uh Jenny take the role here here Quorum is present a motion to adopt the agenda so I'm overdrawn by councilmember Peterson second second by council member Cole any discussion if not all those favor signify by saying aye aye opposed motion carries uh this time if I may I'd like to take a moment of silence for the anniversary of Richard crit did anniversary of his death so if we could just take a a minute or so thank you appreciate it uh tragic you know what happens to someone you know that's on a call that unexpectedly I don't know if you heard the host I'm sure you've heard the whole story and everything Chief but uh we're always thinking of you guys and Jason and you guys I mean everybody in the city that uh our prayers are always for me I'm always saying prayers for you guys because you guys are the ones who are protecting our citizens and everything so I thank you all for that thank you uh this time I'll turn it over to city manager frandel thank you mayor so this is I believe our fourth meeting uh for the 2023 budget hopefully wrapping up the general fund but um we were pushed for time we're going to push it right over to Dan to let him take over so it's all to you Dan Finance director it's your show thank you uh city manager Brian frandel um good to see you in the position on a permanent basis wise decision city council can you hear me I'm having a little bit of difficulty getting this screen shared here or my screen that's what I want no no no no no no no no no no no no no no I can like 305. how can you anticipation is making recording in progress all right there we go uh yes uh this is our fourth uh budget meeting on the 2023 uh Levy and and uh general fund um budget kind of want to give a little reminder here we go is that better and we got it we got it yep give a little reminder that on September 20th of this month that we will have to certify our maximum Levy for the taxes payable in 2023 that includes the cities Levy which includes operation and Debt Service the HRA and the Eda and we also will need to set the truth truth and Taxation also known as TNT public hearing date for taxes payable in 2023 looking at the first meeting in December December 6th at 6 30 PM there will be resolutions and an emotion on the 20th to approve these again we'll be certifying our maximum Levy what that means is that we can't increase our Levy from that point on but we certainly can reduce it after that point in time uh the agenda for tonight we're going to take a look at the notes from the city council activity that we had in our last budget Workshop there were some additional information that was requested that budget Workshop that I've put together and then we have some follow-up questions for department heads particularly [Music] to our director of Public Works Ron Ritchie and then take any questions that we may have regarding some of the documents that were attached last time and also attached this time and being the capital Improvement plan again we're not looking at approving the capital Improvement plan you know before September 20th we still will go through that in more detail but then I also had information on fund balances Financial plans impact on average residential property again we're not looking at establishing any additional rate increases um at this point in time in our Enterprise funds we will have further discussions on those in the in the future um still not no I don't hear myself come back yeah no kidding working and then we'll look at the 2023 preliminary level Levy general fund budget changes in the general fund budget since the the line item detail it's still not I yeah um we're hearing it in there but out here they're not yeah because I usually can hear foreign are we good can we hear still can we hear better and then we'll look at um a kind of a high level of the changes that have been done in the general fund budget since July 19th that's when all of the line item detail was first given to city council and then we'll look at estimated property taxes we do have the values now from Ramsey County so I've have some slides with the estimated property tax impacts and then we have some additional options um to look at and hopefully at the end of tonight we have made some decisions on whether we're going to move with some of these additional Staffing components and additional options and where we want to put the levy um if we can do that then I will finalize the general fund budget at this point in time and then have the resolutions that's upset for September 20th here are the notes from the council activity if you remember we had an activity of kind of looking at ways to in in ways to generate additional revenue and or looking at options of of trying to reduce some costs in the future and um so we were you were faced with the question of we have many infrastructural needs and Rising costs what do we do to Max minor maximize our resources and minimize the overall impact to the residents of the city you came up with a nice list of a number of different items including franchise fees increase fees user fees parking Revenue all the way down to maintaining our bond rating at the same or better some of these were already starting to take a look at were trying to look at if we can get a Hamlin master degree seeking student to help us look at Grant um Dr Craig Waldron was kind enough to to help out in that and he he seems to have identified an individual that may be interested and our city manager was overwhelmingly enthusiastic of of pursuing that as an option to have someone kind of do some research on on various grants and then help us write some grants and in addition we're starting to look at some of our current service contracts that we have to see if there's some opportunities to reduce some of the costs that are associated with those with those contracts in addition I've started looking at trying to get kind of a thought or idea of how we would approach looking at even the if it's not if we it doesn't materialize to the point where we actually go away from them at least building ourselves a backup plan and that is right now all of our technology that we go through as we go through Metro inet they had a significant increase this past year of seventy thousand dollars from where we were at so we're currently paying approximately three hundred thousand dollars a year for the Metro inet a meeting that the city manager Brian frandel and myself attended with representatives from Metro inet it certainly indicated to me that this wasn't going to be their only increase that we probably can anticipate increases on an annual basis at least for I'm guess guesstimating somewhere between three to five years of at least a 10 increases on an annual basis so um I'm trying to look at an a way and eventually I think we would probably need to hire a consultant to kind of help I look at it is unweave what we have today in our technology and see if there's any other options or solutions that we could do that hopefully are you know a little bit of a lower cost it may not materialize into anything but it's your ideas that you threw out there through this activity that we're trying to pursue coming up with some different options at looking at reducing costs and or you know generating some additional Revenue so I thank you very much for your input and your wisdom that you shared with us the last budget Workshop additional information that was requested I think was council member Wong had had asked the question regarding the police department and with the new Staffing levels if there has been a change in kind of the leave time for officers I know if you remember at the end of last year because of the the shortage in the police staff we had a lot of individuals that were not allowed to use their suspense time in addition to vacation so this Council allowed a vacation carryover and then we paid out suspense time so kind of looking at the same period of January 1st to August 19th of 2021 and 2022 that you can see what the changes have been for this year hasn't been you know of their time off of floating holidays exactly leave suspense holiday vacation and comp time there hasn't been a significant change it's about sliding spot no that no I thought that's where we were it's not moving at all it's kind of like stuck right there even though my screen is different oh yeah absolutely I've been moving on my screen now I just did a slideshow and it still is I'm not moving my mouse now you are click on it click on a slide no Chinese screen can you move your mouse to click on a slide I'm not doing anything at this time most ly thank you that's that's not my screen is that Carrie doing that I was gonna say Kerry's downstairs recording in progress she's got to be doing something because thank you again yes you want to switch to the presentation desk on there okay and plus his computer and I can run it off that okay so he needs to plug his computer up here yeah and get it there and there will the cord reach or waiting and since this obviously has something to do with the zoom uh you know it was a useful tool during the pandemic when we needed to remotely log in and we've we've kept with it and you know it's it's a nice tool if someone wants to you know provide comment that's on Zoom but I don't we've never had some I guess you know our chief was trying to comment last night but it wasn't working it just doesn't seem to work the internet was down last night yeah but you know it just seems like a lot of this issues are revolving around Zoom so maybe if we I don't know maybe we'd look at considering ending that and just sticking with our technology that we have and because if that seems to be causing these issues constantly maybe we just get away from that it seems to be more of a burden than a tool that's being useful just a suggestion while we're firing up this stuff foreign how is everyone tonight good morning is there a technology budget we're going to be talking about tonight or maybe they should be is your mic on Dan uh yes it is ooh I like that testing testing one two three foreign [Music] whoa now how you do it there it is nice now you got to stand whoa okay the most is a little weird okay um some additional information uh requested at the last budget Workshop the police department as you can see um kind of the leave time that's off has increased from last year to this year the same point in time approximately 4.7 percent the more interesting component to it is that sick time has gone significantly lower um almost 60 percent lower um I'm not going to jump to any conclusion to why that is um I I think it's you know a lot of it can be related we're still underneath the same type of of activity as far as covet is concerned in 2021 in 2022 I like to believe that it's caused by having more staff building a better culture in the police department which I think a lot of the credit has to go to our current police chief Phil so I think that you're seeing staff engage more in the whole public recording in progress um the a thing that we'll talk a little bit more later on and we have actually a PowerPoint presentation that Phil has put together in discussing the overtime as you can see over time um has gone up approximately 53 percent during the same time period we will be discussing that a little bit later on um these are ours these are ours yeah yeah total total hours that were used um another item that the city council had asked was a breakdown of the Public Works maintenance worker salary is approximately 77 000 fringe benefits are approximately 39 000 that's what makes up that hundred and sixteen thousand dollars that was shown as an additional it's being split between 55 percent in the general fund the general fund is made up of uh in the Street Maintenance budget um urban forestry and Parks um and then in the Enterprise fund it's being distributed between water Wastewater surface water components in the Enterprise fund and then we also had another additional request of information to have what Tiff District expiration dates are so I have what they're scheduled for right now per um the Tiff agreements [Music] and this is the point where if I'd like to have some follow-up questions regarding to the department his regarding the additional Staffing request and I think that there were some questions that wanted to be directed to Ron Ritchie the director of Public Works but Ron was Ill that evening and I had read his PowerPoint presentation which he put together a very nice PowerPoint presentation and justifications for why he feels that there's a need for an additional maintenance worker so at this point in time I'm going to field or have any questions and allow Ron to address any of those questions that you may have um and uh Ron do you want to come up or do you want to oh you're comfortable oh can you hear me on this one yeah yeah I'm much more comfortable here if you guys are cool with that so yeah I apologize for not being at the last meeting I was out sick with covid so um you know I watched it you know kind of got some of your information so I guess if you guys just want to ask me some questions that you have on our budget or how you want to approach this I think uh one of the questions I had you know the dollar amount was 100 and 206 is that 116 uh yes it was 116 and that was in the previous slide to show the breakdown and I guess you know my question was what is that what is that person what is that for that amount of money what are we what are we getting well that person is just it's a public works maintenance worker and I don't know what I know Dan what number you use is that a starting wage is that uh um I believe what we had decided on was the same as one of your existing employees so I think it isn't an upper step I think it's either a step five or okay so that would be more of a top pay for that yeah okay yeah so it's that Public Works maintenance worker you know which is you know one of the basically we have nine positions right now so it's one oh it's just that maintenance worker position so that person coming in would have that big step up right away no no that