San Angelo City Council budget workshop 7-16-24

[0:00:00] we are calling the meeting back to order at 11:45 a.m. on this July the 16th we will move into our budget Workshop general fund agenda our regular agenda comments regarding items on the regular agenda may be made by the public when each item is discussed as outlined above applicants proponents and appellants are exempt from the time limit above and instead must limit their remarks to less than 5 minutes item a is discuss of matters regarding the fiscal year 2024 2025 budget preparation including but not limited to one general fund revenue and expenditures and two other items needing Council direction as made by Tina derki we are now open and ready to go thank you mayor Tina Dari Director of Finance um we're going to start off the discussion today with the discussion over Hotel occupancy tax as you're aware um sack Act is dissolving and so future funding for those organizations that were receiving subg grants from them will now be at the direction of city council um we've invited each of the directors of the four core uh recipients as well as a couple of other recipients um to be here today in case you have questions or would like to understand what they do with those funds or how they plan to use them in the future perfect the uh amounts on the slide are what they received most recently as subg grants from sack um and so just kind of as a starting place for discussion the miscellaneous allocations um down at the bottom is just a plug to show that we do have currently budgeted and earmarked in the hotel tax budget that $75,000 that would have gone to saak okay so we'll start with Angelo Civic Theater are you here to make any comments if so please come forward good afternoon everyone my name is Paula shell and I am the

[0:02:02] executive director for Angelo Civic Theater um thank you so much for having me today I'll try to be brief um I've been the executive director since October of last year um and in nonprofit management for over 20 years um I love act Angelo Civic Theater we are the oldest Community Theater in the state group in the state of Texas um Tracing Our Roots back to 1885 Fort Concho and we're very very proud of that we are also very proud of the fact that we are surviving what the country is experiencing in Community Theaters which is a postco delayed response um one in four theaters across the country um Community Theaters are shutting their doors whether that's temporary um or for good um we've experienced that here with our dear friends at be theater um and although we are convinced and and um encouraging them to to re um Phoenix From the Ashes um the issue right now is that theaters Community Theaters are suffering but they're very very important um the Hallmark of a healthy Community things like um our streets like our Police Department our good schools all of those hospitals um an active city council those are all Hallmarks of a healthy community and so is a robust Arts community and um Community Theater is what we do best we put on six mainstage shows a year and we're increasing that um along with some um special events during the year we um revive the magical dinner which ASU put on for many many years we had our inaugural event last year and we'll continue that on as the years come um but we are also occupying at 1936 Sherwood Way a very old building uh the parkway um Theater which is not a historic building but in the minds of of

[0:04:06] St Angelo and it it certainly is it is after it's been there for x amount of years and you qualify so okay let's talk um that building is um both a beauty and um sometimes the bane of my existence um with different repairs I need to be done um air conditioning you got to keep them cool to get in there um you know or or sewer Plumbing all of that is something that is a constant constant concern um and a constant cost for us but we continue on and right now we just uh started production of best little whouse in Texas which um is our next mainstage production we had 39 auditioners last night um and we anticipate that over two to three weekends of that show um we will see approximately 200 um visitors a night um either to see the shows over three weekends um and that could be from in town out of town so we bring Community together we bring people into our community we are a part of what makes this a wonderful place to live um okay money we looking at the budget I have no idea how act and some of these other organizations have um done what they do for the community with the um the funding that is available and that is shrinking I think at one point um through the the hot funds we were receiving almost $20,000 and this last year is 14 Which is less than one month operating expenses for us so we would definitely like to keep it at this level um or at the we'd ask for more we'd ask for for 20 if we could um and the investment is 6,000 people we estimate that come through our doors whether that is to see a show or to um volunteer and uh we

[0:06:12] thank you for your support thank you very much any questions questions from anybody no thank you thank you ballet s Angelo good afternoon thank you for waiting both of you you've gone through a lot today already thank you well thank you mayor and council members for the service that you do and all the hours you spend in here to keep our city running um my name is Susan Kenny and I'm the development director of ballet St Angelo our artistic director Aaron Lane is in Colorado finishing the last portion of her in-person um graduate degree in dance education so I get the opportunity to be with you um and I hope to tell you a little bit about who the ballet is today you may have an idea about it when it was formed in 8 uh 18 1983 uh to be a seasonal organization just to give the city a nutcracker um we've grown how do I change here we go to our work today um dance education you can imagine uh beautiful children at the bar in our Studios yes that is happening what you might not imagine um is boys club that is booming um adult classes also senior work our senior dance work during the Pandemic those were our largest numbers um next month we're invited by our training base in New York it's called Dance for PD we will be at the enrollment event at um this convention center representing dance for PD for United healthc Care um for a national

[0:08:15] reti program so that's a real success story for us it started with six dancers in one studio now we're in four locations in town and I have a class at two so um okay so dance education Outreach and by Outreach I mean tuition assistance we do away with any income barriers to study um uh with kids from creative movement up through the pre-professional levels um also we do something called sharing dance day which we have partnered with you guys on and that is a public health initiative modeled after a program in Canada that is Nationwide in Canada we've directed it toward the S Angelo Independent School District next this coming fall we will be in all the fourth grade on every Fourth Grade Campus working with kids with coreography and it will culminate into a show where they are the performers at the brooken bat theater um we heard them and they said they want it to be on stage uh they've participated in different ways so we're excited about this and we're looking at the intersection of mathematics and dance um and we have two mathem ician on staff um that work at ASU and so we're excited about this hybrid hybrid learning um okay Outreach health and fitness lots of research about why you should be dancing um and the latest research we participated in a conference in Montreal on neuroscience and dance and um crazy enough dancing of course naturally brings a lot of physical and mental benefits but also even watching Dance um releases important chemicals in your brain that uh balance your mood and improve your health so um okay original Productions we are a bit of a dance laboratory everything that we put on stage has been created uh

[0:10:19] it's new works uh we have side yes we're laughing about our inabilities yeah no no no we can we can work on that um our Productions our costuming department I just want to touch on this um tutos I don't know how many of you know how to make a tutu but it's a bit of a lost art we make all of ours inhouse our costume director last week was um is was in New York working with the school uh I'm sorry New York City ballet tutu maker um the costumes that are casts have on stage have Fabrics from all over the world they're customade they're not um ordered out of a catalog so we're really proud of that um yes okay next slide okay our impact I've passed a report to you to show you my numbers to show you my data sources um this past year we reached 4,925 people um a lot of that is through sharing dance and through our collaborations in town um along with our Productions and programs and in Outreach work uh 4,461 of those are youth 1,955 are people living with disabilities our audience reflects our our audience and our students reflect the racial demographics of our city and the reason why that's that's important of of course is that is the litmus test as to whether you're accessible and whether you have an inviting um environment so uh that is important to us we employ 17 Arts professionals three full-time 14 part-time like myself um and it's and we hire an additional 51 artists from Orchestra musicians do

[0:12:24] lighting design um backstage crew professional answers okay okay to numbers I know this is what you care about um I have tried to demonstrate our growing ability to attract the cultural tourist um thanks to seac and to their ticketing system we have good information that we can examine each year and in 2007 uh we were unable to collect that but we've grown from 16 to 22 to 24 is what I'm showing you and then there are two numbers that I like to look at it's just sort of fun to think about uh the towns and the states that are represented on our ticket by our roster um it's steadily grown 95 towns uh were represented this past year and 24 States um the hotel the ballet books and pays for 53 Hotel nights um during last year that was our count and our estimated Patron number was 383 um but the most important thing to see here is that we are H we have a growing ability to do that this is our goal we're trying to um celebrate the city and bring us forward with the Arts okay our hot a little snapshot of the hot funding um I've taken this same years and shown what we received and our operating expenses and what percentage that is and like Paulette mentioned um we are so grateful that you are looking at continuing hot funding after sacak uh but we would really love consideration for growth of that it we had 12.4% in 2007 as you see and then it's

