Based on the context provided and the phonetic transcriptions, I have identified the speakers. I have mapped phonetic names (e.g., "Teal" to Thiele, "Von Sluis/Von Seuss" to van Sluis) to the official names provided in your list. **Note:** The transcript frequently refers to the Mayor as "Mayor Voracek" or "Vachek." However, per your provided list, the current Mayor is **Thomas J. Spooner**. I have used Mayor Spooner for the presiding officer. [0:28] **[Silence/Background Noise]** [5:21] **Public Speaker:** which will be held at 3 o' in the afternoon at River Valley Church and uh we'll be singing a number of uh numbers along with other groups that will be singing as well and uh we'll receive a free will offering that day and the money will go to our um our Treasury and that treasury is uh Spilled Out to three um women's organizations lift up women and I'm struggl uh Ruth house is one of them Whispers of Hope and uh the The Hope Center I believe recipients of our gifts and on average we give about $1,500 to each one of those three organizations here we're very proud of that call on you to support us in our concert and our [6:08] **Public Speaker:** fundraising efforts [6:37] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** right and we got one final presentation yeah thank you mayor and councel I'll ask Robert Harris uh III to come to the podium here it's my pleasure to introduce you to Robert Robert is our New Economic Development coordinator he's been with us now several weeks and he's uh comes with us I'll let him introduce himself in more detail but I do want to tell you that he is quite impressive we're very fortunate to have him here in farbo um and particularly in our department he has a lot to offer and like the rest of our staff Harry Davis and Harry um we have a really dedicated staff that care immensely about this community and Robert is the same he he is going to make a positive difference [7:23] **Robert Harris III:** in this but that I'd like to turn it over to Robert to give a little bit more of an introduction of himself well thanks so much for that introduction Dave uh I'm very happy to be joining the city I've worked in economic development for about the last five years most recently as the Director of strategic initiatives with an organization called Ceda um so I've been an economic development consultant for some of the smaller cities across both Central and Southeastern Minnesota uh and excited to bring that experience and that perspective here [8:10] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** well thank you uh for joining the team there's lots of work to be done and FBO is a very fast-paced grow growing Community um so there's um you you won't ever be bored I've experienced that welcome all right we're done with all of our presentations and introductions move on to approving the minutes of the August 27th 2024 city council meeting did we have the clipboard that's number five all right I need a uh any changes to the minutes of the August 27th 2024 city council none I would take a motion and second to approve [8:57] **Council Member Chuck Thiele:** don't moved [8:57] **Council Member Peter van Sluis:** second [8:57] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** motion by council member Thiele second by council member van Sluis all in favor to say I **Council Members:** I [8:57] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** opposed? that passes all right we have one request to be heard from the SBA hello [8:57] **Arle Screen (SBA):** everyone the SBA disaster um program my name is arle screen I'm a public affairs specialist for the um office of disaster recovery and resilience and I'm here for the severe storms and flooding that took place back in June we have two programs we have a physical damage program and we have an economic injury now for the physical um landlords homeowners renters businesses nonprofit organizations with physical damages um it's welcome to apply they're eligible and the deadline to apply for that program is September the 30th [9:43] **Arle Screen (SBA):** 2024 and then we have a economic uh program where it the business is for businesses and nonprofit organizations and they do not have to have physical damages the damages comes from uh the economic side of it where they may have close down or you know the people that were hit in neighboring communities um it kind of trickles down to each Community um that is involved in the disasters so we for that program the deadline to apply is April the 29th 2025 and we give you a little bit uh of time to apply for that program because um economic injury sometimes it takes 6 [10:28] **Arle Screen (SBA):** months to a year before a business can even know that they were impacted by the storm so um hopefully we can um help your community to get back on their feet after suffering through um a disaster they're coming every day so we just encourage you to you know apply if your community needs it and I left some flyers on your um desk so it breaks down um the programs the interest rates the eligibility and the terms and I also left my business card I will leave one more up here in case any of you want to contact me with any questions or [11:14] **Arle Screen (SBA):** concerns so at this time I will open the floor to anyone that has any questions any questions [11:14] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** all right thank you so much sir thank thank you for coming to make sure making sure that we're aware of this have a good day all right back on to the agenda we have consent agenda 6A through 60 anybody have any changes or corrections to be made administrator Kinser [11:51] **Jessica Kinser:** um yes um mayor Spooner um I just want to note that the date in Item B related to the display of the fireworks um at the Divine Mercy school is not September 16th it is September 21st and that is the direction um that we will will make uh and so I'd [12:00] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** ask you to approve Item B with September 20 okay any other changes or corrections to items in the see none I would take a motion in a second to approve [12:00] **Council Member Royal Ross:** mayor Spooner I'll make a motion to approve consent with noted B [12:00] **Council Member Adama Youhn Doumbouya:** second [12:00] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** motion by councilman Ross second by councilman Doumbouya all in favor say I **Council Members:** I [12:00] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** opposed? that passes we have no public hearings tonight we'll move on to items for discussion start with resolution 2024-187 adopting the Highway 60 West master plan over to director Wanberg [12:47] **David Wanberg:** thank you mayor and Council uh we do have the adoption of the trunk Highway 60 West West Master Plan in front of you the applicant is the city of Faro the location that we're talking about is north and south of trunk Highway 60 West of Interstate Highway 35 Council has seen this over the last year or so the request before you is to Pro approve a resolution that would adopt that master plan and allow us to make minor edits that don't change the the overall direction of the the location again I just put up on here it's on the west side of I35 um zooming in it's primarily the areas that you see outside outlined in yellow here the parcels that you see yellow um our adopted land use plan [13:35] **David Wanberg:** which is in our journey to 2040 plan guides the area on the