Madam Clerk if you could take the roll. Oh I'm not even recording but I bet Kurt is.


Mayor Miller? Here. Alderpersons, Klemm? Here. Monroe and Simmons are absent. Parker? Here. Stacy? Here. Shadle? Here. Sanders and Sellers are absent. I saw him already.


okay Sanders is present I'm sorry so we do have a quorum Sellers is absent thank you the Pledge of Allegiance Item 4 would be the approval of the agenda. So moved. Second. Motion by Klemm, second by Parker. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion passed. Item 5 would be public comments on agenda items. There were none. None listed.


None listed. And then can you note that 501, that Alderman Monroe came? Thank you.


And Item six would be discussion of the following budgets by City Manager Boyer and Director Richter.


Thank you, Mr. Chair. We were gonna drop the downtown loan budget just for point of information.


Johnson. All right. Good evening, everyone. Don't know what's going on with the air condition, kind of discovered that today, so we should have that fixed here soon, but I apologize for the temperature.


If we could, Kurt, if you could go ahead and put up the Police Department General Fund budget.


So just picking up on where we left off, tonight we're going to go over the Police Department General Fund, the Drug Forfeiture Fund, and the Fire Department General Fund, the Fire Public Safety Fund, Fire Improvement Fund, and the various TIF funds, Lamb Road, Downtown, West Avenue, and Berchard and Meadows TIF, and then we'll discuss the projects fund.


So I will be having some of the department heads maybe chime in toward the end of each and I will go through each section just to kind of give any more specificity that's required.


So with that let's go ahead and get started with the Police Department budget. and others.


So currently, talking about non-bargaining to start with, currently there's only, there's a cost of living increase included here. However, police bargaining, we are currently and I have been doing a lot of bargaining at this time.


So we have not included what we're thinking for, what may be negotiated yet. So all you're seeing is like the standard 3% increase.


And I just want to get that confirmed. Michelle, is that correct? We've just included the 3% cost of living in.


We haven't included a 3. We've only included where people are actually on the chart right now.


may have bumped up a longevity type increase, but there's nothing in there currently for the bargaining.


Okay, so just bear in mind that we are currently in bargaining with the police and that is not reflected in this item as of right now.


Also the health insurance has been adjusted by the current staffing requirements, so if if you go down to item 52-20, health insurance has been adjusted by the number of folks we have on staff and this is also a reoccurring theme, our workman's comp insurance this year was increased by 30 percent, that has to do with the number of claims, we had several claims that were long in coming, got resolved last year, but that is impacting our workman's comp moving forward.


Ford for a little, for the next few years. So, the Police Pension Fund Contribution, which, let's see, that'd be item 5255. Large property tax distribution is received, which will be October 4th.


The amount to be paid this fall is 392,000 yards, so we're seeing some, some savings on that.


Friesen. Department gear and clothing that increased to several more officers hired this year. So that would be item 6210. And this line is not expected to be over budget next year. So but it is we are compensating for the anticipated new hires. Education and training that is a 6260. Also current year is over budget due to several more and I. We have a lot of new officers being hired this year, not anticipated to go over next year, so this is an academy and PTI for our newly hired officer candidates.


Office supplies, slight increase of $500 there, that's item 6710. And then machinery and equipment.


Item 7010, we're looking at the addition of a new scene light, an automatic defibrillator device, a radar speed sign, and a range trailer.


Any questions on the police department general fund budget? How many non-barking people do we have?


I'm going to refer to Chief if you have that handy. There's ten. Ten? And Ashme, the union in the Police Department, are those like the 911s, the dispatchers? So how many of those do we have? There's twelve. Twelve. Thank you. Twelve full-time, then there's three-three part-time.


Alderman Monroe. Thank you. Quick question. So there are several line items with very large numbers that are under budget items forward, like if it was budgeted this year and not used. It's not like I can roll that and add it to whatever we're budgeting for 2025. I don't know if that answers your question. Not really. So how do we track that money moving forward? And it I mean, if if If you do not use, so if you're allocated $5,000 and you only use $4,000, is that your question?