[0:14:30] gone down in 22 it was 2.7 um and this lands a really large percentage of our operating budget on grants and individual donors and it's a heavy untenable burden so um to be the vital ballet that the city deserves we would really like for consideration of of a greater percentage okay any questions on that no good information okay great oh this is just a graphic uh I had fun with the cities there are all our ticker buyers and the cities marked on the map next um and there's the nation probably good fellow gave us a little boost there but but they're a part of the community yeah yes okay Outreach I'd like to end with two uh slides on Outreach we are a collab cator with some key players in town um Angelo State University there are two departments that we have a more formal collaboration with one is the health science department and our um artistic director is she'll be publishing her thesis um she's working with Dr yo in the Health Sciences um science department and it's her project is called cross training of effects the impact of ballet instruction on flag football players performance and physical attributes um and they are using all the fabulous equipment at ASU measuring all of the nuances in the body um and ASU Health Sciences has also studied Point work um we've worked together on the Parkinson's work um so that's one collaboration another is the the College of Engineering uh engineering department uh they re-engineered a mother Ginger after our

[0:16:34] Grandam took a tumble in 2021 and um so a group of students designed created and presented to us and then it it was a project that got to go directly on stage and they saw it in Action a lot of fun to work with those engineering students so um a couple others I'd like to add here the autism Alliance we work with on every performance um we have an adapted performance with lower lighting and lower sound and it is free to them the night before we open to the public um another is Boys and Girls Club we just finished a workshop with boys and girls club um very successful high energy ended up with a production for them and put them on stage at Brooks and Bates and free to all of them so we're working really hard to be welcoming accessible place that is um utilized by more and more people okay yeah the last is the joy of movement which I have already touched on but um this is a real success story for us our training is uh Parkinson's based and the program is called Dance for PD in New York and uh all of the instructors in St Angelo have been directly trained by the founder in New York work who speaks worldwide on on Parkinson's um we have a broad application and we work with all seniors straight up senior Fitness surgery recovery we've worked everything ALS stroke all of the rest we have a lot of attendance in four locations now and um uh yeah and we work on as as it says strength flexibility balance social connection which is a huge part social connection Joy creativity and confidence which is all what your dancing can do

[0:18:38] for you thank you very much thank you very much great presentation thank you oh and one book I'll leave with you we published a book in the last year and um it's a celebration of our community we uh put a call out to the public to send us photos even off your iPhone of places you love in St Angelo and we curated them and we worked with the dance photographer and we uh paired them with photos with the body evoking the place so I'll leave these with you thank you thank you s Angel Broadway Academy okay this s Angel Symphony hello my name is Courtney mafy and I am with the S Angelo Symphony I've been with the symphony for 13 years and I've been their executive director and I'm now their development director uh that oversees still all of the finances and the day-to-day operations of the organization what I've provided you all today is um kind of a look at what we do with hot funds that we've received from 2017 to present um in this little snapshot it's going to show you what our artist expenses are overall uh highlighting what we spend on Orchestra hotel as well as guest artist Hotel uh when you look a little bit further down you're going to see marketing expenses and it shows what we have spent uh throughout those different seasons um and then below that we'll show the funds that we received from sack act from 2017 to present as well as

[0:20:42] what our total operating expenses are to best understand what percentage of that money is actually uh used towards hotel and marketing uh we're a little bit different because uh the symphony itself we've been here for 75 5 years um our organization has a professional Orchestra uh often times people think that it's all local members that are in the orchestra but we actually have to bring in 75% of our musicians from the Metroplex area and so what that means is is that we use the hot funds that we received to go directly back into the hotel that we put our musicians in and not only that it goes for our guest artists that we bring in we use funding that is given to us from sacak to go right back into the hotels additionally if you look at the marketing expenses we use it directly to Market all over the state and all over the country um I didn't prepare for you all what the symphony does outside of the concert hall but we do a number of things that are educational programs as well as special events what I think important here at least on our end of this discussion is best understanding how move forward with a consistent formula so that we can work with you all to request what we think is adequate for our organization to continue to maintain what we do at the caliber that we do using the funding specifically for hotel motel use as well as marketing use which is what the statute claims to be for um we do receive and you can see in this that we've received anywhere from um $25,000 up to to almost $35,000 over the years uh recently in the past two seasons it's been a little bit lower what we've received from sack it's been around 24,000 um we are asking for 40,000 if that is a possibility um we're also prepared to work with you all to be able

[0:22:47] to come up with some type of formula to show exactly how it is that we're spending the funds so that you know that they're being spent responsibly um and would like the opportunity to discuss it further if there is a chance to do that so that Arts you know groups know how to approach you all in a better way to uh make these types of presentations um do you all have any questions about the information that's in front of you no I think what we want to do is to make uh the public very well aware that uh our Our intention is not to make dramatic changes in terms of this hot tax money that has been allocated um uh because uh sack act has gone away we're not going to be in a position of changing we want to just be consistent with what's been done um this year and does not mean that there won't be changes going forward but this year we're sticking with what's been done right so um and determining how we manage it going forward will that be then a point where arts groups will come back again next year to make another presentation fing I think that we'll have a better plan in terms of what we're going to do but we're just trying to move forward and do what has been done and be consistent so people know where they're at for this next year's budget okay okay well our presentation shows I think exactly what we do with the funds and why we're asking for more funds um based on what our our our budget is and like I said what we actually put back into the community it's directly related to what the statute is um we appreciate being able to come up here we know you guys are busy um and we appreciate you still supporting the Arts and the way that you all do and being interested in a dialogue uh because moving forward it's essential to how we're all going to continue to thrive so thank you thank you and just to be clear with it no

[0:24:49] you're good you're good Courtney uh the miscellaneous allocations are dollars that have been given out to organizations over the last year the years before but some of those organizations have changed new ones have emerged and they apply for Grants within that allocation so there have been various organizations every year that might apply for that all right so cono Christmas Lee Lee fluger thank you very much for uh receiving me today I didn't realize we were on the list for our U typically contro Christmas had been receiving $2,500 a year um so I guess you can put this back into the fund and uh I believe this is the art side uh our our goal that we started 30 years ago starting this it's all private we have about 300 volunteers and we have about four staff people that run it uh We've our mission 1994 was to to create an image for Downtown St Angelo that was a result of the rudat which many of you were involved in at the time and uh so what we wanted to do was to create a a signature event for our community that could draw attention to our downtown and uh our committee feels like by this time 30 years later and if you see what downtown has done with the help of the mayor particularly uh has U has accomplished that mission and so we think we're at in terms of

[0:26:53] that mission we are finished so we will Hiatus for next year uh or we want to offer the opportunity for economic tourism because there's a there's a great amount of Tourism right now that's being developed for our community with this this event I don't know how much of the data that I gave you uh I gave you about seven years worth of data you know let's be clear with Lee is this when we want him to talk about the future or just the $2500 because he's kind of got a dual role in today's meeting so let's if you do we want him to do the whole presentation on cono Christmas right now or I'll come back I just didn't know no I just but you're here so I'm just asking that's entirely up to you we kind of had this as a placeholder in case you wanted to get into that discussion right now but no let's go ahead so you don't have to come back you can go through always enjoy being here with you so just do your whole presentation now so so um uh what the committee would like to off offer for the city this has been a been a private as I say a private all to nearly totally now yall have been our sponsored 2500 and some some ink kind stuff U but basically this has been a a private operation for 30 years but in order to have longevity for this if the economic development part of it is important to the community uh as you all see it uh we want to offer the infrastructure we have which is about a half million dollar worth of scenes etc etc as well as a a very solid plan on how to operate this it runs about $200,000 a year to put it on and U and those are just straight expenses obviously I put a lot of pro bono in it with my staff but but documented we're we're at about $180 $200,000 and so

[0:28:58] the longevity for the community would be an organization that had depth had security and had Financial uh ability to carry it Forward uh and again we want to offer that uh and if in a transition we want to offer that to the community and to the board to to the council to take that over and start running it as a public operation many many communities um about the state do have some sort of Christmas celebration that bring in hundreds of thousands of people we get we get about 75,000 people a year in terms of your room tax which is dedicated to U economic tourism uh we have about 15,000 cars that go through again how much of this data you have hopefully you had have it all through my other deal but for the community we had about 15,000 cars a year go through of that we get responses the mall is given $1,000 shopping spree and so about 30% of the people that come through fill out a a uh survey to win this shopping spree of those about 300 right now we're running about 300 room nights uh from not room nights people who stay in hotels that go through about 300 a year uh through season uh in Prior years prior to covid uh we were doing 7 to 800 of surveys so those are documented if you if you calculate that based on um a full U number 15 15,000 instead of the 5,000 we receive that'd be about a th000 room nights is what this brings to our community and because our event is in