would be at an upper upper upper level step uh if it was a five or six we have six steps in our in our whole step program with that and depending on you know I don't know if we if we had someone that was coming in with experience or if we were going to offer or look for you know make an offer make an offer is that my covet or is that [Music] okay I taste metal [Music] [Laughter] funny um yeah so I mean that would be you know if we uh if we were gonna offer something up to get someone in with experience um but if we were bringing someone new in you know it'd be at a step one the last the last time we hired that position we hired one of the summertime help kids that were working with us for you know five or six years and he started as step one so so the general so he's just a general uh upcoming someone coming in yep I mean again you know 100 116 seems like a lot of money for just someone coming in a general well I mean we're going off of their you know way experience well we're going off of the schedule at a set that they have you know for what the starting pay is for that Public Works position and you know what their top pay is on that scale which you know is in their Union contract okay so so what we can do is is we definitely can move it down to a step one but then you run the risk in case you have somebody with some experience and you have to make a higher offer but and I guess that's my question what are you looking for someone with a lot of experience or someone just coming in Ronnie before you and I know this but I don't think others do can you explain the qualifications for hiring a public works employee because it's not just like anyone off the street can come and do it right you have to have these licenses and you can only get the licenses if you work for another city yeah so in in that position for our so far crew I mean we I guess I'll give you a quick background um back when I started there was two separate departments at in public works there was a water and sewer department and there was uh streets and parks department um there was four guys that were in the water and sewer department and there were nine to ten guys that were in the streets and parks department over the course of my time being here which is the last 15 years we were down to about eight guys in that in both departments so what ended up happening is through people retiring and positions not being replaced and just different things happening over the years what we they ended up doing is everyone was required to go out there and get their water and sewer license so both departments we turned them into one and the reason we did that is so we could have coverage for on-call and not having try to depend on just one or two guys to take care of the water the sewer these guys needed to be trained across the board to be able to kind of take care of everything so over the over the years like I said we've lost lost people then gain people um we have just got to nine guys which just happened this last December you know before that we were running with eight guys to kind of take care of you know what our Duties are I gave each one of you a sheet um and this is what Randy and I use and all this is is just a quick view um of our daily tasks that we do that we look at is like our essential tasks that we do have to do on a daily basis there's a number next to each one of these um each one of these items or tasks that we do and that's about the number of guys or people that we need to do that task um so what I did is this the guys are highlighted in yellow then one of the guys that we used up to to put on a task here the guys that are in green are the like say the I don't want to say extra guys but they're the two guys that we have you know free to do whatever you're doing and if you look at this you know in this in the summertime mowing we have to mow we have to keep up on mowing uh we got to do ball fields um tree trimming we try to do that year round uh we have a guy that's on call that handles just our daily calls on a daily basis our daily tasks where people call in hey I don't have water I don't my water meters broke can you check this out that guy is just a guy that is a utility guy that goes and you know kind of takes care of whatever comes up for the day and a lot of times it takes more than that person to do that but he's kind of the guy that goes out and looks at hey tree limb down is it a limit you can throw in the back of a pickup truck or is it hey do we need the um you know the clam truck and the bucket truck and you know so we might have to switch up what we're doing for that you know right now we have a guy sweeping but you can look on there and say you know there's trash I don't have anyone assigned to that there's uh sewer cleaning there's sewer televising uh there's blacktopping um that you know we we have to do that now this I don't have the summertime help on here because we don't have them guys year round um at the bottom we have catch basins and then running dumpsters so you can see with these with the number of guys that we have um we don't have the luxury of like separating departments um so when we're like uh council member Thurston said when we're looking for a person it's hard to find a per in order for so these guys have to go out and we need to have an SC water license and an sc sewer license that goes off the population of your city um these guys can't go out and even take the test to get licensed unless they've worked around the water or the sewer for three years so when you have a person that uh like a summertime help kid that's going to college and he's working here and he gets some exposure to that a lot of times we can take a year or two off before that guy that he can be qualified to go and get his license sooner than later but if I if we're going to hire a person into this position that has their water or their sewer license um you know that's something where we might have to offer him some more money to try to come here you know in their in their range so um if we hire a person that is doesn't have experience that doesn't you know that doesn't doesn't have their water or their sewer license before they can even go out and get that they need to have that three years of experience before um they can you know acquire them licenses and you know looking at our daily worksheet and what we got this is not with a person off for vacation a person that's sick you know and people that are gone and what we juggle is in the winter time we need pretty much our whole crew to plow out the town in the time that we do that or in the time that we do it and we can in a normal snowfall we can get the town plot out I'm sidewalks roads you know Trails everything in six to eight hours on an average snowfall um with that I would say 30 percent of time it snows we end up with a water main break it's just kind of how it works out so there's a lot of times that we go out and we plow we end up with a water main break we get down plowing we come in we take our trucks apart take the Sanders and Salters off of them we go out we fix the water main break come back clean the trucks up put the salting stuff back on and then go back out we might have to you know hit the main roads again so I mean for these guys in the winter time we will let a guy or two take some time off but the guys are usually pretty really good at looking at okay hey there might be a snowstorm I mean some people plan a trip with like Hey we're going to Florida or I'm going to Hawaii but we can't have like four guys gone or three guys gone in the winter time in order to maintain this stuff so um I don't know if uh yeah well I guess that's I mean to the mayor's question of why is the scale so high I mean and I guess that's a hiring practice but I thought in the you know first last several years we've basically said hey when we post this position a prior requisite or requirement is that you currently have your water and sewer license and to have that you already essentially have to have either worked in that field or most likely you're already a prior Public Works employee so it's kind of like the electric Department if you're hiring a brand new line and he starts off as an apprentice correct and then he's apprenticed for five years and then becomes a journeyman right well if you're going to post that job and you wanna you know skip that part you're obviously going to have to pay a journeyman more than an apprentice yeah so it's almost like we're we're seeking that type of person who's already got that experience and that they're probably going to be coming from another city most likely well I mean it you would hope but the you know hiring people I know and I think that 116 000 that's the full benefits and all the package I mean the the the scale you can't quote me exactly on this but I think the starting scale is 26 dollars an hour at the low end of the scale and I believe it goes up to about thirty four dollars an hour somewhere in that right around in there so I mean Dan's got all the you know fringe benefits in there I mean it still is the cost of the city but their hourly rate is in that range there okay anybody else had questions is it hard to get people I mean it's super hard and what we have found over the years um to normally the people normally the people with experience they have some baggage with them or if they're leaving and leaving another city and coming here um we found out we we really try to find someone that fits in with our group a person with a good personality a person that's got a good work work ethic and training that person usually works out a lot better for us you know we were lucky with the last you know this kid went to college and it took them a little longer to go to college so he was with us for like six years six and a half years and then he decided that this is what he wanted to do and we were really lucky because basically from day one we could have him go out and kind of almost take care of anything and he fit in with the group and that's the most important thing you know that that we look for that I look for in in a person you know we can train a person we can send them to school and have them get their licenses and stuff um normally these guys that come with some experience it's very rare that you find one that doesn't have some backstory or something going on okay again that that 116 000 does include benefits The Fringe Benefits total is 39 000 of that yeah but but again I mean that's I mean it's definitely something that we can look at in lowering down the step um which then has an impact on you know the total cost but then you play in case you haven't you know an offer that ends up being higher than it can put a little stress on on Ron's uh budget but again that's your decision [Music] well my my questions were just kind of having you explain how this position would help your department operate kind of in you know outside of what the you know the PowerPoint that was read to us yep um it's just and then you know just like the complexities of a snow event and how you know that's something that we always here is very important to Residents in town and businesses and how they ex it's become an expectation and that if there's you know an advent like you're talking about a water main break or something else that is taking guys away from that then that you you know you're kind of limited how many people are I mean all nine people are out like can you just explain like a typical winter snow event yeah um yes basically all all nine people are out I mean we've done it we could be down two people and we it'll probably take us an extra two hours if we're missing two people on average um basically how a snow event works there's there's four main routes or four main truck routes for the roads so that would be big truck routes um there's two two guys that are on sidewalks there is a person that takes care of alleys there's a person that takes care of downtown um yeah and there's a person that takes care of cul-de-sacs so if one of those persons is gone you know we have to kind of double up if a big truck a guy in a big truck is gone we usually will take one of the other guys and put them in the big truck to uh you know the roads take the priorities you know for for our snow um but yeah if so basically in a snow event we come in um the hard part with the snow event is the timing of it basically we have um a lot of times if let's say we have a typical snow it starts snowing at noon that day um and it's going to get done at 10 o'clock at night um normally what we'll do is we will go we will go in we have some main roads that are specified a lot of them are you know like Margaret Holloway some of the main excuse me some of the main streets in town will go up before we leave for the day um it's uh we will go out we'll hit we'll plow the main roads and then we'll wait for it to uh to get done snowing depending on how much it snows if it's a typical three or four out or three inch or three to four inch snow we'll go out we'll follow the main roads we'll leave the secondary roads and then we'll come back at it we'll come up with the time two o'clock in the morning one o'clock in the morning whatever we think it's going to take us to get everything cleared out before traffic starts at six o'clock in the morning um like I said what ends up happening so if let's say it snows on a Monday the guys work their normal shift seven to three Thirty Monday they'll plow they'll go home at 3 30. we'll say Hey guys you're coming in at two o'clock in the morning that is actually going to be there Tuesday so they basically get shift changed for that to do that so they'll come in they'll work two in the from two in the morning till 10 A.M and that'll be their Tuesday shift then I mean what what it is going to start happening more and more is getting the snow cleared out downtown um we're running out of places to like work and stockpile it or we can place it The Old City Hall where the Sentinel building is is one of the places that we use to stockpile snow and then we could haul it out like on another day during