001I made sure call to order this special meeting of the city of Navasota City Council at 4:30 p.m. July 14th. >> Remarks of business. >> Item three, conduct a workshop on the preliminary budget for FY 2526. Hey, good evening, Mayor and Council. Uh, so tonight we're going to kind of go through um somewhat of a high level. These these are still all estimates. Uh right now, we don't have final numbers. We don't have certified tax roll. Uh that will come out in a couple weeks from the uh appraisal district. We still have a lot of um our final numbers that are estimates particularly on the revenue side of the equation. And so we can't really determine exactly what all we can squeeze into the expense side of the equation until we know the revenues because
002we uh we certainly want to have a balanced balanced budget approach. And so uh we're going to go over tonight those estimates kind of what where we are um and what projects based on our last discussion the priorities from the strategic plan and those things that we've been talking about you all have been talking about even before I was here. Um and and so we're going to just kind of go through what it looks like, those those major projects that it looks like will fit into this budget with the um again the limitations that that we spoke about last time. keeping the tax rate the same, keeping utility rates uh at a at a constant or level. Um and and just seeing what what all will go without issuing planning on issuing any debt this
003year so that we can take a good look at where are we financially if we don't change the tax rate, if we don't issue debt, get a good assessment of of where are we so that we can make some some good decisions on the the path forward. Uh so we'll get uh we'll get right into it. We will review like I said real quickly uh and I did print the slides out for you all to take notes on hopefully so you don't have to twist your neck and turn around but so the audience can see. We'll go through the slides on the on the screen but we'll review what we talked about last time kind of our responsibilities just real quick the budget calendar uh what our tax rate and utility rates uh look like.
004We'll reaffirm those priorities as we start talking about the tenative plans for this upcoming budget. um where and particularly uh the employee benefits uh that we talked about the strategic plan objectives uh and some of the departmental priorities and then we'll certainly open it up at the end for anything that you all think that you didn't see that that you wanted to see or that you thought would be in there uh or things that are in there that you don't s think are quite as high a priority as as maybe others. So just as just kind of a recap, the council's role in our charter is to adopt the budget. The staff puts together a budget based on the po the uh policies and priorities that you all establish. So that's why we have these
005workshops to get a good feel for those policies and priorities. Uh and then staff goes to work to to develop a balanced budget pursuing those priorities. Tonight we'll go through this budget workshop. Again, these are the tenative plans because we don't have final numbers. Um, and then on or about August 4th, that's really close to when we're going to get the certified value. So, I hope I get it to you that Monday. It could be Tuesday or Wednesday of that week, depending on when we get the official numbers from the appraisal district. But, uh, you'll have it early that week of August 4th. Uh, the proposed budget, uh, it will be posted on the website. It'll be ready. And then on the 11th, we'll go through another budget workshop like we're doing tonight to kind
006of walk through and just answer any questions uh for those things. And that's when the actual numbers will be in there uh for for us to to really get into if if necessary. And then skipping towards uh the the next item really posting the noticed is a is a legal po posting not not any action here. But then on September 8th, we will conduct our public hearing and we will adopt uh the budget. Uh and then on the 22nd, we will adopt the tax rate. Again, we're we're anticipating keeping that the same. And if you all see something or uh feel like a change is necessary, then then we can certainly discuss that between now and then. Um, so this is just kind of again a review of what this year's tax rates were relative
007to the neighboring jurisdictions. Um, and as we talked last time, if you think of the top five really being the full service cities, um, we're kind of at the bottom there, which is, you know, we we don't necessarily want to be the bottom, but we certainly don't want to have the highest tax rate in the area either. So, um I think I think we're reasonably placed there and if we can make our budget work, I I don't see any reason uh for us to push that. Uh the the utility rates, uh as we discussed again last time, uh you all had a prior action several years ago that talked about doing an automatic escalation uh for 5 years. Uh we know that there's been a lot of discussion of late about utility rates and utility
008bills. We have um embarked on actually this week, last week really, we've started doing an analysis, a deep analysis of uh the the utility rates, the utility billing system, making sure that we've got, you know, the accuracy in there. Um and so for the purposes of this budget, our recommendation is let's not do an automatic escalation. Let's keep them where they are. Let's let's go through the utility rate study. let that take place over the next couple months and then let's uh see what where that comes out and what kind of uh change we want to make after that gets. But we'll adopt the budget based on a flat consistent utility rate. That will be the proposal and then just reviewing the uh strategic plan as we get into that. Um this is just kind
