oh e for [Music] check Che testing one two all right all right good evening everybody back the game down just all right ready to try it again all right good evening everybody today is Tuesday July time 6 m r mayor Goodman I am here president Cox here vice president Hines council member Martin council member Rico she's absent council member Jones here city manager Terry Bard here attorney Kirsten blue she's absent Finance director Steven Bloom city clerk Latricia Wright I am here and all other staff all right thank you all right item one opening pray pledge in an attempt to do the right thing and to to try to conduct the business of our city in a professional way Lord it is a huge task and I ask you to give them the strength and the ability to understand and tode cyer and to make the best decisions that they can for our citizens I ask you to be with us and to protect us protect our police officers our fire department and Lord all of our city workers I ask this in your name amen thank you very much all right item number two presentation by Finance director Steven good evening everyone hear me good okay okay so um welcome to the first Workshop um I usually have a a slideshow that I'm going to go through here and just kind of give you some high level remarks both on you know what's in the budget what's not in the budget where maybe some of our concerns are maybe some areas you know obviously for the the council to review um just this kind of you know basically very top level thing next slide so kind of going over um okay this just kind of the goals like I said we'll do the presentation um really what we want to get uh from today and and depending upon when your next Workshop is the first part of this is really coming up with a preliminary military so what that means is that there there still a lot of numbers that can change between now and September and and my next slide will show you kind of the timeline but one of the things that you have to do and I put on there the deadline of August 2nd you have to have what I call your high Watermark migrate meaning after you set that um it goes into a trim notice that gets mailed out you cannot raise it from there you can only lower it so you have to make that decision early in the process so that information along with the first public hearing can be mailed out in the trim notice uh to the residents so they have the opportunity uh to come to the to the public are so that's a key piece I mean there's a lot of different things we can go through certainly with a second Workshop we go through you know more but however we're doing this at the end of the day you have to kind of have an idea as to where you want your millage rate to be um and again we have a recommendation that's in your budget but obviously you doesn't have to stay there so anyways August 2nd is when I have to go online and submit it to the county everything and then obviously determine whether or not when whether or not and when you want to have your second uh so what I've tried to do is outline the entire process from beginning to end um the the items that are in yellow highlighted in yellow is City action meetings um but if you notice there I put on there the school board and the County Commission their public hearing days as well the city cannot have a public hearing at the same day as those that's why it's important to know when they're meeting uh we've got to kind of move choose around them um as to when we want to have our public hearings you have to have two um so the the first one has then the first one is advertised through the trim so you don't have to advertise that it go through the trim second one you have to adverti so I've highlighted obviously um I put in here July uh would be the that's kind of the last meeting you have to kind of actually officially set your millage rate you know Mee in a resolution um and then the other two key dates I put in there that you have to do action it wise are you two public hearings obviously we can add a second Workshop into this calendar um will of the council but I wanted to make sure you know just kind of setting the tone reminding everyone obviously we only do this once a year so even' veterans have been doing this years years until it's good kind of reset the calendar in your mind so you know kind of what the steps are um again uh once you set that millage rate you cannot raise it from that point you know lower it and you do have to go through these these uh public hearings they have to start after 50:01 I kind of put them in at 5:30 um again 5:30 so and the 24th um the Tuesday the um they took the 10th and the 17th in terms of trying we knew we normally try and do these before your scheduled meetings try and make a little bit easier in terms of having it come here for an extra meeting day but they they obviously they took 10th they could be 17th you can't really do it on the 3D give them enough time to get the trim out so it only the only Tuesday left in September was the 24th I took that and then the 11th is a Wednesday it doesn't have to be these days but I always like to at least KCK this off and give you some kind of an idea the way it's set up is you have to have once you have your first a public he and you have to have your second one within a certain period of time and I kind of set that up so that you can advertise and do everything you to get it in time and then the end result of this is is obviously getting this approved budget in so that the you know they set the M any questions on this I know there's a lot of information slide um but it's it's kind of hoping to outline everything for you okay um I won't spend a ton of time on this one it's just kind of mapping out what the the budget book is there's a lot of information obviously you know um within this budget budget book um some of them you know most will cover you know tonight um it's a lot of details I've tried to provide some different views of of some of the things um so some of the information is duplicated but depends upon what you like to see and how you like to see it um but again the key ones are your Staffing plan obviously um and then you know looking at your property tax go every fund every fund cities then covered uh we've got some supplemental schedules very last page is kind of your summary of your capital budget so you can see the whole CCE okay from here I'm just going to talk about what assumptions and what's in your current budget again this is obviously this is the first time you're you're meeting to discuss this there's nothing in there per se that's written in stone the idea is to put it in there have this discussion get feedback and then go from there as we kind of proceed uh move through the the budget process again some of this is is repeat but it's worth noting um your Staffing plan is all in here um with all the benefits that come with that and I'll cover quite a bit of that as I go through here operating expenses all the loans are in here um capital projects everything all of your budget is in here um it is each of these funds have a balanced budget that means all that the total funding equals your total spending it doesn't mean that you're not using other funding sources and that's why I mentioned that because it's I say balance budg it doesn't great within that first version of this document it means that I I staff made the attemp open placed so as we go through them I'm point out some of those reue sources that are not not naturally um again all the department heads have had the opportunity uh to provide their their feedback on their particular budgets um most of the stuff that they wanted are in there already that doesn't mean that there aren't other items that might ask for um but again you know we have tried to obviously honor their requests to do this overall kind of all funds in all everything in the budget for next year is 14.3% higher than your current Year's budget um it's kind of misleading because the airport has quite a bit of project they're going to do in terms of dollarwise and that's covered with grants so that means every dollar in is covered with a dollar of grant money so that's why I kind of put the next line in here and highlighted it for you if I take out all the capital stuff and you're just kind of looking at you know basically basic operational budget it's about 3.8% higher than your budg it's still going up but obviously big difference between a little bit under 4% and you know 14% okay uh starting with kind of the Staffing plan uh there are no new positions in there um now when you look at your budget year-over-year there are positions that were put in or added in 2024 during this year we've added stuff but nothing new that's not running right now some of them are B um new um in terms of wages called Cola increases whatever you want to call it right now what's in there and you can see there 4.5% for the police officers uh the rest of the general employees are at 3% and then your technology managers got 12.5 that was discussed last year's separate email hand that I did my normal chart for you yes so this is kind of my what if box so let's say for example you didn't you wanted to know hey wait a minute what would it cost for everybody to get 3% not this SPL model so I'm showing you what the cost is in there % same thing and then going up to a what it box if you didn't you know interested in some other po or combination of colas for example you know the difference between 2% at 105 105,000 versus 3% is3 48,000 these are all in numbers benefits you know obviously as of wages increases you haveit fire yous work insured so that that's kind of a separate box that I like to throw out there in terms of what else is there some good news for you the U the pension contribution rate for General employees went down this year is about 7.27 it's not a huge decrease down about 6.91% I always take a a decrease or level increases um police went up touch at 2233 compared to this year's at 2.61 and then more good news the FRS contribution is only going up just a tad from 32.6 32.79mbloaded percentage you have to also send in for pension ORS that's why it's important number to make sure we're tracking it's all included in your budget everything is is in there for you to look at uh the F FRS rate has already been established that comes out last month so there's no guessing any of these rates um at this point and I mention that because what I have