This transcript features **Mayor Michele Hanson**, a staff member addressed as **Adam** (likely performing the duties of the Finance Officer or City Administrator), and council members identified in the roll call as **Carlson**, **Dahl**, and **Gilmore**. **Connie Larson** (the new hire) also speaks briefly. [14:06] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Uh, City Council special meeting on September 27, 2021. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with— [14:38] **Adam [City Staff]:** Here. Councilmember Carlson? Here. Councilmember Dahl? Present. Councilmember Hanson? Here. Councilmember Gilmore? Here. All present. [14:38] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** That takes us to our first item of new business, which is to consider hiring Connie Larson as a full-time Office Support Specialist. Adam? [15:13] **Adam [City Staff]:** Thank you, Mayor. This is a little—not out of the ordinary, but a little bit new. Um, thank you for accommodating the special meeting additional agenda item. As this council knows, that we've had some staff turnover in the administration department, and we are looking to refill with the promotion of Mary Goulette, who has been promoted to a finance position. We're looking to re-backfill the full-time Office Support Specialist position. Staff has been conducting interviews and we actually had a temporary employee helping out with the administrative staff for the last several weeks, and that was in part because we were short-staffed with some other staff conflicts. We actually invited the temporary employee, her name is Connie Larson, to apply for the full-time position. She's been a great fit for the office, the administrative team, and after our second interview with her, we all agreed that she would be the one that would be the best for the city at this time. And so we'd like to recommend her for a full-time hire. I did have her join us tonight because of the timing of the meeting, and I wanted to introduce the council to the new employee. So Connie, if you'll come up here? [16:44] **Connie Larson:** Sure. Absolutely. Connie Larson. I have been a banker for 20 years. I was in insurance for just as long. I worked fraud and forgery for several banks in the Twin Cities. I owned my own business. I've raised three girls. I've done a lot of things—horse ranch, I had a furniture store, so I'm well-rounded. I also have worked with Series 6 and 63 insurance documents and a lot of fraud and forgery, so I do try to keep an eye on everything. They probably all think I'm very careful, maybe too careful, but they won't slip anything by with me. So I'm just very excited to be here and be a part of this wonderful city. I just am so impressed; the staff has been wonderful, welcoming, and training—they're just excellent. I can't say enough good things. And Bayport itself is amazing. I'm looking at all the things and it's been just the most pleasant experience here. So I thank you so much for welcoming me in. [17:30] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Thank you, Connie. Where do you live? [17:30] **Connie Larson:** I did live in New Richmond, but we just moved a couple weeks ago to Osceola. Okay, sorry, not far. Not too bad. Thank you. [18:15] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Thank you. Thank you for joining us. [18:15] **Adam [City Staff]:** Thank you, Connie. Um, so with that, um, we are proposing to start her out at Grade 2, which is the Office Support Specialist position, at Step 2 based on her experience. And with that, if there's any other council questions for me, I'm happy to answer those; otherwise, I would request that the council take action on this recommendation for hiring. [18:15] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Any questions from the council? If not, would someone like to make a motion? [18:15] **Councilmember Carlson:** I will move to approve the hiring of Connie Larson for the full-time Office Support Specialist position as presented as Grade 2. [18:15] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Thank you, Carlson. Is there a second? [18:15] **Councilmember [John]:** I'll second. [18:15] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Thank you, John. And um, thank you. Adam? [18:15] **Adam [City Staff]:** Councilmember Carlson? Aye. Councilmember Dahl? Aye. Councilmember Gilmore? Aye. Councilmember Hanson? Aye. Motion carries. [19:00] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Thank you. Great, welcome. Very nice to have you on board. [19:00] **Connie Larson:** Thank you so much, I appreciate it. [19:00] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** You bet. And congratulations also to Mary Goulette for getting into the finance school, so we are very happy to be coming back full strength. Um, a lot of work to do. Connie, I'm not gonna make you stay here. You're welcome to join us with the—listen to the budget—but thank you, I appreciate you being able to stay after. [19:00] **Connie Larson:** Thank you. Have a great night. [19:00] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Okay, well, um, that takes us on to our other business, which is the 2022 preliminary city budget presentation. So Adam, I know you've been working really hard. [19:46] **Adam [City Staff]:** Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, yes. The—I'm going to just switch over and share my screen. We have been trying this out quite a bit since the last meeting where we had some technical difficulties, and it is working this time. So take a while, we can get it. Um, the three items that the council needs to do tonight, which are typically done at the first meeting in September, is to adopt—formally adopt—the preliminary levy, the preliminary budget, and the preliminary CIP, that's the Capital Improvement Plan. Because of the amount of effort that's gone into the planning for the budget this year, we've had four budget workshops up to this point starting in July, and the council had requested that we take a little bit more time to make sure that we have everything covered and that we've gone through all the budget and trying to find the best way to maximize what we can accomplish with the least amount of impact on the taxpayers and still be able to provide quality customer service, quality municipal services. And so here we are. This is towards the end of September 27th. As everybody is aware, the levy certification is due to the county on the 30th, so that is the legal deadline and so that's the reason for this meeting. Um, so thank you all for accommodating staff and being able to make it tonight for this important action as part of the vote. [20:32] **Adam [City Staff]:** With that, I will get into the actual budget. Um, as the council is aware, I have put a lot of work this year into revising the format of the budget and the CIP. I have—I did not reinvent the wheel—but using multiple other examples of the way that some other cities, more professional cities, have been doing their budgets, I have taken a look at a lot of those and tried to formulate our budget into an easier-to-read, more informative, more educational for the public, more transparent budget. And what you have received is about 99% there. I've got about 50 spreadsheets all feeding into one Word document, and as we know, technology doesn't always work perfectly, but the numbers are correct on the final levy and the final budget numbers. And so that—that's the important thing. And just one thing I want to remind the public and the council: the numbers that will be set and adopted tonight, they cannot be raised between now and the final certification in December, but they can be lowered. So that's—that's always something that I want to remind everybody if there is something that happens between now and then, some type of catastrophic economic event or something that, you know, we need to make adjustments for one reason or another, we do have that legal ability. But this is the preliminary number that will be certified. [22:49] **Adam [City Staff]:** So with that, I don't also don't have my typical or the typical presentation that I've done in previous years with the overview. This presentation is going to be, because of the different format, a little bit more nuts-and-bolts informative. I'm not going to go through every page and every item, but I am going to highlight some of the areas of the budget. This budget is available on the city website, and I have to make one little tweak to one page that I noticed after I put it on there, but this will be available for the public to be able to access. And if they have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact the city. The budget summary page basically shows the revenue in the different categories, and there's a couple things I want to highlight on here. We did have a couple changes to the budget that our auditors requested that we make. One of the items is