[0:31:01] the in the evening we get a lot of people coming in for dinner and uh and to stay U if not overnight but U to uh have dinner and then go to go to the light tour and you're all familiar with it I mean for 30 years we've all been raised with it basically um don't know where I would go from there in terms of of where your heart is is and what you want to do in terms of our community and making that available to the Future Generations but it will take good leadership it's going to take financial responsibility and it's going to take U that Foundation that basically right now only the city U is capable in my mind's eye to supply love to work with you on it if that's what you'd want to do otherwise we will uh we'll close it down I think without a doubt there's huge want to continue do we have all the details worked out in terms of how we do it how we move forward no it's a big task to take on but it's an important task and I can't imagine anybody wanting not to move forward and make it a continuing part of this community it's too important and it we would be aiss if we couldn't figure it out we can figure it out it won't be um easy cuz you've had this up for 30 years so you know all the ups the Downs the ins and outs and you can smell what's wrong before anybody else knows there's something wrong but we need to continue and your leadership and guidance to helping us get that done would be greatly appreciated uh we will lean on you for a lot of things in terms of tell us about this tell us about that it's one thing to read it it's another to understand it sure so um don't have the answers today we do know that this $2500 is certainly

[0:33:05] approved but we know that that's just a little tiny bit right of what this is going to take and so we haven't got that information all figured out but um I think now is the appropriate time to thank you for your leadership and getting this done for 30 years and improving our community because of it and certainly the citizens have loved every minute of it so thank you so much for all of that thank you very much anything you need me to do let me know thank you Bob blueart afternoon mayor councel this $2500 Act actually represents a subgrant that the fort's been privileged to received since 1989 for period music and entertainment at the Christmas at Old Fort Concho event uh which has been going on for 42 years we match that money and more actually more than match it we spend about $47,500 a year on creating the Christmas event and period entertainment Native American dancers and storytellers string bands and the like are huge external attraction that make the event uh worth visiting and the visitors come from all over the state and the nation we have statistics from the last 15 years that have unwaveringly shown that between 25 and 30% of the guests come from outside of Tom Green County which is a state definition of a tourist visit um $2500 is not a huge amount of money but it's something that we've been able to leverage and use over the years to help develop the event and we appreciate your consideration and I'm here to answer any

[0:35:09] questions you may have thank you for what you do thank you for contining to keep the fort up and running and looking as good as it's looking right now we have a lot of help in that thank you mayor you're welcome okay Tina so I guess for this item our goal would be um to get direction on if or how to move forward with funding these organizations um whether that's approving some amount today and we go forward and work um directly with them on agreements or arrangements or if you want it to come back at some future date my personal opinion is that we uh I think I stated it earlier be consistent with what's happened in the past that that there's no hiccups so I think the $75,000 remains and is allocated appropriately whether you use one year or two years average to come up with that um they obviously applied for these grants um before and there was a process so a lot of the information presented today is part of the information that was processed before in order to get the money but they need I think we need to make sure they understand we're willing to support this the miscellaneous allocations came from some other Grant applic which we need to figure that out um but we need to move forward and fund these organizations um and make sure they know they have this money and did you did you propose to use the exact same amounts or around to the nearest 5,000 such as 15,000 10,000 25,000 or well what I would say is the following is that this was last years I'd really like a two-year average not a single year because we don't know but on the other hand you have the $7 7,872 at the end that was allocated to other

[0:37:11] organizations and I don't know if we're ready to open that up for people to apply for that money yes ma'am I don't think we're at that point I think with those smaller organizations um according to Mark Stevenson those were more Project based and they would come as needed cor so I think we could still allow those organizations to if city council were to allow them on to an agenda item they could come and talk about their projects or request funding from hot and we could fund it from there but I think we reserve that money as a part of that $775,000 that's my preference so I don't want I want these organizations to continue they're too important to the overall cultural experience in St Angelo and they have consistently received hot tax money so I don't think we want to interrupt that is my opinion just just a thought to something the mayor said and then something you said Tina would it be possible to take two round up to the next even, uh out of the miscellaneous allocation since if I understood that correctly that those were Project based yes they were and yes I think that would be okay based on the amount that was a lot of that $7,800 it wouldn't eat up all of that anyway but even if it did there's still plenty of capacity in the hotel tax fund for those smaller projects so be my my suggestion I guess to the council let's just round 15,000 15,000 10,000 25,000 3,000 3,000 that that'd be my suggestion I just like to make sure we have like a twoe average because everybody's comparing this year to last year whatever so I think to go on one year only is a little I think you need to look at a two-year average on these dollars and then if you want to round up round up but take a two-year average and part of the reason some of these organizations receive less is is there have been new organizations that were added to this like sapac so I do have that um information in front of me

[0:39:14] for the last two years and even with averaging it would be about the same amount for each of those four cores we're good just as long as we know that that's appro to the nearest thousand yeah okay thank you ma'am that's what I needed okay okay moving on to the general fund part of the discussion revenues expenditures and of course other considerations um we'll start off by talking about um the appraisal district of course they set the property tax valuations the three taxing entities the city county and School District set the rates that's intentionally separated um so this year um I've talked to Tyler Johnson this morning our chief appraiser he expects to get certified values to us the 23rd or 24th of this month of course his deadline is the 25th so we may get them a little early this year um once we get those we'll work through truth and Taxation calculations and then send the first newspaper notification by August 1st first so um we will not have an opportunity to come back to city council before we have to publish a tax rate so it's important that we get some Direction coming out of this meeting on how you want us to go about that and so which we can do but we also can call an emergency meeting at some point if we need to do it so it's not like there can't be another meeting if there's further questions or additional information needed but we know you have a deadline and we know you need to move forward on on us making decisions to accomplish the goals yes ma'am yes ma'am so uh moving on to property tax challenges of course you're aware of the 3 and a half% revenue cap that has been set by the state where the property tax revenue cannot increase more than 3 and a half% in any one year without going to the voters for property tax rate election uh the medical

[0:41:17] exemption changes this came about through the state legislation is effective this year um that is related to um exempt it EXs equipment that's used in manufacturing of medical supplies from property taxation um that is solely related to ethicon for us they're the only ones that applied for this exemption and that will remove $116 million from our tax rols and valuations the 116 in evaluation but what's the dollar impact on our property tax about $830,000 the circuit breaker cap is a 20% cap on properties valued at $5 million or less uh that results in a property tax valuation loss of $127 million on the tax roll um at about $900,000 loss in property tax revenue um again those two are new um legislation that are effective this year um so we can thank the state for those um we're also limited by say that a little louder I mean yeah um we of course by the over 6 65 free you're well aware of that but most cities don't have that enacted um that's usually a state um freeze for school districts and then the nonprofit exemptions of course related to properties being removed from the tax rols as nonprofits buy them and how many what's the dollar valuation on the nonprofit exemptions I talked to Tyler about that the last um significant one was when Shannon purchased the community um Hospital properties and that removed about 300 ,000 from our tax revenue base okay so with so Tyler gave us um updated estimates on July 8th and with those uh current estimates we're looking at a 2.1% increase in existing property values in new values we're down about

[0:43:21] 21.8% from last year last year we had $118 million in new values this year 92 million and then the ti values look like they're going to be up about 5.8% for a total um increase of 3.3% would you go back I'm not through R oh yes ma'am so the final property certified valuation from 24 7672 299 621 right and so your uh estimation for this year's budget preparation is the the 3.3% increase which Falls underneath the 3.5% were allowed correct but really when you're talking about that mayor let me just point out the new valuations are not capped as you know so that line right that's not capped this is capped so we're Below on existing values by 2.1% and we have the option ra.5 in in the numbers that the state the 3.5 that the state enforces do we take the ti values away first or last or is it inclus or is it even calculated into the the 3.5% they're included in the three and A2 so the tiers at the highest level not the lower level that goes into the tiers fund or the dollars I'm sorry the dollars that go into the the ti so the amount that the ti receives would be included in their three and a half% so that included with this but it takes it out of your hands in terms of available