009of it lays out the the mission and vision and what those core values are that uh that established. And then at the very bottom you see the seven goal areas uh that that we will go through. And you, we saw these same slides last time, just some there's some different highlighted yellow based on as we get closer to uh a an actual proposed budget, what it looks like will actually fit into uh the various uh goals and what the uh strategic objectives are in each of those uh those goals. So, as we get to goal number one, the the economic development and planning uh goal, um you see several there that it either says in in progress. That very first one is a fully grant funded. Uh we have embarked and some of the audience
010and some of you all may have seen that there's been some NAV notify notifications going out and letting the the uh residents know that we've started this process. We will have a first um town hall workshop over at the Navona Center on August 4th, right? Uh on August 4th in the evening and and where we will start soliciting input from the residents on on the comprehensive plan. You all did that workshop at the last uh council meeting uh where you kind of kicked it off and and now we will start talking to the residents and really formulating those plans. but grateful that that's a $300,000 project that is 100% federal grant funded. So, there were no matching local dollars required. Um, with regard to our uh 10-year CIP and infrastructure plan, that is one of
011the items that we have talked about that we're talking about doing an update to the strategic plan and an adoption of a a CIP uh most likely with Ron Cox Consulting, who you all have used uh prior before I got here. you you've used him a couple times and uh he's he's offered to to come and help go through that process again and and we feel like that would well serve us. Uh and then as we jump to the um to the bottom there, we get to a couple other items. The the parks and recreation master plan is actually on tonight's council agenda. Um, we did an RFQ for uh for that parks master plan and Berdict Consulting was the the top ranked and they will be here tonight to answer any questions you might
012have and we'll be asking for your uh permission to to start uh negotiating a contract with them to kick that process off kind of in parallel with comp plan. Uh and then uh we haven't really started it yet, but we're hopeful that we can get some mileage out of whether it's the comp plan or as we're doing the CIP uh in parallel with one of those or in tandem, we might be able to get at least some form of an update to our uh our major thoroughfare plan which was last updated about 5 years ago, four four years ago. And we think that's it. It it would behoove us as we start looking at potential developments and as developers come knocking that might be looking at different areas. Uh we should really take a close
013look at that thorough air plan and make sure it meets what what we look for for mobility. As we get to goal number two in marketing and communications, really you've probably seen uh recently we've started pushing some things out again through Nav Notify. And we've also uh started looking at uh probably going with a new survey tool, Survey Monkey, which a lot of people have probably used. It's pretty popular one. Um has a lot more features than the one with the flash vote that we were using. Um, and so we're looking at uh at rolling that into um this proposed budget. Really doesn't change anything budget-wise. It's just a a change to to address specifically this objective and to uh give ourselves more capability of uh soliciting feedback from the residents and being able to
014manipulate that data so that we can make it usable and it means something for us and and so that survey monkey gives us a little bit more capabilities. Uh with that uh as we get into quality of life, this is one of those things that you all have been focused on for some time. Uh it is ongoing. We have you all did a very large investment in refurbing the pool. It's getting a lot of good use now. We're getting a lot of good feedback. A lot of different programs going on there. Uh on tonight's agenda are some upgrades to the library, the the re the uh um repairs of on the roof. And then following that, we will be doing some interior. Once we have the roof stopped leaking, we can fix what uh what
015got damaged on the inside. So the insulation and the paint and the flooring and those kind of things we can take care of as well. Uh you've recently seen um you know, a little small investment in Cleveland Park and we're getting some use there. we've talked about doing and and you all have have expressed an interest in having you maybe something similar, a basketball court or something over at Miller Park with picnic tables again to let the residents in the area uh be able to make use of that of that space uh at least in the meantime. You know, we've got this big parks master plan coming, but that doesn't mean we can't do something, you know, for the next year or two to get those parks some some usability uh before we do anything
016large in the parks master plan. And so looking forward for those to continue. Um and there's been I I don't need to go into all of them, but there's been some improvements recently at the soccer fields at August Horse and some other things. So, uh we're going to continue to look for those quality of life, especially the the ones that are lowhanging fruit, easy for us to get that we can get staff to go out there and and and do some um that that just make sense for us to to give our residents something that they can uh enjoy and use. And as we get to staffing, um, we'll talk, we'll go into a little bit more detail on this slide, but you did we did talk about in the strategic plan, uh, a couple
017years ago, uh, we noted that TMRS, uh, we were still at 5%, which is lagging behind what most cities are. Most cities are at that 7%. Um, and and talking about stipen for certifications, that's something that's bit we're reviewing right now. There are some for a few of our uh, positions, but but not a lot. and we're going to review those, make sure that we're using them uniformly across all departments so that we don't have them lopsided or or one department using them and others not. Um, a and it does not look like we would be able to make the leap from 5% all the way to 7% in one year like we've talked about. So, it looks like what we're going to put in this um this year's budget will go from 5% to