that fire protection—you'll see on the fourth or fifth section down, fire protection. Under the proposed '22 budget, it's got a $176,000 increase. Part of that is because our auditors have requested that we reflect the money that the city was already receiving from the other communities that we provide fire service to, which is about $140,000, and the change in the relief funds, which was over $15,000. Um, those—we've been getting that money from the state or from our other community neighbors that we provide fire service to, but they haven't been reflected in our revenue. The auditors asked that we start reflecting that. [24:20] **Adam [City Staff]:** On the other side of that, on the expenditures, that is also being reflected. Even though we've been spending a specific amount—about $160,000 in debt service for the 2015 fire station construction—we haven't been reflecting that full cost. We've only been reflecting the less than $30,000 of the city portion of that annually. So this does have an impact on the budget numbers. It will not, as you will see as I go through this, it will not have an impact on the tax impact on the residents. Some of it is—it's a change in accounting practice. So this activity had already been going on behind the scenes that the public wasn't—I don't say wasn't aware of—but it wasn't being reflected in the documents and the numbers that the public had been working with, and for that matter, the council. Um, it was in the audit information deep buried in there, but they asked that we actually put it in the budget this year. So as we go through that, some of these numbers are going to look higher than in past history, but as we get through it and I explain what actually is going on, that'll—you'll understand the reasoning for that. [25:52] **Adam [City Staff]:** One of the other items that we have started to do on the same page: the transfer in. Uh, typically there's money—um, it's been steady the last several years—we haven't adjusted that. That is money transfers in from our general fund. As you recall, there's every year when we do projects or do some type of capital expenditure, we have built up over the years essentially a savings for capital projects, and then the last several years we've been spending that down. What we did this year is we actually included what that transfer from the general fund is being included into the operating budget for the year. Um, you'll see that has a change of $412,000 over '21. Now, we also in the budget itself are putting money back into the general fund. So it's not—it's not—we're trying to stem the use of and the reduction of our general fund, but there is a balance, there's an offset there as well. So you will—you will see that. [26:37] **Adam [City Staff]:** Um, if you go down just a little bit further at the bottom, you'll see the general fund revenue we have listed, and it always matches because we have a net-zero budget process. Here at 21.55%, that is the total budget change, and that's a change of $735,000. But that includes that transfers funds in for the capital improvements and the other changes that I was referring to regarding the fire protection. Um, and we'll also see the debt service as we get into the expenditures, you'll see where that money is actually coming from. So a lot of this is just a matter of reflecting it differently in our accounting. The budget expenditures itself is not increasing as much as '21; we're just starting to include more items in the budget that we've already been spending. So this is actually much more transparent than in previous years. Um, and we're—we're not all the way there with some of the changes, the other changes that I'd like to make, but we're taking the steps that we can take to become more transparent and be able to explain all the activity that we do as a city. Um, so you'll see the next—next section down is just the library. One item on there you'll see, just as I can explain it: their budget did go up the $12,700. The levies that they—as we'll get into and we talk about the library more specifically—the council did approve a $10,000 levy increase. The foundation already last year had increased on top of that that extra $2,700. So that's why the budget—both the revenue and expenditure—is higher than the $10,000. So the foundation had last year, even though the city did not make any increase to the levy, they increased their foundation contribution. So that's why that's not $10,000 there. You'll see later on the actual library, it is. [28:46] **Adam [City Staff]:** So moving on to the levy itself. Bayport—if—I doubt the everybody remembers, but last year the increase in the tax value was only about 1%, and that was a decision by the county. They had a zero percent levy increase, and none of the tax value of any of the new construction that the city had experienced was reflected or recognized in the county's assessments. So that has caught up this year, and as a result, we have had about a 4.7% overall value increase. The—the median value increase was 3.7%, and so you'll see here on this, just gives you a little breakdown of what the levy is. Um, for the '22 proposed levy, the total is 1,591,981, which is about almost a $99,000 increase over the '21 levy. And you can see the breakdown there. It's that debt service fund of the levy—that's our levy, that's what we've historically, that's what our portion is. Um, if you remember back when I was talking about the other communities, that balance of $170,000, that comes from the other communities. But of our taxes, the Bayport residents only pay $29,992 towards our portion of the bond payments. So and then you can see the library fund levy—that has been increased $10,000. This is the stuff that the numbers that most of the public cares the most about because it has the most immediate direct impact on their lives, the tax impact. [30:18] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** And there were—I believe—I asked for the county's tax impact and the school district's tax impact information just so that we can provide numbers and visibility to the community of what our portion will be and what the other two portions will be when they see their bills, so that they get a whole picture. So thank you, Adam, for pulling this together. [31:15] **Adam [City Staff]:** So with Bayport's growth that we've had over the last really two years, but essentially we're being credited for the last year, the actual the tax value has gone up. Sorry, it's actually 4.8%. And what that translates into is it gave the city the ability to raise the levy dollars, which you can see is that almost $99,000, with very little impact on the taxpayer because it's the new construction that we've had—it spreads the taxes out across the broader, wider share. And with that growth, we're able to keep the taxes lower but still make sure we provide all the essential services and put additional money away for our capital projects in the future. Um, so that 6.6%, that does include the library increase, but it's—it's not a 6.6% tax increase. The median tax increase is 2%. Um, as the—so the actual number, the tax levy went up 6.6%, but that's just the number; it's being spread across more homes, more properties. And so the individual impact was less than 6.6. The target that the council had that we had worked on was that 2% median tax increase. And so if the council can see here, it's just about $11.00—about eleven and a half dollars for the median home. Uh, the median home in 2022 will be $200,000. So I have a couple different tiers here, so it ranges from, you know, about $10 up to about $20 from that $150,000 to $400,000 range. Um, obviously, if anybody—not everybody fits into that perfect—those numbers. If anybody wants to go to the county or they can even contact the city and we can help guide them as to what the city's portion would be using this spreadsheet. This tax impact spreadsheet is available on the county's website; you can just plug in the information that is relevant to you and get the information. [33:33] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** I think what's important here is to show also that this sometimes increases are shown with the current year's numbers. And so then you say, "Okay, your taxes are only going to raise between 10 and 20 dollars." But then you get your tax bill and your home is now worth 3.7% more, and then that 10 to 20 dollars then is reflected at a higher number and it's confusing. In this case, what we've done is that we're reflecting what that actual increase will be at the estimated property tax for 2022—much more accurate that people know this will be—my home will be in this range, maybe it's a $300,000 home and my taxes will be $955 this year versus my home being valued at $289 last year and my taxes being $939. So it's—these documents are really helpful in showing exactly the impact, which is minimal. So thank you again for