north side of trunk Highway 60 for commercial residential mix and on the south side for commercial industrial mix what you'll see before you tonight really is consistent with those plans terms of background a land use plan really is just a guide that you know identifies broad categories of land use residential commercial industrial and that sort of use it is not a development plan and it isn't zoning so we have separate it's it's just what our vision is right but we've had a number of um residents and um property owners in that area that would like a little more Direction than just that simple [14:21] **David Wanberg:** land so we have uh budgeted and The Economic Development Authority did put in some money as well as Excel their Economic Development Grant gave us some money to put together a master plan we hired um The Economic Development Authority hired Bolton and mink to prepare that master plan and a master plan really again is not zoning but it's an aspirational document that's intended to help really inspire and guide future development it does not acquire land and the city is not a developer doesn't regulate the land it's just something there similar to if you think about the viaduct Park we had a you know a master plan for that what you [15:07] **David Wanberg:** see today looks slightly different than the master plan that we prepared a number of years ago but it still is that general idea that we want a a community park in that area we refined it that's how you should look at this master plan so by way of background decades ago the city extended uh Municipal Utilities to 38th Avenue in anticipation of a big box commercial development there that did not materialize since then again it has sat but there are now current land owners and developers that have expressed um interest in development in the area and they are looking for more guidance from the city in terms of what that might look like and again that's why we have the master plan so the vision for this [15:52] **David Wanberg:** is that and this has come out of Community Vision 2040 and journey uh to 2040 comprehensive plan plan as well that this is an active front door into farbo where Regional economic activity and new neighborhoods are woven into the natural landscape we have a number of principles just in terms of providing a welcoming Gateway embracing you know the natural features there and trying to have compliment uses out there that work well with the rest of the city so that those are really the primary principles with that uh the consultant on this did a fairly deta detailed job in terms of an inventory and Analysis they identifi challenges and opportunities some of the things that you see particularly on the [16:38] **David Wanberg:** south side of trunk Highway 60 you'll see some topography um right up adjacent to Highway 60 that we have to account for and those vertical red lines that you see on the screen those are the pipelines and that really does have a pretty significant SWAT through that where you see the letter A just south of Wells Lake that light blue is the Shoreland overlay so that has a number of restrictions on development and we had to take that into account as prepared this master again this shows you some of that information uh the areas that we're looking at the yellow showing the easement running through for the pipelines and some ideas of where housing might be allowed what type of housing type of [17:26] **David Wanberg:** commercial so the area that you see or the map that you see on the right hand side that's a concept plan and again it's just aspirational again the city's not a developer um it's just something that we can give to people that shows residential is really the expectation on the North End of trunk Highway 60 towards the west side of that as you get closer to the interstate we're looking at more of the commercial uses for uh cars to pull off get into different things like U hotels it might be restaurants it might be number of those kinds of uses in that area and then if you look at the South Side we're looking at Commercial and Industrial so the existing Cemetery Calvary C Cemetery of course would remain and then looking [18:12] **David Wanberg:** at Highway commercial uses that have exposure to the interstate highway and some industrial as you go further south again I just want to clarify that we're not developers we're not acquiring land we're not resoning this everything is staying the same it's aspirational plan we're not requiring anyone to develop we did have a number of public comments so several residents did when they got notifications did um hold the public hearing at the Planning Commission so everyone within 350 ft of those Parcels that you saw identified both those uh land owners were notified of the public hearing and we did have several residents call um primarily they were expressing concerns over the existing [18:57] **David Wanberg:** and Future traffic they also attended there were four people that attended the public hearing at the planning two of which um were residents on Wells Drive and they did Express also traffic but fully understand this is an as and also understand trunk Highway 60 is a state highway there are limited things that we um one property owner stated that he's not interested in selling or developing Land one property owner and express their support for the plan so the recommendation coming forward from the Planning Commission that they unanimously recommended the city council approve the resolution that you have in [19:45] **David Wanberg:** front of you uh based on the findings and conditions outl solution that would approve that and um again the resolution does authorize us to make some minor you know grammatical to the plan directions together but generally the plan would remain with that I am happy to uh answer questions [19:45] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** perfect thank you director Wanberg questions guiding plans are always nice they help us uh figure out what to do in the future they've also brought in a few developers over the years that seen our plans and said hey I want to be a part of that there's no questions for director [20:32] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** Wanberg I'll take a motion in a second to approve resolution 2024-187 [20:32] **Council Member Chuck Thiele:** I make a motion to approve resolution 2024-187 [20:32] **Council Member Royal Ross:** second [20:32] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** motion my Council second by council member Ross all in favor say I **Council Members:** I [20:32] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** opposed? that passes we'll move on to ordinance 2024-19 vacate a portion of drainage and utility easement at uh utility easement at 2343 14th Street Northeast first reading over to Mr. Davis [21:19] **Harry Davis:** thank you Mr. Mayor uh council members mayor uh the item in front of you tonight is an ordinance to vacate a portion of a drainage and utility easement the appin is Johnson Ryland Builders and remodelers the owner of the property is Shattuck St. Mary's school and they have provided an affidavit supporting the easan vacation uh the proposal is to allow for future residential development at a property at this location um here's just a kind of a Google map view of it and then an aerial um the request is just a partial vacation of an existing drainage and utility easement um it's a rather straightforward request it's the area that's in this