and I do this every year um I've also included some contingency number for the premium we don't know uh so you know health and life um your workers comp um Regular general property Auto all those insurances are going to come out probably in the next I don't know maybe 30 45 days so as I start this process I don't want to short my hope is always that ay he life will come in flat um always it's always better to be a to come down um you know so those contingencies already built that and mentioning that I'll mention it again talk about the other things these increases there's not necessarily addition Revenue coming so we talk a little bit more about it as we gol and so you know part of the increase you know those contingencies the way I funded in in this first version was to increase uh the transfer from the Utility Fund to the general fund um again that that is not something that that we like to do um it's something that we over time for to reduce that transfer um but what we have tried to do with this is only put in the money that we need to cover things that we can control cannot control that so the hope is is that let's say um Insurance Heth ins is is 2% increase so then we can lower all of those expenses and then lower so really what we've identified that covers this particular uh increased amount is um the insurance as I just mention as well as we had to increase the animal shelter budget again any of those places that come in less then the goal is always as much possible to rce this okay so um in terms of cash reserves um I there's no new cash reserve requirement for this budget I have a slide at the end that shows you your cash reserves we talked about this uh several times we were doing the rate studies the cash reserves are low and the city needs the opportunity to build them back up uh the general fund has always been a stretch for many the Utility Fund has been kind of stretched to the end we'll talk more about that as I go um but what that means is that can't F the budget that uses more so that's one of those you know items that we used talk about that you just kind of slash through it and say excited a new loan so if you're not using cash reserves some of this stuff um then you're going to have to finance some of the bigger Capital purchases right now I built in again this is the first version police and fire vehicle we get covered under loans and you rememberr budget we have money in there for communication equipment so obviously have not done that this year so again um budgets laps at the end of the year so it's important to carry that forward that's in there um as well so that would be new loans that that we would have to to go out and get um in the back end of your package I showed the shared cost Pages again for those of you who are kind of new looking at our financials um in the past city manager budget it used to be that the city manager was in I'll just exaggerate a little bit four or five places throughout the bud throughout the financials so as a anybody looking at them and they wanted to know man have to add it all up together a couple years ago we changed that so that the entire city manager budget is in general and each of the other funds back any moment in time city manager City cler Human Resources and that's that's pretty much basic in the back of the B I see that the airport which is doing very well um the fuel sales that are built in the budget is about two two and a half% increase very conservative numbers um we'll get to that there very well there's about $1.3 million in capital spending and again when you look at the last page budget you'll see I think 8 million plus of that is airport um and again they can do that because they do very nice job with the grants so none of these grants and I know in the past the city has had match grants again you know obviously put bur on the airport to cover that these the way they stand right now change are not very good to see that and then um not quite lastly but the millage rate that's in your budget right now um is built up 6.75 minut uh that is the same rate as this year and the same rate as last year we have not changed that in several years Council always been very conservative obviously aware so it's um kept it the same and our recommendation was this early version is to and so what that means though is for those you haven't spend a lot of time trying toate property taxes is a lot of fun um you can have the same millage rate and it doesn't mean your property taxes are not going to go up as as a as a resident um and that's because your property taxes are built off of market value then which comes up with a taxable value so what that means is that let's say last year um your house was worth uh $300,000 and the mill rate was 6.75 and this year um millage rate staying the same but now your value is three and a quarter you know 350,000 so that means your tax will go up by that that incremental amount um so if by keeping it at the same rate the city will get additional Revenue in about $131,000 um and that number when you kind of look at some of these basically I mean lines up not quite but just kind of saying okay where where is this increase going to theoretically it's going right to the general fund all in number what's in the budget right now is about 102,000 so you know theoretically there 102 of this 131,000 is funded by the increase property tax vales so I have some just summary charts here so you can kind of see where the increas is now we talked about I said earlier that 14.3% is the overall change year-over-year um but when you look at that uh Capital outline purchase line you can see you know that's where the big increase is after you you know take that out or after you consider that the next um big increase is personal services and that's where again you're going to see the increases related to whether it's Cola um any of the smaller increases for pension FRS um all that stuff we'll go into that next slide what I want to do is kind of break that big number kind of show you what categor those about 46,000 overall so of that amount 243,000 increases adjustments that occur the next biggest number this is number is life and health so of your number of your increase year year I put in basically $16,000 so again you figur that if you were to get a Level Health life very small minim that's you know money that you can use and use the transfer as well same thing for workers uh I don't want to be you know you have a double digit increase in workers compensation has happened in the past you don't have it budget after that really there's no control retirement obvious taxes but two of those numbers there is hope that you will not need this en7 okay so I did list out um in the next slide again the capital kind of FYI again8 million almost 8.1 of this is coming through the airports um and then the second largest number is coming from the CRA which um they already have the loan to cover the parking lot which is is a million dollar loan to cover that so again that that's not coming from any of the other real funds really the only things that you can see on here and again we'll have some more discussions obviously police and fire we talked about uh the loan amount for that and then Utility Fund um I I put as a carry forward there's a the vehicle for them that is actually they've been waiting on this core thing for what amounts now to years um but I keep that on there just as a reminder you know that's that was already approved and it's coming through reserves but gas line extension and another utility truck is the only other things on here not a lot once you get past the airport cra um I did include in the next year kind of looking at your your uh taxable values it's just a it's just a chart you can see how how very level it is in terms of the red line is your millage rate um so again not a whole lot of activity and this goes all the way back to 2002 so okay um the other question that that kind of gets asked every year is okay if you look at the next slide um if I did want to change the millage rate to increase it what is that really look like and so again this page is also in your in your book but just for example right now we have it in there at at 6.75 um if you were to say well let's move that up to seven um Mills um basically the difference is about $42,000 uh 7 and a quar that gets you to you know 25,000 not a not a ton of movement but obviously that that would be basically doubles it you know for you I didn't really go any any much farther than that but obviously it's the same you know incremental amount so the next slide is is a good one that kind of shows you what does that really mean um for the average you know resident and so the way this reads is at 6.75 Mills it assumes $100,000 I did 100,000 because you can just do multiples of that to get to whatever you want to get to uh but at $100,000 assuming you know the exemption um it's $337 50 that's an annual that's the total Allin of property taxes that somebody would get at 6.75 Ms if you would move that whole equation up to seven it's another $12.50 and then again it's incremental so each each 0.25 Mills is another $1250 um in terms of annual property tax kind of again more what if scenarios okay so this this is an important one is a lot of times as you get through these discussions and you're having to make some some really difficult decisions the question is oh wait a minute if you want this somebody comes up and says Okay I I need another $50,000 into my budget so naturally is okay that's great how are you going to pay for that so I this is kind of like a mini little cheat sheet on okay in general how would you pay for different things well you could increase the millage rate um we just talked about that uh you could increase the transfer from the Utility Fund to cover it um um you could allocate from other budgets meaning you know cut somebody else to to pay for that um and then you could utilize cash reserves these are options not recommendations so want to be very clear about that especially the last one I you're never going to hear from me moving forward at this point for a while to use cash reserves um so you know normally as you're going through these discussions and again the Utility Fund is pretty much the same except obviously you can um increase rates which you've already done and um took effect in January you'll have some built-in polles and cpis already built