doing that, all those scenarios. [35:05] **Adam [City Staff]:** The county has a $4 levy increase over last year for their median home, which I believe is $318,000 for the county-wide. But over 20—that's actually over 2020. So the two-year levy increase is only four dollars because they had a zero levy increase; it actually went down last year. Um, the net from '21 to '22 is actually a $29 increase for the median tax increase for the median home of the county. They said it was $29. [35:51] **Councilmember Dahl:** So the school—is that assuming that it passes the levy, this operating referendum? [35:51] **Adam [City Staff]:** Yes, this is as proposed. Okay. So this is—I mean, like that, because there were two questions. Yeah, okay. Yeah, they were in—so that they actually account for both of those. Let's see... I'm not sure if anybody can see this or not. [36:36] **Councilmember Dahl:** And you're using the median value of a Bayport home versus the median value of a home—this is what they... [36:36] **Adam [City Staff]:** Yes, this was their—the school district's. So their—it's different than ours. It's probably a little higher for the median $289,000 within the district. It's the district median, so it's not—I haven't had time to specify it just for Bayport, but this will—it really shouldn't matter um because they kind of received all the value, the home values or whatever. Trying to—can we zoom in? I'm trying to do here, it's not letting me. Um, I'm not sure where these—they were on it... you didn't see them at all on there? Okay, probably—I had both pages, but my apologies. Um, but I can get them to the council after the meeting. [37:25] **Adam [City Staff]:** Uh, so as you can see there, they had the—the school district does have two questions: the operating referendum and then the capital project levy. And there—assuming that... so the Bayport median, which was the $200,000, that would be a $44 increase for the first question, and then with the second question, it's a—looks like it's a $72 increase based on this. Um, that's at that $200,000 Bayport median for residential homes. [38:10] **Councilmember Dahl:** 72? Did you say 44 and 72? [38:10] **Adam [City Staff]:** That is the—so then it has a—they listed here the existing—the change in other levies that they have, it would be a subtraction of $39, which comes out to a net of $77. So that net change is the overall, if both questions pass. Again, this is hypothetical with their information. Uh, as proposed, there would be a net increase of $77 for the Bayport median household. And with that, the median for the county then would be the $29 and the median for... but that's the county median is higher than Bayport's median. Then our median for the city's portion of that is the eleven-fifty. [38:58] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** So between 11 and 12 dollars, and we're talking about annual numbers there when you say that, so people don't... [38:58] **Adam [City Staff]:** That's—yes, that's the net change from '21—what they're paying this year—to what they would be paying next year. So and that's one thing to—for the public that I haven't really talked about yet tonight: each part of your tax bill is—we actually have a tax rate decrease. The tax rate is the portion of your total tax bill that each taxing jurisdiction is basically responsible for. Each tax bill, the residents or the property owners have to pay a portion to the city, a portion to the county, a portion to the school district, and any other taxing authorities that may be included in their bill. Here in Bayport, it's really usually just the three. And then with the city, there may be special assessments or the county may have special assessments. But the city's actual tax rate has gone down. Uh, let me—I believe it was 2.4%. So it went from just under 33.8% to 32.9% or 33 almost. So the tax rate has gone down, regardless of what the other entities do. Ours will go down if they were to have just a zero percent. Um, so if the school district levy does pass, both the county and the city for Bayport residents would probably decrease even more, just because that is a much more significant amount of the total tax bill because of the changes. [40:30] **Adam [City Staff]:** So with that said, as I've explained, the actual tax impact of this fairly significant budget increase on paper is still quite low. Um, I think, you know, we had several workshops, discussed it with the council. The median change would be between 11 and 12 dollars. And again, the on-paper budget increase of the $700-plus thousand dollars is not—it's almost $750,000—is not a $750,000 increase in spending. I think that's the part that I just want to make sure everybody understands, is a lot of this is we're including additional expenses that the city's already been paying for in our actual budget. And so it looks—I mean, if someone were to read this from a headline, it would be, you know, "Bayport has a 20% budget increase." Well, we don't. We're revising our actual budget format, and our auditors have asked us to reflect it differently on paper. I mean, what we could do—and I haven't had the time to do this—we could go back and include all these other figures that were now... and so we could have the real number. I've thought of being able to do this. I have not had the time to go back to previous years and start doing the same math, but that is something that I've thought of wanting to do possibly by December, just so the public can see the actual change. [42:02] **Adam [City Staff]:** Uh, so with that, I will now—I'm going to dive into some of the actual real changes for the public because we have made some significant investments in our future. Um, I'm gonna go through—I'm not gonna go through each page—but there are a couple sections that I did want to highlight. As I said, we had four workshops plus this budget meeting, so there's been quite a bit of involvement and engagement with the council. The first one I wanted to highlight was the Administration and Police. The administration—these kind of some of these same aspects go throughout all the departments. As you can imagine, staffing personnel costs are a significant portion of our budget. This year, we—I proposed a 3% cost-of-living increase. There's also a 3.7% health insurance increase. Um, it's not always linear, though, because the way our health insurance is charged, the costs are actually—the rates are actually based on age. So as your workforce ages, it's not just the year-over-year change in that age range; it's also you have an older staff. So one year later, it actually comes up to about a 5% difference with all the aging on the staff, which—again, we're not saying we can't—we don't want older workers or that I'm, you know, I want to quit because I'm getting old—but that's a reality that's not often thought of. When every year as just the staff ages, the cost is going to increase even if the rate stayed the same because of the way that ours is charged. [43:36] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Councilmember Dahl, did you have a question? [43:36] **Councilmember Dahl:** No, oh, I'm sorry. My iPad... okay, shut up. [44:21] **Adam [City Staff]:** Um, and please, with a different format, if there's any questions throughout any of this... um, I'm trying to get through it quickly, I know I'm still giving a lot of information, but if there's any questions on anything, please let me know. I did break down the full-time equivalents for each department. So in the administration budget, there's 1.62 full-time equivalents. So 1.62 of the full-time salaries, benefits, insurance—that's in the administration department, even though in the actual administration department we have multiple departments that are counted in there. There's four and a half people right now that work there, but our cost—the budget—is split up based on how much time we're spending on various tasks. As I said, one of the other—so we had the 3% COLA—we've also been reapportioning some of the budget funds or the budget expenses. If the council recalls, back in 2018, Public Works Director Joe Hansen and I started taking some of the money that was in the water and sewer operation fund and moving it into the general fund because that's where staff is actually working. We were charging the water and sewer funds more than staff was actually spending time on, and those things change year to year. Some years you're spending a lot more time in one area than the other, but it's something that Matt and I have been working on making sure that's as accurate as possible. Um, you know, it's never going to be 100% perfect, but we do try to get it as close to reality as possible so that we're making sure that we're charging the correct amount in each area. [45:54] **Adam [City Staff]:** One of the other things that didn't have a huge budget impact, but we haven't had a full-time finance officer