And we're ready to go when you are.

All right.

Welcome everyone.

Sorry about the delay.

I appreciate your waiting for us.

Today is Tuesday, May 19th, 2026.

This is a Sandy City Council meeting.

We start all our meetings with a prayer and the pledge.

Ms.

Christensen, would you do that for us?

Our dearest Heavenly Father, we are so grateful to be gathered together, gathered together this evening.

We ask thee to bless us all that we'd be able to know the things that are best to do for Sandy City and its residents and for uh the budget that we're working on.

Please bless us all that we'd be able to be safe and be able to return home safely.

We love thee, and we say these things in the name of thy son, Jesus Christ, amen.

Thank you.

Will everyone rise and repeat the Pledge of Allegiance?

I pledge the United States of America.

And Republic for which we will introductions.

Dustin.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My name is Dustin Fredto.

I'm with the City Council Office.

There are two other council staff members in the back of the room.

Justin Sorensen and Liz Terriot.

And then our meeting clerk, Chris Edwards is out of uh town and excuse this evening.

Hi, my name is Tracy.

I'm counsel for the council.

Chris Nickel, District Three.

Brooke Christensen, District One.

Cindy Sharkey at large.

Alison Stroud, District Two.

Brooke de Sousa at large.

Mayor Zoltanski.

Shane Pace, City Administrator.

Lynn Pace, City Attorney.

All right, we have two council members excused this evening.

Marcy Housman and Erin DeKaiser.

Okay.

We have one information item tonight, which is more budget presentations.

That'll take up quite a bit of time.

We have one item on the consent calendar and one public hearing.

We'll be taking general citizen comment at about six after 6 o'clock, and it's likely to be well after 6 o'clock.

Anyone who would like to give general citizen comment, please fill out a blue card at the back of the room.

And then we'll be taking public comment on our public hearing item as well.

I'm ready to roll into agenda item number one two.

Is it two?

Yeah.

Parks and recreation.

Awesome.

Looks like we're set.

Appreciate the opportunity to become tonight to come before the council to uh discuss the parks and recreation tentative budget for the fiscal year 2027.

Of course, as we went through this process, we're trying to identify the city council's uh budget priorities uh in parks and recreation.

We get a focus mostly on the quality of life and what we bring to the citizens in that in that area.

So we'll start there.

Uh I broke it down into different slides on each of our different um cost centers.

The first one is uh parks and recreation administration.

Um we do have an elimination of a marketing specialist position that will be coming out of this budget.

Um but at the exact same time we had a reallocation of the parks and recreation assistant director who was previously in the parks and cemetery cost center.

So that comes back getting the the assistant directors both in the administration budget kind of offsets things, so we'll see the savings in the parks and cemetery when we get there.

We did have an increase in training uh for $2,000 and travel, uh uh 1,200.

This is for URPA and NRPA.

These are our state and our national associations.

They have a conference each year.

Uh really critical for the staff to go and to experience the latest trends in the field.

Um ultimately our goal is uh this picture here is a CAPRA accreditation.

Um this is an accreditation given by NRPA for the park park and recreation agencies as a really high achievement.

And um it takes three or four years to accomplish this, but one we got to get to go into these trainings so we can get all the information that we need so we can do this.

Currently, right now in the state, there's only one other agency that has this actively in the past that we've had about two or three.

Um so we're working towards that.

In the park and cemetery budget, we've got the reallocation of the parks and recreation assistant director, so that's kind of a net savings of 55,000.

Of course, there's some additional savings within the benefits and other line items that are associated with salaries.

We've increased salaries or increased uh travel here as well for state trainings.

And as you all are experiencing in your own homes, water bills are always going up.

So the yield of utility payment of water has gone up by 20,000, even though we're trying to be as conservative as possible.

Just costs has gone up.

Fleet purchases for fiscal year 27 is 405,000.

This is going to allow us to replace some of our fleet that we currently have matured out of its useful life.

Couple trucks, three trucks, three mowers, a fill, a riding filled painter, two side-by-sides with plows, two utility trailers, and one golf cart with utility bed that allows for those larger parks to get around and for multiple people to use those.

Some capital items that we have.

Of course, the page numbers are all located there for you as we jump in the budget.

Quite a few pages to get to capital, but wanted to keep that in the same discussion talking point with parks.

A number of capital improvements that are we're grateful to be able to have to move forward on the arigation improvements.

This is something that's going to just be continuous.

There's always needs for aigration improvements.

Streetscapes and wall replacement, $700,000 there.

This also helps with our beautification days.

This is, as we know, we had a few residents come recently to council meeting and talking about the Newcastle fence.

This is where we're trying to get that budget money up so we can make a plan of attack there to replace that fence.

Again, some playground replacements.

We'll prioritize that with the biggest needs and see how much we can make that stretch.

Park and trail renovations, restroom improvements, hazardous, concrete replacements, back replacements, tennis court refer uh resurfacing, and some other items there that you'll see.

On the recreation side of things, I wanted to kind of uh just give a little quote here.

It says enhance the recreation enhance the quality of life for the Sandy community by providing accessible, sustainable, high quality recreation opportunities and programs that serve residents of all ages and abilities.

Um we're not in a field of making money when we provide these recreation opportunities.

We're trying to, of course, uh get the cost recovery to uh a number that we're we're okay with, but a lot of the times they the cost recovery is there for the hard cost of the program, but it really needs help and needs to be sustained by the general fund in order to provide these services that we can do for our youth and and those, you know, whether it be through scholarships or whatnot.

Um so there's an additional ask of $75,000 to increase uh for that subsidy to help out with recreational programming.

Um I've got a picture here of a Utah Jazz junior jazz program.

We're we're looking at opportunities always for uh grant opportunities.

Um of the ones that the Jazz have kind of offered that we're looking in into is to provide funding that would be set aside for those that can't afford to play.

Um so someone that wanted to come play junior jazz and can't afford it.

The geni the jazz and what along with Delta Airlines would be the sponsor for that.

So we're we're hoping that comes through.

Um wanted to dedicate a little time for the senior citizens.

I'm sure this is one that we don't talk about a lot, but we had a hundred one thousand four hundred and thirteen individually individuals attend the center.

That was an 18% increase from 24 to 25.

The center served 6,731 mills, an increase there, and we were able to provide transportation to 29 individuals who otherwise would not be able to benefit from these services.

Um there's some been some changes within the part-time staff here, so we've actually will see a savings uh this next year, so we were able to bring back to the budget 24,000, and not lowering the level of service at all.

The Sandy Recreation Center, thank you all for being at the beam signing.

That was that was a great monument, uh monumental point to uh get to and to see.

Um you know, it's gonna be we're scheduled to open the early 2027.

Uh so in this budget time frame, we've got six months of planned uh revenue coming in when we're open from January 27 to June 27.

Um it's gonna take us some time to figure this all out.

We've it's it's not like the old center.

We have a lot more amenities, a lot more opportunities to bring in revenue so we can compare what other recreation centers are doing around us.

Um, and so and our team has tried to do the best guess that they can to see what the revenues will bring in in that first six months.

We've been conservative knowing that hopefully it's better, less less vents and more revenue would be the goal.

But we also have an opportunity with the with the Saltwake County Zap.

Um the application is due this Friday, and we're putting in a project for the outdoor pool.

So we got this nice brand new building, and we weren't able to really touch up the pool.

So this application is a 2.9 uh million dollar ask to get the pool um refreshed and to match the recreation center.

Yeah, we're also looking at one of the priorities of the playgrounds there at the rec center that's right in front to uh to make that a priority as well.

It's it's outdated and old.

Uh we don't we're we're aware we're gonna have this brand new nice looking rec center, and and it might make other things stand out in that area.

So oh, I'm sorry, Ben, you're still going through this.

Um I just want to clarify that what we're projecting here for the 2027 tentative budget for financing sources.

We are projecting for income from both the current rec center as it's operating, basically out of the for the most part out of the park old parks and rec building, and about six months in the new recreation center as well.

So, what we're seeing on this in terms of recreation fees, instruction fees, membership fees, admission fees, that is all our best guess for both rolled up, the old and the new.

Yeah, so you can see there's quite a bit of subsidy coming from the general fund to help offset us because of those six months that we're closed.

We're just not we are programming, but we're just not bringing in the generate generating the funds we normally would.

Yeah, great.

Okay.

My question is similar to Cindy's.

I uh it seems like those are high numbers, like your like instructional membership, admissions, like merchandise, like I don't know.

I'm not an expert, though, see high.

Like you don't think they are?

Uh we we feel very comfortable with it.

We any time a new recreation center is built, it will bring in uh it'll people will come, they'll come to at least try it out, and then all our jobs to do a really good job of offering services so they continue to stay, and we don't see a decline.

Um we're gonna be doing a lot of advertising and marketing prior to opening, so we'll start bringing in revenue for memberships months before it even opens.

Okay.

So I yeah, I feel very confident with that.

So you only think 250,000 from the general fund is our best guess for the year.

Well, yeah, so you get the 250,000 from the general fund, and then you also have the the district's uh property taxes and things like that that offset it.