the day but we're running out of those places to stockpile this stuff so moving forward we're going to have to come up with ways whether we have to Halt that night or come up with a different way to to handle us one guy asking for one guy is not going to take care of that problem but it's stuff that we have to look for in the future here as downtown is getting built up we're ever going to have to deal with this stuff in different ways and Hauling the stuff so um just you know they added I mean just in taking care of I mean for the need for an extra guy you know we put these new roads in the sidewalks are being put right next to the road that's a sidewalk that we have to start taking care of you can take the 2019 project up at the Silver Lake Project the sidewalks are right on the the road so we're going with Paul windrow up on there there's no way residents can shovel what we plow up on there a big huge win wrong on that whole sidewalk so we take care of that we use you know Bobcats and Tool cats with snow blowers on them in order to remove that snow now we have a sidewalk on aerial now you know we're going to have to remove that snow on that sidewalk because it's going to be way too much for residents to handle so um you know when we start improving and adding sidewalks and it's just adding extra work you know and that can turn into the summer time with all the plants that are on 7th Avenue going up 7th Avenue all the center medians irrigation goes all the way up 7th Avenue basically to to Third Street we added an extra I don't know 120 irrigation heads downtown we're going to be adding irrigation to all that I mean we we could have a guy working on irrigation you know pretty much the whole summer long between the fields and this irrigation along the roads um you know just all the different things that we have come up you know trash cans we deliver trash cans um that takes you know we've probably spent an hour and a half two hours a day you know dealing with that and dropping them off picking them up um you know we're inheriting the aerator at Silver Lake um you know uh water meter replacement we put in new water meters I want 12 to 14 years ago there's a battery life on them the whole water meter will be need to be replaced it's basically a 20-year span on that one so we're coming up to you know 14 15 years we're starting to see some of the batteries go dead on these and it's not a battery that can be replaced the whole water meter gets replaced so this is something where this is going to be more and more frequent as time goes on um for I mean it's just more work more things you know for the public works to take on um what else should I have here irrigation um you know and I kind of mentioned it last night you know we have these different committees that are that people are I mean it's great stuff that we're we're bringing stuff back and activities for people but you know uh music in the Parks we clean up when we go and we kind of do a thorough cleaning of the parks um the park rentals uh we have to we have two guys come in every single weekend um between the car show and the park rentals to pick up trash if we don't pick up trash uh trash is blowing around the parks um the car show you know it doubled in size as far as the length of it um what two years ago so I mean we have got two guys come in so every single week and we have to you know we have to round up two people that come in it's the on-call guy we have he's kind of on call for that week but we have to get another guy to come in every single weekend so it's what I don't want to happen are guys I mean the stuff that we have to our emergency stuff our snow our water main breaks uh trees that fall down that are blocking the road yeah sewer backups um you know where we have to you know get on that in a timely manner I I just these nine guys get stretched pretty thin when it comes and one guy you know that's not gonna it's not this you know the the answer to all you know what we do it's just I feel that you know moving forward here we just have to have you know get another person in there you know I I don't ever see this being hey we need to have 14 guys to take care of this um probably the one of the most important things that we have is our summertime help and each year that gets harder and harder to get these guys this year we had a pretty decent crew I think we ended up with eight but we've had years where we've had three I mean you look on the sheet I gave you to go all blacktopping you know we get you have to have kind of a minimum of five guys to take care of that so um it's just like I said all the things that are good for the city um but all the extra stuff that we have to do um it's it it gets these guys stretched pretty thin as far as taking time off we try to have These Guys these guys try to take a lot of their time off in the summertime but that's getting harder to do because you know every weekend we have to have them two guys come in and and when we're trying to get these guys their time off because they don't we don't want them all to take it off in the winter time so it's just uh you know kind of a balancing act and that's why I kind of gave you a daily worksheet just so you can kind of just see what we're kind of picking and choosing or picking and choosing not to do and I'd say 50 of the time the plan that we make that night the the night before or that morning 50 of the time it changes we go a different direction if it rains out you know storm sewers start backing up or uh we have a storm come in and it blows all the leaves off the tree or a bunch of leaves or buds off the trees then we go out sweeping you know so it's it's just uh it's just a balancing act you know I'd say we get to these 10 people right around there you know for now that'll suit us for you know a few years but it depends you know what happens in the extra stuff that we take on over over the you know the next five years a little quick fob I hate to keep talking about snow because you know that's fine but in the years past we've kind of briefly discuss the idea because you talked about how you know there are our policies it's the homeowner's responsibility to clear the sidewalk on the snow but now with some of these projects sidewalks have changed and they're called walkways and Pathways and then that becomes the city's responsibility and we've we've talked about or at least inquired about what what would that take to just change policy and have Public Works clear all the sidewalks throughout the city or potentially even contract that out was part of that proposal to accomplish that having to hire another full-time person for taking care of all the sidewalks no if I'm going to be honest with you I've been talking with other cities that they're like that's the last thing that you want to get involved with taking care of all those sidewalks um we looked at it I mean we can get by with what we are right now but there's specific machines that these cities have that take care of the sidewalks they're 230 40 000 because taking a bobcat out with the snow blower on and take care of the sidewalks they don't last they constantly break down they have you know I'm just using Oakdale for example because I talk to them a lot about it they have four of those machines and it's and there's there's sidewalk removal goes on for multiple days there's snow removal it's a secondary thing you know right now we take care of uh the problem that we'd have in North Saint Paul we have sidewalks that are six feet wide we have sidewalks that are three feet wide in the middle of nowhere yep so for us to take care of that what the problems would be is the damage that we would do to people's property their grass their retaining walls their I mean it's just a it's a it's a constant thing taking on that I mean we looked at it I would say if we were going to look at taking on sidewalks in this city I'd probably be up here asking for sure for two guys and two machines to to do that I mean it would be a length it would probably take us as long to do those sidewalks I believe we looked at it one time I think we plowed 7.4 miles of sidewalks right now and if we took them all on I believe it would add an additional 21 or 24 miles of sidewalk and that was from some numbers years ago when there's a different director here but we were kind of looking at it so it would be a big undertaking to to do that so everybody else for Ron thanks Ron um do you encounter a lot of issues with overtime yourself or uh yeah there's more overtime now than there there has been we used to really not have hardly any overtime in the summer time um unless there was a storm uh mostly over time came in the winter time four water main breaks and snow you know I gave you the example that's perfect case uh scenario where we can plan a snow event we shift change the guys they work two to ten but we have to go out when we have to go out with the snow so you know it's not like we say well we're going to hold off for 10 hours here and wait till it's not on overtime we have to go out and plow when who when it Best Suits everyone you know so we I mean our number one goal is to try to have to get people home from work and to get people to work so however that might work um you know we we do what when we kind of have to do it um summertime now there's like I said it's a lot more overtime because we're having people come in every single weekend you know and it's normally two guys on Saturday and then one guy on Sunday depending on you know the the amount of trash for the weekend so thank you because of our rentals are up to you yes and you know the the park rentals um they're they're a lot of work uh you know our cleaning company that we have that I mean they do a great job but you know we do lots of repairs lots of repairs at the building you know there's I mean it's gotten better since we've we they've added a damage deposit to it it's definitely gotten a lot better but I mean we do spend a lot of time on Building Maintenance and fixing you know Park buildings and doorknobs and faucets and you know whatever it might be thank you okay quick follow-up on that when you talk about that part maintenance after a rental our reserved I mean I'm sure it's not your department but are you you guys are doing the fixes are you then reporting it to someone here in City Hall and they're following up with the group that rented it and they're getting charged accordingly yep I mean if if there's you know there's some things that are you know yeah wear and tear versus damage or you know something might have just happened but if there's something you know major that happens um you know we definitely report it and let them know and then they are charging their you know keep their damage deposit we don't know what that number is a collection of damage deposits yeah I I don't know I don't know I don't believe it's been significant but it has it was a change that was brought up um as an issue last year in the budget discussions so that change has gone into place um but there hasn't been huge um you know Revenue Source onto onto that side I want to thank Ron I think he did an excellent job on on you know just you know showing his need for an additional uh maintenance worker again the the maintenance worker there does include all fringe benefits um you can you can definitely see you know I think in the the last budget Workshop I think it was uh council member Thorson had said you know Public Works is kind of like the catch-all um in the city and they truly are um and and so they do an excellent job I I think their level of service is second to none um you know how they do their Street Maintenance snow plowing and I think it's something that the residents have just become accustomed to and I think Ron what he's doing is he's trying to be proactive and saying hey we've had some additional and I don't want to see that level of Service drop so I I've got to give him a lot of credit for for putting the request together for an additional staff member um are there any additional questions for any other department heads on the options for additional staff the additional staff that we had talked about was on the fire department the inspector The Code Compliance the daily shift and then the maintenance worker for Public Works was what was presented and I think we've pretty much had all of the questions answered both from Jason and all from from Ron on those two so if there's no further questions on those I think we'll move forward and again the capital Improvement plan has been attached to the last two times and you heard Morgan speak to it uh last Workshop that it really is it we're trying to be more comprehensive eventually we'll we'll build even a better Improvement where we'll have more explanations on requests you know with pitchers rankings and so forth this is kind of a a work in progress we're trying to get ourselves to be more comprehensive I mean obviously if you look at the capital Improvement plan one thing that we've already identified is is not being addressed in the manner that it needs to be addressed is our facilities and so at some point in time we're going to have to do a facility assessment of the facilities that the city owns and incorporate that information into this plan but again we do have time to to go through this Capital plan in more detail later on and we will be having a number of other budget meetings as we go into all of the other budgets Enterprise funds internal service funds Capital Improvement plan the the note about the capital Improvement plan they're really the driving Factor that's incorporated into there that has a direct impact on on um the budget for 2023 is that there and you'll see later some of the changes that have occurred from the last time in July to now in the budget is some of the planning that have come from from Parks Commission so those planning components are funded through the general fund so they're actually included now in Parks budget so that will address a little bit later but that's a part of the capital Improvement plan that has a direct impact on the 