image kind of Ed looks a little gray perhaps on your screen um in terms of our ordinance requirements we [22:06] **Harry Davis:** don't see any major issues with this it it meets vacation requirements uh for an easement uh the Planning Commission did vote unanimously to support the uh requests and so we have no major issues and we do feel like that this meets all of our vacation requirements so we are recommending that you approve the first reading of this ordinance 2024-19 [22:06] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** terrific thank you Mr. Davis any questions on this first reading none I would take a motion to second to approve ordinance 2024-19 [22:51] **Council Member Royal Ross:** mayor Spooner I'll make a motion to approve ordinance 2024-19 [22:51] **Council Member Peter van Sluis:** second [22:51] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** motion by Council Ross second by Council van Sluis all in favor say I roll call vote council member Karen [22:51] **Council Member Karen:** hi [22:51] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** council member Doumbouya [22:51] **Council Member Adama Youhn Doumbouya:** hi [22:51] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** council member Ross [22:51] **Council Member Royal Ross:** hi [22:51] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** council member van Sluis [22:51] **Council Member Peter van Sluis:** hi [22:51] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** council member Spooner [Mayor voting Aye] [22:51] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** council member Thiele [22:51] **Council Member Chuck Thiele:** hi [22:51] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** and mayor Spooner hi it gets the same result just a whole lot quicker all right we'll move on to ordinance 2024-18 approve a zoning map Amendment for 812 8th Avenue Northwest first reading back over to Mr. Davis [23:37] **Harry Davis:** thank you mayor uh council members mayor uh the item in front of you is an ordinance to approve zoning map Amendment for it's actually 1812 and I apologize that's a beir on my part it's for the water treatment uh plant facility over there on 8th Avenue uh city is the applicant in fact it's a coordination between the community Economic Development Department and the public works department uh for some potential uh improvements to that property in the future uh regarding the waste the water treatment plant um so we're looking at a zoning map Amendment we see this as an existing government utility here's the location I'm sure you all are probably very aware of where it is and where it's located but just for those that are at home and those in the audience um the request is to change the property what is currently R2 which is low density residential to something a bit more appropriate for a city facility which is P1 public institutional um for [24:22] **Harry Davis:** you know just to clarify you know this is kind of the only bounce uh of the property that's going be rezoned um we're not proposing to change anything regarding the existing homes adjacent to this property uh it is just specifically the property for the waste the water treatment plant um in terms of resoning and how that's looked at within our code for criteria uh we don't see any major issues major utilities are a permitted by right use for public institutional um and we do feel like that this is appropriate because uh the continued operational the um s of needs of the facility there are are really quite important to the rest of the city and so its continued operation and the ability for it to expand in a way where it's not [25:09] **Harry Davis:** constricted by a lowdensity residential zoning District makes sense um Planning Commission did vote five to one in favor of the request the one dissenting vote uh an earlier version of this request included the wastewater treatment plant um the wastewater treatment plant was removed from the requests I can get into some detail on that if you You'll like but um just clarifying that you know Public Works did request specifically this this property they have immediate improvements that they want to make upon it and so that's why we're focusing more on this particular um in summary we are not seeing any major issues um we do feel like that this meet uh zoning map Amendment requirements so we're recommending that city council approve uh the first reading of 2024-18 [25:56] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** thank you Mr. Davis any question for a motion in a second [25:56] **Council Member Royal Ross:** mayor Spooner I'll make a motion to approve ordinance 2024-18 [25:56] **Council Member Chuck Thiele:** second [25:56] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** a motion by Council Ross second by Council Thiele and this is a roll call council member Karen [26:41] **Council Member Karen:** hi [26:41] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** council member Doumbouya [26:41] **Council Member Adama Youhn Doumbouya:** hi [26:41] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** council member Ross [26:41] **Council Member Royal Ross:** hi [26:41] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** council member van Sluis [26:41] **Council Member Peter van Sluis:** hi [26:41] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** council member Spooner [Mayor voting Aye] [26:41] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** council member Thiele [26:41] **Council Member Chuck Thiele:** hi [26:41] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** and mayor Spooner hi that one passes first reading I'll be back in two weeks weeks all right now we're into uh property taxes are you going to do a single presentation for all four of them or three three yep okay all right so we'll have a presentation for resolution 2024-177 adopting the 2025 preliminary property tax levy and establishing the budget meeting date resolution 2024-178 approving The fairo Economic Development Authority preliminary property tax levy for fiscal year 2025 [27:28] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** and resolution 2024-179 approving the fairow Housing and Redevelopment Authority preliminary property tax levy for fiscal year 2025 over to administrator Kinser [27:28] **Jessica Kinser:** thank you uh mayor Spooner um so this is kind of where uh months of work on the budget has ended up some of this will s sound familiar to you um a lot of this presentation is very similar to what we did with some options on July 30th and so now that we are at a point uh where we are setting preliminary tax levy um I could update some of the slides and and get some of the information in here so high level overview of how we get some of our values is that uh the market value is established by um the county assessor um that information comes to us uh along [28:15] **Jessica Kinser:** with the gross tax capacity um which is what we then use to basically uh figure out what it is that we need to request from the property taxpayers and from the county to support our operations in a few specific areas um for the next fiscal year and so uh as of August 30th I did get some new numbers from the the county um that there there were some different uh changes in in things that the the gross tax the market value went up gross tax capacity went down slightly and then we we got our finalized Tiff number which was a little bit larger than what we had been talking about um but ultimately that doesn't