in administration for the last—all of '21—and that goes back to March of 2020. And so with that, there was a recognized increase going from the 30 hours that we have now to the 40 hours in the budget next year. Um, so that's reflected in the administration department as well. Um, just one thing to highlight: we are in the administration department overall. We are still trying to improve services for convenience. We're still working with our vendor for taking credit cards, but we did—if the council recalls—we did make a major completely new website. But we're still improving, there's still room to improve on it. Uh, but we're working on the electronic forms; we're trying to get more efficient with electronic options for residents. Obviously, COVID had a big part in forcing that as a reality, um, but there's a lot that we're taking away from what we've been forced to do that we'd like to still promote. Social media is one thing that we're looking to, you know, increase our operations there. Um, we do have some on staff... with Connie coming on board, it frees up some of the other time for Cara, who has experience in that specifically with our website vendor as well. So we're looking forward to that. [47:24] **Adam [City Staff]:** Moving on to police, that was something else I just wanted to highlight with some of the significant items. Um, they too have a labor agreement with a 3% COLA if approved. One of the items that they're also proposing is a 50-cent increase for the night shift, and so those figures were included in the budget figures. Right now, they get 50 cents for the night shift differential, and so the people on the night shift get 50 cents more per hour to work the night shift. That is becoming more and more difficult, not just to hire and retain police officers, but nobody wants to work the night shift—and I can't say I blame them—but that was something that um we're currently negotiating but that is included in the budget to go from 50 cents to a dollar. Um, it comes out to a total—it's only $5,000 a year with the new amount, it was $2,500 with just the 50 cents. So it's not a large number overall of the whole budget. As you can see, their budget is quite large. Public safety in general is. They also have several steps for several employees. One of the other items that we did catch this year that we noticed is the PERA rate. This was something discussed in one of the workshops. The PERA rate for police and fire—PERA, which is the Public Employee Retirement Association—went from 16.2% in 2018 up to, I'm sorry, 16.95% in 2019, and then again in '20 it went to 17.7%. That was not reflected in our budget. Um, the finance officer at the time and I did not catch that. So we were paying it so that the employees received their PERA amount, but in the actual proposed budget, the city's contribution was not reflected. So we've corrected that. [48:56] **Adam [City Staff]:** So going forward that'll be accurate, but that was part of the reason why there's a somewhat significant jump in the personnel costs because that is included in there on top of the other things. The workers' comp across the board pretty much for all the departments has gone up this year. We had several—you know, we try to avoid it, we work really hard to have employee safety—but there's been a couple items. If the council recalls police officer Cornell, um, that was a significant incident that—our rates do go up when it's utilized. We had a couple of other small ones that get adjusted every year. So hopefully we can continue to be safe in other areas and bring that back down. [50:29] **Adam [City Staff]:** The next item was Fire. This is something that we've talked about a lot over the years. The fire department again includes the 3% cap under our current contract that we're in discussions with the other communities that we serve. The cost increases for the fire station continue to go up, and that's something else that was not accounted for necessarily in the fire contract—the long-term changes. So we're really looking forward to that. I know I just—we're in the process of scheduling the meeting to discuss that and hopefully get some changes there. Uh, the Relief Association—we did not, because we're in the middle of making those discussions, we did not make a change this year in transferring any more money out than we had been. We did increase the capital expenditures out of the department or the capital savings by $10,025. Um, one of the other items that has impacted the fire service: if the council recalls, in 2020 we had the call change, the medical call change in Oak Park that our fire department and our city did not support. But that, on top of the pandemic, where the medical response policy—the protocol for the entire county had changed—that has brought our call volume down. And a lot of those are still in place. Obviously, Parks is as well as the county-wide first responder. We didn't put it down as low as it currently is; we still expect that to start increasing more. Um, we do have—just without getting into it too much—there have been some negative impacts that the fire chief has brought to my attention or that we're aware of by the Oak Park Heights medical change. So we're looking to continue those discussions with them and see if we can get that change back for the benefit of the Oak Park residents as well as our firefighters. So there is a decrease there that we're holding, and we'll see if that goes back up. [52:18] **Adam [City Staff]:** The one of the other items that actually just got new information today from Chief Kinney: our CIP does include a refurbishment of a 100-foot aerial platform—that's our ladder truck. It was scheduled to be replaced in 2029, and the estimated cost at that time is 1.4 million. Uh, we've been looking at—obviously that's a large amount of money—we've been looking at other ways to accomplish the same thing without having to spend that much. We've been able to look into refurbishing the ladder truck, and at a cost of only $300,000—and actually today I got news that it may only be just a little over $200,000. So the price is coming down for one reason or another. Um, but that was as of today, so I hope that continues. That definitely helps. Um, so at this point, like I said, I just found out about this couple hours ago, I wouldn't make any changes to the fire equipment budget at this point. But that actually will give us 10 more years of service than the 2029, so we're buying some additional time and there's no negative impact on the service. [53:50] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Can you just clarify that for me? So you're saying 10 years in addition, so it would go up to 2039 before we'd have to replace it? [53:50] **Adam [City Staff]:** Correct. Okay, yeah. So it's—it's not getting a brand new ladder truck, but it adds 10 more years to the current service life expectancy. Um, and just... I don't have it listed here, but our ISO ratings, which does impact people's insurance—one of the important reasons we do spend so much on fire equipment and the fire service is it does have a positive impact on your insurance here. All the hydrant locations... any of the places that we serve with a hydrant, it's a four, which is very good. And I believe it's a five without the hydrants. So um, that's—I didn't have it listed in the budget, but that is a benefit for most people, businesses as well as homes. [54:36] **Adam [City Staff]:** Moving on to streets. Um, as we get—I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on the projects, I want to spend a little bit of time on them—but the streets budget as well as the parks... we did again, we're moving funds out of the water and sewer fund into the general fund, which does have—it does cause an increase. But we also—the streets, the parks, and the cemetery are some of the general fund public works departments. And new for this year is we created—we put some personnel costs in the cemetery fund. In the past, we have not had personnel costs for any of the maintenance of the cemetery. And it's only, I believe it's about $12,000 as you can see here in personnel costs, but that's for a budget that had only been, you know, seven thousand dollars—that's quite significant. Um, but what that does is it allows us to have, again, where the funds are being spent accurate, and it takes some pressure off the water and sewer fund. [56:08] **Adam [City Staff]:** One of the things that this council knows with all the public improvement projects that we have: we can only collect money from our water and sewer utility charges to fund the water and sewer improvement fund. And by decreasing the expenses in the water and sewer fund, that gives us more freedom—not more freedom, but more latitude—if we have to make adjustments to the water and sewer rates, which we are planning to do a utility rate study. But we can also look at... right now, we have a certain