0186%. uh in talking to uh the the executive staff, I instructed them a few weeks back as you all asked uh to start talking to their employees and see where they were on how important is this and it it seemed like we got a lot of good feedback. Of course, everyone's going to say, "Yeah, I'm interested." But when you really start comparing it as to what they have might have to give up, it seemed like the the the overwhelming uh I'll say consensus uh was that that they wanted kind of a balanced approach. they they wanted to see some improvements in the retirement but not at the complete uh exclusion of any immediate you know pay and salary increases and so we're trying to balance that with a reasonable pay structure that we can get
019this year as well as a a small uh increase to the retirement uh system. So I think that comes directly from the the uh instruction you all gave uh a few weeks back. Um, and just as a note there on that slide, TMRS now, as of September 1st with new legislation, uh, they now will be allowing cities to go up to 8% on the contribution rate. So, if we don't make any increase, we're going to be really lagging behind as cities start to embrace the 8%. And if we were still at five, we would start to really see a a delta there. and it and it could impact our recruiting um for for employees because other cities would would just have a much more attractive uh retirement. Um but again, we'll we'll we'll take it
020in manageable bites. We're not going to try to get get there all in one step. And and as I said, we're currently reviewing the the stipens, making sure that we've got those consistent. Um our health insurance, we don't anticipate any health insurance. We don't have the numbers yet for the uh renewal rates. Uh but we're going to try to keep the same plans and everything the same in place. Uh continue to offer the the same health insurance benefits that we uh that have been at the same ratios of of employer contribution uh for those. Again, we we won't know until we get those and those will be the first week of August before we actually get those renewal rates. But unless they come in drastic, um we should be able to again still have that
021proposed budget to you uh that first week. Um and then as we talked about, I'm going to show a slide on the COLA uh and pay plan. Uh we talked about doing a a defined step pay plan uh which is illustrated on the next uh slide. I'll kind of just show it. It doesn't have this is just a sample. This isn't our pay plan. This isn't I didn't put all positions and everything but this is kind of an illustration of kind of how that defined step pay plan and I and the way this work functions uh is a position is classified into the pay grade say it's G13 just so you can kind of see as we as we look um and if that you know whatever that position is uh that title we advertise
022at the starting salary rate which is the first uh box there. Uh ideally we hire someone in at that rate. There are a few exceptions if you're hiring, you know, midcareer, mid-management positions where you need to be competitive in the marketplace and someone's coming with 10 or 15 years of experience. Sometimes maybe you move up a couple steps. You don't we don't we try not to go too far up uh but but you might give yourself a couple steps of of flexibility there um in those circumstances. But you hire them in at that probationary step. They work their six-month probation. They have an evaluation at the end of their probation. As long as they meet the performance metrics that we establish, then they move up to the A or the first step uh beyond that.
023And then at their one-year anniversary, they again have a performance review. And if they're they're performing satisfactorially, they move up to the to the B step, you know, at the at the one-year mark. And then each year on their anniversary, they know that as long as they're performing satisfactorily, they move up to the next step in their pay grade. And as they progress along, their tenure is building up, their their performance is becoming more efficient. So that's, you know, while while there are they are escalating up towards the top of their pay range. uh anytime that the council as a part of the annual budget process gives a cost of living adjustment based on the CPI the consumer price index uh let's say that's 3% the whole chart would move up by 3%. The employees
024would stay in the same box that they're in but all of the numbers on there would move up by that 3% and that's how they get their cost of living adjustment. the plan here because we don't have this in place. Um this year's uh proposed u budget is being built around unless you all give different guidance what where we're currently going. Right now the consumer price index is showing over the last 12 months about two 2 and a.5% 2.4 to 2.6 somewhere in there. So what we are proposing is kind of a combination of a 2 and a.5% cola coupled with implementing this pay plan. And the way that works is each employee we would take their current rate at the end of the fiscal year. We would add 2 and a half% and then
025we would slot them in to the next to the to the closest spot on the chart without going backwards. they they would get everyone would get at least the 2 and a half% and some would get a little more. So if we were in that G13 still and someone was in let's just say the C step uh or they're not in a step right now but let's just say they're 2 and 12% gets them to $1930 an hour. We would slot them at that C step at $1955. So they would they would slot into one of these spots the closest to where the 2 and 12% gets them moving upwards. Um, and then going forward it would all be there. We would have the system in place. We would know where we're going to hire.
