of the whole Finance Committee of the whole meeting to order. Madam Clerk, could you take the roll?


Mayor Miller? Here. Alderpersons, Klemm? Here. Johnson? Here. Simmons is absent. Parker? Here. Stacy is absent. Shadle? Here. Sanders is absent. And Sellers? Here. We have a quorum, Mr. Chair.


Thank you. If you could join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you, and we're down to item four being approval of the agenda if I could get a motion.


So moved. Second. Motion by Sellers, second by Parker. All in favor? I make a comment on it if I could. Yes. Just a highlight for people we talked about whether to move it around or whether or not in number nine there's motion there to go to possibly more minutes for discussion but that's for discussion on the budget items that We need approval of the minutes from October 28th, 2024 and November 12th, 2024.


Motion by Klemm. Second by Sellers. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carried. And we're down to public comments on agenda items. No one was signed in. No one signed in. We'll move on to item seven. Discussion of the following general fund budgets by City Manager Boyer and Director Richter. All right, good evening everyone. I'd like to start out with our proposed schedule for the budget coming up. So in general, this is everything beyond today is still subject to change, but this is pretty much what we have nailed down. So today we're going to discuss the City Council budget, and I, and I'm the Chief of Staff for the Public Communication Budget and you can see them there under the 9-8 section there. Then on 9-15 we'll be talking about General Fund Police Department, Equipment Fund for Police, Drug Forfeiture, and then Fire Department Budget, Fire Public Safety Fund Budget, and Fire Improvement, and we're trying to combine like categories this year, so we're not jumping all over the place. So if it's police, we're trying to have it all at one time. If it's fire, it's all at one time. Same thing with where you see the TIFs and the Burchard, Meadows, Project Fund Budget, Downtown Loan Budget. These all follow a certain, I don't know, order. So anyway, then on 10-6, we'll be going over revenues, government building budgets, cemetery care fund, and so on. So generally speaking, if you have any questions on this, it should be included with your council packet. But if you need an extra copy, let me know. We can make sure that happens. Michelle can make sure they're printed out for you if you don't have one. Just bear that in mind, this is kind of


and the rest of the community. We're going to be doing the schedule. So October 14th, we'll be going through public works, the street budget, capital equipment fund, airport, cemetery, forestry, animal control, traffic engineering, street lights, motor field tax and street improvement fund.


So those are all kind of grouped together in a light category. Then on the 20th, October 20th, we'll go over utilities.


New, Robert, Jim, Jodi, and John, Josh, Joe, and Tony. We will have a meeting on October 3rd, the fire pension, the police pension, the library budget, the tax levy, and the abatement.


And then, again, at that time, notice of public hearing. So, we will have essentially the last one of the last meetings here would be on November since we began the presentation of the 2026 budget.


So I don't believe there's none of this, oh, there we go. We'll also have a public hearing on November 17th and then the council meeting on the 17th.


We will approve the 2026 appropriations budget, capital improvement plan. We'll have the first reading of the tax levy and the tax abatements.


December 1st, it'll be the second reading of the budget, and I have the second reading for tax levy and second reading for tax abatements and the 2025 portion or reappropriation.


So just to follow up, we are making, we're essentially going to be making some changes to the 2025 budget, basically looking at what reality worked out to what we had budgeted.


We'll make those adjustments and we'll bring them to you for approval on the first and then final reading on the 15th.


So that kind of takes us through the budget process. Does anybody have any questions on how we're gonna go about this?


I know I've gone kind of fast, but we've all been through it before for the most part. I think, Linda, you sat through several of these before.


If there's any question on the process, this would be a good time. Don't be bashful.


Okay. All right, with that, We'll go ahead and get started with the City Council budget. So there are no, this is the same budget as we had for last year, essentially covers all of the elected officials, although there's a small bump on elected officials from the previous year, those have been reflected here.


Miller, obviously all the wage withholdings, and then education, training, and travel, that'll stay at $2,000, and then supplies and other, so pretty much the same as last year.


