we didn't know what what we have and where, so we can go back and identify what that is.

So that will be professional side of that, there'll be professional technical to make go that will leave a remaining four million-ish, depending on what's spent there.

That four million will be eligible to be used for um existing staff to do that work or contract work if we need to do that in in place of the staffing.

Um, but that that's an important study, probably one of the most important studies the city's done um for the ability to address stormwater and all of its needs in the future.

Uh next on the list, we have 24 new police officer positions that are budgeted for the mobile police department.

Um those are just as as they are.

Um, those 24 will go straight to the police department.

Um, and they are they're included in the budget.

In fact, yes, ma'am.

Those positions are they part of that grant, or is this separate?

So those would so the 24 are separate from a grant.

We fully funded those.

Um now what we did on that, just to kind of hedge our bets.

We we are in the process of um applying for a cop's grant, but not knowing whether or not we get that cops grant.

What we did in the police department was fund those positions as being grant funded, but we took what would have been paid for them if we don't get the grant and put that in public safety admin.

Because we didn't want to, if we don't get the grant, we want to make sure we can fund the positions.

So we funded them in the police department as if they're grant funded.

We put the balance of that in public safety admin.

If we get the grant, that's just additional funds for public safety admin for cameras, security, all sorts of things.

We didn't want to lose the funding in the event we don't get the grant, although we anticipate getting the grant.

There are nine new certified firefighter positions uh that are included in the budget as well.

Um, specific to public safety.

Um, we added there's 1.4 million in new funding for cameras and a video management system that has been budgeted in the public safety administration budget.

So when that you see that has increased, that's what that 1.4 million of that is for cameras.

We anticipate to that, we anticipate that to be about $1 million plus or minus for cameras and $400,000 plus or minus recurring for the the management system in the operations of the management system.

Obviously, as we transition to the future years and new cameras have to be added or other things, there may need to be some change to that, but this um substantially enhances the camera system that we have in place today.

And then below that, you'll see the $825,000 in unclassified expenses or expenditures that's been made available to public safety, depending upon the success of the cops grant funding.

Uh the capital improvements uh fund.

Um, obviously the capital improvements fund looks a little um abbreviated compared to previous years, although it is really not abbreviated.

Um what we've done with this is simply go back and look at fiscal year 26 for some of the needs we knew we had to have, understanding that we have all had the conversations about kind of what a lien year financially this would be.

There are some things that we cannot do without, um, however, as it relates to that.

So, what we've done with that specifically at the top left in years past, there was a series of numbers that came in.

You would have sales tax distribution, you'd have all sorts of um other property taxes, other allocations of all sorts of revenue.

Um, that was really remnant distributions um from several years ago.

Those monies really were monies that were going to the general fund as general fund revenue, and then migrating over to capital.

They were simply shown as revenue and capital, but they were not revenue and capital.

The only thing this read this legislatively capital revenue are 20% of our sales tax, one cent of the five cents, and then the other uh remaining taxes that you see as you go down the list, lodging tax.

We know because of the lodging tax ordinance that we just adopted uh a few months back, the five cent gasoline tax, the seven cent roadway fuel that again we that comes into the general fund, but we transition it out to capital for those repairs, and then interest on bond proceeds that will go toward um debt service if we're able to see all of those four million dollars, and we think we will for fiscal year 26.

And then the transfer in from the general fund, 20 million, nine ninety-five.

Um, and that is simply a um that number is larger because it simply represents all of the smaller numbers that have been transferred in years past or included in years past as revenue.

All those dollars were actually general fund dollars, they stayed in the general fund, and then we just just what did just one simple number out of the general fund.

Um you can also see below that line from convention center.

Last year it was 6 million 402.

Again, that was past money, pass-through money that went to convention center and out to capital.

We just simply included that six six million four hundred two into the 20 million nine ninety-five that's above that.

So nothing changes on there except for the path of the money itself.

On the expenditures, as you go down the list, you'll see that nothing has changed there.

Um, you see all of the seven uh districts, the city wide capital, um, the um CDBG um block consensus track eligible expenses, other capital expenses, um, economic incentive that's increased a little bit this year based on some anticipated uh economic incentives for fiscal year 26, and then economic incentive chamber of commerce 500,000, and that is unchanged over to the right of capital.

Um, you can see where where there is substantial change, and that's simply with the debt service for fiscal year 26.

Um, obviously in 25, the debt service was at 21 million,185.

And that's the difference in the arena funding for the debt service for the arena funding.

You see previous debt service for the cruise terminal 1 million 858, and then some other sundry accounts that remain unchanged from fiscal 25 to fiscal 26.

Just below that, you'll see a deletion of $500,000 that was out to the mobile metro transit service fund, basically the wave.

Because there's transition to the wave and how the wave will be funded for the year, those funds are no longer going through capital.

It's just all general fund.

And we can get into that when we get into the details of the general fund budget itself.

And at the bottom of the page, there are some things in capital that we just can't that we can't do without.

There are items that must be done.

We'll kind of start from the bottom and then work our way back down from the top.

The first is the road maintenance and repair.

Those are the five cent gas tax and the seven cent fuel tax.

That's the 1,175.

And then coming down the list, you see the new sense abatements.

There's an increase there of about $25,000, $360 to $385.

The other repairs, $40,000, landfill testing, citywide environmental testing.

And then the most important on this list is $150,000 for ADA transition plan.

Of all the things that we do, ADA transition plan is incredibly important.