026It helps us for budgeting. It helps us for uh merit increases. Anytime we do a a cola, we just simply add the cola to the whole chart and it automatically changes everything. Uh it makes it a lot easier on our budget. It makes it a lot easier to assure that we've got par amongst positions and so we don't have, you know, someone gets their feelings hurt because they feel like their co-orker was given a 3% pay raise where they were only given a 2%. In here, everyone that's working at, you know, a satisfactory level or meeting the the standard moves up to the next step along the progression. Um the idea there uh some would argue that well what about the people that are performing above you know that that standard the the mentality or
027the philosophy would suggest that someone that is a high performer consistently isn't going to probably stay in that same grade. They're going to promote within their job family up. They might go from a clerk to a senior clerk or an operator one to an operator two which moves them up to a whole another pay grade which gives them further out before they top out in their pay grade. And so the the high performers I think are handled a little bit differently. not on that one-time annual pay uh uh evaluation or s uh performance evaluation, but they're handled throughout the course of their career by receiving the promotions that they that their uh performance is meriting. >> Where is the basic grid going to come from? >> What's that? >> Where is the basic grid that
028they grid? So, the the proposal is going to start with something that looks very similar to this. And then the idea is and I don't know if I had it in that last slide. Um, yeah, we on the very last bullet there, we do plan on doing a salary survey to kind of help us with evaluating. We're going to start this as close as we can to what we currently have in place. And then we're going to have that salary survey conducted and they'll give us guidance on, hey, we really think G11 should start at 1550. Okay. >> And and the rest of everything is all formulas off of that. So it it really kind of flows, but that uh getting a the consultant in that does the salary survey will help us establish what
029chart will help us to serve Navasota in a manner that's uh number one affordable, but number two competitive in the marketplace with the others that we're competing for the for the employees. And then as we get into to goal number five, uh, within our human resources, one of the things that that we've already kind of started talking about, but we haven't really dove into just yet, is the personnel handbook. Uh, we plan on after we get the budget in place, that that's kind of the pressing matter right now. Once we get the budget done, then the the leadership group is going to start really taking pieces and components of the personnel handbook. And one component of that is the PTO um the paid time off policy for public safety. Um we're we're going to um
030look at that in the in the short term and try to have something done. I I would like to have that that component. We may not have the whole handbook, but we'd like to have that component done uh the latter part of this year so that on January 1st next year, we can start kind of that new system. And then um I'm I'm going to get into maintenance in just a second in more details. I'll touch on it here in facilities and buildings. Um developing a maintenance plan and facilities master plan. I'm going to jump forward and then I'll touch on those as we get to uh to that. And and when we get to infrastructure on goal 7, uh there's quite a few things there that are either in progress or are planned in
031this proposed budget. Um particularly those ones under 7.4. you've you've got some things there that um are uh the the MDTs in all of our police vehicles that are quite aged for those that we have and needing some new ones. Um and then our vehicle and equipment replacement plans, taking a good hard look at that enterprise lease program and making sure that that's serving us well and is that where we need to be and you know what what makes the most sense for us. So, we're we're looking real closely at at that as well. Um, and we've already seen the some of the the city citywide cameras uh being put up in the downtown corridor and train uh corridor and uh and and we're going to look to try to expand that. I don't know
032if we'll have any additional cameras or if we'll just have um more connectivity to them uh in this budget, but uh but all of those things and then uh that this is where we're going to get back into the maintenance discussion from uh objective six. So we use our organizational chart to kind of help us make sure that we're maintaining span of control that our managers have, you know, the the right number of boxes underneath them and responsibilities and and if there's ways that we can make our operation a little bit more efficient. One of the things that has come up and and I think I've discussed with most all of you um and certainly have discussed with with the uh the leadership team is we feel like within m with maintenance services we can
033become more efficient by putting that in a department all of its own um and having all uh building and facility maintenance, property maintenance, fleet maintenance all under one maintenance services division. um really not adding people. We're just shuffling them around, putting them in in there so that we can have one department that focuses on all of our maintenance efforts and we consolidate rather than having money broken up in all these different departments and trying to do little tasks. We can consolidate our maintenance efforts and make sure that we're getting the most bang for our buck, the most efficient operation. uh where there's need for for contracts, we can go out for contracts to get all of those things under larger um volume of work so that each department's not trying to do that on their
034own and not necessarily getting the the best price because they're doing smaller projects uh at one time. And again, uh that'll kind of serve us as we move forward into making sure that having our uh facility master plan, having our maintenance uh plans down, that'll be one of the the tasks that uh that that new department um gets asked to to work on pretty closely. And then as we get to the to the budget, when we start talking specifically about uh this year's budget, we'll talk about a few of the um things that the other items uh that may not have been specifically mentioned on the strategic plan. They might be alluded to, but um we're really going to take a back to the basics approach. We're and I've talked to a couple of you