amount that we take out every year if there's a net to put into the water and sewer improvement fund. By not having as many costs in the water and sewer fund, that gives the council a little more freedom if down the road we need to make an adjustment. Um, to try to increase those... we're not, unfortunately, even with all the increases for the capital improvement funds, we're not anywhere really close to being able to afford, as you'll see in the CIP, the long-term list of projects. Um, we've got several that Matt has worked on teeing up. Nothing planned for next year, nothing significant, but after that, '23 and on, we do have a list of projects that we'd like to—we'll need to do at some point. And so we need to start looking at those as we go. We're going to need to figure out a way to pay for those. Um, even with our 50% assessment policy, we don't have enough money without seriously or significantly dipping into the general fund or the fund balance for each of those. So we're setting the groundwork right now; we're doing the groundwork to figure out how to pay for those in the future. And so that's one of the things that we'll be focusing on this next year. Um, as Matt has said, you know, '22 is really going to be a planning year to figure out how best to pay for those projects down the road and come up with a better plan of when they should take place as well. [58:26] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** But it should be clear that we are in this process also starting to put some extra money away. And that's part of why this budget is the way it is. It's structured to cover our day-to-day costs, salaries, benefits, invest in the library, and then invest in savings for Fire, Parks, Cemetery, and the Streets to ensure that we at least are starting to put money back in and save so that we don't end up hitting people with very large tax increases or burdening future councils with dramatic decisions to have to make. So with only raising our taxes for the average household like 10 to 11 dollars this year, we are making significant contributions to savings accounts. So I just want everyone to know that we are keeping that in mind, and saving and not dipping into our general fund is very, very important to us. [59:12] **Adam [City Staff]:** Absolutely. And I'm just about to get to that—the expenditures for the non-departmental. This is something I'd referred to a little bit earlier was the debt service. And as you can see there, that went up $140,000. That money has already been spent; we just haven't been listing it in our budget because we've only been listing Bayport's portion. Our auditors want that. Um, the relief fund—that goes up, you know, that's passed through state revenue, so if that goes up, it goes up on our revenue side as well as our expenditure side as zero impact on the tax rate. Um, that general fund total without the capital outlay, that is essentially that $340,000, that is the amount of the operating and including that debt service. So you know, that's $160,000 of that $340 right there. And then we've made some significant, as the Mayor referenced, other increases in the capital savings. And so this next page, that is on top of that—there's here's some of the specific items that we've been saving for and are going to continue to save for but also pay for. Under the fire equipment, we increased that fire equipment outlay by almost $145,000, and that was at the $300,000 expected cost for next year of the ladder truck refurbishment. Um, the almost $60,000 for the street reconstruction—that was on top of the 180 that we've been saving annually. Um, these are—I know it seems like it's only $60,000 more—but that's a lot of money that we... at $60,000 more than we had been investing every year. Um, you know, we've been trying to increase that. One of the things... these are some important investments and also not having to spend on our general fund balance. That's something that we have to keep in mind, that we do—the city is very healthy financially, but in order to stay healthy financially, we can't spend all of our money. We have cash and assets and cash equivalents. Um, you know, I know the public could see the audit or see these figures and oh, it's millions of dollars, but I want the public and the council to know that that money is being used. It's being tied up in multiple investments and we use that money to pay for—to bridge the operations. Um, it's not just sitting there in a vault, not accessible to the taxpayers. Um, we are very careful to, you know, we have multiple policies controlling what can be done with this and what it can be used for and how to invest it. And we have—it's very important that we keep that trend positive. [1:02:17] **Adam [City Staff]:** But then moving on, we also—one of the things that is on the CIP next year—is the replacement of the loader, the Public Works loader. It's a 2001 Caterpillar, and the repair costs, the maintenance costs are starting to become unreasonable. So we need to replace it; it's 20 years old and it is used quite a bit. The other area—one of the other areas that the council wanted to place more investment in—is the recreation capital equipment fund. This fund... the money that we get from the gambling proceeds, under state statute anybody who does charitable gambling has to donate that or dispose of that to certain eligible entities. The city is one. We have a great partnership with the Legion; they choose to donate a portion of their gaming proceeds to the city. Outside of those funds, the city also contributes additional funds to this budget department. And those funds that we get from the charitable gambling can only be used on equipment—park equipment, park improvements—that are targeted towards youth. So that's something like the baseball fence that the council approved at the last meeting; that type of expenditure can come from the recreation capital equipment fund. [1:03:52] **Adam [City Staff]:** One of the other park-related items that the council has been discussing is our park dedication fees, which can be used on any type of park improvement. Those come from development, and with development ending in Bayport and limited... we do get a portion under the JPA for the Baytown developments; we get half of each home that's connected to water of the thousand-dollar park dedication fee. Um, with that ending—with Inspiration building out—and limited other options, that fund will cease having any revenue. So we will have to start putting money aside for future park improvements, and not just new parks, but just maintaining the current park equipment, park shelters—all the park improvements that we do have. And we do have quite a bit here in Bayport; we're very lucky to have such nice amenities. Um, with that, we did add some additional funds of forty thousand five hundred. Um, one of the other last items that we wanted to invest in the city council asked about was the cemetery. So we did increase that just by $7,500, but again, that was a... percentage-wise, it was a good amount. And that will actually give the city the ability to... we have to replace the fence in several years, but we can actually move that up on the CIP at a future time if the council still chooses with that additional funding. So with that, again, these are some... it's almost $400,000 that the city is additionally putting aside for saving, and these are real dollars. But even with that $400,000, there's not a lot of impact on the taxpayer. We've been very fortunate to... the way—as I said, most of what that increased, a lot of that increase has already been part of the city expenses, it just hasn't been a part of—formally part of the budget. So I just want to make sure everybody keeps that in mind. I sound like a broken record here, but it's very, very important. [1:05:25] **Adam [City Staff]:** So moving on just very quickly. Were there any other questions on the general budget from the council? Moving on to the CIP, I'm not gonna go through the whole thing. Uh, I produced this document back some time ago for the council, and hopefully you found it educational. Each—I'm not going to go through each department, each inter-service fund since we already kind of discussed that. It will be available on the website, it is available on the website now if the public has any questions. Um, a couple of the items that I just wanted to highlight for the public: these are the four projects that we've identified as the next ones needing to be done. There's not a hard deadline that they have to happen. This first one, Project 1, as you can see on the map, it's slated—and that's the way I'll describe it—it's slated for 2023. Um, and Matt, if council has any questions for Matt, um, I'm sure he'd be happy to answer them. But a lot of this... we'll be doing a lot of planning and continuing to monitor these streets and the sewers and the water mains, and we'll have to make