City Council Strategic Priority Workshop 1-26-24

[0:00:00] let's call this meeting to order at uh 8:41 a.m. on this January 26 2024 and we're five months ahead of when we normally meet discussion so I'm not quite sure how we're going to proceed since we are months away from really seeing a current Trend as it relates to sales tax revenue um which is one of the biggest drivers of the leftover monies that we have to make some flexible decisions but just to remind everybody that the entire property tax dollars that we receive plus 5 million out of the sales tax dollars go to play pay for our Public Safety in addition to that we will have to add to that Baseline 2.4 million which is the additional dollars that we gave in paycheck in Pay increases to our fire and police so when prop proper tax dollars are 50% of the revenue when you add sales tax dollars and property tax dollars together then you take the 21 22 million of sales tax and remove 7.45 million from that you're left with a much lesser number to be working with and we need to keep that in Focus because we don't have a lot of actuals because we're months ahead of our normal time period for Budget planning so when we talk today it's going to be a more Global bigger picture because we don't have real numbers to really work with it's conceptual at this point we have a sales tax trend line right now which is not as positive as it has been and I also want to remind everybody that uh where we have overachieved our sales tax dollars over the past few years years it is because we've planned conservatively meaning

[0:02:04] that our sales tax dollars have been planned down over the previous years so our over performance is relative to a smaller trend line meaning negative which is what we've planned so if you take a look at our actual sales Trend numbers they don't exceed inflation so inflation is greater than our sales tax trend so keep that in mind as we move into this session so with that uh we are going to start with our Workshop itinerary which is uh first of all 2A is the overview of strategic priority setting Workshop mayor that is and I think you're on yes ma'am I am on thank you for the overview mayor I'll give my overview as well yes we do have some some pretty big challenges actually that need to be addressed but part of our our planning and the reason why we're starting early this time around is to make sure that we have a plan for those challenges that we'll be facing we're very aware of the the fact that we do take a look at our sales tax numbers we take take a look at everything we're very conservative we have been very conservative in our approach as far as our financing but regardless we do want to make sure that the staff has a really good direction uh guidance when it comes to those strategic ities cuz that's kind of what we do plan around and I will say that regardless of what we plan for today and what those priorities are we're very well aware of those financials as those numbers come in M we may have to make adjustments to whatever um those priorities were they may be came up today well we won't change the priorities we just simply change the dollar commitment to them because our priorities won't change well the yes we've had the same priorities for the past six years which is infrastructure Public Safety and economic development but this also give City Council Members an opportunity because I've heard from Council Members some of the concerns or some of the areas that they' like for us

[0:04:06] to address and that's really what I'd like to get into today is to make sure that we get those items addressed so we can speak speak to those more specifically uh I do have staff here to answer any questions or delve into whatever it is that city council um brings up as far as what they would prefer to consider as a priority as well may but uh again on our end and uh this was intended to be a very informal meeting kind of like sitting around the table drinking coffee and having a discussion and this is really what I would love to see happen today let's have that discussion the discussions that I've had with city council members on the priorities that they've spoke to me about let's put those out there let's talk about that uh we can create a a uh as far as a level of priorities off of that list as well and who knows the city council members have been say hey let's stick to the three we have right now but again regardless I just wanted to make sure that we went into that topic we talked about those strategic priorities and we had those listed on there but one of the things too Mar and you mentioned a while ago we do have a section actually the only presentation we're seeing today from staff will be from Tina and her staff to talk about the revenues and expenditures and in order for us to really accomplish some of the things that we want to get done with our strategic priorities we need to make sure that we have the funding for that so what does that mean from the revenue standpoint that of course that means we need higher revenues what does that mean from the expenditure standpoint lower revenues you know so you have to come up with a a way to pay for these strategic priorities that will be uh establishing today again I don't know if we'll maintain the top three I suspect we will uh because they're they're the core of the services we actually provide as a city talk about that Daniel from a public perspective and from a city perspective across the country what is the primary obligation the city has you know safety you look at uh the safety for a Community Public Safety is something that if you were to ask our citizens what exactly is it uh that you want for our community and they would say Public Safety which is what we have

[0:06:08] is one of our priorities but the next one is water streets the infrastructure the drainage the the waste water you'll you'll hear that immediately so that's why I know that we've had these top three priorities and those two priorities that I talked about are high in the in expenditure level so that's why we have Economic Development there as a priority as well so to help assist with paying for those uh those priorities that we have we want to make sure that we're addressing Economic Development very strongly to make sure that we have those monies coming in as well but again as I mentioned a while ago it's not just the economic development portion of it we also have to address the revenues and expenditures to make sure that we Shore those up that we're as efficient as we possibly can and still maintain a very conservative budget like we have in the years that I know teas tin has come on board I've been here for 11 years been very conservative with the way that we've done things and we'll continue doing so but today really is about that discussion what are those challenges that we're facing in our community or some of those things that we can improve upon that we should be taking a look at and this is our opportunity City Council Members your opportunity at this point to start talking about those we went very low Tech this time around we have a a paperboard up here okay so um we have Michelle that'll be here writing down all of your ideas your thoughts that you feel you feel we should actually be taking a look at as some of those priorities and again you may just decide Daniel or say hey Daniel I think we're I'm super great with those top three priorities just leave those alone I don't have anything else to add to that or you may say you know what those three are fantastic we need to keep those however we need to talk about others that are a concerned for me with that um again this is just a quick overview uh as I mentioned a while ago uh we wanted to start really early because we do have some challenges especially this fiscal year a lot of cities will have this challenge we do have a 3 and a half% limitation on current values when it comes to our property tax revenues and that's caused our property tax rate to go down over the years and Tina will really focus in on that and talk about what that's meant to the city and how much uh monies revenues we've actually lost over the

[0:08:10] years and so we'll have a discussion about that not too too much of an in-depth discussion really the goal today is just to get the city council make City Council Members aware of the some of the items we'll be looking at and we'd love to be able to come back at a later workshop and say hey from the direction we got from y'all we this is what we came up as far as a plan to address this Revenue Source uh this Revenue item this this expense item and we can come back later on and say hey this is how we can do it but right now it's just really at discussion so when we all came into office or most of us came into office we heard aggressively from all of our citizens that one of their number one priorities was streets streets our streets are in a terrible position streets and with that we created an $80 million Bond or applied for an $80 million bond to start the reconstruction of some major projects so if you take 2017 and add 20 years to that you're looking at 2037 that $80 million will be obligated by when next year Well no I mean as far as the the payback Tina you want talk not the payback the projects that fund that 80 million so those projects end or the financing of that first $80 million is on most of our major streets and that work spending that $80 million will be done when and yet give me a deadline or give me a time frame on it and know that it won't be paid for until 2037 and before that date arrives there's going to be many other Street repairs projects will need to be done and that means we will have to relook at where we go on another bond to pay for more Street work is that correct Tina what's your question is so we'll be paying on that first $80 million until 2037 until yes I think that's correct um

[0:10:16] we have uh been working with Vino to look at what our capacity is and I've also been talking with Patrick and Shane in public works um to see when we would need to issue the next we've issued four out of five of our plan um issues for Street debt um they are at a point where we we would have issued it the fifth out of five um in the spring of this year they're at a point where they have enough funding right now to get through the projects they have going so that we're going to push that next street debt issue out until the spring of next year but we'll have Shane at some point Come forward and talk about um the streets and what's out there and what U still needs to be done with that we also know and we have experienced over the past few years that what we thought some of these projects would cost have dynamically increased in costs that the original projections in terms of for example College Hills what we thought College Hills project was going to cost us is now what many millions more right Shane yeah so we we need to make sure that we don't lose focus on what the citizens have said are key priorities and streets have been one of those key priorities so infrastructure continues to be a focus and will continue to take a tremendous chunk of money to finish the work so we want to keep that in mind Public Safety we know consistently the public has said support and fund the public safety issues and it's bigger than just the salaries salaries are definitely a key issue but they also have needs and wants Beyond salary issues and those issues most of them in terms of what they are are big ticket items they're not small dollars so those are going to have to be looked at as well and I'm not sure how we can make either the infrastructure or

[0:12:19] Public Safety um not topics of high uh support from the citizens and I assume from city council because those are the two big priorities that City City Hall if you will is responsible for making sure happens what those dollars are Shane can give us better ideas than any of us up here have but they're not small the Lake nasworthy Project came in how many millions more than we thought it would cost us yeah did um May and we do understand all those things of course on our end um we've always there's years that we had a year where we're short $2 million and we cut back our expenditures to make sure that we ended up at the end of the year in the black so we understand all those things and yes there they're major challenges but on our end uh we would never recommend a budget to any of the city council members that would put us on a hole you know so again even with even with what you just said a while ago whatever City Council Members talk about today which I'm looking forward to that I want to hear from all the council members as far as what it is that they would like to see those parties as I mentioned allo may it may be just stick to these three or it may be other items that they want to discuss but we want to have that discussion because some point once we start looking at these revenues and expenditures we may have to come back and say guys we know that y'all wanted all these um priorities in there but quite frankly we can Finance some of those we just can't do it but what we want though as staff is some of that direction on what city council would love to see on there some of that those priorities and uh again thank you mayor for all that input I think that's valuable information that we should keep at heart and in mind as well but again I know that hearing from Council Members I've heard enough that there's other parties that want that they would like to have considered so with that said uh that's why we had the CH the the board up here and we're ready to start writing at this point okay so um I guess we're in the section B 2B that says top three Street strategic priorities so do you want to start with um city council input on

[0:14:23] infrastructure comments yes ma'am I mean that'd be great at this point again uh we didn't have it structured as a staff coming up here and doing a big old presentation on any of these items it's more of a let's delve into one of these these three issues and say okay what specifically would you like to see happen in any of these or just say hey no these are the ones that we want to maintain as those top three strategic parties we just want to add more to it or just leave it alone but yes we can delve into infrastructure Public Safety and economic development and talk a little bit more about what is it that we' like to accomplish for infrastructure this year and I think that we pretty much already have a plan on infrastructure ructure and what we need to be doing for this coming year right so then we look at Public Safety and we ask what specifically is it that we want to accomplish for Public Safety this year we have both Chiefs here today uh to be able to come up here and say hey these are some of the concerns that we've had that we like to maybe address with this coming fiscal year uh Economic Development Mike is here I know that we've talked a lot May about uh airport and we want to do you talked about trains planes and Automobiles and the focus has been on uh on planes this time around so we could have a good healthy discussion about that portion of it as well and say okay what is it specifically that we want to accomplish in Economic Development as well well the the conversation about Economic Development was certainly Planes Trains and Automobiles but the overriding statement was maximizing our assets making sure that we're reinvesting back on the assets that are important to this community and the airport was one of them and we have SE that the investment made into the airport will have a long-term big picture impact on this community but with that there also was key emphasis first and foremost on Lake nasworthy because in order to maximize our asset of mata's field we could not do couldn't talk about couldn't even plan for until we had the lake nasworthy sewer project underway because the growth and development of that airport is dependent on number one sewer capacity we can't have those projects

