Let's call the

meeting to order roll call.

They laugh here, Phillips.

Here.

Stricker.

Here.

Solomon.

Here.

Please join me in the Pledge of One.

I pledge the leadership.

This is too far in the United States or America.

For public information, a copy of the Nebraska Open Meetings Act is available for review.

No other business shall be transacted at the special meeting unless all council members are present to consent, and the city council declares the existence of an emergency.

Petitions, communications, and public input.

Council to conduct the fiscal year 26 to 27 budget work session.

Okay.

Um just welcome um mayor council staff and members of the public to our budget workshop.

The budget is absolutely our most important policy document.

Before we dive into details, I want to take a moment to express my deep appreciation for those who make this process possible.

First, I want to thank City Council.

To our boards, commissions, and advisory committees.

Thank you for your countless hours of volunteer time, your recommendations and dedications, ensure that the voice of our community are actively woven into our plan.

I also want to recognize our administrative team, departments, and all city staff.

While maintaining high quality day-to-day services, in particular, I want to give a special thank you to our finance director, Lane Kazir, Lane Staff and HR Director County Kite for preparing the budget.

Our objective over the workshop is to review a balanced and forward thinking financial plan that addresses our needs today while preparing for our city's future.

And these are mine, and these were the ones that were memorable for me.

Um the first Scotsblood firefighter graduated from fire academy.

So we're about to do it.

So that's cool.

Uh development services with the help of others removed two unsafe structures.

I think they actually removed more than that, but I'm talking about the Fifth Avenue alley houses.

That was quite an accomplishment.

Um, and three or four hazardous trees, and those hazardous trees, uh, a few of them pop up all of a sudden and they react and get them taken care of.

So they're doing well.

Parks has done an excellent job maintaining our parks and installing new features, pickleball courts, mini pitches or mini pitch, and then Broadway has become a very successful community collaborative with them.

So it's well-attended every night.

Um, I think you can start to see the wear on the grass in front of the front of the uh stage.

So there's a lot of people fine.

Um Public Works has been diligently maintaining our infrastructure, and we should take pride in their efforts regarding water, wastewater, sanitation, and transportation.

Thanks to the dedication of these individuals, our community experiences fewer concerns as many others.

Economic development Shorea worked with PAD to successfully apply for CDB G grant funding for downtown Posada for improvements.

The Nebraska Department of Economic Development once again awarded us with an economic development certified community designation.

Our partners, uh big one, let me mention the library.

The library is uh setting records with adult reading and people through the door.

Uh, they're shorting up their staffing.

Uh, there will be some changes made to hopefully keep people longer, and uh they're doing a great job at the library and meeting the community's needs, and just a thank you to our partner Simmons Olson, specifically Ken Haydenfeld interlinked Z Shao and to Kim for doing an amazing job keeping track of all of us.

So that's

that.

And then on to the letter that should have been in your packet, and this is kind of the executive summary of the budget, and the attached information is a presentation of the proposed budget for fiscal year 2027 beginning October 1, 26 and ending September 30, 27.

A summary of budget information and highlights is listed below in preparing the budget.

We have aimed for conservatism in our estimates, considering various factors such as national, regional, and local economic indicators, trends in agriculture industry, and input from local business representatives.

Furthermore, we closely monitor consumer spending trends and their impact on related revenues such as sales tax, gas tax receipts, and rising school costs.

We're also mindful of the increasing cost of goods and services for our workforce and have made provisions for reasonable wage increases to ensure competitive compensation relative to our municipal peers and local businesses.

So for fiscal year 2027, the budget information uh in 2027, the budgeted expenses is 94,875,539.

That's quite an increase from 26, which was 58,735,982.

That's a 36 million increase, but uh we have the aquatic center in there in case it passes in November of this year.

We have four million in there for the safe streets for all in case uh that grant is approved, the implementation grant, and then we have one million for the grid purchase up at the uh country club, and then there's uh another bond in there for a street project, and we'll go over that as we go through this.

So in 2025, the consumer price index for December was 2.7, and that's an average of the years.

So that's an important number to us when we start to look at wage increases and things of that nature.

So those two numbers.