adjustments as we go. But these—this is basically the order. If they didn't happen in 2023, Bayport's not going to fall apart, but we want to make sure we get ahead of these improvements before it is too late and either costs more or we start running into worse problems. Uh, Project 2 is slated for 2024 and this is again... I'm not gonna go through the different types of project that it involves, but there's water and sewer and streets on all these. Project 3 is slated for 2025 and again... you know, they vary in what's included. And these again, if the public has any interest in seeing these, they can either contact us or get more information. Each has a small description which was added since the council last saw these maps. There's a small description of what actually is included at the bottom of each project summary. [1:07:43] **Councilmember Dahl:** So Adam? Yes, Matt? As we move forward with these project maps, I'm just struggling to find where the navy line is. So I don't know if I'm just kind of blind, but I mean, I obviously can see the orange and the green and the blue, but it's supposed to be a navy line and I've not seen it. [1:08:29] **Matt Kline:** The navy line, I think, was Project probably five or six. It was only one project. [1:08:29] **Councilmember Dahl:** So it's not on any of these? That's why I see a navy line... okay. I'm like, it's in the legend and I'm like, I don't find it anywhere. [1:08:29] **Adam [City Staff]:** So yeah, the navy line was storm drain replacement exclusively, and that was only one project. I think that's like Project 6. I believe all of these other projects that include street reconstruction and drainage work, that would be tied into the street reconstruction and drainage work. So the only reason that that one's called out separate is that was a separate project that was kind of only dealing with storm drain. [1:09:14] **Councilmember Dahl:** Okay, so I shouldn't be seeing a navy line. I'm sorry for the confusion. [1:09:14] **Adam [City Staff]:** If you recall, we had seven projects, actually eight, nine almost. Um, when we initially came up with the ten-year plan that we're working under, we only have the five-year CIP, so we only included the top four but we had the same legend. [1:09:14] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** I think we also have to talk about the urgency of these projects because I think if we do this, it really taps out the budget. So I think... can we spread them out two or three years instead of every year? You know, just we need to talk about that as accountability. [1:10:00] **Adam [City Staff]:** Yes. And so that's what we'll be talking about next year, um, as we both determine how to pay for any of them, but also which ones do we want to... you know, these are kind of the as-of-now priority order, but there may be something next year that we find that, well, this one actually has gotten worse just in the last 12 months, we need to shift things. So that schedule—by adopting this five-year CIP tonight with these on those years—we're not committing to those projects at that time. These are just part of... it's for transparency, for notice, you know, let the public know that these are on our list, at some point these are gonna have to be done. So we want to let people know and also for the council's knowledge. These are what staff is currently working with. Um, but each year as we go forward... and not that we have to wait, but I wasn't planning on having that full being able to schedule because we don't know. Matt and I have been discussing it and we, as I said, we know now we don't have the funds as of now to be able to do all of them as scheduled, so we need to figure out how to do the whole thing. Because at some point we're going to need to do the work. [1:10:47] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** To be clear, the budget doesn't reflect any assessments that would take away from city funding of these, right? So right now what you're saying the cost is for a project is if the city had to cover 100% of that project? [1:11:32] **Adam [City Staff]:** It's the estimated cost of the project, right. It doesn't calculate any assessments. Um, we—as you know, our current assessment policy is 50% for eligible expenses. It ends up being closer to like 30%... yeah, it depends on the project. It depends on what's involved, what's included... both parcel and type of infrastructure that's being addressed. Um, I know it has been discussed by the council. Bayport's kind of right in the middle. There's other communities where the city covers the whole thing. Obviously, we can't afford to do the whole thing and I don't think there's any desire at the council to increase it by any means. Um, so that's the conversation that we need to have. What we're doing right now is we're putting additional funding away to help pay for the city's portion. Um, so that's, you know, we're not getting there yet, but it would be irresponsible to not put additional funding towards these projects knowing that they are going to have to be addressed at some point. [1:12:18] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** It's also—I would love to see these pulled out and put somewhere on a development area of our website so people can see not only these that are in the next 10 years, but you know, there's more that are on the list and there are others that pop up in between. For full transparency for people, so that they're not surprised—that they at least can see, "Yep, my street is slated. It's not in great shape; it may be two years from now, it may be ten years from now," but it's at least on the radar. So I think that that's critical for people to have as part of their planning process. Because you know, even if the numbers right now reflect 50% of the cost, which it's—that's—it always is a variable. We still don't have enough in our regular savings outside of dipping into our regular budgeted amount to cover the city's portion of these costs. Um, because we actually don't know what our portion of the cost is until we actually get to that point. And right now we're assuming 100% of the cost in these numbers and we're actually able to cover it. I mean, we drain our funds, but we can cover it. So I just want to have the visibility for homeowners to know what's on the radar. And I think having the complete list of the seven—because as we know, it's also not a complete list because we know other things happen, a water main breaks or a culvert... this year happened. So you know, I want to make sure that we plan for the savings of the city's portion of these bills and that homeowners have visibility of what may be coming their way. And then they can ask more questions and pursue more conversations with Matt in the city. But the visibility, I think, is critical. We don't want anyone taken by surprise. So thank you very much for this. [1:14:37] **Councilmember Dahl:** I agree. I think, Matt, I agree with the Mayor in that, you know, this is good. You know, this... a layperson can look at this and go, "Here's my address." And I don't know if now is the appropriate time to throw this in there, but is there such a thing as sort of a budget summary that would kind of explain to the public, what us as a council, what our priorities were and why we chose to do certain things? And maybe highlight some of the things where there were big kind of shell games with numbers, so people that would be in-depth in looking at a budget and are familiar with those things—I'm not that guy—but would give a broad outline: "Here's what we had in mind and why we did it." I just think it would be helpful for somebody like me that looks at things like this, and I think a lot of people on a really high level rather than a detailed level, and go, "Here's what they had in mind and why they did that." I don't know if that's completely out of left field or if it would be completely inappropriate. [1:16:55] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** I think it's a good idea and just to make some of those things of, you know, what's the difference between the levy and the budget, and some of the key items that moved and were transferred that had an impact. And yes, you know, I only support this budget and this amount because of savings. That's the added savings that we're able to provide in this scenario. So um, I think it's always been really, really clear that I am not open to the city changing its assessment policy. I feel like we're very fair, and this budget allows us to look to the future for our cemetery, our parks, our streets, fire, and make some good, sound investments that make it so we don't have to dip into our stable funds. So that's why, you know, I can get behind this and these numbers at this time. [1:17:40] **Adam [City Staff]:** Yeah, to Councilmember Dahl's question: yes, that's something that we will have—kind of a summary of this. And we go