035about this. Really, we're going we're going to get back to like balancing our checkbook. We're going to look at what our revenues are and we're going to balance our expenses against that and we're going to live within our means. Um we're not going to go out and issue a bunch of debt. We're not going to try to do more than we can or bring folks on just for the the sake of bringing folks on. Uh we're really going to try to to focus this year on living within our means and and taking an evaluation of where we are. Um and then make some decisions about what the path looks like going forward. Um we're going to move our personnel right now. uh as you all may have have seen in the past uh the we
036had personnel assigned to the to the utilities to the enterprise funds but effectively what that meant is we had employees who were being paid 100% out of a particular utility fund when that employee isn't working 100% of the time. that's not fair to that utility fund or the people that are paying those bills uh to have employees that they're paying for that aren't working 100% of their time on that. So, we're going to move the employees to the general fund. We're going to figure out kind of at least in rough numbers. We're not, it's not going to be, we're not going to spend hours and hours and weeks on trying to figure out to the minute, but we're going to put a rough estimate on, okay, h how much of the public works director's time
037is spent on things that are in the general fund as opposed to things that are in the utility funds. And what does that look like for her time relative to the water fund, the sewer fund, the gas fund? And we're going to take those percentages from those utilities, transfer them to the general fund to pay for them. But that way any one utility fund uh account is only paying for the approximate percentage of that employees salary that they that they should be obligated to because that's what they're uh they're working towards on their behalf. Um and then with regard to uh debt service, um one of the things that that myself and the finance director have taken note of and and just really don't feel like it is is a necessary effort. It it I
038don't I don't know why we we felt like we needed to be so fancy, but it's if you notice our debt service currently, we have in every department or most of the departments, there's a principle and interest at the very bottom of the page. That's supposedly that department's paya portion of the debt service for the city overall. And the the way in my mind I equate that is if I have an American Express card and I go to 10 stores and I charge things and then I pay my monthly bill to American Express, I don't need to keep books at my house as to how much money went to Macy's, how much went to J Penney, and how much and and write them down that way. I just have the obligation to pay the debt
039service just like we have the obligation to pay the debt service out of our debt service fund. we set a tax rate that has a debt service component and that's really what we should be doing. We don't we don't need to muddy the waters of the individual departments. Um and so we're going to we're going to just get back to again we're going to try to go back to the basics and just be simple on these are our obligations and this is how we're meeting them. And so as we get into again uh we've talked about personnel a number of times. We're not going to add new personnel. We did have two positions that were part-time that the department directors asked if they could be converted. This was done several months back. Um and and
040after looking at I feel like is is justified. So we are uh going to convert those u positions. Uh we do have within parks uh and facilities, we've got that parks master plan that's that's kicking off. We've talked about that uh hopefully tonight uh being authorized uh within uh our fleet equipment. Uh we are this year planning on replacing uh our public safety vehicles with non leased vehicles. We're going to buy them. You'll see them in the budget. Uh we're going to buy those outright. Really in talking with even our representatives from the enterprise fleet program, they don't really offer much for the uh for the public safety vehicles. On the non-public safety, the public works vehicles. They they help us manage the the maintenance of those. And there's some things that they offer, but
041on the public safety side, they really just all they really do is they get the bill from the the repair man and they pass it on to us. And we really don't need them being the middleman. It's not saving us any money by doing it that way. And and so we're just going to buy those and we're going to manage our own uh through our maintenance services department. We're going to manage our own little lease program where where the department the public safety departments will lease them from maintenance services and you'll see some budget transfers for that. But that should um help us get to more of a cash basis uh for our fleet in the future. And and then this year we're going to evaluate if public works. If we see value in that
042enterprise program, we'll keep it. We'll continue to do it. If not, we'll start the slow transition of each year as we replace vehicles. We'll just shift them off of that program and we won't try to buy 60 vehicles in one year, but we'll we'll make that transition as we as we deem appropriate. Uh and then with infrastructure, um again on tonight's agenda, we we were going to talk about an impact fee study. uh feel like that's very important for making sure that we have the infrastructure in place to meet the demands of future development and future growth. Um and the the impact fee study will help us identify um you know what projects are likely to be needed to serve new growth areas, how much those are likely to cost so that we can make
