WEBVTT

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This is all based again on the current increases, however, we're looking at the budget and putting together a plan for for increases. We just don't know what those will be. So I'd like to move down to 6165, which is contracted equipment repair and maintenance. Again, this one here we haven't used and I don't know if we'll end up needing to use it. But we want to go ahead and keep it there in case we require some some type of equipment repair and maintenance.

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We have an equipment rental. We have $1,000 in here. In the past we've had up to $3,000 and we purchased our own mini excavator a couple years ago and that's kind of made it accessible to the cemetery for digging graves and it's been very useful but we want to go ahead and keep that $1,000 in case we need to rent a pulverizer for the dirt or something like that.

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moving down to 70-10 machinery and equipment over a thousand we've got

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three thousand dollars for our Ferris zero-turn mowers we're including some

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upgrades for those. Any questions on cemetery? You said mowing? Yes, mowers the

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they're Ferris mowers there are zero turn mowers and we have like I said about

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26 acres out there that we have to mow weekly and we have two or three I think

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we have three total mowers but two really nice ones that the guys use and

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they can go quickly. Yes. Are we budgeting anything for grave sites for the veterans?

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As far as upgrading things or cleaning or what do you mean? No I thought that we

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We used to have grave sites available for veterans.

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And we do.

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We do.

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Dovie probably can speak to that.

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That's different than this.

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Yes.

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But go ahead, Dovie.

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Veterans are not charged for their burial site.

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They are charged for the grave opening.

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So there's just no revenue to the city.

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And I guess any normal expense, the excavator or anything, any normal burial expense.

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Dovie, what's a normal bearer? What's a normal? A plot is six hundred and eighty six dollars. So we don't charge veterans for that?

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Or infants. There's an infant aisle that the grave is free as well.

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Okay, any other questions on cemetery? All right, I'd like to move on to forestry.

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Again, back to the wages, same story there. I'm gonna move down to

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We're in good shape there. Contracted vehicle repair and maintenance. We're budgeting $10,000 for our clam truck repair and inspection. We have one of the most important piece of equipment for the Forestry Department, the clam truck. And it is rather old, and it does require a lot of maintenance. We've been doing a good job of doing that in-house. Unfortunately, certain components on that require

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Skillsets that we don't have, you know, mostly hydraulic. It's got a fancy hydraulic swivel on it

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So when that stuff gets to leak in we take the thing we take off the cylinders or whatever it is that we're that

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That's hydraulically powered and we send those out and get them repaired. And so that's what this is about

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And I'd like to just scoot down to 67 65 tree assistance

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So the tree assistance is our contracted tree budget. So this year like the last well since I've been here, which is

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May the fifth year we contract remove some of the largest scariest trees in the

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city one reason for that is we don't have the equipment to take down trees of a

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certain size a very large size and two they can be very hazardous so we

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contract those out for those reasons and we're budgeting about a hundred

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thousand dollars again this year and last year we did the same yep and am I

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My understanding that 50, just a little over half, was used this year?

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No, no. All the bills probably haven't arrived yet.

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But what you have, year to date, is 50,143.

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Yes, that's correct. That's what we've used so far.

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Yeah, our tree contract for this year, the bill hasn't come yet, so the trees that are on here are just emergency trees.

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We have another tree contract that's going to put that line item over budget this year because we've had so many storm trees this year.

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Yeah, what was that, March, where we had that big?

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We had two different storms that we had. One had like 28 trees we had to take down and another one we had like 30 trees we had to take down and our crews couldn't handle all of it.

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It was just, it was too much and some of them are just too big.

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So the good news is the faster the more of these things we keep removing the

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fewer we're gonna have coming down and wind storms however I think the first

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year I was here I mean we would just get a normal thunderstorm blowing through and

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our guys would be out there I think I I think in 2020 we had a storm sometime in

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July and I think we had 20 trees come down that storm and the more we've been

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taking down these trees on contract the less we've had come down during storms

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it's surprising to a very large tree can cost upwards of $10,000 to remove yeah

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they get very expensive okay with that machinery over $1,000 we're looking at

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purchasing a new saw this year for $1,500 and a grinder chopper attachment for the

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skid steer or the or the mini excavator and what that's gonna allow us to do is

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takeout brush along the dry, you know, along the road siding. So especially

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Henderson Road is a real problem. There's a lot of brush there. It's very steep.

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There's not a great way to get to that. This grinder will allow us to more

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efficiently remove all the debris that grows up along the road siding. So we're

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planning to purchase that in 25. And then last, we've got a couple of trim saws. So

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it's equipment under a thousand. A couple of trim saws, or a trim saw and a pull saw.

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So trim saws are small and by the way the saws we buy they're magnesium framed we

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use a lot of they're used quite a bit and they're built for continuous use not

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like your normal home chainsaw. Any questions on forestry? All right I'd like

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to go to animal control.

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Thank you, Kurt.

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Again, wages.

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And there's really not a whole lot here

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besides wages and withholdings.

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We are budgeting some nominal amounts for equipment

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and maintenance, repair, and fuel, and vet services,

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and machinery.

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This year, we're looking to get a tranquilizer gun.

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When you have a very aggressive dog,

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It's nice to have an extra tool in your tool belt

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that you can take a dog down without it getting

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the person in harm's way.

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The last couple of years, we bought some new snares.

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But having an extra capability is going to be good.

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So we budgeted for that this year.

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Any questions on animal control?

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If I could, do we have anything on backup on training

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and back up on our licensing back for larger animals?