in there too uh to cover it so I'm not sure that that would be a great option for you um to look at at this moment today um but these are kind of as you're having these discussions kind of how this would work if you add 50,000 you know you got to take it from somewhere else or you got to find additional revenue and again that's where it starts obviously as you know it's tough Okay so we've been talking about reserves um and basically these are estimates as at the end of this year um so we we just had our discussion with the Auditors they'll be presenting the 2023 numbers which these are all improvements on a 2023 number so if you think these are low the 2023 numbers are lower and the good point is is that we've got the plan in place to improve these the rate increases are going to have the significant effect that we thought they would and they are uh so but the left side tells you where I'm believing it's going to wind up the right size is what the standard practice would be that you should have and so what again the Auditors will tell you this and they will come and tell you this in in a couple weeks so you can ask them these questions and that's part of why I wanted to have this separate discussion here so you could be ready to to ask them um they say 25% of your annual budget uh should be set aside to for in reserves so which is okay I'm going to tell you that's great and I I'm okay with them saying that but you have a utility and a utility have things that have to be prepared and so the goal being 25% is great for your general fund um it'll work for your airport your Utility Fund you're going to have to build that up because you don't know what's going to break tomorrow um and so while these numbers are your starting point we got to get we got to work our way up to there um you know the Utility Fund having $2.1 million is a long-term not a successful plan and again you've already done the action you put in the rates to do this um and so basically you know just to kind of give you an idea and these numbers are all in there but the Utility Fund by the end of this year uh with only nine of the 12 months having the rate increases is expected to have a surplus uh to go into these reserves between 300 350 to $400,000 meaning last year or 2023 it was a loss you did the rates and now you're on the plus side where you need to be so coming into next year when we you know look at this again um you know your budget right now will have another $450,000 that you going to be putting into your reserves to start build to the minimum amount from there it'll be a matter of kind of taking a look at the city's infrastructure I know there's a lot of key initiatives that St staff has and they'll happy to talk to you about that for the different U utilities but what I can tell you is right now is the reserves are not enough right now there is a good plan in place to start getting them where they need to be um but a lot of the action that the council has put in place is going to take some time and so as long as we're tracking in a favorable position um that's good but the end of the day as we're talking budget it means there's no projects that are big projects that are be funded with cash reserves in the past we were able to take some of the projects and not have to go out and get you know pay principal and interest on different uh projects which is great but you get to a point where you got to say okay we got to stop that now we're shifting gears to grow the reserves back um and that's kind of why I wanted to kind of mention this and so like I said the Auditors will Echo this as well um and so it's the rate when you did your rate studies they said the same thing so it's always good to see it inherit from multiple sources and that's that's my my slides so I don't know I want to do questions for me or I don't know Terry if you wanted to add or subtract anything I said or um the president of council's okay just to add a few things from our audit today which like I said the you know we all will see the numbers it be an ideal for 22 and 23 you know that our general fund revenue for just over $600,000 right so that would give me about six weeks of operation idea how long the Utility Fund was about the same and once again that push me up about nine grou of Opera so you put it I understand the number but you need to put it in and understand the date the time frame of what we're talking about if our Mark is to hit three months or you we're we're not that really that was shocking when they said we only had basically if something was to happen we only had six weeks to grun city in our reserves yes sir absolutely um I mean when you sit down with them and they explain it to you it's kind of a reality check um I I will tell you that obviously the utility Reserve is going to go up you know because like Stephen said uh the general reserves really are kind of tied back to things we can't control and they're going to be where they're at unfortunately a lot of our departments are in the general we were sitting on top of $5 million of Revenue in in the Utility Fund you know we could have a field test transf we'll tell you this they also said of all the cities that they do our transfer is high I did ask that got of give where because we were correct me if I'm wrong we were still kind of better off than most of their cities but we just don't need to you know hopefully have no big expenditures even with our rate increases you know that and the extra money from that you know be nice just to kind of build that build a little bit yes sir I don't agree I think the the big takeaway I got from them the meeting that we had course there was a lot um things we talked about going through the audit you can see it um that yeah there are obviously other cities that are in worse position than we are um are are and the I don't know about the exact words but you know our reserves are danger is what they and so you know we are we are making gains and increases you know but they're small I mean we're we're trying to pull ourself out of a hole that we've got ourselves into um and it's going to take time and I think Stephen's correct is that you know this this year I'm going to not support any money that's being asked to come out of the reserves you know for unless it the dire we got water not working Wastewater plants not working one of those main things and we're really going to have to tighten the belt you know going into the next year especially when it comes to when you're talking about I agree with I have a question do you have any idea how much money we save if no that's that's the chart right here so yeah if you look at that the uh second to last column it says 3% 4. 5% and then the total it's $180,000 that's what's in the budget right now if you would have pull that out then it would be 180,000 and you can see each so you know the general fund would be 102,000 of that 180 and also M and Council I'd like to say we're not talking about a cola here not a cola so we're talking about you know increase yeah colas are totally different animal um different effects on the staff Citywide plus it has a different effect on our pay gr it moves them also so I wasn't I just want talk to Stephen about no Cola whatever y'all did with zero Merit increase or thism marit increase or you know whatever it's not a cost of living right I never we never presented that way but you do hear it and it has an effect on how we uh deal with staff and do things to the yeah with uh having friends that work for the state um you know they'll range they go anywhere from Z to % how to do it that's what everybody put in it but with them they're also done off of reviews well I know the utility departments I think worked on their evaluation I'm not sure where anybody else is they actually put together a group structur ner I thought the chief said he had I here evaluation evaluation yeah he mentioned it one time um so if that's a will the council we come back if if there's even any consideration of pay raises if you want evaluations attached to them that that shouldn't be an issue to have that back front to I think the bigger question back whether or not you know how do we what do we do to move forward are we even considering raises and then where do we go from there so I think you know your question was what if we gave no raises how much money would we put back um you know like I said I would love to be able to say the city like got tons of money we're looking really great you but the reality is we're fighting every day to keep our heads above water we fought very hard to keep these rate increases um and I've talked to Stephen and you know I've talked to y'all there are going to be some reductions in some of these rates in water and waste water because of the impact that it's Happ um y'all may or may not approved that I don't know if you will Council so we could lose funding there uh but now if he comes back tells me no that straw is going to going to break kem's back if you try it I'm stuck um you know so I don't think it will but that is something else too to consider you know that we are going to lose some Revenue in waste waterer and water how much that or we may not well with it I would suggest we listen to the presentations from the Departments before we make any decision on that essentially you don't know what they want they tell you and would you like to have questions during your presentation or afterwards City that's right versus Police Department thank you Council for this opportunity to sit before you I would say stand but sit before you to present uh the budget for the Willison Police Department I've heard the conversations on the uh budget and the concerns uh that Steven and uh city manager have bought up and I take those into consideration and I don't take them lightly uh I'm presenting what uh I feel is appropriate for the police department and it's up to you guys as to how you want to proceed uh the first can I can I say we're under the general fund tab page 27 just want to add that so all right on page 27 of the police department um which is budget 521 uh there's small changes that have been made in this budget not very many uh the one is being and Stephen correct me if I missed one uh the first one is under investigations and that would be budget number 521 03035 uh the previous year that budget uh item was $1,000 and we increased to $4,000 and I'll tell you why uh