impact the tax um dollars we need it impacts more [29:01] **Jessica Kinser:** of what the rate ends up so um our net tax capacity good news is it's an increase over 2024 a 1.37% increase um I'm sure we'd all like to see that value be just a little bit higher uh because we all know that inflation and other things are than 1.37% for the next year uh so an interesting little piece of the information we got was that um there's 300 almost 347,000 Associated um of our with our tax capacity of new growth and that really is U most of our increase uh in this this year for 2025 is due to New Growth and so um that number was a little bit lower um initially or that percent was a little bit lower so that [29:49] **Jessica Kinser:** actually um so what I what I want to show here is a a 20-year history of our market value um kind of drawing your your line to the the blue bars are the actual dollar values on your left axis and the line is looking at the percent change over time um or from year to year that's on the right Axis and so uh you can see the blue bar for 2025 is an increase over 2024 as we've said 1.37% um but you can see that the yellow line is in a downward trend from 2023 I think the best way to describe this is 2023 was when s of that um boost in market value came from higher sales more sales than than was had been happening [30:35] **Jessica Kinser:** in Prior years and what we've seen happen since 2023 where there was a a 15% increase um is that we are seeing less of an increase in our market value um from year to year but the positive to note is there's still an increase so even though that that trend is downward there um uh we're we're hopeful that we can keep driving things forward with with new growth um as you saw which was a pretty significant part of where we got to this year as well as then just the the market factors the sales and things happening at a way that um keeps keeps that number at least steady and rather than than declining um into 2026 and Beyond uh the next piece to look at is [31:21] **Jessica Kinser:** that 20year net tax capacity history and as you would expect it looks pretty similar um to the to the uh market value uh and we would expect it to um what I like to point out here is if you look at 2014 which was a a fairly low year next to 2013 after kind of writing a a wave um post recession uh we have pretty much doubled our tax capacity or come close to doubling our tax capacity um in that time between 2014 and 2025 and so um that gives you an idea of of where the organization has probably been now costs have certainly changed during that time too um and there's some other things that we'll we show here in the near future um again uh increasing tax [32:08] **Jessica Kinser:** capacity um but the percentage of growth that we're seeing from that high point in 2023 is is very different so we're we're not seeing 15% increase uh we're seeing you know 1% um so things things are changing that way um I think you would expect that I think a 15% change is pretty significant when you kind of see you know the only other time that that happened was um in 20 uh 2008 so it's not something that we do see very often kind of at that level um but uh kind of being in that area of of you know seeing some growth is What's trended um except for that time period between 2009 and 2014 so this is uh probably a little bit [32:55] **Jessica Kinser:** hard to read um but I I it is the preliminary Levy document that shows a few more years of history is in your packet um but I thought we do a lot of comparison in uh to 2024 so I thought focusing on these two years was really the the best way to kind of start the conversation and so you can see the the leftand column is 2024 the right hand column is 2025 and then or the middle column is 2025 and then far right is kind of the the change as we go and we'll talk about um each of these more but you can see uh kind of the net actual Levy we are looking at 14.68% in terms of the dollar change um that was requested in 2024 compared to where we are at the preliminary Levy point in 2025 and so that 14.68% is the [33:42] **Jessica Kinser:** number that's going to get bandied around quite a bit um but we're we're going to talk about some other numbers and other percents kind of as we go because things do change um the thing I want to point out on here too is the HRA and the Eda uh special levies do not play into that regular Levy if you've looked at your tax bill um those actually show up as separate lines they're not in that total City Levy and so they are represented here um but when you add that in there's uh 14.6 million at this preliminary stage that we would be requesting and I should say that the HR and the Ada is the full amount that can be requested um under law so how does this you know impact uh a property owner um we'll start out with [34:28] **Jessica Kinser:** the residential impact and so uh I I didn't change these values I haven't been able to verify if two uh $225,100 is still the median market value but it's a number we'll work with um in the future here so I I kept that the same just knowing it was a it was a good number that's been used in the past um to to work with and so what you can see here is the dollar amounts that are expected as an increase and then the percent of 12. 95% would be the dollar increase um per residential property regardless of the value and so um that's that's kind of the overview of the the residential ranging you know from uh a [35:14] **Jessica Kinser:** 76 almost $77 increase um for 2025 with the preliminary levy on a 150,000 up to where're showing at $350,000 at uh $29 um for the next year uh with businesses businesses commercial and Industrial tend to have more value so we're showing some numbers here that still show it's a 12.95% dollar increase over year kind of in these property scenarios um um but obviously if you're looking at market value of of 5 million where you don't have a homestead exemption and other things to help apply you are looking at a a larger dollar increase of just uh just under 600 or $6,6 um but 12.95% is kind of where that sits right [36:00] **Jessica Kinser:** now and so as we start to look at the other side of this we talk about the percent of dollar increase you know from year to year uh the the change in the dollar per property each year the other side of this is the tax rate so I've highlighted 2025 in our orangish yellow color um at 52.8 62% um lots of percents being thrown around tonight um and so I'm happy to get you printed copies of of this uh I meant to do that for today but um I will get you a printed copy if you would like one um just so you can better see the numbers and carry it around with you if you get asked um we're we're proposing at this preliminary stage a 52.8 62% tax rate um which you can see is just barely [36:45] **Jessica Kinser:** the highest that would be um would would be in existence in the last five years uh five years is easy data to digest and to actually add the percent on there so that you can actually see um but we look at a larger history of 25 years um we can see that 52.8 62 has not been the highest that we've had in in recent history in a 10year look back uh 2016 2017 and 2018 are represented on there at 56 55 and 57% and then I I couldn't get more boxes on there to show 2019 was 54.8 and 2020 the 53. [37:28] **Jessica Kinser:** four um% tax rate as well so are we are we out of the ballpark in a fiveyear sense we're we're right at the top with 2021 being right behind in terms of a tax