[0:45:23] funds sorry yep you're correct that's all just yes ma'am it's taken out of the usable dollars limits our ability to generate Revenue in the general fund yeah so sales tax was down for July by 4 and a half% um compared with the same month last year we did have a couple of large audit adjustments this month um without those they the it would still have been down but it would have been down by 78% instead of the 4 and a half year to date where um collections are over the prior year by . 66% and we're over our Revenue budget by almost $1.5 million but that's from conservative planning not from actual so and if you take a look at the prior year I think our total increase in the prior year for sales tax was like under 2% as well I'm sorry what was the question for the prior year yeah so looking at trend line this year we're at 1.66% increase over the previous year yes yes and 2022 sl23 but actual the sales increase actual was we'll have to pull that up I don't have that on the top of my head so I think the point being the following conservative planning has worked for us and gives you a more optimistic point of view as it relates to um the economy but bottom line is sales tax only is at at 1.66% increase it's only up 1.66% which is not necessarily what you call a healthy trending economy it's only up 1.66% is that right they're looking up that number that you

[0:47:29] requested if yeah I'll holler it out when they get it it's okay okay um the next slide shows the chart just showing the FY 24 projected year end we are still proposing a budget that is less than that um at 3% less than expected actual collections so you're saying that the budget is planned at what percent 3% less than what we expect to receive by year end and of course we'll update that in August and September as well if in case there are any gains or losses with those months oops sorry which would be last year we planned it 5% so you're plan you're projecting for this budget year 3% yes ma'am and Kimberly looked up that number she says it looks like it was about 4% last year that we had growth um okay so this next slide shows property tax where we are with current valuations again we know those could change when I did talk to Tyler this morning I asked him if there was a chance that it could decrease he said not likely if anything it may increase a little he's pretty conservative on the numbers he gives us this earlier in the year um so with those current existing valuations um property tax will increase by $1.4 million sales tax at the 3% less than expected actuals almost a million dollar increase alcohol and bingo tax not much change there about $21,000 increase franchise tax is decreasing that's mostly due to television and TV franchise fees and which is an amazing number yeah we're we're projecting um Telephone to be down about $52,000 this year and TV to be down about $128,000 this year and then charges for services that is mostly due to the implementation of planning and permit fees that were approved and directed by city council back in 2019 um we started that first

[0:49:31] year with those fees in 2020 uh we took a couple years off for covid and now we're in year three of that plan that Council directed back in 2019 and when do we discuss those because I'd asked that we specifically have the ability to go through those um increases so and when we discussed that we said this would probably be the place for that because since they don't they don't have any requ M to come back separately to city council they're just included in the budget now um this would be the opportunity for that discussion okay so is Charlie here to do that Sal tax is 23 oh sorry they were looking at different years so sales tax for 2023 was up 9% 2022 was up 4% good afternoon mayor um I see if I can answer the questions um as you know we've been working through that I think it's a 5year cycle maybe this is the last year and I could be wrong with that either it's a CLE yes and we were directed we took onethird of the fees at a time and we were directed to bring the first set to 100% over a three-year period then the second set and then the third set so we're in that cycle with this is the first round of the third set of fees that we're on right now yes and looking at our chart of fees particularly for permits and inspections this will get most of our fees up to that between 96% and 100% cost of service there are still some that are lagging behind that I believe we're going to still be

[0:51:33] working on over the next year uh to get those closer to the 100% Mark the planning fees they were kind of separate from that original three-year plan we had really talked mainly the permits and inspections and so some of those fees um we have gone back and done a recalculation of what our costs of service are and some of those fees we have adjusted of course U um bringing those up to more in line of what that would cover our cost of service and that's my concern because when we say and said we want to a third a third and a third but the problem with that is assuming X stays X but X didn't stay X because cost of operation increased yes ma'am so for example where the first year it might have raised the fee I'll make these are madeup numbers they're not real numbers 25% but because the cost of operations increased significantly the next increase could have been a 40% increase in that fee and that's what I'm interested in understanding is it sounded great when we did it and approved it in 2019 but a lot of Dynamics have changed and so are we looking at and that's the reason I want to be very specific about the permits is are we now looking at a very high percent increase in order to meet that ordinance language that might not have been well thought through at the time well when we had those discussions initially I think the goal of city council was to get to 100% of the cost of service for all of those because for that Community is a part of doing business and otherwise we're subsidizing that service through the taxpayer dollar I know all of that I remember all of that but the idea was that by doing it a third a third and a third if you will and spreading it out over three years you would basically be saying that you would have the same percent increase every year on that

[0:53:37] three-year window and the question mark is what is the percent increase when you're looking at these um now because of the cost of is cost of op it's one thing if you take X from the first year and said every year it's going to increase $50 but because the cost of your operation went up did that cost of that permit exceed let's say 30% increase did it go up 50% so so that's what I'm asking yes so we do re-evaluate re-evaluate those cost calculators every year before we move to that next level so there will be fees that may decrease and there also will be fees that may decrease did I say that right increase and decrease yeah so I mean it's it's whatever it is and I think that's why Council directed The 3367 100% because we knew that would fluctuate in change over the years and so we would re-evaluate and get to that next level that's the reason I'm asking the question yes ma'am trying to evaluate it because it's one thing when you approve it and create an ordinance it's another when you move into reality and was what was thought through and created in 2019 do we like the reality of what it says to Us in 20242 that's what I'm asking and the answer might be yes but I want to understand it so looking at the percent increase of each of these line items they're up and down but I would say the majority of them are um closer to the 30% increase or higher than below that if if that brings any Clarity while there are some line items there that are zero there are some line items that went down there are some line items like this is a um a mechanical vent Hood so commercial vent Hood in a commercial kitchen the permit used to be

[0:55:40] $60 the permit is going to go to $100 so a dollar increase of $40 with that being a 67% increase in the these are the issues that I'm trying to bring up and so for that commercial hood system while it probably costs 10 to $15,000 to the contractor and the the ENT the permit fee is going from $60 to $100 so the expense of it is pretty significant and I get the fact only the person who's asking for the permit is the one paying the prize I mean I get that on the other hand I want to make sure we're realistic because the other thing we've done is create I mean I was just uh told by my office that hey here we come go again we're at that one year thing so here comes the backflow thing again inspection inspection program yes ma'am you know we've had added some new fees on top of this so um Jonathan just looked at the list that we looked at this year we we evaluated 36 36 fees this year and of those only three increased more than 30% the one that Aaron just mentioned happened to be one of those three and that's what I just want to make sure I don't want to in this process be ignorant to the fact that what was approved I say this again what was approved in 2019 in reality is it accomplishing or creating any additional undue expense because here's the deal we need our businesses to be successful we need at the end of the day for them to be able to make a nickel and if we keep in increasing their fees the bottom line is less for those people and so we keep taking out of the hands of the economy that is driving the sales tax and paying the property tax but the business owners are making less because we're

[0:57:45] increasing the cost of their operation and that's what I I'm just trying to make sure that we're you know we're not biting the hand of the person paying for this stuff and at at the end of the day that'll be y'all's decision I we we did some Contracting out recently for planning uh reviews because we're short-handed and we're going to do that and and the cost of that is very expensive the rate at which the city actually does the work is way cheaper um so in this case it's up to y'all if you want to subsidize more then that's your choice what we were charged to do is bring those fees back that would cover themselves and and I get it I looking at want a thorough conversation about I understand the challenge I understand why you did it and I understand why we started in 2019 with a program of doing this over a period of time I just want to make sure we're aware that we keep adding more cost burdens to the business owners of this city who help generate the numbers we're looking at at some point we can't be creating undue burden on the business community and I just want to make sure we're not doing that that's all I'm asking because if you're in the business of building something and all of a sudden your permits go up by whatever percent we're asking that person to make less money or we're putting the burden on them pricing their product at the same point in time we're trying to create affordable housing but it's hard to do that whatever affordable housing is because we keep putting more pressure on their bottom line and I just want to make sure we're realistic about that and I get it the person only the person applying for that permit is paying for that permit but see it's not that simple because that goes into the cost of doing business yes ma'am M and all we want to do is collect the cost of service that's