043sure that we're collecting that from the developers and not from our current existing residents or out of their uh their money that could be going to repairing the existing systems and diverting it over to to new areas. So, uh, again, and then, uh, the utility rate study, like I said, uh, again, we want to make sure that that's set on accurate costs. So, that's why we're shifting some of the salaries. So, make sure that we've got accurate costs for these utilities that we can set set our rates accordingly and make sure that that residents aren't overpaying or underpaying, whichever the case may be. Um but but we want to make sure that we've done the exercise and uh reviewed those and and have something in that serves the community. And then finally, just uh touching
044on some of those that we haven't talked about yet. Uh we do have some money in this year's uh proposed budget for uh animal services building improvements. I know that you all are aware uh very aware of the of the condition of the animal services building. It's needed some attention for some time, long before I got here. Um but but it's uh we're we're gonna we're going to make sure we we put something in there and make sure that we start getting some um some treasure on that. Uh we are going to do the compensation ser survey and the retirement system as I've mentioned um the strategic plan and CIP development we talked about already. Uh, we are going to do um some council chambers AV upgrade, trying to get some addition better audio and
045visual equipment in here, not only for the recording and the and the um videos of the uh council meetings, but also the idea is to put some monitors on the side so the residents that are towards the back that are having trouble seeing what's on this slide, we'll have a monitor a little closer to them and they can see. Um, and then also some monitors up here in the front of the uh of the tables there for the council members. If you don't have it printed in front of you, you'd be able to see what's going on and not twisting your head. So, again, just some uh some modest improvements in the uh audio visual here will serve us for a long time. Having an off-site off-site cloud server uh backup is is pretty important
046from a cyber security uh perspective. There's, you've probably seen news articles. There's been a lot of cities that have been hit with cyber crimes and and I don't even know all the words that they use, fishing and ransomware and all those things. I don't know what most of them mean. I just sound smart using them, but it's important for us to uh to address uh th those needs and and have some some capability there. I already talked about the MDTs. Uh the SCBAs is a multi-year project that you all have been funding. I think last year was year one. This is year two. I think it's a three-year project. Uh those are the air packs for the firefighters um that that need to be brought up to today's standards. Uh and then again, we're going
047to really start to emphasize and and really look at quality of life and beautifification and making sure that we're we're we're investing in uh some parks facilities improvements, making repairs where we can, looking at the landscaping, fertilization improvements for the areas and and just making sure that that the community is is something that that that we're proud to to be employees of that that have a responsibility towards those areas. That's kind of it for us. I talked fast. Uh but anything that you all have on your mind that you didn't see us talk about, you have questions about. Um and again, I think uh the last two bullets we asked or the last bullet we asked about last time, and I think we're comfortable with just keeping the tax rate. Uh but again, it's there
048just in case anyone has a change of heart or wants to to take a closer look. But but really priorities want to make sure that we've talked about the the key items that are on your you all's mind so that staff and I can go back and and make sure that we're addressing those. >> We're going to have a an annual street project again. >> Street project will be in there. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. >> I should have had that on the slides. I apologize. It's >> okay. with the uh with the annual street. Um I think we've already talked about it, but I I think that council should have more input on the streets. >> Yeah. And so one of the items that uh we we've talked about the as a part of the
049comp plan they've done an analysis at least given us a high level analysis using artificial intelligence to go down. They took pictures of the roads and have started giving us uh some detail. The plan is to follow that up with the same consultant that comes in and really gives us analysis, make some uh some recommendations and then review that list with the council uh and make sure that we get the uh the streets in the right priority order that meets you all's uh you all's priorities. And then um and then the way we we'll work that is once we have them in the order, we'll we'll just get as we'll go down as far as we can on the list uh with the funding that we have each year. >> Where does the um sidewalk
050um plan, the walkability plan, where does that fit into? So just thinking that we have talked about, you know, how do we connect our parks? How do we connect the downtown with um the north,southeast, and west ends? Um but I don't know that that fits into one little pocket into this. >> Yeah, I think it's Are you talking about repairs of sidewalks or adding new sidewalks? >> Both. >> Okay. >> Um so so the repairs generally are generally go in tandem with with the streets projects. Um and we can decide that we want um to to parse out a portion of that money specific to project uh sidewalks each year. You all can decide what you know how heavily you want uh the percentage on the sidewalks to be versus the the streets. Um for
051new sidewalks um most of the time those are are kind of done in most communities they're they're done with new development. they they get the new sidewalks in in older areas. You see, you might, you know, come in and add sidewalks uh at at a time. Sometimes that can be a part of the parks master plan if we if we give them that instruction up front. Um that that we want kind of an evaluation of of the sidewalks. Is Charles here yet? He'll be here in a little while. Charles Budette, he'd be a good one to put on the spot when he's standing up here in a little while >> and let them know that we'd like to see that as a part of the park. one of the things that we had already talked