rate um but ultimately looking back um further between 2020 to 2016 uh this tax rate is not as high as what those so I think as we talk about things it's easy to get really um lost in the we are right now but I think the history and talking about where things have been is important as well to paint the the bigger picture uh so as the preliminary tax levy breaks down um 80 85% basically is going to the general fund that's where [38:13] **Jessica Kinser:** majority of our operations are and so we would expect that that would be the the case uh Debt Service is the second largest um user or or uh space where we need um property taxes to meet some obligations at 10% and then community and economic development and tax abatement together make up uh the 5% um that remains so as we start talking about the general fund um at this preliminary stage we're looking at uh proposed expenditures of $22.8 million um property tax revenue is actually um 51% so more than 50% of more than half of of what our expenditures are so right now we're sitting in a balanced budget situ situation um and there's more that [38:59] **Jessica Kinser:** we can talk about with that as we go along as well and so 51.2% of those revenues or expenditures are directly supported by the property tax levy the other really big item um where we did have some new information uh come out between where we talked July 30th to today uh was about local government Aid LGA and so that is 31% of our uh revenues in the general fund and so right there you've got 82% that is controlled by two Revenue sources which is not great diversification um but there's limited options that we have to really diversify and so the remaining amount would be there's some franchise fee that comes into the general fund uh user fees fines charges for service and and different things that kind of make [39:45] **Jessica Kinser:** up that remaining uh we do need to talk about LGA and kind of that lower blue bar that is on the graph there in front of you um you'll notice that uh 2024 did have a bump uh it was a significant bump that was uh an increase of nearly $900,000 from the prior year and between 2024 and 2025 it's a $10,000 increase so we didn't lose the the nearly $900,000 that was um received in 2024 we built on that and then there was just a very small uh bump there uh in the 20125 LGA number um just to because it's an interesting Revenue source and where it's been lately it it also looks very [40:30] **Jessica Kinser:** similar to some of those market value graphs of where 2023 wasn't the peak year 2024 was the peak year in terms of percentage growth and then we're we're back to uh just above uh uh uh 0% growth in the LGA for 2025 which when you look across time that has not been um that's been more of the trend than than the norm uh or more of the norm rather than the the the trend that we might see here and there so um I think as we look forward uh you know there's another legislative session that will happen next year and um from what I've heard it sounds like local government Aid is a frequent topic of conversation and knowing it's 31% of our general fund budget it is something that I think [41:16] **Jessica Kinser:** we'll we'll want to make sure do what we can as the city of farbo to try and preserve so when we look at expenditures in the general fund um the 20 $2.8 million breaks down kind of in these in these larger categories that we report on uh Public Safety is our largest expenditure area 46% um with uh culture and recreation coming in second at 23% and then Public Works just outpacing uh General government with 15% and then the other functions are are very small um like our our contribution to highwa the land Transit and then we would pay on a um orderly annexation agreement different things like that so very very small expenses that we plan on a regular basis [42:02] **Jessica Kinser:** uh what I don't have prepared for this presentation is uh how do those expenditures break down um by Personnel cross supplies and um Professional Services uh but I I can tell you um I can't tell you the percent but obviously Personnel is going to be our our largest cost area um I would say there's probably not a city that is that doesn't have uh Personnel costs as their biggest expenditure area fun so I will get that chart updated before December 12th um and uh we we'll be able to present that then the next fund to talk about um that is part of the tax levy is fund 240 which is community and economic development uh there had been a trend of uh working towards eliminating property [42:49] **Jessica Kinser:** tax revenue coming into this fund and so uh that has created a a negative balance for 2023 which is part of the recovery of that 53,000 is part of the proposed tax levy in addition to what is needed to operate in um 2025 which is uh 410,000 of that 46 um the proposed expenditures are 591 th000 uh that does not it's not an imbalance it just means that there are other revenues uh coming into the fund that help us get this to the point where um property tax revenues are supporting um what the Gap is and so the other Revenue includes some administrative fees and a reimbursement from the Housing and Redevelopment Authority uh [43:36] **Jessica Kinser:** the housing and redel or uh Housing and Redevelopment Authority executive director position is out there right now it's not filled I'm hopeful that we'll have a resolution before you uh at an upcoming council meeting to be able to fill that position um but that is a position that would be uh 10% of those wages would be borne by the community and econom IC Development Fund and the tax levy and then the remainder would be coming from the HRA funds public housing and then Robin wood as well uh based on where the actual time and so uh there's there's uh this fund is is going to have some some more conversation in 2026 because there is going to be a deficit in 2024 just because there is that Revenue imbalance with just 66,000 of property tax coming [44:23] **Jessica Kinser:** in so but that's a 2026 conversation so definitely not for tonight um as as we look at uh fund 239 which is our tax abatement fund this is where we list out specifically those items that uh we have agreements for tax abatement on and so uh this was prepared by Ellers and uh it is a decrease as you can see from 2024 as there have been some changes with uh some dropping off and then a new one coming on but typically when a new a new um tax abatement comes on it tends to be at a low lower level just because it's an early valuation of um whatever the new valuation might be so that's what we're seeing here I would expect this to be a higher number probably going into next year and then of course there's more uh [45:10] **Jessica Kinser:** possibility to talk about tax um as an economic development tool moving forward um through the remainder of this year to 2025 the next um is our debt service funds I'm calling them the 300 funds rather than presenting them because uh as of November 1st they will become One Fund in our software change so we we uh showing them together makes makes more sense at this point um so we have three existing bonds which are your kind of first three uh um columns there that those are being um levied with the request for 105% of the total principal and interest that's due which is required under those um bond agreements the 2025 uh equipment loan is shown with [45:58] **Jessica Kinser:** what we had discussed at the last work session and so using 2025 as an interest only