But yeah, we've been looking at that number, and we feel confident with that.

Okay, and then can I ask you why in that budget the administration charges went up so significantly?

Yeah, um, yeah, I can address that one on the prior one.

If you look at the fund balance, and you look at the contribution of the from the general fund the prior year, we we put in a substantial amount then and we're drawing down the fund balance.

So our balance endings were projecting 875.

So we're projecting to go through all of that 875, plus we felt like we needed to add another 250.

So that's why that kind of answers your first question.

Yeah.

And then the administrative charges went up because of the significant amount of time that the whole city administration legal finance has spent on this project.

It's uh and we do this study annually, and since it's driven by the number of hours, and so those admin costs fluctuate based on the time they're spending on different things.

And since so much time was spent on Alt the Canyon project, that's why it's gone out this year.

So by 2028 it should go back down.

Yeah, we should see a decline.

Thank you.

Brian, while you're up there, I have a feeling this question might be for you.

I'm looking at in the financing sources, um, line 3170101, interest income.

So I'm showing some interest income in 2025, none in 26, none in 27.

I am wondering who which fund is taking the interest income from the money, the cash that's been set aside for the new recreation center.

Where we've been compiling, we've been putting together millions of dollars saving for this.

Where has the interest income from those millions of dollars been going, if not to the Sandy Recreation Center Fund?

It stays in the fund where it's the reserves are put.

So as you know, most of the reserves for this building have been in the Capital Projects Fund.

So the you know, whatever it was 10, 11 million dollars that we've been saving, that's that's in the Capital Projects Fund.

Another good portion is in the impact fee, capital projects fund.

Very little is actually being funded from the recenter from fund, you know, 54,000.

But the money was set aside for that purpose.

So if it's in the capital projects fund, what and and the rec center is in the capital projects fund, why isn't it going to that fund?

Is it being dispersed?

Just like every year, whatever balance we have in the capital projects funds, and that includes we have we're funding road projects, parks projects, other general types of projects in there.

We use the interest income on that fund to help fund new projects the following year.

You spread it throughout all the consolidated capital projects.

That's what you're saying?

Yes.

And that's been our standard practice for as long as I've been here.

We we never like earmark interest for a specific project in the general fund.

Like, for example, your you have an account for the council chambers remodel, 355,000, it's earning interest.

We don't earmark that interest on 355,000 to stay with the chambers.

It it builds along with the interest of every project in that fund.

And we estimate what it we calculate what it is for that year, and what we estimate what it will be the next year, and that goes towards our appropriations for the budget.

So is this telling me that in 2025 some of the money from some of the interest from the Capital Projects Fund actually went into the Sandy Recreation Center?

Is that that interest income line item that's showing for 2025?

That's most likely just that's just interest earned on their fund balance.

So we did contribute 2 million and the prior year 99,000.

So some of those general fund, it's a combination of interest earned on all of their line items that go into that fund.

So you know, we receive property tax, usually November, December, it starts earning interest.

All of these line items are in interest month to month throughout the year, and that's what that is.

So on our is this, I think the same thing, right?

So on our page 13, our interest income for capital projects, so for that money, we had 279,000 that we made in interest income.

And then that was just like dropped to the total balance of capital projects to be reallocated the next year.

Correct.

Yeah, that's the concept.

With the general fund 465,000.

Yes.

And that's usually the funny thing about that is that recreation in that in page 13.

Recreation is the only fund that didn't get interest income deposited to that fund.

None.

Right?

Every other fund has it.

You're looking on which page?

13.

Sandy Recreation Center is the only fund that has a packet or of the budget document.

3.6 million dollars in interest income spread across all funds except Sandy Recreation Center.

Shouldn't we have had a little bit there?

Do you know where she can?

Sometimes we know sometimes in this fund, there's actually even interest expense that's incurred.

And and a lot of the times that's what we've had in previous years.

So if they depending on cash flow when the money when the revenue is coming in and the expenses are going out, we may be in the negative.

And so we'll we'll earn interest income and we'll incur interest expense as the year goes on.

And so we just haven't projected any at this point.

That's one that we've been interesting income projections or calculations, I should say, were kind of late this year just could because of the work to implementation.

And so that's that we just haven't any interest that that comes in this fund, it will accrue interest, all the funds accrue interest.

We have to accrue interest income on every single fund.

So whether we project it or not is a different story.

But if there is a fund balance in this fund, it would be accrued in this.

Well, the interesting and the interesting thing is too that could we not have the millions of dollars that have been set aside for years for this project that we're finally spending down, right?

Could they not have been held in this fund instead of in the Capital Projects Fund?

If you would have transferred them back then to do it, yeah, they would have been there.

Yeah, and the and the source of that funding has been from general fund revenues.

It's not from Alta Canyon revenues.

That's usually what's in the fund.

Is the revenues that are generated by the fund through the center, that's what stays in the fund.

And any general fund transfers, obviously, that adds to their interest income calculations as well.

Well, there's been at least five million dollars that were specifically for this purpose only.

It didn't come from the general fund, right?

They haven't been in there for long, but at least it seems like it should have been credited with something.

That's all I'm getting to is the why of that.

It could have been substantial, I guess, had we done it another way.

So we are showing 33,000 of interest income there on that page 13, right?

No.

Well, not on the rec center on this one.

Oh, that's easier.

Yeah.

Yeah, the the you know, the issue if we would have transferred it in earlier, then we'd have less money in our capital projects fund to fund roads and parks and the rec center.

We've transferred quite a bit to the recenter already from the general revenues.

Right.

Okay.

I'm just, yeah, just curious, like I hear what you're saying.

But why would they be the only ones without interest income when they had over $800,000 in fund balance from the previous year?

You're talking about projected for next year why why it was zero?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's just uh that that's an estimate based on the fact that in years past we've had interest expense sometimes.

We don't this is a guess on what the on what the revenues are going to look like.

There may be interest income in there.

And um, you know, we can we can project that certainly, um, but we don't we don't know what the cash flow is going to be exactly like for the coming year.

I'm just getting it in my head.

So you're thinking that we'll spend all $800,000 before it has the chance to have any interest income.

It's yeah, it's it's gonna be probably a little amount.

So this is a conservative estimate.

We just went with zero.

But all in all likelihood there will the actuals will end up having some, but it's not gonna be a lot.

Yeah, it's possible that we could have interest expense though, since the center won't be open until halfway through the year, and so it would be less than the zero.

Really?

So I think this this next slide kind of ties into that a little bit.

Um just showing the capital for the Sandy Recreation Center.

So uh last year there was funded over 23 million dollars to build the recreation center, and then in this fiscal year coming up that in 27, um the impact, the park impact fees will contribute uh 478,000 to to see that project through the finish line.

And it there's the latest picture that we have of of where we are in the construction.

Um next cost center is the community events uh found on page 61 and 62.

Um so we are continuing to offer all the events that we we have listed here.

Um of the codes or the budget line items have changed.

Um so I've made note of that on my slide, the Heritage Festival decreasing by 5,000, 4th of July, 8,000, and light up the Cairns 5,000.

But then there's this this additional new line item that's called event supplies.

And that so that basically we're taking the money that goes down and moving it over to event supplies and then needing additional money uh for event supplies that will help all the events just be because of the inflation costs, the tariff cost that we're seeing with these the increase in contracts, um, the emphasis on America 250, which actually actually doesn't kick off until July 1st through the entire next year.

And then we also have the 25th anniversary of 9-11 with the Heritage Festival.

So there's some additional um asked there so we can continue to um honor these community events that are so great for for our neighbors.

Ms.

D'Souza.

Thank you.

I have a I have a couple of questions about the community events.

And so the first one is the event supplies.

I guess help me understand what kind of additional supplies would be coming out of that, because the way that I'm thinking about the way that I would like intend the budget when I pat when you know when I cast my vote is um we've allocated X amount for that event, and so all of the supplies should be within everything that you need for that event should be within that event's budget.

And so help me understand why we need an additional like 40,000 in supplies that aren't allocated to an event when there's already been money allocated to each event.

Yeah, and and I think it's just a matter of the the budget and working that out because you know, from my staff's perspective too, they would they would be able to see it better that way too.

Um this is how much I have for this event, this is how much I have expense for that event.

The way we can think of it this way, event supplies, is it gives us the opportunity to um if we have savings overall, we're spending the event supplies on each event and not going to overexpend that amount through all of them.

So this year, essentially the 4th of July in the Heritage Festival, we expect that to be more with pens and different commemorative things that we'll have for 250 and the 25th anniversary.

Uh so we're it's kind of a general area that can touch all of them.

Okay.

Um is this something that you think we're going to have ongoing?

Because you know, I do recall a conversation about you know, wanting to allocate like $50,000 or something towards America 250.

And I I know that there was some, you know, maybe some initial concern about that amount of money for for that particular event.

Um anyway.

And so it just seems like is that what's going to be used for is that event or what kind of supplies are coming out of it?

You said pens for America 250.

Yeah, I mean tablecloths, anything that you can think of, any type of thing that we need to go and purchase for that event, uh the watermelons or the the water um just the catch-all for all the different events.