investigations uh we increased it because of DNA testing and testing of uh any type of evidence is very very expensive the $4,000 that we put into this line item is not even a drop in the bucket to what it cost to do a DNA test uh DNA test is about $225,000 uh depending on how many items you have uh so our thought process here was to start building that line item as we go throughout the budget years hoping that as we proceed see there's we don't need it hopefully we don't have a case where uh we need to send off stuff for DNA print DNA or or forensic type evidence uh so that was our approach to that is let's build on it as we go uh so we're not trying to break the budget or or assume $25,000 come in here and and hit you with a $25,000 increase in investigations so that's the reason for the increase in that line item any question on that one here none okay uh also in budget 521 uh 0650 uh which is police vehicles which Mr Steven talked about a little bit earlier uh in that line item for the year 2024 we had $110,000 budgeted for the year 2025 we increased that to 40 and I'll tell you why uh the increase is due to the lower DNA Grant amount as as we all know uh USDA was given us 75% uh funds to purchase police vehicles uh this year as we've talked about it has dropped down to 16% uh which if we continue to grow I'm free that uh USDA is probably not going to be available to us anymore so to try to make up some of that loss we increased that from 110 to 140,000 sure that is correct they they are they have been removed from the USDA I see waving from the back I'd like to wave back any questions on the capital outlay for police vehicles yes sir yes sir go ahead so we don't let's say we don't get zero dollar for police cars yeah um so how would you propose them like BR it let's say it's budgeted in or whichever we don't have the money how would you do with getting new police cars or is there a site for police departments to go to buy other departments cars that are slightly use that we can buy okay um you know we can't do the 140,000 so that's a two-part question the first part of it was if it's not is it if it's not budgeted how would I get new vehicles that's a great question that's a million dollar question I don't know uh the second question was is there a site for used vehicles used police vehicles there are there are sites for that but here's what you have to keep in mind uh the vehicle may have low mileage but it may have a million hours on it because the cars run 24 hours a day or 12 hours a day all day uh so the mileage may be low but the wear and tear on the engine as far as hours you're buying somebody else's headache and that's the danger of buying used police cars uh for vehicles uh don't okay for vehicles USDA is the grant for vehicles uh we use the bulletproof vest Grant uh we have FDLE uh grant for bullet proof vest uh we also have the Jag grant that we get but it rotates year to year from City to city like this year it's in c key next year uh it comes to Willis uh so those are some of the grants that we apply for for to try to get equipment that we need and things that we need for the police department uh but majority of the stuff that we've been able to accumulate lately has been through networking with other agencies uh such as tasers um our tasers were outdated uh they were no longer supported uh through our networking we got with FHP who was getting rid of some tasers and they donated them to us uh the city of biew is going through that process right now of having to replace new tasers and it's costing them right at $100,000 uh but we were able to save that because of our connections and networking with other agencies that we didn't have to come to the council and ask for that $100,000 to replace tasers same goes for body Cam and Ard cameras uh you know the replace the Ard cameras and body cameras probably around $200,000 uh through donations we've been able to uh get cameras for the cars and different things like that once again not having to come back to the council and ask for $200,000 so so far you at $300,000 uh when we put computers in the cars we didn't come to the council and ask for money to buy computers and if Aaron correct me if I'm wrong those computers we got were bie was what a couple thousand dollars yeah so that was all monies that we were able to save the City by going out and networking now the time will come where that's going to probably end where we're going to have to come back but so far by doing that we've been able to pass years by in the budget without having to come and ask the the council question you know asked s times yes ma'am so when Mr Cox and I went to um one of the meetings that we went to and there was a gentleman there and he was a I guess he was a chief I believe it was for um one of the local police department and I made the same comment that it's crazy how there is really nothing we can do to help improve your your um funding and he was you know as I told you he said there are different things that you can do so that's reason why I asked the question what are we doing did you find anything that we can do to help to increase your money yeah uh you know the police department is not a moneymaking business right uh and as far as salaries and different things like that go uh there's there's no grants out there that's going to give you salary money to pay your employees uh what we do take advantage of is training opportunities uh some of them are salary incentive uh which is required by the state that you pay the city pays if they take that salary incentive class uh and I can tell you this year every officer in the police department has been to at least two or three trainings this year uh which I'm very proud of because uh that's that's investment so as far as being able to help us as far as salary or uh vehicles and stuff like that you know which we're looking at that Grant USDA which we've had for the last 12 years I think it is um I don't know of any other vehicle grants that's out there we're taking advantage of the bulletproof best Grant um I am looking at a body warn camera Grant to see if we can get some body Cam Body warn cameras purchased through a grant I not quite sure how that process goes but I'm looking into that now but other than that I don't I don't can't think of anything else um we could do to raise money for the police department been say Car Wash so going back to Cedar ke I did not know they they lost their Grant how are they going to prepare to purchase new car a long way to go right to travel but what are they going to do to help get new vehicles uh I've talked to the CD ke uh CD Chief uh and he's struggling with trying to figure that out himself uh I've actually turn him on to some other agencies that are releasing some Vehicles so he can try to get them uh so I I don't I I can't answer for him as to what he's going to do but I know he's he's trying to figure out what he can do to make that happen uh they're they're they're really in desperate need and I know if there was something he could do to change that process he would have he would have done it by now so a police B you can do to raise Mone dinner anybody M up go out here to uh the club black or somewhere yeah yeah just you know just throwing that out yes sir police yes sir yes sir thank you may all right sir okay all right uh Stephen did I miss anything else in 521 that I that I updated uh just that you'll and you'll see this a lot of the Departments I've gone in there and increased the insurance for him he didn't Chief did not give me that number uh Utility Services again as we increase rates our different departments have toat that as well um uh the other thing I've kind of had to right size is fuel that's a another place that we're starting to see the fuel go up um but those are really the only ones that the the chief did not really have control over that I kind of went in there and I did that for a lot of the department because of the fuel and and obviously some of these other things that have to go up okay that's budget number 521 of the police department I have a couple of questions go ahead probably not gonna like them that's okay so why why why 445 instead of the fre like everybody else okay so that's a great question um I ask for a 4.5 increase in reasonings are in order to stay competitive with our other agencies near far we must attempt to stay in close comparison with them the law enforcement job market has become so competitive that agencies are reaching starting salaries of 60,000 plus and giving sign on bonuses up to $88,000 some will say that we're not competing with them but we are we are all recruiting from the same pool of people and to be honest we're all looking to recruit each other's officers or dispatchers back several years ago we started working on WPD not being a training ground where people come to get trained then leave a few months later I'm here to say that we have done a good job with stopping that from happening and retaining our good officers let me give you an example of what I mean by that some of my officers don't live in Willison just like so many other agencies officers don't live in the place they work the Maron County Sheriff office currently pays $55,000 and they looking to raise their starting pay to 60 dellan is currently at 48,000 and they're looking to raise their starting pay to 49440 L county is 50 and looking to raising to 515 um now I gave you that information to say this because we are staying in close comparison to our other brothers and sisters in law enforcement and because of the atmosphere we have create created here their love for the city of Williston and the city the men and women we have today have to stay here in willon and I'm thankful for that all of our officers except for one we just hired have been here for over a year this has also helped us to hire two dispatchers from one of our neighboring agencies and we're looking to hire a third one let's keep up the good work so when you ask me about the 4.5 uh if you look around the world the globe uh the market for law enforcement has increased but the people and the job has decreased which is now caused agencies to have to raise their salary to hire and retain the officers that they have but that's not the only contributing factor to this increase if you look around Florida just alone at the amount of people that are moving to Florida uh and moving to these