052about and was already part of a plan. I just don't know where that plan went. Uh and so I just want to make sure that we that's still on our radar that we need to consider where we have folks that need to be able to >> walk and get around and scoot around and play on the sidewalk instead of the road. >> Right. Absolutely. And with that kind of just this is a community that's been here a while. There are sidewalks that probably nowadays we need to go in at intersections and do an ADA upgrade because they don't have the right ramps and those kind of things and and so there there's probably an effort there that we need to to take on with uh with an ADA compliance perspective as well. >> Yeah, we
053got a good we got a significant grant from text dot. It's been a number of years ago, but a lot of it was done on the main thorough affairs primarily on the saw. >> There's several sections just like on Washington Avenue. It missed some >> it stops and then you go three blocks and it starts again and then >> um it'd be nice to see it continue but it >> to complete an evaluation of some sort. >> The current regulations require that the homeowner maintain the sidewalks and that's a very iffy proposition. is involve the homeowners taking the sidewalks up, throwing them out. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Another thing I would like to add with the sidewalks is u while we're in the budget here. uh let us know how much we have in lie
054of you know when new construction come they pay a fee if they don't want to put sidewalks in pay a amount of in fee of I mean not in fe of but in lie of and um I I don't know whether we've done any sidewalks with that money or it's just sitting in account somewhere or I'll certainly find out and let you know >> and uh you know what we just talking about the u the ramp and everything. That would be a good way to use some of that money to put sidewalks there. >> Yeah. And then there may be matching funds >> if text dot still has that program. >> Mhm. Okay. I'm not 100% certain again because you can put anything into any of these little hidey holes here. um for the Bruley
055Park and the pool feasibility. We so we did that. I don't know that we finished. I mean, I don't know where that process is. I know that we had the we had to submit our final suggestions, recommendations, which was right before something big happened. I don't remember what that was. Oh, I think it was our city manager leaving. Uh so I don't know where that has ended up. Um there were not many changes Okay. And I don't know if we have any money to We haven't seen a final then. Is that right? >> Yeah. >> Did we get >> We have >> Well, there should have been three or four. >> They were three options in there, I think, and they were going to come up with the final >> for a discussion about printing
056final copies. And then that's all I remember. So I we'll definitely find out. >> We'll bring it to you. Megan, you're going to be your >> Yeah, Charles be here. >> And I think you and I had talked about, you know, we have a plan there from Brley Park. We have a couple others that have been done throughout the years. Uh th those will all go into the parks master plan. they they'll use those to help with the parks master plan development. So, they don't just get thrown away or or start from ground zero. Those all get wrapped up into the comprehensive uh parks master plan. >> Really a big part of the brewing of the pool. >> Yeah. >> And that's we can kind of put a little check mark by that. >> That's
057right. All right, just as kind of a recap, this is our our calendar for the next few items that'll be coming up. First week of August, uh we'll get the uh proposed budget to you all. Then on August 11th, our first meeting in August, we'll do uh an actual a workshop just like this, but we'll go through the actual uh departments, departmental budgets. And um tonight we were focused strictly on the general fund because really that's the bulk of it. That's where we really want to, you know, we have to set our tax rate and all of that. And since we're not changing the utility rates, we feel like those should be, you know, kind of straightforward, but we will go through that. We'll have all of those uh for you all uh for that
058August 11th uh workshop and then the public hearing later that month. >> That's great. I'm sorry. I have one other question in a goal three.1 says explore recruiting partners like Boys and Girls Club or the YMCA. It says not started. >> I believe that there were discussions with the Boys and Girls Club. Um and I and Bert maybe you had it was I think before I got on the council or but there were talks and then something happened. So I don't know if that's uh I don't know if it's not stopped. been so close but yet so far away. Yeah. Every time we get >> or when I was on, we'd get close to somebody wanting to do it, getting it, and then something would happen and it just got I know for a long
059time they were talking about going in and working out a deal with the um the old fireman's hall, KC Hall, that was on the end of Manley Street, but it never >> Yeah. >> Okay. It's one of those things that uh we as the city and you know providing the quality of life and the things that we do with parks and library and all those things. It was it was kind of a just a goal of of council at the time to integrate something that we could could do along those lines. U we're a pretty small community to have a Boys and Girls Club. It's I mean honestly it's it's a pretty broad and and tough thing to to get because it's it's a there's a huge amount of cost involved because you have to
060have employees and y >> things like that. So, but what I've seen since we first started that is I've seen a lot of smaller local organizations stepping up >> providing a lot of the things that a Boys and Girls Club would provide. So, I don't know that it needs to be a, you know, a major goal of of city council or the city. It just could be something in the back of our mind to make sure we have some sort of uh like our parks department kind of keeps track of of the leagues that are sports leagues and the and different activities that are going on. Maybe we could at least the city could act as a liaison to to connect all those things that that would provide what a boys and girls club would
061provide. That's just my personal opinion. >> I just thought it was funny. It said not started because it had been started and fizzled out. >> I remember where I copied this from I may have gotten an outdated version too. I I think I copied this out of an old >> strategic plan report that I certainly might not have gotten >> brought up at a prior like during strategic planning and talks like that because it was something that that we that we thought that the community needed maybe or needed at least something to kind of bring it all together. But I I I truly believe a lot's happened since that first came up that's really addressing a lot of those things. It's a couple of things that I would like to see. Uh if you can