Um I don't know if that's what we're planning on moving forward.

I think we'll take um the suggestions and look at how it affected us this year.

Um I don't know if that was out of necessity or it was just the way the budget just fell through.

Okay.

Um yeah, but it makes more sense as we break it down to say, here's the fourth of July, what did we spend on that?

So we can really evaluate these.

So that's kind of where that's where my mindset is on this.

You know, I I know that we've had a lot of conversation about non-departmental, and I have been a council member who has um kind of railed against some of the aspects of non-departmental and and trying to uh better budget, better allocate, know what's coming out of it, uh, transparency.

And for me, I feel like this event supply is when we've already like essentially allocated money for the event and everything that's needed, kind of seems like an additional fund kind of in a non-departmental way that can be cross like spread throughout the all of the events, and it just um I'm not sure that I'm loving that idea.

In full transparency.

I understand that.

And I think um what Sarah will be doing too is she'll be documenting and it um keeping track of that money too.

So we'll know at the end of the year exactly where that money was allocated.

Um Brian is it only going to be allocated for the events that are listed in community events?

Yeah, yeah, that's understanding.

Yeah.

We could we could work with the parks department events and try to fine-tune that and I'll put them into those different projects.

Okay.

Well, I mean, if we're at the time we put this together, we hadn't gone through that exercise and they weren't, I don't think exactly clear on how it was gonna work out.

Transition and staff.

We could definitely fine-tune that.

Okay.

I just think that if we're if we're gonna hold events, then we should have a line item for the event and we should budget money for the event.

And that way everybody's got the you know, got the same level of understanding, including the public about where the money is being spent and how it's being spent.

And so if we're gonna hold an event and fund an event, then my thought is that it should be listed in this slate of community events and get a budget, you know, and then and then there's no issues or questions.

Um I have another question about the Fourth of July.

And I know I've I've kind of casually asked, you know, Brian about this, and um so Fourth of July.

The council has some level of participation in the Fourth of July festivities and parade along with the the administration, right?

And it's been practiced, and I don't know where this comes from, but I guess the question is it's been practiced that the council has our own little set of of budget allocated for our you know participation in that, and it's very small, and it kind of gets split between a couple of different things, and some of it like our our discretionary funds that help us attend, you know, the conferences and and whatnot, it comes out of that money.

And so my question has been why why is why isn't the council accessing the fund, the money set aside for the fourth of July for our our expenses and participation?

Because I believe the administration or when the mayor participates that it's coming out of that line item, is that accurate?

And is that is there an issue with us utilizing that that I don't know about?

And a reason maybe a give an explanation as to why we're doing it the way that we do it?

That would be new understanding to me, so I I would have to do some research on that.

But if anyone else wants to new understanding as far as like that that's how we're doing it, or that we we can't utilize that fund, or we can that line item.

Well, from my perspective, it's just a matter of coordination, is what I would mention.

Um I don't I don't really recall when there was money set aside in council budget for 4th of July, but we could put it all in one place and have it be managed by one person and they just coordinate with you as a council what needs you have.

And it'd be managed by Sarah and community events, and she just coordinates with you.

It could be all in one place.

Okay.

So we could do it that way if that was how we chose to.

Okay.

Thank you.

Ms.

Nichol.

Thank you.

Um I would like America 250 broken out because this is um I don't want the ask to be ongoing because it's a one-time expense.

So I'd like to know the the estimated amount you plan on spending on that.

And I think a lot like uh Councilmember D'Souza in that we've given you the amount of money that you've put in the budget for the historic barbecue.

That's my my mind, that's saying please stay within that budget.

Not you have a little here you can spend on it.

So that that's my perspective of it too.

Okay, perfect.

Yeah, we do have uh Sarah is prepared to do a whole presentation on America 250.

Um we're just trying to figure out when we can fit that in with budgets.

Yes, Ms.

Christiansen, go ahead.

Okay, so next year we're not planning on doing the error expense.

That's off the table.

Light the cairns?

Yeah.

No, we we are planning on that.

The funds that we had previously in that uh last year would be 5,000.

So if there's um and so that $5,000 got removed, but that is in the events supplies.

So we are planning to move forward with that event, it will just come out of the event supplies.

So we're still planning on spending $5,000 on that.

Yeah, that's kind of the rough um estimate there.

And then on the heritage festival, are we spending less or is the $5,000 in event supplies?

It's an event supply, so we're not spending less.

We're spending the same, but it will just come out out of a different line item.

And then in the 4th of July, there's like $23,000.

Is that part of event supplies too?

Yeah, it all got removed and put into there and then additionally asked.

And I think like Brian said, I I think we can work with Brian and his team and clean that up.

So when I'm thinking about this, just so we're only gonna spend six thousand dollars on America 250.

Oh, what's left over?

Yes.

I that's the rights.

I don't know.

I would have to.

But I see where we're gonna do that.

There was a $50,000 ask though.

So where's the $50,000 that we're just not sure where it's coming from and why we would spend less on?

I mean, I know that you moved it into that fund, but it just about.

Yeah, I don't think it was.

All right, when you say the $50,000 ask, are you referring to some of the preliminary meetings we had?

Uh-huh.

Yeah, we we did away with that.

Okay.

And we weren't going to be able to do that.

Is that what you understood to break?

There was Jesus?

I'm gonna leave it at that for now.

Okay, yeah.

All right, thank you.

Yeah.

So I I did the rough math, you know, just what I've got on the screen here.

Um, so you've got about 20,000 covered in minuses, and then you put it over there, so there's about 20,000 in ask.

So that's not all just 250, that's tariffs, that's inflation, that's contracts that have gone up.

Um, that's planning for the 25th anniversary of 9-11.

Is the hot air balloon in that?

No, there's nothing been budgeted for a hard hot air balloon.

Okay, that was brought up in a meeting too, so that was cut out of the yeah.

Yeah, that was an idea, but that was never put in the tentative budget.

Okay, thank you.

So are these supplies in events?

Are they things that you use over and over again?

Like to buy them once and you use them for all the uh essentially you could, right?

You could buy something and I'm gonna use half of it for this one, and uh, oh, we have extra, so we can use some of that stuff, but most of it is bought.

Disposable, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Most of it's uh event specific, yes.

Okay.

So I think it would be easy to go back to the So I guess they have similar questions about this.

Yeah.

We'll work with Brian on that and see if we can't come up with something.

Do you know why?

So on this slide, Sandy Healing Field is listed, but it's actually in nondepartmental.

And it's fee is charges are in non-departmental.

Do you know why that's the case?

I don't.

Where are you referring to?

Uh the Sandy Healing Field.

It's listed on this slide, but it's not the expense is not here, and it's in non-departmental.

Yeah, I took this list from what Sarah's working on in our department.

So there's $10,000 for healing buildings on departments, or expensive problems.

Yeah, uh, we'll have to get back to you with you on that one.

Okay.

And then also, where's the Hell Center Theater Cultural Celebration?

Um I think that used to be a non-departmental, and I can't remember if we remove that.

We'll check on that and get back to you.

So great questions.

As I get more experienced, I'll be able to answer all of them.

But um appreciate Brian and helping.

Thank you.

Um so I wanted to conclude with some positive um some really good stuff.

So the River Oaks golf course, it's currently standing at 125% of its total annual revenue goal.

Um it's just it's just killing it.

Uh just had an amazing winter because of the lack of uh weather and spring has been great.

And with that additional revenue that they're bringing in because it's an enterprise fund, um, they've been able to do a ton of uh capital projects this past year.

Um and we're continuing to look at projects for next year that will again come out of the enterprise fund, so not out of the general fund, but the that they'll be uh funding themselves.

Um but additional bri uh bridge deck replacement, clubhouse deco replacement, um, outdoor lights, and just a bunch of other things that will make the the golf course continue to be uh thriving.

Ms.

Christianson, do you are you concerned at all?

I know lots of capital projects.

That's amazing.

Are you concerned that the fund balance is gonna be so much lower than it has been the last couple years going forward in case there it's like we have wishful thinking snow for seven months?

Right, you gotta look for the drought.

Um, because I think this is with golf courses, uh it's been a steady increase in the revenue projection throughout all um the sport in general.

And I think you've got to take advantage of those years that you're you're doing well, get the course up, and then when you go into that drought, you just hunker down and you you do what you have to do to get through those years.

Thanks.

Council, any more questions for Ben.

Did you want to add something?

Yeah, if I could.

I believe we took out the cultural event last year.

So that's why we we'll confirm that for you.

Okay.

And then the healing fields 10,000, I believe, is to purchase um supplies like replacement flags.

Because we're doing that in-house.

We have trailers of flags and we use volunteers to set them up.

And we we have two trailers full of flags, and that's to be able to replace those as needed.

And I'm not arguing the expense, I'm just wondering why it's not in the events categories.

Yeah, maybe that's one we would it would fit to move over there.

And maybe and we did that in some cases, maybe we just overlooked that one.

We could potentially move that over to events.

Okay.

I think that would probably be a good idea.