Under federal guidelines, we must maintain an ADA transition plan that keeps us eligible for federal grants, especially as it relates to roadway improvements, those sorts of things.

There's no requirement that you make substantial improvements in your ADA facilities across the city, although we certainly want to do that, but you must maintain a study and infrastructure knowledge base of that, and that's what that's for.

So we can't really do anything about the ADA transition plan.

It's a requirement as it should be for our for our all things grants as it relates to transportation.

Next page, five year capital plan.

This document looks substantially different than it looked in the past.

However, the contents of it are the same.

It just simply shows where we are.

Now we show in this the sales taxes that would go to capital.

Below that, the general fund allocation, and this is all sources that we just talked about.

The 20 million, uh the 4 million that gets us to that revenue from other sources is a 1,175.

It gets us to the previous year ending balance, $4,269.

Obviously, we go through the year to see what we spent.

We anticipate ending the year with $7,074, roll that up in the next year, and this just becomes recurring each year.

Obviously, it zeros out on based on what we spent in capital across the year.

The next pages for the capital become important as we look at where we're headed with capital, and there are some things to consider going forward.

The first for fiscal year 26, the capital improvements fund.

The city staff is developing a transition plan for CIP.

So we'll transition into district capital projects and citywide capital projects.

If you have a conversations internally, the term capital, CIP, and all those things kind of get commingled, right?

We kind of some things get lost in translation as far as the funding goes for where those are.

So we're looking to make sure that we can project we can budget over a five-year capital plan.

What is district capital, the district dollars that the city council puts into the district capital plan, and then the citywide capital plan, the $8 million that goes into the capital plan there.

This will be important as we kind of transition this conversation, but we want to make sure that district money is easily identifiable in a five-year capital plan where we out identify projects over five-year period and citywide capital is the same.

The next paragraph is a revised software management system is being implemented to provide better capital project management and better capital project reporting.

Internally, we have two software systems that we work through with this.

One is MUNIS, which is our financial software.

That's where we pay our bills out of money in, money out.

The other is eBuilder.

There's a better management tool for capital projects.

So we're transitioning to Munis being strictly our financial software, what we do to pay invoices and manage the actual contract itself for money coming in and going out.

But e-builder would be our true destination for all things capital.

So if it's a um district capital project, it will be in district capital citywide being city wide, but we we'll be able to easily identify each capital project and all of its components within eBuilder.

So you could see that in one in one vision, you wouldn't have to figure out what's an e-builder and what's in the accounting system as it relates to your capital projects.

Second to that, um city staff capital projects review committee is being formalized.

This committee will meet monthly and we'll support the overall review implementation of monitoring and monitoring of all district and citywide capital projects.

And what we want to do is make sure that monthly as we go and we enhance the capital plan, then we have a committee that meets monthly that understands what's happening with all things capital.

Obviously, there are a couple of things to consider.

Um the life of a capital project can extend several years, and the movement of money, particularly if there are multiple sources of money, can change year to year.

We want to make sure that we are effectively managing what those are.

Um, and we want to make sure that we're also doing that in such a way that we're not have kind of money floating around in the process.

Um, under the Zobby Act, a capital project has really a 36 month life.

If no activity takes place within 36 months, there's a process for those dollars to be transitioned back to their source if there's no debt associated with that project.

What we want to do is make sure that we are managing monthly and then getting information out so we can keep a better track of what is the lifespan of all of these projects and how we get the highest and best use of those dollars once they're allocated for projects, depending on activity and project life.

Um, it just becomes important that we do that to get information out to the council and to the mayor.

And then lastly, as a part of that, an updated capital plan and capital planning process, including annual city council resolution approvals for capital projects will be part of the review committee suggestions.

Uh the review committee should be formalized and operational in January of 2026.

What we want to do is make sure that we can get information to the mayor and council and in a in a reasonable timeline so that when things are preferred by the council to be done for all things capital or the mayor, then we can go back, show that to you in a resolution form so that our capital plan has a legislative support structure behind it.

So if there's money to fund a project and we want to fund that over a period of years, we'd have a resolution by the council that says we're going to fund this project over this period of years.

Um, if there's suggestion by the mayor that we would go through and change those fundings, that there will be an information to know what that is.

So the effort is to make sure that the mayor and council have as much information as you can have so that this capital plan that you just saw is more of a true in-depth capital plan project by project rather than kind of a conversational funding process as we go through each year.

Again, there'll be some discussions about that, but we don't anticipate that to be fully operational until until January.

And then lastly, on our internal service and enterprise funds.

Um, obviously the change in this has been that motor pool is now part of fleet, so that's gone away.

Again, it wasn't a true enterprise fund, and it was only supported by internal departments.

There was no outside source of funds for motor pool.

Um so with this, you see the activities for the enterprise funds, uh, the tennis center, EMS, Azalea golf course, and the cruise terminal.

Um, there is some good news.

Um, it is there's no bad news.

Um, the cruise terminal uh does look profitable for the year by $5,290,000.

So we'll take that $5,290,000 and put it back into the general fund, of course.

And then lastly, under the EMS, um, there's a bid out currently and some discussion about what we do with BLS services versus ALS services.

The current EMS budget that you see today has $900,000 in it to support BLS basic life support services.

Um, those bids have come in, and there's a broad range of what those were.

Um, 900,000 seems to meet the mark, although we don't you can't contract to that just yet.

Um but what the purpose of this is is to um really work towards getting our EMS, our ALS ambulances out of the home health, the lift assist, and those sorts of things, the services that are not ALS but could be a non-ALS transport.