Nothing happens to it. It stays in general fund. It goes into fund balance, unless the directors are allowed to work within their departments.


So they may have a line item that's over $1,000 and they may have a line item under $1,000 and more that would mesh each other out.


But if their total budget is so much and they did not come close to spending their total budget that doesn't go anywhere.


I mean. It contributes to our end of the year budget surplus or deficit, whatever the case may be.


Right. Unless there's anything unforeseen, there's something council did different during the year that we have to re-budget.


Everything always has to stay within the general fund. So this is a general fund budget. It has to stay within the general fund.


All the best, General. Thank you. So kind of going line by line, it looks just like about 90% of these line items increased year over year as far as the budget goes.


Why is that? Well, I would say that it aligns with essentially our mission. So you're seeing increases in the staffing levels because we've increased our capability. So we have a cap staff of 48. We've been under that for several years in a row. We're getting close to full staff. So to answer your question there, that's why. As far as the other items are concerned, if you have any items and specifically of concern, let's point those out.


I think it's just the general idea that it's just going to increase and that that's okay and acceptable.


Okay, as far as I understand, we've got pretty much two major concerns in the city once our law enforcement.


So we're trying to move forward and be effective and have the appropriate funding necessary to accomplish our goal and to manage our situation as best as possible.


We just try to account for growth and new equipment especially like for example machinery and equipment one of the things we need is you know we have a lot of complaints about people speeding and we're out there trying to do radar patrols and things like that so we would We'd like to get radar signs, signs that show the speed in light, and then show how fast you are, but then also compile data so we can find out what's actually going on in those areas.


So, I mean, that's why that has a big increase there. Alderman Stacy. Okay, so I'll stick with the five and the four.


If we budget for $5,000 and we spend $4,000, why would that $1,000 not transfer over and instead of budgeting another $5,000, only budget $4,000?


Because we already have one that's still there. Each year is its own. So budgets don't transfer from year to year or add on from year to year.


Each year is its own. Follow-up? Yes, Alderman Stacey. So the money we're budgeting for the police all comes from the general fund?


This budget here, yes, is all general fund. All right, any other questions on that?


I just want to comment that I'm not seeing, I guess, what Alderman Monroe was talking about all these line items going up other than the stuff attributed to more personnel.


is up a little, a $1000, animal supplies due to a new canine. Contracted vehicle repairs is down equal equal equal equal.


Fuel and gasoline is down. Alderman, Monroe, Alderman, Monroe, Alderman, Monroe, Thank you. You know, I guess my biggest question is we've got almost $300,000 of built-in overtime for non-bargaining, ask-me-police, but yet we're reaching full-time status filling of all the positions. So why would that necessitate so much overtime? It feels like we're building fluff into this budget. And you know, the one thing the citizens of Freeport, they do Do you want things dealt with like speeding and gunshots and everything else?


And we've been doing a lot of work on that. We've given a lot of money to the Department for New Vehicles.


We bought a new van. We bought other new vehicles, new equipment, new radios. That's my concern is that here we've got all this built in, almost $280,000 just in overtime.


I understand on the 12-hour shifts that there's four hours of overtime every two weeks.


and others. That should be much easier to kind of understand than keeping it the same.


It shouldn't stay at the same levels of overtime if you're fully staffed. That's, I mean, that's something we've kind of had back and forth with the fire department as well.


And it's going to be one of my questions. You know, we have to maintain spending within our allowance, our budgets.


We did a big pay increase for one of the departments this year after we did the 1 percent increase and others.


So, I think it's important for all of us as Councilmembers and citizens of this community to make sure this community remains at a level that we can afford to live here.


And that's the reason why I'm asking these questions. You know, when you have $280,000 in overtime built in, we should really know, if we're fully staffed, what that overtime is. There shouldn't be a guesstimate, there shouldn't and John.


We have a lot of issues with the police department. We have a lot of issues with the police department.


We have a lot of issues with the police department. And if we need to come back to it during the year, we address that. We always do.