2023 for the most part the rest has more of an indirect impact act and because we are not planning on bonding in 2023 that Street Maintenance component for the more bigger projects isn't going to have an impact until the 2024 budget so your items as far as vehicle replacement they're being funded from a different find the equipment fund so once we get into that once we get into the other budgets when we go through the capital Improvement plan whatever is decided there will then be put into those budgets but it doesn't have an impact on the levy component to it same thing with Street Maintenance there's a Street Maintenance fund that will be taken care of the items that are in there and so forth and then there's one other component you heard Morgan talk about the the capital Improvement plan and kind of a different philosophy on how to do some of the Street Maintenance and kind of doing it every year in addition to not just doing it on a two-year cycle where we're binding on major projects but to do some more Mill and overlay components to it and part of the reason why I had suggested um increasing our Levy a little bit more from where we were at and we'll get into that discussion a little bit more in detail but part of it is is that right now if you looked at those financial plans that were put together there's a to to make the Street Maintenance component work obviously there's going to be Levy increases in the general fund on an annual basis and in addition there was a need to to increase a transfer of 150 000 from the electric so that's where if we can Levy a little bit more we can cover that 150 000 and take it out of electric which then will impact its 10-year financial plan and we may not need to see those rate increases quite as high as they they were in the financial plan part to it but if there's some specific questions that somebody may have on the capital Improvement plan I definitely can address those but that but the capital Improvement will really will need its own Workshop to go through all of those details with the with the department heads and answering all of your questions we don't have we can't click on that no but I I can I mean we don't need it I mean that's all a whole big document of itself yeah there there's quite a quite a bit that's right yeah [Music] anybody have any questions on the capital Improvement plan [Music] okay with no questions um move on to there's uh two documents on fund balances uh one that was in there prior that was the fund balances as of December 31st 2021 which have been audited there was a request to have updated numbers um as of uh June 30th obviously those are unaudited and they're not broken into classifications so it's just showing the total fund balance at that point in time and and it's showing um the uh cash balance as of June 30th and if there's any specific questions with those two certainly we'll address yeah so I guess some of my questions about you know our budget revolve around these fund balances and uh in particular you know we've we've got an established kind of goal what we want the general fund and that's tied to kind of recommendations that revolve around our bond rating and we made adjustments to that for a goal of trying to get that up to 45 percent yes at the end of last year was 44 so our policy now is that it's a minimum of 40 percent and and that we strive for 50 okay strive for 50. okay but you know I look at some of these funds like the park dedication fund and the park fund and what fund 61 permanent and Improvement revolving what is that I tried to I tied the roads roads okay um [Music] and this is more of an Enterprise funds but so let's take Solid Waste fund for example um you know this is a fund that essentially is a pass through I mean we do have staff time tied to that and and when I say Solid Waste this is residential and trash this is why this fund exists but we do have activity related to that just like Ron touched on Public Works is responsible for swapping out carts and if there's uh you know warranty issues with cards I'm sure you guys are the ones trying to you know collect that stuff and return them or contact the manufacturer Utility Billing is handling phone calls um and maybe they're kind of coordinating between tennis and whatever if there's questions they can't answer but for the most part this fund is like a pass-through you know tennis does the service we do the billing we choose to do that we pay the Tipping fees we choose to do that um and this fund has continued to grow over time um I mean we've used funds out of this account for things like the Citywide cleanup which have been a success and we haven't had to charge for that but when we're looking at that Fund in particular like especially if it comes to wall are we going to raise rates we look at that and say what's the balance and what should right now it's just you know we don't there's no guiding factor to say well are we over funded or underfunded you know if we're going to have the discussion about raising rates in the solid waste fund I would think you know that would be one inclination of saying well do we need to do we have a sufficient fund balance and what's a sufficient fund balance so I guess that's kind of where you know I don't know we're looking for some guidance on if we're going to start establishing policies out of you know funds like that to say you know maybe a healthy fund balance would be three or four months worth of what it actually costs us to provide that service paying the contractor to do it you know worst case scenario we don't collect any money from the residents for it at least we can still offer that service and figure out what's wrong but anything over that you know why do we have that balance right so in the financial plans through and I pulled the one up for solid waste fund so if we look at for the 10-year look at it there would be no rate increase in 23 and 24. uh the target minimum working capital in cash should be right around that 350 000 level we will start seeing in um a you know based upon a budgetary in 2022 we'll see a a slight loss in that fund and then that loss will continue as the years move forward part of that is is that the first two years of the the contract with tennis had I believe had zero percent increases last year was I think the third year they had a three or for this year had a three percent increase and there's three percent for the next two years in addition to that we're having tipping fees that are going up usually somewhere between a five to eight percent on an annual basis so we are seeing where the rates that we are charging are not enough but we can carry it with what the fund balance is is in there right now on a projection so the same methodology as far as cash um is is basically I think how I've I've got it in there is three months of the next year's budget and then Debt Service if there's a Debt Service this one has very little Debt Service that actually expired so they have no more Debt Service but that has to be included in there because it's due on February 1st so we're kind of you've just kind of established that by default here and then and you know I guess my my only other question I mean you know some of the water Wastewater electric service water those are funds where it's like hard to make an argument of what a minimum balance is because we have such a long you know the capital Improvement plan is going to be very demanding where we're going to be chewing up a lot of cash right except for the the the target minimum working capitals is calculated the same way all the way through so this isn't a New Concept I'm actually I'm not I'm not being as conservative of of a consultant would be um I think back in 2017 or 2018 the city hired I think Ellers and Associates to look at a number of their different utilities if basically how they calculated the minimum so basically it's the same format calculating the same thing except for the the minimum working Target or working capital they actually were more aggressive and um they would be basically having 60 percent where I'm holding 33 percent but they did also include that Debt Service which absolutely you need to have that into it so to me the the this minimum working capital is actually lower than you would get from a consultant to go out there but I think we're good because we we actually bill on a monthly basis we're usually one month behind in in like electrical or some of the others but um I think we're okay with the three months plus The Debt Service so all of them have been calculated in establishing the same methodology for the Target minimum working capital and it's just comparing the cash as we're moving through there and yes you're absolutely right there's a lot of other Capital needs that are done so behind the scenes there's spreadsheets that are pulling in all of the CIP information it's either taking it directly and incorporating in here as an expense during that year or if in the case of some of the the street projects it's converting it over to a debt and then the debt is being shown in here so I'm trying to capture absolutely everything just like the consultant did in 2017. for the parks funds that we have there's Park there's fun 34 Park dedication fund and fund 63 Park fund those have balances in there and part of that is just because we you know we've kind of put a pause on Park improvements pending this outcome of the park Improvement plan um you know that's something where I mean I look at that and I think well you know if we've got money in the Parks fund and the park dedication fund we should be spending it on those Park improvements and so is there a need to continue to build this fund up I mean what's the obviously we've got this this plan and it's you know what was it 10 to 15 million over the next however many years but you know when we when we come up on these projects are we you know what's we're going to need other funding mechanisms like bonding or things like that but in the meantime if there are smaller projects like if the park fund is identified we want to replace some open air shelters and they cost you know 75 100 Grand whatever you know what's I guess my my concern is why is these why are these fund balances so high I mean that to me it seems like when we accumulate money into the park dedication on a park fund we should be spending it we shouldn't just be accumulating larger and larger balances like in the water fund and Wastewater fund we should be spending those down as we as we get them you know like in in the park dedication fund as well that you know we we established that years ago and there's criteria on Redevelopment if it's adds density they have to contribute a certain amount of money to that fund based off of the project I'm assuming that's do we have any detail on those projects that have taken place since then and are we having follow-up to make sure that these projects that are doing that are paying into the park dedication fund um I I'll definitely look into that I can't answer that up off the top I I know I have seen where um you know projects have contributed since the time I've been here uh for to the park dedication fund it's grown but in the capital Improvement plan um and I tried to make it a little bit bigger in the section down on the bottom that's Parks playgrounds passing Open Spaces in those costs um you can see that the perk dedication funds is being identified as a funding source for those projects so the intent is not to see it keep accumulating it is to use it as a funding source for what's been approved by the the Parks Commission I can't speak to how things have been in the past if there's been projects that could have been spent out of that and they weren't or or projects that were identified but weren't taken care of I I don't know that but right now in the plan that is a funding so course okay so we won't see it continue to grow and grow so until the Parks Commission comes forward with the recommendations of the council is to approve a particular thing that will just continue to grow correct [Music] and I think that's part of the plan the capital plan for the parks fund that's what you came up with that plan for is the future some of these projects could be half million dollars some could be I mean I don't understand absolutely but if you were to place replace a uh Northwood you know say if you do replace that building down there that could be 300 400 000 we don't know so yeah and so if you're using the ADA Compliant that comes along with it as soon as you touch Park it's ADA Compliant um it's another number that's another big that's another big number yeah and so if we look on the bottom line I know it's kind of hard to see but um but based upon the plan the park plan and you those the items that qualified for Park dedication funds the park dedication fund balance will go negative by the year 2025 and continue to be negative and all the way out to 2032 of 3.5 million dollars negative that's the only one I haven't figured out how we're going to fund in the into the future that's where eventually there's going to have to be some sort of bonding mechanism that's built in to cover those costs but again as far as moving forward the plan is definitely that it's not going to be accumulating um there was tremendous amount of work by The Parks Commission in developing this plan that that plan is being incorporated into this Capital Improvement plan and I think we've covered it very very well um but that is going to be something that is going to need additional funding in time yes dries up because they take a little one take about a hundred thousand on that every year for the park fund that's what they designate yes there's a hundredth year absolutely right there's a hundred thousand dollars of LGA funds that's in there and and really right now what that money is is is for Casey Lake's Debt Service um component to it is what is being utilized for um eventually that debt will go away and hopefully LGA doesn't go away completely but definitely definitely could and if I'm not mistaken Park dedication fund has a