[0:59:47] it no more than that just the amount that we calculated is the cost for that service and that's what we want to do we definitely don't want to stick it to the to the business owners or anybody else we just want to collect that amount I will say that we are getting close closer to closing that Gap um we looked at the planning revenues and expense planning and permit revenue and expense today and we're now uh at a $600,000 difference between revenue and expense so we are getting closer to where we're at that 100% and we'll start seeing minimal increases you know over time and that's the key yes ma'am that was the strategy I just want to know where we're on on that process because we need our businesses to carry the entire burden we need them and in a tough economy you really need them yes sir I remember when we went back and did that and the whole point was it if it whoever Bears its development but if if the city subsidizing it we're all paying for it so right I think number one what we want to understand is there's no surprises and I think by what we're looking at there's no surprises that are going to jump out and hit anybody but I do think as these things develop I have a building and I've looked at the permits and the fees for the the heating the air conditioning and the approvals for the inspection nothing's going to be surprised it's more than it is but they had a couple years off where we didn't do anything so I agree with you let's make sure there's no surprises but I don't want this on the burden of the taxpayers either let's keep it where it should be and be fair I think about that but well that's all you know my whole point is we approved an ordinance in 2019 we understand that we just need to make sure that we still like that thing we approved in 2019 when a lot of Dynamics have changed in this economy and in the world are we still happy with it that's all I'm asking so to your point yes I agree right me we've eaten 20 30% price increases since 19 up to 24 that's right so you know as long as there's no surprises I'm in support of let's let's take the steps to where it's

[1:01:50] fair but don't make it over because if it's over it's attacks but let's be fair and roll yeah it it it also we we're talking about general fund budget today this also has a very direct impact on our general fund budget if we're having to subsidize from the general fund budget to your point so I'm going to have to agree with that what I think I heard Tom saying let's let's stay on the path we're on um of getting to the cost of service so that we can help take the burden off of our general fund which uh what we''ve we've lost 1.7 million just in two items that you brought up to us earlier with things coming off the tax roll so I I would say stay on the path we're on and that can be re rechanged anytime all that ordinance all we have to do is bring that ordinance back up and red discuss it if it becomes an undue burden and we feel like it's not being fair to the development Community just need to stay on top of it okay yes ma'am and then um other on that line is mostly increases due to projections in interest income move on to expenditures for the general fund um I'll start out with the administration line You'll see that's decreasing by $680,000 that will be offset through all of these lines up above that um we are moving Our IT department they were half in general fund half in their own internal service fund we're moving them out of general fund completely into the internal service fund where it makes more sense so that's just just an uh administrative like Finance type change um Public Safety is up $3 million that mostly due to the raises that were granted on January 1st that was about $2.4 million of that another $300,000 is related to overtime um Daniel directed additional overtime for the police department of $172,000 based on raises that have been given in the past few years and $126,000 for the fire department's

[1:03:54] overtime um as as well and can you give and that includes benefits on top of the overtime okay can you give us a last year's percent of the general fund expenditures what part does Public Safety make up as a percentage of it versus last year or perhaps the year before because at one point I know we were 56% of the general fund went towards public SA safety I think that was last year that it was 56% this year you'll see on uh two slides from now that it is now 60% of the general fund budget yes that's Public Safety in total um the rest of the the lines here are um in addition to the it um being moved out of this fund they have the the as we discussed at the Enterprise funds charges and increases related to the TM tmrs and workers cooperates so that's the bulk of the changes in most of these lines the transfers out you'll see that decrease of 2. almost $3 million and that on the next slide shows a breakout of what's included with that that includes um the equipment replacement that we were transferring out of general fund um that is now covered under the RO debt program same with the fire truck that 250 uh um that we were transferring out per year Debt Service we're proposing to decrease that debt service was related to um debt that was issued for the fire training center several years back our ins fund now has the capacity to cover that so we're proposing to eliminate that transfer out and then just minor changes for Fairmount and Fort Concho and here's that slide you requested mayor or that you referenced a

[1:05:56] few minutes ago so that just shows that um go back property tax represents 48% of the general fund budget other taxes at 34% charges for service represent 11% of general fund revenues and then at the bottom Public Safety represents 60% of the expenditures Public Works 13 % and then other admin and transfers included there as well okay so what this slide shows us that of the property tax dollars that we receive 100% of that goes towards Public Safety yes and then some and then how much out of your sales tax dollars $9.2 million so 9.2 million out of sales tax dollars plus all of our property tax dollars and what was the dollar amount that came that was was in the sales tax column the year before I want to say we looked it was $7 million $7.5 million so you've gone 7.5 to 9.2 is that correct I'm sorry mayor they were talking to that's okay so we went from 7.5 to 9.2 out of sales tax dollars to cover our Public Safety which is police and fire yes so with the 9.2 coming out of sales tax dollars the sales tax dollars projected for the 2425 budget are is what let me go back to that just one second I know it's on this but I'm going through mine might be easier for me I want to say 24 Mill ion but yeah just over you were asking about the sales tax

[1:07:59] projected budget just over 24 million 24, 91,000 so the 24, 91,000 9.2 million is coming out for Public Safety leaving um the balance to cover all the expense and overhead of the rest of okay yeah Lucy you had a question I just have a question I'm a little confused here so the public safety 60% of the property tax comes out of that general fund oh all of the property tax plus 9.2 million of sales tax so if you combine those two things that equals this that equals 60% yeah okay got it yeah so in real numbers the 60% is about $54 million and the 48% is about 45 million so the difference between those is the 9 million 9.2 million okay okay and we were sorry no go ahead I just wanted to ask so last year it was 7.5 yes and this year it's 9.2 yes ma'am Okay Okay so we've kind of talked about this already uh included in the budget presented for you today is uh fire department and police department overtime increases which include benefits and then the biannual debt is issue for um other needs and other projects as directed by city council general fund Revenue over

[1:10:04] expenditure this is what we call marginal revenue with current valuations um we are looking at a just under $2 million increase in marginal revenue Street infrastructure fund this is the 0.006 cent of the tax rate that y'all directed us to allocate to a street infrastructure fund a few years ago um by year end this fund will have built up to around 2.4 million okay and so these are some requests that we've had from departments um coming into this budget cycle uh we have identified funding sources for some of them and so Public Safety radio infrastructure you saw that in the short-term debt issue earlier today fire station land Chief Brody's requesting about $400,000 to be allocated give or take depending on what he's able to find um animal shelter $232,000 Council has approved that uh project in the past that's the temporary shelter um so uh and I forgot to mention these most of this is being funded through um you'll recall back during covid the city uh had a non- congregate shelter program well after fighting after Finance fought with FEMA for 4 years we finally received that $737 $337,000 and so we're proposing to use it for some of these smaller projects that need funding sources um dispatch flooring and furniture at an estimate of about $200,000 and a second ambulance at $250,000 we've also had requests from Chief Brody and Ryan Kramer for fir Tru and Equipment replacement increases and so those are um up for Council discussion and Direction either now or in the future a couple questions I have I thought I understood and I probably am wrong that we on an annual basis put money away to help pay for future fire

[1:12:09] trucks yes fire trucks is the $250,000 a year and that is part of the Rolling debt program that y'all approved earlier um in the regular agenda meeting um Chief Brody is asking for funds in addition to that and that's the same thing on the fire station land we have put away on an ongoing basis if I'm not mistaken to buy the land but we don't so that that I no we had proceeds in the past that we've kept ear marked but it's not nearly enough for what he needs um I don't know if he wants to come up and speak to that oh looks like he does good morning Council chief bro so uh we do not have a cash flow situation for um saving up money for future fire station development I do have a small little nest egg that we've been carrying over year after year from what's a small little Nest Egg about 170 which is not near enough actually so uh cell of fire station number five which was on Garfield and the cell of fire station number seven the old stations that was just right off of nicker Bacher those proceeds were put into an account and been very stingy using that money for some fire station improvements over the years knowing that we're going to have a future need for fire station land and development and build so not a whole lot of funding there so the firet truck allocation the 250,000 that was established and of course this rolling debt is going to replace that in the future but we do not have one for fire station replacement okay so of the Rolling debt you're saying the rolling debt piece is covered in which of these items are covered under the rolling debt none of them the $1.5 million is covered under the additional capacity what on this list is already covered