[0:16:27] out there being success uccessful we couldn't even approved them or even had the conversation about them without the lake NZ nasworthy as sewer project being funded and being worked on as we speak today that's correct M the hen before the egg the egg before the hen well I'm not sure which is egg or hen but what I do know is sewer and the sewer project had to happen before we could talk about the airport project but we've seen the result of that and that project is not even completed yet and yet it is because of that project it is allowing us to have some big picture dramatic uh big picture projects being put together at that airport and there will be a huge impact for this community with that project so again hen before the egg egg before the hen um I'm not sure how that works out but what I do know bless you thank you is that sewer project was long and coming really needed not only for uh economic development but for the safety of this city I repeat that cast iron sewer line underneath Lake at nasworthy which is one of our Key Water Resources should it's it uh create any larger leaks than exist currently they when our water supply and we're a risk May and great point I know that uh what we're doing with that project we're actually multiplying the capacity by 5 times so right now we have an investment in that project and I'm excited to see what the return on investment is going to be in the near future because you are going to see um investment out there as well and building out there as well uh so that's that's a great Point again that's why Economic Development has been a focus and a priority for all these years because it has such a big impact on us as well well and I and we want to be clear about the word economic development because we have CAD DC which is the city of St Angeles Development Corporation when we talk about economic development as a priority for this city

[0:18:30] it's separate from what kosad DC does and I say that for the reason I just brought up Lake nasworthy kosad DC cannot be will not be and could not be responsible for Lake nasworthy sewer project we had to take care of the infrastructure as an economic development opportunity in order to make the airport Economic Development projects happen and so so you look at it again and so when we talk about Economic Development here we're not talking about the work that our CAD DC folks do we're talking about the infrastructure issues that provide for opportunities to come to the table for Costa DC or for organizations like ASU programs to happen all of that under one umbrella but we're not here to take away from CAD DC's work their work is different than our work their work is to bring in new things to help grow existing things ours is to make sure that we invest the dollars to allow for economic development opportunities to happen significant difference very good mayor mayor at this point again these three have been are boy I tell you what we've really concentrated on those for the last six years really what I would like to do at this point then is just move forward and start hearing from Council Members um about they're they's say they're top three strategic priorties uh they could say Hey you know let's stick to what we have at this point but I say well let's stick to the three we have but I still have one or a couple that I have to to Really address and again it doesn't mean that we're going to fund those projects we're going to have to find a way to fund that mayor but it means that at least we're taking a look at it and saying hey this is what the city council members came up with that they felt were also a priority that needs to be considered it so when we start looking at funding the top three we also have to look at funding whatever else is is placed on that board if the city council gives us that direction as a quum to say hey these are our top

[0:20:32] priorities so mayor with that I really would love to hear from the council members at this point to say okay let's start talking about those priorities what do they look like and what what we' like to see uh staff address here this coming year Larry I'm going to put you on first saw something about two weeks ago that was talking about the the favor favorable atmospheres of City ities and the one hit that good fellow or excuse me that St Angelo took was Street structure was what streets yes folks that are coming in here to live those that are looking for employment companies that are talking about coming in that was the one item that stood out like a sore thumb among everything else and believe me there was plenty of positive things about St Angelo and that was the only tick down there that that stood in the way of their feeling as good as they could about a town I'm glad you brought up good fellow because the other big objective and the big crisis that they've had out there is affordable living housing has been a major issue as it relates to goodfill Air Force Base on campus as well as off-campus one of the great things that we did perhaps three years ago four years ago Michael you might Michael Michael D he heard you Mary he's going sneak out of here so um and that was we did what we call a housing study and that housing study is one of the key issues and one of the key things that we uh found a way to get the money to do the housing study and that housing study was very important as it related to people from outside our community coming into our community and doing things like new apartment complexes it gave a focus to what affordable housing looks like based off

[0:22:36] of income levels in the city of sang Angelo and I would say relative to Goodfellow conversation that we're how many years into that four years five years into the housing study what I believe we probably need to do is relook as a priority at that housing study we've had a lot of development we've had a lot of increase in the number number of of homes available apartments available Etc but we need to make sure that we're on top of what we call Affordable housing and that means not low income we're talking about if you make $100,000 a year what percent of that money needs to go towards rent or a mortgage yes Michelle you have a look on your face Sor I put housing steady up there thank you steady next housing study okay and when I when I talk about housing and affordability which was one of the key issues not only in terms of goodfill Air Force days base but Workforce because you can't recruit Workforce if you don't have housing that suits the income level so we talked a lot about early on about income and about wages and that is making sure that we find Opportunities to bring companies to town where we aren't talking about minimum wage but a living wage housing is key and I take a look at some of the statistics over the past few years and in 2020 for example 47% of the homes sold were under $200,000 the median home price was $197,000 in 2021 36.8% sold was under $200,000 the median home price was $200,000 2022 32.6% were under $200,000 meian home price

[0:24:41] 230 in December of 2023 the median home price was $275,000 so as we talk about Workforce as we talk about um goodfill Air Force Base and we talk about the quality of home and what goes into housing we need to make sure what our Market is telling us we need to do and then how do we make sure programs are there to help make that happen when we got that housing study and we were starting to take a look at some of the areas where um we should invest in we created an infield program and that infield program in fact allowed for development in Lake View which hadn't happened for decades decades but along the way land prices have gone up along the way commodity prices the cost of lumber the cost of many other things have gone up some of the reason the median home price has gone up is the falling reason because the cost of building a home is much more expensive and what people are getting in the homes might not be the same thing they could get in a home when the median home price was $197,000 because costs have gone up so I'm glad you brought up goodfill Air Force Base because we know that they're one of the largest employers in this city and they're important in terms of what we provide for quality of life and housing for them as well Karen uh complete agreement with all of the issues brought forward so far I'd like to add three more for conversation first of all our overall um shall we say let's call it Workforce stabilization there's a lot of moving Parts there and we'll want to hear from HR to help us understand what we're

[0:26:46] confronting uh but there are some concerning pieces of that I would also add that I continue to be uh of the belief that our comprehensive plan needs updating as we move toward the future as we move toward hiring a new planning and development services director we need to have them uh armed with a Playbook that is timely and appropriate for the needs of the city at this moment um which is no shade at all on the one that we have but it is outdated and third I am interested in an ordinance update as it relates to the comprehensive plan the big challenges that I think exist with that is number one the big picture on the comprehensive plan probably will never change it's within that comprehensive plan that things change and the zoning issue is a number one issue within that comprehensive plan not the overriding comprehensive plan but the segment within that plan I would agree with that because things haven't changed where where houses are being built hasn't changed dramatically except for Lake View which has had a big change in terms of new development out there the issues that keep coming up are zoning issues and what we keep bringing to the table are zoning issues to address whether it should be single family multif family issues as well as other zoning issues within those areas we know that things have changed dynamically in terms of what's happened in our neighborhoods we know that today Dollar General has had huge success in every Community across the country you know why CU they like running couple blocks away for a loaf of bread and some milk instead of having to go clear out to the big box door that is a 20 minute and that points to a neighborhood Focus which I think that we need to be mindful of and and we've heard other complaints that um complaints have come before us or

[0:28:51] concerns have come before us that are related to that very fact Str strs um the placement of Str strs adus it's been a big debate issue across the country so we're not s it will be a debate for years to come another reason why I underscore the importance of having that conver conversation so that we're prepared to go forward yeah neighborhoods yes neighborhoods Lucy um I hate to beat this to the ground but beat it the streets again in 2015 when I came on they were just starting to start fixing them and everything and I tell you what that was one thing that was a big issue back then people complained constantly about uh the Bell Street Bell Street used to be the worst of the worst MLK College Hills I mean I think we need to Pat each other on the back and say we have done really well I like to look at the positive and I think that as far as streets have gone in the last eight years we have done really well we're still doing good as far as everywhere you look in town there is Street progress going on so I still feel that that is is a priority that we should keep um of course there's a lot of things that the public want uh like we say wants and needs are totally different but if we can afford it um they they've always brought up in the C CIP as far as the splash pad they've been wanting that for a very long time so um that's something that that we've already looked into a lot of stuff that I have thought of we're in the progress of of doing it it's starting it's it's going forward so for that I'm very appreciative thank you Harry yes ma'am thank you I'm trying something new so I can hear Mr Miller at the end down here uh as as somebody that's hearing disabled this works very well thank you uh so

[0:30:57] I have to agree with everything that's been said so far uh you know we really need to look next year about streets uh we need to see how we're going to revamp that uh that was a 10-year project in 2015 just before I came on Council uh Lucy was there she was one of the ones that voted for that uh but we got to redo that uh we've got many streets out there that still need uh attention what I'd like to do is is talk about how we can better utilize the city's assets to generate additional income uh Lake Airport Lily Garden Parks Coliseum Fairgrounds spur Arena Convention Center river river stage y yeah all of those things uh and if they need to be upgraded for us to to uh get some more income what does that cost uh and how many partners ERS would be willing to help us do those things so I think that's a way to to look at bringing in and I've been a proponent of this uh ever since I've been on Council and that's public private Partnerships we've got to do those things continue to do those things uh we are never going to be able to at least in my lifetime uh be able to fund everything that the Citizens need uh there's just not enough uh Revenue out there to do that so from my perspective is let's find what we can do to uh upgrade these facilities if we need to to generate more income and let's find Partners out there that'll help us do that uh having conversation with several people in the community uh about the possibility of uh increas in the capacity uh at uh uh out

[0:33:03] out at the Coliseum and there are some dollars out there that are available how much is that going to cost how much is are they expecting the city to to input on that all those things are things that we need to continue to look at uh and I just don't I think there's things out there that we we want to work on all the time but the bottom line from my perspective is this is how can we generate more income and what's that cost going to do to do that Harry I'm so glad you brought up seven several key points that we have talked about over the past few years and one is very important and that's the public private Partnerships some of the greatest things going on right now Lucy brought up one and that's the splash pads next level is another major public private partnership Spring Creek Marina another public private partnership you take a look at those and they are people whove stepped up who took the responsibility and the vision to help add amenities to our city and take and took a lot of the cost of those facilities away from the city using the things that we have and that was land we had land and Facilities they took those and have made great projects out of them so I I think Harry's exactly correct the public private Partnerships are something we really need to look at and I also say the following we can't get started and then stop and then go over and do another project start and stop and not complete the work that River Stage is one of the great assets that we have we've started the work on it we got to complete some of those upgrades before we venture off and go spend money on another project and get started public private Partnerships are key and I'm glad you brought that up Harry it's significant and it will bring some of the greatest

[0:35:07] things to facilities that this community has so great points thank you Tom I think as we sit here on Council we look at the first three items there infrastructure Public Safety and economic development we can't ever lose that as our Focus there are things we have under that that we wish we could do that we might be able to implement as it's part of our daily job function but I'm with har we have to focus on things that are Revenue but we all campaigned on infrastructure um Public Safety and economic development a lot of our problems with infrastructure s Angelo is so far off the beaten path we can't get people to bid what we want to do our costs for doing construction and Things fall down to one bidder nobody will bid a against them and it has caused those costs to double we have to realize basically as a municipality you know we're I won't say we're broke but we're flat um so focus on things that generate Revenue if there's some things we have I remember years ago Daniel provided a sheet that said here's a list of 20 things St Angelo provides that other cities do not provide should we keep funding these things um I think the ease of which people can work with our city which goes back to what Karen says on Staffing is something that brings in people that want to do construction something that helps our own Development Group is like if is somebody that easy to work with and we can get things done in a very quick time that's what we need to focus but I think when it all boils back down to it I don't want to leave this term in two years not saying our primary focus wasn't infrastructure um securing our water out to 2050 2070 I just don't think we can leave here without putting our focus on that and there's things we just have to deal with our handicap of being in San Angelo that we can't get five people to come build a construction Pro you know project and and it's it's hard and it's terrible uh you hear lots of people we need splash pads we you know are talking about all of these things which have already been prod of it's great but somehow you can only pay you can only