whole lot of parameters around absolutely it can actually be spent on absolutely can't be spent on repairs it can't be spent on a whole lot of other things yeah so it's truly a separate set of bucket that bucket that has to have specific identified projects to be able to pull from that fund yeah and in their really new projects new improvements is yes absolutely okay well and then that's just you know I mean we're here we're talking about spending money on that fund but then we're saying well we can't spend money because everything's so expensive I mean it just seems like we can start Park improvements now we have sufficient funding in these balances now we can start doing these things and I understand like in the park dedication fund there's restrictions on how to spend it but there's also things that we can spend that money on now that we are identified in the plan so I'm just you know I see that number and I hear people talk about you know why aren't we doing improvements to the park had questions about you know [Music] how much money is in there why isn't it being spent you know so I I absolutely agree so to me as the finance director I've put together the plan and the in the funny sources I certainly have the expectation that in 2023 that works going to be at least worked on um and if it's not done in in 2023 then it's going to be shortly thereafter that's the information that I'm playing playing with I I don't want to see us we have needs I don't want to see us continue to have the needs and and yet keep growing our fund balances that's not the intent so you make a very good point um and again I can't speak for the past history I can just speak to what the plans are in the future in identifying the potential funding sources and in the park dedication fund um just like council member Cole said there are restrictions so it can't be used for certain items but the items that I've identified I believe based upon the statute for it that it does qualify for use of Park dedication however there would not be enough Park dedication funds to carry out everything that could qualify for that sure and then just my last question I so we asked about some history on the we call it Surplus at the end of the years and you provided detail going back to 2014 and we've had since 2015 seventh straight consecutive years of a surplus and then that money gets put into Street Improvement fund and then the what's the other fund that it goes into it gets automatic equipment fund equipment so if we're looking at ways to try to minimize the levy but not take away Staffing and and having major impacts to each department have we kind of went back at that Capital Improvement plan and looked at those allocations out of each department and what they pay into the equipment Fund in this in the street fund and maybe ratchet those down a bit just to lessen the impact of the levy being is that we've had so many consecutive years of a surplus so um on the first three pages of the capital Improvement plan it'll show the current fund balance like like for vehicle and equipment in the blue highlighted area it has the equipment fund unrestricted fund balance it's currently a 3.3 million dollars what's what was part of the approved plan for 2022 and then for the next 10 years if we spend all of those and if those costs come in to what have been estimated at the end of 20 or 2032 we'll only have three hundred thousand dollars left um you know in that fund so is there a lot of room to reduce um allocations that are are coming out of the Departments uh no I I have kept it constant all the way through for all of the years um with no increases um you know to to bring down that that fund balance that that's in there over the next uh basically 12 years so um I guess the the answer to me is that the surpluses that were yes you're absolutely correct that there's been surpluses in the general fund on an annual basis um I think the last three years of surpluses have not been allocated to anywhere um the reason for that is because you moved your fund balance policy from 25 to 35 percent so you needed that Surplus to get up to that 35 percent and now this year this this year still on this year that we've changed that policy up to 40 percent so the past three years Surplus actually hasn't been being distributed to anywhere else however the prior years when it was split between the equipment and the street fund obviously the equipment fund if we would not have put the money in there we would have had to Levy any which way to get enough money in there on a 10-year look you may not have needed it in 23 24 25 26 but eventually you would have had to have you'll have to Levy for that um so the Surplus yes I absolutely agree with you that it has been it's actually been a benefit from from two standpoints one it allowed you to put a little bit more in the fund balances of both the Street Maintenance and the equipment which you would have had to had levied at some point in time in the future and the other that it it from a financial standpoint it puts you in a much better position of things that we can control to make our bond rating stay where it's at without falling and that is to build our general fund fund balance percentage up a little bit higher some of the other major factors I think you can remember when when we had uh um our bond Council um kind of when we went for this last issuance um and we did the rating some of the comments that came back is certain things that we can't control in other words we can't control what the median income of the city is we can't control that there's a huge increase in commercial and Industrial Development that happens in in the city if we had those those would have a tendency to give us a better Bond rating we can control the fund balance component and that's what we actually did so I I think we for where the fund balances are today in the capital Improvement plan you know I just kind of went over the equipment one I think we've actually positioned ourselves oddly enough in pretty good situation to move into the future um but it's got council member Thorson you're absolutely right if we see these things continue to grow or we're not spending then then that's on staff staff better be living up to the plan that that's that city council approves uh I don't know this is kind of jumping back into that Capital Improvement plan but you know obviously last night we approved to move forward with the community center and I may you know we're just going off of estimates now the next step is we're going to have kind of more refined actual figures I noticed under the building and facility improvements there's a line for that there's nothing in there how is that going to impact or maybe you're not there yet like how was how is that going to impact this Capital Improvement plan or or have you put any thought into how we're going to fund that and um I've given it some thought I don't know what the final outcome is going to be on the community center I think the approach that was approved yesterday um at least allows the city the opportunity to explore options I don't think a final decision has been made on the final outcome and I think it's it's really to find out what the costs are not just I think from the maintenance perspective of what's absolutely absolutely needed in the facility but also if there's any other additional I'm going to just call it remodeling costs for some sort of programming and can we get partners and so forth to to do with that um so one of the funny sources that um I had that's um if I can I'm going to pull up um so I give you the correct phone number or fund um that I had um said that it's um special Revenue fund um zero one zero asset preservation that currently has a fund balance of just under 1.7 million dollars um and cash is almost identical to it because it hasn't been being used it's been sitting there and I think councilmember Thurston you're absolutely correct one more time that um you were the one who said that that's where some of the LGA money had gone in the past yet you're absolutely right that's what kind of built up that part of what built that fund balance up but that funding source has not identified anywhere in the capital Improvement plan so obviously that could be made available for the city council's decision on what happens at the community center in Matt asked that preservation fund too could be used to help Finance one-time purchases or could be moved into fund balances to help you know whatever or pay for Capital Improvements or whatever but that that balance traditionally was just the decision to build that fund up was in 2012 I think when LGA in 2011 there was a serious cuts but there's rules around you know just keeping money around it and I think that we actually used to call it the LGA fund Reserve fund and we that's why we changed the name but so that's that's an area where you know if there's if there's one time things from departments that could that could help reduce you know if the if the one-time ask is having an impact on the levy we could potentially go into that to keep the levy down yes yeah and again I think the key to it is is that it really needs to be used for one-time things and it has to be related to you know assets and so taking care of a facility definitely falls into that um you know it could be utilized you know not necessarily for purchasing of a new item it would be more for I'm going to say more repairing and Rehabilitation of a of an item so even streets I think would qualify for that um and it would take City council's action to transfer those funds to do that but yes you're absolutely correct but again in the 2023 budget um you know like the street portion to it doesn't it really impact the general fund because we're not doing any additional bonding it would be in future years that it potentially could have an impact on the general fund I think Dr Waldron said it'd be about two million dollars for other repairs when you sent her last night around that could be going up higher than that that was a big number yes it is a big number and and again I think there's still work still well there's still work that needs to be done tonight and I think um Dr Walgren Waldron is on a good path um and uh an engaging wool to see what kind of opportunities there are for for that facility again you've heard me say in the last Workshop I think the key to it is is that the lands what has the value um you know if if a need can't be identified the land has a huge value for this city foreign balances going back the the bond ratings are they actually look at those fund balances I'm assuming oh absolutely and and you're saying that outside if you had a analysis from an outside agency they'd probably recommend even higher balances is that because that would help with the bond reading or foreign so the general fund is probably your biggest driver and we've already passed that we're going to have a minimum of 40 to 50 so we're I think very good there we're heading in the right direction onto that the fund balance is in your Enterprise funds um you know depending on what type of bonds that you're going on they're really backed by Revenue so as long as city council is has a plan if if rates are needed to be increased that they're doing that and you have adequate fund balance you're good because um you know you're generating that Revenue to pay that back on an annual basis so so having you know uh adequate adequate funds in those uh balances helps with our absolutely generating yep yeah we definitely don't want to draw them down too too far no I mean we there's unintended consequences when we do when we do that so okay any other questions on those documents um and again we definitely can can go into more depth into those if that's the desire at a future Workshop component to it um and again as you make decisions the financial plans will be changed because your decisions on what the budgets are and what the rates and so forth all all uh impact everything [Music] um so last Workshop I threw an option out to the city council and that was looking at the three components of the levy of uh having the city operation Debt Service component being at a 12.59 percent increase not to Levy anything for for HRA at this point in time and to keep the Eda at um at the same amount which I've been working with the Eda and and they have presented a budget and I do believe they have the need for that two hundred thousand dollars because there's approximately a hundred and thirty six thousand dollars that's just in Staffing costs a loan for the Eda um large large part of it was you know is the Community Development position that is now in the 2023 budget that drives that that need for the Eda but they are in agreement to hold the levy and not do the increase up to I think they could have gone up to 211 000 but they've agreed to to keep it where it's at and so I've got confirmation on that um this afternoon and in addition they will be at their next Eda meeting getting members to accept keeping the levy the same but to me they definitely have the need to Levy this year where I believe HRA just because of where their fund balance and their cash balance are that and and that the program currently is is used on the student build housing and it usually comes at a profit or pretty close of a break-even point that we could go without a levy this year and Ratchet that up in in future years to cover costs if we were to do all of that you know increase here and decrease there it really has an overall impact of a levy increase for the overall city of an 8.48 percent um again um we're we're getting additional dollars through the fiscal disparities which really gives kind of a true impact to the taxpayers of a 7.63 percent um and again I as a just kind of a reference point in 2022 when we we did a a 5.99 Levy increase for the city and we did the maximum on both HRA and Eda that really had a impact on the taxpayers of a 7.42 percent so we're pretty much right in that that same range that we were before I gave verbally last Workshop I kind of talked a little bit about