beyond just the minutes, but it'll... I'm getting into a lot more detail in this discussion, but that's typically something that we will have. [1:17:40] **Councilmember Dahl:** I mean, just for me, these budget comments, bullet points you had—those are gold. That's really helpful stuff. Um, so I guess I would point to those things as... you know, pick a couple out from each one that are kind of the big drivers of what happens in that particular expenditure page. Anyway, I think we're on the same page. Thank you. [1:18:27] **Adam [City Staff]:** Very good. Thank you. Um, so with the last kind of the last item of the CIP that I wanted to highlight. This is the screen that or the format that everybody is kind of most familiar with over the last few years. For the 2022 program here for the CIP, these are what we have on schedule. This is what we're expecting, planning on doing. Um, we already saw today that the pink line, the fire aerial refurbishment—you know, that one can be significantly less possibly. So we're going to hope for that. Um, but this gives you the—kind of how much we're planning on spending for each inter-service fund, each category. Um, the office computers we typically replace year out of the—we have about 30 computers, so we've made quite a bit of progress over the last couple years, but we're good for now. We're scheduling that. The library remodel contribution—we do have that listed there. That's something that the council had discussed. And again, so this is on the CIP; it's not included as part of the budget this year because we haven't got to that point. The library had not been paying into the municipal building fund. With them doing their project, the remodeling project, they've asked for a city contribution. The proposal was to have them basically access those funds and then have the library fund—which is a separate inter-service fund in the general fund—pay back that municipal building fund which all the other departments, the rest of the city facilities, draw from and that the city contributes to every year. The library had started paying into that fund again starting in 2019. So we're doing that and that is part of their budget. I know the library board had some questions on that just last week, so we'll be meeting with them, but that is what the current proposal is. And so what that would essentially be is an inter-fund loan. I know the council has done that on some of the other funds where it'll become a liability for the library fund as soon as it's authorized, and then over five years they'll extinguish that liability, and then it becomes an asset for the city's municipal building fund even though they're paying out of that as well. So it's—again, there's some accounting going on—but I've been working with our auditors on how to best do this. And so we'll be continuing those conversations with the library board. It would be something that they'd... because they have sole control, plenary power over the building because it's all dedicated to the library, but also the library fund dollars themselves, they can authorize expenditures out of that. So some of it's a formality with the way that they're legally created, but that's hopefully that'll work out fine and the city can get the library access to those funds. [1:21:30] **Adam [City Staff]:** The other items on the list: we did include a hard surface for the hockey rink on next year's CIP. That's something we've been talking about for a couple years. Councilmember Hanson had mentioned it. Um, we've been looking at... right now it's a proposed concrete pad. We've been looking at some other options that may be—maybe we want an equal alternative—but it might be a little more economical. Um, but that's something that we're continuing to look at, but as of right now, some type of hard surface is included in that. The booster stations—all these expenses would be included. This is again for the irrigation demand that we've been dealing with, and all this would be eligible under the ART funds, the American Rescue Plan funds. So that's something that the council—if the council chooses to—when we have to actually go pay for these, we can designate those as what we spent the ART funds on. Just for memory, we're getting about $400,000 and over in two installments. We did get the first $200,000 and we'll be getting the second next year, a year after we got the first. [1:23:02] **Adam [City Staff]:** So with that, then there's some various street projects that are listed. And we also have a separate water and sewer project list that it looks like I did not include... that's something else I just noticed. For the next year, moving on to the actual '23 through '26 plan years... these obviously are a lot more flexible. Um, we have—you know, these include those four projects and as you can see, it's quite expensive. But each of those items are farther out and there's a lot that can happen between now and then. A lot more information, you know, updated information we get before each of these. But this is kind of when they're slated. I have the year for each of these expenditures. Some of them are probably going to vary greatly and some of them may not vary at all, but we do have them on here as, again, the public and the council can plan on at least giving an idea to whoever's going to need to know that information in the future. One of the things that staff has really been trying to do a better job of is trying to schedule things, plan things out. Get on these... we know we're going to have these costs coming up. We've come up with a full fleet replacement schedule for both Public Works, Fire, Police. We just have the one squad; that's something else I meant to mention under the police budget. We've gone from one squad replacement every two years—we have three total—to now every three years. And that won't have a negative impact on the actual vehicles themselves or the ability, but it does free up some additional dollars for the part-time expenses that the police have been... unfortunately, the turnover in the part-time police officers is they want full-time work and so we got a year out of them and they often move on. So there's some increased costs there that we're definitely having to deal with. Um, but we've been really trying to do the long-term planning both for public improvement projects as well as equipment replacement so we know how much we're gonna need to save, how much we need to invest over the years so we're prepared. So there's been a big emphasis on that the past several years and it's starting to pay off. We're in a much better position than we were just a few years ago and we're continuing to carry that forward. Any other questions on this year's CIP or next year's? The 2022 list is much firmer; it's—you know, the council doesn't have to do any of it, but it's much firmer than the '23–'26 years. [1:26:10] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** So that's one project we have not talked about that's been on the CIP for next year is the Lakeside Park picnic shelter number four. I don't know that I've missed conversations about that, but what needs to be done to that specific shelter? And that's the one closest to the beach house, right? [1:26:10] **Adam [City Staff]:** But it was the most northern end, the number four. Matt, do you... [1:26:10] **Matt Kline:** It's on the south side. I thought it went four, three, two, one. Yeah, one is on the south end. [1:26:10] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Okay, so it's the one I was thinking, because I'm like in my eyes it seems like the one by the Girl Scout house needs the most work. Okay, so we're in number four for Derby Days and that's right. Okay. So the same thing with—I don't think that we've done a deep dive into the hard surface for the hockey rink either. So maybe at least we know that we have that amount allocated and we can look at the alternatives that you've been researching and we can look at the park shelter and see then what bubbles up for 2022. [1:27:22] **Adam [City Staff]:** Yeah, so when it comes time to do that, that would be a much deeper conversation. In all the workshops, the discussions we've had so far, it's been mentioned, but we haven't dug deep into that specific project really at all. [1:27:22] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** So I'm glad to hear that there's some desire to talk about it. The one of the other things that I just want to point out with—I know we've talked about it in the future—the moving to the nature center from where it is currently up in Inspiration. There's been a discussion of moving that down to the lower Barker's Alps area. The building was designed to be moved off of that site. That doesn't make it inexpensive; it's a very, very expensive process. There's a lot of costs involved in addition to running—just moving the structure itself—plus if we'd have to extend water and sewer to