[0:37:11] get what you can afford and we have to remind people your tax dollars basically pay for Public Safety all right that's all they do everything else comes from sales tax and other points of Revenue we need to streamline what we have focus on it and move forward so I mean with that we stick to the same three that home safety is public safety not home safety thank you I'm good okay Tom Tommy we don't get one thing accomplished without employees not one I am embarrassed to say we have talked very little except for the last three years about how we pay our employees I would like for us to add as a priority Daniel um compensation for our employees um and make that a priority I think we had that as a as a priority maybe when I came on Council back in 2017 it was actually a priority that that was established uh actually went out probably uh about 8 years ago but it was an item that was anyway would like to make that as a a I think if if we um had a had a presentation from HR that you know we we've got some some structural issues in our Compensation Plan that need to be addressed um and um I I have had a couple of folks employees tell me if I could have the best employees you know I could get the same or more work done with fewer employees to me having the best employees and the best paid employees in the long run would save us money um so Daniel I I would like to add um employee compensation um

[0:39:17] to our to our list or for for our discussion thank you what I like about this conversation is that we remain solid in terms of what we believe are the key um areas of investment and focus and definitely infrastructure no question about that uh we will want to understand uh as it relates to infrastructure and water an update on the cono river water project because that's one of the projects that are out there we know um as it relates to water there's some big investment projects attached to that the treatment facility um Etc so we'll and as we always do is we have a great overview of where we stand in terms of the projects uh priorities within that project uh We've invested lots of million dollars into wider projects but you can't have Economic Development and you can't have a city if you don't have water water is economic development and so again when we talk about Economic Development it sounds like this you know two words that other people would describe in different ways but economic development is making sure we have the water economic development is making sure we have the infrastructure in place and it does mean that if we get those things done that we can in fact find ways to drive revenues because of that just like we will be doing at that airport and just like we will be doing with the train of the the railport uh projects those were things that we said we wanted and needed as a part of the Planes Trains and Automobiles the only thing that's heading um holding us back on the train issue is this thing called border patrol Customs and Border Patrol the bridge is there the rails there everything's there except for the Customs and Border Patrol equipment they're ready to go everything's been held up I was in Austin um Wednesday and the conversation

[0:41:22] was all about um tax do um transportation and consistently everybody said what we need to do is get those Rail lines working for us because for every truck that you can take off the highway and put on a train you save a lot of wear and tear on our highways yeah I forget the statistic somebody might remember it but it's something like 20 20 trucks on a carload tremendous amount of pressure taken off of our highways if in fact fact we can get the train going we've invested we have another private public partnership there we just got to get the federal government the state government to get that border patrol Customs and Border Patrol open at uh precidio so with that Daniel I think we as a group have agreed that the uh top three strategic priorities remain the same they do mayor um the the concern that I have right now is so we do have our top three and I absolutely 100% agree with those top three uh I know that there's other items that were that I've talked to with council members as well that haven't been brought up yet so I'm not sure if council members have anything else to add to that uh what we have on there or this is what we'll discuss right now I do want to have a more in-depth discussion but Harry go ahead uh I I guess I was a little bit remissed by not bringing this up but Tommy said it well we've got to find a way to pay our employees keep them we've had particular positions open for a number of months in years whatever the case may be simply because our pay structure was not up to date we couldn't pay those particular individuals what the going rate was so we've got to do that we've got to do it from the top all the way down to the to the bottom and we've got

[0:43:26] to continue to work on that you know we've handled Public Safety we've done that taken care of the police and fire department now we got to do everybody else and and those people that have been on the council with me for a long period of time know that this has one been one of my priorities I had conversation with Brian last week uh I hope he's he's able to bring a a uh bring together uh some things that will show us what we need to do and so that we can look at this but just like everything else uh it's money so how how do we how do we continue to pay for those types of things but if we don't pay for the employees how can we do it the rest of the stuff okay so let's move on so we're we've established and confirmed the Strategic priorities for 2425 so we'll go down to defunding and Council Direction mayor we still don't have I mean I'm sorry before we move on I'm sorry I just want to make sure that we all it seemed like we all agreed that the top three should be the top three right we've had other items that have been listed on there as well that I just want to make sure that I'm clear on this because before we move on are we saying that all we want right now at this point is just going to be the top three because if that's the case then we can focus on that I do want to correct something though I just wanted to make not so much a correction but just to kind of clear something up Harry made a comment about uh we did a lot for the police officers the firefighters this past year we did enough to actually catch them up to 85% up to where the rest of the staff was at um that's still going to be a a bone of contention it really is a point of contention uh this year so how do we pay for that uh that's going to be a question needs to be addressed uh Public Safety still is not where it has to be and staff still is not where it has to be either so is that going to be a priority or not um that's something thing that I want to make sure is cleared up it sounds to me like I

[0:45:28] heard three council members mention one item which was Harry Tommy and I believe um Karen as well and that was the compensation plan so is that another one that needs to be included on there that's the one that was multiple for City Council Members aside from the top three priorities so I just want to make that clear that's something that city council wants to see well I want to be very clear on what I think I heard and that is Public Safety Public Safety is about compensation in our police and fire and so that isn't just um we need another fire station it is about compensation within the public safety category and there was work done on that but the work is not over it is not over and we know that those are going to be big topics of conversation for us going forward we're not through with dealing with Public Safety as it relates to compensation that's still out there that is do not think that that conversation was had is done and it's over it isn't so let's be clear on that okay so Public Safety pay is is important so I've also heard employee pay in general is important as well may so I just again clarification is that clar let me let me let me piggyback off something Harry said um he alluded to this I was sitting there trying to run through in my head the open positions that uh we we we have uh city engineer that's been in open position for over two years um we've got um economic development director that's an open position we've got planning director that's open position we've got water utilities director um we've got an assistant water utilities director that are open positions why can't we find these people because we can't pay them we just can't we we're not competitive so if in my opinion we need to make employee compensation overall including Public Safety yes but overall a

[0:47:33] strategic priority to get where we want to be um we're we're saying we want to do all these things okay well we've got to have the the the the people to to to do those things so um from my standpoint Daniel I'd like to I'd like to see added um to the to the list um employee compensation now I may I may be in the minority so so be it but that that's that's a big one for me well I also want to add to that because when you start talking about employees compensation is always one important element but we also have to address the fact that St Angelo Texas is located in West Texas there are there is Major growth major development bigger cities larger cities are growing by Leaps and Bounds we're growing but we're not at the same level these larger cities and so when employees are looking at St Angel it's not always just about what we pay pay being important but it's what we have what we have is quality of life here within city of St Angelo is this where they want their families to live is is the housing that's provided here in s Angelo Texas equivalent to the housing and the pricing in other markets what are the quality of life issues that they're looking for in this this city it's not just about pay although pay is very important do not di I'm not diminishing those comments and what what's up here but quality of life is key the amenities that we talked about earlier in terms of things like lake nasworthy is one of our greatest quality of life facilities that we have it's huge May with pads you have them go ahead yes I've always said that Tommy has a way of of of speaking he he word Smith a lot of items that I wish I could

[0:49:36] I could do that I'm more direct but Mr Hebert just said something very direct we've got to be able to figure out how to pay our employees and I'm going to guarantee you that is I've still got three years left up here that's going to be my priority I'm going to continue to do that yes we've got to do this we've got infrastructure we got Public Safety we've got Economic Development we're going to do those things but we're going to you've always heard me say for the last seven plus years we've got to take care of everybody that works for the city I'm going to back First Responders every time and I tell the Chiefs this whenever I have a conversation with them but we got to take care of the rest of the employees too so I want to see Brian and his team bring together a a something that we can look at that it will help us keep and hire the best employees that we can do that mayor I may um so I know that Tommy you mentioned the the director level positions assistant director liel positions I I do want to point out as well that uh the standard for a city would be about 4 to 5% vacancy right now the city sits at close to 12% is that correct Brian that's what I heard from you yesterday uh sits at about 12% you know that's a pretty high number probably three times more than what a standard would be so there there is an issue there that really does need to be addressed so again that's why I wanted to make sure that we had a clarification on what those priorities are and it's clear to me right now again those top three will remain the top three and they they should remain the top three but again this one uh is one that I I keep hearing about is as well and I just want to make sure that on our end we're doing everything we possibly can may I agree with you the quality of life of this community is wonderful I think that uh living here uh it's a great place to live uh a lot of times when we do

[0:51:38] advertise um we hope that people will consider the quality of life and come and and actually interview with us because of that but really what we're finding out more and more is that we have to offer just a little bit more money to entice people to to apply and actually come and interview here so that is a major challenge that we face but it's also again when you have a 12% or close to a 12% vacancy that's very problematic as well and we were have been in several meetings over the past couple weeks and what we hear from people on a regular basis is weisson Angelo why s Angelo we heard this a lot yesterday and it's about having a home here and the biggest attraction tends to be family because I have family here I wanted to come back to St Angelo because I have family here and so we need to make sure that the word of mouth the quality of life that we offer here continues to be at the level where family encourages family to move back here and that's a big part of our future employment employee um whole to find employees we got to make sure we're making the existing citizens of s Angelo happy with s Angelo making it a place they want to call home so somebody else can choose St Angelo to call home and to have a career here okay okay so I think we're done with a b and c and we will move on to funding and Council Direction which Tina lady you're on so just to clarify though following up that discussion for our recordkeeping purposes are we remaining with top three or we do we have a fourth now being employee compensation can I get some clarity on that please well I think we've decided it's a fourth item okay okay good I just want to make sure we have that going forward so we know what to put in our budget book and stuff like that so may I seize the moment and

[0:53:41] also point out that while I fully agree with the mayor's comments and and actually ran on that platform um believe it with my whole heart that we want to make the best city we want to make our city attractive to the people people who are here so that they stay here so that we preserve the things that are good about it I agree with Harry that we want to Leverage The assets we have to underscore that decision that people make as individuals and as families and to attract other people um to come here and remain here but I also want to before we leave the compensation conversation behind in this moment that the vacancies at leadership levels are deeply concerning to me without leadership we have chaos basically so um we should we should be careful where we make the investment we understand that we don't have an unlimited bucket of money but we need leadership in key positions and we need to make some changes to make that possible and we need to honor the people that have been faithful for all the reasons that the mayor has pointed out I'd like to talk a little bit about that too um that was a wonderful meeting we had yesterday about destination marketing and we all got a chance to chat about the wonderful things that San Angelo is but when people haven't been here before they don't understand that quality of us and that's when Money Talks unfortunately once you get them here yeah they'll love it but you got to get them here in the first place and for director's jobs that's a tough knot to crack unless you're willing to spend some money well it's also about today we have a lot of two two family members earning an income so you're not only recruiting somebody for a key position but you're probably also looking for that second job for that second person in that family CU today so many of our families

[0:55:45] have Mom and Dad both employed in careers and in in jobs so it's um it's easy to say it's all about money and it is about money but it's about a lot of other issues that we got to make sure we have here pretty good Tina you're on so we'll move in now to a discussion about um revenue and expenses and ways to increase revenue or perhaps decrease expenses um the revenues that we'll go over include sales tax departmental service fees property tax and other Revenue so we know that six per six and a qu% of our sales tax goes to the state 1% to the city half a percent to the Development Corporation and a half a percent to the county um year-to date sales tax collections we're over the prior year by 3% and we're over our Revenue budget by $677,000 year to date but what is a sales tax Trend uh it's been fairly positive this year uh we did have one month I think it was the month of December that was negative 2.7% however that was largely due to audit adjustments in the previous December that kind of skewed that a little bit if we if we pulled those out and extracted those um adjustments we would have been relatively flat for December and I think this past month we were up 1% 1.7% yes so we're not seeing the same increases that we saw a year ago yes ma'am that's correct um here's our sales tax chart just showing um that we have been we have exceeded our Revenue budget over the last several years um and you'll also see that Trend where we've budgeted the 5% decrease if you go from the green line to the next Blue Line it kind of shows that Trend where we've very conservative with our budgeting yeah it's over budget it's not over ly you can see the trend where it's