year and then making equal payments um over the the next uh eight years I believe and looking at or seven and a seven years um and then really looking at that as an internal loan that we're not going to go out to the marketplace um and so this will be something that will continue to discuss it is not official debt um as of yet you have not officially committed to it but we needed to commit to some number um for the preliminary Levy otherwise we couldn't ask for it and uh council member Ross i' I'm updated your chart here so that uh you could see kind of where our debt looks you know the visual of what happens that [46:43] **Jessica Kinser:** you don't really see with that table on the last page and so 2025 um you know shows an increase into 20126 uh and then basically then we start to drop off a a pretty big cliff to the point where where we are right now at at this point in time just talking about a 2025 Capital loan would have us uh with zero debt by 2034 I do need to mention that in the capital Improvement plan which we haven't talked about there are two really big items that still require a lot of further discussion by the council and the community of a new community center as well as a an additional fire station or a new fire station or something in that bin to still be figured out so uh assuming [47:31] **Jessica Kinser:** something would happen between you know 2025 and 202 2034 I I would say it would be hard to sit here right now and say there'd be zero debt as of 2034 just based on where those discussions have been and where we need to continue to to move on those to just see if there's something to happen with the planning that's and so uh that's that's those visual representation and then kind of the final areas is to talk about um is the uh the HRA and the Eda levies so it's both a 9.5% increase on both of those and uh the exciting thing for for 2025 is that um at the maximum level which both boards requested the the maximum level um that each each would get over [48:18] **Jessica Kinser:** $400,000 which is a a milestone that hadn't been seen um we have not uh neither board has finalized their 2025 budget I expect that that would be something that would be happening um sometime in November so that there would be a work session hopefully uh before December 12th that we'd be able to do a presentation and talk about the work plans of each of those groups so you have an idea of what you're approving and how that has a greater impact on the and so that's kind of the the big detail but there's something fun that uh not that there are a lot of fun things in budget and property taxes um but I think think this one is is quite fun so um we uh signed up with Polco for the community survey and in working with [49:04] **Jessica Kinser:** them uh they demoed a product with us called their their property tax receipt and uh we decided that we would go ahead and make this live with the preliminary tax levy because that's where people are going to have all sorts of questions about um what's happening so we have not built this for 2024 so we can't have people compared 2024 to the preliminary Levy for 2025 but I'm hoping oping they'll be able to look at their current tax statement and be able to see just a a numbers change um I will say there are some caveats uh the um it does not include the HRA and the Eda because they are separate um levies and so it was really hard to um Bank this in and then we we used a very simple calculation knowing we reduced all general fund [49:50] **Jessica Kinser:** expenses um by uh 40 49.8 or 48.9 or 48.8% um to make the the expenses match the property tax dollars that are coming in so I like to use engineering I'll pick on engineering so engineering essentially becomes a self-supporting Department because they they charge fees on the engineering projects on the projects that they do and so that money does come back into the general fund as Revenue but we didn't zero out engineering or account for any of those other revenues that are really Department specific um I feel like I need more time to be able to mess around with that to figure out if there's a better way to represent departments that I just didn't have um with this so as we get closer to the uh [50:38] **Jessica Kinser:** final Levy and the budget public hearing I'm hoping that that is something that we'll we'll maybe have figured out a little bit more and so uh I was going to show you a screen here um but I think what I'm going to do now is actually we're going to go to the website and uh I'll kind of walk you through [51:06] **Jessica Kinser:** um okay so um where we are here on the city of farbo website uh you just need to go to departments and to finance and then over here on the left hand side there is this budget 2025 link you click on that and there's all sorts of information about what we're doing so far this year um with the 2025 budget and then the first thing uh is kind of this notice that we are launching this taxpayer receipt so um by clicking on the link uh it will bring up this screen and so really who this is meant for are Property Owners if you don't have a market value like if you're renting and [51:51] **Jessica Kinser:** you don't have a market value it it just doesn't work so um but you can mess around with it for any property um how you get your market value is by if you hover over this little and click on this um there's a link to the Rice County Beacon website where you can search your property and basically see what what is out there for 2025 as your estimated market value and then you can look at 2024 to see what your homestead exemption was or exclusion was and subtract that and so we're going to go with the scenario that we have here of uh $225,100 so no Homestead exclusion on that just looking at that as the market value and then you click on your unofficial property tax receipt and what [52:39] **Jessica Kinser:** this does is it breaks down everything that is on our tax levy less the H and Eda to tell you how much of what you are projected to pay as property taxes breaks down into departments and so um the the council uh and uh that includes you know I think the other thing to point out is you know to click over here on the the button to see um a description as well so mayor and six council members it talks about you as well as the different things that are included in your budget um like there's I think it's about $240,000 worth of spending with uh local Civic organizations so um that is probably why it uh on a a median house of uh 225,000 we're looking at [53:27] **Jessica Kinser:** $328 and so you can kind of see what this looks like as we go down um Public Safety as we mentioned before it's the biggest um spending area in general for the general fund so you expect to see that number a little bit higher um but it truly breaks down by um all the different departments that we budget for um within the the general fund and then uh as we scroll down here you will notice that Viaduct Park is listed on here we do have Viaduct Park in the 2025 budget because we do think we'll be operating it uh operating a building for probably six months of the year and so that is that is included at U $9.95 on this scenario um as mentioned the other functions the miscellaneous [54:13] **Jessica Kinser:** unallocated transfers um and Transit that is both in the general fund and then the other things that are not in the general fund are the total debt as well as then community and economic development so so um I I would say we talked about