some of the tax levies that were around some of the areas of of Oakdale and so forth and this is not in your packet this information just came just just got the the updated one um this morning so I'll kind of look at it there's a couple of cities that didn't um didn't have a report but the in Ramsey County the median average Levy increase is seven percent the average is 11.24 percent Gem Lake is up there at 34 White Bear Lake is at 23 Saint Paul's at 15. White Bear Township is at 14.87 vadna sites is at 13.74 new brightness 9.88 North St Paul would be at that that 8.48 Roseville at 7 Shoreview it 6.9 Falcon Heights at 6.7 Mounds View in Maplewood both at 6.5 Blaine at 5.4 San Anthony at 5.39 and Spring Lake Park at 4.9 percent so we're kind of in the middle of even Ramsey County of of going off on that on on that eight point uh for eight percent Levy change so I you know it's not um you know out of out of line I had to uh and see what where we're at um and so these are just the preliminary Levy numbers um in the debt that you've saw before um and uh HRA but kind of wanted um and then attached is is the budget and all of that information will go to that I just kind of want to show what the um tax tax because it's 633 I want to show what the tax impacts are um so the median value home um you know in the city obviously went up values have gone up um at that 8.48 total Levy increase that if the property had no value change a taxpayer would see a nine percent reduction um if a property tax increased the median value increase of 15.5 there would be a 7.3 percent increase in the taxes if a home had a 7.29 value increase they would still see a decrease in their taxes and then on the opposite side if there was a 17.35 percent value increase they would see a nine percent um increase so in the city's portion to it you know even with these tremendously Big Value increases the taxpayers really are still not seeing double digit and when we cut when we throw into the the factor that you know cost of living has really increased which obviously that we're all aware of and I and and again it has an impact on on our residents our budget that we put together we don't have a lot of you know outside of the labor costs we did not increase line items we tried to keep our total line items pretty close to zero percent with the exception of fuel costs energy costs but the rest of it we kept pretty pretty tight um here's a here's a city Sartell city council approves a 17 Levy increase their property values went up 17 percent they're living 17 percent um and um you know included in that Levy is an additional police officer hey we did that we're doing that um additional part-time wages for the fire department Marshall we added another at least another position actually on proposing that there's actually two more so there's a total of four positions that have been being added to that and the interesting part because that's what I wanted to see when we did this increase is they've got another 430 000 more for Street Maintenance that's the concept that I'm I'm trying to to do this is the timing and if we look at our needs that we really do need to invest in that infrastructure um and I you know we don't know what 24 and 25 are going to look like um I think they're going to be worse and so that's kind of where that concept is again it the final decision comes to to the city council to to approve but if you were to approve that at that 8.48 percent as the maximum Levy bottom line is we're in line we're in line with what other cities are doing around this area what other cities are doing in Ramsey County itself so um I think they're they're um you know that we're not doing something totally totally radical um as I guess my my point on to to that um through time we have prepared um a couple of additional options um to be considered and uh probably never get this thing any bigger um one of which we had talked about um is is to so the budget the budget numbers that are shown in there all the line item detail are all shown as that you have accepted the LGA transfer between general fund and maintenance to to reduce the levy it's adding the Public Works position and it's adding what was out there for the the um fire department obviously you can change that so it it's showing it at a 6.61 percent you just want to note you're back um so that's what all the budget numbers are are showing with these additional items I am certainly not suggesting that we increase the levy any more than the 8.48 percent instead if any of these additional options are agreed to it would be a reduction in that additional money that really wanted to have it earmarked that 300 approximately 350 000 earmarked towards infrastructure it would be a reduction in that amount it would not be changing the levy amount the levy would always stay at that 8.48 combined with all of what the HRA Eda in this in the city so one of the components that was brought up here um so I'm going to Sir because we're at 6 38. is City Council in agreement with moving the LGA so in other words the reduction would happen in the Street Maintenance fund and not in the general fund of approximately 119 thousand dollars [Music] that actually that actually will reduce our Levy request um you know approximately two percent um that's how I have it built it just makes sense Street Maintenance fund still was holding um a fairly well um without the with the exception that it needed 150 000 in addition for to match the plan so and I thought you know we did have pretty much some consensus um on making that um that shift so yes um Candy um council member Cole Council mayor Wong is that assumption keeping us at the eight point whatever percent or would that assumption drop us below if we don't make that assumption it raises it perfect thank you yeah [Music] we were at 5.99 for the city portion um collectively we were at about uh I can tell you right here uh [Music] foreign [Music] about 6.2 ish [Music] but again we we've uh we've gotten an additional 144 000 in fiscal disparities which is you know you know you know a little you know it's maybe about two and a quarter percent of the levy um so when you do that comparison that's where we're pretty much where we were last year um even though we're at 8.48 total um uh there was a grouping of the fire department and so I looked at them as all together and I was adding a full-time fire inspector reducing the part-time Code Compliance and then reducing the initial Duty shift later on there's adding back that part-time Code Compliance but the grouping of those three are do we have consensus that that's what we want to do add the position and reduce those other two at this point in time and then we'll have discussion on adding back that that uh the part-time Code Compliance councilmember Thorson yeah I'm fine with that [Music] so long as it involves the reduction in that part-time and Duty shift and that's how that's yeah and council member Peterson an agreement um councilmember Wong councilmember Cole mayor Furla okay and then the last one to get us up to where we're at is the addition of the Public Works maintenance worker foreign everybody's good so where we're at right now and then and then there's this general fund additional component so those three changes that we were just talking about brings us to a 6.61 led the increase on the city Side to it then there's this um concept of having an additional amount and basically what it would be is it would be budgeted in the general fund but it would be a transfer to like Street Maintenance um because Street Maintenance has that need um you know especially with this new concept of doing an annual basis um of getting caught up on the streets um and and again we do have work to do there and you heard Morgan talk about it last Workshop where we really do need to to look at our street index we need to have workshops where we set where we need to be in that street index and we need to see that needle moving but it's going to cost uh or it's going to create a need for investing and so that's kind of where where that's at so I'm going to hold that off right now that additional component um that that's there we had some additional options for you to consider one being it was brought up over and over again is that part-time Code Compliance do we add that back currently it's not in the budget numbers that I have shown in the budgets do we add that position back and is there support to do so yes yes [Music] no in it I think we have a majority that says yes bring it bring it back in another item so again to me that would be a reduction in that additional amount so it would bring it from approximately 348 000 down to 307 of funds that would be for for Street Maintenance um police overtime um historically we currently budget police over time and it has been this way for a while at sixty thousand dollars a year it went back 10 years looking at a 10-year history 10-year history it's about a hundred thousand dollars on an average of What overtime has cost I threw out last year because that was probably the highest and the other nine years would show an average of ninety thousand in overtime and so I'm you know putting in additional item for your consideration of increasing the police overtime from sixty thousand to ninety thousand which has a a thirty thousand dollar impact um and if we have further questions um our police chief has put together a PowerPoint that kind of talks a little bit more about that that was attached he definitely um could answer any questions that you may have regarding that over time um but questions thoughts [Music] we are currently but yeah that's adding that thirty thousand that ask is is I mean it would be the same if we had a full no but happy to go through any any other reasons on why that is the way it is I don't know if you guys got those slides that I sent out did you guys get any of those I don't know if you saw them or not they are attached to the the packet um can definitely pull it up here if you would like to yeah come up there or screen share or what are you I could bring my computer technology I'll start off a little bit and then yeah no I can I'll be you I'll just move your slides for you and you can talk from there cool or you can come up here it's right there Chief Two oh sweet yeah there's the breakdown um that was uh really good for me to see because I was just kicking around why over time myself was the way it is and and good and all that it's been a historical problem where it's it's always been underfunded and never achieved and I don't know if it has stayed at sixty thousand as the target number for the past 10 years but that's what it is now and that's uh unachievable for a handful of reasons first off just we don't get to pick when emergency calls come in so every single day there is the potential for or overtime to get created uh today right now it's it's happening based on a call that came in for the day shift uh at the end of the day a DOA call that's going to die up the day shift which is still working right now to process that scene and type up the reports so every single day there is the chance that cops can't just say you know I'm leaving uh whatever your incident is we we because we're off at six you know good luck we can't we can't do that so that wraps into them staying later and the holes being overtime hours so every day there's there's the potential for that to happen uh our minimum safety Staffing levels of three officers so one officer can be approved for use of vacation or suspense time at any time and then if we have another officer that calls in sick or um or or they're off then that's generating overtime we're not going to approve them to be off if there already is one officer off on a vacation bid so we're not going to create our own need for overtime but if there is a sick call when somebody else is on a bid then that's going to get funded with an overtime officer then you throw in our our mandated training requirements from our Minnesota post board says we have to have 48 hours of continuing education credit every three year licensing period in order to maintain our status as peace officers so that's use of forest Crisis Intervention mental illness crisis training Conflict Management mediation recognizing value in community diversity and cultural differences to include implicit bias ensuring safer interactions between peace officers and persons with autism and then once every five years on emergency driving so all of these things in order to do them it is very difficult to say go to this training and also manage emergency calls for service so you have to have officers coming in on their days off when they're coming in on their days off they are getting overtime so it's a it's just one of the things that you have to do in order to maintain our our licensure as as cops community events I know we talked about how having four on a team it has allowed us to to go to some community events that we've created or or we've been invited to when we're on shift but ones that we are bigger ones like the fishing with the cop or National Night Out those take time and we can't say we're going to cover it with an on-duty officer because then if you get a call then the community event is without its host and that can't happen if it's an event that we're putting on so all the things it's tough I love doing the community events but they do incur and create overtime in order to do our upcoming parade we're going to have the entire team of officers on blocking streets that's going to be an overtime expenditure national anthem is huge we have every single officer out in the community which is great for community building but it it costs money because that's cops coming in on their days off when they're they're not scheduled so you know to try to find that that healthy balance of being able to do all these community events and all these uh engagement activities that we I want us to do it is the balance of well how do we how do we do them and not create overtime at the end of the day they're going to create overtime if we want to keep