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We are working on with the staff that's

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interested at the street department to help us out.

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But right now, we're a little bit in a holding pattern

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as we're waiting for the outcome on our current animal controls

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health situation.

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Thank you.

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You said health situation stuff?

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Yeah.

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What does that mean?

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Just health, he's out for health reasons.

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Oh, we don't have no one right now.

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Well, we will cover the calls over the weekend.

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It's on a rotating basis,

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but our permanent animal control person is not here.

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Okay.

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Okay, moving on with traffic engineering.

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Last year, we budgeted for a new signal

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and Crossing Signals at Berchard and Empire.

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This year we're looking to replace or repair

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the FHN crosswalk at Stevenson

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and Route 75 at Honeywell.

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Those signals have been in place for many, many years

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and are in unreliable condition.

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So we're budgeting about 60,000 for that.

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Other than that, not much else to talk about

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in terms of traffic engineering.

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Any questions?

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What did you say about Route 75?

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The walk signal at 75, I get it.

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Well, it's Stevenson at Honeywell, Plant 1.

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Oh, OK.

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That's Commercial Avenue.

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Hmm?

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Commercial Avenue?

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Oh, OK, yes.

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Again, the budget for this activity

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looks so low for 24 because the bill for the Burchard

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Lights is not in yet and those were just replaced about two weeks ago.

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Okay with that I'd like to move on.

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Okay with that I'd like to move on to street lights. So street lights, again

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we're talking about the city-owned street lights, most of which are in the

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downtown. We have a handful of other ones sprinkled throughout the city, but almost

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all other street lights that you see out there, if they're not in the downtown,

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they're most likely ComEd lights. So each year we budget for the electrical

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expense. We're budgeting about $300,000 for the street light

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Expense, and we're also budgeting $20,000 for repair and maintenance. Every once in a while we'll

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have a large, we'll have like a ice storm or we'll have some line pull something down and we'll have

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to go repair it and it can be very expensive. So any questions on street lights? How much did you say

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downtown street lights were? We primarily had those replaced under a grant, a Distressed Communities

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Grant. I'm sorry. If you're talking about the downtown LED lights that we installed, those were

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basically free. We had those installed on a ComEd Distressed Communities Grant, and I think we spent

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about $7,500 on incidentals and some additional labor, but overall we didn't have to spend anything

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on those. As I recall, what do they cost a piece, sir? Those are bigger powered ones. Those are I

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Miller, I think around $300 a head for the Cobra Head itself and then the labor but we've

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been trying to get another distressed community grant to address some of these other ones

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in the main corridors we just have not been successful yet.

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Any other questions on Srila?

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Yes.

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Carriage Hills, that's one of our...

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Yeah, Carriage Hills light that's out is because the wire's cut, don't know where it is and

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and we haven't had a chance to really track that down.

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OK, that's why.

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Yeah, you're talking about the one across from the, well,

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I'm sorry, in general, but I understand they're different.

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Yeah, they had installed those pedestal lights

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and the ambiance thing.

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So that becomes the city's issue?

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Those are the city lights.

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So OK, with that, we could, yes.

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I mean there's there's a handful of city-owned streetlights sprinkled out throughout the city of Freeport

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But most like over 90% of them are ComEd owned

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All right, I'd like to move on to motor fuel fund

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So this year we're expecting to receive

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We've $480,000 in the Transportation Renewal Fund and $500,000 in MFT tax allotments with an additional $50,000 in income interest and that comes out to about a million dollars.

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This has all been budgeted for the 2025 street program so you look down at the next item which is expenses.

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you've got 125,000 in crack ceiling which is just part of maintenance that we need to do so we can

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make those new streets that we've just done last longer that's why we need to do the crack ceiling

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and then rock and road material as you can see there is 900,000 those will get that money will

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be expended on street reconstructs in 2025.

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And that's coming from the motor fuel fund or that's coming from the street fund that is that's from motor fuel tax

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Any other questions on MFT

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Okay, well that concludes the budget planning session

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I did have a question. Sure. On the first page. Yeah. Kurt, could you go back that up?

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Sorry, at 101-141-5000. It was pertaining to us budgeting 60,000. Yeah, hang on one

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second while we get backed up there. I'm just trying to understand it.

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Yeah, yeah, he's backing it up. I'm just taking a minute. There you go.

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There you go. Okay, so if you see on the 2024 budget, those are items that were budgeted. 2024 activity, none of them have been expended.

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2025, we're not budgeting anything for Public Works. In this case, this is for the Public Works Director.

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And that is because Darren is our Contract Public Works Director, and that comes out in a different place in the budget.

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and that is that's why you see that at zeros so the non-bargaining are the

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people that's not in a union correct and we budgeted 60,000 but we use none of it

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that's correct and that'll just be re-budgeted at the end of the year and

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and it'll go in when we do the re-budget.

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But on 2025, it says zero.

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That's because we're not spending anything

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out of this account next year,

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because we have a contract to Public Works Director.

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It's just gonna be out of a different line item.

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There was screen improvement funds we had on the agenda here yet.

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I missed it.

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Thank you, Michelle.

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Apologies.

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We'll have it ready for you next time.

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That's fine.

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Well, the numbers are here.

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I don't have it on your sheet.

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That's fine.

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We don't have it.

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We'll catch it next.

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That's fine.

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Any other discussion?

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any other discussion thank you any any public comments nobody here would make

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a motion for adjournment motion by Clem second by Parker all in favor aye opposed

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we are adjourned