If you could go to the next one, thank you. Liquor Commissions and Board of Police and Fire, so essentially no changes to the stipends, also a recategorization of the education and training to medical services to more accurately describe the expenses. So when we hire new police and fire, we have some onboarding examinations and things that we do. We've reclassified them in this budget so that it'd be more reflected to reality here. Any questions on Liquor Commission, Board of Fire and Police? Aaron, is there Do you have a reason you're sitting back there? Are you hiding back there?


Gotcha. Thank you. So this is Department 113. This is the city clerk. So this includes one half of a full time admin person. So Dovie has requested some additional help to get minutes, a lot of backlog work that needs to be done, not time critical.


not time critical but needs to be done. So a halftime support person is included and it will be shared with the finance and HR department. So this will essentially one person portioned out into three different departments. Also we had a significant increase in medical insurance this year and we're working with our provider so we might be able to reduce it later as you can see there it went from eleven thousand, I'm sorry, sixteen I'm sorry, $17,000 to $25,000. We are working with the insurance company now to go through the process of reviewing that. Other than that, there are no major changes to the City Clerk's budget. Any questions on that? I guess just one. So when will this new person come in? Well, we're budgeting now. I would say that we'd probably hire somebody maybe in the spring what do you think Michelle yeah any other questions on basically the spring so we're looking at a part-time personal work in several departments we'd be looking to hire them in the spring 26 okay any other questions on City Clerk all right this is the City Manager mayor budget so not many changes here it includes City Manager, Mayor, and Administrative Assistant. So those are the wages that are included in this one. And there are no major changes. There are, I


go and attend several training and educational events and so does the Mayor. So those are included as well. Small increase from last year, but overall All of things are remaining flat in this, in 121, City Manager budget.


Any questions on this? Yeah, the only thing I'm noticing again is the health insurance line item is consistently going up on every page of this.


Yes. But there are social security expenses going slightly up. The IMRF is slightly up.


The IMRF is slightly up, which is tied to wages, and I'm seeing that consistently on the pages as I went through this, and it's, if you're looking at the bottom line that everything's, the totals are going up for each department, it's, the vast majority of it is tied to that health insurance and wage increase.


Right, what's underlying a lot of that is I mean, I would say the our insurance carriers looking at our risk We had a number of claims several like two or three years ago We had quite a few claims and they're the rates are kind of mirroring those claims However, we've been doing much better on that and hopefully within another year or two. Those will be dropping off. So we might see a essentially why I'm saying that is we may see in future years or 27 28 we may see that either flat level or dip slightly and Michelle please back me up if you feel like I mean did you have anything you wanted to add on that just on the medical insurance medical insurance rates are just going and so on.


And I think it's kind of crazy. You know, the GLP ones, am I saying that right, and different things that are out there.


The city was very fortunate in past years to have pretty small renewals, and I think it's all, it's kind of catching up with us.


I mean, we were getting renewals, gosh, in the last four years of, you know, three, four percent at the most, and this year it's just kind of crazy.


So like Manager Boyer said, we are working with our medical insurance provider to see what we can do about that.


We have a January 1 renewal. Thank you. Okay, any other questions on City Manager, Mayor, Budget?


Okay. If you'll go on then, we've got Communications Department. So this only encompasses the Director, currently Wayne.


So you'll notice as we go through printing for the monthly newsletter has gone up a bit, but that's what the $35,000 there is for printing.


Also increased to support the new citizens' engagement activities, supplies and fair booth recruitment items.


These are there to give us the tools we need for community outreach at events.


Other than that, status quo for the most part, outlying the insurance increases and a few inflation things tied to inflation.


Any questions on the community development budget? Communications. I'm sorry, did I say communications budget?


My fault there. Thank you for the correction. Good catch over there, Brian. All right with that we'll move on to finance. So the finance director, deputy finance director and city accountant added a portion of admin but support will be shared with the clerk and HR so we've added in a small portion here to cover a I believe 25% of that part-time person we just discussed for Dovie. We're McAlwain, and then I'm also the Director of the Office of Public Administration. So we plan to use about 25% of that person for finance. Also audit fees moved from here to Interdepartmental, so that accounts for the change in the audit fees.