doing them uh critical incidents foreign executions larger investigations and and some proactive police incidents that those also create over time uh when we had our homicide and fire last week two weeks ago that was that was costly to the city that was a lot of officers working uh our investigator was on for three 30 hours straight I don't know how he was still standing at the end of it but that was a a long shift and that was a uh it costs money in order to process those scenes and that was a lot of agencies involved obviously in that scene um but then if we want to you know listen to the community on any of the issues going on and we want to do proactive investigations on those those are difficult to do on shift so that leads to also leads to overtime thankfully I think we've made an impact on on listening to the Community Voices and acting on that so far even recently but it does take time to investigate him fully and and do the proper steps in order to solve the issues and lead to a greater quality of life for our residents uh yeah then we I mean injuries where we have one right now uh holes in the schedule created by injuries or illnesses those create overtime and you can't you know you have no idea when they're when they're coming but if we're uh if we're short due to illness or injury when we're already short on a vacation bid or wherever the hole is that that's going to open it up because if we're if we're saying that the minimum and I am absolutely saying our minimum needs to be three if we drop below that we have to authorize and fund overtime to put in that request for another officer to work it um that's that's kind of how we get to where we are with the budget never being met in in the past decade for sixty thousand dollars of of overtime then then there's also uh some contract approved language that that does create over time we don't run into this a lot we did on the homicide investigation where our day shift officers were forced to work and then come back within 10 hours so that entire next shift is on overtime according to their contract so um we don't hit that a lot but it it does have an impact and on the on the positive side we are reimbursed for some of these overtimes so all six to six to two school events that are asked the football games and and dances that they ask to have officers come to work off duty they pay us at the council approved rate of ninety dollars an hour and then any any other off-duty details on on private private Events St Pete's Max history Cruisers they reimburse us at the same rate 90 an hour so we do uh see some of that money coming back in and then the pulse board for training uh from June 1st 2021 to June 30th of this year we spent 61 000 dollars 61 706.24 cents in training costs and that's not even the that was only based on 14 officers who met the criteria of postboard reimbursement so they must have must have been a North St Paul officer for the past eight months in order to be in this reimbursable uh item but they gave us they wrote us a check for fourteen thousand two hundred seven dollars and 44 cents so it helps a little bit some of that training stuff and and what are mandates and requirements are they're they're throwing us money back and then we had a couple helping out at the state fair so they're also reimbursing us for that so we do see some of the money coming back in so at the end of the day yeah I'm hoping that we can increase it to have a more of an actual uh reality of of what the overtime is for all of those reasons um I think open it by 30 30 grand is puts us in the the scale of what's achievable there was I don't know how you share it around everyone gets a shot at it for the overtime or yeah more than they want okay absolutely it is uh I mean it's tough feeling like especially the the car shows and the private events um they're probably a little sick of me asking them to work overtime and they are tough to fill because people like their days off and I you know want them to have their days off so yeah it's it's shared evenly though when they when the request comes out absolutely is that does that trigger another discussion you know if you 've given out too much overtime you know you're burning out the police officer we're back to that you know same thing again burning out officers uh because I think that is a quality of life thing if they're not having to do all that over time absolutely and I uh when it comes to the private events if if people don't work them then I'll just tell the private the requester sorry nobody was interested I don't say yep we have to have an officer we'll absolutely have you uh have an officer there if it goes unfilled because nobody's interested then I'll break the bad news to the requester and say no nobody nobody jumped on it so therefore you know Jews will do our best uh police reserves do we have um used we yeah we eliminate some of this you know over time no definitely not uh you need a licensed peace officer when it comes to any of these special events especially um or working I mean they will absolutely help we're we're currently uh I just interviewed one potential Reserve last week so it's a we only have two currently and we're looking to expand the reserve program but for when it comes to uh responsibilities of a licensed peace officer they're they're not able to fulfill all of those responsibilities but they can't help and you know parades and other other areas but not you know overtime funded police requested events with you know full arresting powers that police officers have I I just think that I mean obviously the budgeted figure is 60 000 is not in line with reality especially with the Department size that we have so I think it's a little odd that you're having to ask for this as an ass or it's just just been adjusted you know it's kind of like you look at the Historical average of maybe Public Works and salt use they're constantly under budget and they're going over budget eye you got to braise it up to be more in line with reality so I'm full support of bringing it more in line we've got the historical data here 90 000 seems like where it needs to be and hopefully you know that it's there if you don't need it you don't use it you know and it doesn't become a thing where it's like hey there's a bunch of overtime left guys let's start you know coordinating when you're going to call in sick because that sort of stuff has happened in other cities sort of overtime has been abused but you know I don't think you know obviously a lot of this historical data we have never had the full complement of officers so I you know maybe there's a need to adjust this and we just look at that over time and if it if it's never hitting 90 then we can bring it back down but I think you know this is kind of just a regular adjustment that should be made and uh councilmember Thurston I absolutely agree with you do want for the record that we did have a discussion about this early on in the budget process if we needed to move that 60 000 up higher we hadn't done the research component to it and you know both of us being newer we haven't you know gone into if we would have caught this earlier it would have been something that would have been automatically just put into the budget and you're correct so there's no other questions for the police chief on the overtime support on the overtime oh I'm sorry councilmember one thank you um I was wondering about the reimbursements from um some of the partners in the private events are the rates that are set I mean what kind of percentage what is like the return is it significant is it are these rates too low can they be adjusted kind of thing I think that was an item so it was a lot lower and then I don't remember how many months ago we we had brought that to the council for uh review and approval of 90 we had uh we had discussed that's that's a pretty on par at that rate when it comes to covering the cost of uh any officer on an overtime rate and then our minor equipment and gas to get to the event and 90 is pretty good we we did do an analysis on that before we proposed the the 90 so we did look at overtime fringe benefits and all the costs associated I think we're at the seven o'clock Mark and I'm in that council member Cole you pretty much time more how much more time you need oh I had no idea I would hope so let's on the old police overtime supported on changing the police overtime I think we've got consensus on to that I am but there's an expectation that's held to it and not to exceed um I don't know the dollar amount that we've added to Staffing um and it was my understanding that when we added two community service officers along with another one or two full-timers now that we have a full complement of officers that we would see a reduction in overtime I'm not seeing that reduction in overtime and I know Phil there's a whole ton of things are out of control but I just there just comes a point where we if it's 90 it's 90 but we got to hold to it is the only point I want to make I told I agree with you and I wish I could promise that it's gonna stay there I can't I mean there's there's a lot of uncontrollable things like everything I just went over when it comes to calls for service and uh major scenes if we have 20 homicides in our city hopefully that never happens hopefully another one never happens but uh I mean our overtime budget is going to be impacted and it's going to be higher than 90 because we have a lot of cops working long shifts so it's I will I will do everything that I can to try to stick to that but at the end of the day it's it's a it's an unpredictable profession and you know we're going to keep doing our job to uh to answer the call in that I recognize but I look at continued training for officers why can't why that has to be paid overtime and that can't be scheduled in with your full complement of officers to your officers to be able to cover those so there's just there's there's levers that are in your control and there's levers that are out of your crawl control so I just asked to be mindful of you know of the overtime where you can be sure absolutely okay so I think we've got support for that item there's another item that's uh proposed on an ad and that is to um and again in the police department a drone operational costs um if we were to add a drone is just one drone uh there's two two drones five drone Pilots That's included in that and all the data and evidence video storage that comes with drone drones that would have a sixty two hundred dollar impact on the operational side as well as what's not included in the CIP would be one-time costs of twenty thousand dollars any questions on that support can you explain how the Drone is incorporated into your community policing strategy absolutely I'm glad you asked that question um for events such as National Night Out you know we're kind of limited for what we can do and we really for the show and tell style events you know we can't have uh kids coming up and and shooting the taser or the handgun or certain items so this is a perfect item for community policing events because we can actually have uh one of our soon to be trained hopefully soon to be trained pilots flying the Drone and having kids interact with them and see what the Drone sees on the on the screen and possibly even flying the Drone so Community engagement absolutely and bringing them bringing them to schools or or whatever it is I mean it's a it's definitely an item that kids and their technology advanced ways are are into so it's it's an awesome item for community policing for sure other cities have them they sure do yeah it really is the modern day tool for law enforcement primarily is for search and rescue um or you know just just finding people and suspects really and then the community policing is just a an increase on what it all can do but that is the the primary purpose is searching for people who might be lost or searching for suspects who uh need to be found could you touch a little bit too on I mean there's more to this it's not just we get approval and then all of a sudden we're gonna see drones flying around there's a little more to it can you just touch on that briefly absolutely uh so it is a very tight uh tightly uh ran I mean by State Statute 62619 just as far as governing their use when law enforcement agencies can use them saying that we can't deploy drones with facial recognition technology unless authorized by warrant uh we can't equip weapons to the drones uh can't deploy a drone to collect dat on public protests and let thought unless authorized by a warrant um we have to report every single time that we fly the Drone we have to report it to the BCA annually so there is a lot of tracking that is done every single time you're flying these drones so the back end side is uh there's a lot to it but there's a handful of warrantless uses um I think there's nine of them that they do allow and they're most of them are are all about emergency situations and trying to recover uh bodies or preventing loss of life and property is is kind of the primary reasoning for them but also there's a public engagement requirement to an Apollo like there's a drone policy where the public can comment correct yep there would be a at an upcoming council meeting agenda I would put on a public comment opportunity so anybody can have comments once we get the policy put together and then there would be an opportunity for anybody from the community to weigh in on the Drone program well I'm in support of it I mean just real quick I when I did my ride along I actually once responding to a mutual Aid call where had the joy drone been deployed quickly probably could have caught this suspect so and got to see how the length of time of requesting a dog unit and wasn't available and then requesting the Drone and nothing was available and then you know so I mean I think like you say it is it's a modern day tool and if that's something that we can Implement into our tool chest then we need to do that can you provide a little bit of context of when you mentioned when we requested you know the