[0:57:48] increased I know I'm just saying original budget and actual so if you you talk about the percent increase what's the actual percent increase versus what is the budget number s understand your question the perent you pay for dollars not percentages so the dollar receipts is most important as a trend line versus necessarily right I don't have the dollar amounts but this trend line oop sorry I'm bad at that you can see where it's going in ining year-over-year based dollar growing based on dollars right that's what I said the actual amount received is increasing does that make sense yes okay so um next up is departmental service fees um in fiscal year 2020 Council directed staff to move the cost of service for all fees in other words 100% of cost of service um fy21 through 23 we froze that due to the covid-19 um and then in FY 24 we did finally um implement the second round of fee increases um so that's in our budget for the current fiscal year and then of course in FY 2025 we plan to continue that next round of um fee increases for those departments that are on our list for this year of course ke of the goal is to make sure that we get to 100% on all the fees that we provide uh and that's one thing that's important to point out is we don't look at a a profitable amount we just want to break even for the services that we provide and that's yes and that is based on Services provided like you said there are some um expenditures obviously that would not be covered by a fee and so um those are absorbed um but the but for the services that we do provide we do look at those every year and we do plan to implement that next round of fees this coming fiscal year you know I uh there was a big article yesterday the day before on Dallas not

[0:59:50] that Dallas is St Angelo but one of the key issues that is being debated ated there is um the cost of fees relative to if your focus is in fact to provide affordable housing and fees as a percentage or as a part of what goes into the cost of building a home they're relooking at that issue because they know that if we continue to raise fees it continues to raise the median or the uh dollar value of a home which means you're getting further and further away from building a home at the affordable level that your Workforce can digest meaning that if you have a million dooll home the cost of the fee is minor compared to the building that home but if you're building a $250,000 home what's the percent those fees represent and is are are the fees relative to the mission of building and having available for the workforce because we talk about wanting people to come here and live here and work for us why do we have available for them in housing and so the fee thing becomes you know even a Dallas area is becoming a big issue in terms of what they will do or finally decide to do in terms of raising their fees as it relates to affordable housing it's relevant it is relevant mayor I think the the concern that I have with that though is there is a cost for provide providing the service and if we're not covering the cost for providing the service my big concern is having to supplement from the general fund to cover the remainder of that and I know I know what you're saying because we do want to have affordable housing but we also want to make sure that whatever that fee is is something that is applied and again on our end I know the planning

[1:01:52] department years back started working on those effici icies to reduce the number of days it takes to do their inspections and everything else and they've done a good job in that area and it's imperative for us to make sure that we are being as efficient as possible to make sure that those fees actually don't go up uh incrementally though but I just just wanted to make sure I pointed that out as well Mo which is the property tax know the appraisal district set valuations and then our taxing School District City and the county set the rates that apply um so certified net taxable value in FY 23 was $6.6 billion increased to $7.6 billion in 2024 the value of a penny is $637,000 last year this year at $732,000 and the tax rate of course as you know has decreased over the last two years um approximately um almost 8 cents um and and the loss in general fund Revenue due to that state cap of 3 and a half% has equated to about 2.4 million per year to the general fund for a total of about $4.9 million of loss of Revenue to the general fund because of the state legislature explain that further what I think get to the Chart it'll show okay the state enacted uh a legislation that capped general fund property tax revenues at 3 and a half% increase year-over-year and so with that it forces down the property tax rate that the city is allowed to enact which without an election correct which equates to $2.4 million per year over the for the last two years so you're talking about existing not new so the key to Growing the property tax is new not existing because the

[1:03:56] 3.5% is relative to existing property correct that's correct yes not the total yes so I would say yes the key is new properties as well as trying to impact state legislators um to release that cap on our property tax revenue but we're going to have to approve budgets before the state legislators meet again in the short term we have to find Solutions yes ma'am we have to keep focused on the next year where right now the 3.5% is the number that we are dealing with yes ma'am so if you take a look at the property tax rate talk through the dollar I mean the percentage that we've decreased or the amount we have decreased the tax rate yeah and go back over that number that shows the difference in terms of what would have been the receipts if the tax rate had maintained versus what the actual receipts are so our general fund budget could have increased by $4.9 million um in excess of what it is today which could have funded other Council priorities that we were um not allowed to enact and when we talk about property tax what's important about that comment is that our property tax dollars are the key so today our entire dollar amount of property tax dollars the entire amount let's say it's 48 uh million billion a million dollars $48 million let's use that as a base of that we then take 5 million out of the sales tax dollars to add to that so your 48 + 5 is 53 plus the 2.4 we've added with the compensation that we've approved so that total number is what that right now funds property the property tax plus sales tax that funds Public Safety there a lot of public in

[1:05:59] there do you have the actual numbers for these so proper sorry property tax revenue in the general fund is $ 43.4 million coming in is revenue the expenditures did you ask for the expenditures for Public Safety well what I well yes3 million I want you to take the property tax dollars in our 23 projected numbers if you will in terms of property tax dollarss plus the dollar amount that's going to come out of sales tax to help fund the deficit there okay got plus the dollar amount we've just approved for additional Public Safety salaries that was in the was in the um okay so so we need to see what that total number is right now because that 2.4 was not in the base approv for the budget it's out there it is included in the slide that we're presenting now go through so the property tax dollars coming in is 4 $ 43.4 million as Revenue um the expenditures for Public Safety are 53.3 million including the 2.4 million that's just police and fire um so you are using $10 million of sales tax revenue to fund Public Safety is that what you're asking yes ma'am and of the uh sales tax dollars projected for 2324 budget what are the sales tax projections for that budget so we budgeted $23.1 million and of that you're using 10 million to fund public sa so you only have a balance of 13 correct right yes ma'am and that conversation that we had for police and fire was a beginning conversation it's not the final conversation in terms of the need and so you're already taking a look at dipping into and taking a significant part of the sales tax dollars to help pay for Public Safety that's correct yes and yet those those dollars are not

[1:08:02] adequate in conversation with what we need to do that is correct mayor I mean we need to really plan for that yeah so that conversation means that we have to find a way to find the revenue to continue to fund Public Safety where we aren't dipping $10 million into the sales tax number mayor that's imperative and thank you for pointing that out and that is one of the bigger challenges that we do face uh and I do want to emphasize that I know that the legis text legislation I know that the their intentional the tended purpose was of course was to reduce property tax revenues overall and I appla them for that effort but also know that that I we feel very handicapped that we have that it is a limitation it's 3 and a half% and unless you take that to the voters it stays at 3 and a half% well the city any City at at the very least with this Municipal cost index and that's the inflationary rate for any city is going to go up easily above 4% every year um and that's because of the cost of petroleum products go up the heavy equipment we purchase pretty much everything we buy right now it's very expensive it's definitely not a 4% increase as y'all have seen in some of the decisions you've made and and items you've approved so we're moving up as far as our costs and our expenditures by more than 4% sometimes at 5 or 6% but yet we're being limited to 3 and a half% uh by that that decision made by the state legislators so it is a challenge mayor absolutely it's something that's going to have to be looked at and how do we combat that and how would we come up how do we come up with a solution to really make sure that we're compensating at the level and you mentioned Public Safety yeah that's going to be an issue coming up this year as well that needs to be addressed well and and to further this conversation it goes this way so if you take a look at it and you say the following because we're capped at the 3.5% on existing in larger cities and cities surrounding us

[1:10:06] here they have a much larger growth in Economic Development as it relates to Commercial and Industrial Development in s Angelo Texas Tina what perc is the residential property tax to our total what right there and so what we see is we continue to have greater growth in our property tax dollars not only in new but existing on residential and the key to residential development which is what we have is the largest percentage compared to our surrounding communities is when they buy a new home they buy curtains they buy draperies they buy furniture all of which drives a sales tax line we wish we keep working towards more commercial development new commercial development to help fund the needs of this city but the growth continues to be dollar-wise in residential and that residential continues to drive the sales tax we got to keep that as a key Focus here residential is property tax in this city what's the residential dollar amount in the property tax versus commercial and Industrial Kimberly's going to look that up but you can see that the percentage of residential versus commercial and Industrial is growing ex 1% per year so even though we want and we've focused on trying to to grow the commercial industrial aspect the reality is the following it's residential it is that's our growth and we've got to keep that in Focus as we look at what we do to help support the residential development in this city because that is our growth we're going to keep talking about Economic Development and the importance of commercial and Industrial but the

[1:12:09] reality is the following residentials growing so the residential base is about 5.7 billion of our total valuation and maral is about 2 billion of our total valuation so that has to be a focus and we have to understand the importance of that residential because commercial doesn't happen overnight finding that commercial development that Industrial Development project to add to our our base is hard to find and the base is so large for residential it's going to take a lot to uptick that number good point continue Point okay so if there's no more discussion on revenues um we'll move on to expenditures well let's talk well we talked I mean we've talked about Public Safety we've talked about um uh what are the other issues as it related to sales tax dollars cuz that's there's that $10 million that we have there that has to cover everything else out of the general fund right yes ma' we'll talk about those obviously economic development is one of the ways to impact sales tax revenue um the only other way that we have that we can control would be to be less conservative on budgeting for sales tax instead of um budgeting for a 5% decrease from the current year we could kick that up to a 3% decrease from the current year that would provide additional sustainable Revenue to the general fund to fund other Council priorities um other than that again economic development is the key factor that and of course the meeting May for the DMO anything that tourism does to bring people to our community you can increase the sales tax revenues in that in that way also heads and beds and what have you but really that has a pretty good impact on sales tax revenue so it's

[1:14:12] not so it's not only tied to the residents of our community but also visitors to our community as well and that means that we've got to make sure the streets are in good working order cuz people evaluate your city and whether they want to come here live here or visit here is based off of our streets that's a key part but then it's the amenities do they come here because the river stage is a great outdoor facility do they come here because we have splash pads probably not because that's really residentials it's not tourism but we've got to make sure we look at the things that bring people here to spend their money if 51% of the sales tax revenue is from outside our city City so 40 49 49% is with citizens spending money here 51% is people coming into the city now remember that could be people coming in from Christoval from mson from Eden from Etc so that's outside our city limits if you will so we've got to make sure the things that people enjoy here are funded absolutely that's key so Brenda and Daniel let me ask yall a question do we and this may go back to Tina and Kimberly also um from some of that travels lot we have business Travelers that come here quite often are we charging what we're allowed to charge on hotel receipts for income and fees and things like that because I will look at certain cities and the number of fees and things that get charged to a business person traveling is considerably greater than what we have and I don't know what those are and you know I apologize for not knowing the maximum things you can charge but I I mean to people that travel on a business the majority of them are expensing that back to their business it's a cost and if that if you were able to take the number of business Travelers that come through St Angelo and add you know two to three to four dollars per stay per person I mean that that generates Revenue we have to look at things we can focus I don't even know if we maximize