We want to get um BLS to do that, ambulances services to do that thing, and then EMS to be primarily ALS advanced life support.

Um, so that's why you see a bump in those in those numbers, but the numbers simply are what they are, including that 900,000.

So, with that, that's the broad overview.

Appreciate it.

And uh we'll start out with Mr.

Carroll.

I defer questions.

He's got a whole page of questions.

So yes, sir.

I understand.

I hope I can it's probably just simple questions that um the 29 million that was transferred in from the uh unallocated funds.

I'm sorry to call it that.

Yes, sir.

Uh 21 million of that looks like it went to the capital fund.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

What was the remaining 8 million allocation towards?

I know it was spread out, but do you have an idea?

Was there a line share one way or the other?

There it was just a spread across of all of the all the costs.

Obviously, we had stormwater.

The biggest the biggest things that we had coming into the city, and let me just kind of take a little bit broader answer.

Um, the total additions that we had when we first you know take everybody's input for the 2026 budget.

Obviously, our funding is a bit level.

The total additions were 43 million one hundred and ninety-nine thousand dollars.

So what we did was take that 43 million one ninety-nine, plug it into the budget, and then start working backwards from there.

So some of the operational cuts we made got us to the 29.

Specific to your question, we had some big additions in the budget this year.

Two and a half percent pay increase is 5.5 million dollars.

There was five million um towards stormwater.

There was a big swing toward that.

We have 2.4 million budgeted in 2026 for operational cost um to the our new arena that we're required contractually to spend with OVG.

In fact, they have pre-startup costs for the convention for the mobile arena.

And that was 2.5 million.

It's actually three the the contract says we'll provide them three million dollars between now and January 127.

In a meeting with them, we we believe that's gonna be closer to 2.4, so that there's 2.4 in the budget that transfers out to to them for startup cost.

So by the time you add things like 2.4 for the startup cost, pay increases, um, stormwater, those things add up.

Um, so our total additions were more than the 29 million, we just simply cut back on the operating.

Okay, and so those that $3 million operational costs that would come in the latter months of 26.

Yes, sir.

Everything we operate off of will be the budget.

We won't transfer those dollars in.

It would be if we get to the end of the year and we're short, that's where we would start transferring those dollars in.

That's why I said we we anticipate really that 29 really be closer to 23 by the time we get to the year because there will invariably be some things that aren't spent.

What are the those operational costs?

What could they be for OPG before the arenas bill?

So for them, they have to they have to spin up on their staffing, right?

Because it has to be operational on October 1, right?

So anything they're gonna need for staffing, internal operations, anything that's gonna take to start a new business.

Um, all of their staffing, all their activities, everyone who's gonna be there, probably some advertising, anything that go with that.

They're their contract clearly states that we were provide them three million dollars.

Okay, all right.

Then my understanding of the the this change in vehicles where we had this substantial purchase towards the end of this budget cycle.

Did I understand that to mean that we're moving away from this accrual for vehicles altogether?

I I guess I didn't understand it.

So there were there were two schools of thought on that.

So the vehicles is and you used to be the motor pool account or what will be a motor pool rate or motor pool budget rate.

You still see that in the line items when the actual budget comes out, the motor pool rate, while it's familiar today, won't will no longer be there.

So what was happening in a practical sense, and there were two schools of thought on that, and there was never really a clear answer, right?

One school of thought on that was that what you're doing is saving money.

So let's say you're gonna buy a fire truck, and it's 1.2 million dollars, right?

One school of thought would be that you're gonna save 100,000 a month to put aside in the budget.

So once you save that 1.2 million dollars, you'd be able to buy that that fire truck, but that fire truck will be purchased in next year's budget, right?

Because you're saving money before you get there.

Another school of thought would be that you've already purchased the fire truck and the 1.2 million in a previous purchase, and the 1.2 million was to go back and repay the motor pool for the purchase of that vehicle, right?

In fact, neither one were really true.

Um, there was some additional funds in capital that was a true up fund.

So if you need a little more or less money during the year, then you'd be able to make those purchases.

The flaw in that when it is when it really gets down to state bid vehicles, right?

Under state bid, and we purchase practically all of our passenger vehicles, cars, pickup trucks, anything other than heavy service equipment off of state bid.

State bid and their manufacturers only open up for a certain period of time each year, and each manufacturer opens up differently, right?

You may have two months out of the 12 months that GM opens up the order cycle, four million open up under another two months, but they don't really tell you when those are.

So the saving or the motor pool rate really didn't make sense if we're supplementing it anyway, trying to get those purchases made.

So that's capital capital makeup account was the one that was really making the purchases.

It was assisting with those purchases, yes, sir.

So what we have question, I think is how are you going to fund the purchase of the vehicles?

We will we will do that the same way.

So over the course of the year, our our internal plan is we get a large amount of money that comes to the city in business license in January, right?

So once that money comes in, there's a there's a big pile of money that comes in that you can purchase capital expenses with.

If you were to go back and look over the last few years, that large trunch of money came in, or when the large transfers were made for the parking debt or the airport, that sort of thing.

So what this will allow us to do is have a budget approved for vehicle purchases beginning in 27, there'll be few in 20 in 26.

You'd be able to open those up so you could encumber, you can make purchases and issue purchase orders as soon as the window opens up to make purchases, typically in the fall of the year, September, October, November, you just simply wouldn't take delivery of those vehicles until after January 31.