canine and we didn't get it and then we requested the Drone and we didn't get it can you explain that a little bit more in context well we respond I and I'm not a police officer but I mean I was riding along there was a request for Mutual aid from White Bear Lake Century College we were we went up there you know there's all this police chatter on setting up a perimeter I'm going to tell large you know Century College is a large area they thought they knew an area where the suspect was and then they had officers on foot and it was dark it was you know 10 10 o'clock at night you can't see anything and so the one officer that had the last last line of sight had requested a canine unit because obviously dogs can smell and there was none available so their request was denied then they requested a uh available drone unit and they the request was denied because there was nothing available so I mean in this case if we had one and that officer who was responding happened to have and he could have deployed it quickly I mean perhaps that suspect would have been apprehended but maybe not I don't know I know these things come equipped with like night vision and things like that too they do and and thermal imaging so you can pick up uh the heat of any person um wherever they might be hiding but when it comes to the request yeah you're absolutely right when uh you know with canines or drones certain officers are trained and and you know canine uh officers have the dog so if that officer is not working then though that request would go unfilled if any of our mutual or surrounding agencies don't have their canine officers on then then you don't get a canine same with the Drone pilot if if one of the other agencies around us that doesn't have a drone pilot on then we're there's no drone available so in a particular area in North within North Saint Paul would be like maybe someone steals something from Target or assault someone over that area and runs across and hides into that swamp area we'd be able to we'd be able to identify that person pretty quickly if he deployed a drone and even if it was at night you can engage the thermal imaging and you can see him exactly where he is correct whereas now you're limited to just setting a perimeter imagine through the swamp and try to find this gay right now whoever what would be the most use of the Drone would it be that scenario finding people yeah would be the the major use um and that does it it's not always the suspect it could be a kid went missing and we last saw him in this area and you know we think he's in Southwood Park um it's just a much more efficient way than the old let's all form a line and walk together and try to find somebody that we think is over here uh you just get the Drone up in the air and it can get the heat Imaging and help you find anybody and this should just be a couple officers would be trained on it yeah I got our not the whole Force so no drone would have to be requested and that person could be off duty or yeah I went to uh pretty large on the amount of Pilots that I would hope to have trained now I wanted I hope that there's interest but I want to try to get five on board so the goal would be one from each team and then likely our investigator would be trained to fly them so then ideally we'd have somebody on at all at all times that can fly it how many of our neighboring cities like Maplewood Oakdale um have I barely have these drones um are there just one in their Community or what's that look like I'm not sure on the uh our neighboring cities in Ramsey County has a lot of them so they they might be the actual only city or county county-wide that has them Jason do you know I know I know just recently Oakdale fire went to adding a drone to their Force I'm not sure about their Police Department so for us in our own Public Safety team obviously it would be something that you know we would be using as well because I'm not going to be able to spend right now that money to be able to purchase a Jerome for our fire department but we've had conversations with Oakdale about utilizing theirs for instances whether it's a missing person to be able to help out or in instances of a larger fire type event so I am aware of the one in Oakdale at the fire department because I'm thinking if we have these mutual agreements here and there that would it be it an opportunity to provide a partnership with our local jurisdictions around you know okay can we share some drones and we have Pilots here that can fly it so we don't we aren't calling their folks then kind of thing so just trying to think of different options but that's just one that came to mind sure they do get you on the license fees though I mean that's the that really is the entire so it is 20 grand for the equipment itself and that would really be the only shareable cost when it comes to actually the Drone itself but that annual fee is a is a per pilot license so any agency that does have the uh the officers trained would get stuck with that same ongoing cost because that's related to evidence storage and live streaming capabilities so drones can uh any any footage that they're taking Whatever video they're seeing you get the officers are able to live real time see what the Drone is seeing so if you're on a perimeter and uh you can see suspect is running your way then you know the technology is good but that's where the cost wise they make you pay if there's no other questions um for a police chief on drone do we have support of that councilmember tharson yes I do have a question so can you use it for patrol at night a drone yeah they have night vision yeah you can see that night would you mean responding no responding to calls or for Patrol for a drone to be able to go up and down streets and be able to pick up maybe heat that are looking in cars or what have you um you would need a much more expensive drone in order to get a bigger like if you were saying like I want to see the entire city then you're talking to 60 to 100 000 drone these ones are better at smaller areas and actually searching for um you know people on in any incident or even flying into areas that are not safe to fly an officer into if you got somebody armed with a handgun and they're by themselves in a house instead of sending officer and you can fly a drone in but not I've never haven't heard of them being used as as supplements for police officers patrolling just to be at night you know you'd think you know a lot of the car breakings are at night two o'clock three o'clock in the morning and go up and down the street and yeah pick up heat pick up a person going into a car or whatever I don't know yeah more designed for specific use not not to be replacing like a patrol route I think maybe it was what he was saying would you could you have an officer sitting here doing paperwork and then send them out on a patrol route and monitoring suspicious activity this is more of incident-based not just we're going to start deploying drones and they're going to be flying all over looking for Crime correct uh there is an agency in California that that does deploy a drone on every single call so every dispatch call that uh gets sent to that Police Department the first thing is they they have a entire drone team that they fly a drone out but it's really for purposes of being uh on OverWatch to provide information to the responding officers to say hey there's you know you're going to this call here's what's here's what the we see you know you got two people over here but it's not to supplement Patrol or issue tickets at all can you speak to the licensing fees you mentioned each pilot has to have one on an annual basis you're looking for about five and then um you know what kind of additional training hours is that asking of our um police officers to do use the specific tool sure so the uh the quote does include the training for each officer and that they would be able to do because that's a it's an online flight Ground School I believe it's called and that is uh training that they would be able to do on shift because it is online so they could do that in in the background when they have the chance so that wouldn't incur any overtime thankfully for the training of our Pilots um but it is there I can pull up the quote but it was 60 sixty two hundred dollars I believe for the licensing fees and that's access to uh it's an axon program and and who we would get the drones from so that's access to their evidence sync their their database of uh all evidence stored so any videos that these drones are capturing anytime we're flying them up they're recording and in order to upload that footage to their system that's that's the amount that it comes to and then in order for our Pilots to get access to that that's where they came up with the sixty two hundred dollars I can get more as far as you know what the underlines are might be of what their their fee structure or anything but just looking at their quote it was evidence and and pilot licensing fees was 6 200 for five four five any other questions okay support for this item council member Thurston councilmember Peterson yes mayor councilmember 1 commissary Cole yes no and then the last ad item on there in um on the Staffing options we always had a node on the bottom that in 2024 that there would be additional Staffing requests one being a police department police investigator and the other one being an accountant for the finance department in discussions with the city manager the city manager asked me to push up the accountant's position into the 2023 budget and so that's being presented there the total cost of an account is with fringe benefits is approximately a hundred and thirty thousand dollars I think it's it's uh split 75 percent general fund 25 percent is Enterprise funds and there would also be a reduction in the budget right now as a part-time accountant at twenty five thousand dollars annually so it would have a impact of seventy two thousand dollars to the general fund [Music] I think I recall we had this discussion already and that was something I was okay with councilmember Peterson yeah I I'm okay with it I I'm moving on from from the mayor at this moment uh councilmember to walk cool so with all of those items and if we were still be in agreement at that 8.48 Levy what it would do is it would in essence be adding all of these items um in essence there's there would be a total of five ftes being added to the budget from 2022 there's already a police officer that was added but wasn't in the budget the community development director or maybe a different title whatever our city manager Brian frandel would like to do with that position it would be the fire code inspector would be the building maintenance it would be an accountant um all of that and it would have an impact of 8.48 in addition there would be 198 000 almost 200 000 that we could move into the Street Maintenance fund which I have identified that there is a hundred and fifty thousand dollar absolute need um in the maintenance component uh Street Maintenance component to it um so um that would be my recommendation but again the final decision is is up to you but that really is is is really hitting on the two main items and themes that came out of this uh 2023 budget discussion and being making sure that we had adequate staff making sure that we were looking at staff across the city not just in one department but to make sure that we were we were doing a good job in our staffing and making sure that we had redundancies and being able to provide better service to the the city in addition to that your other item was infrastructure and I think we we've done I'm actually very impressed with what uh Morgan and and Ron and Randy did on the Street Maintenance as far as the capital Improvement plan and for the most part we're able to fund that at this point in time we will end up having some future discussions on like the park plan and and so forth but I think um we've come a long way with this budget I think we're taking advantage of what we set out last year by moving some of our debt which true you know ended up resulting in 144 000 more in fiscal disparities dollars were were lessening the impact if we don't Levy this year of what the the impact of that fiscal disparities will have on our residents no matter what because we'll end up losing money in the fiscal disparities distribution part to it and so and again even though if on the 20th we want to go with this we still have time that we can end up reducing if that's the desire to do that I still think we have some more discussions on you know some of the fund balances I think we need to still have discussions on the Enterprise funds obviously and the the rates and what some of those impacts and really look at the financial plan and so forth so we still have a lot of work overall for the 2023 budget but I'm hearing that we're satisfied with this at the 8.48 for you know the school one are we okay with the 8.48 to be our maximum Levy in the combination between the city Eda and HRA and and again that's our maximum I'll drop the documents um and have those prepared for September 20th and then after that we'll start moving down the road on the rest of the budgets good thank you um you're welcome and I thank you all once again this is uh always a pleasure to to work with each and every one of you I learned so much each and every time that I get to present and um and be a part of that and then I I wouldn't be it would be without you know if I didn't thank the thank you Chief the gentlemen that are behind me and and the help that they give and then um I want to give a special thanks to our city manager Brian frandel we've had numerous discussions on the budget already and he's been a breath of fresh air and um and nice to have somebody that I can vet things out with before I just throw them out so so I thank him very much nope all right that's it uh anything else nothing okay uh motion to adjourn by councilmember Peterson second okay councilmember Wong any discussion not all those in favor signify by saying aye aye oppos we are adjourned