[1:14:11] someplace else that's why I guess I should be out these are all we have proposed funding sources for all of these except for the last two so we've cover we've found ways to cover the first five the last two would be up for your discussion as I mentioned in the regular agenda we have an additional $732,000 of capacity in that rolling debt slsh shortterm debt issue if you wanted to allocate some of that here or if you wanted to wait and see what your priorities were for that money you could do that as well I think we should complete the process before we make a vote on how to allocate that that so because we're not through with the discussion so let's ma'am let's say it's up there for discussion it's not a closed subject but it's not going to be decided on this slide absolutely that works for us yes ma'am okay any other questions about any of these other projects go ahead Larry Chief Bry do a fast right in our discussions uh during lunch you indicated you have a focus on a particular Prof uh property for the new station yes we have in that $400,000 range or can you give us more accurate figures well don't want to show my cards before we uh lay them down we don't have a contract exactly so we uh we have identified a piece of property and we're currently under negotiations with the seller to determine a price based on value thank you yes sir other questions or comments from Council at this point okay Tina move forward so this slide is a reminder that we have three meetings in August and that's um largely due to the state requirements for um specific dates that we have to set in the event that we would have had to go to a property tax rate election this year um so the record

[1:16:14] ta record vote on tax rate will be on August 8th that will also be a regular meeting um the budget will be introduced August 16th that will be a special meeting and um meaning that we will probably only have that one item on the agenda and then 819 the 19th will be a regular meeting as well and that is where we'll uh formally adopt the budget and so this slide just kind of shows um progress that we've made over the years and Brian's going to come up and speak to this afternoon hello Brian Kendrick Director of Human Resources and risk management so you can kind of see um we did this as a little infographic to kind of show you where we've been over time uh and of course now we're at the point of where do we go next uh what we see uh and we can talk about any of these time frames uh what we're seeing is that other organizations are going to that we compare ourselves to are going to move between three and a half 4% uh this year so we would uh encourage that if we can try to make up some ground on that uh competitive issue and I can answer any questions or I can keep talking whatever however y'all want to well I think you know one of the issues that always comes up is um this is the city we live in this is the city we collect taxes and revenue is and this is the city and the monies and the dollars and the budget we have to live with because no other city has to live with our budget and that's a great point us that's a great Point mayor and I think we spoke about this not too long ago uh where back in 21 um we presented information to council related to the competitive uh average not only of our salaries but we

[1:18:18] accounted also for uh our Revenue levels within the City compared to those other cities and what we found is uh they're about 7% we're about 7% lower than they are so um again that's where I've come up with the recommendation of a 93% goal well I looked at just the city that's closest to us that shares really probably more with us than anybody else does and that's abalene so our sales tax their sales tax dollars are 39% greater than ours that's big big that's huge yeah at that uh and then their uh property tax dollars where we're looking at property tax dollars at 2425 is about 45 million theirs is for their budget for 2024 25 is about the same thing yeah and their their population is about 30% larger uh than hours and they they you know obviously there's some additional burden that comes with that as well but um you know to provide the same level of service so but their sales tax dollars yeah huge jump over hours and legitimately um it's hard to compare wages when you look at if you combine the total of those two property tax and sales tax and I use abene only because I don't really care what goes on in East Texas right so I really only care about back right back in 21 what we did was uh we looked at the property tax the franchise fee revenue and the total sales tax um and you would think from 21 to 24 it hasn't changed dramatically so I don't have that updated and I can certainly update that again it takes a little while so we don't want to necessarily do that every year um but um when we look at that we also uh divided

[1:20:22] that by the population came up with a revenue per capita and that's where we find that we were 7% lower U than than those other cities and I appreciate the work and effort that comes U that takes to come up with those numbers end of the day we have X amount of Revenue we have Str yeah we understand the constraints of a municipal budg and so I just repeat that yes ma'am I appreciate what other cities are able to do or not do but we don't mayor our city always on absolutely every level we got to do what we got to do right to take care of our city and we've got to do it within the constraints of our Revenue right and that's the reason I wanted to back in 21 that the whole goal is to provide yall with another tool to not just look at oh we're trying to get to 100% competitive when when when it's not necessarily realistic um moving off that 100% to 9 3% is a little more realistic so um come with money I was really presenting that as a as a tool for for you all to kind of see the whole picture so y good work mayor may I add something to the conversation as we're talking about employee salaries I think it's important to keep in mind that um our police officers our sworn officers are still underneath a meet and confer agreement that expires in December um of this year so if there going to be an allocation whether it's percentage or dollars towards those salaries then um that should be put into a pot so that we can go back to the table with them and discuss that I want to point out that does not include any unsworn employees of the department it also does not include the chief or assistant Chiefs they are excluded from that agreement um and the way that we structured um the salaries in the police department under that agreement is a way that cannot be done if that agreement terminates so we do want to work work very closely with

[1:22:25] them to make sure that we're meeting the needs of the department as we're having this discussion as it relates to police so explain again what you said this the meet and confer contract expires when uh December 31st of this year and if there is explain what happens explain the process in other words under meet and confer the dollars that are there are the dollars that are there right under the meet and confer agreement we are able to override civil statutes that deal with how police officers are supposed to be paid so last um fall we allocated $2 million or something to be distributed in a new way across police salaries that focuses more on education and less on um Brian said I was too quiet before so he's turned me up um and less on just years of service and rank um so it's a system that would not beow out if we do not have the meet and confer agreement so as we're talking about salaries going forward we need to keep in mind that we still have that agreement that's out there there is a provision that says that we still do need to negotiate salaries for this fiscal year in under that agreement and so we do need to start having meetings with the association again to start doing that but if the agreement goes away then we revert back to the salary structure that was in place last fall um for so it's going to cause some scrambling and probably some losses to some employees as to how much they're making based on whether they're paid by Rank and years of service or if we include education so uh speak to that more black and white because um yeah for us so the Civil Service statutes basically this is really a very basic explanation of it say that employees in the same class can't be paid differently from other employes in that class but there's a process in um chapter 142 the

[1:24:28] Texas local government code that allows the city to override any of those statutes say things like that and create a system that works better for us it was decided at the negotiation table last year that it worked better to focus on education um and pay based on the educational standards that people are reaching and not just how along there with the Department um and so we kind of reworked the entire pay structure of um the police department and it rewarded People based on the amount of Education they had and not just years of service necessarily so some people got increases in pay that if we went back they're going to lose those increases because if you just consider their Rank and time of service it would not justify that rate of pay so there's going to be some reshuffling that would happen if that happens so right it does expire that would that would that'd be something I think neither neither side wants to see so we really need to re-engage in that meet and convert process it will definitely have some impacts on people's individual salaries but there's also things like lateral officers that were trying to hire to improve you know the number of officers in our department that would go away the assessment center process we're using for promotions would go away there's some disciplinary changes that would go away um we asked for a longer probationary period perod because training just takes longer than what's allowed under the statute that would go back to the statutory and then we have some Provisions for part-time officers that would similarly go away if that agreement goes away so it's my hope we continue negotiating with the Police Association and come up with um some sort of salary proposal based on whatever you guys allocate that benefits both them and us is that clear as mud or clear as black and white okay yes please so looking at your graphic

[1:26:35] Ryan um top left corner you note that Co employees were at 91% compet or 91% competitive and you show that next to October year of 17 yes um and closer oh sorry I beg your pardon do I need to repeat all no I've heard you um where are we today 17 was seven years ago we're 86 if you look at January 24 which we don't have newer data than that yet uh we don't know I mean we we won't know really more data until everybody goes through this process that we're in the middle of but we're at about 86.5% and that's pretty much across the board okay yeah so I was trying to understand how to relate city employees to the police department figure that you offered which was 86.5 yeah we're pretty much 86.5 across the board within within aund you know a couple hundreds of a percentile yeah thank you so when you calculate that percentage you know along the way we've tried to do things that were um on top of salary increases for example we create I think it was two years ago maybe three years ago longevity pay and so the question mark is when you're looking at a percentage where did longevity pay get calculated into that because it is part of what someone takes home and it it's probably not calculated in to the 86.5% because you're looking at base salary not looking at bonus opportunities such as competitive pay and we don't know other cities what competitive pay they have for longevity right last year we wanted to um the idea was we would give people more days off so we created two more holidays and added to their I don't know if you call it vacation pay or holiday