cities and these counties the the the need for law enforcement is drastically increasing so everybody's grabbing trying to get somebody that they can in order to do that in order to keep your people you you've got to stay somewhat compatible uh this 4.5% will not put us at top and it will not put us at the bottom it would put us somewhere in the middle which is where I feel that we have worked over the last couple years of getting to this location where we're not that training ground that we were before uh that's that's the reason for the 4.5% inas okay and are the civilian employees included at 3% or 4 and a half uh I think Stephen did I I don't remember if I did 3% for dispatchers or dispatchers and the police officers are at four and a half they're all at four the rest of them and there's still a couple others that are the job market out there uh for law enforcement as y'all know we had an opening and it took us over a year to find somebody to hire for that position uh the market out there is is extremely competitive right now and it's just like any other profession uh when nursing when it was a big drive for nursing the the pay for nursing went Sky High there's a big drive for teachers now and if you notice that the pay scale for teachers are are are extremely high now so the market uh not no doing of mine and not my fault the market right now for law enforcement is it's high and it's competitive out of the agencies that you that you listed um talked about which ones are comparable to our that number ma' Okay so uh I I spoke to the Trenton police chief uh he's currently at 426 and he's looking to go to 50,000 chiefin is at 44 and they're looking to go to 462 at a 5% increase let me back up if Trenton gets what they're proposing what the chief is proposing will be a 7.5% increase chiefin if they get what they're proposing from 44 to 462 will be a 5% increase but it is my understanding that there's talks of a bigger increase than 5% Ocala Police Department they're at ,300 and October 2025 they are they have a union their contract is renewed in 2025 they're going to $60,000 biew Police Department did a 4% increase they went from 54,000 to 56,18499 elat County last year received a 177% increase this year they're doing a 3% across the board uh they're also a union so their Union contract is coming up as well but in elal they have a unique situation because sergeant and below are under the Union at a 3% and all other City officials are at a 4% uh but elateral also has a sign on bonus Mar County School boards 50 5,000 dellan Police Department 48 they're going to 49440 and then we're where we're at Maring County County and Okala they're the same size and population density as the city of Wilson uh no ma'am I was just giving you comparisons close in close proximity understand yeah we compete with them for officers unfortunately yeah but none of them have are close to where we are as far as yeah uh I I would say probably the closer would probably be chin probably probably would be the closest um to to our side but like I said earlier you know we're not we're not competing with these agencies but we are competing with these agencies because we're all drawn from the same pool of people and we're all trying to retain the people that we currently have so they don't go somewhere else so chapelin is at 44 two and ask for 5% increase what's our total I mean what is our starting salary at our starting salary is 46 yeah the ones I'm seeing on here are 465 that that could have been here for a while yes I know that one of the things and I'm not KN in Ley County but a lot of the cars that I see look like they've had for many years yeah I could understand was you know somebody again I don't them would want to leave there right if here they're driving basically a Oney old car right let's say right um you know so that's we're just providing you know we have nicer stuff not going w got we haven't had anything major exactly you see stuff every day about Gainsville has a shooting's got a shooting all this stuff's on the news y um you know so knock on knock on wood knock on wood you know we have been had that yeah we we've been very fortunate uh in this community and you know 90 I would say 95% of crime prevention is visibility uh and and our guys and girls are everywhere everywhere you go you see them uh and they're out there doing their job providing the quality of life here in Williston that citizens deserve not just the citizens but even the ones that are traveling through Willison you know we're providing the same quality of service to them as anywhere and Mr Cox you're absolutely right and you made it clear to me one day when we were talking about Cedar Key having computers in cars and we did instantly we we went to work on that and got that accomplished and uh that has been a plus for us every since and um that's where we're at can you tell me why we're increasing um a vacant position Sal uh I don't think I'm in uh I don't think your dispatcher I don't think I'm increasing any of the starting pays maybe I didn't make that it was 1875 now it's 1959 maybe I didn't make that clear Stephen that might be my fault but we're not we're not uh addressing a starting changing a starting pay is a starting pay 187 yes and I honestly think that civilian employ all the civilian employees should be three even if we go to four and a half for police officers right I think they should be the same as the other civilian employees that we have right I'm still not not sold on the four and a half yet um also tell me about the $10,000 that you've got for the building maintenance um when you only spent 326 last year 326 what are the plans there let's talk about the building I mean I know it needs a lot but it it was sitting there last year and didn't get spent so I'm asking that's $10,000 we can put somewhere else or cut from the transfer yeah haven't been spent yet is the key word uh huh no uh so the key word is it haven't been spent yet uh as the council know the building is in disarray I'll just be honest uh and it it's going to require a lot of work uh we were hopes in hopes that we were going to get a grant or something to build us a new police department so we didn't want to spend a whole bunch of money fixing something if we weren't going to be in it but now that we are 100% sure that we're not getting a new police building is now it's time to start fixing on the building uh and Jimmy correct me I don't think we're getting that building right yeah so uh that money is going to be well needed because there's a lot of issues uh in the police department as you all know from when the SOS happen uh we're having pluming issues constantly uh we had them today or the toilets wasn't working and it's constant and there's some other things in the building that we can talk about later I think will probably be appropriate and every year I have to bring out the fact I'm shot shot down every time because I'm told it's an incentive that we've got to keep is that $61,000 in fuel cost because we let every officer take their car home we don't have $61,000 in Fu costs I'm looking at it right here and you spent 59 this year the projection right now based the current9 okay fuel right yeah you're right the budget was 45 y but we spent 59 right and the budget went up to 61 it's because we let everybody take their car High well no matter if they live in Maring County Levy County ler County stter County always get shot we don't go that far we don't go that far uh we used to no we don't now okay uh the fathers I have somebody live is Maring County I do believe Y and you know every agency across this globe provide their offers with take home cars now here's the difference M deah you used to have to live in the city limits to take your car home here here's the difference here's the difference our officers are only allowed to drive their cars from home to work from work to home other agencies you can drive your take-home Car anywhere you want to and it doesn't matter but we restricted our guys you take your car home and then you take your car from home to work and that is it the increase in our fuel cost is what I talked about earlier is visibility the guys and girls are moving and that deters crime and the the fuel prices like Stephen said earlier I can't control that you know I have no control of when the fuel prices is going to go up or when they're going to go down uh we did go to Tri County because they're giving us a pretty decent break on fuel cost right so those are steps that we took to try to lower that that fuel cost but we do not let our our officers Drive their cars anywhere else besides home unless they're going to training as I said earlier every police officer in the police department has been to at least two trainings this year so that's travel as well so you know when you when you're going to training in the different locations and different schools you're going to burn fuel but they need that training I mean that's how we make quality officers is by getting them that training so how do you verify that they're going straight home are they tracking mileage uh well I track the mileage by the fuel cost and cuz when you put your M when you Fu your car you have to put your mileage in so always I can always look at the mileage I don't have a report with me now but uh you can look at the report and you can look at the mileage and then calculate how much mileage they've had versus how many gallons of gas they used as a matter of fact we was doing that today question if if your officers had choose salary ra for some of the benefits having the ability to drive their car to and from do you think that overall they lean one way the other uh that's a dangerous question but I mean uh it's it's it's a common practice uh and the city manager can talk can vouch for this it's a common practice that agencies give their officers take them cars and it's a common practice that if you don't they won't stay so not that I need to come goad not not that I have you don't mind not that I have to come to Chief's rescue on anything but there's a couple wellestablished programs out there that proven officer take home car program the officer will take care of the car better it lasts longer um and you get more use out of it do Hot Seat of car park it you know uh trade off drivers we all know in law I've spent 34 years in it they simply don't think car when it's a spare you know