it, utilities, electrical... it's not a cheap project. That is on the—I think we have it slated for 2024. So it's been on there a couple years now on the five-year plan, and I don't know if that's something that the council... we don't have to decide tonight, but if there's a unanimous decision that we don't want it on there, take it off. Under the park dedication funds is where we would take the money to do it, and that would deplete that dedication fund. [1:28:10] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** We need to talk about that as well. I mean, we don't have enough information. Like, I don't understand why we need to add bathrooms, for example, when the bathrooms are already in the building. Exactly. So I feel like we need to talk about that. [1:29:40] **Adam [City Staff]:** And that's fine. It's been on there for a few years and we haven't spent enough time specifically on it. [1:29:40] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** For some reason it has not ever come up as a conversation, basically saying we have to replace it, which I'm kind of surprised. So I feel like there's a lot of stuff in this future, future... [1:29:40] **Adam [City Staff]:** Yes. Well, and some of that did come on this year—the warming house. That's what we've been... we actually have a 10-year plan for all the park amenities of when they're scheduled to have to be addressed one way or the other. [1:29:40] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Warming houses did in the 2022 one? [1:29:40] **Adam [City Staff]:** No, that is in the '25. [1:29:40] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Right, yeah, '25. One of the things I had in my notes on 2022: nothing would need to be in there for a Land Water Legacy project? We don't have any? [1:30:25] **Adam [City Staff]:** We don't know of any. Really the only next costs are because now we're going to have access, which has been everything up to this point, is the improvements, the next phase. And the schedule for those improvements are going to depend on outside funding. And so if outside funding becomes available in '22, then we'd have to come back to the council and say, "Is there... what amount would we need or want to propose?" We're not at that point yet because we just don't have that information. Um, so I didn't include any funding for that project for next year because I don't... there aren't any expenses outside of the next phase. [1:31:11] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Okay. Are there expenses just in planning? Like, I mean, I know someone drew up a kind of an idea of what could happen there, but don't we have to start thinking about an actual... [1:31:58] **Adam [City Staff]:** There would be some engineering costs in the formal design of that—if the boat launch, the double launch and the parking area. So there would be that. I didn't include any in there. Um, it wouldn't... I mean, the expenses that we've had this year for engineering, which most of them have been covered by the Anderson grant funding that we've had, they've been in the—less than five thousand. I mean, it's not a large number. And because I don't know of, you know, 10 or 25 thousand, which is typically what... the computers are something because of the life of it, the dollar amount itself wouldn't normally have the computers being included in the CIP. It's usually like 5,000 or more gets put on there or a life of three years. So you know, if it's just a one-year, two-thousand dollar item, that normally wouldn't be on the CIP part of the budget. So I didn't include any engineering costs for the Land Water Legacy, but there is a possibility depending on the outside funding. So it's a good question. [1:33:02] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Okay. Any other questions on the CIP? Any of these specific departments or funding? [1:33:02] **Adam [City Staff]:** I did have on there the utility rate study. That will be done. I know it's been on there a couple years now, but Matt and I are already looking into it for this year to kick that off. It's... we do have a lot on there. And as I said, the plan years '23–'26, there's even more on there, but we have not spent a lot of time discussing most of the items because they're the plan years further out. The council's not committing to any of it right now, but it's basically putting it on the radar for discussion. So one of the goals, one of the priorities for between now and a year from now, is to have those conversations and determine what needs to stay on there, what needs to be taken off, or what else needs to come off or on. [1:33:48] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Okay. Well, thank you very much. It's been a massive amount of work, and the rework that you've done with the documentation to make it so much more consumable by us and by the public is phenomenal. So thank you. I know it's been a lot of nights, a lot of weekends, and thank you. [1:34:34] **Adam [City Staff]:** All right, sorry I look tired, but we know why. It's been a labor of love. But with any other... if there's not any questions, that is my presentation and the next items are simply the adoption of the applicable resolutions. [1:34:34] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Great, thank you very much. Uh, are there any final questions by the council? If not, we have three different motions to go through. The first is to adopt the resolution for the preliminary levy for 2022. Would someone like to make that motion? [1:35:15] **Councilmember Carlson:** I'll move to adopt a resolution of the preliminary levy for the 2022 budget. I see it—resolution of the City of Bayport, Washington County, Minnesota, to establish the '22 preliminary levy certification for the city's General Fund and Library Fund at $1,591,981. [1:35:15] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Thank you, Carlson. Is there a second? [1:36:01] **Councilmember Gilmore:** Second. [1:36:01] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Adam, can you please call the roll? [1:36:01] **Adam [City Staff]:** Thank you, Madam Mayor. Councilmember Carlson? Aye. Councilmember Gilmore? Aye. Councilmember Hanson? Aye. Councilmember Dahl? Aye. Mayor Hanson? Aye. [1:36:47] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Second motion, to adopt the resolution for the preliminary budget for 2022. Would someone like to make that? [1:37:09] **Councilmember [John]:** Yeah, I make a motion to adopt a resolution of the City of Bayport, Washington County, Minnesota, adopting the preliminary city budget for 2022 at $4,475,881. Excuse me. [1:37:09] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Thank you, John. Is there a second? [1:37:09] **Councilmember Carlson:** I'll second. [1:37:09] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Thank you. Adam? [1:37:09] **Adam [City Staff]:** Thank you, Madam Mayor. Councilmember Dahl? Aye. Councilmember Hanson? Aye. Councilmember Gilmore? Aye. Councilmember Carlson? Aye. Mayor Hanson? Aye. [1:37:50] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** And our final is the resolution of the proposed Capital Improvement Plan for 2022. Would someone like to make that motion? [1:38:07] **Councilmember Carlson:** Okay, I'll make the motion adopting the resolution of the City of Bayport, Washington County, Minnesota, adopting the preliminary Capital Improvement Plan for 2022. [1:38:07] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Thank you, Carlson. Is there a second? [1:38:07] **Councilmember [John]:** Second. [1:38:07] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Thank you, John. Adam? [1:38:07] **Adam [City Staff]:** Thank you, Madam Mayor. Councilmember Carlson? Aye. Councilmember Dahl? Aye. Councilmember Gilmore? Aye. Councilmember Hanson? Aye. Mayor Hanson? Aye. [1:38:07] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Thank you, Adam. All right, with that, our business is concluded this evening. [1:38:07] **Adam [City Staff]:** One thing I just want to publicly announce is that the public input at the Truth and Taxation hearing in December will be December 6th at our regular scheduled City Council meeting at 6:00 PM this December. [1:38:53] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Excellent, thank you. Um, and maybe with that, during our council meeting in October, you could do that little summary, perhaps just a short version, and direct people to these documents online. That would probably be very helpful if we could add that to that agenda. Okay, so with that, our business is concluded. Would someone like to make a motion to adjourn? [1:38:53] **Councilmember Carlson:** I move to adjourn. [1:38:53] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Thank you. Is there a second? [1:38:53] **Councilmember [John]:** Second. [1:38:53] **Mayor Michele Hanson:** Thank you, John. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Meeting adjourned.