Also includes funds for shredding and documents. One of the problems is our shredding, our shredding, our shred beast So we're working on other options there so any questions on finance yes the moving audit fees is that something that Lauterbach had suggested or just a change in what you were wanting to do that's just me okay so interdepartmental kind of is a catch-all at the end of all of our departments is 101 163 it's the and the last one we'll be reviewing today and I felt that the audit fees were better represented in the finance department.


I'd like to look at some of the other items that are also in interdepartmental such as postage or something like that so that those costs can also be allocated to the various departments.


Right now it's kind of in one spot whereas it should, you know, I should know how much postage is every department so I'll be looking at that as well.


So that might come back as an adjustment back later this fall. Very good. Thank you.


Anything else on finance? Okay. Moving on to 133 legal. Essentially we're seeing some increases in our legal fees.


But aside from that, pretty much status quo on legal. Any questions on legal? and others. Okay. The next one is, I was ahead of myself, but now 149, Community Development.


We have removed from the wages the grant manager in this fiscal year, and consulting services includes lobbyists and outside grant management.


So if you'll notice there at 6150, that would fall under Grant, I'm sorry, Consulting Services.


Other than that, generally flat and level with a few minor adjustments. Any questions on community development?


Just wondering, is the staffing enough for community development? I think what we're looking at is maybe a change there, but I think what we're potentially looking to make a change for is an additional compliance officer.


But at the time we put this together, we hadn't quite got there. This may be one of those changes that you see at the end.


So when you say compliance, is that like a nuisance? Yeah, nuisance, yeah. Code enforcement, I'm sorry.


Why did I say compliance? Yeah. Oh, OK. It's, sorry. It is in. It's under building.


It's under building. We just haven't got there yet. Oh, OK. OK, thank you, Michelle.


So just to add that point. All right, any more questions on community development? All right, under building.


And this is, as Michelle quite directly pointed out, so this includes an additional building inspector or code enforcement, something to that effect.


And that is the main change under under 153 building Any questions on that? So so are we looking for it like Looking for someone now or are we waiting till the new year? Well, I think right now We're in the process of hiring a new Community Development Director. So we're kind of holding off until that person is placed. Okay Okay, and with that we'll move on to 155 hearing and admin This is essentially what Nicole charges for her services overseeing the compliance hearings So no real change is there How many times a month does she, she does, is it twice a month or?


Two hearings per month. Okay. First, third, third of the day. Okay. I would say her load is picked up somewhat.


Yes. Yeah. Okay. Any other questions on that? Okay. The next one is Human Resources 161.


So the HR Manager, Admin Support Person is the same person we've been discussing, half time for Dovie, a quarter of the time for Finance, and a quarter of the time for HR.


So that's included in Item 5000, which is an additional cost for employee. And then also other technical services, if you go down to 6540, it includes additional and the next fiscal year we want to make sure we accounted for that in this year.


Any questions on that? Okay. The next one is MIS and this does not stand for miscellaneous.


Right, Kurt? This one is MIS. This one is Information Systems, so Management Information Systems. So we're looking to add a halftime person to be shared with the Water and Sewer Department. And I think Kurt could probably fill us in. But what, Kurt, you had some very specific ideas for that individual. Would you mention that right now?


Yeah, I thought it would really help out our guys with doing... I thought it would really help out our guys with doing Julie locates in the field and we're going to do that through technology by getting better GIS mapping and GPS units.


We can really cut that time down. That's going to be the major initial efficiency, we'll see.


So Kurt mentioned GIS. That's essentially the maps that we have that identify the location of all of our infrastructure.


So water main, storm infrastructure, waste water, manholes, meters, services. So the better that gets, the more time we save in the field overall. And we're doing pretty good. But I think it would be a good investment, at least in the city, to make sure that those maps are updated and updated correctly. And that would be very helpful to have that individual for Kirk to make sure that happens. Any questions on? So did you say you want to hire a full time or part time? This would be a half time.