We always support the police department. What we have to get better at is understanding these numbers and We get confused with fully staffed, meaning that right now we're at 45. We have 45 officers out there. No, we don't.


You can subtract eight from that, so we're at 37, because we have five in the academy and three in field training.


So we're still understaffed, and we don't have those bodies available to us. Now, I think also what I should bring the attention of is we run a lot of...


and the Department of Transportation gives us $52,000 a year to hire back officers to do speed enforcement, DUI details, occupant protection.


So that overtime is taken out of our overtime budget but then we're reimbursed but then that goes back in the general fund so I don't think that we necessarily see that coming back into our overtime budget.


So I don't know exactly all the numbers on reimbursed overtime because we also get reimbursed Barth, Eileus, but there's a good portion of our budget that is reimbursed.


Madam Clerk. Another portion that's reimbursed is for special events. And that will always be called back on Over Time Correct, Chief.


You always, when a special event comes in and so many officers are requested, or the and the Chief deems that officers will be needed like music on Chicago.


They're always called back on overtime. They're never taken from people that are on the street and then my office bills for some of that.


Thank you. And that goes to my point. We should manage and track that on separate line items because if we know we're getting the money back, we should have that broken out so that we know what our actual cost is and Mr.


Dixon. And that is one of the problems that I am not seeing here. It is all piled in together. So we have money moving back and forth and it doesn't make a lot of sense to the lay person.


Director? We do have that on a separate line item when we go through the general fund revenues that the PD overtime and John, and then we put revenues and expense items in the same line to mesh them together because you lose the data there.


And I think you do want to know how much we're receiving back. And that is in our revenue section of the general fund. And I'm sorry. You're only seeing, we've only started through the expense section. We haven't gone through the revenue section Okay, moving on, just to touch on the drug forfeiture fund, this fund is governed by the state of Illinois statutes, the funds are for use in the enforcement of laws, regulating controlled substances in cannabis, and I'd like to ask Chief if you want to just mention a couple things on this one.


Sure, did you say the drug fund? Sorry, I got distracted. So the drug fund is comprised of monies that's lawfully seized and awarded to us through the Illinois State Police.


So, for example, if we seize $1,000, it goes through the court process. Once it's awarded to us, we get 66% of it.


The rest of it, some of it goes to the State Attorney's Office, some of it goes to the Illinois State Police.


Police. So that money can only be used for the enforcement of narcotics violations and cannabis control act type violations. So this year, we used it on our evidence software, which has an annual fee. It's an approved expenditure. That was about $3,600, I think.


We also, our canine went through a training. We helped to pay for that with the drug fund.


We also bought a mobile high resolution camera with its own DVR that integrates into our system so we're able to see it online.


State's attorney actually split the cost of that with us, which was over $5,000. We paid about $2,500, so we used it for that.


And to pay for our title and registration for a vehicle that was seized with drug, through the drug forfeiture laws.


And then, so we used that money to pay for the title and registration for that vehicle.


Any questions on the drug forfeiture fund? Alderman Monroe. Thank you Alderman Shadle. So does the vehicle we sold a few years ago that we had seized, does that money go back into this fund or does that go into a different fund?


Do you know which vehicle it was? It was the Escalade that was driving around.


Okay. So, more than likely, I would assume that that would go right into the general fund.


It did not go back into the drug fund. That would have been, as long as we possessed it and St. Louis Department of Public Services.


Thank you all so much for joining us. It has been a very special day.


I would like to thank all three of you for joining us. Thank you very much.


I hope you have a wonderful day. Have a nice rest of week. Thank you so much for joining us.


It has been his great honor. We'll see you next week. Have a nice night.


Bye. Bye. Thanks. Thanks. Good night. Good night. Take care. Bye Good night. Good night.


Good night. Bye. Good night. Good night. Good night. Good night. Good night. Good night.


as long as we possessed it for amount of time defined by statute then then that would have been gone back into the general fund it didn't go in the drug fund I know that so okay thank you yep okay with that I'd like to move on to the fire department general fund so the fire department wages have been adjusted for cost of living and the bargaining group has been adjusted for the and the contractual increase for 2025.