That way you're able to make 26 purchases with 26 money with no net impact to your cash flow.

What I thought we were doing, slippery slip.

Yeah.

What I thought we were doing, a process we had put in place 10 or 11 years ago, and call it by whatever name you want to.

It was a sinking fund.

So take uh take a fire truck.

Fire truck has uh seven years useful life.

So we were we were, and I think it was being done through rent through lease payment, what whatever you want to call it.

We we were providing for the per.

So we buy a new fire truck, we know it has to replace in seven years.

We were we were we had a seven year amortization in place so that when the seventh year came, we'd be we'd have the funds on hand to buy the new fire truck.

And I thought we were doing that with every piece of rolling stock we had with police cruisers and fire trucks and dump trucks and everything, every piece of rolling stock we had.

And so my let me finish.

Yes.

So my concern, and it may be misplaced, it may be incorrect.

But my concern is if we're gonna do away with that system, and we're gonna say, no, we're just gonna wait till the sales tax or the business license taxes come in, and then we're gonna use that money to purchase it.

Well, what happens when they go down?

What happens when we have you know when we have a recession?

To me, the better process is what we were what we were using before, where we were providing a sinking fund for each piece of rolling stock we had so that we would have the cash on hand at the end of that vehicle's useful life.

Sure.

So let me let me further explain, because we're not we're not varying away from that, right?

We're we're we're making some monies available a little quicker.

So let's take a fire truck, right?

We budgeted a million two or whatever, or a fire truck, typically two million dollars, let's call it right.

So the fire department is really good, as is the police department, about knowing what that capital plan is going to be over that time.

So in that instance, those monies wouldn't go away at the year, you would simply apply those to the sinking fund, right?

For those large capital projects, you can do that for those large expenses.

No question you would save that over time.

The the hiccup came when you were making smaller purchases, a pickup truck, right?

A couple of pickup trucks, that sort of thing.

Let's take the cost of a pickup truck as an example.

Let's say it's 36,000.

Well, if you add staff on October one, and that's gonna be an inspector who's going and going to do that work for the year, and you're gonna have to purchase a new truck for that person.

Well, then, as you're saving that over time, you're gonna have the person before you have the truck.

So, what this does is allow us with no net impact to the budget to make service vehicle purchases sooner within the fiscal year with no negative activity on the larger capital purchases, the fire trucks, the garbage trucks, that sort of thing.

But when I let me just give you an example, yes, sir.

When I was running for election in 2013, I did two ride arounds with police officers.

And the first, the first cruiser I got in had 140,000 miles on it, and the second cruiser had like 186,000 miles on it, because the city, when it came time to replace those cruisers, didn't have the money to do it.

So there's a tendency, unless you have a process, a plan in place for that money to go elsewhere, because it's it's always easier to spend it on what's currently urgent rather than what's necessary over the long term.

So what I'm interested in knowing is is there a dedicated source of funding for every piece of rolling stock we have?

Uh particularly things like police cruisers and the guys to fire people ride around in and that those kinds of things.

Because if we don't they're not going to be replaced.

Yes, sir.

Understood.

Yes, sir.

And this substantially won't change that.

As an example, we knew we had some patrol cars that we need to purchase this year.

The window to GM opened early.

Right.

I don't see Chris.

I mean, Scott, I'm I'm sorry, but I don't understand why the timing of the purchase affects where the money is coming from.

I'm not fussing at you, but understand you keep talking about the timing of the purchases.

I'm talking about the where the funding is coming from and having a dedicated source of funding, regardless of when it's actually vehicles actually purchased or not.

Yes, sir.

This this does that.

Um, in the in that instant in that instance, if those dollars were to go over, those dollars wouldn't expire at the end of the year, they would simply be transferred over to a capital holding account for future purchases.

Okay.

The motor pool fund as we know it today, where every department is charged, say monthly for vehicles.

Yes, sir.

That that money then accrues over time, and then when it's time to purchase a vehicle or they have accrued enough, they purchase the vehicle.

Yes, sir.

Okay.

That that system, the way this budget is laid out, is modified where that accrual is not happening monthly.

Is that correct?

It's just on an annual basis.

You're taking the monthly accrual and taking the annual number, is what you're doing.

But you're taking it out of say uh the business license fees and doing your entire yearly purchase at that one time.

We wouldn't have to do the entire purchase at one time.

It depends on the need of the of the department across the year.

That's just when there's the most available money to make those purchases.

What we're trying to do is make sure that we don't have money sitting around that's not being utilized in other areas, or unavailable in the point of a delivery.

I mean, certainly we would we would have to go and follow that.

But every year the money what does that mean?

You'd have to go and follow that.

Well, every year the money comes from somewhere, whether it be business license fees, the purpose of the business license fee was for only discussion of vehicle delivery to ensure that there's available cash at that time of the year.

I know, but Scott, if you're setting aside something every month, if you're setting aside something every month for it, then there will always be available cash.

Again, it's just an effort to make vehicles available sooner if there's an opportunity to make them sooner.

Um that could, but it could work in the inverse, as you said that it that there were it's already operating in two different ways currently, where when the need arises and you have not accrued enough for the vehicle, then you reach into that business license for other revenue source, make that purchase, and then you pay it back.

There's still an available source of funds out there in the event where to run short.

There's money set aside in capital if we were to hit that snag.

Now worry about um that being forgotten.

That that business license fee is set aside in order to make these capital.

It's it's not it's not written specific to business license.

That's just the the cash flow time of the year.

That's the only purpose of business license was referenced.