All right, Ben, thank you.

That's it.

All right.

Administration is up next.

Oh, more questions, sorry.

Sure.

And while while Martin's getting down here, you can ask your question.

Ben, do you have any grant writers?

Do you do grants like the police and fire do grants?

Do you do any grant writing in your department?

They do.

Who does that?

Sorry.

Well, this past couple weeks that that's been me.

Okay.

Um there's not like an assigned person, it's just no, and Jethana and Todd, and we we just all come together and work on those.

But this app application, you know, which is a critical application for us to go for, um, yeah, just inside us going in.

I've got a lot of experience doing that.

So we're hoping that we'll be successful, but there's limited funds available, and that's always the hard part.

Thanks, Ben.

Um just to add on to that within uh parks and recreation last year was one of the most successful years as a reminder.

TRAC is a grant program, and uh the administration worked closely with parks and recreation uh administration and brought in three million dollars uh for for our city and for that project.

So um and before I I start with this, just want to echo is there as a reminder at the steel topping out of the recreation center.

The mayor made this comment, but I I hope it's not lost on on the council as well.

You all deserve a ton of credit for that building.

Uh the administr the the mayor and the council together.

It's so unique to to build a such a big building without going into debt and occurring debt uh for a city.

There hasn't been a recreation center built in the county uh in the past 30 years without debt.

So uh kudos.

All right, uh the administration budget.

Um it is good to be with you and be back in person.

Um the fiscal year 2027, you know, that the budget is tight for everyone.

The mayor and administration's budget are not exempt from this as well.

So tonight I'll be going through those and then the the communications budget.

Um as a result of the tight budget, uh, the operating budgets and both the mayor and the CAO budgets are proposed without any line item increases.

The only increases um in there are for mandated overhead charges such as IT and administrative costs that uh come in and adjustments from from human resources HR.

Uh there is one technical adjustment that you may see uh uh and that you may have noticed when as it reads right now when Barb Smith left Sandy, we looked at reducing the overhead in communications by reclassifying her communications director position to a communications specialist position for a salary savings of approximately $50,000.

This would then have Susan Wood serve as the PIO for the administration and the comms director.

In an effort of transparency, we're proposing to shift half of the PIO salary from the mayor's budget to comms.

So you'll see a technical adjustment of $115,000 in both budgets, 115 in, 115 out.

It's just budget neutral.

Um so those are neutral and offsetting each other.

At the time the tentative budget were was submitted.

We were we weren't aware of councilwoman uh houseman's proposal for the communication division amendments that was discussed last week.

Um had we been a part of that discussion a little bit earlier on our comps proposal might look a little bit different.

But as the discussion with councilwoman Housman policies concludes, we may make a proposal to change the comms budget as currently proposed.

But in summary, right now, the mayor and CAO budget and the comms budget, there are no proposed line item increases for fiscal year 27.

And so on page um 18 of the budget book or of the presentation, so the reduction of 115 in the mayor's budget is no more.

So there was there were no reductions, is that what you're saying?

It was it it's a transfer, so it was transferred into the communications budget.

So there are no reductions?

No.

Okay.

Any questions where is like the miscellaneous stuff?

Like the council has like miscellaneous line item budgets for like our things we spend money on.

Where's that?

So there are some uh office supplies, um, various meeting supplies within the the uh mayor and CAO budget.

They're they're in the line items there, and we're not proposing any increases to those in both the mayor and the CAO budget.

We'll talk.

I just like I don't know, like our discretionary funds, like you've got to like have discretionary funds, right?

For the mayor?

I mean, someone you've got to have some somewhere.

Yeah, I mean that there are some uh line items in in the budget there, and once again it's we're just it's the same budget that was proposed for some meetings is the discretionary fund?

Um and miscellaneous supplies, miscellaneous supplies.

Um I didn't know where that was accounted for.

Yeah, it's literally comes out of there.

And sometimes uh the CAO budget will pay for something, sometimes the mayor's budget.

Uh we we try and track that and code it.

Sometimes you'll see a lot of our ledgers, it's split 50-50.

Um, just depending upon what the topic of the meeting is and or what what the need is.

Okay.

Is that it, Martin?

That's that's all I have.

Any questions for Martin?

Any more questions?

Looks like not.

All right.

All right, we're available if you have others later.

Okay.

Thank you.

Oh boy, city attorney.

So where does travel come out of then?

Sorry.

Apparently I'm missing everything tonight.

Sorry, guys.

Oh, there it is.

Yeah, there's a line item in both budgets for travel, for memberships, for you know, that type of thing, yeah.

And before we go to the attorneys, Merle was also going to present.

Oh, I'm sorry, you are absolutely right.

The best part.

How was I gonna skip the best part?

I think you're meant to be.

It's all yours, thank you.

Um, and also just by way of scheduling, it so happened that was here last, it was February and it was my birthday, and there were no donuts.

And today is my anniversary, and let the record show there's still no donuts.

Happy anniversary.

I know, 29.

Who'd have thought?

You think she'd have over uh awakened by now to the silliness of being married to me.

Hi, uh, this is uh a presentation for the Sandy Arts Guild and the Sandy Amphitheater, they're split into two.

Um I think some of the questions you had earlier may also be happening here.

In that some of the uh things that we have, I'll get to it with the expenses, but there's a lot of line items that have just been moved around.

You'll see like $8,000 came out of here, but it went into there, or it uh we there's a lot of that shuffling that's happening, and really a lot of that is to align better with work day spend categories.

Now we still have projects.

So even though it might be like, well, those are really professional services, like you're hiring in people to do something, that's still for that show.

So that show will have a project, but the money now is being allocated from different line items and then still carried under a project.

So for example, we used to just have a line item that was called uh plays and musicals, and it had you know 107,000 or something like that in it.

But now we're trying to say, well, but when we buy these things, that's actually uh a professional service.

So we've now moved the budget money to professional service, and then when we code it, it gets coded under the project code for that play.

Um when we rent material to do something as opposed to putting that just in plays and musicals, which tends to not have as much meaning.

Instead, it goes under equipment rental, because that's how we're spending the money.

So you'll see in our a lot of them, most of the changes that we put in on the forums and that uh you might see going up and down on the line items as they come across, is really just a rearranging of money to get it into the categories that more closely align with the workday spend categories.

So I think that's part of the goal that we've been trying to work towards, and so that we can budget by project, but that the money is in the place that actually represents what the purchase was for.

Does that make sense?

So I I can't speak for parks or rec, but in our in our budget, you will see that that's happened quite a bit.

Most of the in and out money that you'll see happening is about us taking it from one line item that was just generic and putting it into more specific categories about how the money is actually being spent, and then we keep track of the cost of that project by everything has a project code.

So that's an additional tag or uh level of program that we put on it so that you still can sum up how much did it cost to do that summer musical.

You can still put that together, but now the monies are spent out of the categories that were closely represent what the purchase was for.

Does that make sense?

So there's a lot of that that you'll see that's happened in ours.

In fact, that's why under the expenses it says really most of the money that's been moved around is all just to align better with the workday spend categories.

Is Ms.

Christensen?

Is that what happened with uh professional services?

Yes.

Okay, that's why you suddenly say, wow, look at that increase.

Well, yeah, but look at the giant decrease in plays and musicals.

So in the form that we put in, it actually tracks.

Here's seven thousand, you know, seventy thousand dollars came out of here, it moved here.

So you'll see that they match each other in the uh level of increase and decrease.

Some of them are a little trickier, um, like we may have pulled out 40,000 and five went here and 30 went there, and you know, another five went somewhere.

But uh it's trackable to find where all that money went.

As far as the revenue increases, we've got a little more in grant funds, which is great.

Elise George has been doing a very good job and working very hard.

Part of the problem is there are several of our funding sources like ZAP and the Utah Department of Arts and Museums that are being pretty hit by what's happening in the economy.

Like they generate their revenue from sales tax and those things.

So when people are going like, hey, we just can't buy as much or sales tax goes down, that affects how much money they have to give us.

Um also the legislature has been taking money from the Utah Department of Arts and Museums.

So we know that coming up in future years that there's gonna be reductions there.

But uh so far we've been able to increase what we've been getting from them and an increase in ticket sales.

And then there also is some decrease there.

Uh some is in some participation fees.

There's a program that we're still trying to work out that we aren't doing anymore, and as a result, that's a decrease in the fees.

But also, you'll see a pretty substantial decrease in the general fund transfer.

Um honestly what that's about, we hope is that as we're doing better, we're hopefully needing less support from you.

Um last year was a 9% reduction.

This year is like a 15% reduction.

So over the course of two years, 24%.

That's not bad, right?

In terms of what's coming out of that.

We do show that we're gonna have to spend into our savings a bit.

Um, but uh we planned on spending into our savings this fiscal year, and we might get out of it without having to do that.

So, but we it's better to have the safety net than to come back to you sometime in I don't know, December or January saying, can we please open the budget?

So we're trying to be very responsible uh with our funds.

Is there anything specific about the arts guild I can answer before I go on to the next slide?

I think I have a question or two.

Yes.