[1:28:39] whatever you what I don't know what you call that that's a that's a good point mayor so the the way we usually look at it is we look at uh base salaries We compare those and then we compare like a benefits package um and so we look at things like uh where are we at with our holidays right now that the average of the survey uh the most recent survey for holidays that we have done was 12.7 we're at 13 that puts us pretty strong pretty competitive there um a little bit above average which is nice um when it comes to health insurance when we talk to Holmes Murphy we're our health insurance plan um because we have we have a a bigger group than than many cities do because we carry some retirees that were you know on the plan we don't do that necessarily moving forward but uh those were that were hired before January 1st of 2000 uh we're eligible for that and so we we carry those as part of our plan so even though we're spending you know an appropriate probably amount of money to be self-insured for our health insurance uh the actual benefit is kind of uh it stretched to a larger group um and so we see that um tmrs our tmrs uh elections are pretty standard for a city our size so you want to explain tmrs tmrs is our retirement benefit uh so the uh the city contributes um uh two to one on our uh retirement with tmrs and um so it's it's that's a good benefit but that is pretty like I said pretty standard across the board with cities our size in Texas um and most cities are involved with tmrs you have to get to like Dallas or Austin or something like that before you get cities with a size that they don't contribute to tmrs okay other questions for Brian okay thank you Brian so we have a couple of options

[1:30:51] here that we're presenting one is a 3% and that's given um marginal re Revenue as it currently stands uh with current valuations um as you saw earlier that showed a 2.1% increase to existing values um if we calculate a rate that yields the cap at 3 and a half% increase to property tax revenue that would yield an additional $600,000 making um marginal revenue revenue closer to $2.6 million um with that option we're able to do a for 4 and half% raise um versus a 3% raise you one of the the items that strikes you when you're going through uh this entire laundry list of review of revenues expenses Etc is what we are doing as it relates to trend lines or policies so if we're looking at our Revenue increases but let's say many of the salaries are paid out of the general fund let's just use that as an example or let's say sales tax because it's a combination of sales tax and property tax right but we know the property tax has already taken up so it's really everything comes out of the sales tax column if we're planning our sales tax down 3% but our trend for this current year is up 2% we are increasing our expense our overhead by a greater amount than the revenue increase that's down kind of a dangerous road most of the increases in the revenue are due to the property tax so you saw the number $1.4 million earlier um with existing value that was

[1:32:54] the increase another 600 would get us a $2 million increase just due to property tax revenue and what percent we also saw almost dollar increase what's that percent increase at the two at the two million the percent increase would be the 3 and a half% cap for property tax those together is three and a half% half million dollar increase for U charges for services so that gets you pretty close to that 2.6 million one of the things that Brian brought up earlier that I think is is something that before we sign off on anything is worth a conversation and that is along the way over the past perhaps four years and Brian you correct me is that you feel strongly that this year we should be looking at marit raises so that we don't do a percent increase across the board but there's as you said some people working like crazy and others just riding along and you want to make sure that whatever we do here we have a game plan for rewarding those who are their reviews sign ify greater reward yes ma'am and I think um I think probably the best way to do that is sort of look at it the same way that you're doing for the um for the uh meet and confer like allocate the equivalent of a 4 and a half% let me work with Daniel toward how that would split um how you know so that we don't because we've got to move our ranges as well a little bit so uh part of that will be like a sort of a base um base raise that that would need to be across the board

[1:34:56] like you mentioned and and maybe the other portion could be Merit but I kind of allow me and Daniel to work through that if if we can I would appreciate that so are you saying that for example we could set a base of a 3% raise I'm saying this out loud I'm not saying this is what you're saying but I think this is what you're saying then the difference between the 1766 and the 2613 would be the dollar valuation left over for the Merit raises I I think or not I I guess what I'm saying is if you allocate the equivalent of a 4 and a half% um because we really need to discuss through I mean we're still having some challenges on recruitment hopefully we're starting to see that continue to to have a downtrend but so there there'll need to be a portion that we adjust our ranges which will impact everybody cuz there's a lot of f folks that are a lot of our folks are at the bottom of the ranges because we have a lot of of folks that have just come to the city overtime we've had some retirees and I don't want to get into too much of the weeds of that uh but we have a lot of folks that are at the bottom of the ranges and so as we move the ranges not only is it going to uh affect the you know how we budget for next year uh for those vacancies but also it's going to impact some of our actual employees that are at that lower range as well and so so we just kind of need to talk through that there's a little bit of a complication there to try to you know discuss that through open uh I guess an open meeting but I mean we can if you want to but um I I think we would also be remiss not to consider the cost of living increases and inflation for all of our employees and so I think we'd want to consider that in what whatever or however we want to allocate and that would be that base That Base amount and so typically what we've done is I mean if you were at 4 and 1/2% probably what I would recommend to Daniel is maybe um maybe we'd do 4%

[1:37:00] moving the grades and maybe 5% for those who exceeded expectations so it'd be a 1% difference uh and that's because we still have I mean last several years we had even had the opportunity do any kind of Merit increase so at least that's something it's not huge good increases can that's not true but mayor I have a question for Brian can police and fire receive Merit based raises no there that would be flat uh civil well again it goes to how however meet and confer is agreed upon but then for the fire department it it'd be a flat amount I just wanted to clarify that thank you well most companies most organizations don't give raises Plus cost of living plus I mean the inflationary thing I mean most companies can't afford to do that so it's simply here's the here's the percentage all of that's Incorporated within that percentage so and traditionally we haven't even I mean yeah we we've struggled with with keeping up with inflation over the last several years so yeah so all right okay questions from City Council Members comments okay so seeing none hearing none we have a decision to make so I mean let me make a suggestion for let me throw it out there for council's consideration we've seen three we've seen 4 and a half% maybe five depending on what the appraisal district comes back with in terms of valuations that four and a half is with those right there that's 69,000 okay yeah unless they go up based there also should be some movement with sales tax yeah okay all right so here's Here's my thought maybe we direct state half to stay below that rate which would send us to an election but to maximize raises and give

[1:39:04] the authority to Daniel to work with Brian um and then whatever back to the the police department meet and confer whatever that dollar amount is they work with that through the the process um and then you would bring us that that back uh to the mayor's point maybe a special meeting but maybe the the first meeting in August but then that get that will give you the opportunity to set the appropriate rate to get us to those maximum raises without the election okay so after we work through the truth and Taxation worksheets we'll have What's called the voter approval rate in the past that's gener since that's become law that's generally what the city has adopted that's the rate at which um the highest rate that the city council could propose and adopt without going to an election and so if you were to direct us to do that to maximize whatever that value comes in at and publish that rate on August 1st you would then see it on August 8th um if it is higher um than what what we can actually do you can always back that rate down once you've published it in the newspaper you cannot increase it so we'd recommend um publishing a rate that is at the max of what we would possibly want to do and there and thereby have that ability to back it down should you choose to do so I think think what we ought to do my opinion is we ought to vote on the dollar amount today of 2.61 3308 million and vote that in as the raises the dollars we're going to devote to raises some people might get a 5% some might get 4% within that 2.6 million but what we have seen over the day is lots of other needs lots of other needs that we have not found funding sources to cover those needs so the risk that you run with doing it that way is that you leave tax rate slash money on the table if we don't have a budget that uses every bit of that tax rate that we're