Yeah, just the um to kind of comment on it.

The business license fee is really just deposits that we can draw against to go ahead and order the vehicles, and so we have to identify the funding for 40 Tahoes, two proper trucks.

The the reason that the accrual didn't really work for them, and I'll I'll try to address Joel's is that if you wait until you accrue the money, we can't order them.

And like the Tahoe's for it, they're police package Tahoe's, and so General Motors will open it up and say, or Chevrolet will open it up and say, how many Tahoes do y'all want?

And they're talking to everybody in the country, and so mobile orders 40, the state owner orders 150.

They tool their manufacturing to supply those Tahoe's at one time, and then they go back to making stock Tahoes.

And so if you but in order for us to order 40 Tahoes, we have to identify the funding source.

The deposits from the business license fees are just identified as that funding source, but there's still a budgeted amount for the boater pool.

It just hadn't accrued.

So what Scott's done is move the money forward so that there is money that we could identify to go ahead and order the Tahoe's doing.

We won't even see them for about a year and a half.

Yeah, we had this conversation once before early in the year.

My question then was my question then was what happens when someone else wants to change the process, and we don't have the same people working at we can have someone come in and say, hey, we just have a budget here not doing do it this way.

What safe cars we have in place to make sure if we have this money sitting in one place, and the dog's gonna be useful.

That's the question.

You know, I think it'd be up to whoever your finance director, we know we're going to order a finite number of Tahoes or pumper trucks, and the same thing happens with the pumper trucks.

They actually won't start building them until you order it, and then you in order for us to order it, we have to identify funding.

So we're identifying present funding for a future expense, if that makes sense.

Um to yours, um, Joel, is that it's the money's not really tied to an asset number because vehicles, depending on their use, you you may have one in five years that's in far worse shape than the vehicle with seven years, and so but it's the worst vehicle out to replace by the same, but you you've got 500 cruisers, yes.

You've got five, whatever the number is, hundreds of them, and and I know uh some of so the average the average life is five years, some of them are gonna go seven years, some of them are gonna go three years.

That's correct, but but the average is five, whatever the average is, and so if the average if the average is five years, you're replacing a hundred every year, and you know, in order to replace a hundred cruisers, it costs whatever it costs uh a million dollars, and so you got in that sinking fund, you've got a million dollars on that year to buy a hundred cruisers.

Now, you may not some of them may have three years on them, some may have seven years on them, but you're gonna be able to buy a hundred cruisers.

And my my question to you guys is are you are you gonna be gonna be setting aside enough money out of the general fund budget to buy a hundred cruisers every year?

Whatever the whatever the number is, and I think that's what he's saying, yeah.

You think what?

Well, I mean, that's what Scott's saying, you know, is our taxes and stuff, our revenues come in, most of it is on an accrual, right?

Once a month, that money's coming in.

What he's saying, if we're going to make multi-million dollar purchases in January or even before January, if we got to order this stuff, we have to identify that funding.

He's just saying in January, you have this huge influx of business life out of 55 million, maybe 80 percent of that occurs in like January or something.

So you've got this big deposit in the future accruals, sales tax accruals or whatever they may be, and that's what we're ordering from.

But going back to the the replacement, some of those Tahoes are totaled in year one, you know, that has to be replaced.

Some of them blow their engine in year four, you know, and so um, but being able to order that the difficulty department heads had is waiting for that money to accrue before they could order it, which really sets them back at least a year.

Well, I just y'all are giving me assurance that the that you've got a funding process in place.

I would just say that and I put purchasing rolling stock in kind of the capital expenditures, even though we're paying for it out of the general fund, but but there's always more urgency about general fund expenditures, need more people, need more this, need more that, because all those people out there, they're more interested in what's happening today than whether you're gonna be able to replace that cruiser five years from now.

And so if you if you don't have a process in place, what happens over time is that is the general fund expense, and we've seen it happen.

The general fund expenditures eat away at the capital fund expenditures, and the first thing to go is replacing your rolling stock one time.

Yeah, right.

Well, I actually lived through that.

Okay, I know you did.

And so I was telling the mayor that when I took over as police chief, we had 650 cruisers, and the main reason we had that many wasn't because we had that many officers, but more in the shop.

That's exactly correct.

70 to 80 of them are in the shop at any given day.

Uh, the budget in fiscal year 2014 to replace those 650 was 20 Crown VIX, and that was without outfitting them.

And that was without outfitting them.

So I do know exactly what you're talking about.

All right, let's move on if you don't mind, Mr.

Chairman.

So I I was intending on asking that question.

The stormwater department that's created includes one million from ditch maintenance, 1 million 80,000 from ditch maintenance.

The other money came from public service administration.

Or what else did where else did that money come from?

That's the five million dollars that we added to the budget for this year for stormwater.

So that that was the 1 million eighty plus five million dollars for for the operations on that.

And then that moved around a little bit for that total number, but that's where the substantial part of that money came from.

Well sanitation drop by four million.

Is that all fuel?

No, sir.

Sanitation for all things that were public works, police and fire, all other vehicle heavy equipment purchases, we rolled up into the administrative division.

It does that does, and but it does also include fuel.

It does, yes, sir.

So fuel and new vehicle purchases.

Yes, sir.

And those dollars didn't go away.

Fuel went to fleet, and the new vehicle purchase went to public um public services admin.

Okay.

Um the stormwater study that you talked about is that that's coming from this operational budget in stormwater, and that's gonna take four million dollars out of the five million dollars that's allocated for operating.