Staffing level is the same as 2024. Also, Workman's Comp has been also adjusted upwards due to the, as previously mentioned, the increase in Workman's Comp.


The fire pension contribution has not been paid yet for this year and we will wait until the second large property tax to be October 4th. The amount to be paid this fall will be $703,437. The amount was determined by our actuarial and due to the fire staff increasing by three in 2024, we have increased this expense item for 2025 and that is the additional firemen that are paid for through the Safer Grant. This does two things. It begins our ability to cover an additional Ambulance, and it also prepares for future department retirements. So in addition to that, we've got building repairs. $50,000 of this line item is for repairs at the park station. There's an issue with the sewer drain there in the parking lot, and so we're budgeting that out of two locations, but approximately $100,000 total. Contracted vehicle repairs and maintenance. This has been decreased due and I have been working on this since 2012 in-house work that's been going on there to keep our repair costs to a minimum.


So we had a small increase over last year with $5,000 just moving forward to 2025.


Education and training, this increased $10,000 for new employee training, paramedic school and fire academies.


So again, this is like a one-time cost to bring additional staff on. and then both diesel fuel and and gasoline are going up due to the actual costs of what they their actual costs then all supply all supply line items have been budgeted at the same amount for 2024 so any questions on the fire Mayor, General Fund.


If I may, excuse me, may I add something? Yes, Chief. So just a couple of highlights that I identified when putting this budget together was overtime has diminished over 50 percent since 2023.


We have eight line items that are the same projected for 25 versus 24. We have five lines that have decreased within the budget.


So how I comprise this is I looked at spending history, and if what was previously budgeted from 23 or 22, I saw a downward trend, I verified reasons why it was downward because we managed our accounts better, so I adjusted the proposed budget for next year accordingly.


with all the other items that, okay, we budgeted $30,000 for equipment repair and maintenance halfway through the year. We're at $16,000. That tells me we're right on with our projections and our budgets. So that's why many of these things are the same because looking at spending history, we are right on track with where we should be.


Hold it, Mr. Monroe. I'd like to just make one comment. That's that's what I was expecting to hear from the police department as well as we get back to full staff is that type of downward trajectory with the overtime. Now with the 80 hour every two weeks, you know, with four hours of overtime, it's 84 hours, actually, we break it out, you would expect four hours of overtime on every police officer plus some some occasional so those are the types of things that I think we should be trying to do as we go forward because all of these officers that he talked about were and will complete training by the end of the year for the most part.


I mean, there may be a little bit into the early part of next year.


But for the most part, we should see a downward trend. But I appreciate that, Chief, I really do.


OK, any other questions on fire? Hold on, Stacy. Yes. What we budgeted for 2024 and what we have used, we still have over $2,486,000 plus.


So, in December, you're telling me that money is just going back into the General Fund.


Director, if it's not spent, just like your checking account, if you have a budget and your ComEd bill comes in less, that money stays in that bank account, it doesn't go anywhere else.


That's what happens here. But the General Fund is not the FIRE's bank account. The General Fund is comprised of many different departments, and it is all one.


It's not still gonna stay for, if FIRE doesn't spend it this year, it's, it's, that particular Miller number from 2024 does not add on to the budget for 2025.


And it's no longer FHIR's money? No not unless FHIR sets a new budget just like we're doing right now and these are the new numbers that he will work with next year.


So if we budgeted, if we didn't even spend over $2 million of what we budgeted, why are we even still yet budgeting more?


Could I just address that? Manager Boyer. Alderwoman, Stacy, are you referring to the 2024 year to date activity column?


Yes. We're in September. So I just said we had three more months. Yes and and it is is likely that that we will have a it's likely we'll have a small surplus but it won't be two million and change. So you think we're gonna have a two million surplus? No no no no I'm saying that it'll be you know probably be a small Fowler.


We're going to have a small surplus, but it's not going to be the budget minus the year-to-date activity.


You've got to remember there's still a lot that goes out between now and the end of the year.