[1:16:15] that or try to at all I have no idea so the 133% is the state regulated Hotel occupancy tax um but you can charge an additional I think it's 2% um but I think it has to be project related and it's called a I think it's called a venue tax is that right Teresa it is a venue tax yeah yeah and the question is that venue tax what can that spend what can you spend that money on because when we talk about the things that we have that can be Revenue generators um are things like the river stage just as an example but if you look at those hot tax monies are those hot tax monies available for venues like the riverstage to continually improve those facilities yes the the hot tax dollars are available for that type of um Improvement um I think Teresa they are but one thing but the venue tax specifically has to be related to a specific project the additional 2% a specific project with a specific debt issuance related to it it also has to be voted on by the citizens that's correct yeah to imp the venue tax you have that well it's fine you can but those are things you can do but those are the processes to well so we to throw something on the paper I say we need to implement a venue tax whether we dedicate it to the riverstage the Coliseum a park a splash pad we need to designate that just to pursue it and we can't leave 2% on the table if we can get it no me Center as well I mean hey we need more breakout rooms we need a bigger facility absolutely we have a lot of needs and so you know as we talk through this um and we talk about Economic Development and the things that we need to spend money on to keep driving the revenues we need a much further in-depth conversation about what those are and what we could expect from them because we need to drive Revenue well but and I I didn't mean to interrupt but

[1:18:18] but I think that the point of that is that's something that our citizens do not bear it's paid by the business traveler the majority that expense it and it's a way to you know create create some Revenue if we're going to focus on it that's somewhere we need to go and uh to add to that Tom it also takes the hus off of the uh residential property taxpayers the people that spend in here locally if our if again a sales tax revenues go up that actually eases up on those property tax rates as well so it's a good point to Tina's point a minute ago I think then it would be wise for us to seriously consider going to 3% um as the conservative number as opposed to five to get that additional Revenue in in the budget that we obviously do need now so I I I would encourage y'all to to look at that too when I think that we as we again we're so early on on this Pro on this conversation we're five months ahead of when we T typically sit down here and have this conversation so the question mark is trend line um the economy it's a president presal election year which generally the economy uh is a tough economy during the presidential election year so we want to be realistic in that sales projection whether it's 5% 3% or flat um we want to make sure uh we have a a realistic budget that we can can execute one of the greatest um budgeting Concepts that we have had over the past few years is the conservative budget and that means that that we've had money and the available to do things like we just did 2.4 million and um available as a lump sum to spend on Public Safety because we've planned conservative and those dollars have gone into what's it called our fund balance or fund balance because it's in the fund balance because we plan conservatively we had a chunk of money the more you plan I want to say real if it's

[1:20:22] realistic if that's what we're saying when you have issues that come up that chunk of money is not there Y and so you also want to make sure that you're not um hurting yourself by not having the ability to accumulate sums of money and that's a good point mayor but I would remind Council that that is a one-time funding source that is not sustainable and so therefore that will come out of marginal revenue going into the next budget cycle that's the reason I said when we take a look at Sal tax revenue you're already $7.5 million out of sales tax revenue to help fund Public Safety so again it was there we're lucky we had it because I'm not sure how we would have addressed the issue that needed to be addressed for Public Safety as it related to salaries but that has that won't go away and that 2.4 is spent now and I think that goes back to Tommy's point that if we push on sales tax a little harder that will help Shore up some of that shortage going into the next fiscal year uh I do want to point out though the responsibility fiscal responsibility this Council has had in administration as well is that for the longest time for the city of St Angelo the days in fund balance was around 75 days ideal number would be 90 days in fund balance we currently sit at 104 days of and found balance that's pretty is that with the 2.4 taken out yes ma'am that's that's to where at the 104 at this point so again that just goes to to to show just how responsible uh the city council City Administration has been in managing our our budget in a very conservative manner it's been a good strategy and it has worked for the sandbag has been helpful at the end of the year the sandbag has been helpful it's paid for a lot of projects right it has but you know there there's a point where we may have to yes rethink it rethink it so okay so moving on unless there's other comments questions statements to be made okay move on to development services

[1:22:27] fees so next we'll talk about expenses which include service levels Staffing Staffing and operational efficiencies um here's your uh chart that shows all funds with the expense by type including Personnel o andm capital and transfers out talk about when we talk about um property tax dollars and we talk about o and M Etc explain better explain that to everyone in terms of o and m versus the other statistics so this is all funds this is not just general fund but um in all funds there are personel o onm capital and transfers out type expenses um Personnel is pretty self-explanatory but on andm is related to things like maintenance utilities those ongoing contract um Professional Services those ongoing types of expenditures that departments need to operate um capital is usually related to smaller Capital items or technology um like laptops computers things like that and then transfers out is usually related to indirect costs and or transfers to a Debt Service fund or some other related fund to support that um th that fund's expenditures so general fund expens enses um include police fire General government other departments Public Works and public service and you can see those dollar amounts related to each there on the slide so the big question right now is that rain are we hearing rain outside we don't hear it that often so if anybody take a moment a moment of silence I I'm checking right now M I'm trying to figure out will somebody run outside real quick please come backet if you come back wet it's raining

[1:24:31] Chief Brody can you go look for rain since you're in the water department yeah it's Hush Hush Rick they think they call that a shower exactly so the main purpose of this slide is just to show what you know Services the the city provides that are funded by the general fund um and so in order to impact expenses we'd have to look at decreasing you know any expenditures that we currently provide for services um so just showing you know where those areas are and then go back to that one that's too fast okay so other department is what uh let's see do I have a list of that that's $12 million what does that cover okay so Municipal Court planning and development services neighborhood and family Services health and then transfers out for um supporting other funds such as Fort Concho cemetery and um for uh the sports complex and so Public Works is uh let me see Street and Bridge let me see here traffic operations um Street lighting engineering Waters in a separate fun separate fun oh thank you Kimberly and then let's see Public Service includes Parks the water lily Garden Recreation and the swimming pool so when we start talking about um fees Etc we'll want to take a look at the red ink Black Ink story on some of those things yes ma'am correct yes so I got a question here I'm if we look if we look at this mix Brenda Tina yes is this similar to other cities I mean is the

[1:26:32] ratio if this was a pie chart is our dedication to Public Safety and if we look at every little piece of this is the ratios that we spend very similar to other to other cities and you know this is not a today answer it's just something i' be curious about in the future if suddenly we look in what we spend in public works is 15% more than what other people spend right it'd be something it'd be great to look at just to see if we sit within the trend of cities that are doing it right that's a great question and in the last several years we've gotten away from using comp cities as a basis for you know looking at our service levels when it's not in our favor but any Longs we only have what we have but Daniel does have um an item on the agenda later in the conversation to talk about comp cities and whether we should include those in our in our research but we can definitely bring that back at another meeting well the one that flew up right here and it's going to throw in probably Shane or Patrick here in a minute there was some things that the state has kicked back to the city as far as maintenance that we mandates as unfunded mandat Street science there's some things certain places that we learn that oh by the way they don't do this and all the way now that they're making us take care of these certain specific rways that are State RightWay I mean there there are things that we've had to assume and take over the past six seven years to me that was like they didn't even tell us so on top of capping our property tax revenue yeah just a list of things that TI us off but long story short those things fall into that category and I don't know if there's a way to defend those or fight back and say no that's always been in your sandbox you keep it there so that's something we can discuss later but we we do have to assume those costs as they come absolutely well and we off you know as we do comps and evaluate what we do versus other cities we also have to take a look at what their revenues are it's one thing as a percentage but what were their sales tax increases what percent is their commercial and Industrial to the residential right one of the reasons we have the high property tax rate that we have although we have decreased it based

[1:28:34] off of the Mandate we have a much higher property tax rate than cities around us because their commercial industrial piece of their property tax dollars is a significant amount and we've done better in that in that uh as a matter of fact the UN abene finally caught up and we started actually getting a little bit lower as well so we've held our property tax rate for the longest time without increase inm for at least over a decade um so that's been a challenge in itself to make sure we stay within that but then now to have not just that but reduce it to three and a half below that uh the previous number is What's um kind of hurts really yeah and we actually have a slide later on in the presentation to discuss you know why we use comparable cities and what kind of bases we use to determine what Those comp cities are so we'll talk about that in a little bit too yeah that it's only good as we have the money and is we have um the debt our debt versus other cities debt and um we know that other cities have gone out for some major Bond elections over the past year so that becomes uh an issue as well how much debt are you willing to take on to fund whatever those issues are those priorities yes okay if we're ready to move on we'll um kick it over to Brian Kendrick director of HR to discuss Staffing levels and um ways we can improve there and and I really sorry um Brian Kendrick director of HR um I really just want to see what what do yall want to talk about so I'm here to really answer any questions uh I mean I can certainly speak as long as you want me to but uh I really want to be here to answer your questions as it relates to um the priorities well what I think we need to

[1:30:39] to do is really look at the holistic um picture of compensation we keep trying to do things to improve the compensation and I want to make sure that the things that we have approved over the past few years are inclusive and part of a pay schedule meaning the following regardless of where the money came from and regardless of whether we attached a dollar amount to it there are things that we have tried to do to improve the Personnel um mindset of working for the city of St Angelo for example this last budget session we added two more days of vacation those are nice things but what's the dollar value attached to that that's part of the compensation because we've done those things in lie of let's say a higher pay increase but what are they worth the same thing on um the pay of um longevity we've increased or we created a longevity program what are those words because the question mark is in the same thing we gave um correct if I'm wrong a seven point something percent increase two years a two years ago 7% uh yes two years ago but then we gave $2500 stifen so that although that cash was a part of the arpa money it was not part of the sales tax income line but that gave you know if you take that2 Point uh $2,500 for every employee times the number of employees we have that dollar value was what um you don't have to answer it's just I'm just putting it out and I think these are all really good points so so you got to use that as we did compensate

[1:32:43] higher than 7.3% is it in the base no but is cash it's money and I want us to be able to utilize those things that we have done to improve the morale of our of our employees but they do cost money and they were done to improve the morale of our employees did we do that was it perceived to be that is was it a negative because it wasn't in the base pay versus no a check and so all of that has to be taken into consideration in terms of a pay package what are we doing and what's worth more those two extra vacation days how did that feel was that a good morale thing that we did was the longevity pay a good morale thing does it solve the issue no absolutely not but what's okay worth more so um I mean I think those are all great points and I mean when you talk about a compensation package uh you're talking about benefits you're talking about you know all all the whole package is not just the salary and so uh as far as from a human resources perspective and I don't want to get too scattershot here but uh you know some people hear human resources and they don't really know really what that means so the heart of what we do uh the goal of that is to have the right people in the right places to provide service uh efficient services to our community that's what human resources does in government and the second component of that is if you have the right people in the right positions uh then they are creative about how you uh how you save money how you build in efficiencies how you um how you uh maybe expand Revenue opportunities and so having those people so that's that's the goal of everything we do and of course the compensation package is how we try to do that well I'm glad you bring all that up because one of the other key things that we've done I'm not sure all cities do it but

[1:34:46] healthc care is a major issue it's a major expense and we have as a council chosen to pay for all those increases when they've happened in terms of the cost of um Medical Care yes so um we we can talk through as much or as little of the benefits situation really what I wanted to kind of talk about is where we've been and and and kind of what we've seen especially as it relates to um to loyalty pay what you mentioned and um the siphons Loyalty sounds so much better than longevity doesn't it and I think I called it longevity that doesn't sound right loyalty pay it's it's perfectly fine everybody does that so uh loyalty loyalty pay that you mentioned and the stien so one of the things that we we looked at um really when when I took over leadership of HR was you know what are we doing at the bottom end how do we disproportionately affect that um but then of course we faced covid and um our vacancy rate you know went up and I think right at the end of Co we had and and I want to kind of walk through all that because I don't know if everybody is really clear about what we did and again it's it it this a test to our conservative nature in the leadership of um of our city government a a week or two before we had our first positive covid test in San Angelo how long ago does that seem that was oh my gosh forever ago now or yesterday depending on how you look at it um two weeks before that I I went to Daniel I said I think it's time for us to uh have a hiring freeze um and I I still think because if I knew if I knew now maybe what I knew then maybe we wouldn't have done it quite that way but knowing what I knew the information that was in front of me uh I was trying again to be conservative