Fowler. Thank you. And bearing in mind that these are the better RGIS systems are and the more we're able to keep and maintain their accuracy as we build new infrastructure, put new water main in, change manholes, change the condition of things out there.


and this is huge savings for us in the future. Any other questions on MIS?


Greg, could I make a comment? Go ahead. I just wanted to say over the years, a lot of people don't realize what a fantastic job we've done at doing this to identify what kind of pipe is every place goes back to the old pipe and left in the 1800s and that stuff.


but if you start looking at the maps and the overlays and everything, it definitely saved crews a lot of time.


When they go out there, they know where they're gonna dig, they know what they're gonna hit and everything's pretty well on target.


But Kirk, thank you, but the guys before you and the guys who worked for you do a great job on that.


Thanks. It's more than just a job, it's a passion project. So thank you for that, Kirk.


And just, Darren, if you could just give the council and some kind of perspective. You work with a lot of different communities. What does that look like when they don't have GIS like we have in all of our infrastructure? What does that do for, say, the lead service line program?


Oh, it makes the programs nearly impossible and cost a lot more money up front, cost, or not up front, but in construction. When you don't have records of the infrastructure that's buried, usually they end up getting hit, which becomes a project cost and a project repair.


so there's just a lot of untold savings here all right with that I'd like to move on to 163 and interdepartmental so code 5225 group insurance the city's share of retirees medical insurance so you're seeing an adjustment based on and what we think is coming forward.


Then as well as 60-60, credit card fees for permits and et cetera. So we do recoup these on the revenue side.


So even though you see a significant amount of money there, that is recovered in other areas.


General liability, cyber insurance, so that falls under $63.90. We are adding cyber insurance to our package policy that was recommended by our carrier and a lot of communities.


I just spoke with someone today who worked in the city of Baltimore and had a major data breach that cost them tens of millions of dollars in ransomware tax to pay the people to go away.


So this is a good money well spent. See here, 5G poles. So we're working with the county on the real estate tax.


You see there's an increase there. Obviously, these are city-owned poles. So we'll be working with the county to get these 5G poles removed from the tax rolls.


Then on bond payments, item five, that would be item 9,000, transfer to debt service.


So these are our bond payments that are due every year. And then down toward the bottom, transfer out 90-50.


This is landfill support, and we'll discuss further when the landfill budget is presented. but that is basically a bookmark for that.


Any? Question about the bond payments? Yes. Forgive me for my tardiness. Kind of forget about this starting tonight.


So I don't even know what page we're on. We're on questions on Inter-Departmental, Department 163 Okay.


So this is the bond payment throughout the year for each month or this is going to be one big sum?


I believe it depends on the bond, but some of them are quarterly, some of them are annually, and this is basically the total amount of the bond payments to service existing debt.


Okay, is it possible to get a list of all the bonds we have out there, and whether or not they're monthly or annually?


Yes, go ahead, Michelle. So bond payments work a little bit differently than like a mortgage, you know, where you you pay every month.


Bonds pay interest halfway through, so six months into the period you'll pay interest and then six months later you pay principal and interest.


So each bond has their own schedule of how much, you know, of course, how much because they're all different amounts.


All the bonds are listed in the back of our audit. So I think Alderman got a bound copy.


So in the very back, there is a listing of all the city's bonds. It's also posted on the website.


The city's audit is on the website. So in the very back, there's a page for every bond and there's the amount that's due every year, broken up by principal and interest.


thank you any other questions on interdepartmental okay thank you thank you I moves us to item 8 with discussion over the budget in general that is what That was brought forth tonight.


Seeing none, we have public comments on agenda or non-agenda. Is there anybody? Excuse me, Chair.


Did you want a motion and a second to extend that to five minutes? Is that your pleasure tonight?


If needed, I guess. If needed. If we don't have any. I guess if there aren't any, it doesn't matter, does it?


Seeing none, I take a motion for adjournment. So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye.


Opposed? Thank you. And we'll be moving to the Committee of the Whole shortly. I think Kurt needs five minutes.