Three months' worth. Plus the seven. Oh, I'm sorry. Director Richter. You're saying three months.


And there's, it's probably more like four months. Director, you're saying three months and there's it's probably more like four months bills take a while to get here and get in the account and get paid we also I mean we're still getting bills in January and February that are for something we bought in December so those go back to this budget if we bought it in In December, it gets applied to this fiscal year.


So there's quite a lot of activity to still happen. And I just want to mention October 4th, we'll be making that pension contribution of 700,000.


OK. Did you have anything to add, Chief? Just one last thing I want to belabor.


But the way I look at it is the general fund is a bucket. And then this line represents what the fire department will use out of that bucket.


So when we don't use it, that just stays in the bucket for police bucket and all the other departments that are general fund.


If at the end of the year, if all the bills come in, we don't use it, we're not expecting that to be reinserted into our budget next year.


We start all over again with a new line item, with a new budget for the next calendar year.


So I understand what you're saying, and then I think Michelle is kind of hooping it all together as well based on her, her, you know, finance practices, but I look at how you do. Look at it as a pants pocket full of money. If we don't spend it, then that goes back to the family. Thank you. That helps.


Okay with that I'd like to move on to the Fire Public Safety Fund. So this is a miscellaneous local sources of revenue. The source of funding for the Fire Public Safety Fund is mostly donations and memorials.


So we have here supplies and education and the expense of these funds are public education Materials, Fire Prevention Month Items, and then Lindo Theater Handouts and Public Engagement Handouts.


Do we have any questions on the Fire Public Safety Fund? Moving on, we have the Fire Improvement.


There's two pages here in the budget. You'll see the one with the highlighted green column.


itemizes quite a few of the expenditures that have been budgeted for this year. So the funding for the Fire Improvement Fund comes from the ambulance revenue and other small ambulance fees. Ambulance call revenue has been decreased to one million down from 1.2 budgeted for the 2024 year. This decrease is based on actual experience in 23. The accident, fire, Fire and Extrication, the City Bill's insurance companies only, not the residents for this account.


Lift assistance revenue has decreased in this item. Lift assistance is received from nursing home facilities that call for assistance with residents that fell and they cannot get them up.


And then ALS upgrade services, so there's a slight decrease there in the budget to align with actual receipts.


We have the GEMT or the Ground Emergency Medical Transport. There was a small decrease from last year based on Medicaid transports.


This program helps the city obtain the true costs for providing a Medicaid transport. However, half of the funds received are required to be returned to the Illinois Department of Health and Family Services.


This semiannual payment is actually part of tonight's consent agenda. We'll be talking about or that is in the consent agenda.


Apologize and then the expense items are detailed on the second page So just briefly going over those We're looking at this year. So we're looking at the highlighted in green section At main fire. We have a floor epoxy repair that needs to be done to the garage Essentially what we've got there is just a coating to put on preserve and protect it for years Sanders, also on the Park Station we're looking at a repair to the sewer service line coming out of the Parkside Fire Station going out to the City Interceptor.


Also we're adding some security cameras, radios, again we discussed the GEMT accounting services Miller, Hose Nozzles, Turnout Gear for additional firemen, SCBAs, so that's self-contained breathing apparatuses, so an update there, and then an autoloader for the ambulance 3, it's to kind of save on people's backs when they have large patients, and then we have a couple of Other Items, Chief, if you want to discuss that, I'd be happy to.


I know they're going to have some interest in the 7005 Replace Engine 1, so I know we've been fortunate enough to have your support to replace other aged equipment.


So following our replacement schedule, which has kept us out of trouble going forward, The build time it takes to receive a new truck, if we placed an order today, we would not see that order for four years.


So this engine that we're suggesting, considering replacing, is due for replacement in four years.


We'll be fine for now. But truly it takes four months to deliver an engine that's ordered today, and if we Don't Place an Order, those costs continue to rise exponentially over the period of time.