um so that's another advoc for that and and I have to say also that the Jeep is right it is a well established program 1984 police officers take on they've now recently established where they go outside of their Juris recently I think Shar something right yeah a lot of agencies now it doesn't matter where you live if you're if where you live touches that County you can live there and drive your car home and you know and and here's the other caveat to it is you know we we and willston run two officers per ship uh if something was to occur uh like it did at that homicide we had all those guys jumped in their car and came to work period no questions asked no nothing uh imagine if they had to do that in their POV so they all came in and we quickly quickly uh sealed that place off and got what we needed to get done so that's one of the caveats it's not where it's going to happen it's when and when we're going to have to have that response from everybody coming to to work and uh we want them here as quickly as possible and that vehicle is one way to get them here quickly obviously the other savings that I see is one car instead of two yes ma'am I mean those those the the things we're looking at here are the whether 3% 4% four and a half% one car or two cars those those are things and last year we were last year we were fortunate enough that we bought we bought three cars last year uh and we bought them out of our own budget we didn't come to the ccil we bought it out our own budget uh which helped us this year because this year we only need to buy one car we buy two cars every time so since we bought three last year this year we only need to purchase one vehicle uh so that's a savings there in itself uh we can cut this I would say yes, just as cave keep in mind always I like that Stephen the way the budget is built right now the full 140 would have to come fromone so cutting it down to 70 doesn't really do anything from a yeah it just reduces the amount and again if you do cut it to 70 there certainly is a better chance that the general fund can hold that you know to other Cuts it's just it's just yeah there there's no Grant and again if you get it to one and you get 15 or 10% down 8% they were talking about and new that you know starts to potentially reduce that Gap and then maybe sell the old car a lot of lot of the police departments will sell the other one get maybe another 10,000 for an old car hopefully now you i000 you're right I was on back I have so question and we have sold some cars so yes we we we do have uh we we're using that to purchase the one vehicle that we need yes yes so let me ask you this question yes ma'am a lot of question so if if we were to um decrease the ask of 4.5 4.5 to 375 or 4 um would how would that still kind of keep us in the the comparison per se so if we were to increase it down to 4% that will take us to 47 840 that's where that would take us versus the 4870 so it would decrease each one by about 1,000 uh the 48 uh the 48 74.5 is $270 and 4% is 1840 but that would still kind of keep us related related to Trenton chiefin and Cedar Key about comparable until they get their R well Cedar Key is going to is asking 4870 and Trenton is looking or asking for 50 I have no idea where does little Trent get that kind of money I have no idea is that for the county Tren PD Mr Bloom if we finding car what kind of time frame it going to be like buying a regular car do want to get into that business of I don't have any other options now great question let's say you figure out this year um what happens next year you know you can only cut it down to one car before you start to impact the overall Fleet Management right um so I don't know that we've got a solution yet on pass lease options everything we hear on that is not just doesn't work um unless there's another grant that opens up um you know that really is the only thing I can see right now would be additional Grant I just don't see the again the taxable values you get more development within the city you hope your taxable values go up but again not to the tune of 140,000 and unfortunately these cars can get even more expensive yeah the cars are going up but president Co the bottom line is when you finance you lose money there's no way around it we have to finance we have to but financing is a hit it's a hole and every time we have to do it fire trucks because the fire department has very special needs uh we don't have any choice but when we get down to where we have to actually start financing our vehicles we're going backwards that's my opinion I agree thank is there a calculus in terms of population when you would need additional officers cars beyond what the current staff well it it's of my opinion I know the city's growing uh and this year we we didn't ask for any new positions I think right now currently what we have we're we're safe I think we can properly manage what we have now but as we continue to grow and NX property and homes being built and things like that I'm hoping that we can push that off for another year maybe two before we have to come back and ask for another officer is what I'm hoping unless we do some serious gor really fast yeah and and you know that's the danger of growth with growth comes increas in everything uh especially when it comes to Public Safety and public service well I do like the fact there are two officers just like this morning I saw where Miss Alex pulled somebody over they were nice enough to stop white line there red light set up get off the road but there was another came in behind yes so I do like that aspect well you know not to beat the drum but uh unfortunately law enforcement is a dangerous job these days and it and it doesn't appear that it's getting any better if you watch the news and read the read the articles uh and and that's a lot of what's hurting I feel the career right now is that uh it's just you can work at public and make same amount of money you can make working as a police officer and stop in a car at two o'clock in the morning reject black tenant windows and six or seven people in it and I think a lot of people starting to realize that and it's it's sad because I've been in law enforcement 34 years and uh it's sad to see that we are at the point where we're at and that's what's driving the cost so high unfortunately so one more question and this isn't just at just for you um oh wow but I'm sorry I mean I don't want to be specific to you only but where do we get the 3% from is that written somewhere is that just something we've always gone with I mean how do we come to 3% City management so um you know I I picked the 3% giving the considered the cost of living adjustment however you know I've also said in the P you know everybody got some pretty good pay raises last year um you know so so that's why I actually said you anywhere from you know zero to a 3% uh we wanted to have those figures to see what they look like um you know I will tell you there is room in the general fund for what's going to be created by the appor taxes this is 4 to 3% without digging in anybody's pocket so um was I was pleasantly surprised at that I feelt I felt that if we had to do any pay raises this year all come from I reason other than it was a doable okay I mean I'm just asking you know I'm not a fan of pay raises every year anyway so yeah I understand I appreciate your position and you know um my job is you know obviously whatever decision City my to move that decision for right matter what and I know decreasing or not giving a pay raise is not going to bail us out of where we are today U but we are looking to try to cut in areas that we need to um at least just for this year if not future so well and I hate the like I said I didn't mean to come in here and paint a bleak picture of what it looks like and yes we are going to have more money at the end of next Revenue year um but you know some of the complaints in the previous Council was they thought they were left in the dark and were're not informed there was no transpar so that's we're try to elate this correct I mean definitely not not a bleak picture but like you say we do we do need to be making decisions based on facts and that's where the transparency does come from um and we do have to operate if we're looking at an area where you know if something catastrophic happen and we're not able to come out of it then it doesn't matter what raises we give because we won't be able to operate it really doesn't and you know I I share the this the story you know getting the loan for the short line of credit loan for John Henry park and I've spoken to all you about this that we're we were paying out of operational costs of what we're using in the city to make these payments until we finally got this loan online which took you know four months five months it was ridiculous amount of time um you know and people really didn't understand what I was saying until I said look I'm spending your salary in September and then everybody kind of got it you know um and that's why I also wanted to talk about the revenues our reserves you know because I'm laying a footprint going forward from this conversation of how at least I will be about purchasing stuff in future especially pump we have one pump go down on a well it's it's $35,000 um you know I was shocked you know and that's one and then what happens is that's probably a rebuilt one yeah and then the second one goes out right next to it yeah um you know it's just and and I I the chief is in an impossible position when it comes to these cars you know because I understand the plan he has the Anapolis plan he's currently on um you know and now is there a way that you know we could find very nice low mileage low hours police vehicles I don't know have I I know that we've been successful in the past in doing right um you know previous she got two cars out of Colorado great F okay but that's what it one was total one still in operation you know yeah and like you said I am in a unique situation because I have a car now that's Transmissions out of it and it's $6,000 to repair it uh but you know what do you do the car has got 100,000 miles on it those those cars that that that city manager is talking about every other couple of months they're throwing a fan through the radiator there's another couple th000 so I mean we we're in a we're in a unique situation and I would love to find an opportunity or a different