a 12.95% increase um previously as sort of the residential and the commercial impact when I used my property in this and pulled out my property tax statement for 2024 and looked at what was what was here um I was coming up with a 12.2% increase so we caveat that this is just an example uh this is not a a final product or anything and so encourage people to use this with these are estimates and uh ultimately we'll we'll [55:00] **Jessica Kinser:** update this as we get closer to the um final um public hearing as well in December the final thing I want to point out to you on this because I think this will be helpful um we we want public engagement on the budget we we want to hear things uh we don't always get people in council chambers who are expressing their opinions or toing us what their priorities are and so there is this link right here um that will take uh take you to another um web uh to back to our web page to a form Center where we do ask you to fill out some information uh if you feel like that's what you want to do um but this is a um this is a a new tool for us um it's another way that we can help communicate [55:46] **Jessica Kinser:** uh what the budget looks like and what is actually part of a tax ly another final caveat is this does not include the school it does not include the county and so when you see your property tax number compared to your pro Total Property Tax Bill it is going to be less because it is just the city so um with that I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have um or or anything uh else that you would like to see um at this point [55:46] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** perfect thank you questions [56:31] **Council Member Royal Ross:** uh thank you mayor the LGA right under $7 million is that a hard number now or is that still an estimate [56:31] **Jessica Kinser:** nope it's a hard number that that came out on July 31st thank you oh and you you know what I realized I still had one more slide uh I'm sorry um uh next steps um is the one that I wanted to just go through really quick uh because that that is getting back to uh something that uh council member Ross had just said um so next steps we are looking at um ultimately the uh hearing will be on December um 20 or December 12th sorry about that uh here we go so we're implementing the Polco tax receipt um and then we essentially kind of just sit here and wait and there's some big things that will be happening between now and December so there's hopefully [57:19] **Jessica Kinser:** settlement of collective bargaining agreements all of our bargaining Agreements are up for um in 2025 we have not settled any of those uh we also have um health insurance elections to be made by new employees as well as open enrollment and that does shift things uh we budget um EMP new employees at the highest level possible so typically most don't select that so then there's savings that'll come off um that move things here or there and then we expect that there will be some adjustment of our Tyler technology fees um and just some other small contractual items as well that probably move that number just a little bit um but I think December 3rd is when I would plan to come back um review everything with you and then discuss um a portion of local government Aid that is not allocated towards [58:06] **Jessica Kinser:** operations in this preliminary l so there's uh rounding there's a four about $440,000 that we still have to talk about um I do believe that between now and then there could be some things that would be presented to you that you might want to consider allocating some of that funding towards um and so we we'll just have a kind of big wrapup discussion on December 3rd before having that public hearing at the December 12th council meeting and then um bringing forward to you the resolutions to approve the 2025 tax levy budget and then H Eda tax so I apologize that was my final slide and um hopefully bring some clarity to what council member Ross was asking about with LGA [58:59] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** been working on this for multiple months trying to get to these numbers and push them down I think at the last meeting where we're up around 20% so to be down toward that 14 is a big improvement over the next couple months we'll keep working on that and fine-tuning those numbers none of us like spending extra money it's never comfortable never good for the homeowners but and businesses don't be business um but it's almost a necessity and we've got to keep the city moving and it would be tough to say which part of the city aren't we going to keep improving and keep forward with all right so we'll move on to our resolutions 2024-177 adopting the 2025 preliminary tax levy and establishing a budget [59:44] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** meeting date of December 12th 2024 Motion in a second please [59:44] **Council Member Royal Ross:** mayor Spooner I'll make a motion to approve resolution 2024-177 [59:44] **Council Member Karen:** second [59:44] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** got a motion by council member Ross second by council member Karen all in favor say I **Council Members:** I [59:44] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** opposed? move on to resolution 2024-178 approving The fairow Economic Development Authority preliminary property tax levy for fiscal year 2025 [1:00:30] **Council Member Peter van Sluis:** I make a motion to approve resolution [1:00:30] **Council Member Adama Youhn Doumbouya:** second [1:00:30] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** a motion by Council van Sluis second by council member Doumbouya all in favor to say I **Council Members:** I [1:00:30] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** opposed? that one passes move on resolution 2024-179 approving the favorable Housing and Redevelopment Authority preliminary property tax levy for fiscal year 2025 [1:00:59] **Council Member Karen:** so moved [1:00:59] **Council Member Chuck Thiele:** second [1:00:59] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** second by council member Thiele all in favor say I **Council Members:** I [1:00:59] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** opposed? all right we will move on to resolution 2024-189 approve amended public purpose expenditures and purchasing policy [1:01:15] **Jessica Kinser:** um yes uh thank you um for for that uh I do have to to say that um this is a resolution that I maybe wouldn't normally put on an item for discussion um but uh I kind of mention that with implementing our new Financial software [1:01:15] **Jessica Kinser:** uh there'd probably be some policy changes coming and we're to the point now where we just can't hold off on the public purchasing and expenditure policy which was amended earlier this year and so um as as we've gone through this there are some significant changes there's a markup copy available as well as uh the clean copy the biggest thing is sort of getting rid of the city administrator approval of um unbudgeted expenditures 10,000 and Below what that doesn't get rid of is Authority that is established in a resolution that's adopted at the beginning of the year that says the city administrator has the ability to approve certain unbudgeted expenditures or things that um have a timely payment to them and we'll be talking more with the charter commission [1:02:00] **Jessica Kinser:** about that language moving forward and so uh we have