So this dollar amount that is put there for consideration, they told me that there will be a price increase of 1.5% November 1st of this year, another 1.5 in February, May, August, in November of 25. So for a written order with no money down, this will lock in our cost at today's prices versus 4 years from now. Also puts us in that queue or on that waiting list to get a vehicle built. So there's no jumping ahead of somebody else. There's no fast track. This is once you place an order, you get put in line and they are at 47 to to 49 months for delivery time. Plus we would be exposed to subsequent price increases.


And they also go into greater detail for prepayment options. So if by chance there was enough money to prepay that fire engine 100 percent, that would reflect into $119,278 savings that would come off the purchase price.


If we paid half of that amount, we would save $59,639,000. Or if there's the interest, the desire I should say, place the order and then once it's complete in four years from now, then just pay the whole balance in full.


So that's something to consider. again, we're looking more medium range planning, but trying to capitalize on today's costs.


So that's something that, you know, we would need to consider. But again, there's another proposal, another price increase coming November 1st.


Then the next item in there is replace shift commander vehicles. So what this is doing is we're replacing the oldest, oldest vehicle, it's a 2006 Trailblazer that was like the and the last trailblazer we replaced, the whole rear frame assembly is rusted out. So we would surplus that one out, and it is a reserve response vehicle. It has a light bar on it and radials and everything. That's what the shift commanders or the deputy or myself would use if our car was in for service or repairs. It's a reserve response vehicle. So being that it's rusted out, we were told a year ago, we'll do some temporary welding on it to plan on getting rid of that car. So then what we would to do is downgrade the existing Shift Commanders Explorer into that reserve response vehicle status and replace that with another response vehicle. This time it would be a Tahoe similar to what I'm driving. They've outgrown this Explorer. There's not an empty seat in it, so the passenger front has got a suitcase and a binder in it. The back seats have command Boards, and light, portable light fixtures. You open up the back and there's all the radios and their turnout gear. They've outgrown that vehicle with the amount of equipment that they carry on it. So the cost for that vehicle and the upfitting, meaning lights and sirens and everything is coming in about $75,000. And that's through joint purchasing through


the Iowa Emergency Vehicle Provider, provider service that Public Works just received the pickup truck from.


So clearly those are the biggest ticket items. Any questions on? Alderman Monroe. Thank you, Alderman Shadle.


How old is engine one? Engine one's a 2010. Okay. So right now it's 14. Four more years it'll be 18 years old. And we intend to keep that in reserve status in the event we need a second elevated stream. We're downgrading that replacement engine. Right now it's a short ladder truck. This proposal would just and I will be the fire engine. No ladder.


With that, I would like to move into TIFs. I will start with the first couple of TIFs.


I will have a little bit more of an interactive with Director Duckman on this.


We will start with the downtown TIF. You will notice here we have $581,000 budgeted.


the idea behind this is we're going to be resurfacing the municipal lot near the Stewart Center there on exchange in between Van Buren and in Chicago so this is really needs to be done we're going to be installing some EV chargers there and then we're going to resurface the and restripe the parking lot we've also We've also got downtown facades in this. Wayne, is there anything else on that?


No, thank you. You covered the major item here. We have an $800,000 grant for EV chargers.


And so, with that being said, right now we have not received the official grant agreement.


But we want to be ready. Staff wants to be ready as we start working with the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.


We want to be ready to have match funds available for these eight chargers. The large scope of the project would be a total of four, eight chargers, four at each Chargers, four at each site. The one would be, as City Manager Boyer has already explained, four of the Chargers would be at the lot on Douglas. It's right across from the Douglas Center. And the other one would be northeast of the Lindo Theater. There's that large city lot there. And the idea is the Grant Manager has told us the funds are forthcoming. The agreement is forthcoming for 25. A couple thoughts there are we would need match funds and then we would also since the equipment would already be staged there it would be a perfect opportunity to save some funding and saying hey you know the grant contemplates paving at the location of the chargers but if the equipment is there we would like to budget have the opportunity to pave the rest of the lots which are in bad shape so that's the reason that line item is higher this year.


There was one request if we could do something with a little more, like a little bit of landscaping in the corners.


One of the things as you guys move forward with design, that was a request that I had.