way of of getting vehicles but uh I just haven't put my hand on it yet there's that ball you can think about yeah I just haven't been able to put my hand on it I've been looking but I just have not been able to put my hand on it yet I've been to I've met with people want to lease cars I've sat talked with them and looked at the pros and cons of that so that ball you're talking about I'm bouncing it uh but I just I just right now haven't been able to put my hand on something that would be a a great benefit for the city and not cost the city a whole bunch of money and I'll be honest with you too we really don't know what kind of service we can get out of right we bought one brand new it failed almost immediately was a push something I don't know they piix the mechanical thing you know it's human um we really don't know how far these will go we're just now into the 2018 getting a little old right that's the one that's broke down okay so I think it was yours how do you pick your vehicles if how do you state oh state yeah the T the tahol have been uh you know when I when I look go look for vehicles when I talk to people everybody has their opinion everybody says T tah holes are the best they're the greatest some people say the Ford Explorers are the best they're the greatest you don't know I mean it's just like city manager said we bought that Third vehicle last year and it didn't have 5,000 miles on it transmission went out and and they had to replace old transmission you know but then you got Dodge Durangos the push button key goes out and that's $3,000 to replace it so I mean it's it's a gamble anywhere you go like you said they're all man-made uh they all have their problems so it's it's a gamble however you do it fortunately for us uh we were able to get some Vehicles donated from the mar County Sheriff Office uh thank you Sheriff Billy Woods uh that has been a been carrying us through as we're experiencing these problems with these cars as they're starting to get older and you know they may be low mileage but they've got a lot of engine hours on them and they don't have warranty right no ma'am the new ones do but the old ones don't no ma'am it's that's straight out of the budget get it fixed all right we good there I so what do we decide on the police department 3% on civilian and four for officers is that what we decided or do we not well we need to that's what I'm saying so we can go somewhere else we be here all night there's pros and cons we are we're an hour and a half into this and we're still here the firstart I was wanting to get us out of date U and and I and and oh okay go ahead there's pros and cons to 3% four and a half everybody works hard in this room I've been out watch utility guys yep down in a mud pit filling you know getting uh the water out so they can fix a pipe because Lord knows we have a lot of old pipes and then also seeing yours um you know your department work hard you know everybody does but I think if we do it it's got to be straight across the board for everybody not one Department versus the other one because I don't want it to get to where this one think well we're doing this this one this should just be straight across the board that's my opinion because like I said it's friends who work for State spouse that works for a state it's everybody's across theard you're saying three for all or four for all well preferably yeah definitely not four so what does it take your officer to if you go to three uh I didn't do I think I think uh Steven told us that I didn't do three uh I went with 4.5 how much per hour how much I know you said it saves us $26,500 if we take them back to three instead of four and a half but what does that take the starting salary to is what I'm asking oh I don't I don't that's what I want to know I didn't do three% uh I didn't think we would get to that point but I thought we would at least be at a 4% uh that's I put in for 4.5 and uh with the hopes with the hopes uh not the hopes to go to three maybe four but he's looking Mr Bloom would you turn your mind that's a 3% is that who would you consider to be which would be your starting here the ones I saw were 465 465 was what was the lowest one I saw that was a police officer so 3% will take plus 3% of 465 and then 3% I'm sorry 3% would take it to 47380 which is 13 1380 but double check my M said 4778 47 40 465 is is the7 so 3% of 465 back oh I'm sorry if I understand what you're saying the lowest here I'm seeing is 45505 oh did you yeah with 3% did not say 46 I thought 465 after the 3% no no before Oh before before if if you take the 465 and add 3% what is the starting pay all right let me find a police officer here that's 46 be 47 895 um 478 95 478 95 47 478 95 4 or 3% 3% 47 8.95 but you said 4% was 47840 4 uh 4% I thought he said 48700 oh did say that's what I wrote anyway let's put it that way I'm dlex I don't you may want to like Ste yeah I'm trying I think 40 I think 4% is 474 right that's what you said 47 8 40 for 4% so 3% 3% is 48 4 what was that number again 48360 yeah the 465 is currently $212 an hour so it' be 3% on top of that 3% of on top of 2124 we have you have one here making 464 57 yeah I just 4778 4778 yeah 4778 and that's and that's for 3% that's a 3% on the lowest paid if they're P more getting paid more than that they going to get get more that's the starting that would be the starting pay that would be the new starting pay so and I kind of agree with Mr Cox uh if we do the 3% the zero to 3% for every employee I kind of feel better about that rather than doing we can change them again later but yes that's what we're trying to give Steven Direction and how to bring us back a lower budget that's what we're trying to accomplish so just to be clear we went from 4.5 to 3% that's what we're discussing [Music] okay honest um it's based on that evaluation what so it's 0 to 3% based on their their performance so it may not even be 3% depend I mean if somebody who's not doing a good job may get 1% or 2% well we haven't we haven't set up our evaluation process yet so I was think you we talked about that last year we're still in the same place we were last year yeah well because we talked about it we needed a per perance evaluation for for every employee sounds like utility Department's gotten accomplished but yeah we sat right here last year and did the same thing about that then potentially a new employee coming not right because there would be no room for them to be evaluated would be offering us the same starting pay that we are currently offering there would be no increase that no we're going to bump it okay we're g to bump the starting pay right anybody 46 making less that would go to the Z to 3% so so let me let let me make sure I understand uh you're you're saying tied to a performance evaluation 0 to 3% uh and correct me if I'm wrong but I believe I've seen performance evaluations done that was more than 3% only for the charter officers okay totally different ball game okay it was promised last year no sir but we cut we cut the amount he wanted last year that's why you see his amount in here and a lot of people yeah do what now but that's neither here nor there we're here at this year he's the he's the only one we promised certain amount we said we can't give you what this this year but next year we'll give you this and we can discuss it when we get was that Mr Mills we can discuss it when we get to his Department we can still discuss it but that's what we told him last year confus now I would just say 3% straight across let's do it next year you got to have I would like to see evaluations to something that I've been dealing with for 40 years in businesses that uh I worked at we all you know we all had it and I'm not saying your employees aren't good or anything like that but you know it's it's just me one of the one of the businesses I worked at I was the director we did evaluations on our employees every quarter and at the end of that year we gave them a raise not quarterly but at the end of the year Mr M with with respect to the council's position on evaluations how do that work for you it works for you not us no it doesn't uh when it's rolled out poorly and when it's rolled out halfway the employees are the ones that suffer because the the evaluation that we have right now has 13 we have now is terrible it has 13 separate blocks yeah with a 1 through six rating and if you go four or higher you have to justify it with a a written comment or if you go you know a one or a two you have to justify it with a written comment it's very very poorly rolled out so to say that that we need to base it on evaluations when we don't have an evaluation in place is not great planning and it's not going to work out great for our team then HR has a challenge we sat here last year and we talked about developing performance evaluations for every every department and we don't have that ARR manager anymore nope so we have a new one set a timeline you should be able to call them pretty easy I've had good lucking them I mean I go to go to Florida Le of cities they they'll call them for you I mean yes you're right the one we have now stinks it's awful and I said that last year and yes we've had two different HR maner we've had working on our third one now since last year and she just got here she probably never heard it before so okay so is this is this what we're doing now uh as far as 3% is this tied to an evaluation or is this something we're doing guess not next I'm just trying to understand because is that 3% you've already said 3% across the board already uh which I mean it's it's your decision but that's not what I said that's so you really you really can't tie at this point anything to an evaluation you don't have a process exactly that's exactly so therefore no no it's not tied to an evaluation okay that being said I'm okay with giving the police officers and only the police officers 3.5 37.75 increase only because we are well as you stated and said not and that's not saying that they're better than anybody else yeah yeah exactly right but um if we don't have a certain amount of pay in order to retain officers then we're going to find ourselves inol but we can't pay a lot of money and still find ourselves in trouble right um dispatchers no % just like everybody else okay um but I'm good with 3.5 to 3.75 increase for your I'm in agreement I think if we give 3.5 to one we have to get it all