to develop workflows workflows have to be developed on dollars and so the chart that is uh left in there related to delegation of authority basically says at the $5,000 $1 level is when aired so that would mean that um council member uh Spooner could not just come in with a uh an invoice for um $6,000 and say please pay this it would have gone through a purchase order which requires more um steps to to go through as well um it could also be used for something uh for example we purchase multiple vehicles uh throughout the year that if there's not a payment all at once and we're making two payments that you would do a purchase order and then pay you [1:02:46] **Jessica Kinser:** know basically liquidate parts of that purchase order so it's kind of a way to say here's what we're going to spend and then sort of pay from that the funds become encumbered in our financial system and so that is the biggest piece and then um identifying the the quotes as being a large portion of when of that $5,000 level requiring two quotes at that point and that those are to be uploaded into the financial system um as the purchase ORD being prepared I think that uh just generally we'll see how it works I think that we haven't done any data analysis to see how many actions are there between 5,000 and 10 ,000 let's say that really require um would would be something you would typically do a purchase order for other than just [1:03:32] **Jessica Kinser:** saying it's a dollar so uh we're going to just go with this for the for the foreseeable future but if something needs to change I do think we could be back in front of you I requesting amendment to this policy again that might better align with setting up our system and who's doing what at what dollar threshold okay any questions on the purchasing policy [1:04:21] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** sense with that I would take a motion in a second to approve [1:04:21] **Council Member Chuck Thiele:** don't move [1:04:21] **Council Member Peter van Sluis:** second [1:04:21] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** motion by council member Thiele seconded by council member van Sluis to approve resolution 2024-189 move on to ordinance 2024-20 amending chapter 13 Article 2 of the farbo city code regarding Library Advisory Board first reading over to Director James [1:05:28] **Director Delane James:** using that um it it has wording in here that the Rice County Board will aort uh appoint somebody and since this is a a a City Board it just makes more sense for the we're also looking at the portion of this that um talks about the high school youth student who is part of the board and there are so many children who are homeschooled in our city as well as younger youth who would like to serve and this would allow them to do that and also since um our our youth are pretty busy it would only um have them do a one-year term that they could renew so with these changes we are looking to better to find and help more people be [1:06:13] **Director Delane James:** able to to serve on the board on September 3rd the council did review these um suggested changes by Library Advisory Board and um they you were in support of the so tonight we are asking for you to approve the first reading of ordinance 2024-20 [1:06:13] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** perfect thank thank you Director James any questions on these we did talk about this at the last work session so it's nothing real surprising to us what your board desires and for clarification which is always nice with that I would take a motion in a second [1:06:59] **Council Member Karen:** a motion to approve ordinance 2024 -20 [1:06:59] **Council Member Royal Ross:** second [1:06:59] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** and a motion by council member Karen seconded by council member Ross all in favor say I oh what oh ordinance oh excuse me council member Karen [1:06:59] **Council Member Karen:** hi [1:06:59] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** council member Doumbouya [1:06:59] **Council Member Adama Youhn Doumbouya:** hi [1:06:59] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** council member Ross [1:06:59] **Council Member Royal Ross:** hi [1:06:59] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** council member van Sluis [1:06:59] **Council Member Peter van Sluis:** hi [1:06:59] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** council member Spooner [Mayor voting Aye] [1:06:59] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** council member Thiele [1:06:59] **Council Member Chuck Thiele:** hi [1:06:59] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** and mayor Spooner hi that passes all right we have no bids tonight are there any boards commission reports announcements or project updates van Sluis [1:07:45] **Council Member Peter van Sluis:** yeah I was contacted by the faell diversity call they made a very very difficult decision this m 30 years um they're running out of money there's only two board members both living outside the fball was potentially one person who that was just heartbreaking news really of course they were responsible also for the fall oh that's where we are so if somebody was interested in putting a board together for the international because of all your years of experience well there if there is no more official yes I can coordinate things but as that is like a week before there I will not be able to actively [1:08:32] **Council Member Peter van Sluis:** participate of assistance they cannot contact the diversity Coalition officially anymore [1:08:32] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** that sad to hear but that's the way things go anything else mayor [1:09:11] **Council Member Royal Ross:** yeah I don't have a board update or anything but I do have a question for administrator Kinser there is an upcoming Charter meeting do you [1:09:11] **Jessica Kinser:** there is I believe it is scheduled for November 13th [1:09:11] **Council Member Royal Ross:** okay thank you [1:09:23] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** v or 15 is still oh I think it is 746 in the morning y 7:46 the 23rd right over at the fire station in the driveway please come out and join us for that uh also because the it'll come up on us really fast and it's exactly 30 days away from today the Fabo branch of the American Association of University women we'll be holding a candidate Forum on Thursday October 10th at the fairow city council chambers it will start at 6:30 with the Mayors and it'll be followed at 7:30 with the city council candidates so if you are available that [1:10:09] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** day come on down time to ask questions they'll have little sheets that you can fill out and they'll run the form and ask the questions that you have so that on your calendar oh is so much happening in this town Festival coming up chil cook off council members October 5th okay anything else Kinser [1:10:27] **Jessica Kinser:** nothing right [1:10:27] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** with that I will take a motion in a second to adjourn [1:10:27] **Council Member Royal Ross:** moved [1:10:27] **Council Member Peter van Sluis:** second [1:10:27] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** got a motion by Council Ross second by Council van Sluis all in favor say I **Council Members:** I [1:10:27] **Mayor Thomas J. Spooner:** opposed? it's adjourned good night good luck