Well, the first one was about the transfer in from the general fund.

So that was to fill a shortfall, a revenue shortfall.

Yeah, and and I think it's because you know, as we do better, you have to support us less, right?

That's what we hope is happening.

Is that we are are just needing less um you know money uh and subsidies.

I'm surprised that we have some expenses when Postfontaine is basically putting on the bulk of the concerts, right?

So facility rental.

This is an expense.

Are we renting the facility from No?

If it's in the arts guild, when we're renting a facility, it's actually when we pay for the uh custodians at Mount Jordan Middle School, yeah.

Because we do not own a facility there, right?

So when we have the uh when we present the shows at the school, then we have to pay for their um custodians and the like to be there.

So that's actually an expense to us to use that school.

It's greatly reduced, of course, because of our our uh intergovernmental relationship that we have, but uh we do have to pay for some of that.

Okay.

That you're right, that explains it.

You're right.

I was blending the two on skilled and amphitheater.

So the same would be true of royalties, same kind of thing.

It's so yeah, royalties are when you put on a show, you actually have to pay for the rights to do that show.

And royalties are very tricky because we're planning 2027, but the only way you can get the right to do the show is you have to commit to pay the royalties in advance.

So right now we've got every show that's coming up for 2027, we've had to encumber that amount in our royalties line item.

Now we don't actually pay it till it's done, but we do have to encumber it.

So sometimes you'll see that royalties line item look like wow, you got a lot of money going out there.

Well, actually, not until the show is done.

Most of it's just encumbered.

Also, in the Sandy Arts Guild, there is an expense called grants for 48,000.

You see Arts Guild paying out grants?

Um we are paying out the grant money that the city is providing.

There are two organizations, Mount West Ballet and America West Symphony and Chorus.

The city provides that funding, it just lives in our line item and we dispense it.

There was talk a while about getting all the grants kind of in the same place.

I I don't know if that's still goal to do that, but right now those two organizations are funded out of our line item, but we can't use our money or our grant money because we can't re grant money for that.

So instead, that's money that comes from the general fund that then we pay to uh those two organizations.

Okay, any art skilled questions, guys?

Okay, let's move on.

Great, thank you.

Okay, for the amphitheater under revenue, you will see some increases.

Um ticket sales we saw that every show we produced last year as a as an organization.

We hope to repeat that this year.

Although we're finding we're not the only ones that because of what's happening with prices and how expensive everything is, that people just have less disposable income.

So ticket sales are softer um than they have been in previous years.

We'll see how that goes as we move forward.

But uh increased merchandise sales, increased concession sales, and all those things.

So you'll see that we have uh plan for some increases in revenue there.

There is a decrease in cell tower revenue.

We used to receive the cell tower revenue and then put it specifically into a fund for the one cell tower that's on our property uh on the amphitheater site and then put it into a fund for uh improvements.

But the city is taking all of that in now, and and so uh you'll see that there's uh uh there's been a decrease in the cell tower revenue in our capital budget.

Um as far as expenses, um increases for capital outlay.

We have tried to put in a specific request for that.

Um but again, we're an enterprise fund, so we're not asking you for the money, but we're putting it in there.

Um decrease in credit card fees.

It's interesting we had a line item to pay for credit card fees, but that's all part of the ticketing, and so that's just a matter of over time.

Uh we just didn't catch that.

And then again, this is moving money around within the budget for more accurate accounting.

Most of the changes that you'll see there will just be getting stuff in the right place.

Is that the case with um the ticket surcharges?

Yes.

Okay.

So what ended up happening is sometimes right now the money comes into the accounting office and goes to one of the accountants to deposit.

And sometimes they understand what's happening, and sometimes they don't.

So sometimes we have to just spend some time going, hey, let's clarify where that gets deposited.

So for a while that was just getting put in the wrong place.

So we had to pull it out of where it was getting put and then create the space where it actually needs to go because that's things we need to account for in grant writing and things like that.

So we need to make sure that it's on its own and in the right place.

Why was the cell tower revenue taken away?

I just I think it's a citywide policy where they're gathering the money and um uh uh for the city.

Uh uh Brian, can you answer that?

Yeah, it's just part of balancing the budget.

We moved it into the general fund for a revenue source.

Approximately how much was it?

Um about 58,000.

Okay, thanks.

So when we were getting it, it was kept to be used on you know improvement projects.

So one of the things they talked about is like then if we need to come to the city and say, hey, we've got a big project, then now they've got that money set aside.

Was it cut at a per a specific percent?

Or how much was it?

Just the leases, uh the cell tower leases on that tower.

Yeah, we so it's the entire lease amount that you've taken away from.

I mean, it comes into the capital general capital projects fund now.

Okay, it didn't go to operating funds for us, it went into the capital fund.

Okay, thanks.

General fund.

It goes into the general fund.

It comes into the general fund.

Um we not going to have any gas payments at the amphitheater.

Well, since we don't have any gas at the amphitheater, my guess is we will not have any.

If somebody's billing us or getting cheated.

Yes.

That was one of those like, why is there money in the gas?

Right.

Right.

And then the credit card processing, that's because of councilwoman Dissuze's that we don't have any there now?

Actually, that's because when you buy a ticket at the amphitheater, it's part of the fee that you pay for the ticket.

So it goes to the ticket.

But like concessions or things like that?

Yeah, and then the concessionaire covers those fees because that isn't us, right?

So just at the amphitheater.

Now the arts guild, we have can credit card fees, yeah.

But at the amphitheater, because of the way it's structured, we don't pay credit card fees on those purchases.

Because they're covered.

Cool.

And then on your capital outlays, um, that's obviously significantly reduced.

Yes, because every year we have different ideas of what projects we're trying to do, right?

So that that's why that varies.

Is that like the last couple years were huge?

Yeah, because we did the giant project with the plat of the with the plaza levels on the East Hill side, and we had some very large projects.

Okay.

These are smaller projects we're gonna try to do now.

We need to try to do some trench drains to help with some water flow.

We're trying to expand the merchandise sales area right now.

I mean, you guys are fine, probably the women have twice as many stalls in the bathroom as the men too.

We're trying to see if we can expand that a little bit.

Um there's some projects like that we're trying to get done.

Also, some internal in the building to help it just function better.

Uh but we do have some very large ideas down the road, but that's one of those that we'll just have to uh you know approach that as we can.

That's that would be having to go back uh to like TRCC money and things like that.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I have a question.

Mr.

Seuss who called it.

This does kind of go back to the arts guild, and I think Brian, maybe you could be helpful in answering this, because thank you, Councilmember Christensen for bringing up the credit card processing fees.

So I'm trying to track that and and watch that because um we did make some changes to uh the credit card processing fees to try to pass on those fees to um those paying by credit card because there's usually other ways to pay for things.

Is that true with the arts guild?

Are they or are we having them pay?

Most of our credit card fees are for small purchases like in concessions where they're spending three dollars or four dollars on candy.

Um so there's credit card fees that come from that.

Um there are some others where, for example, if you're renting a set from us or things like that, you can also pay with credit card.

Um we don't have uh uh specific uh plan in place right now for somebody else to pay that.

We are trying to work to do more things with PayPal and Venmo and some other things because as a 501c3, we can get greatly reduced rates.

Like the cost of using in PayPal or Venmo is like 1.99% as opposed to 3.3 or whatever you're paying on the credit card.

So we're working actually with uh GLAD right now to try to get some of that stuff set up because we think that'll be much more efficient and easier for people to uh do.

Um so the fees are not exorbitant, but there are some credit card fees.

Okay.

Um, you know, I guess that makes sense.

That makes sense.

So thank you for explaining that with regard to yours.

And yes, any opportunity that we can to reduce those because they're just you know, like empty money, that would be that would be great.

Right.

Any other questions?

Any more questions from Merle?

And then oh, how did that slide get in there?

Oh, hey, we won.

Thank you, Brian, for putting that in.

Uh just happy to let you know.

Best to say it again, three awards this year, 13 and counting.

It's like we kind of know what we're doing or something.

I don't know.

Anyway, hey, thank you very much.

Honestly, the support we receive is huge, and we're so grateful.

Other cities don't do as much.

And we're grateful.

We hope that we're given back and we're providing some really remarkable um return on your investment.

Thank you so much.

I just want to take the opportunity once more before you go to put in a plug if it hasn't already been slated for striping those restriping those stairs.

Oh, they have to be done.

They have been done.

Yep.

Thank you, facilities.

They're done.

Thank you.

Can I um just clarify something on non-departmental before you move on?

Absolutely.

Okay, so the question on the Health Center Cultural Series.

So we did have it looks like we just had a little glitch on our line items, but that is still in the budget for 34,000.

And it's just been labeled incorrectly.

So it's we'll fix this.

We'll have a slide next week fixing the issues, but um it's on the utility box art label.

And then the utility box art is 25,000, and that got rolled up into the general government.

So that's general government will only be um the 2500.

Utility box art will be 25,000, and then the Health Center Cultural Series will be 34,000.

So and we'll we'll correct that for the public hearing next week.

So can I just ask though, utility box art?