of them but we don't I well I would like to but we don't we don't you're right but we don't have to give to them either so justify why why you would like to give it to all of them other than just your feeling of giving justify it because they all work just as hard and their jobs are just as dangerous well it's it's not a and it's not a competition of who works the hardest it really is and you know and and we all different department well there the utility jobs for example not not necessarily every job that we have but the utility jobs especially are just as competitive we've lost a couple uh Mr Bishop Mr Barber lost you've lost some employees to other cities because of money but they got somebody I know lineman and Sewer operators I'm not sure who else we've lost there's always going to be somebody leaving because Mone I mean that's just the nature of life um but we're talking we're trying to to balance a budget here um and some may get I mean we gave raises last year that I don't feel like we should have gave the amount of race but we did you understand what I'm saying so um we have to stop going back well don't give this person you can't give that person look at what we are discussing talking about at this point in time and then makeu on and now now when we get to the other departments then we have to look at those IND but we can't sit here at the police department the police department somebody and your suggest Miss Hans is brought it up to begin with to go across the board except you had a different amount I did not he said that but you did I know three and a half% keep it right miss miss hin your your your suggestion is not uncommon uh and and I hate to keep bringing the city manager in it but we come from an agency where those type things took place where some got three some got five some got four some got six I mean so that's not an uncommon practice of what you're suggesting uh 3.5 is is if that's what y'all decide that's what you decide uh 3.75 is even better but if you decide on 3.5 then I guess I have to go with 3.5 but uh I I truly feel that the job that these officers do day in and day out you know when they come to work they put on boots a uniform a gun belt and a bulletproof vest and there's a reason for that is because they don't know when they walk out that door that that's going to be their last time ask me I've been that guy you know I've been that person and uh so not to compare utilities with law enforcement but they are two totally separate jobs two totally and and we need to look at it that way we need to respect that uh and and we need to do what's right and take care of our officers uh we can have all the parks and all the recreation centers we want in the world if you don't have law enforcement they're no good to you I'm just trying to save money I I I totally understand that I to I totally understand that and I get it I get it whatever we do it's got to be done I don't think so well it's not just me miss said same yeah I don't necessarily agree um with having a flat rate increase but sorry uh rate of salary increase um I don't necessarily agree it's definitely an easier approach in many ways and it certainly appears equitable on the outside um but I do agree that there are certain positions that um need to be more competitive the salaries need to be more competitive in order for our community I mean and everybody has a very valuable job I'm not I mean I certainly understand when the power lines go down and you're digging holes in the dark anybody could get hurt but at the same time I agree with Chief RS that you know there there's danger and we want to have good police off officers here community so just to be competitive and and again I think if we bring that rate up to a point where we are competitive we don't have to go above competitive but we have to come to that competitive point and I I guess I will I will trust Mr Bloom and chief rolls to tell us where that competitive line is where we are able to attract officers to come here and stay here so they get to know the community and they want to to you know they they know who to door to knock on and people know them and trust them I think that's really important so that's where I feel like there is a difference um and you know maybe maybe there's another department that needs more more more of a raise than this I'm not saying this and only lower I'm just saying I don't think it needs to be an across theboard flat tax flat R sorry we have to dire come can we do 3.6 3.6 I'm in the middle 3.6 3 I mean I guess I feel like I I I would love to have Mr Bloom come and and chief RS come and say look these These are salaries in other towns that are equivalent size population crime rate and this this is what these communities in Central Florida are offering there did that yeah I did that already so there there should be a a formula that gets us to a number that then gets us to a percentage incre got to be a number we can afford that right and but if we start with that then we can work backwards from there to but he also gave us two different cities that are less than what our current base is so I thought the% and I mean 4778 just one one perart at time I think'll be that y so we just need it and if we could call one one of the other on the salaries and not worry about that the other department do to go and the reason why I like just doing straight across the board is yes we do have some extra money that's going to be coming in but we got rainy days we got old pipes and you know we're going to need we're g to need that I just it feels and and I'm I'm the Newbie here um and budgets are you know this is my first time through it yeah um it feels arbitrary 3% feels arbitrary to me it feels like a number that is picked because everybody's comfortable with it and I guess my my sense is I would I would like to have you know a number that's okay this is our goal we want to attract more police officers we need to be at this pay rate and if it is 3% gets to that number great then 3% gets us there but I I don't want to feel like it's an arbitrary you know an arbitrary number so so can we table this particular discussion the department until we get that information is there it would be just the one we have to have another meeting are we gonna do it all in one night we us that's why we're still here last last year was 11 o' so we're making much less progress this year well can we go to someone else then he can work on the numers gave us we have the numbers I think the I think the idea understand on a piece of paper on one piece of paper so that everyone can see I guess I would like to know what what salary would be the target salary where we would be competitive with other communities of our size where is that number that brings us that salary question for he right that brings us to like we need this salary and to offer this salary for starting employees so that we're competitive so that we can draw you know good police officers in and keep them 48,000 I started say I wrote down 3% is 4778 48,000 4% is 48700 48,000 okay so middle get us there so 44.2 at 5% if cheaping gets there raise would be what have well and here and here's a deal on fun they're they're talking higher than 5% is what they're talking what the number yeah they're if they do well in order to have the to have a percentage they got to have a percentage Yeah so I just went off the but what are they making now I gave I went off the low number he gave me they're if they go with 5% they're at 462 but they're talking up to 7% which is what I don't know said 5% you're saying he did what is it what is it now it's uh 44,000 yeah and Trent is 4 and with the 5% that gets 462 5% is 462 and then what else did you say they were think talking higher almost up to 7% seven so that gets you to 4780 so 48,000 just 3% for us if we go to 4% it's 48 and Tren is 42. and right about if they get 7% they'll be around 50 from 42 4 7.5 I'm sorry 7.5 7.5 from 42.6 and 7.5 that's almost 50 yeah so 48,000 will get us where we need to be comfortable guess my Approach here is this like I'm looking at this from Chief R said it's a recruitment issue and and different than a merit based you know which is a very different evaluation process so you know this year we get to okay we need the salary to be competitive then next year we can say okay now raises are based on Merit I'm I'm okay with that I yeah I just want to make sure that we can recruit the police officers currently and keep5 we doing and got do here all night I can't believe you talk two hours but whatever we do what we do for them we got to do for them but we don't I know you I don't think we do you don't think you don't think they need anything at all because you said that already I said I I did I said I don't think every year but I mean that's just me one person I'm comfortable whatever percentage gets us to the number that keeps us competitive so I don't know what that percentage is but that's but now remember in this is built in 3.5 is what Stephen 3.5 get you round 48 okay yeah a little bit over there we [Music] go so we're on 3.5 okay y'all voting on that or do I need to continue on on I got a little bit more I need to do we don't V okay all right okay so five budget 529 change mind again budet 529 there was a few what now you have to give us a page number okay 529 is Page 29 page 29 page 29 under the general fund budget this is on the police Communications general fund all talk my9 okay gotcha okay so uh there was two things that I increased in there uh one was overtime for dispatch th000 bucks and overtime for special events a th000 bucks that was it no other changes to budget 529 and if you turn to page 30 uh which is our victim Advocate we have removed that program completely T so that Pro the victim Advocate Program is no is removed from that budget uh well we had a victim Advocate at one time but she got moved to a different position took on some extra roll so uh we didn't have anybody else to put in that position so I talked to the sheriff and the sheriff's willing to allow us to use this victim M kit if we need it so it's a saving Stu and that's all I have that's about time sorry sorry it's all my fault president Cox since it's 7:58 can we go ahead and break for how many minutes 15 you mean after all that we get to eat yes yes we're going to eat there is food over in the community room everybody please join us 15 minutes 15 iow no 15