Sounds good. Okay, with that, I'd like to move on to the Land Road TIF.


This is one of the TIF districts that's performing. Currently we have, and I think we've discussed this in the past, but we have an inverted section of a large section of the collection main that runs on the east side of the landfill presents a concern for bottlenecking and capacity and we would we are planning to put in a lift station at Walnut Road and Lamb and that should properly convey the waste from our largest businesses in town to the interceptor just past the creek on Walnut Road so that's what you're seeing in that item there okay so what was budgeted for 2024 compared to what was used yes so I can I can answer that as well see 2024 so last year what we had budgeted or this current year we contemplated also having the lift Station Builds and it's not it's not going to be we're not we don't anticipate bringing forward the proposal for this year for the lift station however we do believe it to be a worthwhile project we do want to move forward with it as it our businesses in this TIF district could certainly use the help with disposal of waste snack King's one that we're talking about basically using an


Inverted Pipe. So, you have a pipe section that's actually has to push some of the sewage up uphill. So, and that happens in communities. It's more common than you would think. And when that happens, we're looking to improve our infrastructure in this TIF district to basically motivate businesses, more businesses to come. And so, we wanted, we budgeted it, we expected it, we were hoping that it would happen this year and now that it didn't happen, we have to budget for it or we're budgeting for it staff is proposing to budget for this lift station in 2025 and if we don't budget for it and there is an issue with the lift station etc then I would be coming back saying hey we were trying to rebudget the tip district to incorporate the funds for this lift station so so So this $2 million that we didn't spend goes back into the Lamb Road TIF?


The Lamb Road TIF district, those funds are monitored and those funds stay in this.


This is a separate fund. This is not a general fund. So we were talking earlier about the general fund.


TIF district funds stay in their specific fund, separate fund from the general fund. That's a TIF district.


That's the Lamb Road TIP District Fund. So if it did carry over, wouldn't property taxes go down?


That's different. So the assessment is, our tax assessor does the assessment and then it's not, and then We have a levy, which that ordinance is forthcoming once we get our budget.


So what you're saying is, if we don't spend the TIF funds, should that lower somebody's property taxes?


And that's, those are not, that's not correlated, they're not connected. No, I'm saying, if the two million transferred to the next year, and instead of getting three 3 million because we already got two, only taking out one, wouldn't the taxes go down?


I think we're getting confused about property taxes and what's in this fund. So you see, Mike, I'm not, I'm just saying I think we're confusing that because there's monies, there's revenue going in, you see the property taxes, that's generated off of an increment.


Basically, we've set up this TIF district 20-something years ago, and when this was created, all the properties there had a TIF base that was created.


So essentially, what's happening in the Lamb Road TIF is, anytime the property tax assessment and any of the taxes tied to the assessment over a certain base value gets put into this fund.


So, whether or not we're spending that money, it's that revenue source at the top there, property taxes, that's coming in based on, you know, that money keeps coming, whether we spend it out of that fund or not.


Now, it would be awesome because if we are spending it and we're getting redevelopment agreements and we get this infrastructure passed, that revenue number should increase because the idea of a TIF district is you're spending money on economic development that's actually going to drive that property tax number up to put more money to spend on businesses and infrastructure. So if we spend it, in theory, the revenue should go up. So we want to spend it, essentially. We want to spend it.


App for Economic Development, so businesses come here and drive that property tax number up.


Okay, with that I'd like to move on to the West Avenue TIF, and I am going to yield to or I'm going to yield my time here to to Director Duckman on the West Avenue TIF, Richard Hills TIF, and the on these three here. So West Avenue TIF, you're going to see an increase here in site improvement for the West Avenue TIF, a fairly significant number from last year. And I'm working with a few developers right now that are looking to expand their businesses and or bring in New Businesses, and so under the site improvement of this budget, fingers are crossed that I will be coming in 2025 with an actual redevelopment agreement that's working with a business presenting it to council to say city staff is looking to work on a redevelopment agreement, spend X amount of dollars to expand a business and bring X amount of jobs to the city of Freeport.