Why doesn't it have its own line item?

It will.

That was just with the merger of our systems, it got copied over.

So it's just a technical change.

We'll have it fixed.

Okay, thank you.

All right, now city attorney.

Good evening, council members.

Um welcome to the main event of the evening.

I was told I have 45 minutes.

Um I think if I speak really, really slowly, I might be able to take four or five minutes.

I go forward on this.

Yeah, we have an abundance of slides.

So read this one carefully because there's only two.

We have three divisions within the legal department.

We have the city attorney with the legal legal uh civil and prosecutors.

Then we have the city recorder and the risk management group.

In our slide here, the um I want to start first with a photo, not just because I'm front and center, but because it highlights that what we uh our greatest asset is our people, and um we cannot replace them for what we're paying them.

So request number one, which isn't listed here, is to please fund the compensation plan because I cannot duplicate the staff that we've we've got.

So that's my first and most urgent request.

Um second change, these are um obviously the compensation plan goes through all categories.

As far as the legal department, there's only one change there, and that's a request, a reclassification from an administrative assistant position uh in the prosecutor's office to a paralegal position.

And um I think the total dollar figure that is something in the range of seven thousand dollars.

That is a critical need uh and our only request in terms of additional funding because the workload demands that work, but we can't, and we have uh an employee who has the training but cannot be promoted because we don't have the budget.

So we'd just like to make that possible to facilitate that change.

Um I'm trying to go slow here so we can make it look like there's more going on than there is, but if not, uh the next one is city recorder, Wendy Downs is on she's out of town at a conference, but she's available online uh if you have any questions about the no changes uh on the line on the slide there.

That's really not true.

We had a lot of election expenses last year, but those were one-time expenses, so there's no no changes to the ongoing expenses.

And then in the risk management budget, there are a number of of specific line item changes.

Megan Sunquist is here in the room, and she would be disappointed if I didn't invite her to come up and speak.

So I'm gonna invite my Megan up here to explain uh what these line items are, and then we'll field any further questions after that.

There we go.

Thank you very much.

Not quite that bad, not as tall as you.

Good evening, counsel.

Thank you for having me.

Um, like Lynn said, we have a couple of changes.

The majority of all of our changes are always driven by claims.

As you're well aware, the city is self-insured.

Um so changes in that.

So the first line item is general liability auto insurance.

So we're asking for an increase for 30 37,000.

Um, this is inflation driven.

We usually have inflation with our insurance premiums.

It also includes new vehicles, so this is our auto and our general liability.

So we're self-insured for the first million dollars, but then we have excess insurance policies over that.

We also have um cyber insurance, we've got drones, we have auto liability.

Um we have a we have multiple insurance policies.

So that's an increase there.

Um the second one is a savings of three thousand dollars or a decrease in three thousand six hundred and ninety dollars for our claim payments.

Every year we have an actual study um with finance, and we go over all of our liability claims.

So that's as the result of that.

Property insurance, where we are no longer paying with Health Center Theater anymore, so we actually have a savings of about $68,000 for our property insurance.

Um we are having an increase in our workers' compensation insurance.

I'm sure that you're aware that the House Bill 65 was passed for our firefighters cancer amendments.

Um, our firefighter line item just for our payroll for our fire for our our our line item for our payroll, our line item for our firefighters went up 62.9% from what they're charging on that.

So that's part of why you're seeing an increase in workers' comp.

And then the final one is we no longer have to pay for a treasurer's fidelity bond.

There was a bill that was passed that was saying that they're removing the statutory requirements for certain public officers to have that surety bond, and instead they're moving it into a crime insurance, which we already have.

So the savings there is just moving it to an existing crime policy.

I think that's it.

Does anybody have any questions for the risk management budget?

Any questions, counsel?

Thank you.

Thank you, Megan.

Any questions about the rest of the somebody ask Lynn a tough question?

You can't get up there and be sarcastic and not have to take some.

Any questions from staff over here?

Anyone?

Okay.

Thank you.

Ms.

D'Souza.

Remind me, is the real estate position out of the attorney's office?

It is.

It is uh it is funded within the attorney's office, uh, but other than the compensation plan for all employees, there's no change there.

Um I will say, um, well, anyway, that program you which you funded last year has been a huge success.

And I hope you feel that we we feel like that's been really, really helpful to have someone with the expertise, the skill level to uh to help us navigate these real property issues.

Um, but that's already built into into the current budget.

Okay.

I just wanted to make sure it is coming out of the it's yes, that's within the legal department, correct.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

No more questions, thank you.

Thank you all.

All right, Justice Court, Judge Farr.

Good evening.

Thank you, Council.

Uh first of all, Sammy, the court administrator, uh, she is out of town and sends her regrets that she cannot be here.

So I've asked Amanda Carlton to appear with me.

She is our in-court manager, uh, sitting in charge of all of the staff that works in court with me.

And we will also be, I think, fairly short and succinct.

Um, first of all, these are the three things wanted to mention today.

I'm just gonna go first of the straight slide with position reclassification, no budget impact.

This is just uh titles, and it is in order to align the positions that we have with those uh utilized at the state court, and also other justice courts are starting to transition.

So instead of court clerks, uh they're referred to as judicial assistance.

A lot of that has been over the last 10 years, there's been a real change in the way courts operate.

Uh it's a lot more quality control and assisting the public.

Uh a lot of that is due to the digital changes.

We've got online court, uh digital forms, things like that.

And so again, it's we've kind of switched away from court clerks and going to judicial assistance.

So we're just asking for a reclassification as you can see there in court supervisor to in-court manager, case management supervisor to case manager, and then Justice Court Clerk 1, 2, and 3 to judicial assistant one, two, and three.

Uh this is our large budget increase request, $2,000, uh, which is for training purposes.

Uh both the judicial assistants and I, as a judge, have a lot of mandatory training that we are required to take.

It's mandated by the judicial council.

There are increases in cost for that.

There are occasional uh extra trainings as well that fit into that, but a lot of that is just increased costs for the uh required trainings that are required for staff and myself.

Our budget reductions, also huge amounts we're discussing here.

Uh, we have identified these areas where we can save, and again, a lot of this is just we're in this slow transition again, probably a 10-year period where you know it used to be I had stacks of papers when I went into court, now it's all you know on the computer.

Um we've slowly transitioned where filings with the court used to be all paper.

We still get some paper, but every year it seems like it's more and more digital, and so these costs just gradually dwindle again for postage office supplies and then the credit card processing fees as well.

So proposing an 8,000 reduction there, which with our $2,000 request, we're proposing a $6,000 reduction to the budget.

Um as you're all aware, and we talked last year.

The huge portion of our budget is personnel.

Um the rest of it is all fairly small.

And this is a picture of our staff.

Uh we won an award this year for the outstanding justice court.

This is presented by the uh Board of Justice Court judges, and it was actually specific staff oriented.

It was presented to them at the annual, they still call it a clerk's conference, even though we're changing it from judicial assistance conference.

Uh so that that plaque is hanging outside of Sammy's office now, the one.

That's what I came to present in our request.

Otherwise, again, the budget remains the same as last year.

Ms.

Christianson.

So we have a lot of credit card processing fees in there.

Like, why aren't we passing those ones through like we were with the other ones?

And and I don't Sammy could answer this better nine Amanda may be able to as well in the city.

No, no, um, I can tell you that we have started, so there's different ways that people can make payments.

So there's different ways that people can make payments.

They can pay online, and there is a convenience fee that gets charged with that.

They can also come to the window and pay the credit card fee, and that is being passed on the administration has additional information there.

Yeah, we are doing the same program there.

We're just as you can see in 25, it's 18.

The budget in 26 is 25.

That's just the budget.

We're dropping it by 4,000.

So that might be high, but it has declined from when we kind of started this program.

So maybe we just need to increase the fees?

You can only charge a certain amount.

It's max.

It's governed by the regulatory credit card processing contracts.

You can't charge more than the lowest merchant fee by any credit card.

So is that the work?

We are we're doing as much as we can right now.

Okay.

And also we do get a lot of payments by credit cards.

Not only is it just somebody paying their speed and ticket potentially, but also those that with criminal cases that might have larger fines, they're making monthly payments and they're making a monthly payment by credit card.

So we we get a lot of again, those small payments by credit card.

And then do you have a lot of um court collections?

Like that's I'm assuming that's like outstanding money owed to the court.

So we have collections where we are still collecting, we keep that.

If it becomes a point where we are not collecting them, usually 90 days or so we send those to the Office of State Debt Collection, and they actually collect those, and there's a line item there, 100 something thousand dollars.

Yeah, I think it's like sixty thousand dollars as the your estimated to bring in this year and then sixty thousand next year.

Okay.

That's correct.

Yeah, but so there are priorities.

Um when there is an outstanding debt on a criminal account receivable, for example, um we can issue a warrant.

That warrant is actually the state will garnish somebody's uh tax return.

And there are different priorities at the state level, and office of state debt collection actually has a higher priority than the court does.