So that doesn't leave no, sir.

We anticipate that the study for stormwater is gonna be a million plus or minus to do the comprehensive study.

The remaining four million dollars, plus or minus, would be operational for on staff work for ditch maintenance and clearing or contracted ditch maintenance and clearing.

So I just had inverse one million and change.

Um got that one.

Uh this this uh strategy of uh sort of reallocating the 36 month life of a capital project, and reallocating those capital funds that you described in one of these slides.

Doesn't that kill a project essentially when you so reallocate a fund?

So you you you set out a 36-month plan and say in 24 months it's gonna take another two years or whatever, so you decide to reallocate that fund or those funds that would go to it, doesn't it kill a plan?

So that wouldn't that would be a decision for council.

Under we're required to look at a 36-month life on a capital project.

So let's say that the council votes to put a hundred thousand dollars into a capital project and you anticipate it be completed within 36 months.

If it isn't completed within 36 months and there is no activity on that capital project, then by statute that 100,000 goes away.

The first place it goes is to debt if there's debt on that capital project.

The second place is operating.

The purpose of this is to make sure that we are reviewing those timely so you don't you don't have to make that decision.

If we're 24 months into a 36 month project and no money's been expended, then we're gonna get that information out to the mayor and council sooner so you can determine what the real true life of that project is going to be, so you can see that ahead of time and make those decisions, and rather than bumping up to the end of the 36 months and effectively quote, killing the project.

This resolution that you were talking about where you have this this basically funding agreement resolution or something that you would pass similar.

Uh and but it could extend out beyond 36 months.

It could say, you know, we're gonna take on McGregor and we're gonna fund it over the course of 10 years or 12 years.

Certainly you can.

Okay, so would that that supersedes that uh that law you're talking about?

It doesn't supersed that you it doesn't supersede the law.

That 36 months is in the zombie act.

The 36 months is hard and fast.

So you could budget that over 10 years.

We just have to make sure within three years there's some activity, some money spent, some activity taking place on that project.

Engineering, buying property, rights of way, clearing a ditch, anything that you do to spend money on that project, the spending of money on that capital project is the life of that project.

None of that moves with that jobs approved.

Yeah, yeah, I get it.

I wonder, I just worry about that.

Okay, if that project does expire, say there was uh we set aside a million dollars for whatever it was upon expiration, that then moves from capital to debt service or back to the general fund.

It moves to debt service if that project has debt.

But otherwise it just goes back to the general fund.

Yes, sir.

So the purpose of what this is is to make sure that doesn't happen that you get visibility far in advance.

How so can you explain that to me again?

How so we get that visibility?

So if this committee is looking at that project and we're doing this monthly reviewing these things, and we look at South McGregor, and we realize that's a project that's been on the books for two years, and no activity is taking place on it, then we need to get that information to the mayor and council.

Hey, Mayor and Council, there's one year left on the clock for this project.

Let's take let's make sure this is activity that we need to do.

If it's if it's on the clock, then we need to take we need to have some activity take place.

You were saying to formalize that process by how do you how did you mean formalizing it's just a simple resolution each year that would identify the capital project for the coming year or the actually that year in the five years?

Otherwise, the money sits there almost like a savings account waiting for for something, right?

Then may or may not take place.

Yeah, and it's not doing anything.

We we've been doing it internally anyway, transferring monies out when we go through our CIP meetings.

I'll say, you know, hey Gina, this money's you know sitting here still, we haven't been able to do anything.

Would you like to move it to something else?

And we've been doing it, but sometimes we like to save that money, waiting for something else to come along.

Um and this just keeps this just keeps that calendar alive, is all it does.

There's no substantial changes, makes the calendar visible, so you have information in advance.

All right, the um the the capital review committee.

What's the makeup of that committee?

Um, right now uh right now it's and again, this infancy stages.

Uh it's myself, Shonda, Nick, City Engine, um, capital purchasing, and uh Jasmine.

So seven I believe that's the number.

Legal.

And can you tell me their purpose again?

Well, could they they would evaluate these capital projects that have been allocated over the years and then make decisions like do we cut bait or I mean what's the role of it?

Again, you're gonna look at the timeliness of those, right?

You're gonna continue to look at what's feasible month to month, year to year, and it could be consideration of new internal projects that have bubbled up that the committee believes needs to go to the council and say, we know you wanted to do A, but B has become for whatever reason, um, a greater need.

It's just informational.

It's just so we have a group that knows internally what those calendars are, what those needs are, and we can transfer information to the mayor and council in a consolidated effort.

So would we would you foresee them being uh this this eight million dollars of allocation for citywide projects?

Would that be their primary focus, or are they going to be looking at district projects as well?

We will discuss each of those monthly.

So all absolutely, yes, sir.

Okay, all right.

Why is the tennis center showing as a positive after the transfer after the transfer?

It should not be showing as a positive showing at a million dollars to the good.

It's a negative, it's a negative.

Let's just double check.

Please double check.

It is not a positive number.

I don't know what it's showing, but it's not a positive number.

So if so I see I see where you're where you're looking on that.

Yeah, it shows a positive one million eleven.

Oh, it says subsidy from general fund subsidy from general fund on page six.

So we'll go back, and that's just that's just a that's a formula type of I got you.

But but if you look at EMS, it says the same thing, except it shows we just need to update the formula.

There's no change in the number.

I apologize.

Thank you for that.

Wish they were all positive, but that's all I have, Mr.

Chairman.