So that's the reason you're going to see a significantly higher increase here in site improvement is because I'm working with a few developers on potential redevelopment agreements.


Are these local developers or are they from outside the area? One of them is, well let me take that back.


The two that I'm working with now are local. The two that I'm working with now are local, and one of them is regional, meaning Midwest.


Okay, and moving on to the Burchard Hills TIF, again, this particular one is primarily paying on various previously-done agreements, but Wayne, if you would?


Sure, this is one of our smaller TIF districts, geographically, which makes sense geographically, as well as funding sources.


So what we have here is there's not much of a change from the prior year.


And much of what we have here is we have a redevelopment agreement with FHN that takes up most of the funding for this TIP district.


OK, on the Meadows TIP. Okay, so Meadows tip, similar situation here. One, two developers here, one regional, Midwest, and one local are looking to invest in the Meadows working on two redevelopment agreements that I would like to present to council.


And I believe, and that's why I'm adding some extra money here to cite improvement and as I'm working with a few developers and budgeting for this site improvement redevelopment agreement would be beneficial to the city.


So hopeful to present those in 2025. OK, on the special projects or the projects fund, next one there, yeah, again, we're budgeting $20,000 for sidewalk replacement for 2025.


So that's the extent of the projects fund. the extent of the projects fund. So at this point, do we have any questions?


What was the sidewalk? 6-10-49. So every year we have basically a sidewalk budget for individuals get a matching grant from the city to replace your sidewalk since in the city of Freeport the sidewalk belongs to the property owner. So we've been doing this for a number of years and we're going to continue doing that.


Go ahead. Mr. Steele. Yeah, the sidewalk program for 2024 is up to the amount that's budgeted.


We do remove and replace sidewalk for residents. The city will remove the sidewalk. People have to apply and be approved.


But if they approve, if they apply and they're approved, the city will go in and remove the and the sidewalk at no cost to the owner and then I believe we reimburse $1.25 per square foot on their cost. They have to turn over their invoice, we go out, it has to be built to city codes or there's no reimbursement. But we've had quite a bit of interest in that program this year and really all over the city people have applied for it and then between myself and Pat Ingram we go out and administer the program. It's nice. We usually don't Expand all the funds annually but it's a nice little program for people and we only do it for people that are going to replace their whole sidewalk. We don't do it for patching. So did we do that this year? Yes. We had this program this year?


Yep. Did we have it last year? Mm-hmm. How many years have we had this program? 2017, 2018. Yeah at least five years, six years. I believe when we did the budget cut for COVID Michelle when we took a million out of the budget did we not do it that one year I think. I agree with that but I think it's been around as long as I've been here and I've been here ten years or nine. How do they find out about this?


about qualifying all they have to do is call Public Works and say they're interested in the remove and replace program I believe it was on the city's website and then we meet with them and we see if they qualify we have them fill out a form and then if there's money left we do it if there's no money left in the budget for the year then we tell them that they can apply for next year but we again we only do it on somebody that's going to replace all of their sidewalk we don't do it for eight foot of patching or something like that it's Fowler, Mayor, and I have been informed, well probably have been informed, but it's something that is not something they retained throughout the year. So it would be nice to be able to update that information.


Manager Boyer. Alderman Sanders, this is a match, so it's not a complete replacement cost, it's a match. So they have to be, you know, they have to basically they get a reduction, they get some free work out of it, you know, in terms of sidewalk removal, but it's not a complete replacement.


and the city will provide them with the labor and material no they have to hire a contractor they get an invoice they agree to do it to city codes and then they put it in and then our first we remove it the city will remove it really at no cost and then we will reimburse them a dollar twenty-five dollars and then we'll do it again and then we'll do it again and then we'll do it again 5 per square, which is not the full cost of replacement. Usually that's maybe 20% of the cost.


Right. Okay. All right. Thank you. Stacy, did you have something else? Well, that's all I've got for you.


Thank you. We have any other discussion? Yeah he removed that for this evening. We have enough time for public comments. Three minutes if we have anybody that has any comments on tonight. Seeing none I would take a motion for adjournment.