[1:36:48] we didn't know what we were facing uh we had heard all of the stuff that was coming from like Italy and New York and and so we were trying to be conservative and and I I think that's good uh when we came out of that I think you'll remember when we had that budget uh the budget Workshop that year I think it was 2020 uh when we came out of the hiring freeze in August um I think we were having a budget hearing and I said you know our our vacancy rates at 10% we've had the hiring freeze I just don't know how those things are going to work out we haven't been off the hiring freeze for a long time which I think we discussed and so we kind of it was just a warning that we're starting to see that um over the next year if you'll remember by the August of the next year I came to you and said 18% was our vacancy rate which is sort of terrifying um and the things that we did over those two years the Loyalty pay addition and not only did that dis proportionately affect the bottom end which was good but it also is significant toward retention and stemming the flow of of losing folks so when we're facing that sort of a deficit as a vacancy rate um retaining who we have is very important because we need to build on it and not lose some of what we already have so that that was significant and and and we have heard nothing but positive feedback on the Loyalty pay program that that's that's money well spent um the the arpa money as well the stiens again those were retention efforts you know they were they were spread out during the course of that year to make sure people would stay to that next date to receive that so again um where I can point to that work not only did I hear anecdotally positive things about those things um where it has worked is we've seen that uh vacancy rate it was 18.39% first came to y'all or when I

[1:38:54] when I really sounded the alarm in August of 202 I think it was gosh it's hard to remember exactly how this all goes uh October of 22 it had shrunk to 16.75 that was uh loyalty I mean that loyalty had a significant Point part of that again uh January of the following year it was 15.86 April uh we saw it move to 14.7 one and all that to say now we've seen that to move it's just right over it's like 12.2% that's still like Daniel said still scary um but we have seen progress in that and and and we can't discount the fact that part of that is those efforts related to loyalty pay and to the the stipend uh of course that that stiens over now and so that's not going to have retention you know going forward but I think it did help us during in a a really tenuous time um in our history so all that to be say said of that 12.2% overall that includes seasonal and and part-time um I really wanted to kind of dig down and and it's 11.36% I don't know that I've necessarily given yall that number that's a full-time employees um so it's not life guards in that whole it's not that's that's just full-time employees and my my fear in that number just to kind of get into like an engineering sort of idea you know that if you know for anything no matter how well it's built this organization I think is a very good organization but no how no matter how well something's built the longer that there's stress on it the more chances there are of a failure um and that that's my concern is we still have eight full-timers trying to do nine full-timers jobs um and and I won't discount the the point that Karen made about leader you we have disproportionately affected the lower

[1:40:57] end and now we're starting to see really vacancy rates at at higher end positions which is also uh you know I I I know we're asking a very a huge amount from Shane as he's trying to run water utilities without the water utilities director or either one of the two assistant directors in that in that thing so those are some of the challenges that we have over all but but to answer the question those things were important and uh I think they did help us kind of make progress through that um but there's still progress that needs to be made um so I want to just because we are talking about leadership right now I I want to make sure that what we do do is um talk about the way Rick and Michael Dayne have stepped up um in their leadership role in the areas that they oversee to compensate for uh some of the vacancies yes that's that's a good point too we the strength of of those two individuals and the roles that they have have made a big difference in terms of are not feeling the pinch of the pinch of or the holes that exist the other thing that I think you see very often when you have some of leadership roles become available and you have a Rick or a Michael take on those positions is you start to see what is really needed because you're more engaged you're more involved you're handson and you see things differently than you do when your steps down in terms of of people there they've helped fill those holes I'm not saying they need to do that longterm but I do want to make sure that everyone understand that their position their leadership and those roles have provided to make sure that we don't have any hiccups along the way in terms of decisions that we're making uh progress that we're making they have stepped up

[1:43:01] and filled those holes they haven't left people same thing with Shane he's made sure that the strength is there and the other great thing that the city has done is that and Shane will say this I think is that by the nature that we've had some engineer engineer positions available Engineers very often have a very specific function in terms of what they look at the fact that we've been able to find Qualified consultants if you want to call them that or agents that are very specific in terms of what they do to fill the holes for engineers we can't even begin to hire enough Engineers to take care of the workload that's out there right now because of all the infrastructure projects that we have we have a lot of in infrastructure projects water streets Etc so we found a way to ensure that we're not limiting and stopping the work that needs to be done that doesn't mean we don't need to fill those leadership roles but I want to give credit to those individuals that have made sure the work continued to happen right in a very professional way and I think that's true that's a that's a good point um uh it kind of does sort of give us a focus on that that idea of we have eight people doing nine people's jobs and so what I would imagine is there are days that Michael or Rick leave or Shane leave on a Friday and they go boy I hope something didn't fall through the cracks this week because they're just uh it's a lot of stress um and uh you know again the longer there is stress in in anything the more chance there is going to be of a failure I know um you know all the regulations all the things that we deal with whether it's Financial regulations tcq benefits Human Resources those kind of things um they've gotten

[1:45:04] some of the time where Veronica and I leave on a Friday and go what do we miss you know I just I hope we're we're getting everything that's being thrown at us well I do want to say m that with Rick things definitely did fall through the cracks I can guarantee that Rick it's your fault again you messed up it's been see sweat for a little it's really a result of of the staff that we have working you have a ton of committed staff and I'm fortunate to work with a bunch of those and that's the reason but I think Brian is it is a good point you can only go so long without filling those because then things do start eventually it starts snowballing but we're blessed with wonderful committed people who actually make that happen not me and May thank you for pointing that out that's important because they really have gone above and beyond so thank you for pointing that out some of those positions too were they filled by the work that they would be able to do and things they would be able to catch would more than pay for their salaries I think that that that is true um one other thing I wanted to add in terms of an entire compensation package is that those are discussions that we have internally um with Daniel and obviously our office um when we know that you know funds are limited and so um as part of a you know something that's presented in the future to council those those might be part of that um we are researching all the time to see what um can keep us competitive aside from salary and what's out there that uh would be uh an appeal to Bringing people in well and I think part of that and it came up I believe at the last city council meeting it might have been the one before that is Automation and that we've got to make sure that part of the funding that we do pays for the upgrades that staff needs to keep current and if we don't fund those things particularly in the planning department if you will if we're not funding those upgrades that they need so we can reduce the workload on

[1:47:08] staff because the efficiency of automation that exists today so we want to make sure in the budget process that those issues are funded and and to take that pressure and the workload off of people we keep talking about all the things in the planning department that are now done online that are now uh approved online well that should reduce the amount of work or n number of people that we need is that happening and you don't have I'm just making the statement don't I'm so there there is a downward I think there's a downward um impact on on you know how much is is needed from manual you know entries or whatever from automating processes U but there's always an upward thing on you know the regulations that we find ourselves into so we're always just combating all of that but yes I think it's important that we look at our staffing levels really every year uh and just kind of well we want to make sure we don't postpone for two years a pro a program that planning really needs or somebody really needs to make their work successful correct sometimes those programs actually allow us time it doesn't necessarily mean we won't need the positions because our case loads have gone up those kind of things the other thing it does typically is provide more efficiency in the turnaround time so if it's having to go to 14 million different departments it allows that to happen without one staff person hand walking it around now it's going and you can see it online so it allows the permit to be issued quicker we just want to make sure we're investing in the infrastructure within the organization that's not streets and water but the infrastructure needed in the offices to efficiently do the work yes ma'am upgrades whatever they are new programs whatever they are we need that investment made that's part of I to say but part of infrastructure it's just internal not

[1:49:10] external and then to touch uh I think you mentioned insurance and and you know just to make sure we're everybody's clear on this city does spend a significant amount on on insurance the the the problem in inside of that is of course we have uh we have a population that we cover that a lot of other cities are not covering which is retirees prior to you know that were hired prior to uh certain to 2000 and we're happy to do that that was a good benefit back then that was probably good for retention and all those things so I'm not I'm not bashing that but that is part of that over overall expense so what we find is because we're subsidizing that uh the money that we spend um is you know some of it's going toward that so that our health benefit that we're actually offering employees is probably a little bit below average from what we hear from uh Holmes Murphy so um you know it is it's good to have a health plan but you know obviously we're carrying an additional burden inside of that and I think the city is putting s you know an appropriate amount of money toward it but you know we're trying to balance all that as well so that's that's also a struggle in you know when it comes to that it is all part of the package but it all has to be looked at right it all has to be looked at so I mean for instance when we had the city engineer position open um the primary reason we we lost uh the city engineer candidate that we were trying to get way back way back when when we first uh did the recruitment the primary reason was the health insurance was so much it it was it was lacking compared to what his current uh as an assistant city engineer somewhere else was so uh so yes that's part of the I mean everything is part of the package that we have to look at but uh I mean we're needy people I guess Brian let me ask let me go down a

[1:51:13] different path this just came into my brain even with strides that we've made the last three years in our in our uh increases in compensation how many how many folks either a percentage of the workforce or number uh either one how many of our folks still use snap we we used to call it food stamps how many folks do we still have that do that we we don't track that uh I mean obviously we have some that would be eligible um for that but I we don't track that um what we do track is is uh employees working additional jobs and I can tell you that um a good point year after year uh I would I would probably say as far as a percentage a good 10 to 15% of our employees are working have to work have to work another job yeah and I couldn't tell you if some of that is desire or need um but it definitely happens but I sign off on every one of those and I I would tell you that's a great point because uh what I've seen is the first couple of years I didn't sign off on this nearly as many of those as I have the last three years so um yeah I mean we we have again it's it's just there's a lot of needs before us and and I certainly don't value the hard decisions that youall have to make well the needs have also come because inflation has really hurt the household income because it's very hard to keep up with what the not this year because we're down to 3.5 or 3.4% inflation now but when you had the dramatic increase in um food cost Etc inflation it's hard to keep up with it and everybody's suffered from the inflationary impact of U food U it's just one item and there's multiple items within that may yes ma'am mayor oh yes sir let's take a break yeah I've had that

[1:53:16] request over here but what I was trying to do is just finish their convers before we moved on and took a break so that was all I was trying to do I I do have um before me uh I've taken a look at of course back in 2007 again I try to give some history to this back in 2007 uh city council was looking at compensation and uh they hired a group called public sector Consultants um spent a significant amount of money for that survey um or that that work that they did to to to look at our overall Compensation Plan and one of the things they brought back was that sister cities I think I've heard a little bit of discussion about that I do have some information about that we had 13 back then um personally I would recommend if if we if we were to go back to that or or uh you know change that somewhat whatever we want to do um I would say that we probably should add College Station to that list they are very similar when it comes to uh ation Revenue organizational structure of their City their median income it's a college town their commutes are the I mean they are very very similar to us uh and I know that that's what they were looking for in those other 13 but since then College Station has become pretty I think you need to add a c I think you need to take away and then probably add because we've got to take Midland and Odessa out of there they're they're absolutely off the chart as it relates to compensation because the oil do business dramatically changes every city so I think you got to take Midland Odessa out of those 13 cities I think you should add what you just said but I think you could probably find another city like college Hills that might be a good comp City to look at and that's up to you what those cities are but two years ago I think it was you did this excellent um analysis of cities that were 100,000 popul