So what we found is if we send those debts to the office of state debt collection, first of all, they're more efficient at it because that's all their office does, and then if we do get to a point where we are again garnishing tax returns or things along it, they they have first or priority higher place than we do.

What's the rate of return?

Not not good.

Okay.

I didn't figure it would be.

I don't know the exact amount.

It's something I could research and find an answer, but it I mean it's we have been doing better since using office of date debt collection than on our own, but it's still, I mean, a lot of these individuals, these are people that have criminal accounts receivable, um, have made some of the best decisions, and there's just not you know income in some of the cases.

Okay, thanks.

Thank you.

I have a question.

Um thank you.

About credit card processing fees again.

I think it's just a clarification question for me, Brian.

It's gonna be you, I'm pretty sure.

So the payment processing fees in the financing sources revenue about 18,000.

Is that collected from like credit card payments?

So payment processing fees, what is that exactly?

Um yeah, that's where and it depends on the department and the point of sale system they have.

In some cases, we get the revenue, and then we also have the expense and they offset each other.

Some point of sale systems we have, they already net those two together before, so we don't see both of them, we don't see the the payment.

Okay, so but in this circumstance or um, yeah, in this circumstance, we are collecting about eight.

And so and we're expecting to expense about twenty-one thousand, so that's a couple thousand, three thousand dollars difference, right?

Right.

Okay, and so just for clarification, too, um, for every all the council members looking at this, uh the way that I understand it is there is revenue that we receive because we have to we charge it, we collect it, but there's still an always an expense.

And so that expense doesn't necessarily go down, but the revenue can go up to offset the expense, is that more accurate?

That and more people are choosing to make payments in a different way to eliminate the fee, right?

Correct.

Okay.

Thank you.

I just couldn't help but notice kind of in um your department's budget for financing sources.

The line item that is court fines, that is your main income, right?

So I'm looking at the trend lines over the last couple of years and just trying to surmise what it really means, what is happening.

Um in 2025, your actual court fine revenue was 1 million 70,000.

And we had projected 1.1 million in 2026, but it's looking like it's gonna fall well short by something close to 200,000 dollars.

And then we've adjusted down for 2027.

What it what it does it does that tell me anything?

It's case filings.

The the majority of our cases are traffic as far as volume.

The majority of our time is spent dealing with criminal cases.

And the majority of the revenue also comes from the traffic cases.

So as traffic cases and enforcement goes down we have fewer cases, there's fewer fines being imposed and that's where that comes from and every year we try to guess and I I talked to you all about this last year kind of a general trend over the last 15 years or so it's really hard to guess where that do we reach a point where we bought them out and we stay the same and at least this year we are continuing to decrease.

Again just rough numbers you know when I started 14 years ago there the court had around 2500 case filings we're probably going to be around 9,000 this year.

And it's just and and there's a lot of different reasons societal wise and different reasons for that but that the the uh the income will specifically track with the case filings.

So you really have no control.

It's just what cases are coming your way right?

That is correct.

Okay.

Ms.

Straub so the amount of traffic cases coming through your court that has actually gone down that's any other yeah.

And in fact I I have not looked at the specific numbers but if we pulled up specific case types and I I'm assuming that the criminal cases are probably about the same maybe even slightly up I think our small claims cases were actually up a little bit but the traffic cases are significantly down.

And that is not you and I I brought this up last year it's not necessarily unique to Sandy as well if you look at statewide courts other than a couple of areas that are really growing you know like in Eagle Mountain things like that numbers have decreased significantly over the time period.

Just have one question Judge Farr is there any way to capture new business?

I mean that you don't want it's end sword business but you know I was going to say I I would prefer it to what I would love to say is the numbers are down because we're doing such an effective job that people aren't violating the law.

Right.

But I mean it it really is something that's completely out of our control that we handle the cases get filed with us.

Okay.

Thank you.

And that's all I have unless there's other questions.

Any more questions council doesn't look like it thank you both thank you.

Council office council thank you.

Can we get to the right slide here?

Well I'll go through this quickly just interrupt me if you have any questions but the the first thing I just wanted to mention and you I'm sure you all notice this when you look through the tentative budget booklet but you'll notice that this year our our two the two subsections of our department have been combined together.

So in past years you had two different departments 1300 and 1310 that were the city council the city council office those have been combined together this year.

In my perspective I think it makes a lot of sense it's easier for us to track everything rather than looking at two different kind of subsections.

That's the first thing I I wanted to mention to you.

The next thing that I'll mention is this is probably one of the the larger changes we started doing this last year.

We've we've decided that we would like to take the management studies operational line item and make it a capital project.

There's a few reasons for that the the biggest reason is that we can save up over time and that money can carry over year to year rather than us having to take the funding for the management studies in the carryover process and then reappropriate it somewhere else and so it's easier for us to save up and to uh actually have the money available for management studies if we make it a capital project.

And so there's a we're calling it a reduction here but really it's a transfer so we had 25,000 in that line item last year we're reducing that and instead moving it over to the capital project line item which we begin saving up in last year as well in the tentative budget there is 5000 being placed in that line item which is the amount that your policy calls for why the 245 decrease instead of the full 2500 and that's because we we would like to keep 500 of it in the special programs line item this goes to Councilmember D'SUSA's point about the Fourth of July parade.

I don't know when uh that started being paid for out of the council office budget.

I think it's I think it's always been the case, but we created this particular line item only a couple of years ago to help uh you know subsidize where where it would help subsidize your uh uh discretionary account so that it wasn't all coming from there.

Um I don't have a problem if um it's acceptable to pay for it out of the community events line item.

I don't approve that budget, and so we can send the request over.

There's somebody else who will approve it.

Um so we can I can talk with Brian about that later on.

But um, what we've proposed is just a small increase.

And honestly, the 2500 that will be in there really covers the candy for the parade.

Um it's approximately about a little over $500 per council member for golf carts, candy, decorations to participate in the parade.

Um that line item covers um a different amount of that depending on how many council members are gonna participate in the parade.

You know, if there's only three who are participating, the 2500 doll goes further for each one.

If all seven are gonna participate, then obviously it goes a little bit not quite as far.

Uh hopefully that helps to answer that question though.

Um a few increases.

Um one of the increases that we uh requested of the budget committee and requesting of the council is a increase to our meetings line item.

Uh meetings line item uh is how we pay for council meetings, and then also it's where the council discretionary funds are located, and so you guys use that money mostly to pay for training.

Um we've gotten to the point where it doesn't seem to cover uh what you all need to be able to do.

I mean, even just looking at traveling to the ULCT conference down in St.

George, it's not even enough to cover that, generally speaking.

Um it's the same amount that was uh initially implemented, I think back in 2018, and so we're about eight years later now.

Um so we we put in about a $500 increase per.

I still don't know that that's gonna really cover what you guys would like to do.

Um but we we did uh make that request and the budget committee did include it uh within the tentative budget, and then we had a $2,500 increase to our meetings line item.

So that puts us at about $450 per council meeting, uh, which is kind of where we we're okay to be there right now, but it's something to uh think about uh in the future as well.

Um the next increase, so we would like to move the contingency line item back up to its historical amount.

Uh it's it's hovered around 55,000, 56,000 uh in previous years, and we last year it got all the way down to the mid-40s.

So we'd like to we don't want to see that erode over time, and so uh this year we're requesting that it get moved back up to its historical amount, uh, which is 55,000.

Um as you all know, contingency uh it is can be used for a lot of different things.

The reality is that most years that operating contingency isn't necessarily touched, and it actually rolls over into carryover, and you guys say, hey, we're gonna appropriate it for this project or for uh this equipment, and that's fine.

But it's there when there is uh some type of of an emergency or an unexpected event that we need to fund.

Um in the past, it's been used to fund um salt on bad snow years.

Uh it's been used to fund maybe some event that uh the council wanted to participate in that we didn't plan for in the budget.

Uh and so those are the types of things that it can be used for, but the reality is that usually it's not necessarily touched and it rolls over, uh, and you guys reappropriate it when we uh jump into uh carry over each year.

And then finally, uh we're looking for an increase to professional services.

This primarily covers our legal services contract within the council office.

Uh we estimated about a 10% increase prior to going out to RFP.

Uh, that's when we had to have the requests into the budget committee.

Uh that was approved.

I think we are gonna need a little bit more though.

Where I think we're about $8,000 uh short at this point.

Um you guys uh can decide to make an amendment and put that into the budget uh before it's adopted, or if necessary, we can you know overspend that line item next year and kind of figure it out uh mid-year next year.

I'll leave that up to you.

Uh let's see here.

The only other thing that I'll mention, as you know, we're we are we're reclassifying our communications position.

Uh that will require an adjustment.

We didn't know we were going to reclassify that position when we submitted these budget requests.

Uh again, that's something that we're gonna want to think about over the coming weeks.

Um I've you know let you know what my expectation is on cost.

Uh typically when you have a reclassification or a new position that's put into the budget, it's usually funded at the top end of the salary and benefits.

Um it's your call on whether you'd like to do that.

Um we can.

Um I don't know that we'll necessarily need that full amount, but we can have those discussions over the next couple of weeks.