062take a look into it, Robert. Yes, sir. And the budget is the drone for the city use. My understanding that uh the one that the PD do have, it belongs to a individual police officer that the city don't own one. and also um a portable generator. Uh I looked at the bills that were paid last week. The amount that we pay for the running of the generator for sounds of summer, I think we probably be paying that towards owning one. Okay. >> Can kind of move it around the whole city whenever we have different events. >> Okay. Yeah. And and just to kind of couple on to that, one of the things that we talked about the other day, um that I'd kind of like to see also if if we're not going to open
063city hall and use these restrooms, that they have some nicer trailer mounted restroom facilities that you see at different events. And a lot of a lot of cities have found that those, you know, get a lot of use. Even if you ju, you know, we wouldn't just use it for that. We'd have other options, you know, then and we wouldn't have to rent them, you know. So that that might be something that you know both of those components are things that we currently rent that we might find a usefulness for. And a generator I certainly not going to with my background I'm not going to ever say we shouldn't have generators because a lot of things can happen for us to lose power. So it doesn't have to just be for concerts >> under that
064goal number one where it mentions the increase in sales tax and the hot funds says 10% and 5%. Do you have any idea kind of where we are um at this point in time during the year? >> I'm going to look to Kristen or Taylor or so there's Charlie maybe there. just to increase. >> Very good. Thank you, Charlie. >> Hot fun should go up the new hotel. >> Mhm. H under marketing. I'm just curious under goal number two where it says create a two-year marketing plan. Is that something that I think that was probably put on there before um before U Taylor joined the city. And so I'm wondering kind of if that's something that she still feels like is an important thing to be doing or >> Yes, sir. It's something that I've
065started working on. It, you know, takes some time to develop that kind of a plan, but it is something that one of my goals um for our department to finish next fiscal year. >> Yeah, I'm not not calling you out. I'm just think I'm just thinking that before I think that was established before you even came on board. So, it was I just want to make sure it was something that we still saw that it was important to do. >> Yes, sir. Absolutely. Okay. And what is your plan? >> Working on it. >> She getting episode on the map, man. No, that about >> on the T uh on on the T TMRS. Are we going one and a half% or just 1% for the next three years or >> it we're not tied to
066any time frame. We would go 1% because they only do it in even in p full percent increments. >> Okay. So, it's five, six, seven, or eight. Um, we're at five, we're going to go to six. Um, and >> eventually we're >> and then at some point, yeah, at some point hopefully we'll be able to afford it and we'll find it reasonable to go to seven. And I'm not even going to think about going to eight yet, but I want to take manageable steps. So, I kind of like that um idea that you've got to develop a maintenance plan inhouse. >> Yes, sir. >> That makes sense. on the uh on the two part-time employees that you want to make fulltime. Is those full-time position needed? >> I believe so, sir. U one of them
067is the assistant fire chief that's currently a a part-time position. Um and really we really need someone that um is there in a in a management role. they they don't currently have um it it we have all of our firefighters and then it goes straight from them to the fire chief kind of right now and and so we really need need to start creating that span of control, managing that span of control and helping their department to to be more uh functionally organized. Um and and having a an assistant chief here would help kind of divvy up those responsibilities. maybe one of them's over operations and one overs training and administration or I don't know how they'll break it up but kind of start divvying up those responsibilities so that it's not all under one
068person and if you have someone out it helps us to have someone that can step in and fill that. Um and we've we've kind of seen some um some need for that. Uh and then the other was uh the the part-time clerk at the library clerk right? >> Yeah. at the at the library. Uh they asked to convert that to a full-time position because there's been a just a lot of times where Tiffany's had to fill in there because and wasn't able to do other things at other programs because we only have a part-time position there. So trying trying to fill that out. >> Back to the fire department. Um with the fire chief and assistant fire chief, will this assistant position be a Monday through Friday job or will it be Monday through Sunday
069job? and the fire chief and the assistant chief offset the days that they work. I >> I think mo both of them are likely to be salaried positions Monday through Friday, but on call like every other director on call 24 hours a day. So if there's something that happens after hours, they could take turns. If one of them's busy or out with the family, the other one could come in if they if they needed to come in, whether it be evenings or weekends. um that that you've got two people there and one of them to be available. >> The next meeting we have we will have some numbers. Correct. Yes, sir. You'll actually have the proposed budget in front of you at the next one. >> It's already somewhat seemed like that during the interview
070process you were listening to us. >> I hope so. He didn't come in blind. He He w He watched a few council meetings. >> Did a lot of Did a lot of checking up on us >> and still wanted a job. >> Yes, sir. Absolutely. >> Anything else? All right. Well, thank you very much and thank you staff. Thank all y'all for know y'all been very hard at it for the past few months trying to even get to this point. So, thank y'all very much.