The Town of Payson Common Council met in a work study session on May 6, 2025, from approximately 3:00 p.m. to 7:43 p.m. to discuss renewal of annual nonprofit agreements and a comprehensive overview of the draft FY26 budget. No formal action was taken, as work studies are intended for discussion only. The meeting focused on balancing ongoing revenues and expenditures, with particular emphasis on personnel costs (74% of the general fund), capital improvement priorities, and the financial sustainability of community events and services.
We have a roll call. Let the records we collect that all council members are present except for Clarity is on his way. Work studies are intended for council to discuss business, and no action can be taken. As a result, public comment will not be taken during this meeting. Purpose of the meeting, number A, presentation and discussion regarding annual agreement. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. Annually, the town has contributed to three nonprofits that have been re-qualified in accordance with council's adopted ordinances, and those include the senior center, the humane society, and the brush pit. So essentially the town contributes to those organizations that are providing services that the town would otherwise be required to provide for its residents. And so each of those entities is here, and you can take them in whichever order you prefer. Each one has a staff representative. And the brush pit subsidy is going from 7,000 to 7,700. Start with a brush pit, it starts with B that is Kevin. What whatever is on the schedule. Well, good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council. I'm Kevin McCully with uh fire department. This is Frank Aspaslaw, he's uh manager of the Platinum brush pit. I've got a short presentation here for you. Um so what we're asking for is for to continue the support that we've always done for the the brush pit with like uh manager Sheila or DeShaft said uh with a 10% increase. Um so the bowy on pit program started way back in the early 2000s. Um Chief DeMacy and uh uh Tommy Martin Supervisor Tommy Martin kind of started the the uh rim or the Payson Regional Area project um and the the brush pits were part of that so the the brush pits are the only remaining part of that uh last season uh the brush pit collected over 4.6 million pounds of biofuel, which is up from like 4.4,000 from or 4.4 million from the year before that. Um we get that ground and taken to the power plant. Um 56% of the drops were uh town of pays and residents. They they collect the names and addresses as the people drop the material there so they are able to keep track of where it's coming from. Um so we're asking for uh we said a 10% increase, their their cost of uh operation increase to about 10% from last year. There's a picture of them loading it into the tractor trailers. Um it's a it's a very important program for the town and the residents of the town to be able to dispose of the material you can imagine uh trying to dispose of 4.6 million pounds some other way, it would be really difficult. Um this this funding supports that allows them to buy fuel for their the tractors and uh I'll let Frank talk a little bit more about that if he'd like after I'm done here. Um so the total budget was 35,000 for 2023, and we're a small part of that. You know, obviously the the county donates to that, and then they they collect donations as people drop material as well. So if uh one of the things we have to kind of go through to approve or to justify given donating funds to them is is showing you that it's uh a service that um townspeople would have to pay more somewhere else to get the same service. So um, like I said, 56% was uh town of pays and residents or the town itself, you know, our parks and rec and streets department use them as well. Um a good comparison was when we had the uh the pop-up brush pit at the at the vent center, it cost uh cost $8,000 to get rid of that uh material, and fortunately we were able to coordinate that with the guy that chips it, otherwise it would have cost us about 18,000. So it's an economical uh way of uh our residents to get rid of that material and helps us you know in the end run get the mitigation done that's necessary, Mr. Aspaslaw. Uh in case everybody doesn't know if it's Frank Aspaslaw, been running the uh brush pits roughly almost nine years now, so it's seen a lot of changes. Uh we used to burn it. Uh everybody who's ever been to the brush pit and knows about the black ashes all over everything. So last year, two years ago, we put in uh roughly 1200 tons of uh road base over top of all that ash so people didn't have to breathe it. All the customers used to go home with the black wall collar and everything because all the black ash and stuff. So now uh since Kevin's got it all, so we're doing the chipping. Um we've ran into problems with people putting trash into piles. I don't know if you read it in the newspaper and stuff. Uh we had a crankshaft and uh car rotor, brake rotor in the pile running through the chipper and had these big hammers or inch and a half bolts, shear the bolts right off. So we all got together and had to end up paying like two thousand dollars for uh just the parts they did the labor fixing the machine and all that stuff. So now we have uh cameras on everybody. Um we have uh uh metal detector, so just to stop this. I mean, we can I mean it's ruining it for everybody. I just saw uh a thing from the pine pit.