Gina just a few questions, Scott, just to make sure I understand what we're talking about on some of these things.

Um the retirees insurance.

Does that show that the retiree's insurance is going up?

Is it going to cost them more?

What was that?

No, the retirees insurance is unchanged.

There's a bit of an increase there.

We that's uh the city's portion of retirees insurance.

They're not paying it.

That's correct.

Okay.

Um and on the CIP slash I'm doing just a small ticket.

It wasn't a lot.

Right.

Yeah.

So the report retirees themselves are not paying it.

The city is paying that.

That's the city, that's the city's portion.

That's what the city pays for for that insurance.

And just going back to that CIP district, um, the capital monies, the CIP portion, the four million that the council works with is not going to be rolled into the the city portion.

You'll still will keep that separate, correct?

That is correct.

The purpose of that is to give it visibility.

That is correct.

It was really calling it something different.

That's correct.

Okay.

And I guess we are still taking off that portion of the top of the one cent sales tax and putting that into the citywide portion.

Are we still doing that?

You are.

That's um it's 20% one cent.

And that's where you get to the top of the budget on um the capital budget, 53 million and change.

That's that still goes to that.

That's that one percent.

Okay.

Um, let's see, what else?

Um I was looking through for MCI or USA Health.

Am I just missing that or are we not doing that anymore?

So USA Health changed.

Um, it they're now changed to the uh cancer treatment center.

They have been at 200,000.

Yeah.

In previous years, there was 125,000 that was budgeted to um the battleship.

That battleship funding, there was an agreement that we fund that for a couple of years that has gone away.

So they're now become the cancer treatment center and the trend the battleship money rolled into that.

So their allocation actually increased for that.

I just notice didn't see it listed.

Want to make sure it was still in there for cancer treatment.

Okay.

Um, and the cameras, um that's city facilities, correct?

We're not talking project shield here with neighborhoods or anything, it's just all city facilities, streets, that kind of thing.

Yes, ma'am, that's correct.

Um the economic development, you already answered that.

There's a pending um need that we may need to provide that economic incentive to.

There is that the economic development um line item went up 1.5 million dollars.

There have been some offline discussions about those.

I don't know that I'm privileged to describe exactly what those are.

Um, but I know those negotiations are underway and there's discussion about those increasing.

But nothing is earmarked, correct?

That is correct.

Nothing you is there.

That is correct.

That's asked for Corey.

Well, thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I think Ben and Jenna did a great job asking, so I don't have too many questions.

Um, the city clerk and council I seen that is the difference um amount.

What was that change?

Only out only the actuals year over year.

Um, we weren't looking on this year's budget, we weren't looking to CC kind of what the funding was last year versus funding this year.

We simply went through what the actual expenditures were.

We expect there's going to be some up and down, but that's so that's all that was.

There was no cutting of any budgets, it was just the actual year to year comparative expenditures.

Okay.

But um, but I'm sure it was um in that past year with some expectations.

Um, what was that positions?

Could you say that was actuals?

Yes, sir.

Part of that is just an estimation.

If there is health insurance that someone's gonna be on in the nano, I use that as an example.

They're gonna be variations up and down from year to year.

We only um consider the the um the actual as they as they vary.

There was no specific up or down.

Okay.

On the athletic field fees, I see that um in 25, we didn't have any.

Um, but now it's 66,000.

Can you explain that?

That's a reclassification.

There were some monies that came in.

Um, however, on the accounting side, we're reclassified what those were, those were buried in other fees, and we just simply pulled those out.

So it's just some way else.

Yes, sir.

On the another category.

Um we I see the day camp.

Um have went up.

Is that just because of um in pay increase to employees, or are we doing something different with the day camp?

Uh that's just participation.

Um on the day campus, those goes up and those fees that come up the participation is is increased as well.

Okay, let's see.

Um I think that's it for right now.

Josh.

So just a couple things.

Um obviously we're we're dipping in to balance it.

And I know uh 29 is not the real number, and I know that this is the last time that we'll be you know contributing substantially to the retirement account, the uh police and fire retirement.

Um, I guess moving forward, we've we've kind of created a lot of things, uh, well, not a lot, or we created some things like the stormwater department, and obviously there's an investment of three million OBG that's um you know non-reoccurring, but I guess um setting ourselves up for for moving forward.

Uh, I mean, the the process in place so we don't have to keep dipping in and getting the 29 um, you know, every year is that we kind of I guess forward thinking on on maybe anticipation of revenues of tax revenue coming in, uh being hired to kind of kind of fund some of these, or what is that kind of look like in your mind?

Yes, sir.

So there it'll be a combination of the two.

First, we know that some of these expenditures are gonna not occur next year, right?

Those that you mentioned, the larger ones.

We also know that there's some revenue sources on the books right now that we're exploring to to start.

Obviously, some of those were adopted in 2023.

We're just in the process of uh starting those.

Now there's some discussion about revisiting those in some form percentage-wise over the course of years for kind of a phasing in approach.

But if you look at our long-term health, if we know that that 29 is going to shrink, right?

Substantially over the next two years, and we can see that there's some marginal increases in the revenue by some percentage changes there.

Then we think the number, the equilibrium points gonna come back to us.

If you look at this today, we're probably looking at a fiscal year 29 before those actually hit.

There's gonna be losses every year, but we anticipate those losses, so to speak, to be smaller each year until we get to full implementation of those or of those ordinances, and then they start phasing back to our to our positive.

Gotcha.