[1:55:20] cities I forget all the criteria that you use but population was definitely one of them we we looked at from 50 to 150 in Texas so we made it much more broad the difficult is how long that takes uh our staff to to complete that sort of thing because we're looking at so many cities but yes um it was very insightful U the things that it told us and then the other thing that I looked at that year was um looking at those cities their revenue per capita so that we could have some way to gauge where we should be um and you know what I found is is actually not that much different from what we paid the Consultants to tell us way back in 2008 uh when they got done with that study uh which is that we our our at least initial goal needs to be 91 92% competitive um and so that's well that analysis was is for me one of the best analysis that were done and again we are data driven we are data driven believe we are and and again have we must take Midland Odessa out of there because they're the ones who check mark and totally change the statistics we need other cities added College Hills is a great one you can go through that list of those cities trying to focus mostly on 100,000 population and mayor we actually have um a topic on the agenda where we're going to give some ideas Council on what we should consider um when we choose our cop cities and the ways in which we use you know that information to gauge how we're doing in comparison with other cities too so definitely that's something we'll talk about sure that analysis that you did that I guess it was two years ago was really good and I think you know whatever time it took you know I'm not big in hiring Consultants to do studies but that analysis that you did uh was good and the thought process was good thank you I appreciate that we worked

[1:57:24] hard at it it was good and I think it it was just really good um is there any other questions that you well I don't think so because I think taking a break seems to be the priority right now so if that concludes we're going to take a break right now okay give us 12 minutes oh yes well we've been talking about the employees that are leaking but we're also considering some increase in Staffing positions too do you have any rough numbers on what the what you're hearing from different departments about uh Personnel they're going to need to gain um well okay so historically we've we've struggled with that I mean again we have so many needs um and it's kind of hard to talk about what we need we do need to keep it in mind it's hard to talk about what we need to add until we fill what we currently have um and yes I mean there there are ones that that need it I mean honestly one of the things that I would say just before we go to break if I can have just a few minutes one of the it depends on these kids in terms of whether they really can wait any longer I can wait till after break I can wait for my answer okay we're going to wait for that answer we'll be we'll take a 12 minute break or something like that sounds good um before we move on and I'm not even sure on this agenda to where we're at but before we move on Brian I'd like to just a couple of things that I'd like to add to that conversation you can sit you don't need to move these are just okay come on up one of the key focuses on economic development has been Workforce Development and because we talk about the number of vas V vacancies that we have um what I want to make sure we have the opportunity to do is to uh connect with ASU and our school system as it relates to working for

[1:59:30] cities or government jobs within the city because what we have here are we have great people who've chosen to either do school here or work here or live here how many of them are aware of our needs a career path how do we put out out there a real positive have you considered this as your career and your future what opportunities are there because we can't wait for people to come to us and we need to make sure we are aggressively going out there and saying we got a job for you we've got a place for you let us help you because it's all about Outreach more than anything else like I said I can talk as long as as long as you have so I know time is precious so I don't want to over my welcome but you know part of that deine we've seen in in um vacancy rate is based on you know we've kind of reshift some of the uh some of the things that we do in HR and we have uh Kesha who works in our office and she is uh very interactive in all those you know all those times opportunities that she gets to talk about you know when they have their work fairs and job fairs and those kind of things she's always in contact with all those folks to be there to answer questions to talk about the positions we have open and so that that is one of the components of you know trying to drag down this this vacancy rate over time I think career path is a big topic of conversation and we know um Nationwide government jobs are a large percentage of the total Workforce and we that and we want to make sure career path it's not just a job it's a career path and it's a broad category of potential job categories whether it's in Mis whether it's in Human Resources whether it's in engineering um I know um the the best value you will ever get

[2:01:36] an employee is the one who's living here already yes absolutely and so that that brings up a a really good point so one of the things that I've uh driven as far as as we've as we've looked at our Str at our structure at our pay at titles and grades uh and you can talk to many directors where I've had this conversation we really need career paths inside of these places and so we've talked about uh and we've created several job families throughout the organization where you know you start off as as as you know maybe budget analyst for example uh and then you can move to budget analyst 2 down the road so you don't leave for something else you actually grow then you become budget analyst three then maybe you have an opportunity to be budget manager maybe assistant director and so that's part of our organizational development and succession planning we're we're in the middle of that obviously that that is an area we have an opportunity we have to do much much more because you're right what we can grow from inside is always going to be better than and maybe not better but it's always going to be more efficient than trying to recruit from the outside and that's not knowing that history that job history on for that person and our surrounding communities because we have you know people like there's something great about this community and living here and and and we want to make sure people know they can grow here you don't have to leave and I want career path not jobs I'm not interested in jobs right no I'm interested in career 100% with you there are a couple of career fairs that we do already participate in at the high school level um Kesha and and some of our other staff are there um you know we get um through ASU they have their engineering program they have a specific career fair for that as well and we're we're at that also so we do stay in touch within the community to see what's available where we can highlight those careers as well that's key to me it's the best value you will get in an employee is someone who's already embraced us if it's free we'll take two so we're always doing those kind of

[2:03:40] things those opportunities uh any lwh hanging fruit we're we've picked that pretty dry uh so yeah we're we're we're definitely all about it and the I think you know more job families throughout the organization is probably better um so so we're always looking at that where we have those opportunities and and you know we're not that way we're retaining folks long term because the job you know the first goal get somebody where they're here for five years because if they're here for five years they're vested in tmrs that means something agree uh and then you know we get them a little bit further so everything that we try to structure whether it was a loyalty pay or anything anything we're trying to structure uh we're trying to structure toward keeping people long term because there's just a value in that uh I mean I can't tell you I know I've told you that a hundred times uh in the past but getting you know talking Veronica to come back to this organization with the with the skill set that she had and the uh just the the the knowledge that she had about the organization it's it's it's so necessary and so we we need that everywhere we can have it and we need to grow folks from within uh and we need to provide those opportunities so we're all about it the reality is we can say this all day long but our ability to really attract someone who lives in Austin today and is that young career path that they're on to get them to come to S Angelo it's not going to happen it's hard and we need to be realistic about that and understand where the market is for potential employes cuz getting them from Dallas Fort Worth probably not going to happen getting them from Austin probably not going to happen getting them from Houston probably not going to happen and we can talk all day long about the quality of life that we have here in St Angelo but when you're early on in your career path yeah and and that that goes back to one of uh Karen's points as well that uh you know leadership is so important because that's how we Foster that kind of growth um and so yeah I mean we need to be all about these things because

[2:05:43] recruitment recruiting Statewide or even region wide or Nation wide is not the business we want to be in uh it's expensive to do recruitments it's uh I mean I would rather grow our people pay our people keep our people it's it's cheaper it's more efficient and they know more about our organization so and our city yeah and our yeah and they're invested in our community and that's you know that kind of goes back to when I was when I was City Clerk and we had the leadership St Angelo and I would speak one of the things I would always say is you know people look at government a certain way right they look at federal government government uh and at times Federal Federal Government Can overreach we we know that uh state government at times can do that but we're local government we are your neighbors we're community members we shop at the same grocery stores as you our kids go to school together we live across the street we are you uh and so trying to to make sure people see that both on both sides that we're part of our community and everything we do to serve our community matters well and remember we are um the same jobs that we need to fill are the same jobs every company in St Angelo needs to fill y because one of the conversations that Shane and Jeremy I think and whoever was in the room were talking about um CDL Drivers one of the greatest needs across the city the state whatever is CDL Drivers and so one of the people from uh ree Albert said we get so mad every time Michael Looney uh brings up the subject he's recruited another trucking company to St Angelo because when you recruit a new trucking company to St Angelo they all come to Reese Albert to hire their employees and then Shane says Yeah but whenever you do and you you hire our employees so we got this little tight market for certain jobs and we're all competing for the same people and we need to understand that some of the competition that we have for the jobs that we need to fill are the privately

[2:07:47] owned company within the city y absolutely yeah and I think as you know this being part of your strategic goals um will allow us an opportunity to come back and provide you an entire compensation package that um can hopefully make us competitive so it's not just about what happens in College Station it's about what happens in the private companies within the city abs like I said we we are data driven so you if you have any source of data I I mean I think Tommy shared something with me this week he said would you want this I said yeah absolutely send it to me more data is always good now some of you know there's some things that are that are outliers and we look for those but uh you know I'm all about the data so Brian you you might consider calling the City of Ulus I have a a a good friend with whom I went to high school that started with the City of Ulus right after we graduated from high school and he retired he went all the way up through the ranks um he retired as city manager so um they have something going on in the City of Ulus because he never worked anywhere else um so I would assume they may have a a best practices that you could at least pick their brain and see how they do one of their best practices is growth they've had growth they've had increases they've had tremendous increase in population in development they're an outlier of the Dallas Fort Worth area and they have benefited from that in a major way yeah that's that's a good point as well though the succession planning can't be outside of our scope of what we're what we're thinking we've got to develop our own folks uh we've got to give them opportunities to promote um opportunities to prove themselves throughout the organization I mean I'm a you know I've done that in this organization so I want make sure that opportunity is available for everybody and we just got to locate those folks they're here we got to locate our next water utilities director you know our next city manager we we've got to be looking for those folks so

[2:09:51] okay now maybe we're through with you okay okay thank you very much I don't know where I'm at on this agenda so somebody tell me where we're at operational efficiencies is that correct that's correct operational efficiencies who's on I'm on mayor okay are you operations no I'm not but this is more looking at ways that we can make improvements streamline um some of our services that we provide things like that um to alleviate pressure on general fund expenditures and so just kind of putting that out there as another type of way that we could decrease other types of expenditures within the general fund to free up money for other Council priorities so I don't if you want to have some discussion on that we can if not well I think you need to get more specific because that's a big bullet point there but what are you talking about specifically May some the some of the conversations for example we all know that the biggest expense is employees right some of the conversations that's been had is of course if if pay is a certain level that you can actually recruit people that come in you have the best people working for you uh you may not have you may not need the five individuals that are working uh a certain area certain field you may need four people the four four the better paid people four the best people we possibly have in those positions so we have to take a look at from an oper operational standpoint the biggest expense that we have is Staff how do we make that more efficient you know uh do we require five individuals because they're just not as as good as uh the four that you would pay a little bit higher and actually would come in with better skills or you know so those are the type of things we have to take a look at it's going to be efficiencies across the whole across the board uh but of course employees is going to be one of them but it's other efficiencies you talked about that a while ago Mar you talked about the automation you talked about the software and and Hardware that we can actually acquire to make staff more efficient there's different things that we can be doing to make sure that we can actually reduce our expenditures in that area we just wanted to put it up as something to Le City Council Members though that we are looking at this uh

[2:11:53] very very closely we have in the past don't get me wrong but especially now that we have those those hiccups or those challenges with the we talked about the 3 and a half% limitation we have a lot of things that we have to get accomplished and we have to take a much much closer dive and look into all of this and see what we can do to really reduce some of those expenditures to the subject we talked about earlier about the number of facilities that we operate in the city of s Angelo that other cities don't operate yes ma'am so that would be one topic of conversation so we need to have at one of the Nick meetings that laundry list of what those facilities are what the options for those facilities are whether it's a private public partnership or whether it's still going to have to stay under the umbrella of the city's oversight or looking for partners to help us run on it um absolutely right there are we mentioned it before some wonderful private Public Partnerships we don't have enough of them and part of that reason is because we don't have a lot of large corporations in this city and so it's the entrepreneurial group of people in this city that are running their own businesses that are stepping up and helping to fund some of these want lists that aren't need must have need to have but want list things that we have and what are they where can we look for some Partnerships and how do we reach out to the public to say this is one of your pet projects you're passionate about it um what do you think about what we've got to get creative in that area and I know we have the ability to but we got to get creative yes ma'am we definitely agree with that as well so those are very good points and yes we did present several years back to previous Council uh a list of those services that we do provide to determine whether are those Services again you just said it mayor can they be passed on to a nonprofit or somebody that could