Is that the 50,000 we is the top end, right?

Approximately.

And then the 8,000, and then um where's the city youth, the Sandy Youth Council?

Yeah, it's located within special programs.

So you you won't see it you know, specifically called out within the tentative budget document, um, but it's within special programs.

So in special programs, there's eight thousand dollars.

And that's all Sandy Youth Council.

No, twenty-five hundred of it is the Fourth of July line item.

The rest of it is for the youth council.

And that's enough.

For the youth council?

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, we haven't had any issues over spending youth council.

Bus is included in that number if needed.

That is what Chris has let me know that she's included that in the past.

Yep.

Thank you.

Uh any other questions at this point.

Okay.

Well, I'm gonna go over this really quickly.

We wanted to make sure just to note uh how we felt like our uh asks uh related or coincided with the council's budget priorities, and so I'm not gonna go over that in detail.

It's included here in the presentation, but really we believe that the requests speak to you know your priorities of community safety, fiscal health, and then economic development.

And with that, um, I think that's all that I have to present, Madam Chair.

Uh any questions for me.

Council, any further questions?

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

That completes that agenda item.

Um we will go on to general citizen comment.

Okay.

All right, I have one blue card, and that is Henry Butters.

Henry, come on down.

How are you, City Council?

Um I talked to you about my concern about the police chief about when he came out a couple of weeks ago, and I felt like he chastidized me.

We shouldn't be chastidized by anybody by it's in a sitting position.

That is disrespectful.

If I say something up here to you guys, leave it alone, swallow your pride and shut your mouth.

That's how I look at it.

Martin, thank you for every time you answer my phone call.

Thank you very much.

Well, we still have problems down there on the road down there.

There's still cars down there parking.

If I go park my semi that long, I'd have a click it.

Why being biased?

I'm sorry.

Start cracking down on it.

I have talked to the police chief about the weed problem I told you guys about.

He's like, I don't care.

Why don't we follow the law?

It states in the law you can't smoke weed.

If even if you have a marijuana card, you wouldn't want it by your house.

Then follow the law.

Don't come at me sideways and start telling me what I need to do if you're not following the law, right?

As a police chief.

That's how I look at it.

I don't want to buy my house.

You guys wouldn't want to buy your house.

The mayor wouldn't want it by her house.

Something needs to be done.

And that's where I'm getting frustrated because if I get a positive drug test, it's my livelihood.

It's not your guys' livelihood, police chief.

That's where I'm getting frustrated.

I have two early people with health problems.

Someone needs to get off their cushy butt and get something done.

Technology still haven't called me back.

You don't want to do nothing about it.

Why are we happy to come here and complain to you guys?

That's my complaint, and thank you.

Thank you.

That's it for blue cards.

Dustin, would you like to invite online participation?

Of course, thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh, if you're joining us virtually this evening and you'd like to comment on any city business, now's the time.

Go ahead and click the raise hand button on your screen.

I'll call your name in the order in which you raised your hand, and you'll have three minutes.

Madam Chair, I don't see any hands raised.

I will close general citizen comment.

We'll move on to number three on the agenda.

That is the consent calendar, which just consists of one set of minutes.

Do I have a motion on that?

Move to approve the consent calendar.

Second.

Motion and a second.

All in favor.

Aye.

Any opposed.

All right.

Madam Chair.

I'm sorry.

I'm not as good at this as Chris is.

Who is the second?

Do you need us to slow down, Dustin?

Because we can do that.

It's so early.

All right.

Item number four on the agenda is the Rudlich annexation.

Brian.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um, this is the Rudlich annexation.

This is the last hearing that we have scheduled for any annexations in the granite area.

Um, as you can see on the on the map, this is located at 9521 South Cassell Drive.

And you'll see that this is in an area that's not contiguous to Sandy except through the Van Lullen annexation, which is across the street to the west.

So once that annexation gets approved, they will be contiguous to Sandy.

And this area is zoned R110 in the county, so we're proposing it to be R110 in the city as well.

Planning Commission reviewed this and they're forwarding a positive recommendation to adopt this annexation.

Happy to answer any questions.

Any questions for Brian?

No questions for Brian.

Okay, thank you.

This is a public hearing, so we'll I'll open the public hearing.

If I have no blue cards, but if anyone would like to make comment on this item, they can step up to the podium.

And Dustin, if you could invite our online participants as well.

Of course, Madam Chair.

Uh if you're joining us virtually this evening and you'd like to comment on tonight's public hearing, which is item number four on the agenda, uh, go ahead and click the raise hand button on your screen now.

I'll call your name in the order in which you raised your hand, and you'll have three minutes.

I'm not seeing any hands raised, madam chair.

I will close that public hearing and bring it back to the council for action.

Do I have a motion?

Is this the ordinance 2647?

That we were approving.

Motion to approve ordinance 2647.

Yeah.

Are you with us, Dustin?

And we will take a roll call vote then.

Okay.

Councilmember Nickel.

Yes.

Councilmember Christensen.

Yes.

Councilmember Sharkey.

Yes.

Councilmember D'SUSA.

Yes.

And Councilmember Stroud.

Yes.

Madam Chair, that passes unanimously.

All right.

That takes care of our agenda items.

We'll move on to standing reports.

Dustin, do you have a report for us?

Yes, Madam Chair.

Give me just one moment.

Okay, just a couple of things to note.

Uh the Null Bateman Award nominations are open now, and they will be until July 24th.

Uh nominations can be submitted through the Nol Bateman webpage on the city website.

So if you have anybody you'd like to nominate or anybody who would like to nominate someone, uh direct them there.

Chris helps the uh Nol Bateman committee out.

And so you can always uh reach out to Chris, require them in our direction if there are questions.

Um and then I will note uh I I can't provide all the information yet, but we are going to be making an award uh related to the council chamber's design here very shortly.

And with that, madam chair, I think I'm going to end my report.

All right.

Council member business.

There were a lot of things.

Okay.

There were a lot of things.

So I'll make my list short.

The employee lunch.

Awesome.

I always enjoy that.

Thanks everyone for going out there.

It was a nice day.

Always a nice event.

Um council was invited to attend a press conference with SEG, which was adding a partnership with IHC to provide um healthcare services, especially sports related, right there at the mall, where we already have hockey and basketball taking place.

So that was a pretty exciting event.

And it certainly adds to and rounds out the develop as part of the development.

They're indicating now that a whopping 10% of uh SEG's owned property there is now being dedicated for a purpose, and we'll we're excited to see what else is coming our way.

Um I did have to mention that I had dinner last week with a deputy mayor of Provo, a good friend of mine, and I got to hear about how much they love Barb Smith over there.

So yeah, they just they are really enjoying her.

It's working out great.

And so we miss her, but uh our loss is provost gain, and they're very happy there.

Uh thanks to um the parks department for putting on the beam signing.

Um that was a great event as well.

Very, very exciting to see things come along.

Um we're gonna continue to watch that very closely, and just every step along the way is so exciting.

Um I managed to attend a police swearing in, five more officers and a sergeant being promoted, and fully staffed, and we're in good shape on Sandy PD.

So congratulations to everyone involved, and thanks to the PD for inviting us there.

Um we were able on Saturday night to welcome some really good community partners to the RSL game and this suite on behalf of the council.

We um the Canyon School District were our guests there, and it was Canyons night at the at the event.

Um we had three legislators join us, and we had elected officials from Draper, South Jordan, Harriman, Midvale, and Cottonwood Heights.

We were also joined in the suite for a while by Kyle Schroeder, who's VP of community relations with RSL.

And we just we had a great night and a great event, and I hope everyone will have a chance to join us at some point along the way this season.

That's it for me.

Ms.

Straub.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Um so a couple of additional things other than SEG, which was great, and police swearing in, which Chief Niver is he seems to talk a lot more than Chief Severson did.

So uh you know, getting a lot more information on that.

But that's uh always fun seeing how uh different people handle things differently.

Um but historic committee, so we had a chance to meet, and you know, sad to see that uh Thomas left, you know, and he's on to other things.

Um but we had uh two other planners that were in there, so Cash Hansy, I think Hansi, is that it?

Yep, and Clint Spencer.

You know, both seemed uh you know knowledgeable and you know ready to kind of look in and see what a historic has.

Uh at the committee itself were able to kind of look and see what the difference between the national registry and then what Sandy has and try to work out those differences.

So they're continuing to uh push forward with getting uh contributing structures properly marked and identified.

Um Saturday, fire department uh did their wildland community event um up at uh up the trailhead, and you know, a lot of people that are out there on the Saturday, you know, coming and going and catching that information.

So fire department always does a wonderful job, a little warmer this year.

Uh water temperature was still cold, but um overall uh it was much warmer.

Um yeah, I think that's it.

Yeah, you know.

That's it, madam chair.

I think do we have any kind of report?

All right.

Looks like we are ready to adjourn if I can get a motion.

I'm moved to adjourn.

Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed?

Hope not.

Thank you, everyone.

James.

I can first.

I recall the other thing's popular.

I recall the other story.

Somebody I called up the question.

I think it would have been personal.

So passing that down.