And then uh my only ask is um on the CIP committee.

Um, if possible, um, could we consider asking um some of our assistance to maybe sit in just to just to kind of keep uh everybody in the loop all the way around, kind of thing.

Absolutely, yes, sir.

Again, that's in the infancy stages.

Um obviously we want to make that be as beneficial as we can.

Um, but that should be a positive tool for the for the council and the mayor to have.

And then my last question whatsoever um for the moment is uh obviously last year we we had some of those projects, you know, citywide projects, district projects, um, projects that we had funded, and and you and your team did a great job of going and finding those that we never the dollars we never spent per se.

Um, I guess we've exhausted that as of right now to where we've cleaned up the books, we've gotten everything.

If it's moving, it's moving.

If it's not, we've already cleaned that up.

And then on that, we've already kind of incurred or or use those funds or promised those funds uh in 25 budget per se.

So really kind of looking forward capital projects on things we have to do uh moving forward.

We we really won't have any reliance on on monies that may have just been sitting idle for a little while, I guess.

Um, right.

We think so.

We there's a three-phase approach to that.

The first phase of that was what's immediate, what do we know that's out there that's clearly exhausted its life, and you go find those dollars.

We did that roughly 90 days ago.

That's what allowed us to substantially fund animal shelter, as we know it with that 10 million dollars is set aside.

There's a second component of that for projects that are nearing their life, right?

We're in the process of looking at those now.

We're probably 45 days away from identifying exactly what those are to see what that is.

And then the third phase of that is everything we know that has life still remaining on that that would be um near or at risk, and we'll be able to get that information out to you as well.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Anyone else?

Follow up and I saw Sean delay, but Nick can probably help on this on potholes.

Um I don't know that I saw what we're planning to use for the potholes this year.

I've said something in passing about a pothole patrol, which actually I think might not be a bad idea to have a dedicated team every day, sort of like your stormwater group that just deals with these potholes every day so that we can get them taken care of, especially as we're trying to make our people do the same thing we require of utility services, which is to come in and mill it up and actually put a big patch of asphalt down rather than continually you know making it look like a you know cheese board or something with or Swiss cheese with just little you know potholes continuing to be there.

So any thought given to that?

I I don't know how much money we put into the potholes this year for that program.

Obviously, we need more than what we've had in the past.

So just you know, we just get so many complaints about the potholes.

We can't keep up with them.

You know, it looks like if we're if we're really gonna start putting that much more attention into stormwater.

Well, one of the issues we have with water is the potholes, you know, that happens because of all of the rain as well.

So that um the 1 million one hundred and seventy-five thousand in capital from the five cent and seven cent gasoline and fuel taxes are specifically for that.

So you'll have that budget of the 1 million one seventy-five that's that's known and allocated out there.

Um, and Shonda's crew will they have a crew that goes and does those.

Now they'll simply have the funds in place, known funds in place to go specifically for those.

And so how much is it?

1 million what for for the potholes?

1 million 175.

And that is for potholes.

Yes, ma'am.

And separate from contract.

That was just repairs that we see spot throughout the year.

And we just again, that's not your department, I understand.

But are we still just looking at the list of call-ins from 311 and just going down the list, or is there more of a plan in place to attack these things?

Is that just something in the works, maybe on the operational piece of it from with that spot repair contract, when they go out there and they're they're called to a location, they don't necessarily fix just that one spot.

When they go out there and they're they're called to a location, they don't necessarily fix just that one spot.

They try to look at it whole they try to look at it holistically.

Or if they're on Dolphin Street and they've been caught out there and they know there's two or three, and we've that crew that's going out there and making those assessments that's issuing the task orders, they are looking a lot more holistically at it to get as many of them as dressed as they possibly can.

And we're still on all of them.

If we have one here and one over there, we're trying to do that larger patch of asphalt, not just filling just a hole.

Yeah, it's asphalt's been addressed three ways.

Small potholes, the traditional public works crews, a singular, the spot repair, getting the getting them more holistically and larger scales, grinding them out and coming out there with a roller, and then the full-blown resurfacing plan, the resurfction programs.

Okay.

Oh, yes, well aware.

Anyone else?

The administrative services increase of three million dollars.

That's predominantly what?

Animal services.

So there were some changes there.

Um one department is there's a new department in admin services that pushed that up some.

Um, and then within that, we did look at just what their functions were.

Um, there's also an animal services, although I don't think this increased uh substantially that, but we added the one the one service um the one division uh grants, and um we did change some of the funding in um animal services um to allow for span neutering.

There's some money in there for that.

Um, I could get you the specifics on on everything that took place in admin services, but the largest of that's going to be um the operations and the addition of a new division.

Right, and then that's or these MIT increases of $700,000.

Is this absolutely required of us to increase their budget by seven?

Yes, sir.

And I'll explain what that is.

So on MIT, what we do on that is previously all software had been capital, right?

So if we purchased a software system or operating system or something that someone used that went to the capital division, we have now transferred everything software to operating.

I think that's the right move.

Um, to get that out and to make sure um there are a couple of things we don't want to put at risk.

Obviously, IT is a big one in in today's world, those things become more um more more at risk.

So what we've done is again take everything that was capital that was IT related, move it under operating, and it's either under MIT or individual departments, so that we can keep a real time um track on everything we're doing on on IT and its infrastructure.

Thank you, Scott.

I appreciate all the information.

Yes, thank you very much, Scott.

And we'll have the public hearing on the budget at the meeting next week and vote on the 16th.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.