[2:13:55] actually do it better why are we running that service so there's a lot of questions that need to be asked uh to determine those efficiencies but you're yeah you're right as far as your your overiew okay so with that moving on to other funding sources one the rolling debt so the rolling debt is a oh sorry on then I turned it off sorry um so that's a strategy to finance equipment replacement um type needs um in in order to free up general fund funding for other Council priorities um Vince uh Val our um financial adviser came and talked to youall last budget cycle about how that would work and that would um be basically a debt issue every other year um and it would uh serve capacity and perpetuity as far as what Vince has told us and so just just throwing out another idea for freeing up funding for other things and um we have I think it would free up about $2 million per year in the general fund if we did Implement a program like that so we have one right now that we have implemented and that rolling debt I believe is the $1.6 million we've invested in the animal shelter is that correct we have um issued two short-term notes so far and and that's kind of a placeholder for something like this program um the first debt issue went for the traffic signal at Twin Mountain Lane I believe as well is $1.6 million for the animal shelter the second one which reminds me we will want an update on where we're at on that $1.6 million on the animal shelter time way TimeWise what's happening with it and then number two the benefits of it because we've we've put the debt out there to support it we haven't seen the benefit and the end result of what it's done to improve the facility and help with the animal shelter thing so we're we're going to need an update on that okay and then the second short-term debt issue um went for some streets projects I think Patrick was well it was a big project overlay in

[2:15:57] chadburn yes well the number one Grant we've ever received is the one we approved funding for at last city council meeting which is singularly the largest and that came about first of all because of the work that they did but the grant writer that we had to write it and it ended up producing one of the best packages we've ever rece received and we need to take that information and make sure we use it for other grant opportunities because we'll never come up with that $30 million any other way other than through grants based off of revenues yes Karen just a comment because it's a it's the correct moment to insert this Patrick and uh Shane are excellent at their job at understanding what's needed but the addition of the grant writer is perfect evidence of investing in a specialist or a leader and how that pays for itself so just wanted to underscore that thank you so you both stole my thunder on my next bullet point we'll take it back no that's that's kind of what the next bullet point was about is that the the impact that that grant writer had on the organization and um how much um good it did for the community so but I also go ahead go ahead finish can she work in other areas besides right now she's strictly in doing Public Works types grants well the largest yes the larg is not sharing but the largest grants that are out there are infrastructure grants that's bottom line correct but the other thing I want to bring up about that because it's very key and it's one of the reasons we voted like we did meeting ago for the additional $10 million that they need for matching the matching grants required for that and that is we had available money for the matching Grant piece of it to a large degree because applying for these grants is one

[2:17:59] thing but they all have matching monies obligated to make them happen and what we have had available are those funds because we can't come up with the money nope we can't receive the the grant you got to have skin in the game May the game so we got to keep that in mind as we go through this planning process is don't strip us of the skin we need for the game we play okay don't take it away that's our key takeway don't don't take the scallop to it so let me ask it's just point of clarification for me we're talking about the grant writer is that person available to other departments or do is that person solely I the number of infrastructure grants that are available under Public Works keeps her pretty busy and I believe they're looking at about 35 different grants uh that that quite frankly that we're targeting really and that's where she would best be served actually so yeah and that's the and the m is correct if somebody else has a potential possibility for a grant to whom would they go that person depends on area that that grants for is it for Park whatever it's for we would look within that structure to say how do we do it that director manager would be the project manager SLG grant writer in any other department at this point in time we've just written them ourselves yeah okay we we put a group together yeah two three four people who brainstorm about it and how best to go about it like the one you recently saw we were trying to get River Bank stabilization and the trails and the urban we uh heard back from that one we did didn't receive it Sandra was able to coordinate just this week a followup with them which took an effort to try to get them to commit to that to ask okay how can we alter ours if you have another round to make so we do that as best we can within the

[2:20:01] Departments and just like the police department they have their own specialist that can actually uh apply for those grants as well and we just approved um last meeting I think again to Grants for the fire department and the police department uh for some State funds if I'm not mistaken so everyone's looking at it it is those increased revenues that we need to make sure we get these projects taken care of okay is that it Tina on that lastly yes that's it no I just meant on that okay yes ma'am so the last two slides that I have for you um are related to the comparable cities that we discussed earlier I told you we'd have a a more in-depth discussion on that um later on in the presentation so um we use comparable cities for a lot of things um um within within internally as far as staff goes um we use them for fee reviews sales tax Trends property tax base and rate the org chart and Reporting structure FTE counts and service levels and then employee pay um and so it's important for us to I mean with any other um business or organization you would fail yourself if you're not looking at what other businesses in your competitive market are doing right so it's similar to that and that we have to look at what our other cities are doing that are similar to us in nature um um and for that reason we would like to have a discussion of what city council thinks makes sense as far as comp cities mayor you mentioned College Station earlier certainly I mentioned did Karen support that yeah and I mentioned that to Karen and Larry the other day when I met with them as well um I think that's a good comp City I think this list of um amenities or you know whatever however you want to call that factors related to cities is a good way to think about how we compare with other cities and so just wanted to throw those ideas out there have some discussion and kind of come up with a A list that makes sense well one of the reasons that uh witch Falls because everybody always looks at it and goes why did why are you comparing it to witch Falls well Alvin knew added that

[2:22:03] to the mix because of the following things there 100,000 population approximately they have a military base their rule they have I mean many of the things that that wial falls has is comparable to s it's not just about Regional because we can't compare ourselves to middle and Odessa it's ridiculous to even have them in the mix um so I think abene is also similar in that way yeah you know population University U military base um perhaps Colleen um they also have a military base so just I what whatever y'all think I think this is a good opportunity to discuss what makes sense for us to actually compare with so and we're not asking for you to give us cities I going to say cuz don't we haven't done our homework it's it's our job to do the homework kind this list is forced to kind of generate some thought um give you some ideas on what what we should consider when looking at that and maybe come back at another meeting and talk about what makes sense well I think we should absolutely and I think the things that you have here are very important um I think the the elements that are missing here are issues that U are have been very inclusive in the housing study that was done and those are the the things that we have to keep in mind when we're talking about housing in this city what's the average median income what's what does someone pay for one bedroom or two-bedroom apartment what percent of that goes into their cost of housing you we always for me Quality of Life starts with number one thing the door you walk through when you come home at night it's that door door is it an apartment is it a townhouse is it a duplex is it a brand new house is it a remodeled house housing is the biggest quality of life factor that will ever impact your Workforce and we've got to keep a focus on housing that's why I want the housing study but beyond all other studies done

[2:24:06] first because that's how we get Workforce that's where comp in uh pay comes into play it's what people can afford it's what what the mix of our city is composed of how does our median income compared to these cities that we're going to select okay key is income We'll add that to the list yes ma'am we got to study that that's how we determine how the the housing market determines the house that they choose to build the project that they choose to build out is what is the market what can the market afford what's the price point they want what do they want within that price point you know we are up here having opinions about things which is great but the people who have their boots on the ground who work with our population day in and day out to provide what they want tell us more about our community than any of us up here can tell you because that's their living that's their livelihood they're the real estate market what does the real estate market tell us that housing study is key we got to get it updated and I I don't and correct me on this because I kind of forget but the city didn't pay for that housing study I think we paid for it initially and then were compensated back through and that went through econom coad DC or whatever and I think Michael Looney at some point has even said that maybe the economic development people could come up with some funding that housing study has got to be a key priority above any other study that we do and they go through Co DC that's what I thought but we need to to focus on that are we are we the city city council do we understand what the public wants quality of life that front door they

[2:26:10] walk through are we building those or we not can't build them because the of building is uh reached at such a point that we're not delivering what we should be delivering because the cost of whatever it is land prices permits Commodities whatever it is what do we do to ensure again what was the percent of the residential property tax dollars compared to everything else it's 70% 69% 67 I think it was yeah correct okay so that's large MH we got to remember that because sales tax dollars are driven by home buyers they just are they buy all those things TVs appliances curtains Furniture you know we women who have to you know if you change up the carpet in the room you got to buy all those other new things that go with it right you can't just paint the wall true so it's expensive yeah so let's keep in mind that let's not get off base here and and think we can do certain things that are going to have a negative impact on what happens in this city that front door is key whether it's a home a duplex an apartment a town home and then to Karen's point about the um study it will tell us if we need to relook at some Market areas and say we need more uh duplexes in tow houses we need more zero lot lines we need what does that housing market tell us we need to do before we do a comprehensive plan get comprehensive plan should reflect a housing study and the zoning that goes with that absolutely so let's keep you know that focus in line with the end goal here not to over complicate but would a housing study also include

[2:28:15] um the adjunctive desires of potential Property Owners side no it really what it really does and what it did do Karen was it said here's what you currently have here is the hole that exists in terms of need and so it's a combination of visiting with Realtors with property I mean developers um what they're finding but it really importantly talked about here's the income in this City here's the price of what percentage of that income goes towards an apartment a mortgage all of that stuff it gives you that forecast in terms of what is existing and what the need for development going forward is and that's how people then made some decisions if you will over this past year about building some duplexes building some tow houses um more zero lot line properties if you will U the importance of the backyard relative to the front yard I mean things that are hugely important to providing quality of life so we can ask to have inclusive you talked about the yard so it does imply that those other things are issues so for example Lucy decides to buy a zero lot line property in her retirement or whatever um she's already enjoying that does Lucy want to buy the property that has a sidewalk or no sidewalk does she want the property that has a tree or no tree um because those will factor into decisions you buy a house you ask those questions you direct the realtor to to say don't show me a property unless it has a mature tree or whatever I mean it just is a fact of life so those are quality of life issues and you basically pointed at it when you called out the yard you know do we want a yard or no yard well number one and I'm not the Builder and I'm not the developer but I think most people start with I want about this much

[2:30:17] square footage I need this many bedrooms I need this many bathrooms I want an open floor plan I don't want an open floor plan I want you know the number one thing people look for I think are bedrooms and bathrooms how many bedrooms do I need how many bathrooms do I want um how much square footage do I want now once those things are established what else can I get for the money I have to spend and decisions are made about whether I want to be cheer tree a backyard a front yard based off I only have this amount of money to spend what does it buy me in this Marketplace no tree yeah just saying mayor Lucy is all about the sidewalks by the way one sidewalk in particularly not about sidewalks one in particular whole city only one okay so um those are the things that we really must study what is the average income in this city compared to these other cities I don't know cuz dollars speak dollars spend we got to understand that yes okay that's it that concludes the agenda I believe uh the big uh item out there is the set date for followup for Workshop I would say not before the end of April beginning of May because this meeting is four months earlier than we've ever had before how about mayor um instead of deciding right now let me bring it back for the next city council meeting and then we can have the discussion there so okay that be fine okay perfect with that I guess I need a motion for adjournment although we haven't done much motion making so maybe we don't need a motion for adjournment we'll just adjourn we still so okay so Mo so seconded everybody thank you everyone for your time and

[2:32:19] patience for my verbage thank you may

Captured 2026-07-26 · source: youtube.com/watch?v=0W4a71KYges