[1:41:06] proposing or adopting it's illegal I'm I'm in order to adopt a tax rate that is at the voter approval rate and thereby avoiding an election we need to maximize whatever is there for raises or we don't or we'll have to decrease our budget and our tax right well what I'm saying is if you leave the raises the cost at 2.6 million whatever that dollar is that might not have been alloc if something goes up a bit there are many other needs that have been identified Within These worksheets that we don't have funding sources for we can make a decision based off of what those differ differential numbers are about where to use that money that we hav an ID identify a money source for so so let me ask this question today what do you need from us you need us to set the 3.5 as a maximum what I'm saying is the 2 million6 approve the dollar amount understand that I'm talking about the the amount of tax increase oh sorry we don't need the tax rate set today or even um proposed what we need is to know what you want to do I need to know do you want me to max out whatever is available in the budget for raises for city employees or do you want to do 4 and a half% and do something else with the the remainder as the mayor suggesting I just need direction on what you want to spend the money on we'll go back do the truth and Taxation figure out what that voter approval rate is and do whatever you tell us to do with it I think we need to stick with a $2.6 million for raises depending on how the other numbers fluctuate we will find a place to put that money because we have a laundry list of unfunded asks and we can make a decision about whatever that dollar amount is that we are going to apply for those asks that exist because some additional

[1:43:11] monies have been existed but in the past we have done the following we've designated x amount of dollar amount towards raises 2.6 million some people will get more some will get less based off of merits so we have two proposals one from Tommy and one from the mayor I think as a council we need to figure out which proposal or choose a different one that we need to do so that we can give some direction to the staff Tommy has said maximize whatever the valuation comes back at at at at at the three and a half in 3.5% and if there are additional funds then use that for salaries the mayor would like to use something similar to that but take only the 2.6 and utilize any additional Monies to to fund other things that are unfunded today is that my understanding that's mine okay yeah that's what I'm saying I want to maximize the raises to the employees whatever that takes that's what that as one council member that's what I want to do and I want to assign 2.6 million to raises and then find out what the difference is and what we might need to do to fund other requests by departments that are unfunded I don't know how the some of these asks by our departments are supposed to be addressed if we don't look at where the money's coming from mayor if I could oh sorry if if the values we had today were the certified values you keep me on the straight and narrow what you're suggesting and what Tommy is suggesting would be exactly the same thing yes in other words the the uh 4.5% column that shows up there assumes going to the

[1:45:14] maximum uh increase in allowed to get us a 3.5% increase in property tax revenue and it allocates that money in the amount of 2.6 million and change for raises so what you're saying is not that far apart the question is what process do we want to use in the next couple of weeks as we step through execution of the budget process from my understanding of what they're saying if there is an increase of the $2.6 million Tommy is saying to use it for salaries and the mayor is saying we should use it for other things okay but that won't happen in property taxes but it could in sales tax right and that is not something that is dependent on today's discussion it isn't because we don't know what the property taxes are I mean sales tax will generate we know what the TA so I'm not comfortable saying they won't change I mean we're doing a very rough estimate of the three and a half% increase so I'm not willing to commit to to this being the exact number until I see Tru taxation that's a great Point well we have our estimates and that suggests that we follow a process where we assume we'll take 3.5 and back into the rate necessary to get that that process would fund the 2.6 million that the mayor is talking about and it still leaves on the table the possibility that Council would say we want to do something different with our sales tax assumptions and have it impact expenditures in another way whether it's raises or some cap capit or whatever but on that basis what I would interpret your requests as direction for finance would be assume the tax rate necessary to generate to 3.5 when you when you get the values and publish that and then we'll follow up we'll have to follow up later for an action item at least and we'll have the final wrapup on

[1:47:19] did that impact the 2.6 do you want to affect sales tax assumptions to affect the 2.6 or other expenditures but the marching order today I think based on what you're both saying is Tina move forward assume a three and a half maximize the tax rate without an election correct that number one and then number two 2.6 and you want to go ahead and dedicate the 2.6 for raises I do then we know exactly what we're doing we we know the dollar amount we know the percentage and it's clear black and white and so on that basis you're you're the same both proposals are the same except the mayor wants to go the additional step to dedicate the 2.6 for raises and restrict that amount you're you're you're doing that to avoid increasing it is that correct yes what I'm trying to do is to make sure this list of things on here that are unfunded might have put potential being funded that's all I'm saying there's there's ask there's asks for I think Chief Brody had some land he needed to purchase there's fire truck I mean there's asks here that we don't have funding sources for if we expend it all now we have no funds left I mean there's that 700,000 that was way back there but the asks are greater than that but I think people should be feel comfortable that there is this amount of money to be de dedicated to raises we want to maximize the property tax rate to incorporate the 3.5% so we maximize that we establish a firm number 2.6 million which we've done before with the total dollar amount to give to raises and then we look at what other things might come up for conversation for funding what I might suggest is let's confirm with Tommy that that that we didn't misstep in that is that what what

[1:49:22] you were saying Tommy maximize that rate I want maximize the rate to not exceed the the the rate required to go to an election and maximize raises yes and that may that that that may end up being less than than 2.6 it may be less than 2.6 it may be more what I might suggest is directing staff to go to the voter approval rate when we publish on August 1st when we have our regular meeting on August 8th we could bring this back and tell you what that generat rates you could make a decision at that point in time whether it's more than 45% or a little less whatever it comes out to give giving city council a little time to think about how you would use any excess that's just a suggestion you know well the number one thing we have to vote on today number one is maximizing the rate that's the number one challenge here because that's the one where we have firm deadlines and firm publishing and that's easy I mean that will be whatever it is for the worksheet we'll publish that on the 1st and we can come back and talk about any excess on the eth before we set the property tax that's the number one thing because you're under deadlines to do that you have to have published dates and percentages so we need to go with that we don't want to raise the tax rate we want to maintain and keep going depending on how uh Val I just want to clarify depending on how values do come in it may slightly increase the tax rate since our values are lower than the three and a half% um but what we've looked at with the current valuations that we have that would be less than 1 cent to the property tax rate and you know over the past several years we've given almost eight cents back so so I have a question and Tina and Michael this all be so we're looking at like an $800 or 800k change here if you look at it for every percent or half a percent it's worth about 282,000 so to be honest we're probably looking at 3 $100,000 either way right up or down if we change

[1:51:26] this half a percent $290,000 pretty close Tom so quick math I'm off a little bit there but I see both sides of that I don't know if we can delay this move until you can see I'm all for it the 26 we may not come in that high to lock in the 26 so the 26 might be an advantage today and it might be a disadvantage in 4 days or 5 days when we get the number from Tyler I don't know when when that comes um I would say if city council had a consensus of the 4 and a half% like I said we can come back on the 8th for you to make that final determination whether it's a little up or a little down but giving direction for the 4 and a half% to max out the voter approval rate and then come back with that information on the eth do we have time I mean does that fit in the time window yes I a four and a half on that we're so far behind we'll publish that rate on first that would give us a week before that city council meeting to get everything together get our ducks in a row and have that information available for y'all to make that decision on any excess or deficit and the only reason I fight but I'm with you on that Tom but the only reason I fight to say the 2.6 is the following reason when you leave it in the hands of a percentage saying 4.5% but we're talking about Merit raises One Believes then everyone's going to get 4.5% and they're not so if you talk in language of dollars not percentage then you those Merit raises some might get three some might get four some might get 4.5 but that's the reason I talk in dollars here's the dollar amount and if U that makes it because we come in higher at 4.6% versus 4.5 that's not a criminal thing but on the other hand knowing that it gives people an opportunity to sit down with an employee and write a merit raise and say you exceeded my expectations you get this by

[1:53:31] establishing a dollar amount you're establishing a philosophy that here's the dollars now each of you managers of your departments get to decide who who did a phenomenal job and who did less instead of guaranteeing everybody a 4.5% and that's the reason you talk dollar is not percentage and I'm not saying you guarantee everyone 4 and a half% I'm saying whatever ever four and a half represents at the end of the day is what we would allocate whether it's mer Merit based or across the board either way that could still work with the 4 and a half% whatever that comes out to be when we finally get values yes but I'm just emphasizing the Merit listen to me the Merit so not everybody might see a 4.5% increase is all I'm trying to say agreed so we just want to be clear on that yes but yes on if might be 4.6% but it is not going to be 4.6% for everyone and that's all we're saying just to make sure we're all clear yes ma'am so do we need take you have the direction I just need consensus and direction today and then we'll publish that rate on the 1 and we'll see you on the eth with whatever that comes out to be okay okay let's do it 4.5 all right do I need an adjournment do I need a motion for adjournment so moved second a vote to approve we are adjourned at 140

Captured 2026-07-26 · source: youtube.com/watch?v=rN0Lug5L0Y8